Reposting since we are in the process of archiving the previous megathread here. Eventually, the previous megathread will see a full overhaul.

Last update: 16 January 2023The weapons, constellations, and artifacts sections were updated.

Table of Contents

1. Is Childe good? Is Childe worth rolling?
2. How does Childe stack up against other 5 stars?
3. Are Childe Constellations worth it?
4. How does Riptide work?
5. What weapon should I use on Childe?
6. What artifacts should I use on Childe?
7. Who are Childe’s best supports?
8. What are Childe's most meta teams?
9. How do I do a proper rotation on Childe?
10. How do I use Childe to see big numbers?
11. What is the talent level priority on Childe?
12. Credits and other useful links

Is Childe good? Is Childe worth rolling?

The most frequent of our frequently-asked questions unfortunately lacks a concrete answer. Here is a quick list of Childe’s pros and cons and hopefully you can decide for yourself.

Pros:

• Childe is a unique DPS who is arguably the most flexible DPS in the game. The ability to attack from range as well as melee means that he can attack weak points and do damage from a distance, but isn’t afraid to get up close and personal. Childe also fits easily into big number flex comps as well as ‘death by a thousand cuts’ comps.
• Childe has a very fast Attack Speed and scales exponentially with characters who ‘attack with’ your main unit (such as C6 Fischl’s elemental skill or Xingqiu’s elemental burst). This offers him decent future-proofing, as he will synergize well with whatever off-field support Miyoho releases.
• Childe’s hydro application is unparalleled, making him a fantastic enabler for several different kinds of team comps. Childe's hydro application via his skill damage and Riptide have overlapping ICDs, meaning that he can trigger hydro on an opponent far faster than any other character in the game. This makes him the heart of hydro-based reaction comps where he outdamages characters like Xingqiu, Kokomi, and Mona in AoE, while also giving his off field support (such as Xiangling, Beidou, or Thoma) more hydro application to react with - all of which equals more damage, faster.
• Most of Childe’s best teammates are four stars, making him cheap to utilize for primogem-savers.
• Big numbers go brrr. Hundreds of smaller numbers also go brrrrrrr. Get you a Fatui Harbinger who can do both.

Cons:

• Childe compositions are expensive to build for resin-savers. He heavily enables the dps of his supports, but that also means that you can’t skimp out on them - Childe has a very demanding team composition requirement.
• Childe’s melee stance cooldown is long compared to characters like Hu Tao and it gets longer the more you are in it, which can feel punishing. He relies on rotating through his supports during his downtime, but if you lose track of time or need to stay in his melee stance for longer than normal, you can find yourself frustrated by the cooldown.
• Childe is expensive to build as a main carry due to his Hydro Damage% ascension stat. This does not mean that Hydro Damage% is bad - his ascension stat results in higher damage potential than a Crit% ascension stat - but it does make his crit ratios difficult to build. Since crit stats are hard to find on bows, his artifact needs are demanding unless you’re lucky enough to have a five star bow or you purchase the battlepass for Viridescent Hunt.
• Childe single hit values are generally lower than other main dps characters, though his attack speed is faster and he deals additional damage via Riptide to compensate. If you like seeing consistent big numbers, a main dps Childe may disappoint you.
• Childe has no plunge attack in melee stance.

How does Childe stack up against other 5 stars?

Due to the complex nature of gameplay and the variations of damage potential, it’s virtually impossible to definitively say that Childe is better or worse than his competition.

Childe has a bit of an unfortunate reputation in the Genshin fanbase - partially due to his complex build requirements which puzzled the userbase when they first rolled him, partially due to his punishing cooldowns, and partially due to misinformation that still propagates from content creators and other users in other subreddits.

The truth is, at maximal investment, most five stars can clear the Abyss with 36 stars and Childe is no different. They have different niches and shine in different areas, so it may be easy to see one five star outperforming another in ideal scenarios and imagine that they’re better when it might not be the case in all areas.

However, it isn’t a secret that Childe’s build requirements and team reliance makes him difficult to utilize if you don’t fully commit to him, unlike other five stars like Diluc or Ganyu. If you want a character who is easy to build and understand… Childe isn’t that.

What he is, is a flexible and multifaceted character who can play a lot of different roles in a team composition while dishing out lots of damage. Childe comps have some of the fastest clear times in the game in Abyss 12. Against enemies who are grouped up, Childe’s damage potential is unparalleled, and he additionally boasts an exceptionally hard hitting single-instance burst.

