Although all characters can be viable with a good weapon and artifact set and raising their constellation level, some characters simply do much worse with what they're given than others, and due to being widely known for it, they tend to get sidelined as a result. To begin with, the tier list often refers to the characters' performance in the endgame, where there are many challenges that require you to finish them as quickly as possible, meaning that the "common meta" is DPS.
Please add entries in the following format if possible:
- The character/weapon/artifact set (in alphabetical order).
- Explanation of why their kits are criticized for being bad, underdeveloped, etc...
open/close all folders
5★ characters
- Albedo
- Albedo is a primarily off-field Geo DPS with his Skill, which summons Solar Isotoma, a Geo construct that periodically deals AoE Geo damage based on his DEF. The main issue lies with Solar Isotoma being easily destroyed by hitboxes of many bosses who simply stand close to it, negating his damage output. Also, Solar Isotoma will not trigger if the opponent does not take damage, so it cannot deplete elemental shields that fully block damage.
- His pre-C2 Burst scales with ATK instead of DEF and its EM buff is only useful to certain teams (notably excluding Mono Geo, Albedo's best team).
- His issue is highlighted with the release of Chiori, another 5★ Geo off-field DPS whose Tamoto doll from her Skill deals better damage than Solar Isotoma, can hit shields, doubles with a presence of a nearby Geo construct (or by default with C1), and most importantly is not a construct, thus cannot destroyed by hitboxes.
- Aloy
- Aloy was a "5★" character (emphasis on quotations to indicate having worse performance than even 4★ units) given out for free in version 2.1,note but anyone who didn't grab her isn't missing much. Her kit revolves around her skill scattering six bomblets around that grant her Coil stacks that increase her damage as they explode, and give her a Rushing Ice buff with four stacks that imbues her normal attacks with Cryo and gives her a further damage bonus. Getting this buff is painfully tricky though, requiring careful management to make sure the bombs don't explode too fast since there's an internal cooldown on getting Coil stacks, and even when it's gotten it doesn't last particularly long. And after all the hassle, Aloy still has very pitiful damage that Amber's can be compared favorably to, and has almost zero utility outside of above-average energy generation, having very poor combat performance especially considering her rarity. To add insult to injury, Yoimiya has no such steep requirements to get her own infusion, only needing a simple tap on the Elemental Skill button to activate.
- To make matters even worse for her, she can't even be leveled up past 20 until the player reaches Inazuma (due to some of her ascension materials only found there), which requires completing the Mondstadt and Liyue storylines and reaching AR 35, meaning players cannot even use her as a Crutch Character while waiting to pull more units. And to top it all off, she's the only character to have no Constellation upgrades whatsoever, meaning that she has even less to work with than every other character.
- Dehya
- Dehya is a standard banner "tank" unit who provides unorthodox interruption resistance and survivability. However, the functionality of her kit is thoroughly lacking, leading many to wonder if HoYoverse intentionally made her into a Joke Character and the worst unit to lose the 50/50 on a limited banner to. The main focus of her kit is her Skill, which places a field that grants characters within it interruption resistance and redirects part of the damage they take to Dehya. This field also applies coordinated AoE Pyro damage when enemies are hit by characters in the field. However, the field has a terrible uptime (12 seconds on a 20 second cooldown) and applies Pyro through its coordinated attacks too slowly (a maximum of once every 2.5 seconds) to make Dehya a good elemental support. Soaking damage with Dehya’s Skill doesn’t power her up in any way either. Her Burst, a flurry of rapid punches, removes the field created by her Skill while it is active, can't Melt or Vaporise every hit due to standard reaction cooldowns, cannot trigger supportive effects that require Normal Attack animations or Normal Attack damage (e.g. Xingqiu's rain swords), and ends prematurely if Dehya jumps while it is active — even if to escape being frozen or trapped in a bubble. Add in terrible multipliers on all her Talents and a Normal Attack chain that consistently whiffs its final hit on light enemies, and you have a character who theorycrafters have consistently determined is the undisputed worst 5★ unit in the game, whose only place in the endgame is through the extremely powerful Furina's damage buffs and Hydro application. Many who love Dehya as a character consistently advise other players not to build her at all.
