10 Best 4-Star Characters in Genshin Impact | High Ground Gaming (2024)

In Genshin Impact, lower-rarity characters can be just as good, if not better, than their higher-rarity counterparts. It’s also pretty easy to get multiple copies (constellations) for your 4-star characters. Given how much constellations can change a character’s gameplay, this is a huge boon to 4-star characters.

Plus, if we’re being honest, half of us roll on new banners for Genshin Impact’s 4-star characters anyway. If you play the game regularly, you’ll most likely end up with a couple 4-star characters at C6 just from rolling with free primogems.

Today, we’ll be going over our list of the best 4-star characters in Genshin Impact. We’ll start with our top picks and move on to our lesser favorites, discussing their place on the ranking and how to use them most effectively.

Let’s get started!

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What’s Here & Why

Before we begin, there are a few things we’d like to note:

• This list is intended to be a general overview of what each character brings to the table.
• We’ll be operating under the assumption of max leveled (90) characters, so all ascension passives will be unlocked.
• Depending on your team comp, certain characters will become exponentially more useful.
• Every character is viable if you invest enough time into them and build a team around them. Feel free to play your favorite characters — meta picks really only matter for perfect runs of the Spiral Abyss.

Top 10 4-Star Characters in Genshin Impact

Now let’s dive into each of the best 4-star characters in Genshin Impact!

1. Bennett (Pyro Sword)

Role: Burst Support

Despite being shunned by nearly every team in the game for being the unluckiest adventurer in Teyvat, Bennett is widely considered to be the best 4-star character in Genshin Impact. This is thanks to his burst, which provides the best ATK buff in the game.

What makes him so good?

Bennett creates a field that supercharges any nearby friendly for 12s with a percentage of Bennett’s base attack. At max talent level, you basically get his whole ATK as a buff! Simply pop Bennett’s burst to start a fight, then cycle through the rest of your team’s bursts and combos to deal massive damage.

Since Bennett’s burst has a low energy cost (only 60), it’s very easy to have on standby again by the time the cooldown wears off. Just make sure you build sufficient Energy Recharge on him! Thankfully, Bennett has one of the best skills for generating energy particles for the team. We recommend using the tap version of his skill to ensure its cooldown is low enough. That way, you can frequently swap to him to generate more energy.

Since Bennett is Pyro you can also run another Pyro character on your team to trigger Pyro Resonance. This grants an extra constant team-wide 25% ATK buff.

Artifact Sets

Bennett’s buff power is boosted even further with the four-piece Noblesse Oblige artifact set. This makes his burst hit harder and grants another 20% ATK buff to the entire party (which conveniently lasts as long as his burst).

Constellations

If you’re running Bennett at C0, you will have to ensure the active character you’re using is above 70% health to get the ATK buff from his burst. Otherwise, Bennett’s burst will instead provide healing (which is nice, but not ideal for doing damage).

Thankfully, reaching C1 will remove that restriction, providing both the ATK buff and healing at the same time. Additionally, it grants another 20% of Bennett’s ATK as a buff! Reaching C5 will further increase his burst’s talent level and make it give even more ATK and healing.

Note: We strongly recommend avoiding C6. While the Pyro infusion is nice for Pyro characters, it renders Bennett’s burst useless (if not a detriment) to every other elemental character. Until miHoYo adds an option to turn off constellations, avoid activating Bennett’s C6.

2. Xiangling (Pyro Polearm)

Role: Off-Field DPS

As every player is guaranteed one copy of Xiangling by clearing Floor 3 of the Spiral Abyss, the rising star chef of Liyue is a common sight in most teams. Thankfully, she’s also one of the best 4-star characters for off-field DPS, slicing and burning enemies into ingredients for later use.

What makes her so good?

Xiangling is most well known for her incredibly powerful burst, which creates fiery tornado that spins around your active character for 10s. The tornado cycles around rapidly, dealing considerable damage and applying Pyro to anything it hits. You can then swap to another character who can take advantage of the continuous Pyro application to trigger powerful elemental reactions (ideally Melt or Vaporize).

