The Best Weapons For Hu Tao In Genshin Impact

Hu Tao
is one of the premier DPS characters in Genshin Impact. Despite being released during Genshin’s earliest days, her dual HP and ATK scaling, her absurdly strong Elemental Skill, the specific properties of her Charged Attack, as well as her generally charming personality has made her a consistently beloved character despite newer releases.

Hu Tao’s kit can be difficult to take in. Her HP can be turned into ATK, and Elemental Mastery is needed due to her ability to Vape all her hits. There’s also the question of whether to use her Elemental Burst or not. With all these in mind, here are the best weapons for Hu Tao.

We assume four-star gacha weapons to be on refinement three, whereas five-star ones are calculated on their first refinement. On higher refinements, the five-star weapons are drastically better than all alternatives.

14

Black Tassel

Three-Star

Three-star weapons are generally not to be used if you want to optimize your DPS to its full potential. However, if you’re just starting out or don’t have any other options, the Black Tassel is a perfectly viable choice for Hu Tao, despite being a very weak weapon overall.

This is due to it being the only polearm in the game to give an HP% Substat, something Hu Tao benefits greatly from. However, since the passive is completely useless against any enemies other than slimes, it’s best you switch to an alternative the moment you get your hands on one.

13

The White Tassel

Three-Star

Hu Tao has another viable three-star option in the White Tassel. While it doesn’t grant her additional HP, it does give Hu Tao a good amount of CRIT Rate. This makes it a lot easier for you to have enough CRIT Value for more consistent damage, especially at earlier stages where you don’t have access to amazing artifacts.

To fully utilize the White Tassel’s passive for more competitive DPS, you can weave in two Normal Attacks before every Charged Attack, and repeat until your Elemental Skill runs out.

The passive is extremely good as well, though a bit overrated due to it only buffing your Normal Attacks, not your Charged ones. However, if you’ve just gotten Hu Tao and don’t intend on using her animation cancels for her Charged Attacks, this weapon could be a better fit than even four-star alternatives.

12

The Prototype Starglitter

Four-Star

Hu Tao has a great Burst, dealing upwards of 100k damage with no investment. At higher levels, reaching 300k consistently isn’t difficult either. However, with how strong Hu Tao’s damage in her base kit is, the damage difference between using your Burst and not is still almost negligible.

As such, Energy Recharge is more or less a wasted stat on her in most teams. It’s still useful, but losing out on other weapon substats such as CRIT Rate or CRIT DMG results in a huge DPS loss. What makes this weapon slightly better than the three-star options is the DMG Bonus you get on your Charged and Normal Attacks after using your Elemental Skill.

11

The Blackcliff Pole

Four-Star

For most carries, the Blackcliff Pole is the perfect average weapon. It gives a huge CRIT DMG substat with a passive that grants you bonus ATK whenever you defeat an enemy. It’s also not locked behind gacha, meaning it’s very easy to gain refinements for it.

What makes other options better is its inability to grant Elemental Mastery. While ATK is still good, Hu Tao already gains more than enough of it from her Elemental Skill alone, making other stats better. Additionally, Hu Tao shines the most in single-target content, especially against bosses. This makes Blackcliff’s Pole’s passive completely useless.

10

Missive Windspear

Four-Star

The Missive Windspear is an event weapon, which means if you missed the event or are a new player, it’s impossible to get it. However, if you did play the event, it’s highly likely you have all five refinements for it, giving it a huge edge over others.

The weapon fulfills Hu Tao’s Elemental Mastery needs while also granting her a superb amount of ATK. While stats such as CRIT Rate or CRIT DMG would still be better, the ATK isn’t wasted, especially with how much you get. It’s still weaker than other options, but is an amazing choice in teams without Bennett especially, due to its high ATK buffs.

9

Deathmatch

Four-Star

Deathmatch can only be obtained through buying the Gnostic Hymn Battle Pass in Genshin Impact. It grants you a hefty CRIT Rate stat, and then increases your ATK and DEF. However, it shines the best in single-target content, where it sacrifices the DEF for even more offensive power.

While the weapon is certainly good and can deal more damage than weapons mentioned prior, the damage increase isn’t significant enough to justify buying the Battle Pass for it.

8

Vortex Vanquisher

Five-Star

Vortex Vanquisher is one of the best weapons for any teams that have a strong shielder. The reason it isn’t used as much is because, for most teams, a shielder results in an overall DPS loss. However, since Hu Tao doesn’t work too well with healers, a shielder is almost necessary for her.

