Genshin Impact Character Review – Traveler (Electro)

Electro is the third element available to the Traveler and it’s available for free after resonating with a Statue of the Seven in Inazuma for the first time. Furthermore, all of the Electro Traveler’s Constellations are available for free via progressing through Act II of the main story and giving Electroculus to the Statue of the Seven. As of Version 2.0, you can only get the Electro Traveler to C3 which is a little inconvenient for the time being as C4 and C6 is where the kit shines the most.

In line with Electro’s theme of Energy, the Electro Traveler serves as a dedicated battery unit for your team. With their Elemental Skill, “Lightning Blade”, the Traveler strikes enemies with Electro DMG and leaves behind an Abundance Amulet for anyone in the team to pick up. Said Amulet restores Elemental Energy and temporarily buffs Energy Recharge. The Traveler’s Elemental Burst, “Bellowing Thunder”, is similar to Xingqiu’s in that it’ll deal damage in tandem with the active character’s Normal Attacks. This Burst has the added bonus of restoring energy to the active character every time it hits an enemy.

The concept of getting free Energy would sound mighty appealing if the amount you get in return is worth it. To be honest though, I’m a bit underwhelmed by how much the Electro Traveler gives. At Lv. 6, “Lightning Blade” offers 3.5 Energy for each Abundance Amulet. At C1, you can get three of these amulets. The total energy you gain is 10.5 Energy which isn’t much of a gain if the character the Traveler is supporting has a high Elemental Burst cost (and unnecessary if the cost is low). Meanwhile, “Bellowing Thunder” at Lv. 6 provides 0.9 Energy per coordinated hit. The total amount will vary on how quickly you can get hits in before the Burst expires but the Energy gained generally isn’t enough to get your active character’s Burst back up. Obviously, it’s worth considering how much Energy your carry generates themselves though keep in mind that you’d have a battery because your carry struggles with Energy in the first place.

It also doesn’t help that the kit is bit awkward to use. Hitting an enemy to spawn an amulet that you then need to walk over to can be inconvenient, depending on the situation. You ideally want to use “Lightning Blade” at point blank to ensure it’ll hit and span the Abundance Amulet. In doing so, you have to quickly switch to the desired character for the buff. Larger enemies may prevent you rom picking the amulets up. If you’re in a timed activity such as Spiral Abyss, it’s a little counterintuitive to waste precious seconds to pick something off of the ground. “Bellowing Thunder” is less clumsy to use but the fact that it’s only your active character who gets Energy back feels limiting. You’re more or less forced to have the Traveler back your carry, leaving any other units (especially those with high Burst costs) starving. If the Burst applies to the whole party, that would at least justify the varying, potentially small Energy returns.

Ironically, the character the Electro Traveler struggles to re-energize the most is themselves. Their Elemental Skill only generates one Electro particle. Even with a high Energy Recharge stat, that doesn’t yield much; a problem further exacerbated by the Traveler’s high Burst cost of 80 Energy. This can make reliably using the Traveler’s Elemental Burst in a rotation a bit difficult. I suppose you could have the Traveler pick up their Abundance Amulets but it’s not ideal to do. The increase in Energy Recharge is completely wasted on the Traveler unless you have amazing timing and quickly grab the Amulets before getting the Energy particle. Furthermore, the Electro Traveler’s A1 passive decreases Lightning Blade’s CD by 1.5s if someone else picks up the Abundance Amulets. In other words, the Traveler should not be the one to pick up any amulet if they want to use their Elemental Skill more often.

Because of this Energy issue, weapon selection for the Electro Traveler pretty much defaults to the Favonius Sword. Provided that you have a decent enough CRIT Rate, the Traveler will be able to periodically generate neutral Energy for themselves as well as the whole team. Sacrificial Sword could also work but this only results in two Electro particles instead of the usual one so it’s hardly an improvement. The CD reset the weapon provides is also wasted as using “Lightning Blade” again will reset any Abundance Amulets generated. Alternatively, a second Electro character could work in re-energizing the Traveler. However, the fact that this is something to consider says a lot about the Traveler’s job as a dedicated battery unit.

Like with other Electro characters, being Electro limits the Traveler’s flexibility in team comps. You can pair the Traveler with a Pyro carry for Overload but if you have a solid Cyro or Hydro support, you’d be better off running a Melt and/or Vaporize setup. Overload also has the disadvantage of knocking enemies around which can be annoying. Frozen comps don’t really work either as you’re likely not aiming for Physical DMG and will therefore not need the Physical Debuff from Superconduct. You generally put an Electo character in your team if you’re aiming for an Electro-related reaction. Shocking I know but it is at odds with the concept of a dedicated Battery. The appeal of such a thing wears off when you can’t fit it in a lot of teams, especially ones heavily favored by Genshin‘s meta.

I use the Traveler pretty often, usually during story quests because Genshin is technically about them, so I plan on using the Electro kit from time to time. But as you can probably tell, it hasn’t clicked for me so far. It’s awkward to use and it gives little in return to merit usage. Frankly, it makes me question if a dedicated battery is necessary at all. You don’t really need such a thing if you have a support who can generate the particles of the same element as your carry. The Favonius and Sacrificial weapon series also exist in allowing characters to better serve as makeshift batteries. I realize lots of people frown on Energy Recharge but it is worth raising if you want Elemental Bursts to be more consistent. I suppose the issue with the Electro Traveler is more inherent to the design of their kit but the point still stands. Why fix what isn’t broken? Perhaps this will make more sense with the Raiden Shogun. I “imagine” her kit will be similar in concept.

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