Characters, weapons, etc. commonly used by players of Genshin Impact.
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General
- In terms of Elements:
- Pyro characters in general are heavily favored by competitive players. Melt and Vaporize, which both require Pyro, do a ton of damage, as these reactions simply amplify the damage of the attack that triggers the reaction. Having at least 2 Pyro characters on your team grants all party members a 25% ATK boost, which is the best "elemental resonance" effect in most cases. As if all that wasn't enough, Hu Tao is an extremely strong DPS character, and Bennett is a powerful healer/support, and both of them are Pyro. Bennett, in particular, is (fortunately) only a 4-star, but he's almost mandatory for beating the Abyss without Bribing Your Way to Victory.
- As the game has progressed, Hydro has emerged as one of the biggest winners of all the elements. From the beginning of the game, it has been involved in the well-regarded Vaporize and Freeze, and after the release of Dendro and Hyperbloom, it can partner with basically every other element with great results, to the point that several of its members gain a great amount of utility simply because they can apply Hydro consistently. It also helps that its "elemental resonance" effect - improving incoming healing - was later adjusted to improving HP%, which many characters not only scale off of for survivability skills, but in some cases even for damage.
- Dendro has become a premier element due to its ability to enable Quicken and Hyperbloom. Quicken allows Electro characters to use Aggravate and Dendro characters to use Spread, amplifying the damage of both units. Hyperbloom has a reputation for being an incredibly easy reaction to get the most out of, as it only requires the Elemental Mastery stat to deal damage. Each hyperbloom seed even tracks the enemy and stacks on top of whatever Quicken reactions you are also enabling.
- While the player is free to compose their party from whatever units they choose, most teams adhere to the following setup: a main DPS that acts as the party's primary attacker, a sub DPS that's capable of dealing damage without being the active unit, and a healer (or shielder) for survivability. The final slot is usually the most variable, either being designed to trigger elemental reactions, bunch crowds of enemies together, or activate the player's elemental resonance of choice.
- For higher-level players, Critical Hit rate and damage stats are heavily favored, to the point that practically every character will have a Crit Rate/Crit DMG headpiece artifact (because other artifacts cannot have those as main stats) alongside a crit-related weapon if one is available. This is mainly because crits multiply all other damage, making investing in them more effective than just maximizing ATK. Build guides recommend this for basically every character besides pure healers like Barbara and Kokomi.
- In Version 1.6, the Elemental Mastery stat got a Balance Buff that increased its damage output, making it the next sought-after stat alongside Attack, Crit Rate and Crit Damage. Combined with major reactions such as Swirl getting buffed as well, this shifted the meta gameplay to be more favorable to Sucrose and Venti players, who can now use their Corralling Vacuum Elemental Bursts to wipe out entire Spiral Abyss floors in one fell swoop.
Characters and Teams
- The Favonius series of weapons can be seen as the "default" weapon for many support characters, especially those that have high energy requirements, due to their passive which generates white elemental particles when the equipped character triggers a critical hit. Though not a particularly exciting effect in and of itself, it's also relatively easy to trigger, especially for characters that can brute force the critical hit needed to trigger the effect via sheer number of hits. In addition, the resulting particles do refill respectable amounts of energy for the entire party, allowing equipped characters to act as a universal battery. Their ease of use is such that many players choose to design their builds around the consistent burst uptime the Favonius weapons can provide, which makes such builds a decent standard for more specialized builds to be measured against.
- Unless they're completely free-to-play, Keqing players have married her to the Black Sword due to its critical hit and healing bonuses. Otherwise, a lot of F2P Keqing users equip her with the Harbinger of Dawn - a 3★ sword that has Crit DMG as a main stat and passively adds 28% to Crit Rate when HP is more than 90%.
- For Noelle mains, there is only one proper way to start an attack on an enemy camp: head straight for the nearest explosive barrel, wait for a bunch of enemies to come close, then activate her shield to blow everyone up. Since her Geo shield scales off of her defense stat, at high-enough numbers, the shield can tank the explosions without damaging Noelle directly, making her kamikaze strategy very effective.
