With a wide and growing cast of characters in Genshin Impact to choose from, how do you know who will be worth your primogems come time to wish? Now, everyone usually has their preferences when it comes to playability, personality, or looks when it comes to Genshin’s roster. But new players are joining all the time and who knows which Five-Stars are easier to build than others? We do! Here is a list of some of the best characters in Genshin Impact that are Free-To-Play friendly!
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Which Characters in Genshin Impact are most Free-to-Play Friendly?
The Traveler
Given that the Traveler, whether you’ve chosen Aether or Lumine, is your Main Character so to speak, it’s only natural that they are the easiest Five-Star to build. Not only are there weapons available in just about every nation for them to use, but they are also often the crafting variation and you get two of the three for free in quests. Their talent requirements rotate so you don’t need to grind one primary Talent Book, though this can also be a bit of a hassle. And they are pretty flexible when placing them in team comps. Although this list isn’t rated or tiered, my bet would be on the Traveler being the most Free-To-Play Friendly, but then again, that just makes sense!
Zhongli
I know, I know. If you use a shield, you’re a weenie, and I am the biggest of them all, having had Zhongli since first starting the game two years ago. In all seriousness, taking advantage of shields can help you get the upper hand in many boss battles and no matter what anyone says, you should never feel ashamed! It feels much worse getting interrupted in your attacks, anyhow. But Zhongli has a pretty easy build and a few weapon selections you can choose from. Don’t underestimate those three-star weapons, having HP is important when it comes to his shield and his damage. Even better? His Signature Weapon isn’t necessary, and I’ll take that any day! His artifact sets are pretty flexible, you can use HP from Tenacity or Geo Damage Bonus in the Geo-type artifacts. Even his play style is easy, make sure you got a shield up, switch to your other characters then smash your enemies with a giant rock once it’s ready~.
Alhaitham
So, my tiermaker was originally in Alphabetical order but I didn’t follow it and that’s why Alhaitham is here, BUT, that doesn’t disqualify him from the list as he is the most broken character I’ve seen in a while. Genshin Impact pulled its punches when it came to his build and yet he still remained cracked upon release. Having just benefited from some shoddy artifacts that remained from my hunts, I passed them onto him and watched him absolutely wreck daily commissions at level 60. He’s got quite a few weapons you can choose from too, since he benefits from Elemental Mastery and Kazuha doesn’t need all of those swords. His talent levels weren’t even all that high before he started doing good damage, and as I said with his artifacts, you can mix and match them depending on what you have available! But EM is preferred when completing his overall build. He isn’t too complicated since he resembles Keqing in many ways and unless you have many Constellations, you won’t have to worry about the tricks between his Skill and Burst.
Ganyu
Does your old main still work? She does!! I may not have ever been a Ganyu main, but I will never discredit the hard-working girl. She’s got so many options when it comes to weapons from the ones you can craft to even the three-star weapons. She can work with Cryo-Boosting artifacts or Wanderer’s Troupe, one of the easiest sets to get in the game that you may just have better stats for. Her gameplay is fairly easy since her Skill can work to distract enemies, and as long as you keep your distance and your aim near your enemies, you’ll benefit from her multiple shots that burst forth from her arrow. Her Burst is an AOE that can work well with many types of team compositions, so naturally, she had to be on this list as one of the best girls in Liyue.
Keqing
Keqing is pretty flexible in terms of building her, you can either invest in her Electro Damage, her Physical Damage, or a mixture of both and Keqing will never disappoint! There are plenty of weapons that she can use and Harbinger of Dawn should never be underestimated as one of the best three-star weapons to exist. And even in her gameplay, you can mix it up with her gameplay of Skill and Burst or let loose on her Charged Normal Attack and wreck enemies faster than Ayaka could with Cryo damage. No disrespect to Ayaka either, but a competition between these two would be fun! And depending on how you want to build her, you have a wide range of artifact sets to choose from and ways to build her so it only matters how you use her on a day-to-day basis and then pick your best artifacts from there.
