Mine is mostly convenience. I use Qiqi and Klee because they show local specialties, then Fishl because she's kinda my main and Noelle for shields so I can ignore things and just do damage and if I need hydro I sub Fishl/Noelle for Mona. That's my team for 95% of things I do in the game.

Teams only really matter in the abyss anyway and there you're very much constrained by what the floor throws at you.

 

The logic should be, imo:

1. Who do I have?
2. What weapons do I have?
3. What are my synergies?
   
4. How do I combine 1, 2 and 3 to become OP?
5. Gear them appropriately

From memory, you have 2 Gravestones, right?

I agree that Chongyun is wonky as hell, so I wouldn't give one to him. Bennett is also indeed incredible as a support, and Sacrifical Sword is amazing on him (remember, his atk buff scales off BASE attack, which is his natural attack combined with the attack on his weapon, that's it).

It should go without saying that you should invest heavily in Razor. He should be your main carry. He's top tier and you have his best weapon. He's also easy to build around (literally anyone that can apply cryo to your enemies that isn't Chongyun because he makes him do cryo dmg instead of physical). They don't even need to be beyond lvl 1 (though they'll likely get sniped when switching in if they're not a little invested in HP wise).

Now, given what you've told me of your roster and preferred playstyle, Sucrose is dead in the water. The thing that makes Anemo users like Venti and Sucrose so damn powerful is the Viridescent Venerer set - the 4pce reduces the elemental resistance of the element it Swirls with by 40% or so for 10 seconds. Problem is, aside from Fischl, you don't really have anyone that'll benefit too much from his debuff (read: basically anyone that does predominantly Swirlable elemental damage), and you don't wanna play Fischl, which is fine, she's a filthy Chuuni and doesn't respect Queen Mona enough.

Your husbando can do just as good a job of the physical pike build as Xiangling, so go ahead and use him to do that. Give him 2-piece Bloodstained Chivalry and 2 piece Gladiator with a cup that boosts physical damage%. You want Crit% on his head and atk% on the timepiece. It seems to be his most powerful build atm, but I wouldn't worry too much. The Chinese players are throwing a hissy fit on their socials about how heavily he was nerfed from Beta.

I'd also recommend giving Beidou the other Gravestone and getting good at her counter. She can swap in every 7 seconds or so and rain absolute hell with that counter slash ability. If you don't fancy her however, can I ask if you got that new punk rock chick from the Zhong banner? Apparently she's also a pretty decent greatsword user who can build straight CritDMG and ignore crit% to do some nutty things with the other Gravestone. I'm honestly not sure though, been super busy with the Shadowlands release and decided to save my resources for Xiao.

Finally, Ningguang. @Jon can speak to her actual power a lot better than I can. She's his main carry and she hits like a fucking truck. She's also very fun to play and pretty hot too let's not kid ourselves. She doesn't really synergize with others all that well as a main dps, and her support build can be super powerful, but it relies on the person who she shields to never lose said shield. It's very finnicky.

Personally? I don't do Spiral Abyss. I don't find the mechanics in there fun at all. So my team building strat is to diversify my carries amongst different elements (atm I've a heavily invested Pyro, Electro and Hydro carry). I swap the two best suited of those three into my party and the other two are usually Bennett and Jean for healing and buff/debuff. I was slowly building up my C6 XiangLing too, I've a decent set on her but now I might start focusing on ascending as many characters as possible once I get all my carries and their weapons to 90.

 

Honestly, just pick a main dps I like and that's strong, and then build 3 supports around them that synergize well. One healer too. Cover multiple elements for Fatui shields.

For example, my current teams are Keqing/Bennett/Mona/Venti and Xiangling/Barbara/Fischl/X. Keqing was my second 5*, and a main dps, so I've invested the most into her. Bennett, Mona and Venti are there pretty much for the insane ult synergy, healing and shield breaking. It's probably the best team I have available to me, considering my roster and their constellations. My B team is mostly a carryover from the release free units + first banner units, that works together decently, with a flex last support spot, usually cryo (mostly Diona now), for all the electro shields the team runs into in the Abyss, and proccing Superconduct to help with Xiangling's dps. Not a strong team or anything, but it works and is 'f2p friendly'.

My second highest constellation characters are Razor and Beidou, but I really don't want to invest in them since I already main an electro dps (Keqing).

I really wish I had Diluc, Klee or even Childe, so I could take advantage of Vaporize and Melt.

I have hard time justifying building a geo character right now. I want to, eventually, but it's just too rare to have a free spot for them in a party. There's a lot of granular geo buffs around, though. Almost all the abyss biweekly buffs have been aimed at geo, probably because they don't do jack to Fatui shields...

