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- A hypercarry in Genshin Impact is the main damage dealer supported by the rest of the team.
- A successful hypercarry must consistently deal high damage, scale well with investment, be versatile in various scenarios, and offer a unique and engaging playstyle.
- Genshin’s hypercarries often lack distinctiveness in their mechanics, but future characters may show hope.
Hypercarries exist in any game. It’s the role made for players who want to show off their quick thinking and game sense with flashy skills that deal the most damage in their team. The role’s an RPG staple, more than any other role. Even in a game as casual as Genshin Impact, hypercarries exist. For one reason or another, though, the community rarely recommends you to pull for them.
What Is A Hypercarry?
Wotpack describes a hypercarry as, “Hypercarry is the main damage dealer, which is played by the whole team, consisting mainly of supports. For each support, those artifacts and weapons are selected that will help to buff the main character of the group as much as possible.”
Furthermore, hypercarries are traditionally characters that hog most of your field time. As an example, Xiao is a hypercarry that deals most of the team’s damage and stays on the field as long as his burst lasts, whereas Bennet, Faruzan, and anyone else functions as damage-buffing supports that do not provide any damage.
It’s technically a common misconception that hypercarries have to stay on the field to deal their damage; Xiangling, despite only staying on the field for 2-3 seconds, deals the most damage in her team and qualifies as a hypercarry. Still, as the community thinks of the former definition, I’ll be using that one throughout this article.
What Makes A Good Hypercarry?
A good hypercarry has certain boxes to fill. First, they have to deal the highest amount of damage in their team. They also have to deal this damage continuously, over a large period of time. They also have to scale well with investment. Furthermore, they need to have supports that can increase their personal damage (exceptions such as Neuvilette exist). So far, most newer hypercarries released by Hoyoverse check most if not all boxes. However, things are a bit more nuances.
A hypercarry in Genshin also needs to have a way to deal their damage in a number of scenarios. They have to deal their damage in a way that doesn’t make them more vulnerable, as, unlike MMOs, you can’t have another person tanking the damage. Lastly, a hypercarry needs to be fun to play and different from other carries. This last part, unfortunately, is where Genshin’s hypercarries fail miserably.
Same Kit, Different Textures
Genshin has a diverse cast of characters. Their designs are all distinct, their lore and backgrounds are different, and even their kits differ from one another. That’s how it looks at the surface, at least. Every Genshin hypercarry functions the same way, there’s no uniqueness to their kits. Hutao and Xiao may seem like characters that have no overlap in their playstyles, but all you end up doing is spamming a single button to deal damage.
Even the slight differences that come are exploits found by players, not something fully intentional i.e. Hutao’s charged attack ICD cancels. The fact that Hoyo’s scared of making complicated characters doesn’t help the cause. Every character has so much potential, but they’re reduced to an empty shell of what they could be. Xiao could be a character that uses his leaps to dodge attacks and weave in combos, but nope, just smash the spacebar and go boom. Hutao could use her HP drain mechanics to intentionally get hit in order to hit back, but she as well just became a smash button, go boom type of character.
Sethos & Clorinde: The Future Of Genshin’s Hypercarries
Clorinde and Sethos, upcoming characters revealed in the 4.7 Livestream, both show some improvement in this staleness in playstyle. Clorinde gives you another way to dodge attacks and has a more dynamic playstyle than prior characters. Sethos, on the other hand, comes with a freedom in skill expression by allowing you two very separate ways of dealing damage based on your decisions. Hoyo still isn’t fully onboard with the idea, putting a hard cap on Sethos being played a certain way so he doesn’t become too strong or complicated, but it’s a step in the right direction.
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Heya, I’m Asad (Irre) Kashif! I’ve been writing about anything and everything since as far back as I can remember. Professionally, I started writing five years ago, working both as a ghostwriter and writing under my own name. As a published author and a council member in Orpheus, my journey in the world of writing has been fulfilling and dynamic.
I still cherish the essays I wrote about my favorite PS2 games, and I’m thrilled to have transformed my passion for game journalism into a career. I’m a theory crafter for Genshin Impact (and now Wuthering Waves) and have a deep love for roguelites and roguelikes. While I prefer indie games for their distinct aesthetic and vibes, I do enjoy triple-A games occasionally. I’ve also been playing League since season 6, and I main Akali! I have a keen interest in discovering and playing more obscure games, as well as researching forgotten titles. Additionally, I am a front-end programmer who dabbles a bit in gamedev occasionally.
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