Wanderer is a highly anticipated character release. His character has been part of the storyline from the beginning, but this is the first time he has been made playable. So, is he worth pulling for? Well, I’ll confess that I was not enthused in the run up to the banner. He hadn’t, to that point, been portrayed as a likable character. The new archon quest deals with this past and his self reinvention. While I can’t say I came out of it his fan, it certainly gives a greater insight into his character, past and present, enough to make me willing to give him a try. He is also the only playable character, other than the traveller, who can be renamed. You need to complete the new archon quest for this to be unlocked.
There’s no doubt Wanderer is a unique and fun character to play. His play style is unlike any other character in the game. His elemental skill allows him to fly and is controlled by a separate stamina bar which makes him handy for exploration. While his stamina is used up quite quickly by flying vertically, you can go quite far horizontally and as his skill uses a different meter, you can switch to gliding when it runs out. Even his vertical flight will get you higher than any other character’s skill and is handy in some situations.
In combat, Wanderer is a main DPS character who needs to be on the field to cause damage. So, if you’re thinking of pulling for him then make sure you like his play style by doing his trial first, as you will be using him a lot to get optimum damage. His elemental skill starts a flying phase and powers up his normal attacks which will last until his skills unique stamina bar runs out. Any elements in play during his skill phase also gives him temporary boosts, so combining him with characters of other elements can boost his skill’s damage output. While his skill is active, dashing spawns several homing anemo shots which will hit nearby enemies. His elemental burst delivers a single strong anemo attack which can swirl any elements within its reach delivering extra damage.
While a swirl team is certainly the easiest team to build him into, a mono anemo team is also an option thanks to the new 4 star character, Faruzan, released along side him. Her skills power up anemo damage and shreds enemies’ anemo resistance. She has some energy issues at low constellation, being best used at C4 – C6 but if you are willing to plough in enough energy recharge, through weapons and artifacts, then she can be used at low constellations too. If you have a C4 or higher Jean, as well, then you could build a decent mono anemo team by adding Venti or Sucrose as a forth. I haven’t had time to fully explore this option yet, as I pulled Wanderer quite late and haven’t been able to build Faruzan high enough to get a good idea of the boosted numbers yet.
In terms of building, Wanderer is not that hard level or kit out. His level up material is Rukkhashava Mushrooms which I certainly don’t find the most annoying of the new materials to farm. The handguards can be a bit annoying to get which you need for levelling his talents. The drop rates aren’t great, and the enemies are quite scattered and rarely seem to be found in large numbers. His best artifacts are the new set, Desert Pavillion, but you can also use a few other existing sets, depending on the team you have planned for him, which you might have in your bag already.
Overall, I find the wanderer to be a fun and rather flexible character. Due to his need to be on field, you need to pair him with off field DPS and supports but beyond that, he will fit into several teams even free to play teams. Beyond his own playstyle, he doesn’t bring anything new, in terms of team building. He’s not currently seen as a meta unit. His DPS is solid but not anything extraordinary. As with all other characters in Genshin, whether you should pull for him really comes down to if you like him or not. Even though they aren’t a great match, I do like having Wanderer and Childe in the same team, for lore reasons. I look forward to having a full bad boy/ girl team in the future, maybe I’ll call it the anti-archon team. If you want to know more then feel free to check out the character demo at the top of the article and the teaser trailer below.
