Mondstadt’s pigeon-loving orphan can’t catch a break.
Timmie’s one of the first NPCs you’ll meet in Genshin Impact, always found standing on the bridge outside the region’s namesake capital, feeding his little birdie buddies. And it doesn’t take much to make his avian allies scatter, earning you an injured scolding from the tot.
The whiny tween has become a bit of a love-to-hate meme amongst Genshin Impact fans, and the game makes it too easy for us to bully him. But if you really want to make the poor lad’s life hell, who’s the best warrior to bring? Forget Spiral Abyss — how do the game’s 46 playable characters stack up in the pigeon meta?
We based our rankings on factors such as convenience, completeness, and ease. Those who can completely wipe the entire flock with their elemental skill instead of their burst? High tier. Those who can do it from far away, without worrying about timing? Also high tier. The best of the best are the characters who make it easy to farm fowl.
Here’s every Genshin Impact character, ranked from worst to best pigeon poacher.
D-Tier: D for Disappointing
Razor
Razor mostly relies on swinging his sword or going wolf to attack enemies. Sure, his burst makes him faster, but it doesn’t matter much since he’s a close-range fighter. His elemental skill doesn’t cover a significant area either, because it swipes down instead of across.
Xinyan
Xinyan’s sword should catch at least one pigeon, but that’s it. Her elemental burst has a relatively slow startup, too. In other words, her attacks lose most of the birds because they start to flee before she can really double down on the offense.
Chongyun
Honestly, Chongyun is probably better off just using his standard attack instead of an elemental one. His elemental skill strikes downward, so it doesn’t easily hit pigeons fleeing up and away from his icy wrath. Then, his burst has too slow a startup to catch a satisfying number of fowl.
Noelle
Noelle’s elemental burst extends her sword, which should help with slashing at birds. Not by much, though. It’s best to pop it early and swing just as pigeons are close enough. Otherwise, it’s as good as just swinging a regular claymore.
Qiqi
Qiqi can catch two birds at most with her sword or elemental skill. Either way, she isn’t getting much. She’s the smallest sword user with the least reach. Her elemental skill, which is essentially a damage-dealing bubble, has an inconveniently small hitbox and doesn’t rotate often enough to kill more than one unlucky pigeon.
Jean
Jean’s sword should be able to stab a bird or two, but her elemental attacks won’t help much. Tapping her elemental skill shoots an Anemo attack at enemies, but it has an odd cone-shaped hitbox that hits too far above the ground to kill ground-level birds.
Raiden
Raiden might not be much of a chef, but she can still cook a couple of pigeons. Her elemental burst extends the hitbox of her sword so that she can catch more than she’d be able to without it. Still, she’s not likely to catch very many.
Yun Jin
Yun Jin reaches far, but apparently not far enough for pigeons. She can slash at the frontmost bird with her standard spear attack before the rest of the flock flies away. Her elemental skill doesn’t elongate her spear enough to make a difference.
Thoma
Thoma kills maybe two pigeons if you strike fast enough. His spear and elemental skill have about the same likelihood of killing the birds. He aims his skill downward, and the flames that radiate from it seem to be more for effect than actual AoE damage.
Hu Tao
You’d think Hu Tao, an agent of chaos, would be great at killing pigeons. However, her burst’s slow startup and limited reach hold her back. I watched her burst animation as most of the pigeons flew away in the background. A terrible waste.
Fischl
Fischl can only kill pigeons with her bow and arrow, as her elemental skill and burst don’t inflict AoE damage on pigeons as enemies. It’s too bad, considering her burst looks like it would be great for driving straight into birds.
Gorou
Gorou might be a top-tier addition to a mono-Geo team, but he doesn’t offer much when it comes to hunting. He can kill at least two birds with sharpshooting, so long as you have a steady, quick clicker finger, but that’s all.
Amber
As a bow user, Amber can kill at least two birds adjacent to each other with a masterful charge shot or quick two clicks. However, her elemental skill and burst don’t do much to help. Even the burst, which looks like it might work in theory, doesn’t activate quickly enough.
