Background
Tartaglia, often referred to as his code name Childe, is a Hydro Bow-user from the nation of Snezhnaya. As the 11th of the Eleventh Harbinger of Fatui, he is honed in the art of war and manipulation. You first meet him in the story while running away from soldiers in Liyue Harbor. Childe’s current duties involve handling the banking affairs for the Fatui within the city, but that is just a coverup for his other plans to find the hidden powers of the Geo Archon. He manipulates the player and Paimon into traveling all over Liyue to gather information for his benefit.
Childe may appear to be calm and collective, but he can also be brash and abrupt in his decisions. He wields the bow due to being the weakest with that weapon, and can be prideful at times as well. Even in his last attack animation with his bow, Childe simply throws the arrow instead of simply shooting it from the weapon. As the youngest member of the Harbingers, Childe doesn’t seem to get along with the other Harbingers very well. He believes their methods aren’t always the best. Despite this playful nature, Childe loves the thrill of the battlefield and getting stronger. He enjoys bloodshed most of all and can become a ruthless killer in a heartbeat. Unlike another Harbinger, Signora, he is prone to jumping to conclusions and is impatient to get his results. For example, he shows signs of anger when the player refuses to answer his questions or give him information about Rex Lapis. Although he is viewed by many as a typical villain, Childe acts more like an unwilling anti-hero. He is shown to help the player multiple times when their interests align. Even when fighting the player, he expresses that he doesn’t want to kill the player, but will do anything to accomplish his goal. Even if it means using the power of a “weaker being” as he puts it, to lure Rex Lapis out of hiding. Childe can be a formidable foe and a powerful ally. He doesn’t care about the method as long as he gets the chance to go up against powerful enemies.
Despite being a cunning killer, Childe has a warm side to him. He can be best described as a family man as he is known to go the extra mile in keep his siblings safe from harm. Childe currently has three siblings in Snezhnaya that he cares for deeply and always sends them gifts from Liyue. He tries to be the perfect big brother to his younger siblings, even going as far as pretending to be a toys salesmen for his youngest brother Teucer.
Tartaglia is a 5-star Hydro character from the region of Snezhnaya that wields a bow. He first appears within the story after helping the Traveler escape from the Liyue Harbor guards.
Fun Fact: Childe loves to ice fish.
Tartaglia Skill Talents
As a fighter, Childe can be versatile with the ability to change between long-ranged and close-ranged combat. He serves best as the main DPS of the team as he has one of the best elemental burst damage output in the game. His normal auto-attack, Cutting Torrent, can perform up to 6 shots that increase in damage with each hit. Childe’s gimmick is all about marking the enemies with the Riptide effect and dealing AoE Hydro DMG to them overtime. This niche makes Tartaglia’s charged shot incredibly powerful. Every charged shot you hit an enemy will apply the Riptide effect, which will deal Hydro damage when you hit them with another charged attack. Childe can also spread that effect around when an enemy is defeated with the Riptide effect. His bow stance works best when taking on just one enemy or to deal the finishing deal to spread Riptide to other enemies. A big con of Riptide is that his regular attacks don’t deal increased damage from its effect. In situations where you don’t have time to fire charged attacks, Tartaglia’s DPS potential goes down. However, even with this setback, Childe can still dish out powerful attacks.
Tartaglia’s elemental skill, Foul Legacy: Raging Tide, allows him to switch to a melee stance that will deal increased Hydro damage to enemies marked with Riptide. This allows him to also combo his elemental reactions with other characters to land more powerful hits. His melee stance is great for close combat situations when you don’t have time to hit an enemy with an aimed shot. He also hits pretty hard and can rapidly hit the enemies. For most players, the strategy would be to mark the enemy with Riptide, then use his elemental skill to attack. His hydro slashes can deal with multiple enemies, but has a major drawback in the countdown. The longer you stay in his melee stance, the longer the cooldown of his elemental skill. He has great damage output for 30 seconds, but has a 45-second cooldown that limits his potential. To minimize his cool down, it is recommended to switch back to his bow stance before 30 seconds.
