"Meta" Character Tier list | GI v5.1.1

Ranking Rules:

1. Rankings are determined by how useful a character is in their "best" team in Spiral Abyss.
2. 4-stars are ranked at C6, while 5-stars are ranked at C2 or C1R1, depending on which is better for the character. This is pretty uncommon, so I have my reasons listed below:

~Mathematically, it doens't make much sense to assume a player has any one specific C6 4-star without at least C1 of the on-banner 5-star. This is especially true for newer characters, or those that are exclusive to specific 5-stars.

~It is a completely feasible that people will vertically invest into characters that they like even at the F2P level. I would argue it's even relatively common with this new generation of characters releasing with broken early constellations.

~Frankly, the overall ranking of characters doesn't change much. For example, Eula is always going to be the worst on-field DPS in the game. Pulling her C2 will NOT change that. On the flip side, Furina is still a top three character at C0. Pulling her C2 moves her up two places (on my list), but she's still tier 0 no matter what. There are very few characters that actually move up a whole tier after obtianing their C2 and when that does happen, it will be mentioned in a disclaimer.

3. This isn't exactly one of my ranking rules, but I assume that you know the basics of most characters. Like, I'm not going to write a paragraph explaining how Fischl's A4 works in my explanation section.

Furina: In my personal opinion, the "best" character in the game is highly contentious and there are many different options that could be put here. However, at C2 I think Furina is clearly the best. She has the potential to just straight up double your entire party's damage and allows characters to access 4pc Marechaussee, effectively also giving a 36% CR boost. At C0, she has the issue of really wanting a strong healer on her teams, but that issue isn't super annoying. However, it would knock her out of the #1 position in my opinion. Regardless, she's still amazing and absolutely a top 3 character no matter what. Oh! And let's not forget about her damage (because frankly I feel like people are so focussed on her burst, they forget why her best artifact set is 4pc Golden Troupe). A well invested Furina does as much off-field DPS as some actual DPS units, so regardless of how much of a buff you get from fanfare, you're still providing stupid amounts of extra damage.

Xilonen: A bit of an ironic character in this situation because this list is inspired by Jello Impact, who is of the belief that Xilonen is the 2nd most meta-defining character after Furina. I do not share this opinion, but I can agree that she is excpetionally strong. At C0, she is roughly equal to Kazuha, but when they are both at C2, XIlonen is the clear winner. Her C2 buffs are just simply better than both Kazuha's 200 EM buff to the on-field unit and Freedom Sworn's passive. In my opinion, the most valuable things she does are enabling non-PHEC units and synergizing well with Furina. Characters with swirlable elements have alwyas had the advantage over Geo and Anemo DPSes because they can take advantage of VV and Kazuha, but Xilonen's release changes that. Xilonen's buffing capabilities are so good that she has even changed some of the optimal teams that have traditionally been very stale (ex: Itto mono Geo) to include non-synergistic units just because it's more damage. In addition to her buffs, her strong single-target healing allows for a team core consisting of herself and Furina to allow pretty much any character to perform at least decently.

Kazuha: For a 1.x unit, Kazuha has done very well for himself and it isn't just because there aren't better options (insert Xiangling copypasta). Kazuha provides very similar buffs to Xilonen. With a 1000 EM build (which is admittedly pretty difficult to manage), he actually provides 4% more RES shread than XIlonen while matching Cinder City's elemental damage bonus. However, he trades slightly higher potential for lower uptime and lower QoL. Based on this alone, any situation where grouping is not necessary will generally see Xilonen will outperform him. Even in some situations where there is a need for limited AoE, Xilonen will still do better if your team lacks defensive utility. This means on average Xilonen is the better pick, and constellations just exacerbate the issue.

Bennett: Congratulations to the true Pyro archon for being the only 4-star in tier 0. Until Mavuika is released and most likely even after her release, Bennett will be an invaluable unit for every player. He provides an unrivaled ATK buff and honeslty really good healing. After 4.2, his healing has the benefit of allowing him to synergize with Furina, which further increases his value. Even if Mavuika is just direct powercreep to him, he's still going to be used simply because he's a 4-star and more accessible. He's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Neuvillette: Neuvillette is not the strongest DPS. Let's just clear that up right away. Mualani and even Arlecchino can eclipse him in terms of numbers, but the amount of brain power required to play those characters is the difference-maker. Neuvillette provides strong damage and a 0 iq playstyle, perfect for any type of player. It doesn't hurt that his best team consists of the 3 best supports in the game either.