- The squad of Xiangling, Bennett, Xingqiu, and Chongyun/Sucrose is so consistently popular among Chinese players that they refer to it as their "national team." It tends to work well for almost anything thanks to Bennett's burst powering up both Xiangling's pyro-wheel of death and Xingqiu's hydro swords, with the wheel constantly Vaporizing the swords; Chongyun adds extra Melts and Sucrose enhances the Vaporize reactions, so either one works. Xiangling is a free unit and they're all 4-stars, making this team accessible to most players, unlike most alternatives that require limited 5-stars. It's always one of the top choices for the Spiral Abyss.
- Tartaglia mains without any Constellation upgrades usually build a One-Hit Kill setup. His best damage comes from his melee stance, which has more cooldown time the longer you stay in that form. By using team compositions that let Childe kill enemies really quickly (in exactly one hit if your build is perfect), it minimizes active time of his melee stance, which lessens the cooldown of his Elemental Skill.
- Ayaka players tend to always field her as part of permafreeze teams. This is because she can imbue her standard attacks with Cryo just by using her unique sprint, making it easy to maintain Cryo on her foes, so all she needs is someone who can apply Hydro while off-field (Xingqiu is usually preferred) to keep an enemy frozen solid; and because her Elemental Burst, which carries the bulk of her damage, sticks to frozen enemies. It's extremely common to see her run with another Cryo character to act as a battery for her expensive Burst (Diona is the most popular, though Kaeya and Rosaria also work), Xingqiu, and an Anemo (Kazuha or, failing him, Sucrose) to add Swirl damage to the mix.
- Players who have the components to form a variant on the "National" teamnote will almost always use them in that setup for Spiral Abyss. Those three characters are always at the top of Abyss clear rankings, no matter what enemies are found in the Abyss on that particular rotation.
- Note that several of the above examples involve Bennett and Xiangling. There is a reason for this. Factor in Bennett's unrivaled buffing capability and reasonable healing, Xiangling's off-field DPS rivaling or exceeding the on-field DPS of many 5-star characters, and the attack buff provided by a Pyro Resonance, and it becomes apparent that if the two's abilities can be made to mesh with an on-field damage dealer in any way, the end result is competitive with teams built around supporting that character. In fact, in the case of on field Hydro damage dealers like Tartaglia and Ayato, they are the ideal "supports" for those characters, to the point that the community coined the term "driver" to describe characters who stay on the field while characters like Xiangling provide the majority of the team's damage output. Pyro characters dominated the metagame at launch, but as it's evolved many Pyro characters have fallen out of favor as other strategies became more viable. Bennett and Xiangling haven't, because while there are situations in which they are not the ideal pick, they otherwise are that good. While it would be hyperbole to say that any team involving Bennett and Xiangling is a meta team, it's not by much. As a consequence, the first question some players ask whenever a new character is tested is how well they work with Bennett and Xiangling, to the point that when Dendro as a whole did not while other Pyro characters worked better, it came as a bit of a shock.
- Free-to-play Nilou mains tend to use Barbara, Collei, and a Dendro Traveler, due to the fact that they are respectively free, an easy 4 star unit, and fairly easy, if lengthy process depending on location, to obtain, as well as the fact that Nilou is only compatible with other hydro and dendro units and needs a healer. Premium counterparts use Nahida due to quicker, more damaging and easier application of Dendro and Kokomi due to being able to deal more damage while healing better.
- The Hypostases are mostly Puzzle Bosses whose gimmicks are easily halted by certain characters, resulting in players relying on these tactics for easier wins.
- The Electro Hypostasis spawns crystals to heal itself, and these crystals can only be destroyed via elemental attacks. However, it's possible to destroy them all in one cycle using Xiangling's Elemental Burst, Amber's charged shots, or Yoimiya's Elemental Skill. In addition, an attack where the Hypostasis spawns rows of small cubes that deal damage upon hitting a character can be cheesed by using the Geo Traveler's Elemental Burst to create a safe patch.
