Search this question today and you get tier placements, damage percentages, constellation rankings and signature-weapon verdicts. HoYoverse has published none of those numbers for either character — not a rarity line, not a multiplier, not a single constellation. Every page ranking Vesna against Vodyanitsa right now is ranking two beta builds against each other.
The decision is still makeable, because three things genuinely are decided: what each official showcase says her job is, the shared-guarantee rule governing every parallel banner pair so far, and how many wishes you will be holding on update day.
Quick answer: Both banners open after the Version 7.1 update on 23 September 2026 — "When Warm Winds Cavort" for Vesna (Anemo) and "Surging Ballad" for Vodyanitsa (Hydro). Every pair of parallel Character Event Wishes so far has shared one wish guarantee count, so plan on getting one of them, not both. Take Vesna if you want the damage: her role card reads "Strong On-Field DPS", "with Stellar Swirl Reactions", and her element line reads "Stellar Linchpin: Anemo", which on the wiki-sourced reading below makes a working team need no Vodyanitsa in it. Take Vodyanitsa if you already run an Anemo carry and a Cryo teammate and want a support who shreds resistance, heals, boosts damage and steadies you at once. Short on wishes? The honest answer is neither — 7.1 hands you two free 5-star characters from 14 names.
Article status: written 20 September 2026. Kits are transcribed from the official Character Skill Showcases on HoYoLAB — post 46688739 (Vesna) and post 46691872 (Vodyanitsa), both 14 September 2026 — including the text inside the panels, plus Vesna's identity card in post 46329024 and the 7.1 New Weapon Overview in post 46712931. Every date and the shared-guarantee clause were re-read live from the in-game announcement feed today. One mechanic — how Stellar Swirl is gated — is community-wiki sourced and flagged where it appears. No leak or datamine is used anywhere here.
What are the Vesna and Vodyanitsa banners in Version 7.1?
Two separate Event Wishes, both opening after the same update. HoYoverse states Vesna's in her own showcase: "The 'When Warm Winds Cavort' Event Wish will be available after the Version 7.1 update on September 23. During this event, 'Snowy Banquet's Sharp Blade' Vesna (Anemo) will receive a huge drop rate boost!" Vodyanitsa's carries the matching line for "Surging Ballad" and prints her as Hydro.
That is all HoYoverse has put in writing: two banner names, two elements, two in-game titles, one start point. Phase end dates, boosted 4-stars and the second-phase line-up have not been published. As of 20 September 2026 the live announcement feed carries 31 notices and not one is a 7.1 Event Wish notice. There is no 7.1 maintenance preview either.
That matters, because the live 7.0 wishes are already closing. Announcement 21805 prints the Event Wish Duration ending 2026/09/22 14:59; the three version-level 7.0 notices — 21857, 21862 and 21866 — expire at 2026/09/23 06:00. Both timestamps come out of the same feed rendering, so the interval between them is 15 hours by our count whichever server clock that rendering represents. And 06:00 is when the old version stops, not when the new banners start: with no 7.1 maintenance preview published, the wishes open some unknown time after that. The gap is at least 15 hours and nobody outside HoYoverse knows the real figure. If your plan is "I will decide on update day," you will open the wish screen to nothing.
Why does picking one cost you the other?
Because parallel Character Event Wishes have never had separate pity. The shared-guarantee clause is identical on both banners live right now — announcements 21805 and 21806, for "Character Event Wish" and "Character Event Wish-2", carry these sentences verbatim:
"The wish guarantee count for 'Character Event Wish' and 'Character Event Wish-2' is shared, and is accumulated between both 'Character Event Wish' and 'Character Event Wish-2.' This wish guarantee count is independent of the guarantee counts of other types of wishes."
One caveat: that is the rule on the 7.0 banners. The 7.1 notice does not exist yet, so here it is precedent rather than confirmation — unbroken precedent, but not a published fact.
Assuming it holds, it cuts both ways. Wishes spent on Vesna push your counter toward a 5-star on Vodyanitsa's banner too, so nothing is wasted — but you cannot build two separate runs. One counter, one 5-star at the end of it, and per the permanent wish rules under Details, the featured character is not guaranteed on that first 5-star. Which is why splitting your wishes hedges nothing: it only decides which banner is open when the counter lands.
What does Vesna actually do?
She is the damage dealer. Her role card is blunt about it, printed across three lines: "Strong On-Field DPS", "with Stellar Swirl Reactions", "Boosts the Whole Party's Stellar Swirl Reaction DMG!"
