Genshin Impact Fischl DPS Carry Guide

by Send_Music

Fishcl is a primary role Carry, secondary role Enabler who excels in dealing consistent, high damage, while maintaining a quick combat flow in terms of DPS uptime and mobility.

Although Fischl was previously considered a primary role Enabler in CBT3, she has been given significant buffs in the full release version of the game, making her easily one of the top carries in the game (not to mention the most accessible C6 carry as of launch). Tier lists and team guide comps that only assign Fischl as a support character are inaccurate and are more than likely holding onto CBT3 impressions rather than her current rework.

Quick Ability Overview:

Elemental Skill: Nightrider

Nightrider summons Oz, full name Ozvaldo von Hrafnavines, to the field. The initial summon effect deals electro GTAoE damage. For the ability’s duration, Oz attacks nearby enemies with Freikugel, dealing electro damage. Oz persists after swapping out Fischl, continuing to deal electro damage. One importing thing to note is that players can use the ability again to recall Oz to their current location; while this neither refreshes the duration of Oz’s summon time nor recast the GTAoE effect, it does proc any bonuses applied from casting an elemental skill (e.g. Martial Artist 4-piece set bonus). For this reason, players should make sure to recall Oz nearing the end of his time on the field. Players should also note that the use of Midnight Phantasmagoria to refresh Oz’s duration/summon him does Not affect the cooldown of this ability; this works to Fischl’s advantage in that Oz can be resummoned immediately after his field time due to Midnight Phantasmagoria ends (this tip is extremely useful for players using Fischl as Enabler, as well). Essentially, if Nightrider has 13s left on cooldown when Midnight Phantasmagoria is cast, the internal cooldown will continue, resulting on 3s remaining on the cooldown after Oz desummons from Midnight Phantasmagoria.

Elemental Burst: Midnight Phantasmagoria

The Prinzessin der Veruteilung possesses the all-seeing Auge der Verurteilung in her left eye. This ability allows Fischl to possess Oz, increasing her movement speed while dealing electro damage to any enemies contacted. After the transformation, Oz will remain on the field and attack using Freikugel. An important note is that each enemy can only be damaged once by the phantasmagoria summon per ability cast; additionally, the ability resets the duration of Oz if he was already present on the field prior to cast.

Talents:

Normal Attack: Bolts of Downfall – Fischl excels as an auto attack (AA) / normal attack carry. Her normal attack 5-hit combo increases in damage with each hit, taking approximately 3 seconds to complete.

Nightrider – Fischl summons Oz to deal electro damage. Leveling talent and unlocking constellations scales Oz’s ATK DMG, GTAoE electro summoning damage, and duration.

Midnight Phantasmagoria – Fischl transforms into Oz, gaining movement speed and invulnerability to damage, while dealing electro damage to enemies hit. Leveling talent and unlocking constellations scale the Falling Thunder DMG dealt.

Stellar Predator – Hitting Oz will a fully-charged Aimed Shot generates Thundering Retribution, which deals AoE Electro DMG equal to 152.7% of charged shot’s damage. This talent shines during use of Venti’s Elemental Burst – Wind’s Grand Ode, where players can spam fully charged shots (mostly) freely. This does not seem to be working as intended at the moment. Not that a big deal though since Charge Shot is very rarely used on Fischl. Players are able to animation-cancel a charged aimed shot via dash canceling.

Lightning Smite – Electro related elemental reactions triggered while Oz is on the field will generate Thundering Retribution, dealing electro DMG equal to 80% of Fischl’s ATK.

Constellations:

C1 – Gaze of the Deep: activation allows Oz to attack with a normal attack, dealing 22% of ATK DMG, every time Fischl attacks. The 22% ATK DMG is seemingly based on the Nightrider Skill Attribute – Oz’s ATK DMG; however, Oz’s base ATK DMG value is unlisted anywhere. It’s important to note that the attack damage will scale with active buffs, including Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers Legacy buff and buffs from food eaten. C1 is Oz’s normal attack damage while not present on the field, meaning this only applies to when Fischl is on the field and does not apply electro damage. In effect, this means that players will see 2 floating damage text from 1 auto attack with Fischl: 1 white text from Fischl normal attack, followed by 1 white text from Oz’s joint fire normal attack granted by C1. I’ve seen players reporting that sometimes they are not seeing a second white text when attacking, despite being C1. This could be that the ability is not intended to proc 100% though written to imply such; alternatively, Oz’s joint attack could be hitting a shield, or this could be bugged like Fischl’s Stellar Predator talent.

