[Top 15] Genshin Impact Best 5 Star Characters 4.8 (Ranked) (2024)

[Top 15] Genshin Impact Best 5 Star Characters 4.8 (Ranked)

There’s always a lot of hype around 5 star characters in Genshin Impact. The odds of pulling a 5 star in Genshin are much lower than the odds of pulling a 4 star, and most 5 stars are only available on limited time Wish events. The temptation to pull for the shiny new characters can be very real!

It’s important to know which 5 stars you should spend your hard earned Primogems on, so here are the 15 best 5 star characters in Genshin Impact as of version 4.8!

15. Nilou (Support)

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Nilou is a Hydro support character specifically for Bloom teams. Generally, Bloom teams are much weaker than their variants Hyperbloom and Burgeon. That changes if you have Nilou. With Nilou, your team will generate a much stronger version of Dendro Cores called Bountiful Cores as long as your team has only Hydro and Dendro units. Bountiful Cores deal increased damage and deal damage in a wider AoE.

You should consider Nilou for these reasons:

• Powerful and Unique Support: Nilou has a niche that no other character can fulfill. Nilou’s Boutiful Cores deal very high damage and detonate much faster than regular Dendro cores. There is currently no other way to generate Bountiful Cores without Nilou and there is an entire team archetype specific to her alone.
• High AoE Damage: Nilou really shines in AoE content where there are a lot of enemies to defeat. Her Bountiful Cores can be generated very quickly and detonate in a wide AoE. Even though you can’t bring an Anemo grouper, that generally won’t be a problem thanks to the team’s strong AoE capabilities.
• Teamwide Elemental Mastery Buff: Nilou not only allows your team to create powerful Bountiful Cores, but she also provides a 100 EM buff to the entire party.
• Easy Stat Requirements: Nilou is an easy character to farm artifacts for. Bountiful Core damage increases based on her max HP, so HP is the most important stat to stack. Elemental Mastery and Energy Recharge are nice to have a bit of as well, although Nilou is not a Burst reliant character so there isn’t a specific ER breakpoint that you need to worry about hitting. The rest of your team mainly needs to focus on EM, avoiding the need to farm high Crit value artifacts.

If you give Nilou a try, just make sure that you bring a strong healer on your team. Like any Dendro Core, Bountiful Cores deal damage to your active character when they detonate and can make survivability a challenge without strong healing.

14. Navia (On-field DPS)

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Navia is a Geo DPS with a unique focus on the often forgotten Crystallize reaction. She deals high, front loaded damage using her Elemental Skill and gains a brief Geo infusion and damage bonus to her Normal, Charged, and Plunging attacks with her Burst. This allows Navia to play very well in quick swap teams where she gets off her damage quickly and then switches out to allow her off-field DPS and support teammates to use their skills before she takes the field again.

Navia’s main strengths are:

• Flexible Team Options: Several Geo characters have kits that try to pigeonhole them into mono Geo teams, but not Navia. Her Skill deals increased damage based on the number of Crystallize shards you pick up, so you actually want to run her alongside non-Geo characters who can help trigger these reactions. 4 star characters like Xingqiu, Fischl, Xiangling, and Bennett are among her best teammates, so odds are you already have the pieces needed to build a very strong Navia team.
• Comfortable Playstyle: The shields that Crystallize provides are quite weak, so they are often ignored when taking team survivability into account. But because Navia teams are built so that you’re triggering as many Crystallize reactions as possible, you’ll almost always have one activated and these constant shields can impact how tanky your team is.
• Easy Geo Resonance Activation: If you choose to run Navia alongside a flexible off-field Geo DPS like Albedo or Chiori, Crystallize can also easily help you activate the shield requirement for Geo resonance buffs without running a dedicated shielder.

Navia is a fun and satisfying Geo DPS that you won’t be disappointed with. She does tend to struggle more in AoE content than against bosses, but because her teams are so flexible it’s easy to make up for this by running an off-field DPS like Xiangling who deals high AoE damage.

13. Xianyun (Support)

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Xianyun is an Anemo support that focuses on enabling and buffing Plunge damage. While this support ability is niche, it’s a niche that she alone fulfills. Xianyun’s Burst enables your whole team to jump very high, enabling characters to perform Plunging attacks who otherwise couldn’t. She isn’t a character who can easily be slotted into any team, but in the teams where she does excel she is completely irreplaceable.