- Adding insult to injury, Dehya improves massively with Constellations (having the biggest damage output increase in the roster from C0 to C6), but she is a standard banner unit whose Constellations are hard to get. Obtaining her Constellations requires the luck of pulling a 5★ and repeatedly obtaining her out of the pool of seven standard banner 5★ units. On the standard banner, this pool is diluted even further with the standard banner 5★ weapons. It doesn’t help that theorycrafters have shown that building a C0 Diluc can often deliver better results than a C6 Dehya with less investment.
- Eula
- While capable of some of the highest single hit damage in the game and has very good multipliers for her attacks, Eula is unfortunately a case of a once powerful 5★ character who got left behind in the meta as time goes on. A large part of her kit becoming outdated is due to specializing in "Physical" damage. Unfortunately, physical damage gets hard countered in an elemental reaction-centric game, as many enemies and bosses are resilient to physical damage, and physical damage is useless against elemental shields. Though of the Cryo element, Eula does not specialize in Cryo damage enough to move out of Superconduct teams and participate in other elemental reaction playstyles, whereas Razor and Freminet, both of whom are also units intended to specialize in physical damage, can apply Electro and Cryo (respectively) reliably on top of their infusable normal attacks, giving them flexibility in a variety of different reaction teams.
- Most of Eula's damage comes from her Elemental Burst, Glacial Illumination. However, unlike most other Elemental Bursts which have immediate effects, the main damage output from Eula's Elemental Burst is not the initial slash, but a physical damage explosion that happens 7 seconds later. In those 7 seconds, Eula needs to deal damage as often as possible against enemies to build up stacks for the Lightfall Sword to deal even more damage when it explodes. However, these mechanics are hard countered by enemies that are evasive (hindering building stacks) or have invulnerable animations (avoiding the damage) - and many bosses have both traits (e.g. Ruin Serpent). The Lightfall Sword can explode prematurely if Eula switches out with a teammate, but that prevents her from building up any more potential stacks, and switching with other party members isn't always an option in different scenarios (ie. in co-op or maintaining an on-field buff).
- Klee
- Klee, while a beloved character, is seen as a very outdated unit. While she has solid DPS numbers, her kit's execution is extremely awkward and clunky, with a very slow attack animation that must be canceled (a skill that is quite difficult to learn) to reach her full damage potential. She also does not favor elemental reactions, as her attacks apply Pyro too quickly to chain reactions in a fluid way. She would have potential as a valuable sub DPS unit with her ability to lay bombs on the field and to have those bombs get sucked up by Anemo characters and her Elemental Burst summoning a laser that deals additional Pyro damage when she attacks, but her bombs have very arbitrary restrictions as to which units can suck them up and her Burst, unlike most characters', does not linger on field after she swaps out, destroying her potential to be anything other than a team's main damage dealer requiring a lot of time and effort put into her gameplay. Hu Tao and Yoimiya are both considered to be more reliable main damage dealers over her, and even Yanfei, a Pyro Catalyst wielder like her, is generally considered a more reliable damage dealer in spite of her 4★ rarity.
- Qiqi
- Out of the seven 5★ characters from the Wanderlust Invocation (Standard) banner, Qiqi is often considered the second worst possible standard banner 5★ to pull as a new character and the worst to pull as a Constellation. While she is one of the game's best healers, her kit has problems — a poor uptime-to-cooldown ratio on her skill, inability to reliably apply her element, zero energy generation at C0 coupled with a high Energy cost burst and poor constellations. In a game where end-game content is a DPS check, she is unable to improve the team's damage output by buffing, shielding (preventing knockback), reducing enemy damage resistances, reliably applying elements for reactions or supplying Energy to other characters. It speaks volumes that three 4★ characters of the same element outperform her in her support niche — Diona can shield, heal and generate energy, Layla has a 100% uptime shield at C0, and Charlotte has a near-instant full team heal on her Elemental Burst, which can become even more potent with Prototype Amber. Layla was even given out in version 3.8 as a reward for progressing its flagship event. As a result, few endgame teams use Qiqi, and even then usually only for very unorthodox purposes (e.g. using her very fast normal attack combo to drive Beidou's Elemental Burst). To put all that into context, not even the release of the extremely powerful Furina, who privileges healers, could salvage Qiqi's pickrate in the Spiral Abyss.