C2 – Devourer of All Sins: activation increases GTAoE damage of initial summoning of Oz by 50%. I’m unsure of the first effect of C2: when Nightrider is used, it deals an additional 200% ATK as DMG. When Oz is summoned, there’s only 1 damage effect: the GTAoE electro damage. I am not sure if this means the additional 200% ATK as DMG is calculated into this number or if this means it’s calculated into his Freikugel damage done throughout the duration on field.

C3 – Wings of Nightmare: Increases the level of Nightrider by 3. This is basically 3 free levels on top of your current talent level.

C4 – Her Pilgrimage of Bleak: Midnight Phantasmagoria now deals 222% of ATK as electro damage when cast as proximity AoE and heals Fischl for 20% of her HP at the end of skill. C4 and C6 (like with most heroes) are really where you start to see Fischl excel as an Enabler, if choosing to build her as such. Since this skill’s burst potential scales with Fischl’s attack damage (similar to her C6), players benefit more from building her as straight attack, which fits her best as a primary Carry, secondary Enabler.

C5 – Against the Fleeing Light: Increases the level of Midnight Phantasmagoria by 3. This is basically 3 free levels on top of your current talent level.

C6 – Evernight Raven: activation increases duration of Oz’s summoning by 2s. The second function of this ability is similar to C1 – Gaze of the Deep, in that every time the current character attacks, Oz will fire a joint attack, this time dealing 30% of Fischl’s ATK as electro DMG. The difference being that this is only in effect while Oz is present on the field; however, it does mean that Oz is effectively applying electro damage twice: once from Freikugel and once from the joint attack. This is the primary reason C6 Fischl is considered a S tier Enabler, making her viable in either role, and can be used to spam Swirl reactions during Venti’s Elemental Burst – Wind’s Grand Ode, as an alternative to charged shot spam or if swapped out for the Burst character. 

Fischl Recommended Build

Early Game – players should look to stack raw ATK and ATK %. Keeping mind, when deciding on the final version of artifacts, that transitioning into End Game build means stacking Crit % chance until soft cap (unless using Royal Bow, which means players do not have to reach Crit % soft cap and can alternatively allocate stats to another resource) and Crit DMG. 

Recommended Artifact: 4-piece Martial Artist (MA). MA should be used early game until AR35, when Bloodstained Chivalry becomes available. The 4-piece MA bonus provides +25% ATK DMG for 8s after using Elemental Skill. Since Fischl is able to recast her Nightrider multiple times to recall Oz to her location, the buff can be refreshed and reapplied to maintain 100% uptime while on the field. However, this will require some difficulty and skill to pull off, as the Elemental Skill has a cooldown of 25s, but can be managed via swapping during downtime/cooldowns to maintain combat flow and DPS uptime, as well as casting Midnight Phantasmagoria to resummon Oz or refresh his duration. 

Alternative Recommendation: players can use 2-piece Sojo and 2-piece Braveheart/MA, where both 2-set bonuses provide ATK +18%.

Recommended Weapon: Fischl’s kit scales with ATK DMG, meaning players should look to build her with as much ATK as possible, rather than elemental damage. For this reason, I recommend using Rust or one of the following in order: Compound Bow, Blackcliff Bow, Amos, Skyward (crit), Royal Bow (crit build), Slingshot (max refined), Viridescent Hunt, or Alley Hunter.

Late Game – Fischl should have a moderately high ATK base, with an emphasis on meeting the Crit % soft cap (see note regarding Royal Bow, above) and Crit DMG. At this point, the Skyward Harp is BiS as primary carry Fischl due to its primary stat Crit % scaling with the bow’s level.

When farming for end-game, the refinement and ascension of Skyward Harp takes priority to ensure maximum benefit of Crit % base stat. 

Recommended Artifact: 2-piece Bloodstained Chivalry and 2-piece Brave Heart or Resolution of Sojourner. Bloodstained 2-piece provides 25% increased Physical DMG; since Fischl’s high sustaining damage comes from her normal ATK combo, which deals Physical DMG, this bonus is considered Best in Slot (BiS) for her. Brave Heart and Sojo both provide a 2-piece bonus of ATK +18%. Alternatively, players should use 2-piece Brave Heart and 2-piece Berserker if additional Crit % is needed to hit soft cap and not using Royal Bow or refined Skyward Harp (I haven’t seen the official math on this and am still working on figuring out soft caps on my own; this will be added to the guide once determined). 