You should consider Xianyun if you value these strengths:

• Extremely Unique Support Abilities: No other character enables Plunging attacks. Xianyun’s release has been a huge buff for characters like Diluc who have high Plunging attack multipliers, but no way to easily perform these attacks. The buffs that she provides to Plunging attacks is also incredibly strong, so she is also an amazing support option for Xiao even though he can perform Plunging attacks without her.
• Crit Rate Buffer: In addition to her unique Plunging attack buffs, Xianyun also provides a teamwide Crit Rate buff. Although not as unique as her other buffs, this is still a powerful and almost universally useful effect.
• Role Consolidation: Xianyun packs multiple support roles into one character. In addition to being a powerful buffer, she also provides both teamwide healing as well as single target healing to your active character. And if that wasn’t enough, as an Anemo unit she can also wear the Viridescent Venerer artifact set to inflict elemental res shred on the enemies when she triggers Swirl.

Some of Xianyun’s buffing abilities may be niche, but they are extremely powerful and they allow her to enable a playstyle that would otherwise be impossible for most characters.

12. Sangonomiya Kokomi (Support)

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Kokomi is a Hydro catalyst user with strong healing capabilities. She’s able to provide single target healing to your active character through her Skill as well as teamwide healing via the enhanced Normal attacks enabled by her Burst. She’s an incredibly flexible unit that can be a great boon to several different team archetypes.

You should consider Kokomi if you want:

• Strong Healing: Kokomi’s healing is very strong. She’s able to continuously provide healing to your active character through the jellyfish that she places on the field with her Skill. Her Burst enables teamwide healing. She does need to stay on-field to use Normal attacks in order to heal the entire team, but her healing output is quite high so she’s able to top up the team pretty quickly.
• Constant Hydro Application: The jellyfish from Kokomi’s Skill not only heals your active character, but it also applies Hydro to nearby enemies. The duration of her Skill is refreshed by her Burst, so the uptime on her off-field Hydro application is great. Hydro is an integral part of multiple strong reactions, so a strong source of Hydro application is great to have.
• Flexible Team Building: Kokomi fits into a lot of different teams. Her consistent off-field Hydro application makes her a great choice for Hyperbloom, Freeze, Vaporize, and Electro-Charged. Her Burst also increases the damage of her Normal attacks based on her Healing Bonus stat, so she can also be used as an on-field driver for reactions.

Kokomi is a strong and flexible healer, and if you decide to go for her then you won’t have a shortage of teams that she works well in.

11. Zhongli (Support)

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Zhongli, the Geo Archon himself, focuses on providing extremely strong shields for your team. He’s an extremely flexible character who can easily be slotted into most teams as a defensive option.

Zhongli is great for these reasons:

• Extremely Strong Shields: Zhongli is the strongest shielder in the game and his shields make gameplay very comfortable. His shields can usually take several hits before breaking, giving your team very strong survivability and resistance to interruption. The pillar created by his Skill also pulses to deal Geo damage to nearby enemies, making the Tenacity of the Millelith a very viable artifact set to further increase shield strength.
• Additional Support Capabilities: Aside from his shields, Zhongli has two other notable support abilities built into his kit. First, when your characters are protected by his shield, nearby enemies have all Elemental Res and Physical Res decreased, allowing your DPS characters to deal more damage. Second, his Burst petrifies enemies for a few seconds, allowing him a form of crowd control.

If you have Zhongli, he makes the game a lot easier. His strong shields make dodging attacks far less important and your characters immune to being staggered. If you need a shielder, Zhongli is the most reliable option.

10. Baizhu (Support)

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Baizhu is a Dendro healer. He has very high healing output as well as a few additional support capabilities. His sustain abilities are very strong, and with Baizhu on your team you should have a very easy time keeping everyone alive.

