RANKING MY FAVORITE GENSHIN IMPACT CHARACTERS 

Wriothesley has a sense of humor. When he doesn’t have to worry about the Primordial Sea, he cracks smart ass jokes. When Clorinde barges through his office door, what does Wriothesley say? “Ahh Miss Clorinde… my door.” Simple, I know, but the way that Joe Zieja delivers the line makes it fuckin hilarious. And with the researchers that work for him? Paimon jokes about them being together all the time, and Wriothesley expands upon it by saying “see? Everybody keeps askin this question. You 2 sure you’re not a couple and using your work as a convenient cover?” He can be dead serious when he needs to be, but be funny when he doesn’t. I 100% understand wanting to see more of em. Trust me when I say I do too, but I for one can’t help but love him already

Thoma's a sweet boy but they made him so nice that they can't think of any possible conflicts or stories to involve him in lmao

Cyyu: Puts Lumine over Aether *Zach Aguilar wants to know your location*

as an extremely biased wriothesley fan, i'm gonna add my two cents no one asked for. cyyu asked more of his backstory, right? EVERYTHING is written in his character stories, about how he managed to off his parents, free the other children, a bit of his trial, how he got his vision, how he spent his life in the meropide, and (this is my most favorite bit) how he overthrew the previous administrator because the guy was so corrupted, how he took over, his feats and achievements as the new fortress administrator AND how he got the title duke from neuvillette. everything cy asked for is right there. i get the point of wanting to see/witness it through a playthrough story/event quest because not everyone has the time to read all of that, but you should consider that these characters are not made to have the spotlight. like, for example, we can't give wriothesley the same treatment furina does, or neuvillette, or... /checks note/ aventurine does (since someone in chat mentioned this too), because his role, and i mean wriothesley, is limited as a plot device in 4.1. he showed us the gate to primordial sea water, froze it, almost got drowned, introduced remuria-where he got inspired to build wingalet from-to us, and that's it, that's what he's meant for. it's a shame and a hard pill to swallow as a wriothesley fan, but it is what it is. and this is by no means i don't agree with cy, because at the end of the day it's to each their own, but i wish people would just read his character stories. he's such an amazing and inspiring character, he's curious, intellegent, and it IS a shame all of that gets foreshadowed by his "cake" jokes running in the fandom. why am i saying this, because i've come across and argued with people going how he contributed nothing to the fontaine lore, or how he's irrelevant, and not interesting, EVEN going too far by saying he's an embodiment of prison propaganda, like huh? he's literally a victim of the system, committed a coup against the previous dude in charge bcs he was a horrible person. and people managed to... say that, it is baffling and sad. so guys, if you want to know more about wriothesley, please give his character stories a read. if you don't have him, you can look it up on multiple genshin databases. he's very, very interesting. and we haven't even talked about his wit, yet. but yeah. sorry it's too long but it needs to be said ;-;

What is Wriothesley other than hot? How about the cleverest character in Genshin Impact? He was literally toying with us for all of act 3 and 4 of the archon quest - he had everyone in the palm of his hand. He's book smart, street smart, inquisitive and curious, manipulative and cunning, and when he doesn't have expertise in something, he surrounds himself with people who do. He's incredibly empathetic and understanding, he has an incredible backstory, and he's just an all around cool guy. There's also so much cool subtle characterisation, like the way he just _basks_ when he's listening to music.

Nahida got absolutely shafted. Best archon who actually does shit, takes care of her people, redeemed scaramouche when raiden abandoned him and actually gave us information about our sibling. But the fact she gave away the gnosis (same thing yae and Nuevi did btw) thats why you dont like her? Nah i call bs

I feel so sad for Ayato ...he deserves more recognition, but the reality is that few people understood his story. The most part just want a loud hero that's shows their chest and screams...Ayato is not a guy who makes noise, he is focused, calculating and analytical character . His background is very beautiful...he lost the parents that he loved a lot, you can feel it in his lines, and after that the clan almost left the scene, if it weren't for his determination to maintain the legacy of the father he admired so much, they would not make it. He achieved a position of respect on his own merit, after that...and... he risked his own neck to save us, putting the resistance in the right place so they could fight, he could have died, but he did it anyway because he acted according to the principles of what he thought be right. And after the Traveler resolved the issue in Inazuma, he was able to breathe a little. I love the fact that he has the same VA as Katsura and Otto and also, Chris Hackney did a great job with him... I hope to see more of Ayato, he deserves more...a lot more...

