Genshin Impact: Noelle vs. Itto (Who’s Better?)

Both of these characters are on-field Geo claymore characters with somewhat similar kits.

Noelle is a 4-star unit, while Itto is a limited 5-star unit.

They can both function as an on-field DPS – aka a DPS character that does all their damage while on-field. In this role, Itto deals significantly more DPS than Noelle.

Although this can be compensated by Noelle’s support capabilities.

Her kit has the additional utility of team-wide shielding and healing, while Itto’s kit is dedicated purely to dealing damage.

To further explain, let’s compare their character values and how they perform in the two game modes of Genshin Impact: Overworld (Exploration & Co-op) and Spiral Abyss (Meta).

All comparisons made are between C0 5-star and C6 4-star characters.

Now first, let’s take a look at their character kits.

Character Kit Breakdowns

Normal Attack

This is the highest talent priority for both Noelle and Itto.

Their main source of damage scales from their normal attack or NA talent.

Itto also has extra mechanics called Superlative Superstrength stacks.

• When the 2nd strike of his NA combo hits an opponent, he gains 1 stack of Superlative Superstrength.
• When the 4th strike of his NA combo hits an opponent, he gains 2 stacks of Superlative Superstrength.

This has a maximum of 5 stacks – and each stack lasts for 60s.

When possessing stacks, his charged attacks or CA are converted to Arataki Kesagiri slashes. These slashes don’t consume stamina. Instead, each slash consumes 1 stack.

Consuming the last stack delivers a powerful final slash.

If he performs a CA without any Superlative stacks, he performs a single slash. This consumes stamina.

Elemental Skill

Noelle creates a shield that deals one instance of AOE Geo damage.

The shield’s damage absorption scales based on Noelle’s DEF. It also has the following properties:

• When Noelle’s normal and charged attacks hit an opponent, it has a chance to heal all party members. The amount of HP healed scales from her DEF.
• The shield has a 150% damage absorption efficiency against all Elemental and Physical damage.

Her shield lasts for 12s.

Noelle’s skill doesn’t generate any energy particles.

Itto hurls Ushi toward opponents. This deals AOE Geo damage.

Holding this skill adjusts the throwing angle.

If Ushi hits an opponent, Itto gains 1 stack of Superlative Superstrength.

While on-field, Ushi provides support in the following ways:

• Taunts opponents and draws their attacks
• Inherits HP equal to Itto’s max HP
• When Ushi takes damage, Itto gains 1 Superlative stack. This can only occur once every 2s
• Ushi will flee when its HP reaches 0 or after 6s. This grants Itto 1 Superlative stack

Ushi is considered a Geo construct.

This elemental skill deals a sizable portion of Itto’s damage. Ushi has a high damage scaling that functions as a mini-nuke.

Elemental Burst

Noelle strikes surrounding opponents twice with AOE Geo damage.

She then gains the following effects:

• AOE is greatly increased
• Normal, charged, and plunging attacks are converted to Geo damage
• ATK is increased based on her DEF

This burst costs 60 energy and lasts for 15s.

Itto enters his Raging Oni King state.

While in this state, he gains the following properties:

• Converts his normal, charged, and plunging attacks to Geo damage
• Increases Itto’s normal attack speed. His ATK is also increased based on his DEF
• The 1st and 3rd strikes of his normal attack combo grant him 1 Superlative Strength Stack
• Decreases Itto’s Elemental and Physical resistance by 20%

This state ends after 11s or when he leaves the field.

Itto’s burst costs 70 energy.

Passive Talents (Noelle)

• When she’s in the party and off-field, the following abilities are gained:
  • A shield is created when your active character’s HP falls below 30%
  • This shield lasts for 20s and absorbs damage equal to 400% of Noelle’s DEF
  • It has a 150% damage absorption effectiveness against all Elemental and Physical damage. This can only occur once every 60s.
• For every 4 normal or charged attacks that hit an opponent, Noelle’s skill cooldown is decreased by 1s.
• When cooking a DEF-boosting dish perfectly, Noelle has a 12% chance to obtain double the product.

Passive Talents (Itto)

• When consecutively performing Arataki Kesagiri slashes, Itto obtains the following effects:
  • Each slash increases the attack speed of the next slash by 10%. A maximum of 30% attack speed can be gained.
  • His resistance to interruption is increased. These effects end once he stops performing the slashes.
• Arataki Kesagiri slashes’ damage is increased by 35% of Itto’s DEF.
• When Itto or a party member chops a tree, they have a 25% chance to get an additional log of wood.

Notable Constellations

Noelle’s notable constellations are her C1, C4, C5, and C6.

• During her burst and skill, C1 increases her skill’s healing chances to 100%. This is a nice support constellation that makes her a consistent healer.
• With C4, Noelle’s shield deals 400% ATK after being destroyed or when its duration ends. This deals AOE Geo damage. When triggered during her burst, this can be used as a mini-nuke.
• C5 increases her elemental burst talent level by 3. This buffs the ATK increase she gains from her burst. With this, Noelle now benefits more from DEF than ATK.
• With C6, Noelle’s burst increases her ATK by an additional 50% of her DEF. Additionally, every opponent defeated during her skill adds 1s to her burst’s duration – up to 10s can be extended this way. This is a massive damage buff that lets Noelle become a viable hypercarry.

