Genshin Impact Childe Carry DPS Guide

by Not-Casuals

So my first impression is that he is an absolutely amazing Carry Character, probably on par with Diluc, Klee and Keqing. Another point about Tartaglia is that his scaling seems very exponential. He might seem underwhelming at first, but once you min/max his stats and get him to a nice Crit/Crit Damage Ratio with a lot of Hydro Damage (lvl 80 Weapon, lvl 20 5 Star Artifacts, Lvl 6+ Talents) he starts becoming an insane DPS machine, but I do think he will be more whale-friendly than F2P friendly, as a weapon like Skyward Harp really takes him over the edge.

Note that this is taking into account Childe as a main DPS. There are possible builds with more Energy Recharge and Elemental Mastery that would be using him more as a Ult Spam / Vaporize Secondary DPS that could also work very well.

Abilities

• His main strength is fast attacks as well as crazy burst and AoE damage. The way this character works is all based on him applying a debuff called Riptide on enemies, which will then cause that debuff to trigger AoE Hydro Damage in many ways.
• In ranged form, this applies only by doing aimed shots. Subsequent Aimed Shots will trigger Riptide:Flash which will do a few hydro damage hits in quick succession for a lot of burst damage.Enemies who die with the Riptide Effect on them will also explode for AoE Hydro Damage and Apply Riptide to all other monsters around.
  >> The Strategy in ranged form will be to full Aim Shot at monsters (and do huge dmg on weak points) and will do very well if you can snipe off weaker mobs in a pack 1 at a time, as they will keep spreading Riptide and Exploding. The damage is actually very impressive on these effects and makes waiting for the Melee Stance Cooldown a lot less painful than people think.
• His Elemental Skill turns Tartaglia into a melee god and simply activating the ability does a nice burst AOE Hydro Damage. All attacks are still considered “Normal Attacks” but do purely Hydro Damage. Hitting enemies affected by Riptide with Normal or Charged attacks will cause an AOE Hydro Burst Explosion that does very good damage (That damage is considered Elemental Skill DMG) and can only happen once every 1.5 seconds, per monster.
  >> The big concern here is the cooldown, which is not as bad as people think. If YOU are the one CANCELLING the skill, either by pressing E again, or switching to another character, the cooldown will be anywhere between 6 and 36 Seconds MAXIMUM. If you instead let it run out after 30 seconds, the cooldown will be 45 seconds. So PAY ATTENTION TO THIS. There will be flashing sword icon on top of your head once its about to expire.
  >> If you cancel the skill quickly, you will only have 6 seconds cooldown, and will be able to continuously go into melee form to trigger the burst damage of the stance. It is recommended to not stay in Melee form too much, and keep “Stance Shuffling” and alternate to other characters to keep triggering elemental combo. It seriously doesnt feel like the cooldown on E is a big deal once you get into a good flow.
• His Elemental Burst is one of the highest scaling ability in the game, even more-so in melee form.In Ranged Form, it shoots off an Arrow, similar to Venti, that does huge DMG to everything hit and applies Riptide. It also returns 20 (33%) of the energy cost. This is a very powerful ability not to be underestimated.In Melee Form, it will do a full 360 AOE Hydro Damage and Proc all riptide effects for enemies hit, consuming them and doing even more damage. This is considered Elemental Burst DMG and has gotten me crits close to 100K at Lvl 80 without crazy buffs.
• His Talents are pretty straightforward, Never Ending extends the duration of Riptide by 8 seconds, and Sword of Torrents makes it so Critical Hits in Melee Form apply Riptide. This is why Critical Strike is important on him.
• His Passive Talent is probably the best passive in the game, as it increases the Talent Level of Normal Attacks by 1 for every party member, Himself Included

Constellations

• The first Constellation reduces the cooldown of his Melee Stance by 20%, which is a very big buff to his biggest downside.
• The second Constellation gives him 4 energy every time he defeats a monster, and probably one of his most powerful one because of that, due to how powerful his Ult is.
• Constellation 4 is a huge DPS increase, triggering extra Riptide Effects on enemies consistently during combat and as a Damage over time.
• His 6th Constellation basically makes his melee stance have no cooldown at all and will make Whales stupidly powerful when using him

Stat Priority

• Crit Rate is very important to have on him, but you dont need to have 100% for it to work due to his insanely fast attack speed and the fact that his Riptide lasts a long time on enemies. Around 40% seems to be very sufficient to have all enemies instantly affected by the Debuff.
• Hydro Damage, Crit Damage and ATK will be the other priorities in terms of Stats while making sure to keep a good ratio close to 1:2 for Crit Rate/Crit Damage. Energy Recharge is also not bad at all, since his ult is insane especially if using 2-Piece Noblesse Oblige.
• You will want to make sure to have ATK on the Sands, Hydro Damage on the Goblet and Crit or Crit Damage on the Circlet