- Traveler (Anemo)
- The first character you acquire in the game isn't all that bad, but they're very outclassed compared to their other elements and alternatives for Anemo. As an Anemo unit, they have poor CC as their elemental skill has a comparably smaller AoE compared to Venti or Kazuha. The energy generation that comes from it is also rather lacking, and to get more you have to hold the skill which takes up time and leaves you vulnerable as you’re standing still. If you get interrupted, you don’t get the benefit of the extra energy particles as it is only produced on the final hit. Their burst is also notoriously finicky to control as it can’t be aimed, so you need to take extra care in grouping up enemies to ensure that it won’t go in the direction of those who strayed away from the group. The tornado not only vacuums enemies together, but it also moves away from you which means you need to chase after it to continue the fight, whereas Venti's comparable burst moves much slower, making it easier to keep up with. It doesn't help that their burst is nigh useless on larger enemies like Mitachurls and Ruin Guards because they're too heavy to be sucked into the tornado, making it situational for the small fries only (a niche that Venti is unrivaled at). The only edge they have over other Anemo units is that their skills have a shorter cooldown than most, but other Anemo characters possess far greater crowd control, support utility, or damage that outweigh their longer cooldown.
- Traveler (Geo)
- A Traveler with the Geo element is generally considered one of the more underperforming iterations of the Traveler. Their Geo abilities are focused on creating barriers and Geo constructs to separate the enemies from you, but since the Traveler is a melee fighter, there are few instances in the fast-paced combat where you would actually want to do that. Outside of a niche C1 Zhongli "Microwave" strategy or providing Energy to an Energy-hungry C0 Navia, the Traveler's Skill constructs are often detrimental than helpful in a fight; unlike other Geo constructs such as Zhongli's Stone Stele or Albedo's Solar Isotoma, the meteorites created by the Geo Traveler's Skill does not disintegrate if placed on large or heavy enemies, instead causing them to stand on top of rocks instead of launching or pushing them away, making them unreachable by melee characters unless if they climb.
- Traveler (Hydro)
- After the release of the shockingly effective Dendro Traveler, hopes were high for their Hydro kit. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The main use of their Elemental Skill is to be held down to rapid-fire Hydro shots at the cost of health drain, which increases the damage of these Hydro shots (with a bigger bonus for the last, most damaging one). However, they cannot move while using their held Skill, making them a sitting duck, while the shield granted by their C4 is too weak and refreshes too slowly. Their Elemental Skill creates Sourcewater Droplets, the self-heal part of their HP manipulation kit, but they have to manually pick them up, disrupting rotations and adding to their vulnerability. Their Elemental Burst creates a ball of water that moves in their direction, dealing AoE ticking Hydro damage to nearby enemies, but it has all the same problems as their Anemo Burst — without the ability to vacuum enemies or stopping when hitting a wall or target (unlike Ayaka's Burst).
- To add insult to injury, Neuvillette was released in the very next update, and highlights Hydro Traveler's problems by having what is effectively Hydro Traveler's kit with all the problems fixed. Neuvillette's empowered Charged Attack hits extremely hard, has a substantial AoE, and he can move while channeling and using it. Also, he creates multiple Sourcewater Droplets at the press of a button and vacuums them up when channeling his empowered Charged Attack. After unlocking his C1, he gains absurd levels of interruption resistance while firing off said empowered Charged Attack. Oh, and to top things off, Neuvillette represents a new class of lore-relevant unit — the first playable Dragon Sovereign.
4★ characters
- Amber
- Amber is widely considered a weak character for combat due to possessing something of an identity crisis with her skillset. She has a Draw Aggro skill, a nuke that covers a small area compared to other Bursts, with her talents and Constellations focusing primarily on empowering her charged shots and the aforementioned Draw Aggro skill. One of her Constellation upgrades grants the party a temporary buff to their movement speed and ATK, which gives her some supportive abilities, but conflicts with the rest of her already ill-defined kit, rendering her a Master of None that can't fulfill any role better than another unit, being heavily outperformed by many other characters in the field of ranged DPS, sub DPS, and support. The only reason to use her once you've acquired other, better Pyro units is so she can be an Elegy of the End holder in Hu Tao glass cannon teams.