Consider using Baizhu if you want:

• Consistent Teamwide Healing: Baizhu has strong teamwide healing on his Skill, so his healing can be used very consistently. This is especially notable for teams with Furina. Baizhu is one of the best options for Furina teams because his healing offsets the HP drain that she inflicts on your team and helps to maximize her Fanfare stacks quickly.
• Resistance to Interruption and Dendro Application with Burst: Baizhu’s Burst creates shields around your active character. Although the shields are weak, they do increase your resistance to interruption. These shields also heal your active character when they break or expire. The shield is refreshed every 2.5 seconds, so they greatly improve your active character’s survivability through stagger immunity and constant healing. His Burst also deals Dendro damage to opponents, which helps to facilitate Dendro reactions.
• Dendro Reaction Buffs: Characters protected by Baizhu’s Burst gain a damage bonus to all Dendro reactions based on Baizhu’s max HP. Baizhu’s healing also scales on HP, so stacking HP not only increases his healing output but also provides a damage bonus for your Dendro reactions.

Baizhu is a strong healing option for just about any Dendro team. He does a great job at keeping team HP high while also providing a nice damage buff on top of that. If you want a flexible healer for Dendro or Furina teams, Baizhu is a great option to consider.

9. Hu Tao (On-field DPS)

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Hu Tao is a Pyro on-field DPS with a high risk, high reward playstyle. She excels in dishing out high single-target damage. Her kit revolves around sacrificing a portion of her HP in order to gain a massive attack bonus that scales on her max HP.

Hu Tao is great at:

• High Vaporize Damage: Hu Tao is best played in Vaporize teams with fast Hydro application from characters like Xingqiu or Yelan (or both). Although she can struggle in AoE combat situations, she is one of the top single target DPS characters in the game.
• Self-Sufficient: While Hu Tao does sacrifice her own HP in order to deal damage, her Burst heals her in addition to dealing damage. If her HP is below 50%, then the healing and damage are increased. This helps to offset her HP drain and makes it possible to run her in teams without a healer.
• Crit Rate Buff for the Team: In addition to her high damage output, Hu Tao also provides her team with a 12% Crit Rate buff. This isn’t a game breaking buff, but it’s nice to have some teamwide support on a DPS character.

If you’re willing to put up with her HP drain, Hu Tao is an extremely strong DPS character who can shred through Boss enemies with ease.

8. Raiden Shogun (On-field DPS or Off-field DPS)

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The Electro Archon, Raiden Shogun is a very formidable ally to have. She has a flexible kit that allows her to assume the role of either an on-field DPS or off-field DPS, depending on your preference and the needs of your team.

Raiden Shogun’s key strengths are:

• Flexible Playstyle: Raiden Shogun’s Skill enables her to deal Electro damage from off-field to opponents via coordinated attacks whenever your active character deals damage. This works for any active character, not just Raiden, so she can be played as an off-field DPS to enable Electro reactions for your on-fielder. Her Burst infuses her Normal, Charged, and Plunging attacks with Electro, enabling her to take on the role of the main On-Field DPS. This makes her teams very flexible.
• High Energy Generation: Raiden Shogun gains a damage bonus based on her Energy Recharge stat. Because of this, she will typically be built with high ER. This not only increases her damage, but also allows Raiden to be a great battery for the rest of her team.
• Teamwide Burst Damage Buff: When Raiden’s Skill is active, your active character will gain a damage buff to their Bursts. Her Skill’s duration is longer than its cooldown, so this buff can have 100% uptime.

Raiden Shogun is a character with on-field and off-field DPS capabilities, as well as teamwide support. She is very versatile and if you’re looking for a flexible character, Raiden Shogun is definitely one to consider.

7. Alhaitham (On-field DPS)

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Alhaitham is a Dendro on-field DPS and he is one of the strongest DPS characters available. Dendro reactions are among the most powerful reactions in the game, and because Alhaitham is a DPS with very fast Dendro application he has access to a lot of very strong team options.

Alhaitham is a great character to have for these reasons:

• Very Flexible Team Building: Alhaitham can fulfill an on-field role in any Dendro team archetype. Be it Hyperbloom, Quicken, or Burgeon, Alhaitham is a great DPS choice for all of them.
• Damage Capabilities: Alhaitham can deal high damage in both AoE and single target scenarios. Because the Spiral Abyss often has one side that is more focused on AoE and one side more focused on single target, this means that Alhaitham can often be a great DPS choice for either side.
• Elemental Mastery Scaling: One of Alhaitham’s passive talents increases his damage based on his EM. This is great for Alhaitham because building EM provides both a damage bonus and it increases the damage that he deals through reactions.

