Ultimate Childe (Tartaglia) Build Guide

In this article, we’ll explore Childe’s weapon choices, recommended artifact sets, and optimal artifact main and sub-stat to fine-tune your Tartaglia build.

You can check out our dedicated article if you want to understand how Childe’s elemental skills, burst or talent scaling.

Video Guide

Overall Stat Roadmap

To maximize Tartaglia’s potential, prioritize increasing his Attack, Critical Rate, and Critical Damage stats.

Aim for a minimum of 1,800 Attack, which is pretty easy to achieve through suitable artifact main stats and sub-stats, as well as weapon selection.

You want to aim a Crit Rate of at least 60% to ensure consistent high damage output.

This is essential for consistently applying the Rip Tide status to enemies during Tartaglia’s Elemental Skill duration.

This consistent application, in turn, allows you to trigger the Rip Tide Slash, unleashing additional AoE Hydro Damage alongside your regular attacks, with a new instance occurring every 1.5 seconds.

Ideally, you also want to get at least 120% Critical Damage, but you want to get this as high as possible through your artifacts.

Childe doesn’t require a lot of ER, so a range of 120% to 130% is plenty.

You can even leave it at its base 100% ER if you have some excellent artifact sub-stat rolls.

Talent Priority

For the talents, you want to prioritize Childe’s elemental skill and burst.

Ideally, you want to max both of them if you can.

You can consider leaving his Normal Attack at level 6 to save resources, as it doesn’t impact the damage scaling of his Melee Stance.

However, it’s worth noting that the Normal Attack talent also boosts the damage of the Riptide Burst effect.

This effect triggers when you defeat an enemy affected by the Riptide status, dealing additional AoE Hydro damage and applying Riptide to nearby enemies.

At level 9, this adds 105% AoE Hydro damage, so it would make sense to level it up if you want to maximize Tartaglia’s damage output when dealing with multiple enemies.

Artifact Set Options

When using Childe, you want to be doing some normal and charged attacks, as well as elemental bursts during a team rotation.

So, it would make sense to gauge all of the relevant damages he can do while on the field.

The 4-Piece Nymp’s Dream checks out all these boxes, making it the best artifact set for Tartaglia.

This set provides an Attack and Hydro damage buff that can stack up to 3 times, significantly boosting Childe’s overall damage output while he’s on the field.

Maintaining three stacks is relatively easy too due to how Tartaglia’s kit works.

The 4-piece Shimenawa’s Reminiscence set significantly boosts Childe’s normal and charged attacks during his Melee Stance.

However, it poses challenges for casting his elemental burst, as it reduces his energy gauge upon activating the elemental skill.

Moreover, it results in lower damage for the Rip Tide Slash and Elemental Burst than the 4-piece Nymph’s set.

This makes the 4-piece Heart of Depth set a better alternative.

Although it doesn’t enhance Normal and Charged Attacks as effectively as Shimenawa’s, it avoids energy issues, ensuring consistent Elemental Burst usage.

Furthermore, it offers slightly better damage for Childe’s Rip Tide Slash and Elemental Burst.

And while Nymph’s Dream set is about 8% stronger overall, having favorable sub-stats for the Heart of Depth set can compensate for this difference.

The 4-piece Echoes of an Offering set becomes a viable choice if you prefer not to use Charged Attacks during combat, as it significantly enhances Childe’s normal attacks while his elemental skill is active.

But given that this artifact set isn’t Childe’s best-in-slot, opting for 2-piece alternatives could be a more efficient approach, especially when factoring in the Resins needed for farming.

For the 2-piece options, the Nymph’s Dream and Heart of Depth combination is a solid choice.

This 2-set combination can outperform the complete Artifact sets if you have superior sub-stat rolls.

Alternatively, you can mix and match the 2-piece Nymph’s Dream or Heart of Depth sets with either the 2-piece Vermillion, Gladiator, or Shimenawa sets.

And if you want to focus more on Childe’s elemental burst damage, consider using the 2-piece Heart of Depth or Nymph’s Dream sets in combination with the 2-piece Noblesse Oblige set.

Opting for the 2-piece combinations of the Vermillion Hereafter, Gladiator’s Finale, or Shimenawa’s Reminiscence can also be a viable temporary choice.

You likely have many of these artifacts in your inventory, making them great temporary sets to use while you farm for better rolls for a complete set.

Below is a quick comparison of all these artifact set combinations with Childe’s relevant damage on the field:

Artifact Main and Sub-Stats

For artifact main stats, get Attack Percent on your Sands and Hydro Damage on the Goblet.

As for the Circlet, choose between Crit Rate and Crit Damage based on your needs.

Ideally, you want to get Critical Rate, Critical Damage, Attack Percent and Elemental Mastery for your sub-stats.

Get as much Critical Rate and Critical Damage as you can, as these stats significantly impact Childe’s average DPS.

