Genshin Impact: Everything You Need to Know About Talents

Talent Level-Up is one of four main components of the combat system in Genshin Impact. Talents, Weapons, Artifacts, and Character Ascension all work together to determine what team position a character is meant for and what kind of damage they do.

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Talents can be split into two categories: Combat Talents and Passive Talents. Except for the Traveler (who only has 2 Passive Talents), all characters have three of each Talent. So in total, characters have 6 Talents unique to them. If you’re struggling with the Spiral Abyss, try taking a look at your characters’ Talents!

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Combat Talents

Combat Talents correspond to each type of attack a character can perform. These are the Talents that need Talent Materials – more on that later. When someone says they want to Triple Crown a character, it means that they want to max out all of their Talent levels.

Each Combat Talent can be leveled up to Level 10. However, all characters’ C3 and C5 increase their Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst levels to 15. The Combat Talent that the Constellation effects depends on the character. For example, Yoimiya’s C3 affects her Elemental Skill, while Dehya’s C3 affects her Elemental Burst.

Finally, each Combat Talent directly affects the DMG of its attack. While the main ATK stat also affects your character’s damage output, Talent Levels help translate the ATK stat directly to how each Combat Talent functions. So think of the ATK stat as the overall ATK umbrella, then put Combat Talent and Elemental damage under it.

If you ever need to prioritize which Talents you level up, make sure to check which Talent helps your character the most. For example, Hu Tao’s Elemental Skill converts all of her Normal Attacks into Pyro DMG. However, the Pyro DMG is directly affected by Hu Tao’s Elemental Skill DMG, not her Normal Attack DMG. Because that damage scales off of her Elemental Skill, leveling up Hu Tao’s Elemental Skill Talent will increase whatever Pyro DMG she deals.

Normal Attack

The Normal Attack Talent consists of a character’s Normal, Charged, and Plunging attack. No Constellation will ever affect the Normal Attack level, so it can only go up to Level 10.

Very few Normal Attack Talents have something special built into them. For the most part, this Talent will tell you how many consecutive strikes the character can make, and how their Charged and Plunging Attacks work.

For the most part, all Normal Attacks will be treated as Physical DMG for Sword, Claymore, and Polearm characters. Catalyst characters will almost always do Elemental DMG. Bow characters are a true 50/50 split – spamming the attack button and using their Plunging Attack will do Physical DMG. However, all Charged Attacks will deal Elemental DMG.

Elemental Skill

This is the first of two Elemental attacks your character can perform. It lasts for a shorter amount of time, but can usually be used faster than your Elemental Burst since the Elemental Skill doesn’t need to recharge. Instead, the Elemental Skill functions solely on a cooldown system while the Elemental Burst relies on both Energy Recharge and a cooldown system.

Lisa holds the title of the character with the fastest Elemental Skill cooldown (CD). If you press her Skill, it’ll be ready to use again within one second. Barbara has the longest Elemental Skill CD at a whopping 32 seconds. There are 12 characters where holding their Elemental Skill button changes how the Skill functions: Lisa, Diona, Venti, Shenhe, Zhongli, Eula, Razor, Kaedehara Kazuha, Candace, Anemo Traveler, Bennett, and Nahida. Holding the Skill for these characters will also increase the Skill’s CD time, but it’s usually offset by a stronger attack or area of effect (AoE).

Generally, you’ll use the Elemental Skill to apply an Element to your enemies, either in preparation or to cause an Elemental Reaction. But some Skills go beyond that by generating a Shield, healing your team, or infusing the character’s Normal Attacks with their Element. So make sure to have a general knowledge of what your team’s Skills do in combat because this will affect how you use the Skill.

Elemental Burst

Also referred to as an Ultimate, the Elemental Burst is the biggest attack your character can perform. You even get an epic little animation to go along with it! Generally, 5-Star characters have more complex Burst animations than 4-Star characters.

Again, this is the Talent that requires both Energy and a complete CD in order to use. You gain Energy through Elemental Particles and Orbs, which are generated by defeating enemies. The amount of Energy your character receives depends on their Energy Recharge and who else is on your team. You may have heard of a “Battery” before – this is a character whose primary purpose on your team is to help recharge another character’s Burst faster. The Battery will be the same Elemental Type as the character you’re charging. Your Battery should double as something else, but usually, the Battery is a Support unit.

Keep in mind, the Elemental Burst may grant additional effects to the character’s Elemental Skill and/or Normal Attack.

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Passive Talents

Passive Talents are separate from Combat Talents. Notably, they do not have a level up system and automatically kick in when certain conditions are met. The Traveler only has 2 Passive Talents per Element. Because Aether and Lumine are not from Teyvat, neither has a Utility Passive. However, a couple characters have 4 Passive Talents.

1st Ascension & 4th Ascension Passives

These Passive Talents automatically activate when you ascend your character for the first and fourth time. Every character has these Passive Talents.

