Ayato and Tartaglia are both limited 5-star Hydro units. Yet Tartaglia has a much steeper learning curve than Ayato. This is because he’s a highly technical and difficult character to play. His playstyle requires strict cooldown management and rotations. Without this, his damage ceiling is quite low. But with proper execution, Tartaglia is competitive enough to be among the strongest characters in-game. Whereas Ayato is very easy to play. Ayato has more viable teams than Tartaglia – and he also works well in any of Tartaglia’s teams. To further explain, let’s compare their pull values and how they perform in the two game modes of Genshin Impact: Overworld (Exploration & Co-op) and Spiral Abyss (Meta). All comparisons made are done between C0 5-star characters. There’s also a glossary at the very end of the article to help you better understand the terms used! But first, let’s take a look at their character kits.
Character Kits Comparison
Normal Attack
Ayato’s damage stems entirely from his elemental skill and burst. There is no benefit in leveling his normal attack talents. In contrast, it’s important to level Tartaglia’s normal attack talents. This is among his valuable sources of damage. When Tartaglia hits opponents with a fully-charged aimed shot, he marks them with the Riptide status. This status lasts for 10s. Opponents affected by Riptide will suffer the following forms of Hydro damage:
When hit by Tartaglia’s fully-charged aimed shot, a Riptide Flash will deal 3 instances of AOE damage. When defeating an opponent, a Riptide Burst will deal AOE damage and inflict the Riptide status on nearby opponents.
Elemental Skill
Ayato shifts positions and leaves a watery illusion at his original location. This illusion will explode if opponents are nearby or after its duration ends. This deals AOE Hydro damage. Ayato also enters a state where he can perform fast normal attack slashes that deal AOE Hydro damage. These slashes are called Shunsuiken. Hitting an opponent with Shunsuiken will grant Ayato a Namisen stack. This increases his Shunsuiken damage by a percentage of his max HP. The maximum number of Namisen stacks is 4. Additionally, Ayato’s resistance to interruption is increased. This state lasts for 6s. Ayato’s elemental skill is his strongest and most consistent source of damage. Tartaglia leaves his ranged stance and enters his melee stance. This converts his normal and charged attacks to Hydro damage. Hitting an opponent affected by Riptide deals additional AOE Hydro damage called Riptide Slash. This can only occur once every 1.5s. The longer Tartaglia stays in his melee stance, the longer his skill cooldown becomes. Pressing this skill again will end his melee stance and return to his ranged stance. It can also automatically end after 30s – this results in a cooldown of 45s. Tartaglia’s skill is extremely strong in AOE. It allows you to chain multiple instances of Riptide damage between enemies. Because of this, he’s well-known for his unique and satisfying gameplay.
Elemental Burst
Ayato summons a field of rain that deals AOE Hydro damage. All characters inside this field have their normal attack damage increased. This costs 80 energy and lasts for 18s. Tartaglia can perform 2 elemental bursts. When casting his burst while in his ranged stance, Tartaglia fires a Hydro arrow that deals AOE Hydro damage. All opponents hit will be affected by the Riptide status. Additionally, this refunds 20 energy after its use. When casting his burst while in his melee stance, Tartaglia performs a slash that deals AOE Hydro damage. This clears opponents’ Riptide status and triggers an additional AOE Hydro explosion. Both of Tartaglia’s bursts cost 60 energy.
Passive Talents
When Ayato cooks a dish perfectly, he has an 18% chance to receive an additional Suspicious dish. Ayato automatically gains 2 Namisen stacks after casting his skill. When his skill’s watery illusion explodes, he also gains the maximum number of Namisen stacks possible. When Ayato is off-field and his energy is less than 40, he regenerates 2 energy per second.
Tartaglia increases your own party members’ normal attack talent level by 1. The duration of Riptide is extended by 8s. Riptide’s total effective duration becomes 18s. When in his melee stance, Tartaglia can apply the Riptide status to opponents. This can be triggered by dealing a Crit hit with his normal and charged attacks.
Notable Constellations
Ayato has relatively bad constellations. They do provide damage buffs, but they’re not as strong as other 5-star constellations. His most notable constellation is his C3.
C3 increases his elemental skill talent by 3. This directly increases Ayato’s overall damage output.
Similarly, Tartaglia’s constellations also aren’t that great. His most notable constellations are his C1 and C3
C1 reduces his elemental skill cooldown by 20%. This is a quality-of-life buff that allows you to use his melee stance longer. It also makes his rotations slightly easier to play. C3 increases his elemental skill talent by 3. This directly buffs his overall damage output.
Overworld
Exploration (Single-player)
Ayato and Tartaglia perform similarly in single-player. Since most of their damage comes from their elemental skill, casting their bursts isn’t needed. Generally, skill-focused kits make characters feel better to play. Energy Recharge and management are never a problem because their bursts have minimal impact on your overworld gameplay.