Itto’s most notable constellations are his C2, C4, C5, and C6.

• For every Geo character in the team, C2 decreases his burst cooldown by 1.5s and restores 6 energy to Itto – a maximum of 4.5s extension and 18 energy can be gained this way. This procs after using his burst.

  This constellation is a quality-of-life buff that lets you run lower Energy Recharge and focus on more damaging stats.

• With C4, all nearby party members gain 20% DEF and 20% ATK after his burst ends. This lasts for 10s. This is a good constellation that buffs both DEF-scaling and ATK-scaling teammates.
• C5 increases his elemental burst talent level by 3. This directly buffs Itto’s main source of damage.
• With C6, Itto’s CA’s deal +70% CRIT damage. When he performs Arataki Kesagiri slashes, he has a 50% chance of not consuming any Superlative stacks. This is easily Itto’s largest damage buff from constellations.

Kit Comparison: Summary

You’ve probably noticed that their kits are pretty identical.

To sum it all up, here’s a TLDR on their main differences in strength.

Noelle	Itto
She’s more comfortable to play. She covers a slightly wider AOE. Her burst infusion doesn’t end when you switch characters. This lets you funnel energy while her burst is active. As a 4-star character, it’s easier to get constellations. Getting her C6 is very possible.	He deals significantly more damage. He has better energy regeneration. In contrast, Noelle has none at all. All of his damage is condensed into his short burst duration. This is especially great against enemies with short vulnerability windows (like the Golden Wolflord boss). He has a higher damage ceiling. This increases even more with constellations.

In The Overworld (Exploration & Co-op)

Noelle and Itto perform similarly in the overworld.

Itto still deals more DPS than Noelle.

But, what she lacks in damage, she compensates with comfort (shielding and healing).

They’re also quite good in Co-op because other teammates produce a lot of energy particles. This helps charge their bursts thus greatly decreasing their Energy Recharge requirements.

Other than this, their playstyles are very similar – there’s not much to compare.

Spiral Abyss (Meta)

Itto is easily a meta character, while Noelle is viable with more investment.

Because they don’t need the strongest universal supports like Bennet and Xingqiu, they’re really good options for Abyss teams.

You won’t have problems drafting their teams since their teammates are quite niche.

However, Itto has a much higher damage ceiling than Noelle. At his worst, he’s still a meta character.

While Noelle has respectable DPS, there isn’t a place for her in the meta.

Noelle’s shield and healing are a nice bonus, but they’re simply not that good – much better shielders and healers exist.

Gameplay Tech

Noelle and Itto share the same extra mechanics and techniques that help improve their gameplay.

Here’s a summary of all their relevant gameplay tech and its uses.

Gameplay Tech	Definition
Hitlag Extension	Micro freeze animations or hitlag can greatly extend the duration of their elemental infusion. This allows them to perform more Geo-infused attacks.
Snapshot	Certain abilities can snapshot the stats or buffs active at their time of casting. Those stats will last for the ability’s entire duration. Noelle’s and Itto’s bursts can only snapshot DEF-to-ATK stats.
Funneling	Act of funneling energy particles produced by one character into another. Both of them use teammates to help charge their burst.

Hitlag Extension

Noelle and Itto can greatly take advantage of hitlag.

Hitlag is essentially a lag in animation triggered when hitting an opponent. This lag helps increase the duration of their Geo infusion.

This is demonstrated by the photo above.

Itto’s burst infusion lasts for 11s, and its cooldown is 18s.

So, this infusion should end with 7s remaining on the timer.

But because of hitlag, his infusion is extended. You can see how the timer shows 3.9s while his burst is still active. The same mechanic applies to Noelle.

Snapshot

This refers to how certain abilities can retain the stats or buffs active at their time of casting.

Through their burst, Noelle and Itto gain an ATK increase based on their DEF. This ATK increase can be snapshotted.

However, they can only snapshot the DEF to ATK conversion. This means that the ATK buff gained from their burst can’t be affected by any DEF stats gained or lost after casting.

This is better demonstrated by the photos below.

The first photo shows Noelle’s stats after casting her burst.

Because it snapshots, any additional DEF gained can’t affect the ATK increase. In the second photo, Noelle gains a DEF buff. You can see that the DEF stats are higher, but her ATK isn’t.

The same applies vice-versa.

The first photo shows Itto’s stats after casting his burst with a DEF buff active.

The second photo shows his stats after the DEF buff ends. You can see that the DEF stats visibly decrease, while the ATK stats don’t.

Funneling

Noelle has teammates that help funnel energy particles into her burst.

As an example, Geo Traveler is a really good Noelle teammate.

To help charge Noelle’s burst, you can cast Geo Traveler’s skill and then quickly swap to Noelle. Swapping to Noelle lets her directly catch the energy particles – this is very important.

This is because characters gain more energy when collecting particles on-field.

Funneling is especially appreciated by Noelle.

