Artifact Tierlist

F tier means worst in game, best used as XP fodder for other sets, easily replaceable.

Notes

Emblem buffs Q dmg, Golden Troupe buffs E dmg

• Gilded: 4p can give most EM in game among artifact sets: 230 EM
• Vermillion: 2p is good, 4p gives largest ATK buff among artifacts
• Shimenawa: 2p is good, 4p is more niche but can be bis in certain scenarios, gives large dmg bonus
• Noblesse: 2p got powercrept by Emblem for most characters, but 4p is still useful
• Gladiator: 2p is good, 4p only for NA and melee, but even though most NA based dps prefer other set
• Instructor: 4p gives 120em to whole party
• Vourukasha: 50% E and Q damage is great, but it requires taking damage, would be nice if condition was similar to Nymph; a benefit is it enables 2p tenacity/2p glow for hp
• Nymph: this set is good but represents a jealous person's attempt to create redundancy in artifacts, the person who came up with this set probably also came up with the Paradise set too; main benefit is it enables 2p HoD/2p Nymph for 30% hydro dmg
• Husk of Opulent Dreams: for DEF scaling geo characters, good set but has 'hu' in the name, if hu discriminates against people based on surname, then they deserve to be demoted
• Berserker: early game it is useful for getting crit
• Sojourner: 4p gives 30% cr to CA
• Thundersoother, Lavawalker, Retracing Bolide: you would almost never use these except in niche situations
• Maiden's: nowadays you would use clam set, noblesse, or some other set, but with Focalors there can be a case to have more healing and use this
• Gambler's: 2p gives 20% e skill bonus, 4p can reset E skill, which can be used for some party tricks
• Defender's: 2p-2p with husk can provide a lot of DEF
• Traveling Doctor: healing upon casting burst gives some value
• Scholar: can give ER but usually emblem is better
• Prayer Sets: have niche uses for debuffing certain ley line effects
• Paradise Lost: no point in using this when Gilded exists, the fact that a set like this exists only serves as a juxtaposition to show how good Gilded is
• Blizzard: when many enemies cannot be frozen, buff is underwhelming. Unfortunately this includes most bosses in the game.
• Deepwood: underwhelming, 30% less than VV 40%, only shreds one element whereas VV can shred 4, they really held back this set
• Echoes Offering: 4p for NA, depreciated by Gladiator/Shimenawa
• M. Hunter: gives less crit rate than blizzard, maybe 14% crit rate per stack could help it like for Gilded, no pig can escape the sights of this site. Also it gives as much cr as Berserker, a 4* set.
• Echoing Woods: F for favoritism, niche set when many geo characters scale off def. Also this is an example of peeking at the org char and manipulating skip-level relationships, picking favorites and only benefitting some people while skipping people in the middle. Also the extra dmg bonus requires having a crystallize shield on, but such things can be flimsy and easily lost unless doing an EM geo build (but who does that), so there is a concern on uptime of the full effect.

Artifact Domain Ranking

1. Gilded domain: Gilded works on many characters as a universal EM set. Deepwood can also buff dendro damage. Although deepwood lags compared to VV, Gilded carries this domain and makes up for deepwood's drawbacks and problems. And what is the choice of 14% for? To remind us of a corrupt person who got jailed for 14 years? It almost makes it look like Star Rail needed Qingque to compensate for that, or the Toledo weapon needed a 14s effect, or baizhu needed a 14s burst to apologize for that. This domain is basically a must-farm for elite hyperbloom teams (Nahida, Alhaitham), and hyperbloom is broken for clearing abyss. So farming this domain can give new players the quickest route to full starring the abyss. There can only be one at the top, and the Gilded domain is it.
2. Viridescent Venerer: vv gives 40% res shred, which is a big buff to damage, making it one of the most important sets for anemo supports, which many teams need. Even though maiden's is the other set in this domain, the damage increase from the anemo res shred basically offsets this.
3. Golden Troupe domain: Golden Troupe can be used on many E subdps.
4. Emblem domain: both emblem and shimenawa (2 piece) sets can be used on various characters. Emblem is bis for many, and 2 piece shimenawa (givint 18% ATK) can also be used on various dps characters such as Xiao, Yae, etc. The 2p shimenawa is essentially farmable gladiators. It used to be the best domain to farm, but the introduction of characters not reliant on Q for dps (NA/E dps) has depreciated its value.
5. Chasm domain: both 2p sets of Vermillion and EO give ATK, making them universal on most characters in the game. The 2p-2p combo works well on most characters too.
6. Dragonspine domain: both sets are pretty good. The blizzard strayer is the bis for freeze cryo units. The hydro set 2p is also pretty good, and the 4p is bis for Childe. However, many other hydro units have different bis (like emblem or clam).
7. Husk/clam domain: both sets are very niche for specific units in the game that not everybody may use. But husk is bis for those specific units (Albedo, Itto, etc). And the clam set is a nice idea for converting healing into damage.
8. Crimson domain: crimson witch is still valuable for pyro dps in absence of other pyro artifacts. But the pyro res artifact on the other hand is underwhelming.
9. Noblesse domain: Noblesse is good, but took a hit since Emblem was released in 2.0. Noblesse is still valuable but not to the extent that it was before version 2.0. Bloodstained can be easily replaced by Pale Flame.
10. Desert/Paradise Lost: Desert is a decent set, but Paradise drags this domain down. Creating redundancy to make political attacks on others is looked down upon. Domain ranks above tenacity as at least it is named city of gold.
11. Tenacity/Pale Flame domain: both sets are very niche for specific units in the game. Even for those units, they can basically be replaced. With more HP scaling units though, the value of this domain can rise.
12. Vourukasha/Nymph domain (tie with Tenacity): so 'vourukasha' is not technically the exact translation of the Chinese term, something like 'Amrita' would be closer. Other than that, Nymph gets penalized for trying to create redundancy like the Paradise Lost set.

Guide

• VH (Chensha): Xiao (bis)
• Gilded: bis for many quicken dps such as Alhaitham, Yae, Cyno, DMC, C6 Nahida, also hyperbloom electro triggers like Raiden/Kuki (full EM) and bloom dps
• VV: any anemo character
• Deepwood: any support character (usually dendro), but may not be bis
• Golden Troupe: Albedo, Yae, Furina, Fischl, even Charlotte, Dehya, Nahida, and other E subdps
• Blizzard: any cryo character
• Crimson: any pyro dps
• Opulent Dreams: def scalers such as Itto, Yun Jin, Albedo, Noelle, Gorou
• Heart of Depth: Childe (4p), Ayato
• Emblem: Mona, Raiden, Yelan, XQ, XL, Beidou (bis), Chongyun, Kaeya, Rosaria, etc. (for maximizing burst dmg)
• Noblesse: Bennett, Jean, many characters can use 2p for burst dmg
• WT: Ganyu (melt), CA bow/catalyst based dps
• Shimenawa: Yoimiya, Ganyu (melt)
• Gladiator: Cyno, Razor, Ayato
• EO: Yoimiya, Razor, Ayato (not bis for any though)
• Tenacity: hp scalers such as Yelan, Candace, Nilou, Ayato (2p), Kuki, Kokomi, Morax (4p)
• Pale Flame: Eula, Freminet, Razor
• Clam: Qiqi, Kokomi, Barbara
• TF: Cyno, Fischl, Keqing
• Marechaussee: Lyney, Noctis, Wrio
• Thundersoother, Petra, Bolide, Lavawalker: never really use these, Lavawalker can work for Lyney

See also

See chasm for details on chasm domain sets (VH and EO). See optimization for details on crit ratios (a rule of thumb when building characters). See substats for info on substats.