Genshin Genshin Impact Characters Tier List

New Characters

Vesna: S Tier

The premium Anemo Stellar Swirl Carry is here. Vesna is powerful and relatively flexible in terms of supports, although likely to have not reached her full potential. She will be able to tackle any kind of difficult Stellar Glimmer content and will be especially geared for content that favors Stellar Swirl. She's not particularly reliant on the Stellar Swirl Reaction to do damage, with most of it coming from herself. This makes her geared to be a Hypercarry and increases her synergy with supports like Faruzan and Diona. Odette is the only partner that is difficult to replace, with even Vodyanitsa, the other Limited 5* running next to her, not being too necessary for her teams.

Vodyanitsa: A+ Tier

Vodyanitsa is a strong support for teams that deal regular Cryo and Hydro damage and for dedicated Stellar Swirl teams. She provides RES Shred to all relevant elements and increases the damage of her teammates through her quill-like mechanic. While certainly a very good character, she is not exceptional without some of her vertical investment, and isn't too necesasry for current Stellar Swirl teams to perform well. She is a significant upgrade for Skirk teams and other Freeze teams, such as Lohen ones. A competent 4th slot in other Cryo teams, like Sandrone Stellar-Conduct teams, she's surprisingly flexible and an overall good addition to most rosters.

Old Character Shifts

• Cyno: A+ → A
• • Cyno's move comes less due to him becoming any worse and more due to other shifts in the list making him fit into the A tier more. He remains as strong as before and with the same flaws; there is currently little reason to play him over the other Stellar-Conduct carries. His strength in a vacuum is quite high and he is able to tackle a lot of difficult endgame content despite that.
• Yumemizuki Mizuki: B → A
• • Mizuki will be available in another Standard Selector and thus is now ranked on her C2, which is a significant boost to all of her teams. She also gained access to another support in Vodyanitsa, although they maintain some anti-synergy.

New Tier: B+

• Clorinde: B → B+
• Diona: C → B+
• Faruzan: C → B+
• Fischl: B → B+
• Furina: A → B+
• Illuga: B → B+
• Lohen: A → B+
• Qiqi: A → B+
• Varesa: A → B+
  
• Alyosha: C → B
• Beidou: C → B
• Nilou: D → B
• Venti: C → B

General Character Placements

S-tier

• Columbina: The lynchpin of any Lunar setup and often necessary for their proper function. Other Hydro options offer too much less compared to her to even be considerations if she's available, regardless of vertical investment.
• Flins: Having gained real competition as the best Electro DPS with Cyno's buffs, Flins still stands tall due to the incredibly wide variety of content he's able to tackle in endgame scenarios. While dealing the least raw DPS out of the Lunar carries, his content matchup has so far made up for that.
• Ineffa: Necessary for Flins and his teams to function at the level they do, Ineffa also forms a very competent Sub-DPS core with Columbina, that can by itself deal with much of the Fearless difficulty content in Stygian.
• Lauma: Lauma gives one of the strongest support jumps around for Nefer's teams, to the tune of 30-40%, and she's outright necessary for Columbina on-field DPS and any Bloom team to function.
• Linnea: An excellent support for Zibai, although she's typically not as large of a jump for her as Ineffa and Lauma are for Flins and Nefer. Like Ineffa, she can form a Lunar-Crystallize core with Columbina that can play into Geo focused content in Stygian very well.
• Mavuika: Mavuika will oscillate significantly depending on your skill with her. At her ceiling, she could comfortably be argued to be a top 3 DPS in the game, with a solid argument for being on the higher end. This is only available through her advanced combos, which are difficult and require quite a bit of effort to pull off consistently. Still, even at her lower end, she deals with the content of this level more than fine.
• Nefer: The dedicated Lunar-Bloom DPS has one of the highest damage ceilings in the game, and it's much easier to reach for her than for someone like Mavuika. Nefer's biggest flaw is having to play sustainless in order to stand out damage wise, which is relatively easier for her compared to most of the cast; she dashes very often, giving her lots of invincibility time.
• Odette: Generally the most important support for any Stellar Glimmer team, Odette represents a significant boost to the capability of any and every Stellar team. She is the clear best-in-slot for every Stellar carry ( Sandrone, Vesna, Wriothesley and more) and can even be strong in non-Stellar teams against Stellar content. Massive Sub-DPS and strong buffs make her mostly irreplaceable with current options.
• Sandrone: The strongest DPS in the game by most reasonable metrics. Sandrone's best teams are primarily Stellar-Conduct, but with the introduction of Vodyanitsa, her Stellar Swirl teams have been quite a bit more competent. Sandrone is one of if not the strongest brute forcer in the game thanks to her flexiblity and massive raw damage, with there being essentially no difficult content she is not able to tackle under the Tierlist's assumptions.
• Sucrose: The best in slot 4th unit for Flins and Nefer, one of the best 4th slots for Sandrone and every other Stellar-Conduct carry, BiS for Sandrone Stellar Swirl and Yumemizuki Mizuki Stellar Swirl, BiS for Mavuika Hexerei Vape and Arlecchino Hexerei Vape, one of the best options for Arlecchino Melt, Mualani Hexerei teams, and the list goes on.
• Yae Miko: Similar in strength to Odette for any Stellar-Conduct team, arguably even stronger. Exceptional Sub-DPS and strong buffs make her be the clear strongest Electro slot most of the time, although there are certain endgame situations that she won't appreciate, such as the latest Chimeric Lion in Stygian Onslaught. Nevertheless, Miko is what enabled Stellar-Conduct teams to take over the meta in the way that they have, and her placement reflects it.
• Zibai: Arguably the strongest overall Lunar carry under most criteria. Her damage ceiling is the highest and the easiest to reach, and she has access to strong healing in her teams while being very tanky thanks to her DEF scaling. Although Illuga's C6 is quite valuable for her teams, it's far from a make or break. Illuga was available on both her own and Linnea banner, making it easier to acquire than most 4* C6s.