The weapon’s actual effect is very straightforward. It increases the shield strength of your active character and grants them a huge buff to their ATK. We mentioned before that Hu Tao prefers other stats over ATK, but the sheer amount the Vortex Vanquisher provides makes it a very competitive choice.

7

Crimson Moon’s Semblance

Five-Star

Arlecchino
‘s signature weapon, Crimson Moon’s Semblance is somewhat of a weird weapon. It has lots of base ATK, as well as a decent amount of CRIT Rate. What makes it interesting is its passive, granting you a Bond of Life and then granting you buffs depending on how much of it you have.

The Bond of Life indicator pushes your health aside instead of overlapping it. If you have a 100 percent Bond of Life, it would show as half your HP.

The Bond of Life helps Hu Tao stay low on HP, but since Hu Tao has no way of granting any additional BoL to herself, she starts off with only the least amount of buffs. This problem goes away in later rotations, where Crimson Moon’s Semblance can deal more damage than even other premier five-star options. However, this damage loss at earlier stages dumps your average DPS a lot, making it difficult to rank it any higher.

6

Primordial Jade Winged-Spear

Five-Star

The good thing about Xiao
‘s signature weapon, the Primordial Jade-Spear, is that it can be put on any DPS and get good results. The bad thing about it is that these results are only ever good, not the best. It grants the highest ATK buff with its passive alone despite having a CRIT Rate substat, and is just an overall solid pick.

However, Hu Tao can’t really make full use of this ATK, much like other options. This also doesn’t provide her with any EM or Elemental DMG Bonus, something that options ranked higher do!

5

Dragon’s Bane

Four-Star

For many, the Dragon’s Bane is Hu Tao’s best weapon. It grants the most Elemental Mastery of any polearm while also having a passive that perfectly suits her, buffing DMG to enemies afflicted with Hydro. Since Hu Tao already Vapes every single hit, this four-star option is significantly better than many five-star ones.

Another added advantage is that the Dragon’s Bane is a staple of the weapon banner, being featured in nearly every other one. This makes it very easy to collect refinements, with each refinement drastically increasing the DPS.

4

Lithic Spear

Four-Star

The Lithic Spear is one of the more niche weapons in Genshin Impact, forcing you to put in Liyue characters in your team for it to have any buff. The buff itself is very great, even at R1, giving you a very hefty 12 percent CRIT Rate from the passive alone, plus lots of added ATK.

The reason this weapon works so well with Hu Tao is that most of her teams already exist mainly of characters hailing from Liyue. Yelan
and Xingqiu
are the best Hydro applicators in the game, and can both fit in a Hu Tao team. Zhongli is also one of Hu Tao’s best team members, providing her with an unbreakable shield. At higher refinements, this weapon can very comfortably overtake entries ranked higher.

3

Ballad Of Fjords

Four-Star

We already had a Battle Pass weapon on this list, but Ballad of the Fjords is much, much better. Like the Lithic Spear, it does have a certain restriction, encouraging you to have three separate elements in the team in return for granting you a huge Elemental Mastery bonus on top of its default CRIT Rate stat.

Also, like the Lithic Spear, the drawback is negligible due to most Hu Tao teams already having three elements. Hu Tao herself as the Pyro, then a Hydro applicator, and then either a shielder like Zhongli or Layla or an Anemo for VV Shred. This weapon checks every single one of Hu Tao’s needs, granting her both CRIT and EM, making it a weapon worth buying the BP for.

2

Staff Of Scarlet Sands

Five-Star

Cyno
may not have seen as much play as some of the other premier five-star DPS characters, but his weaponis another case entirely. It has the highest CRIT Rate stat in the game, and the strong passive is the cherry on top! It grants you a portion of your EM as ATK, increasing upon hitting an enemy with your Elemental Skill.

While Hu Tao can’t fully utilize the passive, just the CRIT and ATK value is enough to make it stronger than most other options. It also makes it even easier to build Hu Tao, as now you don’t have to worry about losing out on ATK or HP by focusing on Elemental Mastery.

1

Staff Of Homa

Five-Star

Hu Tao’s signature is unsurprisingly, her best weapon. The base ATK is good, the Crit DMG is splendid, and the passive is tailor-made to fit Hu Tao’s kit. The flat HP% Bonus on the passive is good enough as an entire substat by itself, and the added ATK buff makes her even more efficient.

All these bonuses increase when the equipping character is below half HP, something you’d already want to do for your Hu Tao. One thing to keep in mind is that since Homa doesn’t grant any EM whatsoever, you should prioritize it with your artifacts instead.