Her Elemental Skill "The Art of Victory" puts her into Core DPS Mode, which boosts interruption resistance, converts her Normal Attack damage into Anemo damage, and lets her spend Sword Essence on special Elemental Skill attacks. Officially: "After a character in the party triggers a Stellar Swirl Reaction nearby, Vesna can follow up with multiple bursts of Stellar Swirl Reaction DMG."
Sword Essence is the whole rotation, and the one resource HoYoverse has actually quantified:
- It caps at 3 stacks.
- Her Elemental Skill grants +2, her Elemental Burst grants +1, and Normal Attacks in Core DPS Mode trickle more in at an unpublished rate.
- One stack equals exactly one special Elemental Skill use — a counter, not a percentage bar.
- Each spend escalates the next: "For each Sword Essence stack consumed, or whenever Elemental Burst is used: [↑] DMG dealt by the next special Elemental Skill / Elemental Burst"
Her Burst "For the Tsaritsa!" "summons a host of Spirit Blades, dealing Anemo AoE DMG that is considered Stellar Swirl Reaction DMG" — so it feeds the escalation and grants a stack. A rotation tool, not a finisher.
Out of combat she also flies: "hold Sprint or Jump to let Vesna take to the skies, where she can sprint or jump in midair" — an exploration upgrade no tier list prices for you.
What does Vodyanitsa actually do?
She is the support, framed broadly: "A Versatile Support Who Aids Allies with Song". Her listed jobs are multi-element RES reduction, sustained healing, DMG boost and interruption resistance.
All of it comes out of one object. Her Elemental Skill "Rechitativ: Sonorous Dawn" "reveals her Water Imp form and summons the ancient Horn of Spring's Call to fight alongside her." The Horn does four things: Hydro and Cryo RES reduction, Hydro and Cryo DMG increase, continuous healing and increased interruption resistance.
Read the targeting tags on that panel rather than the summary — it is the detail most write-ups drop. The RES reduction is tagged Enemy, the DMG increase Party-Wide, and the healing and interruption resistance are both tagged Active Character. Two of her four effects follow whoever you are driving, not the team, so the sustain moves with you on a swap — a meaningfully different profile from a party-wide healer.
Her Burst, "Koda: Sink With Thee," "takes the lead in a beguiling Water Imp song that lures its listeners into the depths, dealing AoE Hydro DMG."
Does Vesna need Vodyanitsa to work?
No — but they are obviously built for the same team.
Vodyanitsa's second branch aims squarely at Vesna's damage type. Her song "weaves through the swirling winds, further enhancing the 'Stellar Vortex' generated by the Stellar Swirl Reaction", upgrading it into a Wandering Vortex. When that is generated or detonated it reduces enemies' Anemo RES and replaces the Hydro and Cryo DMG Bonuses with a Stellar Swirl DMG Bonus. She can also extend the duration of "teammates' 'Radiance: Stellar Swirl' state".
Note replaces. Those bonuses swap out, they do not stack — a detail several third-party pages currently have backwards.
Here is the part that decides the argument, and its sourcing needs stating plainly because every competing page states it as settled. HoYoverse's Version 7.0 Update Details describes the reaction with a hedge: "Under certain conditions, Anemo and Cryo can trigger Stellar Swirl …" It never publishes the conditions. The community wiki fills the gap — the enabler is a Stellar Jubilee passive, carried by Snezhnaya characters holding Stellar Linchpins and by the Traveler (Cryo) — and that mechanic is wiki-documented, not announced. We cover the whole family in our Lunar and Stellar reactions guide.
What HoYoverse does print is that Vesna's element line reads "Stellar Linchpin: Anemo" rather than "Vision: Anemo". Put that published line together with the wiki mechanic and Vesna is herself the enabler — an inference, and worth labelling as one. It is the only reading consistent with the two enablers the 7.0 notice does spell out: Odette, "a support character who enables the party to trigger Stellar-Conduct and Stellar Swirl reactions", who holds "Stellar Linchpin: Cryo"; and the Traveler, "After resonating with Cryo, the Traveler enables the party to trigger Stellar Glimmer (Stellar-Conduct/Stellar Swirl)" — the free fallback on any account that has resonated with Cryo at a Snezhnayan Statue of The Seven.
On that reading Vesna brings the Anemo half and needs only a teammate who applies Cryo — any Cryo character. Vodyanitsa is Hydro, and nowhere in that requirement. So the dependency runs one way and it is soft: Vesna plus any Cryo teammate is a functioning Stellar Swirl team with no Vodyanitsa in it, while Vodyanitsa without an Anemo carry is a healer and resistance shredder whose entire Wandering Vortex branch sits idle.
How many wishes will you have on 23 September?
Work this out first, because it changes the answer more than any kit comparison.
