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Many of Genshin Impact‘s elements have obvious uses in a fight. Pyro resonance increases your ATK, Cryo resonance increases Crit Rate, and Dendro has its blooms. Anemo is a little different. While it’s a neutral element like Geo, Anemo’s Swirl takes on the properties of other elements, spreading them further on the battlefield and extending their presence through Elemental Absorption, allowing your Swirled elements to react with other elements.
If you want to harness the power of Monstadt’s winds, here’s your full guide to everything Anemo.
What is Anemo in Genshin Impact?
Anemo is the wind element of Genshin Impact. It is presided over by the Anemo Archon, Barbatos. As the wind-themed element, Anemo’s characters tend to have support-focused kits that specialize in increasing the team’s overall damage rather than furthering their own, with the exception of Wanderer and Xiao.
But what makes Anemo truly unique is its ability to provide crowd control. Many Anemo attacks pull enemies into one area of the battlefield, quite literally blowing them into one area for you to deal the rest of your team’s damage in. This keeps you from wasting your Elemental Bursts, especially in timed content like Spiral Abyss, where taking down enemies in one go is a key strategy for winning.
How does Anemo work in Genshin Impact?
Genshin Impact Anemo Elemental Reactions
Anemo’s only elemental reaction is Swirl. You can trigger Swirl by applying Anemo on an enemy already affected by any element that isn’t Geo. Another way to do Swirl is to have the element be applied to the character doing the Swirling. Swirl then takes that element and applies it to targets within a small AoE around the area where the Swirl occurred. This means that you can trigger multiple reactions with a single Swirl, provided that the other elements applied to different enemies will interact with the element that’s being Swirled.
Swirl is a different effect from Elemental Absorption. Elemental Absorption is specific to certain Anemo character’s kits. When an Absorption occurs, the Anemo skill that absorbed it will start dealing damage that’s the same type as the element that was absorbed.
Genshin Impact Anemo Elemental Resonance Effect
Anemo’s Elemental Resonance effect is called Impetuous Winds. This Elemental Resonance decreases Stamina Consumption by 15%. It also increases Movement SPD by 10% and shortens Skill CD by 5%.
Artifacts for Anemo in Genshin Impact
Generally speaking, Anemo’s best artifact set is Viridescent Venereer simply because of the 4-piece set bonus that increases Swirl damage and decreases elemental resistance to the element that was Swirled. It’s the no-brainer choice for most of Anemo’s characters, barring the two DPS Anemo characters, Xiao and Wanderer. Since their kits do not focus on Swirl, they get better use from other artifacts that increase ATK, provide energy, or provide skill damage bonuses. That said, the 2-piece set bonus is good on most Anemo characters as they can all benefit from the Anemo DMG bonus.
- 2-Piece Set: Anemo DMG Bonus +15%
- 4-Piece Set: Increases Swirl DMG by 60%. Decreases the opponent’s Elemental RES to the element infused in the Swirl by 40% for 10s.
Many Anemo characters can also benefit from artifact sets that provide Elemental Mastery as a bonus, such as Wanderer’s Troupe, Gilded Dreams, and Flower of Paradise Lost. The 2-piece set bonus for these artifacts all increase Elemental Mastery by 80.
Anemo Characters in Genshin Impact
5-Star Anemo Characters
- Venti: Venti may seem like a silly bard and a little outdated in terms of his kit, but the Anemo Archon’s abilities remain formidable in the field of battle. Venti’s powerful burst is able to suck in enemies, leaving them vulnerable for your other characters. He is a staple of the original Morgana team comp that makes use of Venti, Mona, Ganyu, and Diona.
- Jean: A great character for the early game, Jean provides healing and enough damage to cover your team’s weaknesses. Once you get enough resources to level the rest of your team, she starts to fall off but remains useful in flex spots where you just need a good all-rounder.
- Xiao: Xiao is a very selfish DPS who wants to have as much time on the field as possible. His kit has no support features and is geared towards increasing his personal damage. If you bring him, you have to build your team around him. Xiao will also need a healer since he drains his own HP to deal more damage, similar to Hu Tao.
- Kazuha: Kazuha may have flown under the radar for his first release, but the poet samurai quickly proved to be one of the best characters in the game. His high usage rate in Spiral Abyss is owed to his strong crowd control that can be triggered with his Skill and Burst and the fact that he seems to extend elemental auras until the heat death of the universe.
- Wanderer/Scaramouche: Wanderer/Scaramouche is another on-field DPS character. A unique feature of his kit is his skill, which allows him to fly. That said, he can be rather squishy since enemy attacks can knock him out of the air and interrupt his attacks, resulting in damage loss when you try to recover your inevitably knocked-down Wanderer.
4-Star Anemo Characters
- Sucrose: Sucrose is hands down the best 4-star Anemo character in the game. Once called a budget Venti, she’s now a budget Kazuha. Her elemental skill and burst absorb elements and extend auras while providing strong crowd control.
- Heizou: Another on-field DPS/sub-DPS, Heizou was the first male catalyst character in the game. Heizou creates bursts of wind with his martial arts moves. While he looks cool, he faces stiff competition from other Anemo 4-stars, let alone other DPS characters.
- Sayu: Sayu can absorb elements and apply them to enemies when she runs across the battlefield as a ball of Anemo. Like Jean, she can heal your team.
- Faruzan: A dedicated support for Wanderer, Faruzan’s burst creates a vortex that sucks enemies in.
- Lynette: Lynette is an on-field DPS/sub-DPS character, depending on how you play her. Like Heizou, she suffers from having too much competition in her niche.
