Genshin Impact has a large range of characters, and it can be hard to know which ones work well with each other given the huge amount of combinations possible. So out of Noelle and Diona, who is better?
Diona is going to be the better choice for an all out damage character, but Noelle has her place in Geo heavy teams that are looking for a solid healer.
Let’s look at their respective strengths, abilities and place in a team as well as consider some strategic uses of these characters.
Noelle’s Strengths and Abilities
Noelle’s strength lies in her Geo abilities, and she can use her elemental skills to summon stone armor that not only acts as a shield but also deals Geo damage outwards.
As the shield will regenerate HP for all characters on hit and grants 150% damage absorption efficiency to the team that will scale with Noelle’s defense.
Her elemental burst attack is Sweeping Time and will use stone to boost her weapon’s damage and grant an AoE attack dealing Geo damage. She’ll also gain a larger attack Area of Effect (AoE) and will convert attack damage to Geo damage, ignoring elemental infusion.
Devotion is her 1st Ascension Passive that means when Noelle is in the party but not on the field, it will trigger automatically to create a shield for your active character for 20 seconds when your active character’s HP falls below 30%.
The shield will absorb damage equal to 400% of Noelle’s defense as well as a 150% damage absorption effectiveness against all elemental and physical damage, with a cooldown of 60 seconds.
Her 4th Ascension Passive is Nice and Clean which means every four normal or charged attacks will decrease the cooldown of Breastplate by 1 second.
Maid’s Knighthood is her Utility Passive that is triggered on successful attainment of Perfect Cooking for a defense-boosting dish, giving Noelle a 12% chance to obtain double the product.
Moving onto Constellations, I Got Your Back will raise Breastplate’s healing effects to 100%.
Combat Maid will decrease the stamina consumption of her charged attacks by 20% and also increases her charged attack damage by 15%.
Invulnerable Maid will increase the Level of Breastplate by three up to 15, whereas To Be Cleaned will trigger on Breastplate’s duration expiring, or when destroyed by damage, so that it deals 400% attack of Geo damage to surrounding opponents.
Favonius Sweeper Master will increase the level of Sweeping Time by three up to 15, and Must Be Spotless further raises Noelle’s attack by an additional 50% of her defense when Sweeping Time is active.
Diona’s Strengths and Abilities
A bartender who hates alcohol, she can unleash five attacks with a bow, or perform a charged attack using Aimed Shot to get more damage, as well as gaining Cryo damage. Finally, her plunging attack fires a barrage of arrows for AoE damage.
Her Elemental skill is Icy Paws fires an Icy Paw that deals Cryo damage to opponents and also forms a shield on hit, with the shield’s damage absorption scaling per Diona’s HP, as well as its duration scaling off the number of Icy Paws that hit their target.
You can either rapidly fire off 2 Icy Paws or hold to dash back quickly before firing five Icy Paws. Keep in mind that the shield created by a hold attack will gain a 75% damage absorption bonus.
Signature Mix will see her send out AoE Cryo damage as well as create a Drunken Mist in an AoE formation. This will both deal continuous Cryo damage to any opponents, as well as continuously regenerate HP for friendly characters.
Her passives make Icy Paws and Signature mix better, while her Utility Passive gives a small chance to get double a dish that has restorative effects. Her Constellations also do similar things, with Constellation six giving significant boost to Signature Mix.
Noelle vs. Diona: Who Is Better?
Noelle’s cooldown on her shield means she is generally not as good as Diona.
This is particularly the case if your strategy depends on quick swapping characters, as this means Diona will always be the better choice. Noelle requires a top Geo battery to function even a fraction of the power of Diona’s base level.
If you can get Diona up to Constellation 6, she is very versatile. This is particularly the case if you have Sucrose, Venti or Kazuha in your team given the synergy with quicks swap that will grant a 200 Elemental burst.
Diona has better healing and a relatively short cooldown on her shield, but Noelle has the benefit of a passive that can save your team from disaster, as well as her shield being stronger.
Noelle works best with someone like Hu Tao, as her AoE attacks help remove many that Hu Tao can’t deal with.
However, Noelle needs to be on-field to cut down on her shield’s downtime, as well as for her healing powers. This means that unless she can do good damage, these skills are not worth the sacrifices you have to make to remove a big damage dealer.
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