Her skill generates zero energy particles. In the photos above, you can see how she doesn’t gain any energy from her skill.

This makes it harder for her to charge her burst.

Although Noelle does have an extra burst mechanic: Her Geo infusion doesn’t end when she goes off-field.

This means that she can go off-field and funnel energy particles while her burst is still active.

This lets her take advantage of characters like Geo traveler who have short skill cooldowns. It means that you can cast their skills off cooldown and generate more particles for Noelle.

Generally, funneling is also appreciated by Itto. Like Noelle, it would let him run significantly lesser Energy Recharge.

Team Compositions and Synergies

Noelle and Itto share very similar teams.

In their best teams, Noelle and Itto are the on-field DPS.

These teams are very straightforward. They just vary on which and how many Geo units are used.

At the very least, 2 Geo units should be in their teams to enable Geo Resonance. Its effects provide really good damage buffs.

Geo Resonance increases the team’s shield strength by 15%. Additionally, characters protected by a shield gain the following effects:

• Increases damage dealt by 15%
• Dealing damage to enemies will decrease their Geo resistance by 20%. This lasts for 15s

As for selecting which teammates to use, here’s a summary of all Geo units and their synergies with Noelle and Itto.

Character	Synergies
Gorou	The strongest buffer for Noelle and Itto. Gorou’s skill and burst provide multiple buffs – namely DEF, Geo damage, and resistance to interruption. With constellations, he can also provide heals and buff CRIT damage.
Albedo	The best off-field DPS for Geo teams. Albedo equally benefits from all the buffs given by Gorou and deals excellent personal damage. He also generates a good amount of energy particles.
Zhongli	The strongest shielder in-game. Zhongli’s shield has a 100% uptime that then allows for a 100% uptime on Geo Resonance. It also shreds 20% Elemental and Physical resistance off of surrounding opponents.
Geo Traveler	Provides utility – namely CRIT rate buffs, a lot of energy particles, and good personal damage. Because of Noelle’s higher energy requirements, she appreciates Geo traveler more than Itto.
Ningguang	Also provides utility – namely Geo damage buffs, decent energy particles, and good personal damage. As a pure support, she can also use an R5 Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers weapon to provide extra ATK buffs.
Yun Jin	A good normal attack buffer for Noelle – Itto mainly uses charged attacks, so they don’t synergize well. In AOE, she can be among Noelle’s best teammates. Otherwise, she’s just decent.

Mono Geo Teams

Mono Geo team uses 4 Geo units.

Its strongest variation includes:

• Noelle/Itto
• Gorou
• Zhongli
• Albedo/Geo traveler

Gorou and Zhongli are mainly supports, while Noelle/Itto and Albedo/Geo Traveler are the main damage dealers.

This team is very comfortable thanks to Zhongli’s shield.

Its main weakness is that doesn’t work great against enemies with elemental shields. Otherwise, this team is quite strong.

Triple Geo Teams

Triple Geo uses 3 Geo units plus an extra slot.

A non-Geo unit can be added to solve whatever the team lacks.

A great example of this team is Triple Geo + Diona.

If you don’t have Zhongli or if you prefer having a dedicated healer, Diona is a perfect teammate.

Her shields are strong and have really good uptime – this translates to more Geo Resonance uptime. She also provides strong healing and good energy regeneration.

Double Geo Teams

This team is only worth it if you’re not using Gorou.

Without Gorou, Noelle and Itto lose a significant portion of their damage.

However, they can still work in Double Geo teams – but it’s definitely not the best. Double Geo is just enough to enable the effects of Geo Resonance.

A good example is Double Geo Beidou.

This team is composed of:

• Noelle/Itto
• 1 Geo unit
• Beidou
• Fischl

Noelle/Itto’s damage loss is compensated by two other units with high damage outputs.

In this team, it’s even highly likely for Beidou and Fischl to outdamage Noelle/Itto.

How about Noelle and Itto on the same team?

They have minimal to zero synergy.

This team will face a lot of issues, namely concerning field time and energy problems.

• They both consume a lot of field time. Even if Noelle is used as a support for Itto, her shield only has a 50% uptime – plus she needs to be on-field to proc heals. Fighting for field time just negatively affects their DPS outputs.
• This team will also have energy issues. Noelle doesn’t generate any particles, while Itto’s particle generation is only enough for his own burst. Running higher Energy Recharge to charge both of their bursts will sacrifice most of their damage.

Using them together is never recommended.

Who Should You Build?

If you have Itto, building him will be much more beneficial.

Their builds are very similar – they use the same supports, artifacts, and weapons.

However, Itto easily deals more DPS. This leaves Noelle with her supporting abilities.

While her shielding and team-wide healing are nice, she’s not exactly the best at it. There are other better shielders and healers. They also allow for more flexible and stronger team comps.

In contrast, Itto’s role as a hypercarry can’t easily be replaced.

Hypercarries are units that take up the most field time and deal most of the team’s damage.

Because of this, Itto is the only unit you need to heavily invest in. His teammates mostly just act as supporting units.

Itto is especially good if you only have enough resources and time to properly invest into one character.