Is The Hydro Traveler Worth Building in Genshin Impact? – Answered

In Genshin Impact, the Traveler is a free Five-Star character that has an easy build and helps teach the player about the mechanics that are within each region. Often used for puzzles in each new country, the Traveler has been an excellent unit to build for most accounts. Now, with Fontaine, players have a Hydro build that is a bit lackluster and awkward with its new kit.

Is the Hydro Traveler Worth Building in Genshin Impact?

Despite the Traveler being our first introduction to Fontaine mechanics, this build doesn’t feel very friendly or accessible. It can be worked with, however, as long as you equip an Attack or Crit weapon and build the Traveler with Attack and Hydro Damage since there’s not much use for them otherwise. If you don’t have enough Hydro characters, maybe they would be worth building, but there are so many better options in the game. 

Typically, our Traveler is the character meant to break the ice of the new mechanics in each branching region of Teyvat: Swirl in Mondstadt, Defense in Liyue, Energy Recharge in Inazuma, Elemental Mastery in Sumeru. Now, Fontaine is introducing a new range of ways to utilize HP alongside the Pneuma and Ousia-aligned visions. 

The Traveler themselves are of the Pneuma-aligned vision, though they don’t wield visions and have an awkward mechanic of shooting Cuphead Hydro Bullets when holding their skill and a Spirit Bomb when you tap the skill. Their ultimate is a slow-moving bubble that occasionally deals Hydro Damage to whatever it comes across. Overall, the kit is quite awkward to use and time correctly with other team compositions. The skill isn’t very maneuverable and deals higher damage whenever the Traveler has more than 50% HP and yet loses HP when they do hold the skill. But the last Hadouken attack increases its damage depending on how much HP they lose using the skill. 

There are a wide range of characters that exist in the game, both present and upcoming, that will showcase amazing Hydro Damage, apply Hydro well to the team, or work as a great battery for your Hydro characters who need the elemental particles. Xingqui, Ayato, Candace, Childe, and even Barbara work as better Hydro DPS that you could better spend your resources on. 

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As for the Traveler’s other purpose of solving puzzles, you can easily use a Bow user to switch the mechanics for lantern object that changes pathways, and since there are Pneuma and Ousia orbs all around Fontaine, it isn’t required that you use the Pneuma-aligned traveler. Enemies aligned with Pneuma or Ousia can still be defeated by normal means; using the opposite-aligned visions helps to paralyze them in battle. Then Hydro towers can still be triggered by just about any Hydro character, so using catalysts or a bow user is possible without using the Traveler. 

But of course, if you find that you do like their kit and think it’s fun, the Hydro Traveler isn’t all that difficult to build, and you can obtain some good numbers from their kit, even with free-to-play weapon options. If you’re still on the fence, it’s recommended that you wait for other Hydro characters that you would rather use. In the case you’re building up the Traveler, you’re going to need their talent materials, so be sure to check out our guide on how to get to the Talent Domain since this particular one is underwater in Fontaine!