How combat works

Every guide here assumes you know what a Burst is, what Energy Recharge does and why people swap characters halfway through a fight. If any of that is new, this page will explain it.

Every character has the same three buttons

Whatever character you just pulled, they have these.

Normal Attack	Tap it for a single hit. Keep tapping for a string of three to five. Holding the button does a Charged Attack, a slower heavier swing that burns Stamina (the yellow bar that appears beside your character). Pressing it while falling does a Plunging Attack. Most characters can ignore it.
Skill (E)	Their signature move, back after a cooldown of anywhere from a few seconds to twenty or so. For a lot of supports you press this, then swap out.
Burst (Q)	The big one. Needs a full Energy bar on top of its cooldown, so you cannot just spam it.

When a guide says Skill (E) or Burst (Q), that is the button on your screen.

Everyone has one element

There are seven: Anemo (wind), Geo (rock), Electro (lightning), Dendro (plants), Hydro (water), Pyro (fire) and Cryo (ice). Each character has one element and it never changes.

Their Skill and Burst will use that element. Their Normal Attacks are usually Physical damage instead, which doesn't react with anything. Catalyst users are the exception: their Normal Attacks are already elemental. Some characters turn their own attacks into their element for a while, which the guides call infusion.

You fight with four characters and swap constantly

You control one at a time, called the on-field character. Swapping has a cooldown of about a second, so in practice you can swap freely. The on-field character is the only one taking hits.

Plenty of things keep running after a character is swapped out. A turret on the ground, a field on the floor, a buff on the party. So a support can come in, press two buttons and leave while their effect keeps working. That is what a guide means by off-field. It is why so many pages end with "swap off".

Two elements on one enemy make a reaction

Put one element on an enemy, then hit it with a different one. The system does not work like Pokemon or similar games where one element "beats" another. Hydro does not "beat" Pyro in Genshin. Instead the two combine into a reaction. Some reactions are stronger than others, but there is no losing side and all of them are good.

Reactions are also where most of your damage comes from, which is why the guides care about your team's elements rather than specific characters.

Vaporize	Hydro + Pyro, either order. The hit that sets it off does far more damage.
Melt	Cryo + Pyro. As with Vaporize it greatly increases the damage of the hit that triggered it.
Overloaded	Pyro + Electro. An explosion that flings small enemies away.
Superconduct	Cryo + Electro. A blast that leaves enemies taking more Physical damage.
Electro-Charged	Hydro + Electro. Repeated shocks that jump between anything wet nearby.
Freeze	Hydro + Cryo. They stop moving until it thaws.
Swirl	Anemo on Pyro, Hydro, Electro or Cryo. Spreads that element over everything nearby.
Crystallize	Geo on those same four. Drops a shard. Walk over it for a small shield.
Burning	Pyro + Dendro. Sets them on fire for steady damage.
Bloom	Hydro + Dendro. Leaves seeds that pop shortly after. Electro on a seed is Hyperbloom, which homes in on an enemy. Pyro on a seed is Burgeon, a bigger explosion.
Quicken	Dendro + Electro. Primes the enemy for a while, so Dendro hits (Spread) and Electro hits (Aggravate) land harder.

Anemo and Geo never react with Dendro. Elemental Mastery is the stat that makes reactions bigger, which is why it is on some builds while being worthless on others.

Bursts run on Energy

Most characters' Skills generate glowing energy particles. They fill the background of your character's Burst icon when they reach you. Once it is full you can use the Burst. Different Bursts need different amounts, which is the number the guides quote: 60 Energy, 70, 80.

The Energy Recharge stat fills that icon faster for each particle collected. When a page says "around 160%", that is how much Energy Recharge it takes to have the Burst ready again by the time its cooldown ends. You need less if a teammate shares your element, since their particles are worth more Energy to you.

A rotation is one lap of your team

Fights work as a loop. Bring in your supports, press their buttons, then swap to your damage dealer while all the support Skills are running. When the buffs run out you go round again. That is a rotation, usually somewhere near 20 seconds. The numbered list on every guide here is that character's part of the rotation.

Level the talents you actually press

Each of the three buttons has its own talent level, 1 to 10. Every level is a straight increase to what that button does: more damage, more healing, a bigger shield. Get the ones you actually press as high as your materials allow. For a damage dealer that can often mean all three. For most supports it is the Skill, the Burst or both.

A talent you never use can stay at level 1. A support who comes on, presses Skill and Burst and swaps off never throws a Normal Attack that matters. The books and boss drops that would go there are better spent on someone who does. When a guide says "don't level her Normal Attacks", this is why.

Reading the Gear section

Each character carries one weapon plus five artifacts. The flower is always HP and the feather always Attack, so the main stat choices are the other three: sands, goblet, circlet, in the order the guides list them. Artifacts come in sets that pay a small bonus at two pieces and a bigger one at four, so "4-piece Noblesse Oblige" means four of your five slots.

When a guide says a character scales off Max HP or Defence, their damage is calculated from that stat, so piling on Attack does nothing. Crit covers Crit Rate and Crit DMG together.

How much artifacts are worth

Artifacts take a lot of resin (and luck) to farm, so it helps to know why you should bother and how far to push it. The table is a level 90 damage dealer with a 5-star weapon and the right main stats on every piece. "Useless substats" means none of the four lines help (e.g. HP and Defence on an Attack character etc). "Average" means two of the four lines help. "Good" means three do. Damage is shown against the same character wearing unlevelled pieces from no particular set.

Artifacts	Damage
Level 0, no set bonus	100%
Level 0, 4-piece set	140%
Level 12, useless substats	230%
Level 16, useless substats	260%
Level 20, useless substats	300%
Level 12, average substats	330%
Level 16, average substats	400%
Level 20, average substats	490%
Level 12, good substats	400%
Level 16, good substats	500%
Level 20, good substats	620%
Level 20, good substats, no set bonus	490%

Levelling matters most. Taking the same five pieces from 0 to 20 roughly triples your damage before substats are counted. A piece with bad substats is still worth partially levelling if it's what you have. Main stats on their own get you about half of a finished build. The other half comes from substats, which is why the pieces you keep long term are the ones with Crit lines on them.

Level 16 gets you to about 80% of level 20. However the last four levels cost about as much experience as the first sixteen combined. Stopping at 16 on a piece you expect to replace is usually a decent call. A set bonus is worth about a quarter. Off-set pieces with good substats beat on-set pieces with useless ones every time.

These are averages. A lucky piece can land 20% above the table and an unlucky one 20% below. Exact values will vary depending on the team, what stats they're scaling off and what reactions you're triggering, but while the exact numbers will vary, the trend is pretty consistent.

What C1 means

Pulling a character you already own gives you a constellation instead of a duplicate, C1 through C6, each one adding something to the kit. C0 means you have none of them. Guides here are written for C0 and leave constellations out.

That's all there is to it really. Pick a character and the only question left is which order to press things in.