C-Tier: Kills A Few Pigeons
Lisa
You can charge Lisa’s standard attack to whip up a small but effective fowl-frying storm. Her elemental skill fires a single electric orb at the enemy, though it doesn’t charge fast enough to completely cook the flock.
Mona
Mona’s charge attack can kill a couple of pigeons, thanks to its expanded area of effect. But her elemental skill doesn’t seem to detect birds as an enemy. Even if it did, it’d be too slow to kill a significant number of them.
Klee
Klee might seem like she’d make a great hunter because of her bomb-happy reputation, but you’d be mistaken. Her attacks don’t have enough range or speed to take out Timmie’s flying rats. By the time you get close enough for a charge attack, most of the birds will have scattered.
Xiangling
Xiangling can spear at least one pigeon with her normal attack. However, she can kill even more if you pop her elemental burst. Just run up to the birds with it activated and it should kill enough for a supper’s worth. Her burst spins, so it’s not going to kill all the birds in one shot, though.
Beidou
Beidou slays up to three birds at once with her elemental skill. It might just look like an average claymore attack, but it actually swings in a downward arc that makes it perfect for killing things close to the ground. She has to be quick, though. Otherwise, the arc will be off.
Xingqiu
Xingqiu’s elemental skill just adds enough extra flair to kill two to three pigeons. It’s not as good as other sword users’ because of the arc of his slash, though. For example, Bennett’s elemental skill swipes diagonally, but Xingqiu’s is more of an uppercut.
Bennett
Bennett can kill at least three pigeons with a well-timed swing of his elemental skill. His sword can kill a couple too, but the extra AoE damage from the sword extends its range.
Barbara
Barbara’s catalyst attacks and elemental skill have a small area of effect. If she could only get a little bit closer, she would be able to kill much more. Fun fact: Her circling water magic at the startup of her elemental skill kills any bird that it touches.
Barbara gets extra points because she can also smack Timmie in the face. Worth.
B-Tier: Kills Half of the Pigeons
Childe
Childe can’t kill pigeons with his Riptide ability, because the move somehow doesn’t recognize them as enemies. That being said, he can still kill more than average, thanks to his melee form. He can also move quickly enough to slash a couple of birds, though it’s hard to time right.
Shenhe
Shenhe’s elemental skill enables her to dash through pigeons, killing them upon contact. It doesn’t seem to have as large a hitbox as other damage-dealing dashes, so she ranks below Rosaria and Xiao.
Rosaria
Rosaria freeze-fries fowl with her dash. However, it’s not an ideal attack because she charges straight forward, so she misses the birds at her sides. Alternatively, she can catch one or maybe two pigeons with her spear if she’s quick.
Xiao
Xiao mains can vouch for his pogo stick-like fighting style. Unfortunately, his plunge attack won’t work on pigeons because he needs to charge toward the birds, jump, and then plunge. It takes too long. Thankfully, he can still kill most of the birds with his repeated dash attacks.
Yanfei
Yanfei’s biggest weakness is her slow attack speed. Sure, her attacks can reach far enough to kill most of the pigeons when you charge in, but some will inevitably fly away before you can kill all of them. Her regular attacks, elemental skill, and burst all suffer from the same problem that knock her a tier below her more proficient pigeon-hunting peers.
Yoimiya
Yoimiya deserves at least B-rank because of her heat-seeking charge shot. She launches multiple arrows; when one hits a target, the rest hone in on other enemies. Her main hunting method has less control than some of the other B-tiers, though.
Eula
Stacking Eula’s grimoire and unleashing them right next to the flock can fry all the birds in a flash. It isn’t the most intuitive method to learn, so it ranks lower than other pigeon fatalities.
Sayu
They see her rollin’, they hatin’…Sayu’s passive talent allows her to sneak up on enemies and deal damage as she rolls into them with her elemental skill. The same can be said for Timmie’s pigeons, which she can steamroll through like a tractor over a cornfield. However, it’s apparently not fast enough unless two Anemo characters are in the party.
Diona
Diona can shoot projectiles while generating her ice shield. Just tapping the button for her elemental skill can kill one or two pigeons with no problem, but you need to charge and time it just right to kill more than that. She still deserves a higher score than other B-tiers because her projectiles actually hone in on the pigeons as they try to fly away.
