You start out your adventure in Genshin Impact with just one character, but very quickly begin to assemble a team with their own weapons, abilities, and skills that you can swap between on the fly. A few are given to you as part of the game’s main story, but the majority need to be unlocked through the game’s gatcha mechanics.
With 24 characters to unlock and pick from, and more to come in future updates, it can be hard to know which are worth spending your time and resources leveling up. That’s why we’ve broken down each character and come up with this list of the absolute best characters in Genshin Impact.
Further reading
- How to get started in Genshin Impact, this year’s massive F2P open-world RPG
- How to level up your characters quickly in Genshin Impact
- 5 ways Genshin Impact is better than Breath of the Wild
Diluc
Diluc is one of the most powerful characters you can get, and most players have known that from day one. He’s a Pyro-focused claymore user with incredibly powerful combos that are great for single targets and dealing AOE attacks. His claymore also allows him to easily smash through an enemy’s guard. Buff him even further with attack and crit-focused artifacts to really bring out his damage potential.
His elemental skill, Searing Onslaught, is a Pyro-enhanced slash that can be comboed three times in a row and only has a five-second cooldown timer. Diluc’s burst is even more flashy — Dawn starts out by blasting everything away in a wave of fire before a phoenix flies in and bursts into even more fire damage. If that wasn’t strong enough, his normal attacks are buffed for about three seconds afterward with Pyro effects.
Jean
Jean is a more balanced character than Diluc. While she’s absolutely no slouch in the damage department, she also functions as a good healer and support for the rest of the party. Every normal attack you land with her has a 50% chance of restoring HP to the rest of the party, equal to 15% of the damage she deals. So, the stronger you make her and more enemies you can hit at once, the more your party can heal.
For skills, Jean has the Gale Blade and Dandelion Breeze. Gale Blade allows her to coat her sword in wind and launch it toward her targets in a giant AOE attack with Anemo damage that lasts for five seconds. But if you spend some more stamina and hold the attack down, you can direct the whirlwind to draw the enemies it hits toward you to combo them even further. Dandelion Breeze is slightly more defensive but just as powerful. Jean will be surrounded by a field of dandelions that serve two purposes. First is that any enemy that comes into contact with it will take damage and potentially get launched into the air, and second is to regenerate the entire party’s HP.
Venti
Another Anemo-focused character, Venti uses his bow to keep a distance between him and his enemies. He’s certainly not going to be your tank, but he is a very strong elemental damage dealer for your team. As with all the other bow users in the game, Venti has a six-shot combo with his normal attack, but you can use his charged attack to focus and manually aim more powerful shots that also deal Anemo damage. Deck him out with a bow that boosts elemental damage and artifacts that increase his elemental mastery or charge attack to really bring the pain.
Skyward Sonnet is one of Venti’s best assets. This skill creates a wind domain at your target to launch them up into the air with a blast of wind damage. Or, if you hold the button, you can create an even larger effect around yourself, still dealing damage to all the enemies caught in it, but also launches you in the air as well, so you can combo into a plunging attack. Wind’s Grand Ode is also great for crowd control. Use it to shoot an arrow that creates a vacuum that pulls enemies to its location so you can keep control of the battlefield.
Klee
Klee’s playstyle is just as explosive as her personality. She’s a pure Pyro AOE character and is great if you like moving through battles at a fast pace. Her primary attack is to hurl explosives at her enemy that, as you’d expect, deal AOE damage to any other foe who is unfortunate to be close enough to the blast. This makes her a fantastic character to use against large groups of mobs since you can maintain a distance from them while blasting away at their health with explosions. If you can get her the skyward atlas weapon, you can even give her standard attacks a 50% chance of spawning a cloud that will continue to deal damage to enemies.
Jumpy Dumpty, Klee’s elemental skill, tosses a huge fireball to bounce up to three times across the battlefield. Each time it bounces, the ball deals Pyro damage in an AOE around it, with the final bounce leaving fire traps around the area. Her burst is slightly more defensive and creates a field around her that deals Pyro damage to enemies that come close.
Qiqi
Finally, we end with Qiqi, our only Cryo character on the list. Unlike the other picks for this list, Qiqi is all about healing and support. Between her attack and skills, it will be a challenge for anything to bring your party down. She uses a normal sword, making her quick and easy to use, especially with the Skyward Blade to buff all her attacks, speed, and crit rates. While she isn’t going to be your primary DPS, you can take advantage of her inflicting Cryo on enemies to combo into stronger elemental reactions.
So, what makes Qiqi such an amazing support character and healer? First off is Herald of Frost. With this skill active, you get a bunch of great benefits, starting with all of your attacks also healing your entire party. If that wasn’t strong enough, it also passively heals your party regardless of whether you land an attack or not, and it creates a talisman that follows you around and deals Cryo damage to any enemy it hits. Finally, you get her Preserver of Fortune burst that tags enemies to take Cryo damage but also heal whatever character attacks them while active. Slap this skill on a group of enemies and swap to a more powerful DPS character to combo off the Cryo damage while healing them back up at the same time.
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