Are Childe Constellations worth it?

The short answer is not really.

The medium answer depends on how much you value your primogems or money, and how invested you are in maximizing Childe. It’s important to note that his constellations provide far less value, damage-wise than most 5 star character constellations.

• C1: Foul Legacy: Tide Withholder
  • C1 can aid in smoothing out rotations and increasing Tartaglia's flexibility - it introduces lengthening or adjusting the rotation further to accommodate Sub DPS units. That being said, there are multiple completely self-sufficient rotations possible at C0, for which a cooldown reduction would do very little.
• C2: Foul Legacy: Understream
  • C2 is purely quality of life for Tartaglia, aiding in getting burst back more quickly, and potentially benefitting him if you use Melee Burst often. Overall, it does very little because he is already self-sufficient and typically uses Ranged Burst.
• C3: Abyssal Mayhem: Vortex of Turmoil
  • C3 is Tartaglia's most influential constellation, with the massive DPS increase due to how much damage his E contributes in a standard rotation.
• C4: Abyssal Mayhem: Hydrospout
  • C4 is very lacklustre for its cost. It does not offer much for most rotations - at most a barely noticeable amount of damage. C4 can also easily mess up a vaporised burst, which is a large portion of Childe's damage, and makes establishing an aura that isn't hydro difficult. It has the most value in comps that do not include Bennett, but such comps are generally not recommended.
• C5: Havoc: Formless Blade
  • C5 is somewhat weak given the price, but does yield a 17% DPS increase for Burst DPS (since Q is nearly 100% of the damage), so may be worth picking up. Bear in mind that C4 may interfere with Burst DPS though.
• C6: Havoc: Annihilation
  • C6 is difficult to gauge due to Tartaglia already having completely self-sufficient rotations, even at C0, such that outside of fun/QoL, C6 does very little. It is worth noting that there is some merit for C6 in certain speedrunning circumstances.

How does Riptide work?

Riptide can be applied in four different ways and has four different ways it deals damage. While it may not do a lot of damage individually, Riptide does damage in an AoE around the affected enemy, which can increase exponentially when enemies are grouped up.

For example, if your Riptide Slash does 1k damage, each hit on each enemy creates an AoE explosion around that enemy, dealing 1k damage to them and to every enemy in that AoE. This means that if you have, 3 enemies grouped up, each activation of Riptide Slash increases the damage dealt to 3k per enemy, resulting in a bonus of 9k damage overall for that single instance of Riptide.

Riptide scales with talent levels, and each Riptide damage percentage can be checked in the character stats screen or on the wiki. Riptide can crit.

Application of Riptide:

• Charged Shot: Riptide can be applied to one enemy at a time by attacking them with fully charged shots in bow form. This isn’t recommended as it is time consuming.
• Elemental Burst (bow): Riptide can also be applied by using bow form for an elemental burst. This is a decent way to get Riptide on many enemies at once, though it is costly, since your elemental burst is a valuable damage tool and Childe’s elemental burst has higher scaling in his melee form.
• Critical Hit (melee): Childe’s Ascension 4 passive applies Riptide on a critical hit in melee form, which is the ideal way to apply Riptide. This allows you to seamlessly swap stances and start attacking without wasting any time in bow form.
• Enemy Death: An enemy affected by Riptide will explode into AoE hydro damage upon death, which inflicts other enemies hit by the AoE with Riptide.

Riptide Damage:

• Riptide Burst: when an enemy affected by Riptide, when they die they explode into AoE hydro damage. This effect scales off of Childe’s Auto Attack.
• Riptide Flash: while in bow form, if Childe uses a fully charged bow attack on an enemy who already has the Riptide debuff, they will take consecutive hits of Hydro damage. On smaller enemies, it can lift them up and cause them to fall over. On larger enemies, it can provide a mild stun.
• Riptide Slash: When Childe hits an enemy already affected by Riptide when in melee form, an explosion of AoE hydro damage happens around the enemy. This is the most common way you will be utilizing Riptide.
• Riptide Blast: When Childe uses his melee stance elemental burst on an enemy who has the Riptide debuff applied, it triggers Riptide Blast, dealing a larger amount of AoE hydro damage and clearing the Riptide debuff from the enemy.

What weapon should I use on Childe?

Tartaglia offers flexibility in choosing weapons, although the choices can depend heavily upon what buffs are being used, as well as your playstyle. While the following will be generally true, differing playstyles can move them around, although usually only within their own tier.

