How to build a Genshin team, without chasing the tier list

A Genshin team is a rotation, not a roster. Four strong characters who each want to stand on the field are worse than four average ones whose skills line up — which is why a tier list is the wrong tool for the job it's usually used for. The question is never «is this character good», it's «what does this character do while somebody else is on screen».

If you haven't read how elemental reactions work yet, start there: everything below assumes you know why the order of application changes the damage.

The four jobs

Almost every working team fills the same four slots. The names vary; the jobs don't.

• On-field DPS — the one you actually play. Deals most of the damage, and needs everyone else to set up the reaction it wants.
• Off-field applier (sub-DPS) — puts its element on the enemy while you're not controlling it. This is the slot people undervalue, and it's the one that decides whether the reaction happens every rotation or only sometimes.
• Buffer / debuffer — raises your damage or lowers their resistance. Its value is measured in uptime: a buff that covers half your rotation is half a buff.
• Healer or shielder — keeps the rotation alive. A shield also stops you being interrupted, which on some DPS characters is worth more than the healing would be.

A character can cover two slots, and that's how teams find room. What almost never works is two characters competing for the field.

Uptime is the real stat

The reason a «worse» character often outperforms a stronger one is application: how often, and for how long, their element is actually on the enemy.

Ask three questions about any off-field slot:

1. How long does the effect last compared to the cooldown? An effect lasting twelve seconds on a twenty-second cooldown leaves eight seconds where your DPS is hitting for plain damage.
2. Does it apply repeatedly, or once? A single burst of an element gets consumed by one reaction and then it's gone.
3. Does it need to be on the field to work? If yes, it isn't an off-field applier, whatever the tier list says.

Get this right and the team works with four-star characters. Get it wrong and it stutters with five-stars.

Energy: why your burst isn't ready

The second thing that breaks a rotation is energy. Bursts cost energy, energy comes from particles, and particles come mostly from elemental skills — and particles of your own element are worth much more to you than someone else's.

That's what a «battery» is: a second character of the same element whose only job is to generate particles so the first one can use its burst every rotation. If your burst is ready only every other rotation, you have exactly two fixes — put a battery in the team, or put more Energy Recharge on the character. Both are cheaper than replacing anyone.

The practical test is simple: run your rotation twice in a row on a training dummy. If every burst is available the second time round, the team works. If one isn't, that's the character to fix.

Resonance: a bonus, not a plan

Two characters of the same element grant a passive team bonus. The three worth building around:

Two Electro, Anemo, Geo and Dendro have their own, but the point is the same: resonance is what you get for a team that already made sense, not a reason to build one. A second Pyro added purely for the 25% ATK, that ruins your reaction, is a downgrade with a buff attached.

Building one, in order

1. Pick the on-field DPS and note which reaction it wants.
2. Add the applier that supplies the other half of that reaction, checking uptime before anything else.
3. Add survivability — healer or shielder, depending on whether your DPS gets interrupted.
4. Fill the last slot with whatever the team is short of: a buffer if the damage is fine but low, a battery if a burst isn't coming back, a second applier if the reaction is inconsistent.
5. Test the rotation twice and fix whatever wasn't ready.

The four characters are the smallest part of this. The artifacts decide whether the energy works, and the weapons are usually the last thing to change, not the first.

If you don't have the five-stars

Nothing above requires them. The archetypes — a vaporise team, a freeze team, a team built on a single strong shield — are defined by roles filled, and four-star characters fill every one of them. What five-stars buy is a slot doing two jobs at once, which is convenience, not a different game.

The one thing worth saving for is not a character at all: it's the Energy Recharge on your main burst user, because that's the difference between a rotation and a series of unrelated button presses.