- Likewise, the Geo Hypostasis spawns pillars to heal itself. But since those pillars are Geo elemental, Noelle's Elemental Burst and charged attack comes in handy by striking several of them at once with each of her sword swings. With the proper positioning, the pillars can also be taken out all at once by holding down Zhongli's Elemental Skill or casting his Elemental Burst.
Overworld
- In overworld Speedruns, adult build characters like Kaeya, Jean, Diluc, Childe, Eula, etc. are generally preferred because of their higher base running speed, better stamina management, and having a unique ability to not slow down while walking up slopes. Though Mona and Ayaka have faster dashes compared to other characters, said dashes unfortunately come with the caveat of snagging on ledges and uneven terrain, making them impractical to use in the long run when compared to the above-mentioned characters who have normal dashes. In addition, Anemo Resonance reigns supreme in speedruns because it grants characters 15% decreased stamina consumption and 10% increased movement speed. A number of characters in particular however deserve special mention:
- Regarding the four-star characters, Sayu is often the most used character in exploration due to how her Elemental Skill allowing her to roll quickly without worrying about stamina.
- Yelan's Elemental Skill not only allows her to move extremely quickly for its duration, faster than even Mona and Ayaka at their best, it also doesn't rely on her stamina, allowing it to recharge while moving faster than her dashing speed, far more quickly than most enemies can hope to keep up with. Her first Constellation Upgrade allows her to store up to 2 charges for her Elemental Skill, which handily increases the amount of time she can spend running as the cooldown timer for the additional charge will still run while she's in the middle of using her skill.
- Wanderer's Elemental Skill allows him to fly and dash around the map with ease. While he's in his flight mode, his normal stamina recovers, allowing you to keep up a constant momentum at very high speeds.
- As of 4.5, the craziest character by far for speedrunning is Xianyun
. Her Elemental Skill allows her to perform up to 3 leaps in rapid succession, after which she can perform a special plunge attack that dives a bit forwards rather than straight down. Though the first leap must be done on the ground, the other 2 can be done in midair, and though her velocity is mostly horizontal she does still gain some height for her jumps. Rooftops, small hills, even some chasms and rivers, it matters not, as Xianyun can conquer all but the toughest terrain, and makes even that much simpler to traverse. It's even more bonkers with Constellation Upgrades; not only does her 1st upgrade give her a second charge for her skill, offering the same benefits as Yelan up above, her 6th upgrade allows her to ignore her Elemental Skill's cooldown altogether for 16 seconds while using her Elemental Burst, up to 8 times. And she will still have the regular charges for her skill afterwards, meaning she can string a total of 10 jumps together in a row before she'll need to use her burst again...which, if any overworld mobs are unfortunate enough to be in her way while she is busy crossing Teyvat in 60 seconds, will probably be ready for another go.
Events
- Anemo units are common in co-op for the Theater Mechanicus minigame, as their innate crowd control lets them stall waves out long enough for the towers to clear them out. Jean is particularly effective in this regard, as her Elemental Skill lets her lock smaller enemies in place for up to 5 seconds before shoving them in a direction of the player's choosing, often into a pit for a One-Hit Kill.
- During the Windtrace event, the Rebel side is almost guaranteed to have at least one of the child characters, since their small size allows them to fit into and hide in places larger characters couldn't.
Other
- Getting high "adeptal energy" in the Serenitea Pot requires thorough decoration. This "adeptal energy points" will determine how much Serenitea Pot coins you can get per hour, and the amount of affection points you can accumulate for the characters you put in. The Serenitea Pot has separate maps and separate "adeptal energy" for each, but for those two perks, it only counts the map with the highest adeptal energy points. For this reason, it's common for players to stuff one map with random furniture note to get the highest possible "adeptal energy points", then go to another map and design its landscape all they like.