- Rarity differences aside, when comparing her to Ganyu, Tighnari, and Lyney, other charged attack-reliant archers who also have a Draw Aggro skill, Amber cannot even hold a candle to them, due to lacking a second-level charge for her Aimed Shot that the aforementioned archers have and her Baron Bunny decoy does not explode immediately when deployed, giving her a hard time with quickly generating energy to activate her Burst. She can manually detonate the Baron Bunny with an Aimed Shot but that requires she reaches her second Constellation when her combat capabilities as a whole aren't outstanding enough to justify actively seeking to pull/buy duplicates of her.
- Candace
- Candace suffers from being over-dedicated to one niche: buffing infused attacks. Her burst does minor Hydro damage, but then will infuse the on-field character's normal attacks with Hydro and grant a damage bonus based on Candace's HP. Sounds good, except most characters that want infused attacks can do this on their own, and the damage bonus is nice but not as useful as providing an off-field element for your teammate to cause an elemental reaction. And outside this niche, Candace is just not doing enough to help. Her skill is a shield-counter, which is considered clunky to use as it relies on reacting to the enemy when this game demands being on the offensive. Candace is nice if your team uses infused attacks and has a flex spot, but not worth fielding over characters with bigger kits.
- Dori
- Dori's kit consists of a single-shot projectile Skill that generates Energy and whose cooldown decreases after triggering an Electro reaction, and a Burst which summons a Jinni that heals and restores energy to the active character while creating a damaging Electro connector. As a result, most of her support capability is locked behind her Burst... which requires a massive 80 Energy to cast. While one of her ascension passives allows her to restore up to 15 Energy through the use of her Skill, it often is not enough help charging up her Burst, which already has a rather limited 12 second uptime with a 20 second cooldown. Emphasising the problem is the existence of Kuki Shinobu and Fischl, both also Electro 4★ characters. They can regenerate Energy and apply lots of Electro off their Skills alone. With some Constellations, both units can do that with near 100% uptime — all while healing (Shinobu) or putting out a healthy amount of damage (Fischl). Both Shinobu and Fischl also have kits that are far more suited to making use of Aggravate reactions, helping contribute to team damage. Additionally, Dori's Burst constantly applies an Electro aura to the active character, which can hugely backfire against Pyro enemies. As a result, in the endgame, there is little reason to use Dori over most other support units.
- Faruzan (pre-C6)
- Faruzan is the game's first dedicated Anemo support, with her Elemental Skill giving her next charged shot a vortex effect (referred to as "Pressurized Collapse") that pulls in enemies and shreds their Anemo resistance, and her Elemental Burst providing an area-of-effect Anemo damage bonus and shredding enemies' Anemo resistance. The main problems are her absolutely abyssmal Energy generation, an expensive Elemental Burst and her clunky Elemental Skill mechanic (akin to Kujou Sara pre-C2)... all of which just so happen to be fixed in spectacular fashion by her C6,note requiring seven copies of her, and no earlier. Considering that (i) she cannot be bought from Paimon's Bargains (which always contain the same 4★ roster since launch), (ii) there is no guarantee to obtain any specific 4★ character even once even if they are one of the featured 4★ on a limited banner, and (iii) pulling for a featured 4★ character on a limited banner also means committing to the possibility of pulling the featured 5★ character even if not desired, her kit pre-C6 is considered lackluster at best and at worst a troubling precedent for the release of 4★ characters whose utility in the endgame is heavily locked behind Constellations.
- Kaveh
- Kaveh is a Dendro on-field driver and Bloom buffer. While he can heal himself when taking Bloom damage, buff Bloom damage, and manually detonate Dendro Cores, the buff only applies to regular Bloom, which reduces his synergy with Burgeon and Hyperbloom teams. His Bloom detonation interval is slower at his Skill's 6 seconds (or his C6's AoE's 3 seconds) compared to Burgeon or Hyperbloom's 1-2 second interval. With his EM-scaling passives and his C4's buff to only Blooms triggered by him, optimal Bloom damage is reliant on him triggering Blooms, which is locked behind his Burst's rather slow converted Dendro claymore swings and his C6's additional Dendro AoE, needing another Dendro unit for Kaveh's energy regeneration and efficient Bloom reactions, which can steal Kaveh's. Not to mention his low personal non-Bloom damage compared to other Dendro drivers.
