Best Build for Hu Tao in Genshin Impact: Weapons, Artifacts & Talent Focus

Genshin Impact’s favorite Head of the Funeral Parlor is making her return to the banner scenes, Hu Tao is available for a limited time along with her weapon after what’s felt like forever since her last run. But is she still as overpowered as she was then now? Does she still reign as one of Liyue’s top-three most powerful units? Here’s the best build for Hu Tao in Genshin Impact, including weapons, artifacts, and talent focus.

Related: All Current and Next Limited Banners in Genshin Impact (January 2023)

Elemental Skill and Burst — Luigi Could Never

Hu Tao’s Elemental Skill, Guide to the Afterlife, is her primary attack going into battle. Consuming part of her overall HP, Hu Tao’s attacks are converted from Normal to Pyro. Alongside this effect comes Paramita Papilio which increases Hu Tao’s Attack based on her Max HP and hitting enemies with Charged Attacks will apply Blood Blossom to them. Blood Blossom will target enemies in a status similar to Aggravate and Quicken, making enemies take periodic damage from Pyro every four seconds. Before moving on to her Elemental Burst, it’s important to know about Hu Tao’s Passives as well. 

Flutter By is an additional bonus of Crit Rate by 12 percent for eight seconds that will disperse to Hu Tao’s allies once her Elemental Skill has concluded and she no longer does Pyro Damage with her attacks. This helps upon switching out that allies will deal bigger damage while you switch out Hu Tao to let her Elemental Skill regain its cooldown and can help for some nice setups from Supports for her next part in the battle. The other passive is called Sanguine Rouge, the primary reason why most Hu Tao mains feel the need to keep their girl on the narrowest precipice of dying since Hu Tao’s if her HP is lower than half or about half, her Pyro Damage Bonus is increased by 33 percent. 

This is still no excuse for being a poor sport in Co-Op games, though.

Furthermore, this helps going into her Elemental Burst, Spirit Soother, which will do additional damage based on how low Hu Tao’s overall Health is. Not only will she do bigger damage, but she’ll see additional Health Regeneration to help get her back into tiptop shape. The attack is a large AOE that will deal Pyro Damage with the animation of Hu Tao adorably swinging around the pain-in-the-ass ghost that’s constantly bugging her in her idles. How else would you help those move onto the afterlife?

Weapon – Save Yourself Some Grief, She’s Got Some Options

If you’ve been around long enough, or if you started yesterday, you’re going to hear a lot about the Staff of Homa. An overall good weapon, naturally it’s best used on Hu Tao since upon equipping, it increases Hu Tao’s Health by 20 percent and has a main stat of Crit Damage. Its passive will increase Attack by 0.8 percent based on the wielder’s Max HP. And when the wielder gets below 50 percent, the Attack Bonus is increased by a whole one percent. Another reason why Hu Tao mains like to be near death. 

Close seconds are the special weapons you can get from the Paimon’s Bargains, but most importantly, those that are easier to achieve can come from four-star and three-star weapons. Given Hu Tao’s abilities, Dragon’s Bane can still make for a good weapon even if its main stat is Elemental Mastery. It’s often the free-to-play weapon she’s equipped with during certain trials. Other good weapons are the event weapon Missive Windspear and Lithic Spear, these are based on Attack and can help increase Crit Rate or Elemental Mastery respectively. However, a cracked weapon from the three-stars is White Tassel. Achievable from drops from enemies or treasure chests, this overlooked weapon has a main stat of Crit Rate and increases Normal Attack damage by 24 percent which is perfect for Hu Tao. You can refine it quite easily as long as you lock the weapons and save up then you’ll have an easier time leveling up since it’s a lower-tiered weapons. 

Artifact Sets — The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

As a Pyro enthusiast, if not a maniac, Hu Tao is going to be doing her best work on the Crimson Witch of Flames. You can almost hear all the Pyro mains screaming in pain at the thought of going back to that domain. And while it does remain one of the trickier domains to go to since its pairing artifact set is practically useless unless you just happen to get some really stellar artifacts from it, you’re mostly going to be wanting to aim for Crimson Witch. Some people settle for Lavawalker, just know that its effects are slightly different. Starting first with Crimson Witch, at two pieces, the wielder’s Pyro Damage will receive a bonus of 15 percent, and at four pieces will receive a 40 percent Damage increase whenever it interacts with Overloaded, Burning, and Burgeon damage. When interacting with Vaporize or Melt, it’ll increase damage by 15 percent. Additionally, this set has a bonus of whenever the Elemental Skill is used, it’ll increase the two-piece value by 50 percent for 10 seconds. Overall, definitely the best set for Hu Tao, but for amusement’s sake, here is Lavawalker.

Lavawalker isn’t entirely bad. At two pieces, it’ll increase Pyro Resistance by 40 percent, which may actually be something you’ll want on Hu Tao since she does enjoy setting things on fire in grassy environments. Which will subsequently cause you to catch on fire as well. Aside from that, at four pieces, Lavawalker will increase damage against characters affected by Pyro by 35 percent. All in all, it makes for a fine replacement if you aren’t able to get enough Crimson Witch artifacts that roll favorably. 

Related: Genshin Impact: End of the Line Weapon Ascension Materials, Recommended Characters and More

Artifact Stats — Deceptively Easy…

Hu Tao is very easy for a DPS, however similar to Zhongli, she’s going to need a few changes to her Main stats going into her Sands, Crown, and maybe even her Goblet. But for her sub-stats, you’re generally going to look at the most basic of things, focusing on Crit Rate, Crit Damage, Attack, and HP. As a DPS, the first three of these come off as explainable, but the reason you’re going to want to heavily build into Hu Tao’s HP is that her damage is dependent on it in her kit. No matter whether you have Homa equipped or not, it’s best to supply this character with plenty of health so she can take off chunks of her life to do better damage. 

However, for her three Main Stats on her Sands, Goblet, and Crown, you may want to stay away from the usual route of equipping, Attack, an Elemental Bonus, and Crit Rate or Crit Damage. Instead, you’ll be trying to get Hu Tao as close to 50,000 HP as possible, and the only way you’re going to be able to do that is if you equip HP as a main stat. This is nice for a couple of reasons, but mostly because the domain sucks and is unforgiving. HP is an easy stat to get when farming these earlier domains and can roll pretty well or give you good stats from the get-go. Hu Tao’s Goblet can be interchangeable for a Pyro Damage Bonus or an HP, it’s all dependent on what stats you have much like Zhongli. 

Talents Focus and Priority

Given that Hu Tao’s majority of attacks are going to be dependent on her dealing damage with her normal attacks, that is going to be the Talent Branch you want to focus on. Guide to the Afterlife is indeed the activating Skill that allows you to convert damage, but Normal Attack is going to be where your damage increases. Leveling up Hu Tao’s Elemental Skill, however, will increase the Attack Bonus that she gets as well as the Blood Blossom Damage whenever it is increased. So these two branches are going to be the ones that you want to focus on leveling up first when allocating your Talent Material.