Genshin Impact party guide: How to have the best party lineup

When you're first starting out in Genshin Impact, it's easy to become overwhelmed with building up a perfect party of fighters. Initially, you'll only have a small cast of characters to work with, but you'll quickly obtain more through events and the game's Wish system, as you'll be showered in Primogems to spend on Wishes early on. Whether you're starting out your journey for the first time on PS5 or you've been playing or a while, you can put together a solid squad in no time at all.

Once you have a few characters sitting around, likely representing all available elements (there are seven total elements, but Dendro doesn't have any character representatives currently), and you probably want to know who you should be spending resources on to make the strongest party you can in one of the best Android games available.

There's no perfect answer to the perfect party. The real answer, especially in a gacha game, is a mix of what you have access to and what you're most comfortable using. That said, we've compiled some tips here that will help you get the most out of your party building in Genshin Impact.

What are you using the party for?

The first question you should ask yourself is what you're building this team for in the first place. If you just want to explore the world of Genshin Impact, your considerations will be very different from those who want to build a team that can tackle high-level content. For example, you'll want more exploration skills, like the Traveler's Geo abilities, and the basic free characters you get from the story early on should be good enough to fill your needs. There's a long list of characters in Genshin Impact, so you've got plenty of options for putting a team together.

But beyond that, when building a team, you're likely aiming to tackle certain kinds of challenging content — either to beat bosses or collect resources. Though you're likely doing lots of different types of this content, it can be good to see what elements are generally recommended in things like Domains: Pyro, Cryo, and Electro come up frequently as recommended elements — Geo, Hydro, and Anemo less so. Keep this in the back of your mind as you build your team.

Build around your best character

This may seem obvious, but by the time you get to the point where building a party takes real effort in Genshin Impact (around Adventure Rank 25 or so), you definitely have a decent variety of characters — and not just the ones the game handed you for free. Genshin Impact showers you in Primogems as you play, which can be cashed in for Wishes, which are used to obtain new and better characters.

Take a look at our guide to the best characters in Genshin Impact and figure out who the best character currently on your team is. From there, you're going to build your team around that character. If you get a better character later on down the line, you may want to reshape your team around them, but even if that happens you'll likely be able to use strong characters in multiple different team compositions, so your resources won't be going to waste.

What role does each character play?

Once you know who you want to build your team around, you want to consider what role they're playing in your party. Are they a heavy damage dealer, or a healer? Do they play a supporting role?

Generally, you want a team composed of at least two strong damage dealers whose elements complement one another, as well as at least one healer or support character, while your fourth character is more flexible depending on what makes sense for your party. So, for example, if you're building your team around the healer Qiqi, you probably don't need Barbara also in the party. If you've gotten lucky enough to roll Diluc, bringing on fellow Pyro element and close-range attacker Bennett isn't the best idea.

Take a look at the other characters available to you and their strengths, and try to compose a team that has a good balance of roles so that you can do lots of damage while staying alive.

Consider your elemental balance

It's important to consider the elements you're bringing into your party and how they work together. A good rule of thumb is to bring in four characters each with a different element, though there are also stat bonuses for your party having multiple users of the same element. You won't get Elemental Reactions, but if you have, for instance, two super-strong Electro users, this may be an avenue you want to take.

It's also key to think of how the elements work together in Elemental Reactions. Pyro and Electro are a popular combo for big damage, as are Electro and Cryo. It can be worth it to practice some combinations on weaker groups of enemies while you're trying to figure out your party composition to see what makes sense. For example, Fischl can unleash Oz for Electro damage, then immediately swap into a Pyro character like Klee, Xiangling, or Diluc to perform multiple Overloads in a row. Or, if Barbara or Mona is in your party as a support, you may want to bring in a Cryo user to freeze the enemies who are already impacted by the Wet status from Hydro attacks.

Have a variety of weapon types

Finally, you want to think about having a variety of weapon types in your party. Having four bow users might be great for hitting distance targets, but when enemies run up on you, you're in trouble. In general, it's good to keep at least one Claymore user around to break heavy shields, and at least one bow user as well for distance fighting. The final two slots can be left up to what you're comfy with and what characters best support one another.

If you have to swap characters, don't stress

One of the most worrying things about building a Genshin Impact team is that, given the number of resources it takes to build a character up, you might eventually get someone better you want to replace them with.

Try not to be too concerned with this. Yes, it's frustrating when it happens. However, think of it instead as an opportunity to have a fifth character you can swap in as needed. For instance, I had been building up Xiangling for a while, but then I rolled Klee and replaced her in my main line-up. However, I can still bring Xiangling in for certain tasks where having a sturdier Pyro user is still helpful, or where I want to beef up both her and Klee's Pyro powers together with the same element buff.

And if you're short on time and energy to play Genshin Impact, it's also fine not to use "better" characters if it would be too much work to build them up to the level of your current party. Though some characters are pretty clearly stronger than others, there really isn't much content apart from the very, very late game that is going to be challenging for you if you have a set of merely above average party members that are really beefed up.

Actually buff up your characters as much as possible

This may seem obvious, but one element of Genshin Impact that can go unnoticed is just how many avenues there are to making your party stronger. Even average characters can be really powerful if you pour resources into every element of their development.

Aside from just leveling characters up and Ascending them when you can, you should also be leveling up and ascending their weapons and Artifacts. Leveling up Artifacts isn't given as much attention, but it's important to do, especially once you start getting purple and gold rarity Artifacts.

Also of help are each character's Constellations, which give them new abilities or buffs every time you pull an "extra" of that character from the Gacha. You can't really control how often you get these, but when you do, make sure you're using them -- there's no benefit to not spending your Constellations when you get them.

And finally, don't forget Talents! Every character allows you to level up their Talents once they Ascend for the second time (to level 40) and you get more Talent levels available to you both through Constellations and future Ascensions. These can be costly, you'll need resources from certain Domains to do these, but it's well worth it for the buffs to their staple abilities.