- Kujou Sara
- Kujou Sara was released as an Electro support alongside Raiden Shogun with the intention of being a mono-Electro support, buffing Electro characters based on her own base ATK. However, she suffers much of the same issues as Faruzan; her C0 is considered ridiculously weak and clunky, with very high energy requirements for her Burst and requiring you to waste time on-field to launch a fully-charged arrow to gain both the attack buff and energy particles. While this is somewhat mitigated by her C2 and C6 constellations,note her attack buffs are worse than Bennett's and lacks his ability to heal the party, her Burst's buff is too short for most characters to take advantage of, and her Skill and Burst buffs do not stack with each other. Her C6 Critical Damage buff cannot be snapshotted (as Crit DMG is not a stat that transfers), further reducing its synergy with most characters.
- The release of Dendro caused Electro to be buffed in ways that Sara cannot assist in: Hyperbloom teams both want Elemental Mastery rather than ATK and Quicken teams favor as much Electro application as possible, while Sara's is relatively low and she increases the strength of Electro damage rather than the frequency. Save for teams with a hyper-invested Electro driver unit, one might as well pick Fischl for her fast and powerful Electro application. While most Electro characters benefitted from Dendro's release, Sara was largely left in the dust and becomes less and less used every patch especially because Raiden has found more use as a Hyperbloom trigger rather than an Electro hypercarry.
- Lisa
- Once you obtain another Electro character, you are likely to bench Lisa because she runs into a combination of Squishy Wizard problems and the Charged Attack mechanics on her abilities, leaving her immobile for long periods of time than usual. Other Electro characters are more mobile, durable, and able to apply lots of Electro. While she can shred enemies' DEF with her Ascension Four passive, there are better ways to amplify your team's damage than with Lisa's DEF shred, and she usually only finds herself on niche Raiden Hypercarry team compositions in lieu of a C6 Sara.
- Mika
- Mika is a physical support, which is the heart of the problem. Physical is the worst "element" in the game, having very few on-field and no off-field DPS characters dedicated to it, no natural ways to pop elemental shields, and many enemies that resist it. Thus Mika is already a contentious pick, as outside of his physical buff niche he doesn't bring much to the table: an expensive burst heal, and an attack speed buff (which is nice but more a novelty given what little Mika can do). Even on physical teams, Mika only starts to shine against multiple opponents and when he gets his final constellation (a 60% Crit DMG buff for Physical) making Mika a really mediocre pick.
- Xinyan
- Xinyan has an eclectic kit with a lot of parts that don't gel together or excel in any area. She's a physical DPS, while her skill generates a shield that buffs her physical damage and can shoot out intermittent Pyro AOE's. But the shield isn't strong enough to protect for long, meaning its buffs can easily go away, and the Pyro AOE relies on her hitting at least two enemies with an attack that has a very short range. After all that, her damage is still fairly sub-par, not helped by being a Pyro character focusing on physical damage, where every other physical DPS is either Cryo or Electro and can trigger Superconduct with only one extra character of the opposite element. Her sole saving grace is her burst, which does a massive amount of physical damage and can be buffed by her second constellation to always crit, but that's also hamstrung by a very short range. Finally, pre-C6 Xinyan has split scaling, where her shield scales off DEF while her damage scales off ATK, meaning one aspect of her kit tends to be neglected if she builds for the other.
Elements
- Physical
- The Non-Elemental in the game that all non-Catalyst users innately have in their Normal Attacks, and as far as physical goes, it has grown to be a suboptimal choice in most scenarios. Many characters don't have particularly high multipliers for their normal attacks, and even in cases where they do, their attacks are able to be infused/converted into their element instead. Furthermore, most enemies have high resistance against Physical damage, hurting its viability. As Physical is not a full-fledged element, it also cannot participate in elemental reactions (only benefitting from Superconduct), and gets hard countered by elemental shields. While there are some claymore users who are naturally geared towards Physical damage, namely Eula, Razor, and Freminet, it still doesn't make Physical as a whole any better, and the latter two can reliably apply their element to move out of their intended Physical damage playstyle and participate in other elemental reaction teams.