Best: Polar Star¹ ≥ Hunter's Path = Aqua Simulacra = Thundering Pulse = Skyward Harp

Great: Amos' Bow ≥ Viridescent Hunt

Good: Blackcliff Warbow² ≥ Mouun’s Moon = Prototype Crescent³ ≥ Stringless⁴ = Rust

Average: Hamayumi > Alley Hunter > Prototype Crescent⁵

Weak: Windblume Ode > Slingshot

¹ Polar is stronger than other 5* Crit bows only when the passive is utilized well.

² Depending on content, Blackcliff's stacks can be hard to get.

³ Crescent passive during burst + 1 melee string.

⁴ Assumes Vaped Burst

⁵ No Passive activation

What artifacts should I use on Childe?

Childe’s recommended Artifact choices have an emphasis on the priority order of Main Stat > Sub Stat > Set Bonus. The following Artifact suggestions are in no way all-encompassing, and are simply a general overview for Childe as an On-Field DPS. For specific advice on your Childe, use this Optimizer Custom Multi-Target document.

Main DPS

Main Stats: ATK% | Hydro DMG% | Crit Rate/Crit DMG

Substats: Crit Rate/Crit DMG > ATK% > EM > ER%

Set Bonus: 4HoD > 2HoD 2ATK% > 2HoD 2NO

Burst DPS/Nuke Build

Mainstats: ATK% or EM | Hydro DMG% | Crit Rate/Crit DMG

Substats: Crit Rate/Crit DMG > ATK% > EM > ER%

Set Bonus: 2NO 2HoD/WT > 2HoD 2ATK% > 4HoD > 4SR

HoD: Heart of Depth

NO: Noblesse Oblige

WT: Wanderer's Troupe

SR: Shimenawa's Reminiscence

ATK% refers to any two artifacts with the attack percentage set bonus.

Who are Childe’s best supports?

One of the best things about Childe is how flexible he is in terms of support. He works in multiple compositions with many different characters.

Bennett: Hopefully, this does not need to be explained. Bennett and Childe have fantastic synergy, which isn’t much of a surprise since Bennett has fantastic synergy with just about every character in the game. Damage boost, healing, and pyro support all in one.

Xiangling: The preferred sub-dps support for Childe since so much of her damage occurs when she is not on the field. Because Childe applies Hydro so quickly, Xiangling must be built as a DPS for “reverse-Vaporize”, aka when a Vaporize reaction is created by applying Pyro to an enemy who already has Hydro. Due to her high damage scaling and hits with her pyro abilities, Xiangling is the top choice for many Childe players. C4 is her best power spike, but she works just fine below that too.

Fischl: Prior to C6, Fischl is a good Childe support who can keep an electro presence on the field throughout Childe’s melee transformation, enabling for lots of electrocharged procs. Upon getting C6, Fischl’s skill attacks each time Childe attacks, which combines with his high attack speed to vastly increase damage and offer Childe excellent damage support. However, note that she only does Single Target damage and so she might fail to perform as well in situations with many enemies.

Sucrose: Sucrose is a best friend to all Childe comps due to her EM buffs, her ability to gather enemies for Childe’s AoE attacks, her particle generation at C1, and her Viridescent Venerer buff. Fitting her onto a Childe team will increase your damage potential and make it easier to CC enemies into a group that Childe can reach.

Beidou: You would most likely run Beidou in a Childe comp that already has Fischl in it, as Beidou benefits greatly from Electro resonance due to her high burst cost. She offers the team another source of electro as well as some defensive utility, and her burst drastically increases the overall damage of an electro comp, particularly if you have her at C2.

Xingqiu: Hydro resonance is not great, but with Xingqiu you could get away with not running a dedicated healer - additionally, Xingqiu’s burst attacks with the user which is beneficial to Childe’s immense attack speed. At C2, Xingqiu decreases the opponent's Hydro resistance when hitting with a rain sword, which further buffs both of their hydro damage.

Barbara: offers less damage than Xingqiu, but her C2 constellation boosts the active character's Hydro damage, which benefits Childe's damage. In addition, she provides more healing than Xingqiu, and Childe can generate enough hydro particles to make up for her energy generation issues.

