Genshin Impact Characters: All 122 by Element, Weapon and Region

Genshin Impact launched with a cast you could memorise in an afternoon. It now has 122 playable characters, seventy-one of them five stars, spread across seven elements, five weapon types and nine regions, and new ones arrive every few weeks. Keeping track by name stopped working years ago.

Sorting them by element is the way the game itself thinks about them, because elemental reactions are the whole combat system and a team is really a choice of four elements. What follows is the complete roster grouped that way, plus the weapon and region breakdowns, and a note on which characters you can reliably get rather than hope for.

How Big the Genshin Impact Roster Is

Five-star characters outnumber four-stars 71 to 51, which is the opposite of how a gacha game usually works and matters because four-stars are the ones you actually accumulate. The practical consequence is that a free-to-play account ends up with deep coverage of a few elements and almost none of others, depending entirely on which four-stars happened to appear on banners while you were playing.

The Traveler sits outside all of this. It is the only character whose element changes, picking up a new one in each region you unlock, and it is the only character every single account has.

Genshin Impact Characters by Element

Cryo: 21 characters

The largest element and the most top-heavy, with thirteen of its twenty-one at five stars. Cryo pairs with Hydro to freeze and with Electro to shatter, so it tends to be built around locking enemies in place rather than raw damage.

• Five-star: Aloy, Citlali, Escoffier, Eula, Ganyu, Kamisato Ayaka, Lohen, Odette, Qiqi, Sandrone, Shenhe, Skirk, Wriothesley
• Four-star: Charlotte, Chongyun, Diona, Freminet, Kaeya, Layla, Mika, Rosaria

Anemo: 19 characters

The crowd-control element. Anemo characters group enemies together and spread whatever other element is on the field, which is why almost every team carries one regardless of what else is in it.

• Five-star: Chasca, Jean, Kaedehara Kazuha, Varka, Venti, Vesna, Wanderer, Xianyun, Xiao, Yumemizuki Mizuki
• Four-star: Faruzan, Ifa, Jahoda, Lan Yan, Lynette, Prune, Sayu, Shikanoin Heizou, Sucrose

Electro: 19 characters

The most four-star-heavy element on the list, with eleven of nineteen at four stars, which makes it the cheapest to build a working team around early on.

• Five-star: Clorinde, Cyno, Flins, Ineffa, Keqing, Raiden Shogun, Varesa, Yae Miko
• Four-star: Alyosha, Beidou, Dori, Fischl, Iansan, Kujou Sara, Kuki Shinobu, Lisa, Ororon, Razor, Sethos

Pyro: 18 characters

The damage element, and the one most reactions route through. Pyro with Hydro, Cryo or Electro all produce something worth building a team around.

• Five-star: Arlecchino, Dehya, Diluc, Durin, Hu Tao, Klee, Lyney, Mavuika, Nicole, Yoimiya
• Four-star: Amber, Bennett, Chevreuse, Gaming, Thoma, Xiangling, Xinyan, Yanfei

Hydro: 17 characters

Small but expensive: twelve of seventeen are five stars. Hydro enables freeze with Cryo and bloom with Dendro, so it is a support element that happens to contain several of the strongest damage dealers.

• Five-star: Columbina, Furina, Kamisato Ayato, Mona, Mualani, Neuvillette, Nilou, Sangonomiya Kokomi, Sigewinne, Tartaglia, Vodyanitsa, Yelan
• Four-star: Aino, Barbara, Candace, Dahlia, Xingqiu

Geo: 14 characters

The odd one out, because Geo does not react with anything the way the others do. It builds shields and constructs instead, which makes Geo teams self-contained rather than reaction-driven.

• Five-star: Albedo, Arataki Itto, Chiori, Linnea, Navia, Xilonen, Zhongli, Zibai
• Four-star: Gorou, Illuga, Kachina, Ningguang, Noelle, Yun Jin

Dendro: 12 characters

The newest element, introduced with Sumeru, and still the smallest at twelve. It reacts with Hydro, Pyro and Electro in ways that changed how teams were built when it arrived.

