The Elements of Genshin Impact are the most important part of the game’s core mechanic: its combat. Elemental Reactions are what make Genshin Impact‘s combat unique, and pairing different Elements and characters together to find out what works best is part of the game’s charm. However, not every Element has equal representation, and some have a lot more characters than others, and Genshin Impact is ignoring Hydro and Anemo’s potential as a staple of free-to-play team compositions.
Anemo and Hydro are the most underrepresented Elements in Genshin Impact. Hydro used to take this spot on its own when it only had 5 characters, but the introduction of Kamisato Ayato in patch 2.6 increased Hydro’s count to 6 and has tied it with Anemo. Pyro and Cryo have 10 characters each, so these Elements dominate the roster, leaving Hydro and Anemo behind, even though the latter is just as important when it comes to Elemental Reactions.
While Pyro and Cryo are arguably the strongest Elements in the game due to the damage potential or utility of their Elemental Reactions, they are unable to reach this level of strength without Hydro, and arguably Anemo as well. Hydro is essential for Pyro’s strongest reaction, Vaporize, as well as Cryo’s strongest via utility, Freeze. Anemo causes the Swirl reaction when paired with any other Element (besides Geo), which is a good extra amount of damage, and most Anemo characters (like Sayu) use the Viridescent Venerer Artifact set, which greatly boosts the damage of whatever Element is Swirled, making Anemo an amazing support Element.
Hydro and Anemo Are Worthy Of More Representation In Genshin Impact
An issue that Hydro and Anemo have from underrepresentation is that it makes both Elements rather inaccessible to free-to-play and especially newer players. While all players get the Traveler as an Anemo unit and Barbara as a Hydro unit for free, there are other characters with the same Elements that perform their job better. However, all of these characters are 5 stars, typically meaning that if a player wants a better Hydro or Anemo option, they are going to have to spend a hefty amount of Primogems on a Featured 5-star character, which also involves waiting for them to receive a rate-up.
While Sucrose is a great (and sometimes underrated) Anemo character, she could evade players’ pulls on any banner, which means that players could be stuck without a strong Anemo character. While Sayu is a solid healer option and can easily proc Swirl, again, she could evade player’s pulls, and Jean is typically a much better choice. And while Xingqiu is a fantastic Hydro unit, especially since he is a 4-star, players could also simply not pull him, meaning they could be lacking a strong Hydro choice as well for their teams.
The main issue that this brings with it is that there simply are not enough 4-star options for Anemo and Hydro. There are only 2 Anemo 4-stars, Sayu and Sucrose, and 2 Hydro 4-stars, Barbara and Xingqiu. On the flip side, there are 4 5-star Hydro and Anemo characters each (discounting the Traveler). So, barring lucky pulls, newer players will be missing out on stronger Elements in Genshin Impact because there aren’t enough 4-star characters for them.
Adding more 4-stars of these Elements would help make them much more accessible, and help them fit into other roles they maybe haven’t before (for example, Kuki Shinobu being Electro’s first healer). Giving Anemo and Hydro more representation would be great for the game’s health and spark more inspiration to make new creative team comps in Genshin Impact.
Genshin Impact is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Android & iOS mobile devices.