Additionally, Xiangling can use her skill to throw out Guoba, who will continuously breathe fire at any nearby enemies. Just note that he’s completely stationary and his targeting a bit random — don’t rely on him too much for damage and energy generation. We recommend tossing him near your main target to ensure he gets some hits in. Once Guoba disappears, he’ll leave behind a chili pepper that will grant a ten-second 10% ATK buff to the character who picks it up.

Artifact Sets

Given that Xiangling’s burst costs 80 energy and her skill isn’t very consistent in generating energy, you’ll be reliant on the rest of your team to fill up her burst gauge. We recommend running the four-piece Emblem of Severed Fate artifact set to help boost her Energy Recharge and make her burst hit even harder.

Constellations

If you have Xiangling at C1, Guoba’s flames will reduce their Pyro resistance by 15%, meaning her burst will hit even harder. Her burst becomes even more useful if you can reach C4 or C6 with her. The first adds an additional four seconds to her burst’s duration to a total of 14s, while the second grants a 15% Pyro damage boost to the whole team while her burst is active.

3. Xingqiu (Hydro Sword)

Role: Off-Field Support

The chilvarous bookworm and heir to Liyue’s Feiyun Commerce Guild will always come to the protection of those in trouble. Fitting for someone whose skill and burst revolve around protecting the party while driving off enemies!

What makes him so good?

Xingqiu sits near the top of our for one main reason. Absolutely no one else in the game can apply Hydro as frequently as Xingqiu, making him one of the best 4-star characters in Genshin Impact for setting up and triggering elemental reactions. Set up his skill, then switch to a different element character to watch the elemental reactions devastate your foes.

Xingqiu’s skill is a simple twin strike that deals Hydro damage to enemies and more importantly generates three rain swords around your active character for 15s. These rain swords reduce damage taken, help you resist being staggered, and apply Hydro every few seconds to enemies in contact with your character. Plus they heal a little bit based off Xingqiu’s max HP when they expire or break!

As for his burst, it’s basically an even stronger version of his skill. For 15s, your rain sword barrier will remain maxed out and any normal attack made by your active character will launch a hail of rain blades at your target. These blades do a lot of Hydro damage and apply Hydro to the enemy at a staggering rate. For this reason, Xingqiu is one of the best off-field supports in Genshin Impact.

There are only two downsides to Xingqiu. The first is that his skill has a very long cooldown of 21s and doesn’t generate much energy. If you can get a hold of the Sacrificial Sword weapon, you can drastically increase the uptime of his skill. The second is that his burst requires 80 energy, so building Energy Recharge on him is critical.

Artifact Sets

Since Xingqiu’s burst is his defining asset, we strongly recommend the four-piece Emblem of Severed Fate artifact set to help offset that high energy cost.

Constellations

While none of Xingqiu’s constellations are necessary to make him function, his C2 increases the duration of his burst by 3s and reduces enemies’ Hydro resistance. If you manage to get him to C6, you’ll be able to help his energy issues, as every third rain blade from his burst will return 3 energy to him.

4. Sucrose (Anemo Catalyst)

Role: Sub-DPS & Set Up

Despite being a 4-star character, Sucrose is arguably the single best Anemo character in Genshin Impact, outshining even Venti and Kazuha in some cases. The shy bio-alchemist of Mondstadt offers some of the strongest crowd control in Genshin Impact while providing fantastic Elemental Mastery buffs in the process.

What makes her so good?

Before we get into Sucrose’s playstyle, let’s go over her passives first. When she triggers Swirl, party members of the corresponding element get a buff of 50 Elemental Mastery for 8s (e.g. Swirl with Pyro, and Pyro members get the buff). Additionally, hitting any enemy with her skill or burst will give all other party members 20% of Sucrose’s Elemental Mastery for 8s.

Sucrose’s abilities and passives make her fantastic for gathering enemies together, weakening them, and bolstering her party’s Elemental Mastery before destroying your nicely clumped-together enemies with enhanced attacks.