Usually, the 4th Ascension Passive provides a more substantial buff to your character than the 1st Ascension Passive. However, both enhance the character’s performance in some way. They may increase Elemental Skill DMG or add an extra buff to an Elemental Burst. Though they represent a slight change to your character’s attack, that can give you a big advantage, especially if you’re having trouble with the Spiral Abyss.

Utility Passive

The Utility Passive typically does not affect a character’s combat. Usually, it provides some kind of world bonus, which either helps with exploration or item management. Generally, these fall into four categories: Item Production, Guild Expeditions, Stamina & Speed, and Ascension.

This Passive does not rely on a character’s ascension in order to activate. You just get this one automatically. For the most part, Utility Passives are meant to help you on your journey. Some of the most useful are ones that identify regional specialties on your mini map and ones that add a bonus to your Expedition rewards.

Additional Passives

Only two characters have an Alternate Sprint Talent: Kamisato Ayaka and Mona. Until another character receives an Alternate Sprint, this makes Ayaka and Mona the only characters to have 8 Talents instead of 7.

The Alternate Sprint cannot be overridden, it just automatically happens. So far, it only infuses a character’s sprint with their Element. You can use the Alternate Sprint to apply an Element instead of needing to rely on an Elemental Skill or Burst to do that. However, since only two characters have this ability, it’s very easy to lose track of your Stamina bar. You can counter that either with another character who has a Stamina consumption reducing Utility Passive or by using Stamina consumption reducing food.

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Talent Level-Up Materials

There are three core types of Talent Level-Up Materials: Common Enemy Drops, Talent Books, and Trounce Domain Drops.

Common Enemy Drops

These are the items that appear after defeating enemies like Hilichurls, Treasure Hoarders, Fatui Agents, Nobushi, and Eremites. You’ll most likely never have to farm these if you tend to fight every enemy in your path every time you open up the game. But the Adventurer’s Handbook has a feature that allows you to locate any enemy you may need and will continue to locate that specific enemy on your mini map until you turn it off. You could also try using the Teyvat Interactive Map, where other Travelers have marked out various things throughout Teyvat. This includes hidden Chests, Regional Specialties, and enemies.

Talent Books

Talent Books can only be found in Domains. Each region of Teyvat has a specific Talent Book Domain and, like the Weapons Materials Domains, run on a weekly schedule. Selecting a Talent Book in your Inventory will provide you with a summary as well as the days that book becomes available in its Domain.

Except for Kaedehara Kazuha, the Wanderer, and Childe, all characters use a Talent Book associated with their region of origin. Kazuha was released before Inazuma launched, so he uses the Prosperity series from Liyue. However, you could collect his Ascension Materials during the first Golden Apple Archipelago event. Similarly, though Childe comes from Sneznaya, that region isn’t out yet. Most likely, Sneznaya will be the last region released in the game. Because he’s stationed somewhat permanently in Liyue, he uses Liyue materials for everything. Meanwhile, the Wanderer is just a special case.

Like Artifact Domains, redeeming the Talent Books costs 20 Resin. To cut down on the number of times you have to run the Domain, craft Condensed Resin before taking on the Domain. It costs 40 Resin to make one Condensed Resin, but you receive double the reward.

Trounce Domain Drops

Also referred to as the Weekly Bosses, the Trounce Domains are the really big boss battles that were once a part of an Archon Quest. These fights can take a while, so you may want to try out co-op if you struggled through the battle the first time.

The first three Trounce Domains you do in a week costs 30 Resin. Unfortunately, there isn’t an option to use Condensed Resin on Trounce Domains. However, you don’t need to battle against Trounce Bosses nearly as much as you need to do the Talent Book Domains. Each character only needs 6 of their designated Trounce Drop to fully level up a Combat Talent – 18 in all if you’re planning on Triple Crowning.

If you’re missing the item you need, but you have another item that comes from the same boss, you can use Dream Solvent to convert the item at the Crafting Bench. You have a 33% chance of getting a Dream Solvent after beating a Trounce Domain, so prepare to have a very limited stock of them. But if you’re only one Gilded Scale away from getting Kazuha’s Talent to Level 10 and you have an extra Bloodjade Branch, that’s a worthy conversion.

Crown of Insight

If extra Dream Solvents are tricky to get, then extra Crowns of Insight are near impossible. You can get 11 in total from permanent features of the game: Frostbearing Tree’s Gratitude, Sacred Sakura, Lumenstone Adjuvant, and Tree of Dreams. However, once you get them all, that’s it.

Fortunately, the Crown of Insight is a common reward in Limited Time Events. So far, there have been 21 events that provide a Crown of Insight, bringing us to a total of 32 Crowns of Insight throughout the life of the game. Each version update typically receives its own Limited Time Event, so the 33rd Crown should be available soon.

However, this means that, if you’ve played every event since Version 1.1 and completed the necessary upgrades for four permanent Offerings, you can only Triple Crown 10 (soon to be 11) characters. Choose wisely.