A-Tier

Coming Soon!

Ranking Criteria

This is an Endgame Tier List. We take into account performance primarily in Stygian Onslaught and Spiral Abyss, with the former being our main vector. This is because good performance in Stygian Onslaught will almost always translate to good performance in Spiral Abyss, while the inverse is not true.

Imaginarium Theater is not considered despite its rewards, by nature of its limitations and variability. If a unit is good in the other endgame modes, they will typically be very good in IT.

A character can be powerful and useful in many ways, including but not limited to:

• Content Matchup
• DPS / Damage Contribution
• Flexibility

Other factors such as Ease of Play, Skill Ceiling, and more will also be considered to determine how valuable a unit is in endgame scenarios.

Ranking Assumptions

• Limited 5 star characters are considered to be at C0 without their Signature Weapons, aka C0R0. If a limited 5 star character is part of the 'Temper Thyself and Journey Far' event, they will be considered to be at C1R0. Standard Banner 5 star characters are considered to be at C2R0. 4 star character assumptions will be more variable and individual, depending on their time of release, availability, and importance of their Constellations.
• • As of 7.1, characters that are part of a Limited 5 star Selector will all receive +1 Constellation. This makes for the fairest and most equal assumptions. Characters that are both part of a selector and the 'Temper Thyself' event such as Clorinde and Nilou will be ranked at C2R0.
• A 5 star character's potential for vertical investment beyond our standards will not be considered in the Tier List. However, it will be explored and explained in their Guides.
  
• Stygian Onslaught is considered at Fearless Difficulty. A character's performance in Fearless Difficulty at C0R0 will oftentimes map to their performance in Dire Difficulty with some vertical investment.
  
• Spiral Abyss is always considered to be at Floor 12 only.
  
• We don't assume a character is automatically performing at their damage ceiling or optimal conditions. If a character has significant room for growth, it will generally be considered a plus, as long as it's achievable by reasonable in-game means. Mavuika is not ranked based exclusively on her performance with Buffer Cancels; Arlecchino is not ranked based exclusively on her performance with Advanced Walk Combos; etc. However, their ability to improve their performance with advanced mechanics and good play is taken into account.
  
• Characters will be ranked based on the relative strength of their best teams in which they are key pieces of. Flins - Columbina - Ineffa - Sucrose is a Flins team; Dehya - Columbina - Ineffa - Sucrose is not a Dehya team. The more important a character is for a strong team, the higher their value. For example: the performance of a Varesa Overload team is more impactful on Varesa's ranking than the performance of a Varesa Lunar-Charged team.
  
• A character having multiple strong teams and teammates is generally a bonus. How big of a bonus it is depends on the details of their teams and flexibility.

Disclaimers

The Tier List is not meant to be indicative of the best characters in any singular endgame cycle, including the current. Characters will be ranked based on their overall proven performance, and a theoretical assessment of the potential of their future performance in some shape or form. The current endgame cycle will always favor newly released characters and the characters that are re-running. How good a character's performance is in the endgame scenarios that aren't directly meant to favor them is a major criteria for their ranking.

The Tier List is meant to be indicative of a character's current and potentially future strength; it is not meant to be a definitive measure of who to pull. Check out a character's guide for an explanation of why they are strong or not, and make informed wishing decisions.

S-Tier

The best units available. Characters in the S-tier will generally have an easy time clearing the content available in any given endgame rotation, or will be otherwise significant in doing so. Their flaws are few or unimportant, and they will be currently excellent and useful in most any account.

A-Tier

Exceptional units, but not quite as good as S-Tier units. They have a few more flaws or kinks that prevent them from always being the best available to you, but they're still presently very powerful and will be able to perform well in almost all current endgame scenarios.

B-Tier

Strong, but their flaws start being more obvious or more impactful. B-Tier units still generally be useful in many situations, but have a much higher potential of running into issues or requiring more resources to perform as well as the characters in A-Tier.

C-Tier

Still competent at clearing, but C-Tier units will have some clear struggles. They come with caveats and will not have the easy time clearing the units in the tiers above them generally should have. They might be useful for certain teams, but their usefulness is limited or conditional. There will be endgame rotations where they struggle to be useful.

D-Tier

Can clear specific endgame scenarios under the right circumstances, but will face significant difficulties outside of those circumstances. Potentially directly outclassed by units in C-Tier or higher, not very useful in currently strong teams, or their aren't very strong. They might be limited in the capacity of what they can offer, have gameplay issues, etc.

E-Tier

E-Tier units will require exceptional circumstances in order to have a decent time clearing endgame scenarios. They will require significant effort, investment of time or otherwise, and will often highly struggle regardless. Directly outclassed by several units in the same role, or their unique niches are simply not useful in the current landscape.

F-Tier

Characters in this tier are significantly and directly outclassed in every way, or will have a very difficult time clearing the vast majority endgame scenarios. There might be niche situations in which they or their mechanics are useful, but they are generally not worth using under most circumstances within our ranking criteria.