As for her skill and burst, both create a large vacuum that suck enemies into the center and hit them with any elements within the vortex. The difference between the two is that the skill is a one-time application, while the burst absorbs one other element and keeps the effect going for 6s.

It also helps that the more enemies you manage to catch in your vortex, the more energy you generate. This often results in a nice little feedback loop for charging your teams’ burst gauges, and is especially useful given that Sucrose requires 80 energy to cast her burst.

Artifact Sets

Naturally, it makes sense to stack Elemental Mastery on Sucrose as her main stat. Even more so when you equip with her with the four-piece Viridescent Venerer artifact set to boost all of her damage and shred enemies’ elemental resistances.

Constellations

Additionally, all of her constellations double down and reinforce her ability to do what we just discussed. Her C1 grants an additional charge to her skill, allowing you to position enemies at will more conveniently. C4 lowers the cooldown on her skill for every seven normal/charged attacks, which are quite good given that you can spread the element on one enemy to others with your basic attacks. Finally, C6 further increases your party’s elemental damage by 20%, depending on which element is absorbed in her burst.

5. Noelle (Geo Claymore)

Role: Main DPS/Carry

The dutiful maid knight-in-training of Monstadt is more than qualified to be one of the city’s greatest protectors. If only it weren’t for her bad habit of shouldering everyone’s burdens, which is reflected in her ability to carry an entire team by herself.

What makes her so good?

Noelle is a tank, DPS, and healer rolled into one. While she requires a lot of investment to truly bring out her potential, a properly geared Noelle is possibly the strongest 4-star characters in Genshin Impact.

Her skill creates a highly-effective shield around the party for 12s. A separate instance of the shield will also activate if a party member falls below 30% health, lasting for 20s seconds for that character only. This can only happen once every 60s.

While shielded by her skill, each of her attacks have a 50% chance of healing the entire party. While the cooldown on her skill is rather long (24s), every four attacks from Noelle will reduce it by 1s.

Thankfully, her burst is all about staying on the field and swinging till the field is cleaned of enemies. For 15s, Noelle’s blade is infused with Geo, doubles in size, and gains an ATK bonus based off her DEF. You’ll often have her skill on standby again by the end of her burst, and if you have enough Energy Recharge, can activate her burst again to repeat the cycle.

Artifact Sets

As everything about Noelle scales with DEF (shield strength, healing, burst damage), you’ll want to stack it as high as possible. We recommend going for the four-piece Husk of Opulent Dreams artifact set to double down on the DEF and Geo damage bonus.

Constellations

Much like Sucrose, Noelle is another character that becomes exponentially better with each constellation level. Her C1 guarantees each attack will heal while both her skill and burst are active. C4 causes a massive Geo explosion whenever her shield expires. C6 super charges her burst damage even more and increases its duration for each enemy killed by 1s.

6. Fischl (Electro Bow)

Role: Off-Field Support & Sub DPS

The self-proclaimed princess from another world (and her faithful raven companion, Oz) open up new options for any team they’re placed on. With an emphasis on constant Electro damage, Fischl can either set up Electro reactions for her team or bombard enemies with a flurry of arrows.

What makes her so good?

With a diverse moveset befitting an otherworldly entity, Fischl’s flexibility and utility make her one of the best 4-star characters in Genshin Impact. Her skill summons Oz at her chosen destination, blasting all nearby enemies with bolts of lightning for 10s. She can also fire a charged shot at Oz to cause massive AOE damage.

Unfortunately, the skill has a rather long cooldown of 25s, but her burst allows her to circumvent this by turning into Oz, ramming into enemies, and redeploying him onto the field. On top of that, triggering any Electro-reaction with your active character while Oz is active will cause enemies to suffer 80% of Fischl’s ATK as damage.

Artifact Sets

With this burst in mind, we recommend running a two-piece Thundering Fury and a two-piece ATK artifact set to maximize Fischl’s damage output.

Constellations

If you manage to upgrade Fischl’s constellation to C1, she’ll become a fairly strong normal attacker, as each shot will trigger another attack for 22% of Fischl’s ATK. Combine this with her rather fast attack speed and animation canceling to turn her into a machine gun.

