One of the best ways to make Genshin Impact characters stronger is through upgrading their constellations. Although some characters are naturally stronger than others, constellation upgrades and investment can make any character shine. However, constellation upgrades aren't easy to come by as they require players to pull extra copies of characters in the gacha.
As a result, players should know which constellation upgrades aren't worth it in Genshin Impact so that they don't waste their limited resources and primogems. While the majority of constellation upgrades benefit Genshin Impact characters in some way, some have poor returns when compared to their investments.
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Despite the fact that Bennett is one of the strongest support characters in Genshin Impact, he's also the only character to have a constellation that most players will actively want to avoid. Bennett's final constellation is called "Fire Ventures With Me", and it converts all physical damage from Sword, Claymore, and Polearm characters into Pyro damage while they are inside Bennett's elemental burst. It also gives them a 15% Pyro damage bonus while they are inside the radius of his elemental burst.
While this seems like a beneficial constellation upgrade on paper, converting all physical damage into a specific elemental type has a number of drawbacks. Genshin Impact characters that rely heavily on physical damage such as Razor, Keqing, and Xiangling would have some of their buffs overwritten as the Pyro infusion would take priority. Only characters like Diluc can make use of the extra Pyro damage bonus that comes along with Bennett's sixth constellation. However, since Bennett is a universal support, players are effectively limiting Bennett's ability to fit into any party composition. If players want their Bennett to remain as flexible as possible, they should hold off on activating his sixth constellation.
Although Xiangling is a powerful physical damage dealer at the start of Genshin Impact, she falls off towards the late game because she is outclassed by other DPS characters, and physical damage doesn't scale well. However, her Pyro application is also quite poor during the downtime of her elemental burst meaning her supporting ability is also fairly weak.
As a result, Genshin Impact players looking to transition Xiangling into a support will need to acquire her fourth constellation, "Slowbake." This constellation increases the uptime of her elemental burst by 40% meaning her Pyro application is a lot stronger and offers much more utility. However, Xiangling's first three constellations are quite mediocre and players will need to obtain all three before getting "Slowbake."
Therefore, unless players have already gotten Xiangling to the third constellation, it's often not worth it to roll for her specifically or buy her in the shop. Instead, players should wait until they already have a few copies before committing for her fourth constellation. In the meantime though, Xiangling is stuck in a limbo where she has a DPS kit that doesn't scale but requires the fourth constellation to shine as a support.
Despite the fact that Venti is the most useful character in Genshin Impact, his first constellation is one of the most pointless. While it's not necessarily detrimental, it's extremely underwhelming for players who rolled Venti a second time. Named "Splitting Gales," this constellation fires an additional two shots during Venti's charged attacks dealing 33% of the original shot's damage.
Considering the fact that Venti almost never uses charged attacks in the first place, the constellation seems more like a placeholder than an upgrade. The charged arrows are spread out at an awkward 30-degree angle meaning it's quite ineffective for groups of enemies unless they are clustered together with his crowd control abilities. Furthermore, the arrow spread also makes it difficult to snipe smaller enemies and requires Venti to be closer in order to deal the extra damage.
While "Splitting Gales" isn't a constellation that makes Venti worse, it does feel underwhelming and isn't worth the investment. Most players won't notice the difference between a Venti with zero constellations and a Venti with his first constellation. Though Venti no longer has a banner, there have been rumors that 5-star Genshin Impact characters will have re-runs in the future. As a result, players might want to avoid rolling extra copies of Venti and save their primogems for a future banner instead.
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Of all the current 5 star characters in Genshin Impact, Keqing's constellations feel the most underwhelming. They are often very minor upgrades with very little return considering the fact that she's already quite rare as a 5 star character. In particular, Keqing's second constellation, "Keen Extraction" is overkill for her kit and doesn't match up to the investment of rolling her three times.
"Keen Extraction" has a 50% chance of producing elemental particles when Keqing's attacks hit opponents affected by Electro. While this sounds like a good idea on paper, it's completely unnecessary given how fast Keqing recharges her skills. While her elemental burst has a short cooldown of 12 seconds, she also recharges her energy quickly meaning she will often have her elemental burst ready before it is off cooldown. Even with minimal investment into Keqing's energy recharge stat, she is able have constant uptime on her elemental burst.
Therefore, Genshin Impact's Keqing rarely benefits from her second constellation. While it doesn't negatively impact her in any way, it's redundant considering how fast she is able to recharge her elemental burst. With rumors of a Keqing banner coming soon, players should be cautious in how much investment they want to put in her constellations.
Much like Keqing, Genshin Impact's Qiqi suffers from underwhelming constellations despite being a powerful character. While Qiqi is the most consistent healer in the game, her constellations don't reflect her kit very well. In particular, her second constellation "Frozen to the Bone", is mediocre for the amount of investment required.
"Frozen to the Bone" increases Qiqi's damage against enemies affected by Cryo by 15%. Since Qiqi's heals scale off her attack, some players might be inclined to believe that this is a solid boost in damage. However, her attack scales quite poorly because she mainly deals physical damage. Qiqi also doesn't apply Cryo effectively as her elemental skill doesn't tick frequently. While the constellation isn't detrimental, the 15% boost is negligible considering her poor scaling and ineffective Cryo application. Qiqi would require a Cryo user like Ganyu or Chongyun in order to utilize the 15% boost effectively.
As a result, Genshin Impact's Qiqi is another character that sees minimal benefit in her second constellation upgrade. While "Frozen to the Bone" isn't a bad constellation to have, it's outclassed by many other 5-star character constellations. Although the constellation is nice to have, it's not worth rolling three copies of Qiqi for.
Genshin Impact is available now on PC, PS4, Android, and iOS
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