I agree i want to see the duke more especially since he's my favorite male character. He has a lot of backstory to work with especially since he's a orphan. I hope Wrio is from natlan or something.

I LOVE CYNO, LOVE HIM SINCE FIRST DAY HE WAS TEASED AND LOVE THAT CYYU IS HIS VA HIS MY FAVORITE

Gonna be honest, Fontaine has a habit of hyper focusing on like.. four main characters it's entire arc- Navia, Neuvi, Arlecchino and Furina. Everyone else is kinda side lined or their personalities are stuck behind limited, small events.

When it comes to Childe, Hoyo really wants to drop the major lore bombs of him SOOOOO bad, but they're trying to hold it in until the Snezhnaya arc; once we hit that chapter, they will pop. XD

the way i did a little fist pump at wanderer reaching top tier like it was a personal achievement made me realize i may have a problem

Chat to Alejandro: "We're getting more on Cyno" Literally his VA: NO WAY REALLY? LOL

What we honestly need is a murder-mystery style quest, or even an event, where Neuvillette is present but more to set the stage, Chevreuse is helping gathering evidence, Wriothesley is one of the suspects, and Chiori is also involved somehow. Give us a chance to see a lot more of the latter three.

Fortress of Meropide should've been one act, not 2. I think that's why it feels so long and like such a slog. We're essentially there for 2 out of the 5 acts; on paper, it is less than half, but they made it so draining...

I respect the Aether braid respect! It’s why I picked him too!

I agree with the Wriothesley bit… he built the boat behind the scenes… He does business outside the fortress with Navia and Neuvillete, along with taking in prisoners… Where do we get this info? Through Pause menu and character Dialog… more specifically what I like to call, off screen land…😕 Note: I love what we’ve seen so far… but there needs to be more.

26:50 Happy to see that Faruzan's theme pushed her to the cool category! It's one of my favorites, and Madame Faruzan deserves it. :)

While I think other characters stories are more developed, Wriothesley is by far my favorite character (closest is Navia) in not only Fontaine but the entirety of Genshin. He's funny, he's smart, he can be intimidating when necessary, and he cares so much for other people and has so much sympathy. I hope one day we get some more story and see him more in events and such, but while his story isn't as developed he 100% makes up for it in personality because my guy has so much of it. While I do think story contributes a lot to a character, I will 100% always choose a character because of personality first. The people saying "people only like him because he's hot" have apparently just missed how much characteristics they actually gave him. Not to say people can't have their own opinions, that's not my point. But this is the reason why I prefer him over characters like Neuvillette. You can give a character all the story you want but if the base personality isn't something that you're really excited about there's nothing you can do about that.

Ayato doesn't have much reason for his lore to be explored so his character is pretty much done, but Childe's lore has been gatekeeped by hoyoverse to hell. It will be explored in Snezhnaya soon, especially when he's confirmed to be a major part of the Fatui's project

People need to remember that everyone is different, so that mean they're opinions are different. If we ALL were the same, think of how boring things would be. Now as far as my fav chars go, yeah I'd rank this the same way CyYu is ranking them, from a personality POV because I don't have all of the chars, so I haven't played them all. Side note, I am glad I am not the only one who found Meropide to be a slong. It felt like the Samsara Festival quest all over again, but at least there it felt like we were progressing the story. It's also why I still rank Sumeru's archon quest over Fontaine, as awesome as Fontaine's quest was. I definitely plan on ranking all of the regions' archon quests at some point. None are bad so far, but they all have pros and cons. Monstadt was a great intro, but it was too fast pace. Liyue had some of my fav moments in the game, but it had the exact opposite problem, the pacing was too slow thanks to doing things with Zhongli. Inazuma had amazing char moments, but I've seen this type of story too many times in fiction, so it was not as 'epic' as I saw it. Sumeru's plot could have be predictable too, but how it did it is where it caught me off guard and I loved that, plus this is the only quest where I felt like almost every main char in the story contributed to the solution. But yeah it had a slow start though, especially with that Samsara. Fontaine had the best writing in the game, but from a gameplay perspective, it didn't feel like I was doing a lot. I enjoyed the investigation parts and that ending was EPIC, but the middle section really brought it down. Anyway, enough rambling from me lol. Favs would include Alhaitham, Yae Miko, Xiao, and more recently, Neuvillette. My hot take, I actually like Dori lol, I enjoy troll chars, it's why Yae Miko is a fav of mine, but she's just much nicer. If I had to pick a 'worst' (and none of the chars in Genshin are bad to me personally), it be Fischl (not gameplay wise, she's still on my main team for a reason). I just find her constant LARPing very annoying and yes I did play the 2nd summer event with her, it did flesh it out, but her wanting us to always 'play along', it just got under my skin.