If you manage to reach C6, this is taken further by extending Oz’s duration by 2s and joining your active character’s normal attacks while he’s active.

7. Ningguang (Geo Catalyst)

Role: Main DPS

Ningguang is the ruling Tianquan of Liyue and possibly the richest person in all of Teyvat. As is befitting of her character, she’s all about establishing control and weaponizing her wealth on the battlefield.

What makes her so good?

Every time Ningguang hits an enemy with a normal attack, she gains 1 Star Jade (empowered ammunition for her charged attack). Since she can hold up to three of these at a time, you’ll want to cycle through three normal attacks into a charged attack whenever possible. This is incredibly effective, as her charged attack doesn’t consume stamina when she has a Star Jade.

Further enhancing her onslaught is her skill, which summons a massive jade screen in front of her. This screen can block enemy projectiles, and any character who walks through it will gain a 12% Geo damage buff for 10s. A fitting entrance for the ruler of Liyue.

On top of that, if Ningguang casts her burst while her skill’s jade screen is still up, it’ll do even more damage! It helps that her burst only costs 40 energy, so you’ll be bombarding your enemies non-stop. Just be careful to have enough space around you, as her burst’s projectiles can be blocked by the environment.

Artifact Sets

If you’re running Ningguang, you’ll probably want her to be your main DPS. To maximize her damage output, you’ll want to run a two-piece Archaic Petra with a two-piece ATK artifact set.

Constellations

If you’re looking for someone to devastate crowds of enemies with AOE, then Ningguang is the best 4-star character for you. However, to achieve constant AOE presence, you’ll need her at C1, where all of her normal attacks will do an AOE explosion on impact. Thankfully, between Paimon’s Exchange and the free Liyue character from each year’s Lantern Rite, it’s not too hard to reach C1. Otherwise, she’s still absolutely fantastic at dealing single target damage.

As for the rest of her constellations, Ningguang gets a huge upgrade at C2, allowing her to immediately recast her skill if its destroyed (takes too much damage, she casts her burst, or deploys another screen). C6 will grant you a whopping 7 Star Jades upon using her burst, allowing you to immediately follow up with the mother of all charged attacks.

8. Diona (Cryo Bow)

Role: Shield/Healer Support

The tiny cat-girl with a vendetta against the wine industry is next on our list for her amazing shielding/healing capabilities, excellent energy generation, and the unique ability to reduce stamina costs.

What makes her so good?

We’d like to start by emphasizing that Diona’s usefulness comes completely from being a support. She has low damage output even when built for such, and instead scales completely with HP (both for shield strength and healing done).

To that end, her most notable feature is her skill, which launches out 2–5 missiles, depending on if you tap or hold the button. When the missiles connect with an enemy, they’ll generate a shield around the party that increases in duration for each connecting missile. We strongly recommend using the hold version of her skill every time, as the shield also receives a larger damage absorption.

Additionally, while the party is shielded, you move 10% faster and consume 10% less stamina. Given that there are very few movement buffs, let alone stamina consumption ones, this is absolutely fantastic. You’ll want to maintain uptime on Diona’s shield as often as possible.

Oddly enough, Diona’s skill is one of the few in the game to increase the duration of its effect based on talent level. You want to reach at least talent level 7 for her skill as soon as possible to maximize its duration (2.4s per missile, 12s total).

As for her burst, she creates an icy mist in front of her that lingers, dealing damage and weakening foes’ attacks by 10%, while also healing party members within it. Unfortunately, she’ll need a fair bit of Energy Recharge to constantly make use of it, as it costs 80 energy.

Artifact Sets

We recommend going with a four-piece Noblesse Oblige artifact set to make Diona an opener, provided you have no one else running it. Otherwise, run a mix of a two-piece Emblem of Severed Fates and two-piece Tenacity of the Millelith set to give her more Energy Recharge and HP to boost her effectiveness.

Constellations

If possible, try to get at least C1 for Diona, as it provides a 15 energy refund every time she uses her burst to help with her high cost. If you manage to reach C6, you end up supercharging her burst to provide either more healing or a massive Elemental Mastery buff to allies within it, depending on their health.

