That said, Bennett is strictly better than Diona. This is because he’s easily the strongest character in-game. Because of his irreplaceable ATK buffs, almost every character and team want him as a teammate. The only exceptions are units that don’t benefit from ATK or healing – namely, Yelan and Hu Tao. Basically, Bennett’s only weakness is that there’s only one of him in-game. Diona is still among the stronger supports available, but she simply falls behind Bennett. To further explain, let’s compare their character values and performance in the two game modes of Genshin Impact: Overworld (Exploration & Co-op) and Spiral Abyss (Meta). Note: All comparisons made are between a C5 Bennett and C6 Diona. But first, let’s take a look at their character kits.
Character Kit Breakdowns
Normal Attack
In most teams, Bennett and Diona never use this talent – so it’s simply not optimal to level.
Elemental Skills
Bennett infuses his sword with fire and attacks surrounding opponents. Pressing this skill deals one instance of AOE Pyro damage. Holding this skill charges its level, and each level has different effects.
At level 1, Bennett strikes twice. This deals AOE Pyro damage and launches opponents. At level 2, Bennett unleashes 3 strikes. This deals AOE Pyro damage and triggers an explosion. This launches both Bennett and the enemy.
Bennett doesn’t take any damage from being launched. Diona fires an Icy Paw that deals Cryo damage. Upon hitting an opponent, this forms a shield. Its damage absorption scales off Diona’s max HP, and its duration is based on the number of Icy Paws hit. Pressing this skill fires 2 Icy Paws. Holding this skill dashes Diona backward and fires 5 Icy Paws. This creates a stronger shield that gains a 75% damage absorption bonus. The shield has 250% Cryo damage absorption. Additionally, it shortly affects your active character with Cryo at the point of formation.
Elemental Burst
Bennett creates an AOE field called Inspiration Field. Upon cast, this deals one big instance of AOE Pyro damage. When a character is inside the Inspiration Field, they gain the following effects:
If their HP is equal to or below 70%, their health will continuously regenerate. The healing scales off Bennett’s max HP If their HP is higher than 70%, they gain an ATK bonus. This is based on Bennett’s Base ATK Imbues them with Pyro
Diona creates an AOE field called Drunken Mist. Upon cast, this deals one instance of AOE Cryo damage. The Drunken Mist has the following properties:
Deals continuous AOE Cryo damage to opponents within its field Continuously regenerates the HP of characters within its field
Passive Talents (Bennett)
Decreases Bennett’s elemental skill cooldown by 20% When inside his burst, Bennett’s skill gains the following effects: Cooldown is reduced by 50% Bennett won’t be launched by the effects of its charge level 2 When dispatched on a Mondstadt expedition, the time consumed is reduced by 25%
Passive Talents (Diona)
Characters shielded by her skill have their movement speed increased by 10% and stamina consumption decreased by 10% Opponents inside Diona’s burst have their ATK decreased by 10% for 15s When cooking a perfect dish with restorative effects, Diona has a 12% chance of obtaining double the product
Notable Constellations
Bennett’s most notable constellations are his C1 and C5.
With C1, his burst’s ATK increase no longer has an HP restriction. Additionally, it gains an additional 20% of his Base ATK. This is easily Bennett’s best constellation. C5 increases his elemental burst talent by 3. This buffs his burst damage multipliers, ATK buff ratio, and healing.
Diona has a lot of good constellations. The most notable ones are her C1, C2, C3, C5, and C6.
C1 regenerates 15 energy for Diona after her burst ends. This reduces her energy requirements. C2 increases her skill’s damage and its shield damage absorption by 15%. Additionally, it creates a shield for other nearby characters. This has 50% of the shield’s damage absorption and lasts for 5s. This buffs Diona’s shield strength and makes her an amazing character in Co-op. C3 increases her elemental burst talent level by 3. This buffs her burst’s healing abilities. C5 increases her elemental skill talent level by 3. This further buffs her shield strength. With C6, characters inside her burst gain the following effects: If their HP is below or equal to 50%, it increases their Incoming Healing Bonus by 30%. If their HP is above 50%, their Elemental Mastery is increased by 200.
In The Overworld
Exploration (Single-Player)
Diona outperforms Bennett in exploration. This is because her kit benefits exploration more than Bennett’s. Her shield is a very accessible defensive option. If you don’t take damage, then there’s no need for her burst’s healing. It also increases movement speed and decreases stamina consumption. This is especially good for traveling long distances. Additionally, her Icy Paws’ homing abilities work great for farming animals. Using her skill can track animals at a decent distance — like birds, boars, and squirrels.
