Genshin Impact Best F2P Team Comps for Every Element

Spending nothing in Genshin Impact doesn't leave you stuck. Some of the strongest characters in the game cost zero primogems. Xiangling shows up as a Spiral Abyss reward and has stayed a top damage dealer for years. Bennett heals your team and cranks their attack at the same time. Xingqiu's burst appears in more endgame clears than plenty of five-stars.

The real work is picking the right four. Element pairings matter, energy matters, and a squad that looks random on paper can out-damage a team of rare pulls if the reactions line up. Here's how the pieces fit and which teams to build first.

What Makes A Team Comp Work

A team is one character on field plus three people working from the sidelines. Your on-fielder drives the damage. The other three apply their element from off field, buff the squad, or keep everyone alive. When a build feels weak, it's usually because two characters are fighting for field time, or because nobody's generating enough energy to keep the bursts rolling.

Four things decide whether a comp actually functions.

Roles, not rarity

You need damage, you need a way to apply a second element constantly, and you need someone keeping the carry upright. A four-star who applies Hydro every second from off field is worth more to your damage than a five-star who needs to stand still and swing. This is why the same handful of four-stars shows up in team lists over and over. They do their job without touching the field.

Elemental resonance

Run two of the same element and the whole party gets a bonus. These come straight from the game:

| Resonance | Needs | Effect | | --- | --- | --- | | Fervent Flames | 2 Pyro | ATK +25%, Cryo applied to you lasts 40% less time | | Soothing Water | 2 Hydro | Max HP +25%, Pyro on you lasts 40% less time | | High Voltage | 2 Electro | Hydro on you 40% less; Superconduct, Overloaded and Electro-Charged have a 100% chance to make an Electro particle (5s cooldown) | | Shattering Ice | 2 Cryo | Electro on you 40% less; +15% CRIT Rate against Frozen or Cryo-affected enemies | | Impetuous Winds | 2 Anemo | Stamina use -15%, movement +10%, skill cooldowns -5% | | Enduring Rock | 2 Geo | Shield strength +15%; shielded characters deal +15% damage and cut enemy Geo RES by 20% for 15s on hit | | Sprawling Greenery | 2 Dendro | Party gets 30 EM for 6s after Burning, Quicken or Bloom; 20 EM for 6s after Aggravate, Spread, Hyperbloom or Burgeon | | Protective Canopy | 4 different elements | All RES +15%, Physical RES +15% |

For damage, Fervent Flames is the big one. That flat 25% attack rides on everything. Shattering Ice is close behind in a freeze squad, since free crit rate is free crit rate. Protective Canopy looks boring but it's a nice chunk of survivability when your team is a rainbow of elements.

Reactions do the heavy lifting

Three families, and each wants different stats.

Amplifying reactions are Vaporize and Melt. They multiply the hit that triggers them. Hydro hitting a Pyro'd enemy doubles the damage. Pyro hitting a Hydro'd enemy gets 1.5x. Same shape for Melt with the two elements swapped. These scale off attack and crit, so your carry builds normal damage stats and lets the reaction multiply it.

Additive reactions are Aggravate and Spread. Hit a Quickened enemy with Electro or Dendro and the hit gains a flat chunk of bonus damage based on character level and Elemental Mastery. The hit still crits and still scales with attack, so an aggravate carry builds like a normal carry with some EM sprinkled in.

The third family is its own damage: Overloaded, Electro-Charged, Swirl, and the Dendro bloom group including Hyperbloom. These hits can't crit and they ignore your attack stat entirely. They scale off character level and Elemental Mastery, and that's it. That's why a hyperbloom trigger runs full EM and goes to level 90 - the level is a straight damage increase.

Energy Recharge, the stat people forget

Most of your damage lives in 60 and 80 energy bursts. Xiangling and Xingqiu both pay 80. If the burst isn't up every rotation, the team just doesn't run. Community energy math puts Xiangling around 160 to 180 percent recharge in a National team, Xingqiu around 180 to 200 at his sixth constellation (more like 240 before that, or a lot less with a Sacrificial Sword), and Bennett near 180 to 200. Those are targets to aim at, not laws. Too little and you stall. Too much and you've wasted substats that could have been crit.