- The mediocre state of Physical is also why weapon with a "Physical Damage Bonus" substat have part of their viability neutered, even if some of them have decent passives. The main reason any of them would be used in the endgame is if their high base ATK is being used as a stat stick for a base ATK-scaling support, such as Bennett using Aquila Favonia or Prototype Rancour to buff his support abilities.
Elemental Reactions
With the right characters and the right team composition, elemental reactions can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Some reactions however, aren't strong or viable enough to justify using them in many scenarios.
- Burning
- The very first and only Dendro reaction in the game prior to Version 3.0, and it is not as robust or useful as other Dendro reactions. All Burning does is dealing minimal Pyro DoT, making it an overall underwhelming reaction. In contrast, Electro-Charged is capable of affecting multiple enemies, has higher multipliers, and can stagger enemies.
- Burning was also nerfed in 3.0, which makes its innate Pyro re-application weaker than before, enough to be fully extinguished by many reactions and preventing Burning itself from being a substitute of dedicated Pyro enablers in many teams.
- Burning is also why Hyperbloom teams are often favored over Burgeon ones, because Burgeon teams risk triggering Burning aura which hinders Dendro Core generation by "burning" away the underlying the Dendro aura faster than your Dendro application can keep up. Worst case scenario is you just end up with a bad Vaporize team. This leaves Thoma as the most reliable Burgeon trigger because his Pyro application is so slow that he won't accidentally trigger Burning.
- Crystalize
- This is an elemental reaction created by applying Geo onto a target affected with Pyro/Hydro/Cryo/Electro, which generates a crystal shard that can be picked up to obtain an elemental shield. However, it is a purely defensive-based reaction with no offensive capabilities whatsoever, which is problematic in the Spiral Abyss, which necessitates being able to kill the enemy waves and bosses as quickly and efficiently as possible. The crystalize shields are also very weak and (like other reactions) are dependent on Elemental Mastery, which Geo characters are unlikely to build. If a player still needs a shield to boost their team's survivability, it is more practical to field in an actual shielder (some of whom can provide additional utility beyond just shielding, like Zhongli and Layla) instead of trying to build a team around Crystalize. Crystalize's only place in the endgame is being used as ammunition to power up Navia's Skill, which really says a lot about the reaction when used in a different, more offensively useful way instead of its intended (and mediocre) defensive usage.
Weapons
Weapon archetypes
- 1★-2★ rarity weapons
- Once you've progressed enough into the game, the lowest rarity Weapons easily become Better Off Sold or used to upgrade higher-rarity weapons due to their significantly lower stat caps, inability to be leveled past fourth Ascension, and lack of passives. This case is intentional, however.
Limited banner 5★ weapons
In general, a weapon banner has two limited 5★ weapons, where the 75% chance to obtain a limited 5★ weapon is split between them and the mechanic to guarantee a specific limited 5★ weapon, Epitomized Path, resets between banners. The limited 5★ weapons listed below tend to draw ire because they lack endgame value compared to their more affordable alternatives and have a chance to be obtained up to twice instead of a desirable limited 5★ weapon they are paired with, which is generally a waste of Primogems.- Everlasting Moonglow
- This catalyst runs alongside Kokomi. Its odd combination of stats and passive make it only useful for catalyst-wielding healers such as Kokomi, Barbara, and Baizhu, and HP-scaling catalyst DPSes like Neuvillette. Even then, only Kokomi with a DPS-oriented build or Neuvillette would want this weapon. And even then (again), the DPS increase from Kokomi's second-best weapon (the easily obtainable Prototype Amber) to Everlasting Moonglow isn't as large as what other characters' signature weapons offer. Barbara and Baizhu, on the other hand, only benefit from its HP and healing bonus stats and is outclassed by other catalysts. While Neuvillette is a catalyst DPS that purely scales off of HP and could benefit from Everlasting Moonglow's high HP substat and his normal attacks being buffed by his high max HP, it's still a suboptimal pick since he doesn't benefit much from the Healing Bonus, highly prefers his much more powerful charged attacks, and he has better weapons to choose from.
