It can be frustrating to build a character in Genshin Impact and still feel like their damage is much lower than expected.
You may have the correct Artifact set. Your character may even have good CRIT stats. Yet enemies still take too long to defeat, while other players using the same character seem to deal significantly more damage.
The problem is often not one single stat.
Damage in Genshin Impact depends on several systems working together, including character levels, weapons, Talents, Artifacts, Energy Recharge, Elemental Reactions, buffs, enemy resistance, and team rotations.
The short answer is:
If your character is doing low damage, check the guaranteed upgrades first, then verify your Artifact stats, Energy requirements, team synergy, reactions, buffs, and rotation before assuming you need better Artifact substats.
Here are the most important things to check.
1. Check Your Character Level and Ascension
Start with the most basic part of the build.
If your character is significantly underleveled or waiting for an available ascension, you may be missing several forms of progression.
Character ascension can provide:
- Higher level caps
- Additional ascension stats
- Access to higher Talent levels
- Additional character progression
However, not every character needs to reach Level 90 immediately.
For some characters, completing the final ascension and remaining at 80/90 can be perfectly reasonable while you improve more important areas.
Other characters benefit much more from Level 90, especially when their damage relies heavily on level-sensitive Elemental Reactions or certain scaling stats.
The important thing is making sure your character is not simply far behind your current progression stage.
2. Check Your Weapon Level
An underleveled weapon can significantly reduce a character’s performance.
Weapons provide guaranteed progression and are usually much easier to improve than Artifacts.
Check whether:
- The weapon is properly leveled
- The weapon is ascended
- Its secondary stat is useful
- Its passive effect works with the character
- The weapon actually fits the character’s role
Do not assume a higher-rarity weapon is automatically better.
A properly matched and leveled 4-star weapon can outperform a poorly matched alternative.
For important characters in developed accounts, taking frequently used weapons to Level 90 is often a strong investment.
3. Check Your Talent Levels
A character can have excellent Artifacts and still deal disappointing damage if their important Talents are underleveled.
First determine where the character’s damage actually comes from.
Depending on the character, that may be:
- Normal Attacks
- Charged Attacks
- Plunging Attacks
- Elemental Skill
- Elemental Burst
You do not need to level every Talent equally.
For example, a character whose damage comes almost entirely from their Elemental Burst may gain very little from investing heavily in Normal Attacks.
Prioritize the Talents responsible for the character’s actual damage.
4. Make Sure Your Artifact Main Stats Are Correct
Before worrying about Artifact substats, check your main stats.
A character with the wrong main stats can perform poorly even if the Artifacts have attractive CRIT rolls.
Depending on the character, important main stats may include:
- ATK%
- HP%
- DEF%
- Elemental Mastery
- Energy Recharge
- Elemental DMG Bonus
- CRIT Rate
- CRIT DMG
Do not automatically use ATK% simply because the character deals damage.
Some characters scale primarily from HP, DEF, Elemental Mastery, or other mechanics.
The correct main stats depend on the character’s kit and team.
If you are unsure which stats your character should use, check our Genshin Impact Character Builds for recommended Artifacts, weapons, teams, and stats.
5. Check Whether Your Artifacts Are Actually Leveled
Correct Artifacts are not enough if they remain at low enhancement levels.
Artifact main stats increase substantially as the Artifact is upgraded.
This is especially important for:
- Sands
- Goblet
- Circlet
because their main stats can directly affect major parts of your build.
You do not need to take every temporary Artifact immediately to +20.
However, if an important character is using several low-level Artifacts, upgrading useful pieces can provide a large immediate improvement.
6. Check Your CRIT Rate, Not Just CRIT DMG
Large CRIT DMG numbers look impressive, but they provide limited value if your character rarely lands critical hits.
For characters whose damage can CRIT, both stats matter:
- CRIT Rate determines how often you CRIT
- CRIT DMG determines how much additional damage those CRITs deal
Do not sacrifice too much CRIT Rate simply to display a larger CRIT DMG number.
A more balanced build often produces better average damage over an entire fight.
There is no single perfect CRIT ratio for every character, but consistency matters.
7. Check Your Energy Recharge
A character can have excellent offensive stats and still perform poorly if their Elemental Burst is unavailable when the team needs it.
This is especially important for Burst-dependent characters.
If you constantly need to wait, use extra Skills, or extend your rotation to recharge a Burst, you may need more Energy Recharge or better Energy generation.
Possible solutions include:
- More ER from Artifacts
- An Energy Recharge weapon
- A teammate that generates useful Particles
- Better Energy funneling
- A more efficient rotation
A build with slightly lower theoretical damage but reliable Bursts can perform much better in actual combat.
