With the confirmation that Genshin Impact's next limited character banner will feature Hu Tao, fans are excited to roll for the Pyro prankster. Information about Hu Tao has been limited as miHoYo has been recently cracking down on leakers, but with the banner coming up soon, her skillset, constellations, and playstyles have been revealed.
Genshin Impact recently confirmed the Hu Tao banner with 4 star characters Xiangling, Chongyun, and Xingqiu appearing as well. Together with the new banner, Hu Tao will receive a story quest which should explain her background more. With an interesting kit revolving around buffing her attack while losing her HP, Hu Tao appears to add an exciting new playstyle to Genshin Impact.
Who is Hu Tao?
Unlike previous Genshin Impact characters, Hu Tao has not appeared in any of the main questlines and the only tidbits of information that have been revealed are her interactions with the other characters currently in the game. As revealed in Zhongli's voice lines, Hu Tao is the 77th director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, taking over the business at a young age. Though she remains mysterious, she is known to be a prankster.
Hu Tao's personality appears to clash with a number of other characters including Chongyun who can't seem to stand her and Qiqi who is terrified that Hu Tao intends to bury her. Beyond the sparse voice lines however, there is not much information about Hu Tao's past or how she came to be the director of the funeral parlor. Wielding a polearm and a Pyro vision, the new story quest in Genshin Impact will likely reveal more about this cheeky prankster.
Hu Tao's Attack Patterns, Elemental Skill, and Elemental Burst
Hu Tao's normal attack pattern is fairly similar to other polearm users as she performs up to six consecutive spear strikes. Her charged attack is also fairly standard for a polearm user as she lunges through enemies to deal damage along the way. However, her elemental skill and elemental burst are interesting as they present a different playstyle from other Genshin Impact characters.
Hu Tao's elemental skill is called "Guide to Afterlife" and it functions as her main source of damage. This skill consumes a set portion of her HP pool to and knocks her enemies back. While in this state, Hu Tao gets a massive bonus to her attack based on her maximum HP which can scale up to 400%. During this time, her damage is converted to Pyro and enemies will have the "Blood Blossom" effect applied to them, taking continuous Pyro damage.
Hu Tao's elemental burst is called "Spirit Soother" which allows her to summon a blazing spirit to attack enemies while dealing Pyro damage in an AOE. Furthermore, it works in conjunction with her elemental skill as it regenerates a percentage of Hu Tao's maximum HP which can be triggered up to five times. If her HP is below 50% when an enemy is hit, both the damage and HP regeneration effects are increased so Genshin Impact players will be able to continuously deal damage during her uptime.
Hu Tao's Team Composition and Weapon
Looking at Hu Tao's attack patterns, elemental skill, and elemental burst, it appears that she functions similar to Childe in a number of ways. With the lowest base attack stat of any Genshin Impact character, players will have to cycle between bursts of damage on Hu Tao by managing her elemental skill and elemental burst effectively to minimize her downtime. As a result, Hu Tao will likely be played in the quickswap DPS role where she can be enabled by elemental reaction supports such as Mona and Xingqiu. She will also function well with another quickswap DPS like Childe where they can mitigate each others' downtimes.
Hu Tao's weapon choices are fairly straightforward as the 5 star Staff of Homa fits perfectly with her playstyle. Its passive increases a character's HP by 20% and provides a big attack bonus when the wielder has less than 50% HP. This works in tandem with her elemental skill and elemental burst to generate huge amounts of damage and Genshin Impact players will find that it scales well with her builds. On the other hand, while the Staff of Homa appears to be tailor-made for Hu Tao, she can still make great use of 4 star polearms such as the Deathmatch or Blackcliff Pole.
Hu Tao's Passives and Constellations
Genshin Impact's Hu Tao has two main passives: "Flutter By" and "Sanguine Rouge." The "Flutter By" passive increases the crit rate of all party members excluding Hu Tao once her elemental skill "Guide to Afterlife" ends. This enables players to utilize her quickswap role more effectively as her party members are buffed during her downtime. The second passive, "Sanguine Rouge" increases Hu Tao's Pyro damage by 33% when she is below 50% HP. As she converts her damage to Pyro during her elemental skill, this passive gives her a nice boost of damage while her attack is buffed during her HP loss.
Thankfully, Hu Tao's constellations appear to be nice bonuses instead of necessary additions and she will likely be quite strong even at 0 constellations. Her notable constellations appear to be the first and sixth ones. The first constellation called "Crimson Bouquet" removes the stamina cost for Hu Tao's charged attacks during her elemental skill. Stamina management is quite important for a character consistently on the brink of death so the first constellation is a great investment even for free-to-play Genshin Impact players. Her sixth constellation is called "Butterfly's Embrace" which triggers if Hu Tao falls under 25% health or suffers from a lethal strike. Instead of dying, Hu Tao will instead gain a 200% bonus to elemental and physical resistance, a 100% increase to crit rate, and a resistance to interruption. Though it'll require heavy investment, it'll give Hu Tao a massive powerspike in damage output.
Hu Tao's increased damage while she loses HP offers an interesting approach to Genshin Impact that players haven't seen before. If players are unsure if they will enjoy her berserker playstyle and quickswap mechanics, Hu Tao will be available in a trial run when her banner is released. As always, players should note that there is room for minor adjustments to her kit before release and nothing is set in stone until her banner. Nevertheless, Hu Tao should prove to be an exciting new character with a unique playstyle focusing on low health with high damage.
Genshin Impact is available now on the Mobile, PC, and PS4, and is currently in development for the PS5 and Switch.