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Splash art of Kadehara Kazuha in Genshin Impact
Image via HoYoverse

Top 10 Most Overpowered Characters in Genshin Impact

There are lots of powerful characters in Genshin Impact. The ones on this list, though, are completely overpowered.

Overpowered characters? In your Genshin Impact? You bet. Out of the dozens of characters you can acquire in the world’s most successful gacha game, some are so clearly better than the rest that there’s almost no comparison. Today, we’re going over the top 10 most OP characters in Genshin in no particular order.

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The Most Overpowered Characters You Can Get in Genshin Impact

There are many things that can make a character overpowered in Genshin, but the main qualification for me is: Can they completely redefine your team as soon as they’re added, with minimal investment? Every character on this list accomplishes that task so well and so fast that it’s frightening and hard to explain in words. I can write about them all day long, but until you feel their impact for yourself? It’s an entirely different ballgame.

Kaedehara Kazuha

Splash art of Kadehara Kazuha in Genshin Impact
Image via HoYoverse

Kaedehara Kazuha, or Kazuha for short, is one of a select few “must-pull” characters in the Genshin community. Adding him to a team almost always immediately improves it, and as a non-healer support, his kit offers literally everything you want. Bonus damage? Done. Enemy grouping? Done. Elemental reaction synergy with the best DPS characters in the game? Don’t even need to ask. He’s even easy to build whether you’re free-to-play or a spender. If he could heal and deal damage, there’d be no contest.

Neuvillette

A serious Neuvillette in Genshin Impact
Screenshot by GameSkinny

The actual gods Genshin Impact lets you play are always some of the most powerful characters in their class, and Neuvillette is no exception. As a dragon deity in human form, it tracks that he’d be powerful, but the frightening thing about Neuvillette is how self-sufficient he is. Like all Fontaine characters, his attacks cost HP to use, but both his Skill and Burst provide tons of healing while also enabling his massive damage potential. Did I say his damage was massive? Because it’s patently absurd.

Bennett

Splash art of Bennett from Genshin Impact
Image via HoYoverse

The developers of Genshin Impact have learned a lot about game balance since release, and there are few characters that showcase that better than Bennett. More than four years after his introduction, he is still one of the best healers and support characters in the game. His Burst automatically heals everything inside to 70% health at blinding speed while providing a huge damage boost to all inside it. His Skill has a stupidly short cooldown, and he’s exceedingly simple to build. So yeah, busted as hell.

Xiangling

Xiangling being hungry in Genshin Impact
Screenshot by GameSkinny

Another victim of early development balance, Xiangling is the premiere off-field Pyro DPS in Genshin Impact. Better yet, you get her for free just for clearing a low floor of the Spiral Abyss. Not only can she generate huge amounts of Pyro application and damage via her Burst, her Skill has a short cooldown, drops a damage buff when it disappears, and if built right, you can always have whirling saw blades made of fire circling you at all times.

Zhongli

Zhongli serving tea in Genshin Impact
Screenshot by GameSkinny

Want to press one button and win Genshin Impact? Pull Zhongli, use his Skill, and never take damage again. The Geo Archon can provide the most powerful shields in the game — so powerful that, even with mild investment, you can tackle some of the hardest content. Activate the shield, and its duration will likely run out long before enemies do enough damage to break it. Called a crutch character for good reason, Zhongli remains one of the broken characters in Genshin.

Nahida

Nahida stands before her prison in Genshin Impact
Screenshot by GameSkinny

The Dendro Archon might have the physical appearance of a five-year-old, but if you want as much Elemental Mastery and Dendro application as possible, accept no substitute. No other character is as consistent or effective in Hyperbloom reaction teams, so much so that almost every meta team has Nahida on it. She also offers some additional exploration comfort if that sort of thing is important to you. Of course, it’s her Elemental Skill and Burst that set Nahida apart, and until you see how powerful they actually are for yourself, words can only say so much.

Xingqiu

Splash art of Xingqiu from Genshin Impact
Image via HoYoverse

A third early 4-star character in the OP list? Yep. Before Yelan came along to solidify what an OP Hydro 5-star could look like, there was Xingqiu. Debate over which to use in a team that needs a solid Hydro sub-DPS rages on, and one person’s answer will hotly contest another. Between the two, however, Xingqiu provides a bit of additional healing via his Burst, so pairing him with Bennett is a popular choice, as Xingqiu can top off characters who’ve reached the Bennett’s 70% limit.

Hu Tao

Splash art of Hu Tao from Genshin Impact
Image via HoYoverse

On her own, Hu Tao is a top-tier Pyro DPS, capable of some high damage numbers alone and far more with the right team. If you take the time to learn a bit of combat tech, namely Charge Attack canceling, she suddenly enters entirely new territory. She’s also a fairly technical character, requiring precise HP management and attack timings, but if you put in the effort to master her, Hu Tao is a monster.

Raiden Shogun

The Raiden Shogun facing down an enemy in Genshin Impact
Screenshot by GameSkinny

Sure, Raiden Shogun becomes astronomically more powerful if you invest in her second Constellation, but she is still a beast at C0. Between the massive damage potential from her Elemental Burst, the utility of her Skill, and her fit as either an Electro sub or main DPS, depending on how you build her, there’s no reason not to add Raiden Shogun to your team whenever she’s available.

Furina

Furina staring into the distance in Genshin Impact
Screenshot by GameSkinny

The former ruler of Fontaine rocked the Genshin world when she was released as a character (and her story quest did, too, honestly). As a unique support with tons of team synergies and a downright silly amount of exploration comfort, there are few things Furina can’t do really well. Her Elemental Burst is core to her kit, vastly increasing your party’s damage and healing potential as long as everyone is losing and regaining HP. Her Skill is also one of the most unique ways of applying Hydro in the game, though it boils down to being a solid off-field DPS mechanic. Still, Furina is fantastic for both F2P players and those willing to put their credit card on notice, and she’s fun to play, besides.

There are dozens of other great characters to use in Genshin Impact, but the 10 on this list take the cake as the most busted of the bunch (for me, anyway). Gathering characters like these are one of the reasons I play Genshin, just to see how far I can push my admittedly meagre skills at the game. Every one of them has either carried my sorry behind through difficult content or redefined and improved almost any team I put them in, and I couldn’t be happier.

For more content like this, check out our Genshin Impact guides hub.


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Author
Image of John Schutt
John Schutt
John Schutt has been playing games for almost 25 years, starting with Super Mario 64 and progressing to every genre under the sun. He spent almost 4 years writing for strategy and satire site TopTierTactics under the moniker Xiant, and somehow managed to find time to get an MFA in Creative Writing in between all the gaming. His specialty is action games, but his first love will always be the RPG. Oh, and his avatar is, was, and will always be a squirrel, a trend he's carried as long as he's had a Steam account, and for some time before that.