Rolling some Attack Percent sub-stat is okay, although having too much can have diminishing returns.

Energy Recharge can aid in convenient energy generation, but getting around 120 to 130% should suffice if you primarily use Childe’s elemental burst in the Ranged Stance rather than the Melee Stance.

Lastly, while Elemental Mastery can enhance Childe’s elemental reaction damage, he applies so much hydro on enemies that he ends up as the enabler for off-field elemental applications most of the time.

An excellent example of this is the Childe and Xiangling combo.

Therefore, the 4th sub-stat doesn’t carry significant importance.

If RNG gods are not very good on you, just use whatever is closest to your target priority sub-stats until you get good ones.

Weapon Options

3-Star Options

If you’re just starting out and have not pulled some good weapons yet, some good starter options are the Slingshot, The Messenger and the Sharpshooter’s Oath.

One thing to note is that Slingshot’s weapon effect does not increase Childe’s damage during his Melee Stance.

Since you may not have acquired strong artifacts, choose the temporary weapon with the highest base attack.

The Messenger is the top choice, closely followed by the Sharpshooter’s Oath.

4-star Options

Among the 4-star bows, you have several viable choices depending on your artifact sub-stat rolls.

Achieving around 60% Crit Rate through your artifacts makes the R5 Rust, Mouun’s Moon, and Hamayumi some pretty solid options.

R5 Mouun’s Moon has the lowest average damage for Normal and Charged Attacks during Childe’s elemental skill.

Nevertheless, it compensates for this by significantly enhancing his elemental burst damage.

This effect becomes especially noticeable when using his elemental burst in his Melee Stance.

On the other hand, you will lose some of your Charged Attack Damage with the R5 Rust, but this is significantly offset when using lots of normal attacks.

Overall, it provides more reliable damage output than Mouun’s Moon because you don’t need to be overly concerned about consistently maintaining your elemental burst.

In contrast, R5 Hamayumi strikes a balance between Rust and Mouun’s Moon but falls slightly behind in terms of overall damage output compared to the other two options.

All three of these weapon options scale the Attack Stat, which means you’ll need solid Crit Rate sub-stats on your artifacts to maximize their effectiveness.

That said, it would be easier to increase your Critical Rate stats with the Viridescent Hunt or Scion of the Blazing Sun Battle Pass weapons.

While these weapons may have lower damage potential than indicated in the chart, the simulation assumes a base Critical Rate stat of 60%.

In reality, increasing your Critical Rate sub-stats can be pretty challenging, especially for characters like Childe, who do not receive Crit Rate bonuses from character ascension.

The R5 Stringless can enhance Childe’s elemental burst damage but falls short of compensating for the damage discrepancy when considering Childe’s specific playstyle.

Consequently, this weapon is better suited for use with other characters who can fully utilize its Elemental Mastery bonus and weapon effects, such as Fischl.

Other good 4-star bow alternatives include the Blackcliff Warbow, Royal Bow, Alley Hunter, Prototype Crescent, Song of Stillness, and the King’s Squire as temporary weapons until you get some better ones.

5-star Options

The Polar Star gives Childe the highest damage potential among all the weapon options.

It enhances his Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst damage by 12%, and you can get up to 40% more Attack through its secondary weapon effect.

Moreover, maintaining three stacks is pretty easy since Rip Tide Slash and Rip Tide Burst are categorized as elemental skill damage.

Lastly, you can consistently maintain four stacks with an optimal skill rotation.

Thundering Pulse is an excellent alternative.

However, it comes with a Crit Damage secondary stat, which might necessitate using a Critical Rate Circlet if you don’t have sufficient Crit Rate sub-stats.

But, this weapon can really strong because you can also easily maintain its maximum three stacks bonus.

Despite having a low Base Attack, Aqua Simulacra compensates with notably high Critical Damage secondary stats.

Moreover, its secondary weapon effect remains consistently active during combat, eliminating the need for any stacking, unlike some other 5-star options.

In a mono Hydro team, you can make the most out of the First Great Magic bow, and it will only trail behind the Polar Star and Thundering Pulse.

But even in a typical Vape team composed of Xiangling, Kazuha and Bennett, it is still better than most 5-star weapons in terms of damage potential.

Despite being one of the lower-tier 5-star options, the Skyward Harp lags behind the Polar Star by only about 7%, which is still quite respectable.

It also gives Crit Rate for its secondary stats, making it easier to get your target Critical Rate stat.

Hunter’s Path’s weapon effect doesn’t substantially increase Childe’s charged attack damage but offers an exceptionally high Crit Rate as its secondary stat.

This allows you to prioritize equipping Childe with artifacts with high Crit Damage sub-stats without worrying too much about your Crit Rate.

Lastly, while Amos’ Bow ranks lowest among 5-star options, it still outperforms any 4-star alternatives in terms of damage potential.

Furthermore, since this bow has been available for some time, you might have acquired some copies in your inventory.