Tip: A red symbol will appear on top of his head when you are reaching your time limit. Switch back to his bow stance immediately!
Childe is currently the only character that has two elemental bursts: Ranged Stance: Flash of Havoc & Melee Stance: Light of Obliteration. He has one for both his bow stance and melee stance. When in his bow stance, he shots arrows that apply Riptide and restores some of his energy. This skill is perfect for larger groups of enemies, so you can apply Riptide to all of them at once. I recommend switching right into his melee stance immediately right after to activate the Riptide Slash. In his melee stance, he does a powerful hydro slash that will also deal increased damage to enemies with the Riptide effect. This elemental burst has the highest damage multiplier in the game. The base skill power at level 1 is 464% but can easily reach over 700% by leveling up the skill. Compare this to Diluc, the best Pyro unit in the game, and his elemental burst only starting at a bast of 204%. Childe can easily rip enemies apart with his elemental burst alone and it also makes for a great finishing move.
Childe works great in co-op with his main gimmick of charged attacks. Other players can keep the enemy busy while Childe has time to charge his arrows. With the ability to attack close or long-range, players using Childe can also take the more aggressive approach and attack the enemies himself. The shields of the Pyro Abyssal Mages or the Pyro Regisvine will no longer be a problem with Childe’s ability to deal constant hydro damage.
Tip: Childe’s Hydro Damage will increase with higher ascension levels!
Tartaglia Passive Talents
Tartaglia’s talents provide a useful boost to his versatile move set. His first talent, Master of Weaponry, boosts the normal attack level of all members of your party by 1. This talent alone makes him an excellent party member due to the increased damage output for all members of your party. This talent also cuts down the cost of upgrading to a higher attack level due to a lack of materials.
His second and third talents make his Riptide effect even better by extending the amount of time and allowing Riptide to spread when Childe does a critical hit. Childe’s talent Sword of Torrents also gives his melee stance a major boost. His passive talents are not great for exploration and make him more of a unit best suited for domains and bosses.
Note: Tartaglia gets a Hydro DMG% bonus based on his ascension level.
| Master of Weaponry Unlocked Automatically Increases your own party member’s Normal Attack Level by 1. |
| Never Ending Unlocked at Ascension 1 Extends Riptide duration by 8s. |
| Sword of Torrents Unlocked at Ascension 4 When Tartaglia is in Foul Legacy: Raging Tide’s Melee Stance, or if his Normal and Charged Attacks do CRIT DMG, they will apply the Riptide status effect on the hit enemy. |
Tartaglia Constellations
Without any constellation levels, Childe can still act as a powerful DPS character. His biggest drawback is the cooldown from his melee stance, but at higher constellation levels, the cooldown becomes less of a burden.
Childe’s C1: Foul Legacy: Tide Withholder, decreases the cooldown of his elemental skill by 20% so you can use it more often without switching back to his bow stance.
At C6: Havoc: Annihilation, Childe’s melee elemental burst is automatically reset when used. This makes your life a lot easier against tougher bosses and dungeons, but is not needed for Childe to be viable against normal enemies and domains.