Weapons

1. Skyward Harp is by far his Best In Slot, providing him Crit Rate, Crit Damage and the passive works in both ranged and melee form. Its no wonder that it is available in the weapon Gacha right now.
2. Rust might be his second best weapon, due to the passive giving him Normal Attack damage which works with his Melee form, though, it also reduces Aimed Shot damage, which is actually a big part of Childe’s kit as opposed to most other archers. Sadly, it gives ATK instead of Crit/Crit DMG but that is still a great stat for him. The passive on Rust is absolutely amazing, especially if you have refinement levels, but sadly this wont apply to his Ult nor his Aimed Shots so it has some drawbacks.
3. Amos Bow is very close to Rust for being second best, simply because its a 5 star, and will have much higher Base Damage late game which scales better than any other stat in the game. The passive is also amazing, and works very well with both his Melee and his Aimed Shot Ranged stances. It also has ATK which is, again, not the best, but still good.
4. The Viridescent Hunt, the BP weapon, is another incredible weapon for him. It seems like the passive effect also works in Melee, and as it gives Crit, it allows him to scale very well late game (and possibly run Crit Dmg on the headpiece)
5. Royal Bow and Blackcliff Bow are good options as well, can be bought from the Starglitter Shop and do provide with great Stats, Crit Chance and Crit Damage.
6. Most other bows don’t seem to work super well with him, Compound Bow is quite bad as he doesnt do much Physical Damage at all, Stringless doesn’t seem to apply to his melee attacks, Sacrificial bow doesn’t work on his E cooldown, and most other just lack the damage bonuses, though some might build him more as a support and use them okay, it will definitely not be as good.

Artifacts

1. 2-Piece Noblesse Oblige and 2-Piece Gladiator seems to be the best combination, boosting both his Atk stat and his Ult damage which is a huge part of his damage. Until we get the Water Damage Set, this is probably going to be the best option for 5 Stars.
2. 4 Piece Gambler seems to be a very powerful option as it does reset his Skill cooldown, but the fact that there are no 5 star version will result in a big loss of dps
3. Wandering Troupe is another option that can be very good, but the 4-Piece doesn’t work well in his Melee Stance and to get the max value from the 2-Piece, it requires him to have access to a lot of elemental combos, which is hard to manage with his Stance Shuffling.
4. There doesnt seem to be many other options for him sadly, as most items dont work well on him due to being a Bow User. Martial Artist and Berserker would be great, if they had 5 Star versions.

Team comps and Tips

• One of the best way to use and combo his abilities is as follow:

1. Starting the fight in Ranged Mode, Cast Aimed Shots at enemies and pick off the weak ones if possible to spread the Riptide.
2. Switch to other Characters and use their abilities
3. Cast his ult in Ranged form to trigger great damage (Especially Vaporize) and apply riptide to everyone
4. Can switch to other characters again to regen more Ult Energy and prepare more combos, or simply go right into Melee Stance (you will have a lot of your ult recharged already) and hit them until you can ult Again. With effects such as Xiangling’s Goaba or Ult, you might be able to proc Vaporize here again with the ult which is going to be optimal.

• He is quite complicated and will require a lot of testing to figure out his best team comps and combo, but Vaporize is going to be his main source of big burst damage, so bringing a fire support character such as Xiangling or Bennett is going to be very important.
• Electric Support such as Fischl is obviously very powerful with him, enhancing his already crazy AOE even more with Electro Charge.
• Sadly, Chongyun does NOT work well with him at all.
• Anemo Supports such as Venti or Sucrose will be S+ with him as well, gathering mobs into a cluster will enable his maximum damage potential. I am not sure if the Veridiscent Venerer set not working with Hydro has been fixed yet, but once it is, that will be almost a requirement when playing with him. I think Sucrose is also going to be even better than Venti with him considering the fact that she keeps mobs on the ground and allows him to unleash his ult and melee abilities, though you can also use Childe’s ranged Ult into Venti’s ult for crazy burst too.
• So far in my testing, he is an absolute beast at clearing the Abyss. The more monster density, the better for him, and he seems to scale extremely well. At World Level 6, he melts almost everything with ease, and feels much stronger than my very powerful Diluc. I am excited to test him more and figure out even stronger combos and team comps!

Let me know what you think of Childe so far and what combos you think are best for him in the comments as I am eager to learn more! –Xoraz Youtube.com/NotCasuals