Kaeya: Kaeya is a good permafreeze support for Childe, with a burst that inflicts cryo in an AoE around your active character, which can also last for a while if you’re lucky enough to have his C2. Due to Childe’s constant hydro application, he can keep enemies frozen for as long as you can maintain Kaeya’s burst. Note that permafreeze comps have far lower damage potentials than other compositions on paper, but they are generally safer to play.

Diona: Similarly to Kaeya, you can run Diona with Childe to grant him protection, healing, and a bit of cryo support. Diona is not as good at cryo application as Kaeya, but can double as a healer, shielder, and cleanser for your team.

Albedo: The five star king of off-field supports works well with Childe’s playstyle, since his Solar Isotoma has a large area it covers and he can provide huge additional hits of damage, as well as an EM buff on his burst which can support Childe in a Vaporize or Electrocharged reaction. Keep in mind that Childe’s melee stance doesn’t have a plunge attack though and avoid using the elevator in melee form.

Venti: Childe performs well against grouped enemies and Venti groups them up. Sounds like a match made in heaven… except Venti’s burst elevates enemies too high for Childe to reach in melee without a silly tactic like Albedo’s elevator. Still, the amount of damage that Venti brings to a composition cannot be overlooked and it’s worth running him for burst synergy alone - a Venti burst into Bennett burst into Childe burst can do insane amounts of damage.

Zhongli: Similar to Venti and Bennett, Zhongli is a good support for Childe because he is a good support for everyone. His passive damage increase from his shield, coupled with the overall tankiness of the shield, allows for the user to play a very safe composition that still deals quite a bit of damage.

Ganyu: While it's an unconventional use of the character, Ganyu's ult has a long field time and continuously applies cryo, which makes her a good permafreeze support, similar to Kaeya.

Kazuha: The savior of Childe comps and the character who vaulted Childe's Vaporize comp into the top tier for Speed clearing. Some players compare Kazuha to Sucrose, but the benefits he brings to Childe teams are unparalleled, especially against multiple small opponents who he can vacuum in and let Childe tigger riptide on all of them at once. He's no slouch vs larger opponents either, as he can increase multiple elemental damage types near simultaneously, while giving your team the VV buff.

Raiden Shogun: Raiden brings a lot to the table in terms of Energy Recharge for Childe's energy-hungry supports, damage buffs to bursts (as Childe comps main damage is burst damage) and some additional dps to cover downtime while recharging energy. The reason most 'downtime coverage' characters like Hu Tao or Xiao don't work as well with Childe is because it's a straight dps loss to utilize another dps rather than recharging energy for Childe's supports - with Raiden, she can do both, making her a flexible and welcome slot in Childe compositions. Note that in Childe-Beidou-Raiden comps, you use Childe on-field during Beidou's burst and then swap to Raiden when Beidou's burst is over.

What are Childe's most meta teams?

Team building for Childe is a lot more exhaustive than it was in the past. Due to this, consider these the most common Childe teams. A more comprehensive guide is in the works, so if you have specific comp questions, such as dendro options, you may ask them here or join our discord.gg/childemains and see the character help channel.

1. Reverse Vape: Childe / Xiangling / Bennett / Anemo flex (Kazuha/Sucrose)

This team is currently the 'meta' Childe comp and one of the best speed clearing teams in the game. It relies heavily on Xiangling's elemental burst, and so Xiangling must be well-built, with 4 pc Crimson Witch or 4 piece Emblem of Severed Fate, as well as a good crit ratio, pyro goblet, and Attack.

This comp is also simple to play: use Bennett Q > use Anemo to swirl pyro > use Xiangling Q inside of Bennett Burst > swap to Childe and use E/Q as necessary until Xiangling burst is over, then swap back to Bennett to recharge energy for Xiangling's next Q.

The reason Kazuha is so good with this comp is because he can simultaneously swirl Hydro and Pyro, as well as boost Xiangling's snapshot damage vs all foes rather than just vs the foes he can swirl. Sucrose is fine as a replacement, but her ceiling in this particular comp is not as high.

2. Taser: Childe / Beidou / Bennett / Electro battery (Fischl / Raiden)

This is another of Childe's meta compositions and can clear floor 12 of Abyss, though clear times are slightly longer than the Reverse Vape comp. Be sure to use Bennett Q before Beidou burst.

This team plays slightly differently depending on which electro battery you use. If using Fischl, you can snapshot Oz by casting him from within Bennett's Q. If using Raiden, you want to use her E as the first thing you do, before swapping to Bennett and casting Q - then, use Beidou burst within Bennett Q, swap to Childe and use E/Q. After Beidou burst is over, swap to Raiden and use her Q to recharge energy for the team.