| Constellation Levels | Effects |
|---|---|
| C1: Foul Legacy: Tide Withholder | Decreases the CD of Foul Legacy: Raging Tide by 20%. |
| C2: Foul Legacy: Understream | When opponents affected by Riptide are defeated, Tartaglia regenerates 4 Elemental Energy. |
| C3: Abyssal Mayhem: Vortex of Turmoil | Increases the Level of Foul Legacy: Raging Tide by 3. Maximum upgrade level is 15. |
| C4: Abyssal Mayhem: Hydrospout | If Tartaglia is in Foul Legacy: Raging Tide’s Melee Stance, triggers Riptide Slash against opponents on the field affected by Riptide every 4s, otherwise, triggers Riptide Flash. Riptide Slashes and Riptide Flashes triggered by this Constellation effect are not subject to the time intervals that would typically apply to these two Riptide effects, nor do they have any effect on those time intervals. |
| C5: Havoc: Formless Blade | Increase the Level of Havoc: Obliteration by 3. Maximum upgrade level is 15. |
| C6: Havoc: Annihilation | When Havoc: Obliteration is cast in Melee Stance, the CD of Foul Legacy: Raging Tide is reset. This effect will only take place once Tartaglia returns to his Ranged Stance. |
Recommended Builds
Hydro DPS
The Heart of Depth set will work great for Tartaglia, as he can benefit from the 4-piece bonus and the increased Hydro DMG. This build for Tartaglia will focus on his melee stance, but can be modified for a Burst DPS. You will want to level up his elemental skill and normal attack for this build. If you use the melee stance more than this normal attack, level that one up first. This burst is also capable of dealing a lot of Hydro DMG if supported by the right characters. You can focus on his burst over his normal attack, if you have a sub-DPS character you can switch to while Tartaglia’s melee stance cool down.
For his teammates, both Beidou and Xingqiu will act as support. Beidou’s burst can transfer to Tartaglia, allowing him to deal Electro DMG with his attacks and trigger electro-charge. She can also be used to deal damage herself, while Tartaglia is waiting for his melee stance to cooldown. Fischl can also be used to passively deal Electro DMG. Raiden Shogun is another excellent choice to replace Beidou. Her elemental skill allows her to deal passive Electro DMG and she can help recharge energy for the entire team. Xingqiu will provide healing and can boost Tartaglia’s Hydro DMG if he is at C2. Having two Hydro characters will charge up their bursts faster and increase the healing effects of Xingqiu’s Rain Swords. Lastly, Sucrose will increase the reaction damage of the team and provide crowd control. She can be replaced with Bennett or another support character.
If you have access to the newest 5-star Polar Star, that weapon will work great for Tartagila and has a passive increase in Crit Rate. This weapon also provides a boost to his elemental skill and burst damage. Using a Normal Attack, Charged Attack, Elemental Skill or Elemental Burst on an opponent will grant Tartaglia 1 stack of Ashen Nightstar for 12 seconds. Each stack will only trigger once each time you use his skill. Depending on the number of stacks Tartaglia has, the more ATK he will gain from the buff. You will want to make sure Tartaglia obtains all of the stacks by using each of his moves every 12 seconds.
Tartaglia’s weapon can also be the 5-star Skyward Harp because of its Crit Rate bonus or the 4-star Rust to increase his ATK. The Skyward Harp will also increase Childe’s Crit DMG and has a chance to deal additional AoE Physical DMG. The Rust will boost his normal attack damage, but decrease the damage from his aimed shot.
If you are using Childe for just his burst, go for the 4-star The Stringless. This weapon will boost Childe’s elemental mastery and power up his elemental burst damage.
For craftable weapons, go for the 4-star Prototype Crescent. This weapon will increase Tartaglia’s ATK and increase both his movement speed & ATK if he hits an enemy weak point.
Tartaglia’s recommended artifact set is the 4-piece Heart of Depth. This artifact set will increase his Hydro DMG and boost his damage after using his elemental skill. You can also use a 2-piece Heart of Depth and Gladiator’s Finale to boost his Hydro DMG and ATK. If going for a burst build, use a 2-piece Heart of Depth and Noblesse Oblige.
For the artifacts main stats:
- Sands: ATK%
- Goblet: Hydro DMG%
- Circlet: Crit Rate or Crit DMG
For the sub-stats, focus on Crit DMG, Crit Rate, ATK%, ATK, and EM. Energy recharge will also work to increase the charge of his burst.
Critical Build
This build focuses on Childe’s charged attack and critical rate chance. The Skyward Harp is an excellent choice as a weapon due to its increased critical chance and damage due to its ability. The harp is also a 5-star weapon making it one of the strongest bows in the game. The stats you should prioritize are critical rate, critical dmg, and attack so you can deal more critical hits.