Alhaitham is a premier on-field DPS character and is a great addition to any account that needs a strong DPS for Abyss.

6. Arlecchino (On-field DPS)

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Arlecchino is an on-field Pyro DPS who is similar to Hu Tao in a few ways. They both employ high risk, high reward playstyles. Rather than sacrificing HP like Hu Tao, Arlecchino places a Bond of Life on herself in exchange for increased damage output. Arlecchino is ranked higher on this list because she has higher raw scalings, giving her a higher damage ceiling and more team options.

Consider Arlecchino if you’re looking for:

• Flexible Pyro DPS: Hu Tao is very reliant on Vaporize reactions to deal high damage. Arlecchino excels in a wider variety of teams, so she can be an extremely strong option in Vaporize, mono Pyro, and Overload (with Chevreuse).
• Self-Sufficient: Arlecchino can’t be healed by any of your other party members during combat, leaving her Burst as her sole form of healing. That being said, her Burst heals her for quite a lot, so you can run her without a healer. She does appreciate a strong shielder like Zhongli, though!
• Strong Self Buffs: Arlecchino’s kit provides her with several buffs. She applies a Bond of Life to herself, enabling her to enter an enhanced state and infusing her Normal, Charged, and Plunging attacks with Pyro. She also increases her own Elemental and Physical Res based on her attack stat, decreasing the damage that she takes to mitigate her inability to be healed by the rest of your party. Lastly, she has a permanent 40% Pyro damage bonus.

Arlecchino’s unique Bond of Life focused playstyle can take some getting used to, but in return you’ll get a powerful and flexible DPS who can carry your team to victory.

5. Yelan (Off-field DPS)

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Yelan is a Hydro off-field DPS character with similarities to Xingqiu. And with Xingqiu being one of the strongest characters in the game, being similar to him is definitely a good thing!

Consider Yelan if you need:

• Consistent Off-Field Hydro Application: Like Xingqiu, Yelan is a character who deals off-field Hydro damage through her Burst that’s triggered when your active character uses Normal attacks. Her Hydro application is slower than Xingqiu’s, but her damage output tends to be higher. Hydro is a very strong element that a lot of teams need, so she’s an incredibly flexible option to have.
• Damage Buff to Active Character: While Yelan’s Burst is active, your active character will receive a damage buff starting at 1% and increasing by 3.5% every second, capping at 50%. This is a nice support ability to have in addition to her high damage output.

Yelan is a great character to have, even if you have already built Xingqiu. It can be really nice to have Yelan for one Abyss team and Yelan for the other, and they even make great teammates to maximize off-field Hydro application.

4. Kaedehara Kazuha (Support)

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Kazuha is an Anemo support character that packs multiple strong abilities into one character. He’s the strongest Anemo character in the game, and he is an amazing support to slot into any team that relies on damage of a Swirlable element.

Kazuha’s a great character because:

• Strong Buffing Abilities: Like any Anemo character, Kazuha can wear the Viridescent Venerer artifact set to decrease the enemy res of elements that he Swirls. But Kazuha goes beyond that - for any element that he Swirls, characters in your party of those elements gain a damage bonus based on his Elemental Mastery. At 1000 EM, that’s a whopping 40% damage bonus!
• High Swirl Damage: Kazuha should be stacking EM to maximize the damage bonus that he provides the team, and high EM also translates to high Swirl damage.
• Strong Grouping: Kazuha has the best grouping capability in the game. Using his Skill draws enemies towards him. This makes it much easier to draw enemies to a specific position than abilities like Venti’s Burst, which may not target the enemy that you wanted it to.

Kazuha is a character that feels great to play and that really enhances the damage output of your team. His grouping is second to none, and he’ll make AoE content much more manageable.

3. Furina (Off-field DPS and Support)

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Furina’s introduction to the game was a real game changer for team building. She deals Hydro damage from off-field with her Hydro summons with her Skill, and her Burst provides a huge teamwide damage boost. She can also switch her summons to a healing option, but this is a huge damage loss and isn’t really recommended.