Yelan: On release, people mostly considered her a 5-star Xingqiu. They both provided strong off-field Hydro application and damage. She provided more damage and a relevant, ramping daamge buff in exchange for his defensive utility. However, as time has progressed the landscape of the meta has changed. Basically, Furina was released. Not only did this make off-field Hydro application less of a commodity, it also meant every team she was used in, which happened to be quite a few teams, had a healer. If you have a healer, you don't really need Xingqiu's damage reduction. Sure the interruption resitance was nice, but by the time patch 4.2 was released, most people had learned to dodge, or they pulled Zhongli. Basically, Xingqiu's benefits over Yelan weren't really benefits anymore. Take away his defensive utility and all he has is slightly more Hydro application in single-target and STUPID long cooldowns. All of this to say, Yelan is still top tier and Xingqiu is less good.

Mualani: Mualani is interesting. Despite being an HP-scaling Hydro catalyst, she is not like Neuvillette at all. She has basically no synergistic teammates, she isn't easy to play and she has both the best and worst AoE performance at the same time. Mualani is the first forward Vape character released and as such, she doesn't really have any supports that work well with her. Most people suspect this will change as the game progresses further into Natlan, so for now she's only the second best DPS. Once the likes of Mavuika come out, she might honestly be better than Neuvillette. Her AoE is absolute (up to 5 enemies) due to the mechanics of her skill. This could make is so that she outperforms him in AoE as well as single-target, but for now that's speculation. TL:DR, Mualani is a very strong single-target, forward Vape attacker with pending synergistic teammates.

Arlechcino: God, DPS units are so bland. It's so hard to say anything about the excpet, "s/he does more or less damage than this other character". Arlecchino is interesting because of her BoL mechanic, which prevents her from healing from anything excpet her burst. This makes her a somewhat high skill ceiling character, though honestly you kill things so fast that her survivability isn't generally an issue. Arlecchino's main claim to fame is that she deos more single-target damage than Neuvillette, while having more AoE than Hu Tao, but then Mualani was released. She's still a better Hu Tao tough. (It's honestly ridiculous anyone thought she was comparable to Hu Tao at release lmao.)

Nahida: The little raddish barely sneaks into tier 0 this time around. Dendro has... fallen off? No not really, Hoyo has just been releasing better characters. When Sumeru and its respecitve element were introduced to the game, the entire meta was changed overnight. All the best teams were suddenly Dendro. Right? Not really. Dendro lowered the floor of "low investment" teams. With the infamous hyperbloom reaction, you could clear content a lot more easily than before, but the teams that output the highest damage were always the traditional teams like Hu Tao double Hydro and Ayaka Freeze. The problem with Dendro nowadays is that it has a cpaped ceiling. There's only so much EM you can put on your Kuki or Raiden, but the likes of Furina, Kazuha and now Xilonen allow talent damage to do so much more than a single hyperbloom core. Combine that with the release of characters with just straight up higher multipliers in general and you're now living in a pretty unfriednly world for Dendro. Because of this, Nahida has fallen in value. Dendro teams are still very capable and she is still the best Dendro unit for those teams, but the tail end of Fontaine and the beginning of Natlan has released units that can easily out-DPS the traditional double Hydro hyperbloom team. Her constellations don't change anything because they're only good in Dendro teams. Like, yeah, they're the best constellations to pull for any Dendro team, but they're only for Dendro.

Fischl: I never expected to see Fischl in the top 10 of a "meta" tierlist, especially one made by me, but honestly who else is taking the spot? I can see an argument for Sucrose because of her similarities to Kazuha, but that's about it. Fischl is basically THE Electro DPS. She is Aggravate. All your favorite Electro DPSes aren't crap without Fischl. Due to how the reaction works, you would need a rediculously high talent multiplier to do more damage than Fischl can provide. She is also the best option for off-field Electro application in every team where you would need it. She isn't exactly at the level of tier 0 units because all she really has is damage and there are plenty of high-damage options, but it's still a lot of freakign damage.