Co-op (Multiplayer)
In Co-op, Ayato performs better than Tartaglia. Staying in Tartaglia’s melee stance for too long results in a much longer cooldown. There are no immediate visual cues for his CD duration. So, players are highly likely to overuse his melee stance. This CD mechanic makes him feel clunky to play during Co-op. In single-player, this isn’t a major problem. You can simply switch to another character during Tartaglia’s cooldown. However, Co-op only lets you play 1-2 characters. Long CDs will disable your Tartaglia for a sizable amount of time. Tartaglia can still use normal and charged attacks, but this is a massive damage decrease compared to his melee stance. Since Ayato doesn’t need cooldown management, he has a more consistent uptime than Tartaglia.
Spiral Abyss (Meta)
Hydro is the core of all top meta teams in-game. Ayato and Tartaglia are undoubtedly among the strongest Hydro characters. This alone makes them more future-proof than other units.
Hitlag Extension
Ayato’s fast attacks can take full advantage of hitlag. These are micro freeze animations that extend his hydro infusion past its original duration. An example can be seen in the photo above. Ayato’s skill cooldown is 12s, and this begins after casting his skill. His skill lasts for 6s. So, by the end of his skill, the timer should display a remaining cooldown of 6s. But because of hitlag, his skill duration is extended. You can see how the timer shows 4.6s while his skill is still active. Hitlag makes Ayato’s effective skill duration become 7-8s instead of just 6s. Tartaglia can also take advantage of hitlag – but not as much as Ayato.
Team Compositions
Ayato and Tartaglia have similar team comps. Here’s a short TLDR on who performs better in three of their best teams. More detailed comparisons are explained below. Tartaglia is the premium 5-star Hydro unit for Vape teams. This is his strongest team comp – and the strongest team in-game. Its party members are Tartaglia, Bennett, Xiangling, and Kazuha/Sucrose. He plays many roles in this team, namely as an on-field DPS, enabler, and burst DPS.
As an on-field DPS, Tartaglia is the active character dealing damage. He contributes a sizable percent of the overall team DPS. As an enabler, he applies strong Hydro aura to enemies. This allows Xiangling’s burst, Kazuha’s burst, and Guoba to vaporize most of their damage. As a burst DPS, Tartaglia’s burst serves as a vape-able nuke at the start of every rotation.
Buffs from Bennett and Kazuha/Sucrose are stacked at the start of each rotation. Tartaglia’s nuke burst allows him to deal one big instance of damage before any of these buffs expire. For most players, this is a difficult team to play. It requires a really specific setup to reach its high damage ceiling. Ayato can substitute Tartaglia in this team. However, his team variant does perform worse than Tartaglia’s. Here are some of the reasons why:
Ayato applies much less Hydro than Tartaglia. He needs both his burst and skill to vape Xiangling’s burst. He has an expensive burst cost of 80 energy. This requires him to run more Energy Recharge which leads to damage loss. His skill has a shorter uptime. To vape most of Xiangling’s burst, Tartaglia’s optimal skill duration is 9s. Ayato’s skill only has an uptime of 6s. Ayato doesn’t have a nuke burst that can be vaped at the start of each rotation.
Ayato is the premium 5-star Hydro unit for Taser teams. These teams are composed of:
1 Hydro unit 2 Electro units Kazuha/Sucrose/Bennett
Since Ayato’s skill has a more consistent uptime, this lets him consistently drive Beidou’s burst and provide smoother rotations. Unlike Tartaglia, Ayato doesn’t need cooldown management. This alone makes it much easier to play than Vape teams. Tartaglia also works in Taser teams – but Ayato still mechanically pulls ahead. Freeze teams are composed of:
1 Hydro unit 2 Cryo units 1 Anemo unit
In these teams, Ayato performs much better than Tartaglia. This is simply because he has a deployable burst that applies continuous Hydro while he’s off-field. Tartaglia doesn’t have a deployable burst. So, Tartaglia needs to be on-field acting as the hypercarry. Otherwise, there’s no source of Hydro to maintain the freeze reaction. Simply said, Tartaglia is not a good hypercarry. His freeze teams have the lowest damage ceiling compared to his other teams.
Who Should You Pull?
For the average casual player, Ayato is a much better pull. He’s strong, comfortable, and easy to play. Ayato also has more flexibility in his team comps and playstyles. For players willing to practice and learn harder rotations, Tartaglia is the better unit to pull. Although he’s the best in only one team, it’s the strongest team in-game. At his worst, Tartaglia is still a very satisfying character to play. At his best, he will carry you through every Abyss rotation and battle content in the game.
Glossary