It's so funny to me that I've never met a person who dislikes Kazuha. When I went to japan, his resell merch was by far the most expensive too lol

Not even lying, Aloy is the reason I picked Genshin Back up after trying it on release. To me, it felt like the developers didn't even want her added. She's got no story quest, she's not in any events, she has no constellations, her kit is just meh. She did get a unique passive though, and they still bother giving her a birthday letter every year, so it's just confusing to me.

8:47 PLEASEEE, HOYO PLEASE HEAR THIS MAN, IF U'RE NOT MAKING ANY ALBEDO RELATED STORY SOON, AT LEAST MAKE HIS OLD EVENTS AVAILABLE, PLEASE 😭

Noelle is low key clutch for me since I accidentally got her C4. Healing and Shielding in one is great! Also I love seeing fellow Heizou enjoyers

my poor qiqi, she deserves all the love, you evil people 😢😅😢

The way Neuvillette made it to the top 😂😂

I've done Wriothesley's Story Quest, I've done the Fontaine Archon Questline, I find him attractive, he has the whole bakery. But I will have to agree, the Rizz Lord needs more. Meropide was also a chore, I agree. Like the OST, but hate the layout. Like, it was pretty cool for like 30 mins. HYV, give the man more. Stop making him a beefcake under the sea that's also a fake werewolf, you can't give me that Cerberus constellation without making me think of werewolves. GIVE. ME. MORE.

Woohoo! Some Xinyan appreciation! Yes you should build Baizhu and yes do his story quest.

One day, we'll get more Ayato, one day 😭😭 He has so much potential to be really fun and interesting

Cyyu, first you miss my cyno themed bday party, now you decimate me and my darling boy ,chongyun’s pride. I want an apology with tears and blood.

Your tierlist was so funny to watch!! I actually agreed with everything you said 💯 ... that's crazy lol

Meropide was a slog but seeing him was basically the light at the end of the tunnel. I enjoyed his character so much, seemingly always in control but instead of feeling always threatened like with Arlecchino, he lets you be comfortable until he gets serious. Love the interplay between him and Neuvi and clorinde.

Honestly to understand and rank the characters you need to read all the lores related to them, bcs for example as a wrio stan his character story just makes me loves him even more, and not to mention everything he did on 4.1 was absolutely badass. He is the behind-the-scene type of guy and not a lot of people acknowledge that. Though I'm also sad that they missed a lot of chance for 'promoting' wrio during fontaine events and stuff

W list, I miss sumeru a lot lol I hope we can go back for a festival it’s been so long

For the record, Persona 5 did a crossover collab with Bang Dream! Girls Band Party in July of 2018, as of April 2024 the game is still going strong, has added new bands and lots of new features❤

“Aloy is the RWBYxDC crossover of Genshin” is such a specific comparison but so true: both things are enjoyable on their own, but together? Eeeeeeh……

33:31 I have both Chiori and Arlecchino (I accidentally did a ten pull on Chiori’s banner and got her) and I can say without a doubt they’re both great, use Arlecchino’s skill then switch to Chiori and once the cross has baked (it’s how my brain puts it) use Chiori’s skill (it seems to trigger the crystallise reaction too which gives a quick shield giving the opportunity to just hit, but that’s only if you don’t have a shielder) to swap to Arlecchino and immediately do Arlecchino’s charged attack to get bond of life. At least that’s how I use the two

I didn’t think you would do this nor did I imagine that I would want this yet here I am.

I have a genuine question, but why are you referring to every character as "they"?

Last time I came this early I had to lie and say it's never happened to me before.