Sucrose: In a different (older) world, Sucrose probably would've been top 10. She just isn't it anymore. Technically she outperforms Kazuha in certian teams, but he just feels so much better to play. That's always been my personal reason for rating him above her and now that Xilonen is out, there's even less of a reason to put her farther up on the tierlist. I will say that as an on-field driver, she is definitely a better option, but other than that she's just another VV bot.

Navia: Xilonen's release has made Navia noticeably more powerful. Yeah, she'll probably need a little more ER to ensure you burst every rotation and you definitely won't max out her crystalize stacks, but Xilonen's buff more than makes up for it especially when paried with Furina. Without constellations, Navia probably falls below Chevreuse just because she's a hypercarry and is limited to teams built around her, but her constellations honeslty don't drastically affect anything.

Chevreuse: Chevreuse teams were like a precursor to Xilonen. They gave us a sneak peak at what the world could be like without VV, and thank God for that. The QoL of not needing to swap back to your Anemo unit every 10 seconds or double swirl is so nice. Chevreuse teams sheet some of the highest DPR numbers in the game (meaning they theoretically do the most damage) and she pretty much delivers on that promise. She doesn't even feel that niche to play. Unlike Nilou, you don't feel like you're building around her. It just feels like playing another Raiden team, or another Clorinde team, not a Chevreuse team. At C6, her buffing capabilites surpass Kazuha's and she provides healing (deja vu?). Absolutely phenomenal buffer for any Pyro or Electro unit that can take advantage of her.

Kinich: Kinich is a relatively boring single-target character. His damage is honeslty nothing spectacular compared to the hypercarries already listed, but it is enough to put him in the top 5. His most interesting interaction with the rest of the cast is his reliance on burning. He does not do dmaage without this reaction. However, this also means he pairs well with Emilie, who does some of the highest off-field damage in the game for some reason. This means his team are relatively high DPR. Like Mualani, he suffers from the "Pyro Archon isn't releasing until patch 5.3 syndrone", althoguh in his case, it isn't as big of an issue.

Kuki & Raiden: Disclaimer, I am a Raiden hater. Both of these units are here based on their merits as hyperbloom triggers. Hyperbloom is so good that it can act as your main source of damage and comfortably clear most Abyss cycles with 36 stars. Without hyperbloom I would be putting Raiden in at best tier 2. She is not a good character and her teams are dumb. Until Chevreuse was released, I personally thought she had 0 pull value. Her C2 and her weapon change that, slightly. Now that that's established, let's talk about hyperbloom. These two are pretty much the only options as triggers. Lisa and Yae are inconsistent, Beidou straight up doesn't trigger any cores and Cyno has anti-uptime problems. Between the two, Kuki is the better one by far. She heals you and that's pretty much it. It's mroe than what Raiden does though. At least Kuki has access to the likes of Key of Khaj-Nisut, Xiphos' Moonlight and Freedom Sword, which provide teams buffs. What does Raiden have? Dragon's Bane? Yeah, Basically no reason to play Raiden outside of hyperbloom and no reason to use her if you have Kuki.

Alhaitham: It's really sad that he was once considered the best DPS in the game and now he's barely top 20 units in the game. Alhaitham is usually thought of as a spread carry, but his best teams are hyperbloom teams. Unfortunately, we already have a top-tier hyperbloom driver in Nahida. Now, this is where it gets interesting. As purely a hyperbloom driver, Alhaitham is pretty average, but you can play him in "quickbloom" teams where the dendro core damage is akin to a Xiangling Pyronado (i.e off-field sub DPS damage). With Nahida and Furina, Alhaitham's personal talent damage and his damage through the spread reaction is actually fairly high, meaning he is arguably the highest damage hyperbloom team. He's still a solid character, but there's just better units now.

Nilou: Her teams are basically the AoE version of Alhaitham teams. Their are very few abyss cycles where Nilou is actually usable, but when she is usable, she is 100% the best option. As of now, considering the state of Dendro and the slew of unfriendly abyss cycles, she isn't really a recommended pull, but if you like her, there will definitely be places where she shines and you (probably) won't feel like you waste your pulls.