You can also use The Viridescent Hunt if you have it from the battle pass. It generates a cyclone on the ground that will pull enemies in and also deal damage based on his ATK. This makes it easier for Childe to apply Riptide and spread it around. The weapon effect also works in his melee stance.
For his artifact set, I recommend using the Wanderer’s Troupe if you plan on using his charged attack frequently. This set works well with niche and is more of a long-ranged build and not recommended for close combat. If you want a more DPS build on him, you can also replace this set with a Gladiator’s Finale or Noblesse Oblige. Put a focus on CRIT Rate to land critical hits more often. You can also focus on Hydro DMG as charged attacks will deal AoE Hydro Damage. Attack and CRIT DMG will also be nice to boost his damage even more.
DPS Build
This set works well with Childe’s high DPS potential and can deal immense hydro damage to all enemies. You won’t have to worry about aimed shots as much, as you will want to be in this melee stance for most of the time. This set works best in small bursts, due to Childe’s cooldown, but can easily rip apart an enemy’s health. You should focus on ATK%, but can also focus on Hydro DMG, so his melee stance hits harder.
The Rust is the perfect weapon for a DPS build due to its increased damage. However, it lowers his charged attacks. You will only need to use aimed shots to apply the Riptide effect, so it isn’t a big disadvantage. The passive on Rust also won’t be applied to Childe’s melee stance. You can also use the Amos’ Bow, which is a 5-star weapon, but it might be harder to obtain than the Rust. Amos’ Bow works well with both Childe’s melee and bow stance because it increases normal attacks and can also increase the damage done by arrows.
For this artifact set, I recommend a split between the Gladiator’s Finale and the Noblesse Oblige. This will increase both Childe’s attack and elemental burst, making it even more deadly. With this set, Childe’s melee stances become a lot more powerful, but his bow stance will become more of a hindrance. You should focus on attack and Hydro DMG to deal more damage.
Recommended Party Members
Fischl allows Childe to activate Electrocharge continuously due to her skills that summon Oz the Raven to deal electro damage. This pairs nicely with Childe’s ability to hit constant AoE hydro damage.
Barbara is there to act as a support to heal and can also apply the wet status if there is no time for a charged shot. She can also be equipped with the weapon Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers to provide an attack buff when switching.
By having two pyro users on the same team, Childe gets a buff to his attack stat. Xiangling can also provide the vaporize effect with both her elemental skill and burst. She can be replaced with Diluc for greater DPS output in co-op play.
Bennett makes a great support unit with his short cool down and elemental burst that can provide an attack buff and heal.
Sucrose is another great unit for support as she pulls enemies in to make them an easier target for Childe’s charged shot. Venti is another option to pull enemies together. However, his skill doesn’t pair well with Childe’s melee stance.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Powerful DPS Unit | Melee stance can’t be used for long |
| Massive damage multiplier in elemental burst | Charged shot gimmick can be hard to master |
| Can switch between bow and melee stance | Can be hard to obtain and max constellation levels |
Recommended Domains: Clear Pool & Mountain Cavern, Taishan Mountain, Hidden Palace of Zhou Formula, Pyro Regisvine
Conclusion
Childe is the first character within Genshin Impact that allows you to switch weapons with his elemental skill. This ability makes him very versatile in combat as he can hit long and close range, depending on the situation. Childe can dish out powerful hits with his melee stance while maintaining a distance in his bow stance. His charged attacks become incredibly important to his playstyle because of the Riptide effect. However, the cooldown for his elemental skill becomes his biggest weakness as he can’t stay in his melee stance for longer than 30 seconds. Tartaglia is best played as the main DPS unit as he has an amazing elemental burst that has the highest multiplier in the game. Overall, Childe is a great unit to have on your roster and is currently the only DPS Hydro character in the game.
What do you think of Tartaglia? Is there anything I missed? Let us know in the comments below! You can also reach out through our Twitter or my Discord handle Seyfrid#2589.
Other useful guides:
*Images of gameplay owned by miHoYo
The Informal Gamer 