• Five-star: Alhaitham, Baizhu, Emilie, Kinich, Lauma, Nahida, Nefer, Tighnari
• Four-star: Collei, Kaveh, Kirara, Yaoyao

Weapon Types and What Each One Is For

Every character is locked to one of five weapon types, which decides their attack pattern and which weapons they can hold. It matters more than it sounds, because a team with no Claymore struggles against certain shields and a team with no Bow cannot hit things at range.

Catalyst users are the quiet exception worth knowing about. Their normal attacks deal elemental damage rather than physical, which means they ignore the physical resistance that slows a sword user down and they apply their element constantly rather than on a cooldown.

Where the Characters Come From

The distribution tracks the order the map opened rather than anything about the characters. Mondstadt and Liyue were both there at launch and between them account for nearly four in ten of the cast. Snezhnaya is the interesting entry: seven characters call it home and the region itself is still not on the map, because they are all Fatui, the antagonist faction.

The Newest Characters

Version numbering changed this year. The game moved from the old 5.x scheme to named Luna versions, and the characters released under them are the most recent additions to the roster.

• Flins: Electro, 5 star, released September 30, 2025 in Luna I
• Aino: Hydro, 4 star, released September 10, 2025 in Luna I
• Lauma: Dendro, 5 star, released September 10, 2025 in Luna I
• Nefer: Dendro, 5 star, released October 22, 2025 in Luna II
• Wonderland Manekin: no fixed element, 5 star, released October 22, 2025 in Luna II
• Nicole: Pyro, 5 star, released May 20, 2026 in Luna VII
• Prune: Anemo, 4 star, released May 20, 2026 in Luna VII
• Lohen: Cryo, 5 star, released June 09, 2026 in Luna VII

New characters debut on a limited banner and leave it when the banner ends. Four-stars join the permanent pool one update after that debut, which means every four-star eventually becomes available forever. Five-stars released on an event banner never do, so a limited five-star you skip is gone until it is rerun.

Which Characters You Can Actually Count On

There is a meaningful difference between the characters on this list you might pull and the ones you will certainly own. The permanent Wanderlust Invocation banner holds every non-exclusive character, so the standard five-stars and every four-star that has been out for more than one update are all reachable with the free currency the game hands you.

That is the honest answer to which characters to chase as a new player: build the four-stars you already have, because the element coverage matters far more than the rarity. A team of four-stars that triggers the right reactions clears content that a single underbuilt five-star cannot. The free currency to get there comes partly from the rotating Genshin Impact codes, which pay out in Primogems and upgrade material.

For the current banner schedule and the official announcements, the game’s own site and its community forum are the places that carry them first. Background on the game itself, including its release history and commercial scale, is covered in the reference entry.

One practical warning for phone players: a party of fully built characters throws a lot more particle effects than an early account does, and the frame rate and the handset temperature both notice. Our guide to stopping a phone overheating covers the settings that help most.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many characters are in Genshin Impact?

There are 122 playable characters, counting the Traveler. Seventy-one are five stars and fifty-one are four stars. The number rises by two or three with each new version, so it dates quickly.

What is the best element in Genshin Impact?

There is no single best one, because the system is built on reactions between elements rather than on any element being stronger. Anemo is the closest thing to universally useful, since it groups enemies and spreads whatever else is on the field, which is why most teams carry one.

Can you get every character for free?

Not every one. Standard-banner five-stars and all four-stars eventually enter the permanent pool and can be pulled with free currency. Five-stars released on limited event banners never join that pool, so they are only available during their original banner or a rerun.

Which characters does everyone start with?

The Traveler, whose element changes as you unlock each region, plus the handful of four-stars the early story and beginner events hand out. Those are the characters worth levelling first, because everyone has them and the game is balanced around that assumption.

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