Not all DPS characters are made equal in Genshin Impact, and we have a pretty comprehensive list of who’s strong and who isn’t. But one strange interaction between an ability and a consumable item has elevated a certain Traveler from the bottom of the rankings to the top.
Hydro Traveler’s lantern bomb
Genshin Impact is currently celebrating the lunar new year with its annual Lantern Rite event. As part of the event, players can purchase items called Xiao Lanterns from an NPC in Liyue. Older players might even have some Xiao Lanterns stockpiled from the very first Lantern Rite event in 2021. Xiao Lanterns are consumable items that, when used from the inventory, summon pretty paper lanterns that float gently into the sky. You can summon as many Xiao Lanterns as you like, filling the sky with a cloud of lanterns until they despawn a few seconds later.
Well, if you create several Xiao Lanterns on top of an enemy and then use Hydro Traveler’s Burst, you can deal many instances of Hydro damage in quick succession. The damage is enough to decimate the toughest enemies and possibly crash your game. The sheer number of lanterns can cause massive amounts of lag, too.
How does the Hydro Traveler bug work?
There are two theories for how the Hydro Traveler/Xiao Lantern interaction works. Hydro Traveler’s Burst is usually pretty mediocre. It creates a moving ball of water that, while decently powerful, passes through enemies too quickly to deal meaningful damage. When the ball of water first hits an entity, it triggers one tick of AoE damage. Additional damage is dealt at a fixed rate if the enemy remains within the water bubble as it moves forward.
The first theory is that Xiao Lanterns are coded as unique entities, so when the ball of water hits a lantern, it triggers an instance of damage. Multiply this by several dozen lanterns, and you get lots of damage ticks at once. This explains the rapid rate of damage that outpaces the ability’s normal tick rate.
The second theory is that Xiao Lanterns are physically stopping the ball of water from passing through the enemy. The lanterns have collision, so a wall of lanterns can prevent Hydro Traveler’s Burst from moving forward, forcing the enemy to take repeated ticks of damage. While this interaction may be happening, it doesn’t explain how so much damage happens at once, well beyond the typical tick rate for a Hydro Traveler Burst.
Will Hydro Traveler be patched?
As of writing, Genshin Impact’s developer HoYoverse has not acknowledged any issues with Hydro Traveler or Xiao Lanterns. It’s unclear if this interaction will be patched, since Xiao Lanterns are only available for purchase for a limited time. Items like Xiao Lanterns can’t be used in the Spiral Abyss, either, limiting where this strategy can be used.
I don’t recommend trying to trigger this bug yourself. It’s clearly unintended behavior, and HoYoverse has a history of cracking down on players who exploit bugs to gain an advantage. Your account may face a temporary or permanent ban. In the meantime, let’s just wait and see if we get apologems in the mail.