Co-op (Multiplayer)
Bennett and Diona perform equally in Co-op. They both provide a lot of utility that all teammates can use — this includes healing, shielding, cleansing elemental auras, buffing, and helping charge their bursts. Basically, they’re both amazing characters in multiplayer.
Spiral Abyss (Meta)
Cleanse
Cleanse refers to Bennett and Diona’s ability to self-apply elemental auras. Diona’s skill can self-apply Cryo, while Bennett’s burst applies Pyro. This is especially useful for cleansing elemental auras or debuffs that a character may have. For instance, a Cryo aura or debuff greatly decreases a character’s movement speed. Bennett’s burst can cleanse this aura off a character by triggering a melt reaction. Once it does, the character loses the Cryo debuff.
Battery and Funneling
Funneling refers to casting a skill, generating energy particles, and then switching characters to catch the particles. Both Bennett and Diona generate a lot of energy particles. Because of this, they’re great batteries for teammates with the same element. As a battery, they help charge a teammate’s burst by giving them energy particles.
Team Compositions
Bennett and Diona have a lot of top meta teams. Their versatility and multiple utilities let them fit into almost any team. Here’s a summary of who performs better in their strongest teams and why: National team is generally composed of:
Bennett Xiangling Xingqiu/Tartaglia Sucrose/Kazuha/Raiden
Bennett is an essential character in this team. His role can’t effectively be replaced by any other unit in-game – including Diona. Bennett simply does too many things that no single character can imitate. The most important one is his perfect synergy with Xiangling. Being paired with Xiangling lets him do the following:
He enables Pyro Resonance. Its effect increases the team’s ATK by 25%. He serves as Xiangling’s battery. His short skill cooldown and strong energy particle generation ease a lot of Xiangling’s energy requirements. His buffs can be snapshotted by Xiangling. Her skill and burst can snapshot or retain the stats active when they are cast – this lets her take full advantage of Bennett’s ATK buffs.
This is simply a slot that Diona can’t ever replace. Freeze teams are generally composed of:
2 Cryo units – usually Ayaka or Ganyu 1 Hydro unit 1 Anemo unit
Diona works extremely well as the second Cryo unit in this team. This is mainly because of her strong particle generation. Funneling lets her significantly reduce the energy requirements of the Cryo DPS. Additionally, she enables Cryo Resonance. Its effects buff 15% CRIT rate to attacks against frozen enemies or enemies affected by Cryo. Diona also provides the extra utility of healing and shielding. These defensive options are nice to have, but they’re not essential. Freeze prevents opponents from moving and performing attacks – so taking damage shouldn’t be a big issue. Bennett is not recommended in these teams, but he still works. Adding a Pyro unit like Bennett can unfreeze opponents. Replacing a Cryo unit will also disable Cryo Resonance. However, Bennett can still work in these teams simply because his ATK buff is too significant. Hypercarry teams are teams where one character deals most of the damage – aka a hypercarry. They spend the most field time and deal significant damage. Hypercarries include characters like Xiao, Eula, and Itto. A Eula team is the only hypercarry team where Diona outperforms Bennett. This is because Eula’s rotations don’t align well with Bennett’s cooldowns. He’s still a great teammate, but he’s never needed. In contrast, Diona is easily Eula’s best support. She helps charge Eula’s burst while providing healing and shields. Her skill’s movement speed buff also lets Eula perform more attacks to maximize damage. As for every other Hypercarry team, Bennett outperforms Diona. All hypercarries in-game benefit from his ATK buff – even DEF-scaling characters like Itto. On top of this, he also provides strong healing like Diona.
Who Should You Build?
Bennett will always be a useful character. He’s easily the strongest character in-game, and he’s very future-proof. Because of this, it’s always worth building him. Almost every playable character and team benefits from Bennett. Even at the lowest point of investment, he already performs really well. He simply needs a high Base ATK weapon to maximize his ATK buff and enough Energy Recharge to charge his burst off cooldown. With this, he’s more than enough to buff and heal your entire team. And at higher investments, he’s a viable Main DPS. Although this isn’t top meta, a DPS build Bennett still deals good damage. He’s extremely useful, versatile, and easy to build. You can never go wrong with building Bennett.
