Intro:

Aiya, finally, after almost 5 months of waiting, SHE'S FINALLY HERE.

P.S. Her analysis is gonna be split into 2 parts due to its length.

What's in this analysis?

1. Comparison between 6 different artifact builds:

- 4-Lavawalker

- 4-Crimson Witch

- 2-Gladiator + 2-Crimson Witch

- 4-Gladiator's Finale

- 2-Crimson Witch + 2-Noblesse Oblige

- 4-Retracting Bolide

And 4 main stat set:

- Attack/Pyro/Crit

- HP/Pyro/Crit

- Attack/Attack/Crit

- HP/HP/Crit

P.S. 4-Thundering Fury coming soon!

Assumptions:

The calculations below will follow the following assumptions:

1. Hu Tao is lv90.

2. The enemy is one lv80 hilichurl.

3. Talent lv6, C0.

4. All hits crit.

5. Attack sequence would be: 5-hit + charged attack.

6. On pyro-infused calculations, it will be assumed 3 sequences is done, and 2 sequences will be done during skill cooldown.

7. Pyro is always present on the enemy for Lavawalker to proc.

8. Artifact test will be done on 2 weapons: Staff of Homa and Deathmatch.

9. Her HP will be assumed to always be above 50%.

Results:

Stat overview:

Damage overview:

Simulation Result:

Note:

Attack = (1-hit to 5-hit + Charged) x 3

Attack (No infusion) = (1-hit to 5-hit + Charged) x 2

Skill = Skill x 4

Total = Attack + Attack (No infusion) + Skill + Burst

Total DPS = (Attack / 9) + (Attack (No infusion) / 7) + (Skill / 16) + (Burst / 40)

Switch Total = Attack + Skill + Burst

Switch DPS = (Attack / 9) + (Skill / 16) + (Burst / 40)

On all cases, "Total DPS" is the best on Attack/Pyro Crit, and "Switch DPS" is better on HP/Pyro/Crit.

Putting the damage from best to worst, and we have:

I also collect the "Burst" damage for Burst DPS build:

Hu Tao is a pyro unit, so naturally, she can deal amazing damage on Vaporize and Melt. This is the damage on Melt:

(Lavawalker is not considered in elemental reaction due to the 4-set effect)

And this is for burst with melt:

Some corrections are made on Gladiator calculation. Thank you to Jackleberry for pointing it out!

Conclusion:

1. Lavawalker is the best for non-reaction game play, while Crimson Witch out-damage all the other sets on melt comp.

Best Artifact for Hu Tao:

No reaction:

1. 4-Lavawalker.

2. 4-Retracting Bolide.

3. 4-Gladiator's Finale.

4. 4-Crimson Witch.

5. 2-Gladiator + 2-Crimson Witch.

6. 2-Crimson Witch + 2-Noblesse Oblige.

With Reaction:

1. 4-Crimson Witch.

2. 4-Retracting Bolide.

3. 4-Gladiator's Finale.

4. 2-Gladiator + 2-Crimson Witch.

5. 2-Crimson Witch + 2-Noblesse Oblige.

Burst DPS:

1. 4-Crimson Witch.

2. 2-Crimson Witch + 2-Noblesse Oblige.

3. 2-Gladiator + 2-Crimson Witch.

2. Attack/Pyro/Crit is better if there's no switch during skill cooldown.

3. HP/Pyro/Crit is better if there's switch during cooldown.

4. Burst DPS is better with HP/Pyro/Crit (Don't forget to use skill before using burst!).

Personal Opinion:

Based on the result, I won't recommend using Lavawalker on her. Bolide and Gladiator are better if you don't want to play with Crimson Witch.

I would also recommend HP over Attack, because her hit is gonna be weak without her pyro infusion, so it's better to switch during the 7 seconds window.

Continue to part 2

Original analysis ends here. Please stop if you're scrolling down to see the conclusion xD

Edit:

Vaporize Test

Based on popular question, and the highly suggested Xingqiu as Hu Tao's support.

What's in this section of analysis?

1. Comparison between 4 weapons:

- Dragon's Bane, the popular choice for Vaporize comp.

- +20% damage is always active

- Deathmatch, the most suggested 4★ weapon.

• +24% attack passive is active.

- Dragonspine Spear, because F2P weapon.

• I forgot to add the spear's passive into calculation. But it won't matter anyway since it's bad.

- Black Tassel, a 3★ weapon with HP% as substat.