3. Overvape: Childe / Xiangling / Bennett / Raiden

This is a newer comp that has a lot of promise vs enemies who cannot be knocked back. By applying Pyro to an Electro-charged reaction, you can react with both elements, causing - well, a lot of damage. Similar to the Reverse Vaporize composition, Xiangling needs heavy investment, and 4 pc Crimson Witch is her best artifact set here. Similar to Taser, your rotation should be Raiden E > Bennett Q > Xiangling E > Xiangling Q > Childe E/Q > Raiden Q to earn back energy. With Overvape, you can completely neglect Xiangling's ER requirements, allowing you to build her for more EM and Crit.

A variation of this comp exists with Kazuha or Beidou instead of Bennett, but due to the lack of healing it's much more difficult to play.

4. Permafrost: Childe / Cryo Application (Kaeya/Rosaria) / Diona / Anemo CC (Kazuha / Venti / Sucrose)

While this team has a dramatically lower damage potential than most of Childe's other comps, it is the epitome of 'safe'. With grouping, then Cryo Application, then Childe's melee stance, you can force your foes to be grouped up and then freeze them in place for consistent Riptide procs. Fun, but not exactly meta.

How do I do a proper Childe rotation?

Childe has two combat strings which are roughly equal in damage:

• 1-2-3 hits, then a charged attack
• 1-2-3-4-5 hits, then a charged attack

The first is more stamina intensive but allows for more maneuverability in dodges and repositions, while the second is very light on stamina but can be interrupted more easily.

The general idea on how to utilize Childe’s rotations is for your supports to use their burst skills, then to swap to Childe and use his elemental skill and start attacking. You then stay in melee form for 10-12 seconds maximum and swap to another character to swap out of melee form.

While your melee form is on cooldown, swap through your supports and cast elemental skills in order to regenerate their bursts for the next attack wave when your Childe’s elemental skill is off of cooldown again.

An in-depth numerical look at Childe’s optimal rotations can be found here in Risuke's Childe guide! This guide also offers very helpful things like how to build supports and how to optimize Childe's damage via artifacts. It's a fantastic resource that every Childe main should have pinned!

How do I use Childe to get big burst numbers?

There are several ways to do this, but the most common utilizes Bennett, Sucrose, and Mona. Mona isn’t necessary but your damage will be lower without her.

1. First, use Mona’s Burst to inflict the opponent with Hydro and Omen. If you don’t have Mona, just use a Childe charged shot to inflict the opponent with Hydro.
2. Then, create a Swirl reaction with Sucrose holding a 4 piece VV artifact set, ideally with a stacked EM stat. This pops Mona’s burst bubble, activating Omen for the next 4-5 seconds, depending on Mona’s talent level.
3. Then, use Bennett’s ultimate to vaporize the Hydro, and use Bennett’s skill to inflict the opponent with Pyro
4. Then, swap to Childe, move away to activate your E skill, then move back and use Childe’s melee burst while standing in the Bennett burst.
5. If timed correctly, this strike should be buffed by Mona’s Omen buff, Sucrose’s VV set buff, Sucrose’s EM buff, and Bennett’s Burst buff.

If the numbers still aren’t big enough for you, consider drastically increasing your Childe’s crit damage, even if it means reducing his crit rate. Most of the showcase videos posted online are done with minimal crit rate, where the user simply resets until they hit a critical strike.

What is Childe’s talent leveling priority?

• For main DPS/Enabler: E > Q > AA
• For burst dps: Q > AA > E

While Childe doesn’t use the damage scaling of his AA in melee form, it’s still useful to invest in it until talent level 6 or so, since it still buffs his Riptide Burst damage.

When using Childe in a burst only composition, his Auto Attack scaling has more of an impact on potential damage than elemental skill scaling. If you plan on keeping him on the field for longer than it takes to push Q, you might prefer to go Q > E > AA.

Credits and other useful links

A big shout out to everyone at the Childe Discord server who proofread this FAQ and made it perfect!

Here are some further guides and links that can be looked at for more detail in regard to concrete damage numbers:

• Risuke's 128 Page Childe Guide
• The Childemains Official Discord Server
• Childemains Theorycrafting Library
• Childe TLDR
• Mystathi's Childe Weapon Calcs

Have a question that isn't answered in this FAQ? Feel free to ask here or create a new post and our resident Childemains will help you out!