Alternate Artifact: Players are able to utilize early-game recommended artifact set bonuses, with priority being on those that provide Crit % (where needed) and Crit DMG.

Recommended Weapon: At late game, players will make the transition from ATK% to Crit % and Crit DMG. For this reason, the Skyward Harp is the recommended bow, followed by the Royal Bow and Viridescent Hunt (max refined). As a separate note, the Alley Hunt will stand a part in compositions using shields and AoE CC and encounters where bosses are immobilized/disabled due to certain mechanics of the fight (e.g. Cryo Regisvine, Stormterror Dvalin), which allow the characters to easily maintain stacks of the passive effect; due to the High-risk / High-reward approach, the bow is considered less than optimal and therefore falls off the list of recommended weapons.    

Alternatively, players are able to utilize early-game weapons, such as Rust and Compound bow, but should look to stack as much Crit % and Crit DMG as possible, forfeiting MA 4-piece bonus for 2-piece Berserker and artifacts with ATK % for those with Crit %.

As a general rule, players should consider diminished returns on stacking % ATK when selecting their individual artifacts, artifact set bonuses, and weapons. Although there’s no clear math at present, this suggests there’s a limit where it becomes more viable to stack Crit, alternatively to % ATK. (Note: there’s no clear math at present regarding the soft cap of Crit rate, but will be updated and taken into consideration on future updates to this guide. 

This guide recommends ATK % soft cap > Crit rate soft cap, raw ATK > Crit DMG. Stat prioritization would roughly look like: raw ATK > ATK % (until soft cap) > Crit % (until soft cap) > Crit DMG for early-game builds. 

For late-game builds, players should focus on: moderately high (~1.2k) ATK > Crit % > Crit DMG > ATK %

The ideal min/max build would achieve both the ATK% and Crit % soft caps. Once soft caps are hit, players would look to stack raw ATK and Crit DMG, with raw ATK > Crit DMG).

Recommended Team Comp:

During my time in CBT1-3, there was a lot of discussion about character roles and team compositions. From my experience and information coming out of that, there are 4 roles to consider when building a proper team composition to clear further into Abyss: Carry, Enabler, Burst, and Support. I know a lot of tier lists and guides basically refer to Diluc as Carry and everything else as emergency food; regardless of how you refer to characters, your team should possess the following capabilities:

Carry – a character who deals consistent damage and whose most value is derived from being on the field for the majority of the fight. This includes high scaling normal attacks and/or low elemental skill and burst cooldowns.

Burst – character whose utility comes from high-scaling damaging element skills and burst off cooldown but are swapped out due to lack of sustainable damage over time.

Enabler – enablers are the crux of any team composition. These characters primarily serve to apply elemental status via persistence of charge attacks, elemental skills, and burst effects that enable the Carry and Burst characters to deal significantly more damage via elemental reactions.

Support – characters who provide significant utility through charged attacks and elemental skills and bursts. This specifically refers to abilities that provide taunts, healing, shielding, and CC.

As an additional note, it is strongly recommended each composition contain a Pyro, Electro, and Anemo to maximize elemental amplifying and transforming reactions (refer to Combat Tips below) in any team composition not utilizing Elemental Resonance, where characters such as Noelle, Razor, and Keqing especially excel.

That being said, the ideal composition to mix with a Fischl Carry is likely going to be:

Burst/Enabler

Diluc was listed as a Burst primary role, Carry secondary role in beta. People may disagree with this, but the legend of pyro/Diluc being the best carry in the game does not exist. This originated from CBT3 CN notes that identify Diluc’s burst damage needed to clear Floor 8 of Spiral Abyss due to the active Blessing for that week (note that these blessings change every week). Even then, players should note that Diluc was praised for his ability to burst elites with shielding. For this reason, Diluc is notably one of the best (if not best) Burst characters in the game as of launch. Once Diluc reaches C4-C6, it is just as viable to switch the composition around, utilizing Diluc as primary role Carry and Fischl as primary role Enabler.

Reaction Provided: Overload; Burning; Melt.

Recommended Artifact: Crimson Witch of Flames 4-piece; Gambler 2-piece, 2-piece Instructor

Recommended Weapon: Wolf’s Gravestone; Skyward Pride, Rainslasher; Sacrificial Greatsword (max refined).

