In this guide, we’ll be going over several Hu Tao team comp to maximize her DPS potential. She is a high-risk high reward character doing her maximum damage while sitting below 50% health. While some players might not like this high-risk style of play, we’ll be breaking down several teams that utilize her at low health as well as some that use her more as just a typical main DPS.
We’ll be taking a look at what elemental reactions we’ll want to make a priority when choosing teammates. The elemental resonances we can take advantage of, and what teammates will help to improve Hu tao’s overall damage. We’ll be discussing team comps from the best of the best to those easily accessible to free-to-play players.
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Elemental Reactions Priority
Hu tao’s potential damage output is very high and one of the main factors of that is her elemental reactions. The main two that you’ll be striving to include on every team are Melt or Vaporize. These are the bedrocks for any Pyro main DPS as they’ll either multiply your damage by 1.5 or 2x depending on which reaction you trigger. While Melt does provide more damage, we’ll see once we get to the team comps that her actual best partner is a Hydro character. So, we’ll be triggering Vaporized more often but that doesn’t stop her Melt teams from being solid options as well.
One of the main reasons these elemental reactions help put out so much compared to other characters is that Hu Tao’s charge attack has no internal cooldown. This means that on top of having a higher multiplier than her auto-attack combo, we can consistently trigger either Melt or Vaporize for as long as her skill is active and we have stamina. Note that she not only relies on Pyro reactions but Electrocharge, Freeze, and Overload are also extremely important for her.
Best Elemental Resonance
Since we’re trying to increase Hu tao’s overall damage, Fervent Flames and Enduring Rock will be our go-to resonances when we can afford to do so. However, Fervent Flames is less attractive here than usual because of Hu tao’s low natural base attack. If paired with a weapon that is also lackluster in the base attack department, the overall boost won’t be as enticing as it would be for other main DPS characters.
Cryo resonance is also another interesting take allowing you to stack more crit damage in your artifacts. Lastly, Electro resonance may seem bad on paper but it actually puts in work and allows you to spam your burst frequently.
Hu Tao Team Comp #1
This first team is all but confirmed by Theorycrafters to be the highest damage output team for Hu tao. Xingqiu is Hu Tao’s best teammate and you’ll see through the rest of this team comp that it’s hard to justify taking him off the team. He sets up perfect reactions with Hu Tao, reduces incoming damage, and also heals in small increments as to not upset your low hp maintenance. He generates a lot of energy assuming you have either a Sacrificial Sword or Favonious Sword with a decent crit rate.
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As we discussed previously, Hu Tao’s charge attack does not have an internal cooldown and can spark reactions as fast as you can queue up the next charge attack. Xingqiu’s rain swords attack very quickly which actually works in our favor because before Hu Tao executes her charge attack, she actually performs a basic attack which will spark the rain swords in time to apply Hydro for the charge attack.
That all being said, you could substitute Xinqiu for any other Hydro here you like if you prefer their playstyle. If performance is what you’re after, it’ll be hard to justify another character above him.
Zhongli’s shield will be vital as Hu Tao performs her best under 50% health. A nice and sturdy shield will help prevent her from getting one-shot or combo killed out of nowhere. The fact that Zhongli can play both offense and defense at the same time is one of the main reasons for his prominence and why he’s not easily replaced. Not to mention he can just drop an elemental burst every now and again for a ton of AOE damage.
Albedo is the passive damage prince, being able to remain off-field for 30 seconds while applying a steady stream of damage and receive a Geo boost from the resonance that makes the job that much easier for your main DPS. He also has a hidden ability here to increase your team’s elemental mastery as well further increasing your vaporized reaction damage from Hu Tao.
Hu Tao Team Comp #2
This team is overall hurt by not having a dedicated healer so it can struggle in Spiral Abyss. If you’re careful in not taking damage with your supports Hu Tao is able to heal herself through her burst and with the aid of Xingqiu. If you’re finding yourself taking more damage than you’d like, Bennett would be a fine replacement for Xiangling.
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Xiangling is here to provide Pyro boost through her 1st and 6th constellations as well as the Chili that Guoba drops after obtaining her 4th ascension. She also is the other half of the Pyro resonance to further increase Hu tao’s attack. Just remember that this does not affect her base attack so it will not change how much attack you can gain from stacking hp.
Sucrose is a valued member of any team that deals a large majority of their damage as one type because she can utilize the Viridescent Veneer set reducing the enemy’s resistance to the element she swirls with by 40%. Although there are technically four other characters who could be our viridescent support she is arguably the best in this team. Her ability pass off elemental mastery to her other teammates paving the way for even bigger reaction damage.
Hu Tao Team Comp #3
This team now adds Fischl and Beidou for their sublime off-field electro support. Fischl’s Oz plays a similar role as Albedo on our first team. Pretty much unlimited off-field supporting damage especially with this team because of the electro resonance we’ll be generating electro particles everywhere.
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With Beidou, that can be kind of necessary especially if you aren’t very good at quick parrying which is where she generates most of her energy from. But her burst is why she’s so much fun on this team, providing a shield once you get her to constellation 1 all your basic and charged attacks will now create an additional lightning attack that can jump between enemies. Between this and the Hyrdo application from Xingqiu, there’s a lot of potential for AoE damage here which Hu Tao is quite inferior.
