Genshin Impact isn't just about arming yourself with the most powerful characters in the game to slash away against enemies. A majority of quick and successful battles take strategy. Party-building is all about choosing a main DPS and building a party around them that will make them flourish.

The game is full of support characters that are built to help control the battlefield, cause reactions, and help make exploration easier. There are a lot of different support characters, and each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses. The guide below goes over which characters are best for each task in the game and when dealing with certain enemy types.

Related: Genshin Impact: Every Elemental Boss And How To Kill Them

Updated on August 13, 2021 by Jessica Thomas: If you want to do things easily in Genshin Impact, then you'll need to know how to handle the game's mechanics. There are many different types of challenges and enemies in the game, and if you don't choose the right character, you can end up feeling stuck.

The guide below goes over different parts of Genshin Impact's gameplay and which characters can best help you handle it. This includes everything from harvesting Serenitea Pot resources to taking down enemy shields. No matter what part of the game you are struggling with, the guide below is here to help.

The Best Characters To Use When Fighting Enemies With Shields

Shield enemies pose a major problem in the game as the shields are purely there to absorb damage. They are usually made of wood or ice if you're in Dragonspine, and most weapons can only chip away small amounts of their health. This makes dealing with shield-wielding enemies take much longer when you aren't prepared and can even lead to the use of more healing items.

There are two primary ways to get rid of a shield, the first is by burning them using pyro skills, and the second is to use a claymore to quickly break the shield. Luckily, there are characters who can easily fill both or at least one of these conditions in the support roster. Here are some characters who can deal with shield enemies, including Rosaria, who can also teleport behind them:

• Amber
• Rosaria
• Xinyan
• Beidou
• Chongyun
• Yanfei
• Yoimiya
• Xiangling
• Bennett

The Best Characters To Use When You Need To Place Shields On Your Team

Placing shields can also be important to protect your team from large damage spikes, such as when fighting bosses like Azhdaha. Those who want to place a shield on their team can use the following support characters:

• Xinyan
• Zhongli
• Noelle
• Kaeya
• Diona
• Beidou

Related: Genshin Impact: Guide To Talents

The Best Characters To Use When Facing Enemies With Elemental Shields

Elemental shields are another huge problem in the game, especially in some of the higher levels of the Spiral Abyss. The Fatui are powerful enemies that often come with these shields. If you don't use the proper element to break them down, then you can expect to be stuck fighting the same enemy for several minutes, and a majority of your party will go down. Support characters are a great way to deal continuous damage to these enemies while you main gets ready to chip away at their actual health bar.

Neutral Elements

If you are looking for a neutral elemental counter, then you can go with a geo or anemo character. This is a great choice when taking on the Abyss or a variety of different enemy types:

The Best Characters To Use When Defeating Special Enemies

These enemies aren't extremely common and, for the most part, can usually be found wandering the world alone. Ruin Guards, Ruin Hunters, Ruin Graders, and Eye of the Storm all fall into this category.

It's best to use a bow-user to target the eye of Ruin enemies to stun them. The following characters are effective against these enemies:

• Venti
• Fischl
• Ganyu
• Tartaglia
• Yoimya
• Diona

When using Venti, keep in mind that his anemo attacks aren't really effective against the Eye of the Storm.

The Best Characters To Use For Time Trials

Time trials don't really pop up that often outside of commissions and challenges, but there are quite a few support characters perfect for beating the clock: These characters can zip across the field to reach the goal before the clock runs out.

• Mona
• Ayaka

Both Ayaka and Mona have a fast dash that can make speeding across land and water a breeze. For time trials that involve battle, simply match up the best elements and use reactions to quickly cut down the enemy's health.

The Best Characters To Use For Field Control

Controlling the field is an important part of being a support character. These characters can help distract enemies, create AoE attacks that constantly damage a wide range of enemies, or even create physical structures for other characters to use to their advantage when fighting:

• Geo Traveler
• Anemo Traveler
• Sucrose
• Venti
• Mona
• Albedo
• Zhongli
• Kazuha
• Amber
• Ganyu

The anemo characters can push and pull enemies like Venti and Kazuha. Using Amber, Mona, and Ganyu can use their skills to summon an item to draw enemy attention. All three geo characters can summon structures onto the battlefield that can be climbed on.

Mona, Ganyu, Sucrose, Albedo, and Venti can all summon elemental bursts that help to damage a wide range of enemies or pull them into place for the main DPS to use their burst.

Related: Genshin Impact: Best Venti Builds And Essential Gameplay Tips

Best Characters To Provide Attack Support

These characters have off-field skills that deal extra damage to enemies even after they are swapped out:

• Xiangling
• Amber
• Zhongli
• Mona
• Ganyu
• Chongyun
• Beidou
• Kazuha
• Xingqiu
• Lisa
• Kaeya
• Venti
• Qiqi
• Albedo

The Best Healers

The following characters can heal you during battle, although their heals work in different ways.

• Diona
• Barbara
• Sayu
• Bennett
• Qiqi
• Noelle

Best Characters To Use For Exploring

Exploring is an important part of the game and helps you find quests, treasures, and special locations. These items will grant you experience, primogems, and items that can help your team become even more powerful. There are a ton of support characters that are great for exploring:

You will also really want to keep characters like Kazuha and Venti on your team when searching for the regions corresponding oculi, as many will be hidden in high places that most characters won't be able to reach.

Best Characters for Mining and Harvesting Wood

You will want to gather as much ore and wood as you can, especially if you want to make all the furniture items in the Serenitea Pot system. Sadly, ore takes quite a bit of time to harvest unless you have a claymore user in your team or use an elemental skill. Here are the characters best suited for harvesting ore:

• Eula
• Diluc
• Razor
• Xinyan
• Sayu
• Chongyun
• Noelle
• Beidou

Wood is easier to harvest, but being able to use a claymore can make the process much faster. This is especially true when you use Noelle's spinning charge attack to quickly harvest from multiple trees at once.

Exploring Electro Environments

Inazuma is a nation with tons of dangerous trees, enemies, and land. When exploring the region, you will find yourself in areas where even the ground is saturated with electro energy. To keep your damage at a minimum, you will want to deploy a shield character. The best choice is Beidou since she has an electro shield. Here are the shield characters who can best help you navigate electro-charged areas and challenges in Inazuma:

• Xinyan
• Beidou
• Zhongli
• Diona

Be sure to regularly reapply your shield when exploring dangerous areas.

Next: Genshin Impact: Best Support Characters