A-Tier: Kills Most Pigeons
Itto
Itto can smash the birds with his bull buddy Ushi, even if there’s a bit of a learning curve to landing the throw. It’s easier if he has a bit of a ledge to throw off so Ushi can go even further. However, this tier list is for killing pigeons with individual skills, so I have to rank him lower.
Zhongli
Zhongli smashes all the pigeons like the second coming of the Big Bang with his elemental burst. However, it needs to be annoyingly close to the flock. The first time I tried it, I was maybe three steps away from scaring them off before popping his burst and still somehow raked in a grand total of one fowl.
Keqing
Aim Keqing’s elemental skill above the pigeons and then plunge down to kill them all. Charging in with her burst should also slay some of the winged beasts. Her kill moves are more difficult to time than other A-tiers, so she’s toward the bottom of the stack.
Kazuha
Kazuha’s elemental skill radiates Anemo damage outward instead of straight down, so it kills any animals nearby. However, it has a fickle hitbox that might not kill every pigeon, so it’s still minus points in the “completeness” category.
Kokomi
Kokomi splashes into top-tier pigeon-killing territory with her elemental skill. Charging up to the birds and unleashing this tidal slap of water should kill all of them thanks to its generous range.
Kaeya
Kaeya is a dark horse among pigeon-killing fiends. His elemental skill might not seem like it can do the damage, but further investigation reveals that charging up to the flock and unleashing it immediately will kill most (if not all) because of the move’s unexpectedly long reach.
Sucrose
Sucrose blows Timmie’s birds into oblivion with a charged elemental skill or burst. Her regular attacks should still net a few fowl, though not as many as she could with her other abilities.
Ayaka
Ayaka can kill the pigeons with her elemental burst, which is essentially an icy vortex of doom. It advances forward after deployment, so you can activate it from just far enough not to alert the pigeons and then watch it swallow them whole.
Diluc
Retribution, Diluc’s Elemental Burst, can annihilate any animal even remotely near it. There’s no need to run up close – just a few feet away to not alert the pigeons before washing them over with a wave of fire.
S-Tier: The Greats
Albedo
Albedo can use his elemental skill to kill pigeons with one of two main methods. One, he can lift himself high enough to avoid the pigeon’s detection radius, and then plunge for the kill. Two, he can just run up to the birds directly and kill them if he deploys his skill fast enough. Bonus: His elemental skill also makes a great elevator for anyone who wants to use a plunge attack.
Ningguang
Ningguang might not seem capable of fowl play at first. However, her light screen somehow reaches a far enough distance to kill birds you wouldn’t think it would reach. Her regular catalyst attacks aren’t too bad for catching the stragglers, either.
Traveler
The Traveler, especially Anemo Traveler, is the OG pigeon killer. Both his elemental skill and burst can nab the birds from a distance, so you don’t even need to run up close. The tornado will more completely kill the birds because of its sucking properties, but properly aiming the elemental skill should do the job as well.
Venti
Venti’s elemental burst is one of the classic pigeon-killing moves that existed since launch. It sucks the birds in like a black hole as they desperately flee, frying them into a feast before your very eyes. You need to use his burst, which isn’t ideal, but it has such a large radius that it can kill anything remotely near it, even birds flying away.
Aloy
Aloy, Genshin’s resident crossover character, offers a god-tier passive skill that allows any character to approach wildlife without startling them. She can also easily kill most if not all the pigeons with her elemental skill. That plus her passive is enough help that it’s worth the boost to S.
Sara
Raiden’s right-hand lady can smoke pigeons with the best of them. However, Sara still needs to activate her elemental skill to access her full potential. Shooting at the center of the flock activates a timed bomb that fries the flock in seconds.
SS-Tier: Just Ganyu
Ganyu deserves a tier of her own as the fan-favorite pigeon hunter. She’s the only one that doesn’t need to use an elemental skill because her charge shot cooks pigeons like a grenade. Aim at the center of the flock, and bam! A bucket of KFC.
So Ganyu is the best pigeon hunter of them all, but many of the other S, A, and B-tier characters should still net you a decent number of fowl.
Genshin Impact is available now for PC, mobile, and PlayStation consoles.
