Your guide to character roles in Genshin Impact

Genshin Impact is full of playable characters you can unlock to build powerful, effective teams. But with so many characters, it can be tough to understand how each one works in a group and what their role is.

While it doesn't have the same kind of RPG classes you might be used to in different games, each character in Genshin Impact does have a specific place on a team that's dictated by their weapons and abilities. Here's what you need to know about character roles in Genshin Impact.

There are five weapon types in Genshin Impact, which determine how each character fights in battle. Characters with swords fight at close range, while those with claymores and polearms take a more mid-range approach, and the ones carrying bows and magic catalysts are effective at longer ranges.

Weapons also dictate how much damage a character will deal. For example, characters with bows can hit enemies at longer distances, but usually can't attack as quickly and dish out as much punishment as those with swords.

In addition to a fast weapon attack, each character has a stronger charged weapon attack, and two talents based on their elemental magic: an elemental skill and an elemental burst. Elemental skills can be used frequently in combat, but need to "cool down" after each use for a short time. Elemental bursts need to be charged over time and can have huge, powerful effects.

Alongside weapons, talents dictate what a character's role is on a team. Their talents might do massive damage to enemies, or they might heal your team's other characters, or boost their abilities.

Each character's talents are also tied to a specific kind of elemental magic. There are seven element types – Pyro, Cryo, Hydro, Anemo, Geo, Electro, and Dendro – and each one has different effects on enemies. Ice-based enemies will be weak to the fire effects of Pyro, for example.

What's more, elementals can be combined to make them stronger or to create specific effects. For instance, if you hit an enemy with a Hydro spell, you'll make them all wet. Follow up with a Cryo spell and you can freeze that enemy.

Despite having a team of four, you can only control one character at a time in combat. To really excel at combat and take on tougher enemies and bosses, you'll want to hone your ability to swap between characters to use their weapons, elemental skills, and elemental bursts in combination to make the most of their synergies.

You'll generally want a team to have a character you rely on to deal damage (often called a "DPS," or "damage per second" character), another damage character who can support the first or is useful in certain situations, and two support characters who can heal or enhance the abilities of the damage characters. Experiment to find combinations you like and that work well for you.