9. Beidou (Electro Claymore)

Role: Main/Sub DPS

The legendary captain of The Crux and Ningguang’s eternal headache is probably the most difficult to master on our list of the best 4-star characters in Genshin Impact. However, anyone who plays her regularly can tell you just how much fun (and devastating) it is to perfectly counter your enemies’ attacks.

What makes her so good?

Beidou is a bit of weird case, as she’s one of the few characters in the game who wants to get hit. At least while she’s charging up her skill. You can either tap her skill to immediately swing her blade in a wide arc, or hold the skill down to form a shield that absorbs damage and charges up her attack.

To maximize her skill’s damage, you want to either get hit twice while holding the shield or tap the skill at the exact moment Beidou get hits. Tapping the skill and using it as a counter strike is the most ideal way to play Beidou, but both methods ensure you do max damage, have a higher chance to stagger the enemy, increases the range, and generates more energy. Using the skill at max charge or as a counter will also the damage and speed of Beidou’s normal/charged attacks by 15% for 10s, turning Beidou into an absolute monster.

Beidou’s burst forms a lightning aura around the party for 15s, reducing damage taken and lowering the chance of being staggered. Additionally, every normal/charged attack you make against an enemy will cause lightning to arc between nearby targets.

As her burst persists between character swaps, you can choose to swap to another character to take advantage of the Electro aura to trigger reactions or to double down on Beidou’s counter attack and make her even more of a threat.

Artifact Sets

Since Beidou’s burst is so useful, you’ll want to maintain it as much as possible. We recommend taking the four-piece Emblem of Severed Fates artifact set to help offset the 80 energy cost. If you want to make her your party’s main DPS, then a two-piece Thundering Fury and two-piece ATK set is more useful.

Constellations

Much like her best friend/headache Ningguang, Beidou benefits tremendously from C1, as it ensures she receives a shield for 15% of her health whenever she uses her burst. C4 also makes it so that Beidou actually wants to straight-up get hit to charge her normal attacks with Electro damage for 10s.

10. Yun Jin (Geo Polearm)

Role: Support

The opera singer and actress is the most recent 4-star character to be added to the game, but has quickly cemented herself at the tail end of our list for her fantastic party wide buffs. Additionally, she’s an absolute iron wall, probably from dealing with critics.

What makes her so good?

Just like Beidou, Yun Jin’s skill is a counter attack that rewards striking back at the perfect moment or absorbing blows for a brief period. Unlike Beidou though, Yun Jin’s damage output from her skill is tied directly to her DEF.

Even Yun Jin’s burst is similar, providing a party-wide aura. However, this aura instead comes with a one-time flourish of Geo damage and a large buff to the next thirty normal attacks for 12s based on Yun Jin’s DEF. Do note that an instance of the buff is consumed per hit (hitting four enemies with one strike will consume four stacks).

The more differing elements you have in the party, the more the attack buff will scale with Yun Jin’s DEF. However, it might not be worth giving an Elemental Resonance depending on your team’s composition, so keep that in mind.

Artifact Sets

As Yun Jin’s burst only costs 60 energy and she gains additional Energy Recharge by leveling up, it becomes rather easy to fill up her gauge. With that in mind, we recommend taking the four-piece Husk of Opulent Dreams artifact set to super charge her DEF and provide powerful quick swap counter attacks with her skill.

Constellations

Constellation wise, you’ll want to reach C2 if possible, as it grants another flat 15% damage buff to the party’s normal attacks. C4 is another powerful buff to her DEF, making her abilities even stronger, while C6 adds a meaty 12% attack speed buff to her burst as well.

Join the High Ground

And that’s it for our list of the ten best 4-star characters in Genshin Impact. If there’s a character you feel that deserves to be on our list or if you want us to cover another character specifically, let us know in the comments below! As always, stay tuned for the latest guides, tips, and articles to thrive in Teyvat.

Best of luck on your journey, travelers! We’ll see you next time.