I was recently lucky enough to unlock Venti in Genshin Impact‘s wish system, meaning I now have access to one of the most powerful characters in the entire game. And now that I’ve had some time to check out his moveset, holy crap is this kid powerful.
Venti’s not a DPS powerhouse like Diluc, so he won’t be your first choice for tough boss battles. However, when it comes to taking on large groups of scattered enemies, Venti is ludicrously overpowered.
Venti has to skills that, when combined, are the perfect storm of crowd-controlling damage-dealing. The first is called Skyward Sonnet. This ability (which you activate by pressing R2 on PS4) creates a quick whirlwind that deals AoE Anemo damage. Launch Skyward Sonnet in the middle of enemy clusters and you’ll quickly frustrate them. Plus, it’s not blocked by the shields of Mitachurls, and it lifts shield-bearing Hilichurl Guards into the air. You won’t even need to think about shields unless you end up in a really tough battle.
However, Skyward Sonnet has some other uses as well. If you hold R2 instead of pressing it, you’ll activate Embrace of Winds and Venti will launch himself into the air. Follow that up by popping open your glider and Venti suddenly has access to places other characters can’t reach (bypassing some of the game’s puzzles entirely).
In combat, hitting enemies with Skyward Sonnet creates elemental orbs that fill the meter for Venti’s more powerful skill, Wind’s Grand Ode. This creates a vortex that pulls enemies into its center, dealing Anemo damage all the while. It won’t pull larger enemies (like Mitachurls and Ruin Guardians), but when you’re faced with a group of several smaller enemies, you can vacuum them up into a tight little space. Then, you can either fire off another Skyward Sonnet, or you can switch to another character who deals focused damage (Diluc’s Dawn skill is a deadly follow-up).
If this one-two punch of cloud-control cluster damage still isn’t good enough for you, Venti’s passive skill, Windrider, reduces the stamina drain of party members by 20% while gliding.
Venti is extremely overpowered in Genshin Impact, and I have yet to see a tier list that doesn’t rank him as an S-tier character. There’s an argument to be made that he’s the best character in the game.
Earning Venti in Genshin Impact takes a bit of luck, since you’re completely at the mercy of the game’s gacha system, but he’s a real game-changer.