A battery helps too. Someone who spams their skill and feeds particles to the same element cuts everyone's recharge needs, which frees your artifacts up for damage.

Best Free-to-Play Pyro Team

The answer here has been the same for years: Bennett, Xiangling, Xingqiu, and Sucrose. People call it the National team, and a fully free-to-play version of it still clears floor 12 of the Spiral Abyss. It's four four-stars, three of them free or near-free, and it's held up through every patch.

Why it works

Xiangling's burst, Pyronado, spins around your active character for 10 seconds hitting everything with Pyro. It costs 80 energy and has a 20 second cooldown. It also snapshots, meaning it grabs Xiangling's stats the moment she casts, so you cast it inside Bennett's buff and the whole tornado keeps those stats after the buff fades.

Xingqiu's burst lasts 15 seconds, costs 80 energy, and fires Hydro swords at whatever your active character normal-attacks. That keeps a Hydro aura glued to the enemy. Pyronado hits a Hydro'd target and vaporizes for 1.5x, over and over. You're reverse vaporizing, which is the weaker direction, but you're doing it on basically every spin of the spear.

Bennett drops his burst, Fantastic Voyage, and everyone standing in the circle gets an attack buff based on Bennett's base attack - the white number, his own attack plus his weapon's, nothing else. It's a 60 energy burst on a 15 second cooldown that lasts 12 seconds, and it heals anyone under 70% HP while it's up. The buff ratio runs from 56 percent of his base attack at talent level one up to 126 percent at the cap.

Sucrose shreds resistance and shares Elemental Mastery, which we'll get to in the support section.

The rotation

1. Sucrose skill, to swirl and shred resistance.
2. Bennett skill, then burst. His skill makes Pyro particles for Xiangling.
3. Xiangling skill (Guoba), then burst. Cast it while standing in Bennett's circle.
4. Xingqiu skill, then burst.
5. Normal attack on Sucrose or Xiangling for the rest of the window. Every swing triggers Xingqiu's swords.

Then repeat. The order you use for the first three matters less than making sure Xiangling's burst goes off inside Bennett's field.

Weapons and artifacts, all cheap

Xiangling wants The Catch, a 4-star polearm you buy from the Inazuma Fishing Association for fish. At rank five it's 510 base attack, 45.9 percent Energy Recharge, and a passive giving 32 percent burst damage and 12 percent burst crit rate. You refine it with Ako's Sake Vessel from the same shop, so R5 is just patience with a fishing rod. Dragon's Bane is the other option - 454 base attack and 221 Elemental Mastery at level 90, with 20 to 36 percent bonus damage against enemies affected by Hydro or Pyro. Since your targets are always wet in this team, that passive is always on.

Give Xiangling four pieces of Emblem of Severed Fate. The 2-piece is 20 percent Energy Recharge, and the 4-piece adds burst damage equal to 25 percent of your total recharge, capped at 75 percent. That set was basically drawn for an 80-cost burst character. Bennett runs four Noblesse Oblige, which gives 20 percent burst damage on 2-piece and pumps the whole party's attack by 20 percent for 12 seconds whenever he uses his burst. Xingqiu is happy with Emblem too.

For swords, Bennett likes a Favonius Sword for the particles, and Xingqiu loves a Sacrificial Sword since a second skill cast doubles his particle generation.

One more thing worth grabbing: clearing Floor 3, Chamber 3 of the Spiral Abyss hands you Xiangling for free, once. That's an Adventure Rank 20 unlock and it's the single best free character in the game.

Best Free-to-Play Hydro And Freeze Team

Freeze is the fun one. You lock the enemy in place, it never swings back, and your crit rate goes through the roof for free.