Xingqiu: See Yelan's section.

Clorinde & Yae: Yeah, I know Lyney's inbetween them, but it makes sense to pair them together. Both of these units are pretty decent Aggravate drivers and also both appreciate Chevreuse. They do fine damage, definitely nothing to scoff at, but nothing outstanding especially in Yae's case. Clorinde has some interesting BoL mechanics that allow her to play some interesting teams. The most unique is a Qiqi supertaser team where you use Furina's burst to buff healing bonus. Qiqi is then able to give Clorinde BoL through healing. Because of the extra BoL production, Clorinde can spam E without needing to charge up her attacks with N3s and Qiqi deals ok personal damage through the Clam set. It's not exactly a meta tema, but it's interesting. Overall, they're both solid units that fill pretty much the same role with Clorinde being the more interesting and better of the two.

Lyney: Lyney is a walking contradiction. He's a character with a kit based on being in a mono Pyro team, yet some of his best teams are Vape teams with Furina. Like bruh. Outside of his passives supporting mono Pyro, which makes for some semi-interesting teams (nah, they're actually pretty boring on second thought), he's just another bow charge attack character, and we all know who much everyone loves that playstyle. His teams are basically Bennett plus two. If you want to play him "correctly", you'll most likely use Xiangling with a flex unit. If you want to paly him with Furina, you'll use Furina with a flex unit. Like I said, boring. His damage output is pretty high and he is a popular speedurnning option, especailly at high vertical investment, but he's just another charge attack bow character at the end of the day.

Xiangling: Man I cannot wait to move her down a tier. Xianglign is here due to necessity. She is the ONLY consistent off-field Pyro applicator. Recently, consisten Pyro off-field applicators have come in high demand, which means she's "good". Yeah, pretty much everyone's seen through that by now. Her energy demands, her cooldows creating weird rotations, just everything about her is inconvenient. Initially, these problems were overlooked because honeslty she was used more as the DPS rather than the support, but now that we can deal equal or more daamge than her with newer characters, her issues as a support have started to show themselves. Yeah, you could just go back to using her as the DPS, but why would you do that if you have better options. Honestly, the only good thing about her is that she's unironically a really good holder for most supportive artifact sets. She's a really consistent trigger for things like Tenacity, Deepwood and Instructors. Aside form that tohugh, everyone is waiting until the day we can replace her.

Emilie:

Xianyun:

Kokomi:

Itto:

Wriothesley:

Wanderer:

Xiao:

Chiori:

Hu Tao:

Tighnari:

Keqing:

Dehya:

Candace:

Zhongli:

Sigewinne:

Baizhu:

Yaoyao:

Kirara:

Faruzan:

Noelle:

Childe:

Thoma:

Klee:

Ayato:

Cyno:

Diluc:

Gaming:

Ganyu:

Ayaka:

Beidou:

Kazhina:

Jean:

Charlotte:

Venti:

Shenhe:

Rosaris:

Kaeya:

Barbara:

Yanfei:

Collei:

Razor:

Dori:

Ningguang:

Layla:

Sara:

Gorou:

Yoimiya:

Sethos:

Diona

Lisa:

Mona:

Mika:

Sayu:

Albedo:

Heizou:

Eula:

Lynette:

Chongyun:

Freminet:

Kaveh:

Qiqi:

Yunjin:

Xinyan: Xinyan's main problem is her split scaling. You have to build either her damage or her sheild, not both, Which just makes her really mediocre. If she was built with one stat, she probably would be better, but she'd have to compete with Thoma, who is already a pretty good shielder with good application.

Amber: Her best use is as a C6 VV Vape support that can hold Elegy for the End. That's... not good. First, her C6 is exceptioanlly difficult to get and then you have to pull a 5-star weapon, all so that Bennett can do more damage? Amber was barely an option becasue Hu Tao didn't synergize with Bennett due to his healing, now that Xilonen and Xianyun are out, Amber just doesn't have a use, like, at all.

Aloy: Yeah, let's not talk about Aloy. Her kit literally doesn't work.

I'll try to finish this before the turn of the century lmao. I got about half of the more important characters done.