Alternate Hero Selection: Diluc is irreplaceable once he hits C4-C6; prior to then, a C4-6 version of any of the following will outclass his performance depending on rest of team composition and game content: Xiangling (Enabler); Chongyun (Burst/Enabler); Xingqiu (Enabler/Support). (Note: I left Klee off since the duration of her Elemental Burst is excessively long and ends if swapped out; players should consider using her as primary role Carry to maximize her value).

Enabler/Support

I am recommending Venti as part of the ideal composition to pair with Fischl Carry, though this role is highly flexible. Venti’s AoE grouping provided via his Elemental Burst – Wind’s Grand Ode is one of the best skills in the game. For this reason alone, Venti should be sought after for any team composition. Venti excels with stacked Energy Recharge. Players should be aware of the full advantage provided by Venti’s long-press Elemental Skill – Skyward Sonnet: players are able to utilize this ability to avoid ground damage (e.g. boss mechanics such as those of the Electro Hypostases) by floating in the air. Players can also use this after casting healing effects, such as Barbara’s Elemental Skill – Let the Show Begin, to free heal. Finally, players can use this ability to continuously spam low-damage plunge attacks, while simultaneously avoiding damage.   

Reaction Provided: Swirl / Spread

Recommended Artifact: Noblesse Oblige 4-piece bonus; Viridescent Venerer 4-piece bonus; 2-piece Exile and 2-piece Scholar (additive bonus); 4-piece Exile. 

Recommended Weapon: The Stringless

Alternate Hero Selection: Mona (Burst/Support); Sucrose (Budget Venti).

Support

Qiqi is arguably the best supporting character in the game as of launch. Her elemental skill, Herald of Frost summons cryo orbs that revolve around the current character, both dealing cryo damage to nearby enemies and healing the active character. Additionally, damaging enemies with Qiqi while the orbs are active heals the entire team. The healing done scales off Qiqi’s ATK, making it easy to build high attack while also providing high sustaining heals. Qiqi’s elemental burst, Preserver of Fortune, is probably the best ability in the game, despite its long cooldown. The ability deals GTAoE cryo damage that applies Fortune Preserver Talisman to enemies hit. Characters who hit a marked enemy, whether by normal attack or ability, regenerate considerable health. Due to the length of the ability and the high sustaining heals provided, players are able to tank mechanics with their carry to continue uptime of DPS.

Reaction provided: Superconduct – deals AoE cryo damage and reduces enemy defense.

Recommended Artifact set: 4-piece Scholar (if unlocked Qiqi C1 – Ascetics of Frost); 4-piece Instructor (reportedly not working as intended right now); Noblesse Oblige (if not utilized on Venti); 4-piece Exile; Maiden Beloved 4-piece (if extra heals are needed); 4-piece Defender’s Will; 2-piece Exile paired with 2-piece ATK +18% sets (Sojo / Brave Heart / Gladiator’s).

Recommended Weapon: Skyward Blade; Lion’s Roar; Sacrificial Sword (max refine); The Flute.

Alternate Hero Selection: Barbara with max refined Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers and 4-piece Instructor / Exile or Prototype Malice and 4-piece Scholar. If using Mona instead of Venti, I recommend Jean (Burst/Support) over Barbara, with 2-piece Gambler and 2-piece Viridescent Venerer and max refined Lion’s Roar with priority stat being Elemental Mastery. 

As a general note, I recommend every team composition utilize a 4-piece Instructor bonus and stack Elemental Mastery on any Burst characters where possible.

Combat Tips

Genshin Impact allows for an incredible amount of variety in terms of viable characters and team compositions. Any team composition should focus on maximizing the synergy of selected team members, including: weapon passive effects; artifact bonuses; talents; constellations; and elemental affinity. The core mechanic of Genshin Impact’s combat system is its elemental affliction, which consists of amplifying and transforming reactions, broken out as follows:

Amplifying Effects: Amplifying effects do not deal damage directly; rather, they increase the damage of a follow-up attack triggering the effect, such as Shatter.

Vaporize: Deals Pyro / Hydro damage equal to that of the attack that triggers the reaction. For example, if Diluc (Pyro) applies Fire status and Mona (Hydro) triggers, the reaction will deal 100% of DMG calculation, whereas Pyro reacting with Hydro to trigger Vaporize only deals 50% of the DMG calculation.

Melt: Deals Pyro / Cryo damage equal to that of the attack that triggers the reaction. For example, if Qiqi applies elemental status: Cryo and Diluc (Pyro) triggers, the reaction will deal 100% of DMG calculation, whereas Cryo reacting with Pyro will only deal 50%.