The freeze core

Run Kaeya, Rosaria, Xingqiu, and Sucrose. Kaeya's free from the Mondstadt story quest. Rosaria's a standard four-star pull. Two Cryo gives you Shattering Ice, that 15 percent crit rate against frozen enemies, and both of them drop Cryo without needing field time. Kaeya's burst, Glacial Waltz, costs 60 energy and sends three icicles circling him for 8 seconds on a 15 second cooldown. Rosaria's burst plants an ice lance that pulses four times, and her fourth ascension passive shares 15 percent of her own crit rate with the party for 10 seconds after casting, capped at 15.

Xingqiu keeps the Hydro aura going so the freeze actually holds, and Sucrose groups enemies and shreds resistance.

The payoff is Blizzard Strayer. The 2-piece is 15 percent Cryo damage. The 4-piece gives 20 percent crit rate against Cryo-affected enemies and another 20 percent, so 40 total, against frozen ones. Stack that with the 15 from resonance and Rosaria's share and your Cryo carries can run a crit damage circlet and barely bother with crit rate substats. That's a huge artifact budget savings for a free-to-play account.

If you don't have Rosaria, Barbara slots in as the fourth. You lose some damage but you gain a healer, and Thrilling Tales on Barbara is a real buff. Freeze is a bit rockier with only one Cryo applier, so lean on Kaeya's burst timing.

The other thing Xingqiu does

Here's the twist. The strongest budget Hydro team isn't freeze at all, it's hyperbloom: Kuki Shinobu, Xingqiu, Dendro Traveler, and a flex slot, usually Barbara or Sucrose.

Kuki's skill, Sanctifying Ring, costs part of her own HP and then follows your active character around, dealing Electro damage every 1.5 seconds and healing at the same time. That steady pulse is a perfect core detonator. Dendro plus Hydro makes a Dendro core on the ground. Kuki's Electro hits the core, and it turns into a homing hyperbloom bolt whose damage comes straight from her level and Elemental Mastery.

So you build her weird on purpose. Full Elemental Mastery on every piece, Iron Sting in her hand (a craftable 4-star sword with 510 base attack and 165 EM), and level 90 before anything else, since this damage family climbs with level. Aim somewhere around 900 to 1000 EM once artifacts cooperate. She doesn't care about crit at all. It's the cheapest "good damage" build in the game because you're chasing one stat.

Dendro Traveler is free the moment you set foot in Sumeru, and clearing Floor 4, Chamber 3 of the Spiral Abyss gets you Collei, also free. Two Dendro gives you Sprawling Greenery resonance, which feeds the party 30 EM after Bloom and 20 more after every hyperbloom pop. Free EM for a team that wants EM.

The catch is that hyperbloom really wants Kuki, and she's a gacha four-star. If you don't have her, hold off on this team. There's no free Electro applicator with a pulse that clean.

Pick one of these two per Abyss run. Xingqiu can't be on both teams, and he's the engine in each.

Best Free-to-Play Electro And Aggravate Team

Two good options here. One's old and reliable, one's newer and scales harder.

Sucrose Taser

Sucrose, Fischl, Beidou, and Xingqiu. Fischl drops Oz with her skill and the bird keeps zapping from off field - her 60 energy burst just repositions him. Beidou's burst puts a shield of lightning around your active character that chains between enemies. Sucrose swears in Anemo and keeps both elements swirling, and Xingqiu adds Hydro so the whole thing sits in permanent Electro-Charged.

Two Electro gives you High Voltage resonance, which has a 100 percent chance to spit out an Electro particle whenever you trigger Superconduct, Overloaded or Electro-Charged, on a 5 second cooldown. In a taser team that's a battery running nonstop, and it's a big part of why Beidou's 80 energy burst feels affordable here.

Beidou's skill is also a parry. Tap it and she swings. Hold it, get hit, and she releases a counter for way more damage. Getting the timing down is free damage on a character who's already mostly free to build.

Aggravate on a budget

Fischl, Dendro Traveler or Collei, Sucrose, and a flex - Lisa works, Barbara works if you need a healer. Dendro plus Electro puts a Quicken aura on the enemy. After that, every Electro hit gets Aggravate, a flat damage add based on level and EM.