8. Make Sure You Are Triggering the Intended Elemental Reaction
Many characters are balanced around specific Elemental Reactions.
If your team is not consistently producing the intended reaction, your damage may be dramatically lower than expected.
Examples include:
- Vaporize
- Melt
- Hyperbloom
- Burgeon
- Aggravate
- Spread
- Swirl
- Electro-Charged
- Overloaded
Simply putting compatible elements on the same team does not guarantee that the correct character will trigger the reaction.
Elemental application order matters.
Reaction ownership matters.
In more advanced teams, Internal Cooldown and elemental application strength can also affect how frequently reactions occur.
9. Check Who Is Actually Triggering the Reaction
This is particularly important for Elemental Mastery-based teams.
Suppose you built one character with extremely high Elemental Mastery because you expected them to trigger Hyperbloom.
If another character is actually triggering most of those reactions, the EM investment may not be producing the result you expected.
The same general principle matters for many reactions.
Ask:
Which character applies the first element, and which character triggers the reaction?
Once you know the answer, you can determine whose stats actually matter for that reaction.
10. Check Your Team Buffs and Debuffs
Damage showcases and optimized builds often include substantial support effects.
The character dealing the visible damage may be benefiting from:
- ATK buffs
- DMG Bonus
- Elemental Mastery buffs
- CRIT buffs
- Enemy RES reduction
- Artifact set effects
- Weapon effects
- Character-specific buffs
This is why comparing your unbuffed damage directly with a number from another player’s optimized team can be misleading.
The supporting characters are part of the damage calculation.
A strong team can increase a damage dealer’s performance dramatically without changing the damage dealer’s own Artifacts.
11. Check Enemy Resistance
The enemy you attack also affects the damage number you see.
Enemies can have different resistances to:
- Physical damage
- Pyro
- Hydro
- Electro
- Cryo
- Dendro
- Anemo
- Geo
Some enemies naturally resist certain damage types more strongly than others.
Enemy states and mechanics can also change how much damage they take.
If your character performs well against one enemy but poorly against another, the build may not necessarily be the problem.
You may simply be attacking an unfavorable target.
12. Check Your Rotation
Sometimes the individual character build is fine.
The rotation is the problem.
A team rotation determines when you activate:
- Buffs
- Shields
- Elemental application
- Off-field damage
- Elemental Bursts
- Your main damage window
For example, using your main DPS before activating important support buffs can waste much of the team’s potential damage.
Likewise, spending too long on support characters may cause buffs to expire before your main damage dealer can use them.
A simple rotation often looks something like:
- Set up buffs or debuffs
- Apply necessary elements
- Activate off-field Skills or Bursts
- Switch to the main damage dealer
- Use the main damage window
- Recharge and repeat
The exact order depends entirely on the team.
13. Check Whether Your Buffs Are Still Active
Buff duration is easy to overlook.
A support ability may provide a powerful bonus, but that bonus does not necessarily last for your entire rotation.
If you activate the buff too early, spend too long switching characters, or perform unnecessary actions before your main damage window, part of the buff may expire.
When testing damage, pay attention to:
- Buff duration
- Skill duration
- Burst duration
- Artifact effect duration
- Weapon passive conditions
A correct rotation is not only about which abilities you use.
It is also about when you use them.
14. Check Your Artifact Set Bonus
Correct main stats are usually more important than forcing a poor set during early progression.
However, once you have functional Artifacts, the correct set bonus can become an important source of additional performance.
Check whether:
- The set actually benefits the character
- The required conditions are being activated
- The effect matches the character’s role
- A 4-piece set is genuinely better than your available alternatives
Do not force a set bonus with terrible main stats just because a guide recommends that set.
A strong temporary combination can sometimes perform better until you obtain suitable set pieces.
15. Check Whether Your Character Scales From ATK at All
Not every damage dealer primarily scales from ATK.
Some characters use:
- HP
- DEF
- Elemental Mastery
- Multiple stats
- Special conversion mechanics
If you stack ATK on a character whose important abilities scale from something else, the build may look reasonable while producing poor results.
Read the character’s Talent descriptions.
They tell you which stats the abilities use.
Understanding scaling is more important than blindly copying a general DPS stat template.
16. Don’t Ignore Elemental DMG Bonus
For many elemental damage dealers, an appropriate Elemental DMG Bonus can be an important part of the build.
For example, depending on the character, that could mean:
- Pyro DMG Bonus
- Hydro DMG Bonus
- Electro DMG Bonus
- Cryo DMG Bonus
- Dendro DMG Bonus
- Anemo DMG Bonus
- Geo DMG Bonus
However, the best Goblet can depend on the character’s kit, available buffs, and team.