I agree that we need more Wrio, I miss his dry humour immensely and we haven't even truly left the region yet

I’m surprised I agree with so much of this list. I personally adore Yoimiya and I would toss Furina into biased, but Cy is 100% right on who deserves better

Wriothesley's tier was a criminal offence, How he did on the archon quest, what he did on his legendary quest, his trailer, his voice lines and the his lore, all of that is perfect! He is a lot more of a preatty face and he show that.

This man just put nahida in okay 😭

Hey Cy yu, how do you feel about cyno getting a story quest before venti?

I would kill for an Aloy story quest, I know it’ll never happen, but still

Hooktails BGM hit me right in the nostalgia.. Well thanks i'm gonna play Paper Mario TTYD now.

am i the only one who loved the meropide quest? i had so much fun! one of my favs in the game, especially in the main story

Might come back to twitch just to watch you stream genshin

Lumine is a bowl of cuteness. Remember the cooking event in Wangshu Inn?

Considering this is the 2nd time that Yae Miko's kit is being mentioned as "not fixed," I'm going to say this: she functions exactly how MiHoYo intended. Just say you don't like her playstyle. I know I don't like her playstyle. Maybe her constellations make her "better," idk. Neither her character nor Dehya's character nor any other characters are broken (derogatory). Miko was built to work with dendro. Dehya was built to work with Neuvillette (if you don't have his c1), to make exploring the desert less stamina consuming and probably as a unit that will help us greatly in particular parts of the Cryo nation (Childe has a voice line tht says if you still too long you'll freeze in his homeland; also in both animations that show the cryo nation's landscape: nothing but snow).

The way chat was grilling Cyyu over Wrio 🤣

I'm actually on my last hangout event with Kaeya, they definitely give you nostalgia for the characters we haven't seen in ages. Too many characters and they're mostly region locked.

We literally saw Albedo one patch ago in that cat petting event

have a nice day cyyu

I will be real Dehya deserves better treatment, but she was the absolute BEST during the archon quest and her story quest, SHE RULES

I'm very happy to see that Xinyan getting some love for once.

Btw Aloy was an obligatory thing so that Genshin could partner with Sony for them being on ps4 and they had no time they could wait

When you put Qiqi in the don't like category, I'm like just pondering for the day I finally get her because I don't have her yet. I still never got her in the character banners presented with really good characters🤣🤣

I really enjoyed the Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door soundtrack playing in the background. For the most part, I agree with the tier list.

I love TTYD music through this

as hes talking, you can hear the gestures hes making and i think thats endearing.

It's so cathartic seeing people officially connected to the game recognizing how dirty they did Dehya

Neuvi still on top let's go

I just found out that you are Miyamura's English VA! His my favorite romance anime character😊 🎉

I really wish they'd stop gatekeeping groundbreaking opinion-changing character info behind their friendship levels (and events??? Albedo ftw,) I am a HUUUUUUUGE Lyney enthusiast and I won't spoil but a big part of his lore and what he's going on to be in the future was kept away from everyone since 4.0 😭I'm glad Arle touched upon it in her quest because bro is so cool and I wish we got to see more of his internal struggles outside of it ! (Glad to see his family man side as always too though 🤝)

Any infinitesimal scrap fondness for Aloy that I have has been eradicated. Just met some Aloy main in coop and they kept bullying a Neuvillette and Raiden player calling them useless and it even went to some inappropriate stuff I won’t get into.

Me: Damn... Cyno has his own category? Welp thats just better -Cyno main

I love Aloy but she will always make me upset. U can tell that Hoyo only did it cuz it must have been a requirement for them to have the game on the console. She lacks so much and made the concept of collab characters so unappealing and thats entirely their own damn fault. Her release makes me angry, especially and almost exclusively at hoyo since they could have taken the stick out their ass and did her right but they couldnt be bothered. As someone who has built her and loves her. She has so must potential to have been a grest unit.

He keeps making a new category XD

stoppp everything is making me want to pull for arlecchino but i must save for wanderer cause if i dont get him for the third time because i pulled for another character i will crie

Finally someone who agrees that fortress is longer then it should be…😭 personally my fav thing is the story, the lore and everything related to the whole history of tevyat and im prob the biggest sumeru fan out there. I loved the quest sm and didnt mind that it was like such a long quest. Same wity fontaine i loved it so so so much but then we got to the fortress.. it was rly good at first but after a while i just wanted to leave.. it was like even a pain to just look at the interior.. so dark so boring and doing the same thing over 5 times was just getting boring.. i love every part of fontaine but the fortress part should’ve ended a bit faster

As a fellow cyno enjoyer (I call him my son) we take these Ws

I think some people would rate a lot of characters higher if they would read the character stories for them. In the main story we often just got the abridged version or nothing at all but some have so much lore in it. For example Wriothesley or Kaveh. You can understand their character that much better after reading it.