I don't think team building matters much outside of the Abyss, since overworld stuff is pretty easy. I actually run Keqing/Barbara/Xiangling/Venti there, out of lazy habit, haha.

 

I can heartily second Gengar's Razor recommendation. With your lucky Gravestones, he's an absolute beast, and one of the best dps in the game. If you like playing as him, of course. He's reliable too, being mostly physical. If I pulled a Gravestone, I'd actually make him my new main, over Keqing. The main support you want for him is a cryo user, for superconduct. Preferably someone who can apply it consistently. The new rock chick, Xinyan, could possibly be a great pyro support for him, too - increases his physical damage, and a shield is good for Razor, since when he ults, he wants uninterrupted dps uptime as much as possible.

Mine and Gengar's approaches to team building were pretty different. He's spent some money, so he can pick and choose his 5*s with 5* weapons. He doesn't really need to care about the Abyss much, either, since the extra primos for him are probably minor. While a low spender, like me, cares about the Abyss's extra income quite a bit, and mostly cares and optimizes my team for Abyss performance. I do think that I've been sucked into the temporary 'meta' view a bit too much, that it'd be better long-term to play my favorite waifus just for pleasure, but it's hard not to min/max lol.

 

Yeah do as I say not as I do rofl.

If I Thanos snapped by 5*s away though, I'd probably make Xiangling, Razor, Bennet and Ningg my main carries. I probably still wouldn't use Fischl as a main carry, she doesn't really add anything too great by being on the field.

I haven't spent on Genshin in a while tbh (just bought a new TV and I'm a bit overwhelmed with gearing my current roster as is). Abyss would actually be beneficial to run now for me, but I still don't really want to. Maybe when I've completely geared out my roster and want something more to do, but I legit don't find it fun.

Boss fights like the Childe one hit the sweet spot of challenge for me. It feels more like an action game when I do those fights. Abyss feels like an MMO with the bullet-hell clusterfuck nature, over-inflated HP pools and unavoidable damage. It also too heavily restricts my teams, requiring me to rock-paper-scissors to counter the stupid fucking shields, completely ignoring any team synergies I was trying and enjoying to build.

 

They will eventually, it will just be at like 8+ months to a year from launch. Every gacha in existence that lasts a year plus implements some sort of a "strengthening" mechanic to breathe new life into a game.

Expect Zhongli's to be significant, whereas expect Venti's to be like... a movement speed buff.

Only if you build her as a pyro Razor. If you make her support, you literally just run up to a group of 3 or more enemies, pop E, and swap. It's the skill that needs to hit 3 enemies to trigger the shield emission. If you hit 3 enemies, the shield continues to emit pyro while she's off the field, making her an even better pyro proccer than Xiangling in group fights.

Since you have Bennet, you could feasibly run the physical damage dreamteam of Bennet, Xinyan, Razor, Kaeya(or Qiqi if you've got her).

 

I have a sneaking suspicion that I am absolutely awful at this game and have no idea how to build a team.
But I can still kill stuff, somehow, so I'm trudging along.

Current team is Qiqi, Fischl, Diluc, and Mona. I've got a Venti that's at their level, but I don't know where anyone really fits.

Still enjoyable, but I suck.

 

That's a fine well rounded elemental exploitation team. It won't get big numbers but you're never going to find content it can't beat. To maximize that output, put noblesse and thilling tales on Mona and crimson witch on diluc. If you want big giant diluc numbers, sub fischl with xiangling/bennet (or a VV venti/sucrose).

 

Mona's got a full Wanderer's right now. I'll look into switching over. As for Thrilling - Better than Widsith?

I've got Crimson Witch on Diluc, but the stats aren't the greatest. Gonna work on refining those to be better.

I can't get rid of Fischl because she's my Chuuni waifu.

 

The point of Dragon Slayer tome is to pop Mona's ult, switch to Diluc and give him that big attack buff, then hit something with your E for a massive Vaporize hit.

 

Dude. You have some amazing characters for a Diluc team. Diluc is arguably the best dps in the game. Venti is the best support in the game. Mona and Fischl are some of the best supports in the game. And Qiqi is the best healer in the game.

I used to dream about a Diluc/Qiqi/Fischl/Venti team for overworld exploration, as I thought it might be the best team in the game for it. Mona would be amazing for it too, and could replace any of the supports. Probably Venti for all shield coverage, even though Venti's ult is disgusting. But better in domains than overworld, I suppose.