Do not assume every damage dealer always needs the same type of Goblet.
Evaluate the complete build.
17. Your Team May Be the Problem, Not the Character
A strong character cannot always compensate for a team with poor synergy.
Check whether your teammates actually support what the main character is trying to do.
A useful team may need some combination of:
- Elemental application
- Buffs
- Debuffs
- Energy generation
- Healing
- Shielding
- Crowd control
- Off-field damage
Four individually powerful characters do not necessarily create a powerful team.
Characters should contribute toward a shared combat strategy.
18. Don’t Compare Normal Gameplay With Damage Showcases
Online damage showcases can create unrealistic expectations.
A showcase may use:
- Extremely optimized Artifacts
- High-refinement weapons
- Constellations
- Multiple support buffs
- Food buffs
- Specific enemy conditions
- Carefully prepared rotations
The displayed number may be real, but it may not represent normal gameplay.
Instead of asking whether your character can reproduce one enormous hit, ask whether your team can deal reliable damage throughout an entire fight.
Consistent performance is generally much more useful.
19. Stop Chasing CRIT If a Guaranteed Upgrade Is Missing
If your character has:
- An underleveled weapon
- Low important Talents
- An unfinished ascension
- Insufficient Energy Recharge
then spending weeks trying to gain another small amount of CRIT may not be the best investment.
Artifact improvements are RNG-based.
Weapon levels, ascensions, and Talent upgrades provide predictable improvements.
Finish major guaranteed upgrades before spending enormous amounts of Resin chasing small Artifact improvements.
20. Test One Change at a Time
If you change your weapon, Artifacts, team, rotation, and support characters simultaneously, it becomes difficult to understand what actually improved your damage.
Instead, identify the most obvious weakness and fix it first.
For example:
Weapon → Talents → Energy Recharge → Artifact main stats → Team → Rotation → Artifact substats
Then test the character again.
This makes it much easier to understand where your build was losing damage.
Low Damage Troubleshooting Checklist
Check Your Character
- Character level
- Ascension
- Weapon level
- Weapon suitability
- Important Talent levels
- Correct scaling stats
Check Your Artifacts
- Correct main stats
- Artifact enhancement levels
- Useful set bonus
- Enough CRIT Rate when relevant
- Enough Energy Recharge
- Appropriate Elemental Mastery when relevant
Check Your Team
- Correct Elemental Reactions
- Reaction ownership
- Buffs
- Enemy debuffs
- Energy generation
- Healing or shielding when needed
- Team synergy
Check Your Gameplay
- Rotation order
- Buff timing
- Burst availability
- Elemental application
- Enemy resistance
- Whether you are comparing realistic damage
What Should You Fix First?
If several things are wrong, prioritize the easiest guaranteed improvements.
A useful starting order is:
Character Ascension → Weapon → Important Talents → Energy Requirement → Functional Artifacts → Team Synergy → Artifact Optimization
The exact order can change depending on the character.
For example, a reaction trigger may gain enormous value from reaching Level 90, while another character may gain more from upgrading a key Talent.
The goal is to fix the largest bottleneck, not blindly follow one upgrade order.
Why Is My Damage Still Low With Good Artifacts?
If your Artifacts are genuinely strong, look outside the Artifact screen.
Check:
- Weapon
- Talents
- Energy Recharge
- Team buffs
- Reaction setup
- Enemy resistance
- Rotation
Artifacts are only one part of a character’s performance.
A character with excellent Artifacts but poor team support can deal less damage than a moderately built character in a properly constructed team.
Why Does My Character Deal Less Damage Than the Same Character Online?
Two characters with similar Artifact stats can still perform very differently.
The other player’s setup may have different:
- Constellations
- Weapon refinements
- Support characters
- Support Constellations
- Artifact support sets
- Team buffs
- Enemy debuffs
- Reaction setup
- Rotation
- Enemy target
Always compare the entire setup rather than only the character’s CRIT stats.
Final Advice
If your character is doing low damage, do not immediately return to the Artifact Domain.
First check whether the character has completed their important guaranteed upgrades.
Then verify Energy Recharge, Artifact main stats, Elemental Reactions, team buffs, enemy resistance, and rotation.
Many apparent “Artifact problems” are actually team or progression problems.
And once your character already has good functional Artifacts, improving the surrounding team can provide a much larger increase than spending weeks searching for one slightly better Artifact.
Strong damage in Genshin Impact comes from the entire build and team working together, not from one impressive stat on the character screen.
Ready to improve a specific character? Browse our Genshin Impact Character Builds for recommended Artifacts, weapons, teams, stats, and playstyle tips.
