He still has the additional utility of elemental resistance shred from Viridescent Venerer, elemental application, and energy refund from his burst – but he’s just viable there and not the best-in-slot. Because of this, it’s only worth pulling Venti if you want to have his situationally powerful ability. This is because he’s excellent against non-heavy enemies but average everywhere else. And although he’s the uncontested best source of crowd control in-game, he’s not the only one. Plenty of other Anemo units provide slightly weaker grouping but are more versatile supports. Note: This is about meta only. If you like Venti regardless of his power level, don’t let this stop you from pulling for him.
Pros & Cons
Venti Strengths
Venti is the unparalleled king of crowd control. This is thanks to his blackhole (burst) that tightly groups multiple non-heavy enemies toward its center. So he can make light work of any content with enemies that can be crowd controlled or sucked by his burst. Opponents sucked into his burst are basically stunlocked and unable to attack for its entire duration. This is especially strong against mobbing content where there are multiple waves of smaller, low-HP opponents – this is typically found in battle events. Using Venti in these scenarios essentially guarantees a clear even with uninvested teammates. Upon hitting an opponent affected by an elemental aura, Venti’s burst can absorb that element and deal elemental damage of that same element. Elemental damage dealt this way also applies that element to the opponents hit. This is a great source of elemental application, especially in teams where there’s not enough application of a specific element. For instance, Mona may not apply enough Hydro in a Venti-Mona-Ganyu-Diona team. So by infusing Venti’s burst with Hydro, it effectively solves Mona’s lack of Hydro application. Venti is especially good in teams that have a swirl-able element like Pyro/Hydro/Electro/Cryo. This is thanks to his passive that refunds energy to teammates with a similar element to the element absorbed by his burst. And extra energy is always appreciated on top of his powerful crowd control. However, he also works in teams with no swirl-able elements – like Mono-Geo – because of his crowd control abilities. It’s worse than teams with Pyro/Hydro/Electro/Cryo, but it’s definitely viable. His unparalleled crowd control is enough to justify using him in any team when facing non-heavy opponents.
Venti Weaknesses
Venti is unfavorable in content when he doesn’t work that well – namely, against heavy enemies. These are scenarios when his powerful crowd control is basically rendered useless. In this case, other support Anemo units are generally better options than him. He’s still viable thanks to his energy refund passive and elemental application but just worse. So it’s still recommended to use other buffing units – like Kazuha and Sucrose – if you have them. They’re just better than Venti against this type of content. Venti’s burst heavily relies on auto-targeting. And, well, auto-targeting in Genshin is very unreliable. It’s not uncommon for Venti to target the wrong opponents or cast his burst in the wrong direction – sometimes even outside the domain. For instance, his burst might automatically target a side of the domain with only one opponent versus another side with multiple opponents present. And this makes him feel a bit clunky to play. Still, most of this issue can be alleviated by proper positioning. Venti casts his burst slightly farther in front of him, so that’s important to keep in mind before casting. You can position him away from opponents so that his burst will appear at their current location. Venti’s burst lifts lighter opponents into the air, and only a few abilities can hit enemies at that height. This makes him a bit unfavorable to units whose abilities can’t reach the lifted opponents. These include abilities like Xiao’s plunges, Xiangling’s burst, Childe’s melee attacks, and many more. It basically limits his team drafting options.
Are Venti’s Constellations Good?
Not really – Venti has pretty bad constellations. This is because he’s already a complete unit at C0, and none of his constellations are significant enough to justify pulling for them. It’s never recommended to pull for Venti cons. Because of this, it’s best to stick to a C0 Venti and just pull for other 5-stars that synergize well with him. But if you still plan on pulling for his constellations, here’s a closer look at each one.
C1: Splitting Gales
Fires 2 additional arrows per aimed shot. Each arrow deals 33% of the original arrow’s damage. There’s no optimal team or team rotation that benefits from this constellation, so it’s pretty useless. It’s never recommended to pull for C1.
C2: Breeze of Reminiscence
Venti’s skill decreases opponents’ Anemo and Physical resistance by 12% for 10s. Opponents launched by his skill will also suffer an additional 12% Anemo and Physical resistance decrease while Airborne. This is one of the fewest sources of Anemo resistance shreds in-game, so it’s valuable for Anemo DPS units like Xiao or a CRIT build Venti. However, it’s pretty situational. Xiao is generally not paired with Venti because he can’t hit opponents inside Venti’s burst, and a CRIT build Venti is less optimal than a full EM build. Similarly, Physical DPS units like Eula often can’t hit opponents inside his burst, so they’re rarely used together. C2 is an overall decent constellation, but it’s important to know its limitations.
C3: Ode to Thousand Winds
Increases his elemental burst talent level by 3. This is good for a CRIT build but irrelevant for an EM build.
C4: Hurricane of Freedom
When Venti picks up an elemental orb or particle, he gains a 25% Anemo damage bonus for 10s. Similar to his C3, this is mainly good for a CRIT Venti build – and it’s a great damage gain in this case. However, it’s irrelevant for an EM build.
C5: Concerto dal Cielo
Increases his elemental skill talent level by 3. C5 is nice in a CRIT build but useless in an EM build.
C6: Storm of Defiance
Opponents that take damage from Venti’s burst have their Anemo resistance decreased by 20%. If an elemental absorption occured, it will also decrease the resistance of opponents to that corresponding element by 20%. This is useful for most of Venti’s teams – and both in a CRIT and EM build. However, it is underwhelming for a 6th constellation when the Viridescent Venerer artifact set can basically shred more resistance off opponents.
Is Windblume Ode Good on Venti?
Windblume Ode is one of Venti’s best overall weapon options – it’s at second place right after The Stringless for damage. So yes, it works great on him! It’s a great free-to-play option if you don’t have The Stringless or Elegy for the End available. However, it should be noted that The Stringless is a 4-star weapon that you can obtain from any gacha banner, and it’s strictly better than Windblume. So it’s generally recommended to go for Stringless since you’re bound to get refinements.
Elemental Mastery vs CRIT on Venti?
An Elemental Mastery (EM) build focuses on buffing Venti’s swirl damage. Swirl scales entirely from EM and character level, so these are the only ones you focus on. There’s no need to level any of his talents. A CRIT build focuses on buffing Venti’s Anemo damage. This scales from his talent level, ATK, CRIT, and elemental damage bonus. It requires a lot more resources to accomplish this build. Assuming average investment, an EM build Venti will always be the better option. However, a CRIT build can outperform an EM build but only at significantly higher investments – thus making it less optimal for most players. It’s generally only worth using for a Venti with higher constellations. Plus the gap between a highly invested CRIT build and a full EM build is not enough to justify spending a lot of resources on Venti when you can achieve a slightly worse effect but at a significantly lower investment. So, it’s still recommended to go for an EM build – it’s simply more resource-efficient and easy to accomplish. Just build EM and level Venti, and you’re good to go!
