Genshin Impact: Ganyu vs. Amber (Who’s Better?)

Ganyu and Amber are units with relatively identical kits – but with very different team comps and synergies.

Their main difference is that Ganyu is a limited 5-star character, while Amber is a free 4-star character.

So it should not come as a surprise that Ganyu is far better than Amber.

To better understand how these two compare, let’s take a look at how they perform in the three game modes of Genshin Impact:

• Overworld (Exploration)
• Co-op (Multiplayer)
• Abyss (Meta)

But before that, let’s have a quick comparison of their combat abilities.

Character Kit Breakdowns

Charged Attacks

In teams where Ganyu and Amber are the main DPS, their charged attacks serve as their main source of damage.

• Ganyu’s charged attacks deal AOE cryo damage
• While Amber’s deal single-target pyro damage

Although they have a similar playstyle, their multipliers are incredibly far from each other.

At talent level 1, Ganyu’s Frostflake Arrow and Bloom deal a total of 346% damage per hit, while Amber only deals 124% damage with her Full-Charged Aimed Shot.

Elemental Skills

Ganyu leaves an Ice Lotus on the field that deals one instance of cryo damage and continuously taunts opponents. It deals another instance of cryo damage when it blooms after 6s, or when it’s destroyed by enemy damage.

Amber tosses Baron Bunny on the field that also continuously taunts opponents, but doesn’t deal any damage when summoning. It only deals pyro damage when it explodes after 8s, or when it’s destroyed by enemy damage.

Elemental Burst

Ganyu summons a large field of raining ice shards that lasts for 15s, at the cost of 60 energy.

Amber summons a rain of burning arrows that lasts for 2s, at the cost of 40 energy.

Overworld (Exploration)

Their playstyle in the overworld is exactly the same – spamming charged attacks.

The only differences are their damage multipliers and AOE potential.

With that said, Ganyu is better than Amber in this area.

Ganyu’s charge attacks simply deal significantly more damage and provide AOE compared to Amber’s single-target charged attacks. As a bonus, Ganyu also hunts fowl and meat better than Amber!

Co-op (Multiplayer)

Both Ganyu and Amber excel in co-op since they can function as carries that stand well on their own.

Because they rely mostly on charged attacks, they can easily avoid taking damage by just sniping opponents from afar and deploying their taunts when needed.

The only difference with solo mode and co-op is an increase in difficulty. So, like overworld & exploration, Ganyu’s raw damage and AOE pulls her ahead of Amber.

Abyss (Meta)

Ganyu has been in the top meta of abyss for every rotation since her release – while Amber only has a single niche team in this area.

But let’s look a few team builds to see what you could try.

Ganyu Freeze

Freeze is the most broken elemental reaction in the game and has multiple team variants. Freeze teams follow the basic format of:

• 2 cryo characters
• 1 hydro character
• 1 anemo character

Freeze provides an abundance of crit rate buffs.

• 4pc. Blizzard Strayer set gives 40% CR against frozen opponents
• Cryo resonance gives 15% CR against opponents that are frozen or affected by cryo
• Ganyu’s ascension passive gives an additional 20% CR to her Frostflake Arrow Blooms

This effectively gives Ganyu 75% CR from buffs alone.

Ganyu can also be played as both a hypercarry and support in these teams.

As a hypercarry, her Frostflake Arrow Blooms deal massive AOE damage even at sniper range. Since this is just her charged attack, it has virtually no downtime.

As a support, Ganyu has a 60-energy cost burst that gives 20% cryo damage bonus to all active members in its field (including herself) and summons raining ice shards for the duration of 15 seconds.

Each ice shard can hit multiple enemies at once, allowing her damage to boost exponentially with crowd control.

Elegy Amber

Amber’s only meta team is as a support for Hu Tao.

This team requires her to equip the limited 5-star weapon, Elegy for the End.

Her specific role in this team is a buffer. Her burst procs the Elegy for the End passive of 100 EM and 20% ATK for Hu Tao.

She also applies pyro to the enemy, allowing an anemo character using the 4pc. Viridescent Venerer set to swirl pyro. This enables its 4pc. passive that decreases opponents’ elemental resistance to pyro.

This is an extremely difficult team to play, and is only recommended if you already have Elegy for the End and are willing to put in the time and effort to learn it.

If not, it would be far better to stick to other Hu Tao team comps.

How About Main DPS Amber in the Abyss?

With the steady rise of DPS checks and HP pools, a main DPS Amber team just doesn’t cut it if you want to 36-star abyss.

Simply put: there are plenty of other characters that can achieve this feat much better and faster than her– and one of those characters happens to be Ganyu!