The extra cherry on top of this type of team is that when triggering electrocharged reactions, both Hydro and Electro can remain on the enemy at the same time. This means that not only can we still inflict our Vaporize reactions undisturbed but we could also inflict Overloaded which will generate particles from the Electro resonance and as long as you have ascension 4 Fischl, she will generate an additional electro attack.
Hu Tao Team Comp #4
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We will be using the reduction of cooldown benefit from Chongyun’s 2nd constellation. Essentially this is a simple Vaporized/Freeze team looking to reduce the downtime of Hu Tao and Xingqiu’s long cooldowns so that we can stay in the action longer.
Hu Tao Team Comp #5
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Xingqiu plays so well with electro supports. This allows you to not only get Electrocharged reaction damage but also allows you to simultaneously inflict Overload and Vaporize. At any given point, you can be inflicting 3 elemental reactions at once. Fischl with constellation 6 abuses this so much along with Hu tao’s attacks constantly applying Pyro and Hydro from Xinqiu’s burst.
Zhongli is here for the ridiculous elemental resistance shred you get which greatly amplifies not only Hu Tao’s damage but the electro and hydro damage coming from your two sub DPS characters. His petrify is also great to counteract the blowback from the Overload reaction. This is really important because you spend less time chasing enemies down and sometimes Overload blows your enemies outside of Oz’s range. Meaning you miss out on a lot of potential damage.
If you play Beidou over Fischl, you sacrifice a little bit of damage for more resistance. Hu Tao’s burst will serve as your safety net if you fall too low for comfort.
Hu Tao Team Comp #6
This team comp is for people who don’t have or play Zhongli. The playstyle is exactly the same as team #5 and Diona is more beginner-friendly in the manner that you have a solid heal whenever you need it. Whereas team #5 forces you to play relatively perfectly, you can make a lot of mistakes with this team and have the Diona’s burst as support.
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Diona’s elemental burst also doesn’t take that fast which allows you to control how much HP you are at any point. You open up the potential to inflict Freeze reaction as well which is very useful in a lot of situations especially against the bigger bosses.
Hu Tao Team Comp #7
This team focuses on the ability to inflict Freeze with Melt and Vaporize as your main damage source. Double Cryo resonance allows you to forego some crit rate in your build in favor of more crit damage. Remember that Hu Tao also gives you some crit rate as well.
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Chongyun with constellation 2 pairs so well with Hu Tao and Xingqiu combo since the ice field doesn’t override the Pyro source from your elemental skill and the extra elemental skill and burst cooldown allows you more uptime on your combos. You just get free attack speed which will allow you to inflict more reactions. Chongyun’s burst also allows you to inflict Melt up to three times meaning he actually puts in a lot of burst DPS as well. Diona is your shielder and her heal ticks slow enough so that you can control how much HP you need.
Hu Tao Team Comp #8
This team makes use of the Electro resonance so that you can consistently spam your elemental burst. As I’ve explained, Electrocharge opens the door for us to inflict Overload often which means we’re getting a lot of value out of the Electro resonance. The particles we generate will fuel our ability to keep our Xingqiu and Beidou burst up 24/7 giving your Hu Tao a lot of resistance and passive healing.
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I do believe this comp is also good to go without a healer but you’ll take a bit more damage than if you’re playing team one or two. However, with the extra energy you can expect to spam Hu Tao’s burst a lot more meaning you get actually a lot more HP recovery from that source.
If you don’t have Xingqiu at all or don’t like playing him in this comp or any of the other mentioned comps you can play Mona instead and that’s perfectly fine. However, I think Xingqui gives you much more value because of his swords and the way it scales with Hu Tao’s attack speed.
Hu Tao Team Comp #9
Kaeya is great support for Hu Tao and allows you to inflict multiple Melt damage. Xiangling at constellation 6 gives your Hu Tao a large Pyro buff. Even if your Hu Tao skills are down, you can look at Kaeya and Xiangling’s burst in conjunction while your in Hu Tao’s basic attacks.
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Barbara at constellation 6 is a great poor man’s Hu Tao constellation 6 and Barbara’s elemental skill also heals decently slowly which gives you the ability to stay below the 50% threshold. Note that you have to be careful with playing Barbara especially against cryo enemies. You should have Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers on your Barbara so you can get the free buff. Also, you shouldn’t panic to use your Barbara’s burst unless you’re really close to dying. Barbara’s burst heals a lot and you don’t want to heal more than 50% of your total HP on Hu Tao.
Final Thoughts
Hu Tao is very free to play and budget-friendly and her best supports are often all 4 stars. You can have Hu Tao and no other 5 stars and still play one of the best teams possible. This makes Hu Tao very attractive and if you’re still considering rolling her and you need a main DPS Hu Tao is definitely a must-get. If you made it this far, thank you so much for staying and I hope these team recommendations are helpful for you.
So I’d Hu Tao, xingqiu, fischl, and xinyan good?
Is diona,hu tao, fischl, mona team okay?
Any full Liyue team recommendations?
Hutao, xingqiu, xiangling and zhongli might work.
Xiangling is pretty bad with Hu Tao because she vaporize/melt instead of Hu Tao and deal less damage
if you have qiqi, you can use hutao xingqiu, zongli/beidou/chongyun, and qiqi( tho qiqi usability only for healing(hard to use her melt)