- Jadefall's Splendor
- This catalyst runs alongside Baizhu. Its passive only lasts for 3 seconds and is triggered by casting elemental Burst or creating a shield, which means it only benefits Baizhu, the only Catalyst user who can create shields rapidly. Even then, Jadefall Splendor's HP substat and passive are not much better than the more easily-obtainable Prototype Amber.
- Vortex Vanquisher
- This polearm runs alongside Zhongli. Its passive boosts Shield Strength and ATK of its user, with extra ATK given when being protected by a shield or hitting opponents. However, the Shield Strength bonus only applies to the wielder when on-field (not their teammates). Most polearm characters have kits designed to be played in a quickswap, off-field role. For the ones designed to be on-field DPS units, Crit Rate and Crit Damage are far superior to raw ATK (which a buff unit can easily provide) in the endgame. As a result, this weapon is only workable on Xiao and not recommended for most other polearm units.
Other specific weapons
- Cinnabar Spindle
- This event-exclusive 4★ sword runs into this problem if anyone other than Albedo or Chiori uses it, due to its substat (DEF) not synergizing well with many sword users. Unlike other signature weapons which have synergy outside its intended user, the Cinnabar Spindle is useful only for the aforementioned two. No other sword user's skill scale off DEF, which makes its substat less desirable for them. Its passive effect increases Elemental Skill damage based on their DEF, but building a character's proper skill stat with a weapon that compliments it will yield better results. The only other sword user with naturally high DEF who can utilize it would be Qiqi (who has the highest base DEF in the game), but her skill scales off ATK and is primarily used for healing, not attacking.
- Dragonspine Spear
- After all the hoops you have to jump through to get the weapon, the Dragonspine Spear ended up being a letdown. Its main gimmick, Frost Burial, makes the wielder's Normal and Charged Attacks have a high chance every 10 seconds to drop an icicle that deals Physical damage in an area, which is increased against enemies affected by Cryo. Unfortunately, the weapon's ATK stat is actually lower than most other 4★ weapons, while the area of the icicle's effect is usually too small to consistently hit multiple enemies with it, and the only Cryo polearm users in the game (Rosaria, Shenhe, and Mika) do better as support units than Normal Attack DPSes. Refining it is also a pain, since the player will have to traverse Dragonspine to collect all the materials they needed to forge it the first time. This includes Vitalized Dragonteeth, which requires you to spend four days total farming for each copy you want to make (the teeth have a two day respawn period, and there are only four on the map at any given time) and don't appear on the official map. (Also, you have to return to Durin's Heart to revitalize them, but that's just creepy, not scrappy.)
- The Royal Series
- The Royal weapon series are 4★ arms with identical stats and effects available bi-monthly in Paimon's Bargains for Masterless Starglitter, which is the start of the problem as Masterless Starglitter is the gacha duplicate compensation currency only obtained in small amounts when you roll a 4★ or above character duplicate or weapon. This makes them more expensive on average than other 4★ weapons, so they'd better have an amazing effect to make up for it. Unfortunately, they don't — their shared passive ability is giving the user Crit Rate increases every time they deal damage, which reset when a critical hit lands. In practice this Crit Rate increase is very limited and gives diminishing returns with increasing Crit Rate (which any DPS character must substantially build for to be endgame-ready). Their substat is also ATK%, which also quickly encounters diminishing returns in the endgame (especially with an ATK buffer unit in the team). In contrast, the other Paimon's Bargains set, the Blackcliff series, has a Crit Damage substat, while every Battle Pass weapon has a Crit Rate substat. Oh, and Masterless Starglitter can also be used to buy copies of the 12 4★ characters that rotate through Paimon's Bargains, which is a far more valuable opportunity. Thus, the Royal weapons are a complete waste of Masterless Starglitter.
- Talking Stick
- Silly name aside, in a pool of versatile 4★ Crit Rate weapons that can be easily obtained after forking over ten bucks per patch, this claymore stands out as a rather mediocre pick compared to other options. Its main gimmick is that it grants the wielder damage buffs if they have an element applied to them, which is considered clunky since only a few characters apply elements to themselves (such as Razor) or the active teammate (such as Bennett), while deliberately receiving elemental enemy attacks to trigger the passive is counterintuitive and exposes the character to extremely damaging elemental reactions. Even then, its Crit Rate substat (which is more desirable than raw ATK) is lower than that of the Serpent Spine, another 4★ Crit Rate claymore from the BP with a much more reliable passive.