Tighnari
Are you seeing a trend here because these last four have kind of led me to some kind of theme? Keqing and Alhaithm, Ganyu and Tig, either way, whether you’ve pulled on his banner or ended up getting him in the Permanent or lost to a 50/50, you should definitely build your Tighnari! Tighnari does best with weapons that are either Elemental Mastery or Attack based. Stringless is a good option, but there’s also Sumeru’s craftable weapon once you complete the Arcana quest. Like Ganyu, you can either build him with an elemental damage bonus, so Dendro and Attack or Dendro and EM, or utilize Wanderer’s Troupe standard abilities since you’re likely to get better stats on those artifacts. And while he is a character in Sumeru, you don’t need to cross an ocean to get the materials he needs to level up. More on that note later. Getting to Sumeru is pretty easy even if you don’t have the Chasm open because uh, guess what? There’s a whole mountain area you can use to just cross over, simple as that! With Collei on my second account, I’ve had no issue building her since I’ve been able to get by through to Sumeru by way of those very mountains! And investing just a bit into his Talent Levels can make him go a long way especially since like Ganyu, his Skill distracts enemies and you get THREE extra quick shots that’ll have those seeking Dendro shots afterward!
Yelan
Although she can look quite tricky, if you build into her burst and HP, Yelan is an incredibly fun unit to play and a super-powered Xingqui on top of it all! You might think that this agent lady may be tricky to build, but the Chasm is actually quite easy to access given you only need to complete the puzzle. Even at her max of level 40, you may find her to be a strong contender. Although you would think you’d need her weapon, there are actually plenty of free-to-play options available such as Sacrificial! But as someone who has also been waiting to give the Sacrificial Sword to Xingqui and not receiving one, I wouldn’t bank my credit entirely on it. Which is why there is indeed a three-star weapon that has an HP stat that’ll also serve Yelan well! And there are still plenty of craftable weapons you can use in the meantime with Favonious being an oldie but goodie!
Nahida
It may seem a little odd that not all of the archons are on this list but in consideration of easy it would be to place Zhongli and Nahida into team comps, we also considered how easy it would be to play their kits and obtain their necessary items to level up with. Nahida can benefit from a diverse element cast of characters or similar ones and she’s fairly neat as a Sub-DPS. Providing off-field damage, she can either use Sumeru’s craftable weapon or the Widsith and seeing as how she does better with Elemental Mastery, you can also hit her with the Gilded Dreams artifacts or Wanderer’s Troupe since she’s a catalyst! The only thing about catalysts, though, is that it benefits to level up their normal attack along with their Skill and Burst so it does require a bit more Talent material, BUT you don’t find yourself disappointed with this pint-sized plant since she’s sure to pack a punch along with her other teammates.
Baizhu
Dendro has proven to be a pretty powerful element since being added, and if you’re thinking, “But wait, we haven’t even received Baizhu yet”, well, based on the predictions and confirmations for his kit in recent leaks, he appears to be a Dendro Kokomi! This means he can do pretty well with weapons of all kinds as long as you focus on HP, Elementary Mastery, or taking advantage of some of the craftable weapons, such as ones in Sumeru since they boost EM in their passives. The man does better damage and healing based on his HP and EM and people have proven if they want to make a DPS out of anyone, they will find a way to do it. Just like how they made Kokomi create Crit when she’s originally -99 in the hole! Based on projects, Baizhu actually won’t be a half-bad character to get off the bat, especially if you are a free-to-play player who has been waiting on him for as long as the veterans have!
Kazuha
The tricky thing about these last few options on this list is that these character mats are found in Inazuma. When you’re just starting out in the game, it may take you a while to actually get to that country and much is secluded or broken off due to just how many islands there are. You can wander around on the boat and walk your way there, which is fine, but it makes it incredibly difficult to build these characters if you don’t have Inazuma open! On my second account, I have Kazuha level 40 because that’s as high as I can get him, and yet… I don’t have much difficulty with that. Kazuha is great for crowd control and if you’ve ever played or demoed him, then you’ll understand just how wonderfully easy it is to actually use him in battle. His Burst lasts for much longer than Sucrose’s and generally has always been a bit easier for me. These two are pretty much very similar with Kazuha as a five-star, being the super-powered one. As long as you have a good set on him and one of the very many Elemental Mastery swords on him, then you’re sure to do just as much damage as you would with your Sucrose and be able to use him in some team comps until you get to Inazuma.
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Honorable Mentions
If you’d like to know how we rated all of the five-star characters then here’s the rest of the characters and how they were scaled. Once again, we were looking to judge them on how easy they are to build, what weapon availabilities they had, how their team compositions would look, and how easy is their gameplay. Characters that I wanted to include, but couldn’t were those in Inazuma. So here are our honorable mentions as well as the TierMaker in its complete form!
- Arataki Itto
- Kamisato Ayato
- Sanganomiya Kokomi
