In order to keep up and stand a chance against the new enemies frequently rotated into endgame activities, players often need to unlock the newest playable characters in Genshin Impact through the Event Wish Banner gacha mechanics. However, even with over 100 playable characters in Genshin Impact by now, there’s one particular support character that will likely remain the best-in-slot support for the foreseeable future.
What makes a good support character in Genshin Impact typically depends on a few key factors that can vary in significance for every unique team composition: the need for healing, shielding, damage buffs, Elemental Energy, and fueling Elemental Reactions. Naturally, if there were any one character that could adequately provide all of these support utilities for any team composition, this would make them the ultimate support meta. While such a character may sound too good to be true, Xilonen in Genshin Impact comes surprisingly close, fulfilling more of these support utilities than most other support characters can.
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Why Xilonen is the Ultimate Support Character in Genshin Impact
- Xilonen’s Elemental Skill can lower enemies’ resistance to Geo, Pyro, Electro, Cryo, and Hydro Elemental damage.
- Xilonen’s Elemental Burst provides off-field healing.
- Xilonen’s Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst can trigger Geo Crystalize Elemental Reactions, providing players with shields against individual Elemental damage types.
- Xilonen’s Nightsoul’s Blessing State excels at open-world exploration, and it can fuel other Natlan characters’ Nightsoul's Blessing mechanics.
Another reason why Xilonen is the ultimate support character is that nearly all of her support utilities can benefit teammates when playing co-op activities in Genshin Impact.
Xilonen is a Healer, Shielder, and Support Skeleton Key
One of the main reasons why Xilonen is such a powerful support character right now is how efficiently she can fuel other Natlan characters’ Nightsoul’s Blessing States. This makes Xilonen a perfect fit for Natlan hypercarry team compositions that are the current meta in Genshin Impact. For example, a quick use of Xilonen’s Elemental Skill can debuff enemies while also fully charging Mavuika’s Elemental Burst, setting up a powerful nuke that can clear a crowd of enemies or take a sizable chunk out of a boss’ health bar.
Even long after the Natlan hypercarry meta inevitably falls victim to power creep, Xilonen will still likely be one of if not the best-in-slot among support characters in Genshin Impact throughout many future updates because of her versatility as a combined healer, shielder, and support character. Unlike many other S-tier support characters in Genshin Impact, like Bennet, Xilonen’s effectiveness isn’t gated behind her character Constellation upgrades, nor does she require a highly specialized Elemental Resonance team composition to reach her full potential.
Ultimately, this makes Xilonen a highly accessible character while also having one of the most versatile support kits, despite her lack of synergy with Dendro and Anemo characters.
Future Genshin Impact Support Characters Have a Tough Choice to Make Competing with the Xilonen Meta
When it comes to dethroning Xilonen as the new meta for support characters, future playable characters in Genshin Impact ultimately have two choices: offering a highly specialized support kit that does one particular support utility better than Xilonen, or offering an identical, jack-of-all-trades support kit as Xilonen, except with superior effectiveness. Unfortunately, though, both of these outcomes arguably seem like controversies waiting to happen.
The concern with introducing highly specialized characters is that this could be another case like Escoffier, whereas her Hydro and Cryo-focused kit is considered too niche to benefit most team compositions. Otherwise, attempting to outdo Xilonen at being an omnipotent support character is a slippery slope that could be problematic for Genshin Impact’s meta team compositions in the long term. Even Xilonen being as powerful and versatile as she currently is can be problematic, but since that cat’s already out of the bag, players shouldn’t sleep on Xilonen for all their team composition’s support needs.
Genshin Impact
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 81 /100 Critics Rec: 87%
- Released
- September 28, 2020
- ESRB
- Teen / Alcohol Reference, Fantasy Violence, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- HoYoverse (Formerly miHoYo)
- Publisher(s)
- HoYoverse (Formerly miHoYo)
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Unity
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- All platforms
- Cross Save
- All platforms
- PC Release Date
- September 28, 2020
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- November 20, 2024
- PS5 Release Date
- April 28, 2021
- Genre(s)
- RPG, Action, Adventure, Gacha, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, iOS, Android
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
- X|S Optimized
- yes