High recommend for Faruzan's hang out and Baizhu's story quest. They're so fucking good. And big agree--Meropide was some of the most egregious dogshit pacing in the entire game thus far. I can't believe that shit got greenlit. Also this Dori slander will be remembered. >:(

I’m just glad Neuvillette is on top tier

CyYu over here with his C6 Zhongli while I'm sitting here with stuck at E -1

9:21 I approve of this tier list cause Ganyu and Xiao are my favs and I’m happy with them being in they’re cool

Kinda a bit lost on this, but is there a reason CyYu uses they/them pronouns on characters seemingly at random..?

i love how my three favorite characters (venti, diluc, aether) are all separate, then there's my other favorite group, aka 4ggravate, up there

As an Alhaitham fan, seeing you put him so high made me so happy. lol Also, tbh, I actually agree with most fo the list. Feel bad fo Diluc as I think he's pretty cool personally, but I completely understand why you placed him down there. Also, Cyno? More like CYYES!!!!!!! \m/ One more thing, I am sad that some characters have potential, but are being wasted and not getting the spotlight they deserve. It's a shame. To salty, immature twitter users who can't handle the opinions of others: Touch grass and grow up.

Cyyu you got people writing paragraphs in the comments goodness 😅🙏

Chevreuse deserved better. she's my favorite four star :)

as a wrio main i'm very proud of chat. and the comments.

CyYu: puts Mona in COOL Also CyYu: puts Diluc in “ok” Me: exits out of video 😤

Genshin impact fucking knew about this video and gave me an ad

This is what drives me crazy about Genshin - Amazing characters who just never get fleshed out. I get it, its a gatcha and they're always throwing in more to collect, but I want to explore the characters we get. A number of them desrve better, a number of them feel shallow and so many of them just feel incomplete/stereotype first(only). We got some real champs in there but nahhhhh

See, I would make a tier list of my favorite characters, but it would just be everyone at the top, and then Mika at the way bottom.

8:30 OMG TELL THEM. As an Albedo lover be our voice please 😭

Akihiko or cyno?

lmao glad someone isnt into wriothesely either. I actually liked him before I saw him in the archon quest and the way he handled dealing with Lyney made me dislike him, and then his story quest was a gigantic piece of meh. I never want to go back to the prison ever again lmao

Wrio certainly needs more. In AQ there was some tea, in lantern rite it was tea again. He is slipping to be very one thing character very fast 😅

I wanted to pull for Chiori for the dual wielding but the kit ??? The geo ? It was boring 😭 Sorry I went for Arlecchino

VERY BIASED WRIOTHESLEY FAN HERE! I agree with Cyyu very much .I loved the Fontaine quest so much but as soon as I got the Fortress of Meropide was i was tired from all of the running around. I was getting lost cause i suck at directions but i found it all very interesting story wise. I only played through it for the Wriothesley content. I found it just super boring besides getting to see Wriothesley and Lyney. He is such a funny character and has a great backstory, I just need more from him. 100% agree with what Cyyu said. I’m just biased cuz he’s hot lmao.

As a Wriosthesley lover, I 100% agree he needs more

Ain’t gonna lie, I started playing AFK Arena because of Markiplier, but I stayed because of the Persona 5 crossover, and the game got way better after that. I think a P5 crossover with Genshin Impact would be excellent tbh! So many isekai opportunities, and it would be particularly interesting to throw Joker into Fontaine.

I… never got the Wrio hype. And I hate it because his design is good.

It’s always sad to see people not like Qiqi purely because of the 50/50 like if I say I don’t like Tighnari because I have C12 of him imma get jumped 💀💀💀

Ok so Wriothesley is badass BUT i felt like he got shafted on his story. Sure it was there but I felt like his story could have used more umph. I still play him as a main on debdeo based bosses. I am biased though, Alhaitham is my main and will always be my main.