Early on in Genshin Impact, the Traveler is blessed with the power to manipulate Anemo. This is surprising to Paimon and Traveler at first, but they end up getting used to the new abilities. Things take another shocking turn when Traveler travels to Liyue, as interacting with the Statue of the Seven there blesses them with Geo powers as well. No one else in the world of Teyvat is capable of manipulating more than one element, so it's a big deal that Traveler can. While this is cool in terms of the game's lore, it also serves as a way for players to customize their Traveler, but it could go a step further.

The two most defining traits of any character in Genshin Impact are their element and their weapons. When describing a new character, these are the two things that come to mind first, as they drastically affect what type of gameplay that character will have. Letting players customize which element Traveler uses is a great start, but why not take things even further and allow players to customize Traveler's weapon type also? There are a number of ways that this could be implemented, and it could also solve a big problem that players have with the game.

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Genshin Impact - Weapon Animations

mihoyo zhongli childe sets

From a technical standpoint, the main argument against allowing the Traveler to wield all five weapon types is the amount of work that would need to go into making it happen. While there is some weight to that argument, it's ultimately flawed due to the way weapons work in Genshin Impact. Each weapon has a standard set of attacks that is the same among different users, with a few exceptions for certain characters that have unique animations. Traveler could use the basic animations for each weapon, as this wouldn't require miHoYo to animate and design brand new ones.

Examples of unique animations include Kaeya's teleporting sword-play, Zhongli's levitating polearm, and Beidou's claymore combo. While it's always nice to see a character come out with a unique normal attack animation, few fans would be upset to see Traveler with the standard ones. In terms of standard combos, this would be things like Xiangling's polearm attacks, Razor's claymore, and the typical bow and catalyst normal attack combos that other characters have. If miHoYo were to use these, there'd be little need for extra work but it would still provide a ton of more versatility to Traveler.

Genshin Impact - Missing Weapon/Element Combinations

Genshin Impact Upcoming Electro Characters

Another benefit of allowing Traveler to use various weapons would be the addition of certain weapon and element combinations that are currently absent from the game. For example, at the time of writing, there are no Anemo claymore users. This may change in a future update, but there's no real reason why this sort of thing couldn't work. If Traveler could use claymore weapons and combine them with his Anemo attacks, then that wouldn't be an issue at all. The same thing holds true for Cryo catalyst users, though Traveler won't unlock Cryo abilities until the final chapter of Genshin Impact.

Perhaps the biggest perpetrator of this issue is the polearm weapon category. Genshin Impact desperately needs more polearm characters, as there are only two in the game at the moment. Between Xiangling and Zhongli, players don't have a lot of options, and there are four other elements for which the polearm weapon is completely absent. Seeing the traveler combine his Anemo powers and eventually others like Electro with a polearm would be awesome, and it would let players customize the character in a way they want to as well.

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Traveler Could Learn Weapon Styles Overtime

Genshin Impact Lumine Pyro Element

One potential way this could be implemented is by allowing players to learn new weapon styles overtime as they visit more regions. It's fairly clear that Traveler will unlock a new element with each new region they visit, but perhaps someone there could teach them a new fighting style as well. The next big Genshin Impact update takes players to Inazuma, the land ruled by the Electro Archon, Baal. It wouldn't be outlandish to say that a character that specializes in one of the other four weapons could teach Traveler how to use it there.

In this case, players would probably get a new weapon style with each chapter. The sword is already available for the prologue and chapter one, so chapters two, three, four, and five would all see the introduction of claymore, catalyst, bow, and polearm weapons. This way, by the time players venture into Snezhnaya for the final confrontation with the Fatui, they'll have access to all seven elements and all five weapon types. There's a solid lore reason for why characters can't have more than one vision outside of the Traveler, but there's theoretically nothing stopping anyone in the world of Teyvat from mastering more than one weapon. One character has done this already to an extent, as Childe is a bow user that can switch into a melee stance.

Weapons' Interaction With Talents

Genshin Impact normal attack weapon talent upgrade

Perhaps the biggest pitfall here is how these weapons would interact with certain talents that the Traveler has. When in their Anemo form, the final hit of Traveler's sword combo causes a windblade to shoot out and deal Anemo damage. It would be interesting to see how this talent would translate over to other weapons. One option would be for the final hit of whatever weapon they have equipped to fire out the windblade, but that would require a rewrite of the talent.

Likewise, every character in the game has a talent that increases the power of their normal attacks. In the case of the Anemo and Geo forms of the Traveler, players have to upgrade their basic attack talent twice. If players were then also able to mix and match weapon types with the element type, it would make more sense to have each weapon have a unique talent upgrade, but this isn't the case right now.

Genshin Impact is available now on Mobile, PC, and PS4, and later on Switch.

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