- The Bell
- As far as weapons that can be wished for, The Bell takes the cake here. It's a 4★ claymore that generates a damage-absorbing shield that can take up to 20% of the wielder's max HP, and it increases damage dealt while active. However, the shield only lasts for 10 seconds or until broken, the shield generation has a cooldown of 45 seconds, and it doesn't carry over if you switch your active character. Worse yet, refining The Bell never reduces the cooldown of the shield generation or the shield's maximum generation. Additionally, its substat is HP, while the only claymore wielders whose abilities scale off max HP, Dori and Dehya, still have better weapon choices than the Bell.
Artifact Sets
- Depending on the player's luck, any individual Artifact pieces that has its stats messed up by RNG are often swapped out, discarded, sacrificed to upgrade other artifacts, or sent to the Artifact Strongbox to convert into another artifact with a better stat spread.
- 1★-3★ rarity artifacts
- Once you've progressed enough into the game, the lowest rarity Artifacts easily become Better Off Sold or used to upgrade higher-rarity Artifacts due to their lower stat caps and substats. This case is intentional, however.
- Echoes of an Offering
- This artifact set bestows a base 36% chance to increase Normal Attack damage by a whopping 70% and increases said chance by cumulative 20% every time the bonus fails to trigger, which resets 0.05s after trigger. While on paper this is a desirable pseudo-crit bonus, on practice its effective trigger rate is much lower at high ping (100+) due to being processed server-side instead of client-side, reducing it to a mediocre Normal Attack-focused set compared to Shimenawa's Reminiscence on the hands of players with a poor internet connection (which are not uncommon).
- Lavawalker
- Lavawalker's 4-piece set bonus provides a 35% increase in damage against opponents affected by Pyro, which restricts it to Mono Pyro and reverse Melt builds (which do not immediately remove the Pyro aura) since other reactions (especially forward Vaporize) tend to remove the Pyro aura, making it difficult for them to consistently benefit from the set bonus.
- To put into perspective how niche Lavawalker is, competing artifact sets benefit more characters and thus more efficient to farm, such as Lyney's Marechausse Hunter and Ganyu's Wanderer’s Troupe or Shimenawa’s Reminiscence.
- Maiden Beloved
- As far as artifact sets go, Maiden Beloved is considered one of the worst. With a +15% to healing effectiveness and a +20% party-wide boost to incoming healing after using an Elemental Skill or Burst, Maiden Beloved is meant to maximize your characters' healing. However, unless the player is running a Furina team with multiple HP-scaling units (which thus privileges bigger heals), healers tend to already heal for sufficient amounts without the help. Furthermore, the Ocean-Hued Clam and Song of Days Past sets let healers contribute damage alongside healing, a far more useful effect in the endgame.
- The most hated aspect of Maiden Beloved, however, is that it's found in the same domain as the Viridescent Venerer artifact set — an artifact set that is so powerful that it is near-mandatory on Anemo support units — forcing players to rely on the Artifact Strongbox to reliably acquire artifacts of the latter set.
- Song of Days Past
- This artifact set is targeted at healer units. It provides a 2-piece bonus of +15% Healing Bonus and a 4-piece bonus that records up to 15,000 HP of healing over 6 seconds, followed by a buff that adds up to an extra 1200 base damage for each of the active character's attacks, lasting 5 hits or 10 seconds, whichever comes earlier. Unfortunately, this mechanic mandates careful timing to ensure that the DPS (with more Crit or damage bonuses) takes the full advantage of the buff, and even then this buff only adds up to 6000 extra base damage (before Crit, damage bonuses, etc.). This is an extremely limited DPS increase relative to other support artifact sets whose buffs are only limited by duration and not trigger quota (e.g. Noblesse Oblige). Furthermore, the Ocean-Hued Clam artifact set has no specialised rotation requirement and converts team healing into up to 27,000 AoE Physical damage every 3.5 seconds, which scales to even more team damage output in multi-target content. As a result, Song of Days Past is inefficient to farm if not already farming Nighttime Whispers for Navia.