Freeze (Shatter): Immobilizes target for a duration scaling with character level (character who triggers the reaction). For example, if Qiqi applies elemental status Cryo and Mona (Hydro) triggers, the reaction will freeze enemies depending on Mona’s character level. Additionally, frozen enemies can be Shattered via Phy DMG, such as claymore attack. 

To some degree, this will help players to determine the order in which to cast abilities and rotate characters in combat. 

Transforming Effects: These are reactions that involve Electro status to either apply or trigger. Damage is based on the level of character that triggers the reaction.

Overload: Deals Pyro AoE Pyro damage; super-effective against Geo shields / targets  

Super-conduct: Deals AoE Cryo damage and reduces Phy DEF by 50%

Electro-charged: Deals AoE Electro damage and spreads to nearby targets inflicted with Wet status; additionally, electro-charges the field if applied nearby Water terrain, similar to Burning (Pyro + Grass). Electro-charge can trigger Shock on targets twice, applying a mini-stun.

Anemo-based reactions: Swirl

When elemental affliction Anemo comes into contact with Pyro, Cryo, Hydro, or Electro, that element is absorbed and triggers Spread, dealing elemental DMG, inflicting status effects, and generating elemental reactions based on the element absorbed. (Note: Anemo absorbs the first element with which it comes into contact). To maximize this effect, characters should first apply the element base they intend to react with considering the DMG calculations noted above (for example, Cryo before Pyro). The Anemo ability will then Absorb this element type and Spread it, creating new elemental counters. Keep in mind that you always want your strongest character to complete reactions as this will maximize DMG output.

Geo-based reactions: Crystalization

When elemental affliction Geo encounters Hydro, Pyro, Cryo, or Electro, provides shield against the crystallized element. Shield will fail (break) after sustaining damage equal or in excess to maximum absorption value. This value scales with character level.  

Upcoming update: 

1. elemental reaction diminished returns (i.e. does repeating the same elemental reaction within a short period of time result in less damage done / energy charged back).
2. Elemental shields (uninterruptible; separate defense and resistance values; immunity)
3. Elemental counters (elemental affects on terrain and targets to expend (Burning, Overload, and Superconduct) elemental counters, while Spread / Swirl and Electrocharge create new elemental counters). 

Character Tips

Venti: Venti’s true function is to group enemies together for multiple elemental reactions, in quick succession, as this allows for significant charge back of energy required to use elemental burst. To fully maximize this, players should utilize Venti’s Elemental Burst – Wind’s Grand Ode when other characters are not at full energy. Additionally, players should consider the elemental reaction Combat Tips noted above when determining how to best react and maximize the effect of Venti’s Elemental Burst in both applying the greatest number of elemental reactions and energy recharged as a result. Players should note that Anemo only absorbs and spreads the first element it contacts, in this manner order matters (refer to above regarding damage scaling based on reaction triggers). 

 Players should be aware of the full advantage provided by Venti’s long-press Elemental Skill – Skyward Sonnet: 

1. Utilize this ability to avoid ground damage (e.g. boss mechanics such as those of the Electro Hypostases) by floating in the air; 
2. Can also be used after casting healing effects, such as Barbara’s Elemental Skill – Let the Show Begin, to free heal while floating to avoid damage; and
3. Finally, players can use this ability to continuously spam low-damage plunge attacks, while simultaneously avoiding damage. In some instances, this will break elemental shields quicker than depending on the character (claymore/spear) and shield elemental type. Honestly, I just do use it to low-plunge mine since I don’t usually have a claymore/Geo user in my team.

Character Synergies: Fischl – The double application of Electro synergizes incredibly well and can be used to spam reactions during Venti’s Elemental Burst – Wind’s Grand Ode, as an alternative to charged shot spam or swapping out for a Burst character. Here, you would use the ability of an Enabler, such as Xiagling, cast Venti’s Elemental Burst to Absorb and Spread the Pyro affinity, and then use Fischl to trigger Overload. 

Character Synergies: Xiangling – Like Fischl, Xiangling is able to generate double applications of her elemental affliction as both her Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst persist. The synergy between Xialing, Fischl, and Venti’s Wind’s Grand Ode, can effectively chargeback the entire Elemental Burst energy required to recast due to the sheer amount of reactions occurring. Utilize similar to as described above, noting that Hydro and Cryo reacting with Pyro result in lower damage output and therefore will be more optimal to react with Electro if absorbing Pyro, or to Absorb Hyro / Cryo, and then react with Pyro (here is where Diluc and Klee both excel).