Despite these unique features, the Traveler has a lot in common with the rest of your character roster in that you can still customise their build with weapons, artifacts, ascensions, talents, constellations, and party composition. Read on below to learn all the basics you need to know about the Traveler in Genshin Impact. Pages in this guide:
What is the Traveler’s best role in Genshin Impact?
Because of the Traveler’s unique power to switch their element, their best build and party role differ depending on the element they currently wield. In general, though, the Traveler isn’t one of the strongest characters in the game, and usually finds their place as a sub-DPS and/or elemental support character in a party. However, thanks to their elemental switching, they do make for one of the best exploration and puzzle-solving characters in the game. Elsewhere, we’ve put together detailed build guides for the Traveler in relation to each of their individual elements: Anemo, Geo, Electro, and Dendro. You can also naviagate through the pages in this article to view each build guide in order.
Should I play as the male or female Traveler?
At the start of the game you’re offered a choice between two Traveler characters: the male Traveler (default name: Aether) and the female Traveler (default name: Lumine). The differences between them are mainly cosmetic. However, thanks to subtle differences in their animations, the Traveler’s gender does have one minor impact on gameplay: Aether traverses slightly faster, while Lumine attacks slightly faster. But those differences are extremely small, so unless you’re out to ruthlessly min/max, it’s best to just pick whichever you prefer the look of. Bear in mind that after making your selection you can’t switch to the other Traveler without taking the rather drastic step of starting a fresh save on a different server. So make your selection on the basis of the gender you’d like the game to recognise you as, or just whichever character’s design you like better!
General build advice for The Traveler
The Traveler’s unaligned talents
When their element is unaligned (as happens at the very beginning of the game and briefly during occasional story beats), the Traveler is unable to perform elemental attacks or benefit from passive talents. However, they can still perform normal attacks with their sword, as follows:
Past Memories (Normal Attack): Normal Attack: The Traveler performs up to 5 rapid strikes. Charged Attack: The Traveler consumes a certain amount of Stamina to unleash 2 rapid sword strikes. Plunging Attack: The Traveler plunges from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging opponents along the path and dealing AoE DMG upon impact.
Outside of the aforementioned story moments, you can’t revert to an unaligned Traveler through normal gameplay, and therefore Past Memories can’t be levelled up. When the Traveler becomes unaligned for story reasons, Past Memories’ level seems to mirror that of Foreign Ironwind (the normal attack for the Anemo Traveler) for the purposes of determing their attack strength.
The Traveler’s Ascension Materials
To fully ascend the Traveler, you need the following materials. Note that unlike their talents and constellations, the Traveler’s ascensions carry over between their different elemental forms, so you only need to collect these materials once overall: Brilliant Diamond pieces are obtained as Adventure Rank rewards, and they’re drip-fed to you in just the right amounts to ascend the Traveler, since they have no other use in the game other than as the Traveler’s ascension materials. Windwheel Asters are native to Mondstadt and easily farmed from the surrounding countryside, while masks are obtained by defeating Hilichurl enemies (found throughout Teyvat) at various difficulties.
How to switch the Traveler’s element in Genshin Impact
You can switch the Traveler’s element at any time by having them (as the active character) interact with a Statue of the Seven, and choosing the “Resonate with [Element]” interaction from the list of options. Their new elemental alignment will then persist until the next time you interact with a Statue of the Seven in another nation to change their active element. Interact with Statues of the Seven in the following map regions to gain the corresponding element:
Mondstadt: Anemo Liyue: Geo Inazuma: Electro Sumeru: Dendro
Now that you’re on your way to putting together the optimum build for the Traveler in Genshin Impact, why not check out our Genshin Impact character tier list to see which other characters you’d like to add to your party?