Unlike hyperbloom, your Electro carry still scales with attack and crit, so Fischl builds like a normal damage dealer with a little EM mixed in. Oz hits constantly, so Fischl procs aggravate constantly. That's the whole team. Sucrose wearing Viridescent Venerer cuts enemy Electro resistance by 40 percent for 10 seconds after a swirl, and her ascension passives hand out Elemental Mastery - 50 to anyone matching the swirled element for 8 seconds, plus 20 percent of her own EM to the party whenever her skill or burst connects. Stack EM on Sucrose and everyone else gets paid.

Lisa's the free option if Fischl hasn't come home. She's clunky, her energy costs hurt, and she really wants constellations, but an aggravate Lisa with good Dendro support behind her still clears content. Use her held attack to apply Electro fast, then let Oz-style off-field damage do the rest if you have it.

On Sucrose herself: she doesn't need talent books or a good weapon to do her job. Her value is the Viridescent Venerer set and her two EM passives, both of which work at talent level one. Get the set, get the EM, and she's done. That makes her the cheapest character on this page to bring up to speed.

Budget Support Options Without Five-Stars

Supports are where a free-to-play account gets its money. A well-built support makes every carry better, and the best ones cost almost nothing.

The four you should actually build

Sucrose is the best budget support in the game. Viridescent Venerer 4-piece for the 40 percent resistance shred, full EM on her artifacts so her passive shares more, and Sacrificial Fragments if you have it. Her first constellation adds a charge to her skill, which means more grouping, more particles, more EM sharing. She makes every team on this page better.

Bennett heals and buffs. Remember the buff runs off his base attack only, so give him a high base attack sword and skip attack percent on his artifacts entirely. It does nothing for his buff. Level him, level his burst talent, done.

Xingqiu is a support who happens to do damage. Beyond the Hydro application, his rain swords give damage reduction and interruption resistance, and they heal a little when they break. He fits on every team in this guide, which is exactly the problem - you only get one.

Kuki Shinobu heals and detonates. In hyperbloom she's the team. Elsewhere she's a fine Electro healer with steady off-field application.

The truly free bench

Barbara's free at Adventure Rank 18 after finishing the quest A Long Shot. She heals plenty and she can hold a Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers, a 3-star catalyst that gives the character switching in 24 percent attack at rank one and 48 percent at rank five. That's one of the strongest buffs in the game on a weapon that drops from regular wishes.

Lynette's free at Adventure Rank 25 from a permanent event page. She's an Anemo substitute for Sucrose - not as good, since she doesn't share EM, but she groups enemies and wears Viridescent Venerer just fine. Noelle comes from your first beginner wishes and makes a serviceable shielder while you're still early.

Cheap gear that punches up

The Favonius weapon series is support candy. Crit hits have a 60 percent chance to generate a particle worth 6 energy, on a 12 second cooldown at rank one, and it climbs with refinements. Slap one on anyone who's burst-reliant and watch their uptime jump.

Noblesse Oblige 4-piece on whoever bursts first. Twenty percent party attack for 12 seconds, no stacks, works forever. Viridescent Venerer 4-piece on any Anemo. Emblem of Severed Fate on burst damage dealers. Those three sets cover almost every free-to-play build you'll make.

Constellations from the shop

Paimon's Bargains rotates two four-star characters every month for 34 Masterless Starglitter each, resetting on the first. The pulls you were making anyway generate Starglitter, so check the shop before spending it on weapons. Bennett's first constellation removes the health requirement on his burst buff. Xiangling's fourth stretches Pyronado's duration by 40 percent, taking it from 10 seconds to 14. Fischl's sixth keeps Oz on the field longer and adds coordinated attacks. Any of those is worth saving up for over a weapon.

Build order, if you're starting fresh: Bennett's burst, then Xiangling, then Xingqiu, then Sucrose's passives. Xiangling's already waiting at Floor 3 Chamber 3, and you can clear that the same week you hit Adventure Rank 20.