Do you set up to do several hundred thousand damage with Mona's ult? Use Widsith. Do you just use Mona as exclusively support, using her skills so Diluc can do more damage? Thrilling Tales is a support book that makes your next character do more damage. It's worth a consideration. I definitely recommend it for someone like Barbara, who only exists to heal, but I think Mona can do enough damage that she warrants a real book, like Widsith.

For team building... pick a dps. Diluc, you say? He scales best lategame with Melt and Vaporize reactions, so pick hydro/cryo supports who can apply those reactions frequently. Try to get a healer in one of those elements too. Then you can run electro for Overload (breaks physical shields, extra dps - Fischl's Oz does a lot of damage) or anemo support for grouping and lowering enemy pyro resist.

That's really the story for building a team... pick a dps. Know what they scale with best. Fill your supports with people who can do that. Have a healer. If doing abyss/domains, have the right elements to break the elemental shields. Burst synergy (Venti -> Mona -> X) is a bonus.

 

I've always used Fishcl to put down the raven and switched to Mona to do damage+elemental reaction with her AA. But having read some of this thread and seeing people call both of them support characters I guess I'm doing something wrong?

Other characters I have are xiangling, Barbara, razor, sucrose, noelle, chongyun, beidou as well the three everyone has. Any sort of advice would be much appreciated.

Edit: literally just pulled diluc so that's something

 

Any character that has a lasting effect on the field has the potential to be used as an excellent support, even if their kit is focused on main dps (like fischl).

You have the potential to build an extremely strong Diluc team that will wipe pretty much everything except pyro immune enemies out of existence. Xiangling guoba > Sucrose VV pyro infuse > Mona with thrilling and nobless Ult > crimson witch Diluc. If you need to swap in a healer, drop xiangling, sub barbara, and do sucrose infusion with diluc

 

Personally, I've stopped doing the VV ele debuff thing. Not because it's not bloody powerful - it is - but I find it so clunky and annoying. Whether it's the lack of buff/debuff tracking, how easy it is to debuff the wrong Element, actually needing to time everything perfectly (anemo character needs to be on the field when the swirl happens for it to 'count' apparently, hard to tell because of first reason), or just Venti's burst putting my targets juuuuuuuust out of reach so I can't melee...

I've used it less and less lately. So frustrating.

 

All these people upset about Zhongli and Mihoyo's refusal to immediately buff him and I'm over here like "Welcome to gacha life."

 

I don't give a shit about how strong he is, but I suppose I am mildly concerned by how much of Zhongli and Childe's kit was put into constellations, especially the late ones.

Like, with the release 5*s, constellations felt like buffs. Nice to have, but not really necessary. While Childe and Zhongli feels like they were designed with full constellation, then had parts of their kit ripped away and placed into constellations... they feel almost like a shell of a full 5* at c0.

I want constellations to be a nice bonus, the cherry on top, instead of being a massive improvement or a change in a character's kit or role.

 

Mihoyo clarified that ZhongLi is supposed to be a support character, not a carry, thus the white dmg nerf (apparently, never used him).

Childe is my most powerful unit and I'm not even a little bit surprised. He's stupidly powerful once his conditions are met and you put him in the situation he excels. In MMOs you'd call him a Cleaver. Riptide procs AoE burst dmg from every source it procs from, the more enemies that are proccing it, the more insane his damage is.

Having used him for a while now, I love his kit. His C6 is powerful, but ultimately uneeded. It's more of a cherry on top than a necessity. It lets you be lazy while playing him. You just need to make sure you pile your enemies up good and proper then burst for 6 seconds for the highest dps in the game. It's so satisfying.

I'm looking at Xiao and those numbers in the leaked clips are subject to change. Ayaka though? She just looks money because of her element, and her abilities. A cryo sword user who doesn't seem to do persistent cryo damage like Keq, or more aptly, ChongYun? My Aquila likey the Inazuma waifu! She'll be much easier to save for because I already have a weapon that'll be amazing with how I want to build her (provided she's more Kaeya than Keqing).


On another note. I just hit a couple milestones. AR 50, BP 50#2 and Max Rep in Li Yue (the glider is huge btw).

Heads up, to get from weapon level 80 to 90 needs about 385 ish mythic enhancement crystals (I had 1000 saved up). My Black Sword needed 280ish from memory? I only save the SS and showed Jon for the former, forgot to do it with the latter.

I still need 3 orange lightning and hydro crystals to ascend Keq and Childe to 90. Keq will be easy, but fuck me I despise the water gnosis dude...

 

Use Lisa, Kaeya, and Jean. Easypants.