Barbara Backstory & Vision

Name: Barbara Pegg (Page, prior to an update)

Vision: Hydro

Birthday: 5 July

Constellation: Crater

Titles: Shining Idol, Deaconess

In Genshin Impact, Barbara is one of the beginner characters that you’ll use for a majority of your playthrough. Her Elemental Skill, Melody Loop, heals the active character every few seconds, based on her HP. Its initial activation deals hydro damage, making enemies around her wet. A drawback to this is it also makes the active character wet and prone to elemental reactions. Under these effects, her normal and charged attacks heal the party. Her Burst is a single burst heal to everybody in the party, and has no other effects.

All her healing abilities stem from her HP, which makes it the best stat to increase on her. Despite being a healer character, some players have taken to building her for offense. Unlike some other catalyst users (Klee being a prime example), she casts her Hydro magic directly onto the enemy. As long as it’s in her line of sight and range, her normal attacks will hit, no matter what. With her healing ability, that lets her be an offensive tank that’s hard to kill.

Lastly, of all the current healer characters, she has the ability to resurrect fallen allies with her sixth constellation upgrade. If she’s not on the field and a party member falls, she can revive that character with full health! The ability has a cooldown of 15 minutes though. Compare it to Qiqi’s similar upgrade, but she only revives allies at half health after using her Elemental Burst.

There are tradeoffs to both. Barbara’s revival ability has the prerequisite that she’s not on the field. It implies that it will not take effect in a 4-player co-op situation. Qiqi may not revive characters at full health, but she can do so in most situations, though both abilities have a 15 minute cooldown. Then again, Barbara is a 4-star character, while Qiqi is a 5-star. It’s easier to have a 6 constellation upgrade for the former than the latter.

Genshin Impact Barbara Character Story

Barbara was born the younger sister of Jean, with Frederica Gunnhildr and Seamus Pegg as parents. When they separated, she went to her father’s side, while Jean went with their mother. Despite being young when this happened, Jean’s accomplishments as a knight-in-training left a deep impression on Barbara.

It led her to determination to be better than Jean at something, anything. However, all her efforts couldn’t match up to her sister in swordplay, grades, or anything. Even with all her optimism, Barbara couldn’t help but be upset.

She didn’t let it bring her down though. 30 seconds is all she gives herself to feel depressed. After that, she goes back to being bright and peppy. This determination of hers surprised even her father! At any rate, since she doesn’t have talent for combat, she decided to support those who are. Under her father’s guidance, she became a healer for the Church of Favonius.

Even though it started out as a desire to be recognized, the more she healed people, the more her desire changed. Now, she just wants to help people.

As for being an idol, she’s got Alice to thank for that. The older woman was the first to introduce the idea to Barbara. The latter doesn’t know where the magazine she was given came from, but it described what an idol is and what they do. She was a bit skeptical about being called an idol, but when she read the part where idols ‘heal through dance and song,’ she made up her mind.

Her determination and hard work led her to be a good idol. The whole of Mondstadt knows about her, and she has a fanclub dedicated to her. It was a little rocky at first since only the bards’ folk songs were popular at the time. True to their nature of the City of Freedom, they accepted this new form of song while cherishing the old ones.

Honestly, despite her fame as an idol, she sometimes has doubts on whether she does heal others through song and dance. She sings to Glory (that her lover will return) and to Anna (that she’ll be cured from her sickness), but their smiles never stay for long. Does it mean that her efforts aren’t worth it? However, like before, she doesn’t dwell on it for longer than 30 seconds.

‘Thank you’ are the two words she hears the most. Whenever she feels lost, there is always someone who wants to thank her for what she’s done. Seeing people smile from her songs is her best reward, and it is these smiles Barbara uses to remind herself why she’s helping people. For her, it is proof her songs can heal people.

She still wants to surpass her sister, but it’s buried in layers of wanting to help people and support Jean. Being a good idol is just her way of doing both of those things.

How Did Barbara Get Her Vision

There’s no grand battle or epic story shown in Genshin Impact about Barbara getting her Vision. She was taking care of a boy whose fever would not disappear for any medicine or cure. Someone suggested that she sing a song to console him. At the time, she hadn’t sung a song in her life, but she followed the suggestion and sung the only song she knew then.

Midway through, she forgot the lyrics to her song, so she hummed it instead. It eased the boy, so she repeated the song again and again until her voice was hoarse. The boy had fallen asleep, and Barbara fell into an exhausted sleep as well.

She woke early in the morning, the boy’s fever abated, and a Vision in her hand. Yet it was the boy’s smile that filled her heart with joy and not the bright gem in her hand.

The Hydro Archon is one that rules over justice. Perhaps there was justice in keeping a young life from being cut short. There’s no common points between how the Hydro characters get their Vision (and one gets focus on their Delusion instead). This remains only a speculation.

And that’s that for the Shining Idol of Mondstadt. While there are a few other healer characters in the game (and more to come) Barbara is one of the best in Genshin Impact. Just be careful of her E Skill applying Wet to your character!