• Passive is not active because the enemy is a hilichurl.

2. Comparison between 2 artifact sets:

- 4-Heart of Depths

- 2-Crimson Witch + 2-Wanderer's Troupe

Tested main stat:

- HP/Pyro/Crit

- EM/Pyro/Crit

Results:

Stat overview:

EM multiplier overview:

Damage overview:

All the numbers below are simulated to be under "Vaporized" effect.

Here you can see that 4-Heart of Depths is better for AA, but 2-Crimson + 2-Wanderer is better on skill and burst.

It can also be seen that EM is better than HP in a few places.

Simulation Result:

Putting the numbers on HP/Pyro/Crit, 2-Wanderer + 2-Crimson, and we obtained:

Conclusion:

1. Deathmatch still beat Dragon's Bane even on full vaporized comp.

2. HP is generally better than EM, although it's better in some places.

3. Black Tassel's high HP sub but low base attack means Hu Tao will exceed the 400% base attack limit.

You can use Attack% timepiece with Black Tassel instead. Although Black Tassel is still a poor choice overall.

4. Dragonspine Spear performs the worst among the tested weapons.

Personal Opinion:

It is true that EM can be better in some cases, but EM isn't as stable as HP.

The difference in damage is small, so it's not worth the instability.

What about Vaporize comparison between the other weapons?

The calculations below will assume that Vaporize happen on every hit. Whether that's achievable or not, I'll leave that to you to decide.

An insight from jeffohh:

"They found that charged attacks have no internal cooldown meaning you can Vaporize/Melt every charged attack whereas Normal Attacks have the ICD where you can only react ever so often"

This is the result of Vaporize on the other weapons using Crimson Witch:

Damage overview:

Simulation result:

Now putting this from best to worst, and we have:

Please note that this is with Blackcliff on full stack. On zero stack, Blackcliff is worse than Vortex Vanquisher.

You can see that White Tassel is still better even on full Vaporized comp.

I also was asked, what about R2 Dragon's Bane? Or R3?

Well, this is R2 Dragon's Bane (The rest is still the same):

Dragon's Bane in R2 is ahead of White Tassel here.

And this is R3:

Here you can see that Dragon's Bane needs to be R3 to out-damage the other 4★.

R4:

R5:

Conclusion:

1. R5 White Tassel is better than R1 Dragon's Bane.

2. R2 Dragon's Bane is better than R5 White Tassel.

3. R3 Dragon's Bane is better than Deathmatch and Blackcliff.

4. R5 Dragon's Bane is still worse than Staff of Homa and Primordial Jade Spear.

Personal Opinion:

Considering that Vaporize might not happen on every hit, I'd still suggest Deathmatch and Blackcliff over R3 Dragon's Bane. I would also still suggest White Tassel over R2 Dragon's Bane.

I'd personally start recommending Dragon's Bane on R4 over R5 White Tassel.

I still won't recommend R5 Dragon's Bane over R1 Deathmatch.

Some more "creative" artifacts

What's in this section of analysis?

1. Comparison between 4 artifact sets:

- 4-Thundering Fury.

• I tested Hu Tao with Oz, I mean Fischl, and she reduces her skill's CD by 3-4 seconds everytime.

- 4-Heart of Depths.

- 2-Crimson Witch + 2-Wanderer's Troupe.

- 4-Bloodstained

• All the "Charged" will be assumed to be under +50% damage effect.

I tried making a full charged-gameplay, but the repositioning and animation reduce the long-term DPS. So I will not consider that.

But please note that I'm not a frame expert, so any correction on this is widely welcomed!

Results:

Damage Overview:

Simulation Result:

I ran a slightly different calculation for "Total DPS" to accommodate Thundering Fury's cooldown reduction (This cause the "Switch DPS" value to be incorrect. But the following tables will include the correct value).

Putting this "Total DPS" from best to worst, and we have:

Taking the "Switch DPS value and comparing them to the previously obtained result, and we have:

Personal Opinion:

1. Heart of Depths is not a very bad choice if you do not own a better set.

2. Thundering Fury's restriction on Overload falls behind Vaporize and Melt reaction, so it's not optimal if you're aiming for damage. If you're aiming for fun, then it's definitely worth trying!

3. Bloodstained isn't a very good choice.

This is an additional test, and not the original conclusion. Please scroll back up to see the original conclusion if you missed it!

Continue to Part 2