Furina is an amazing character for these reasons:

• High Off-Field Damage: Furina’s damage scaling for her DPS summons is quite good, allowing her to contribute solid Hydro damage while also providing significant buffs to the team. Her damage is further amplified by the powerful Golden Troupe artifact set.
• Strong Teamwide Buffs: Furina’s Burst buffs your entire team’s damage output and healing output based on fluctuations in HP. When your team’s HP increases or decreases, she gains Fanfare stacks that increase the damage bonus. Her DPS summons drain the HP of your entire team, so running her with a strong teamwide healer makes maxing out her Fanfare stacks quite easy.
• HP Manipulation: Because Furina’s summons drain your team’s HP, she can enable characters who do not have any HP manipulation built into their own kits to utilize the Marechaussee Hunter artifact set. This set provides a huge Crit Rate boost when the wearer’s HP increases or decreases, but many characters can’t consistently activate the effect without Furina.

Furina is an incredibly unique character that acts as an off-field DPS and powerful support unit at the same time. She is irreplaceable in a lot of teams and opens up a lot of team building options that weren’t there before her release.

2. Nahida (Off-field DPS and Support)

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Nahida is without a doubt the premier character for off-field Dendro damage and buffs. In most teams, she is a huge upgrade over other off-field Dendro options and is a best in slot teammate for almost all Dendro teams.

Nahida is amazing because:

• High Dendro Application: Nahida’s Skill has the highest Dendro application in the game. Her Skill marks all enemies hit and links them together. Whenever one of the linked enemies takes damage from a Dendro reaction, all of the linked enemies take damage based on Nahida’s attack and EM, enabling AoE damage across all linked opponents.
• High Elemental Mastery Buff: Nahida’s Burst provides your active character with an EM buff based on 25% of your highest teammate’s EM. This will usually be Nahida herself. If she has 1000 EM, then your active character will get a huge 250 EM buff. Dendro teams are very reaction reliant, so high EM is a big increase to damage.
• Elemental Mastery to Crit Conversion: Nahida has a passive talent that converts her EM into Crit Rate and Crit Damage. This allows her to focus her build completely on EM in order to maximize the EM buff that her Burst provides, while also gaining Crit stats on top of that in order to increase her own personal damage.

Nahida is amazing in any and all Dendro teams. She deals high damage herself and maximizes the damage that your on-fielder will deal, as well. Just keep in mind that you’ll need to reapply her Skill when a new wave of enemies appears!

1. Neuvillette (On-field DPS)

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Neuvillette’s release set a new standard for on-field DPS characters. The Iudex of Fontaine boasts high damage output, great survivability, and team flexibility.

Neuvillette is the top 5 star character in the game for these reasons:

• High Damage Output: Neuvillette has high damage scalings and deals this damage in a large AoE. The majority of Neuvillette’s damage comes from his Charged attacks. These Charged attacks create a large Hydro blast in front of him. You can easily move around and change the direction that you’re facing mid-blast, making it very easy to hit multiple enemies.
• Strong Survivability: Neuvillette is one of the most self-sufficient characters in the game. His Charged attacks consume some of his HP while he is attacking until he reaches 50%, however picking up the water droplets created by his Skill and Burst provide healing. This allows you to top up his HP at the start of each Charged attack. His damage also scales on his HP, so his total HP will be quite high and allow him to take a hit.
• Flexible Teams: Neuvillette fits into just about any team that utilizes Hydro: mono Hydro, Electro-Charged, Hyperbloom, Burgeon, Vaporize, or Freeze are all viable options. He has a passive talent that increases the damage of his Charged attack based on the number of different Hydro related reactions triggered in the party, with a maximum of 3. This incentivizes you to play him with multiple elements, although his multipliers are high enough on their own that mono Hydro can still be a strong team as well.

Neuvillette really is the standard against which other DPS characters are judged nowadays because he honestly just does it all. He can take on single target and AoE content, he can heal himself, and he has really strong damage multipliers. We’ll see if Natlan introduces a new DPS who can knock him off of his throne.

And there you have it, the top 15 5 star characters in Genshin Impact as of version 4.8! Did your favorite make the list? Let us know who you play in the comments!

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