The 7.1 benefits package is already live in-game as announcement 21923, running 12 September to 3 November 2026. It contains 1,600 Primogems by mail and 10 Intertwined Fate from a limited-time check-in. At 160 Primogems per wish the Primogems are 10 wishes, so with the Fates that is 20 wishes in total, by our count, for logging in.
Twenty wishes is not a 5-star. It is a top-up on a counter you already have — which is why your existing pity matters more than the character comparison. Near a guarantee, pull the one you want. Starting from zero, 20 wishes is not a campaign.
The same package is also the reason many players should sit this one out: two separate free 5-star selectors, both claimable.
- "Limited-Time Invitation: Choose 1 of 6" — for completing the Version 7.1 Archon Quest. Pool: Tartaglia, Nilou, Baizhu, Chiori, Clorinde, Varesa, with materials to Lv. 60.
- "5-Star Character: Choose 1 of 8" — for logging in after the update. Pool: Jean, Diluc, Qiqi, Mona, Tighnari, Keqing, Dehya, Yumemizuki Mizuki, also with materials to Lv. 60.
Fourteen names, two guaranteed 5-stars, zero wishes spent — full breakdown in our free 5-star selector guide. Both run until 3 November, so there is no rush to decide them alongside the banner.
What about the 7.1 weapon wish?
The weapons, their stats and their passives are published. The pairings are not. Verbatim: "the new 5-star weapons 'Beyond the Chrysalis (Sword)' and 'Hymn of the Maelstrom (Catalyst),' as well as the event-exclusive 4-star weapons 'New Bough (Sword),' 'Winter's Heavy Heart (Catalyst),' and 'Breezeborne Refrain (Bow)' will receive a huge drop rate boost in Event Wishes!"
Beyond the Chrysalis is a 5-star sword with Base ATK 674 and CRIT DMG 44.10%, whose passive "Dance of Wings Unbound" chains +56% CRIT DMG, then +36% Stellar Swirl Reaction DMG, then up to 5 Elemental Energy every 4s — resetting when the wielder leaves the field. Hymn of the Maelstrom is a 5-star catalyst with Base ATK 542 and 66.20% HP.
A Stellar Swirl bonus on an on-field-only sword describes what Vesna is. It is still not a signature-weapon statement: HoYoverse has not linked the weapon to her, and has not printed a weapon type for either character. Vesna holds a sword in every frame of her showcase — visual evidence, not a published line. One weapon is free regardless of who you pull: the event "Silverwing in Pursuit of the Moon" hands out the sword "Silver Light".
What has HoYoverse still not published?
The exact list every ranking page fills in from beta data:
- Rarity. Neither has a printed 5-star line. "Huge drop rate boost" has only ever described a featured 5-star — but that is inference.
- Weapon type. Not stated in text for either.
- Every character number. No multipliers, durations, cooldowns, energy costs or base stats. The new weapons have published stats; the characters do not.
- All constellations. Vesna's is named Amentum Vernum; the six effects are unpublished.
- Artifact sets and signature weapons. No official recommendation for either.
- Banner logistics. Phase dates, boosted 4-stars and the Phase 2 line-up remain unannounced.
So a guide calling Vodyanitsa a C-tier luxury pull, or putting a damage percentage on Vesna, is reading a beta client. It may turn out right. It is not a source, and kits change between beta and release often enough to be a poor basis for spending a guarantee.
So who should you pull, Vesna or Vodyanitsa?
Pull Vesna if you want a new carry. Her element line reads "Stellar Linchpin: Anemo", and on the wiki-sourced reading above that makes her the Stellar Swirl enabler, so any Cryo teammate should give you a functioning Stellar Swirl team. That includes the Traveler (Cryo), once you have resonated with Cryo in Snezhnaya. She also brings the exploration upgrade. Kit detail in our Vesna build guide.
Pull Vodyanitsa if the team already exists. With an Anemo carry and a Cryo teammate in place she does more jobs at once than any single support you are running: resistance shred, healing, a party-wide damage increase, interruption resistance and the Wandering Vortex upgrade — remembering that the healing follows your active character. Kit detail in our Vodyanitsa build guide.
Pull neither if your pity is low. Claim the two free 5-stars, hold the 20 wishes, and let the wish notice publish the Phase 2 line-up first. The selectors are open until 3 November.
Pull both only with a banked guarantee and a real Primogem stack. A shared counter makes a double pull two full runs, not one and a half.
One rule covers every case: wait for the Event Wish notice before spending. It is the document that publishes the phase dates, the boosted 4-stars and the official rates, and today it does not exist. While you wait, grab whatever is live on our September 2026 Genshin codes page — free Primogems are free wishes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Vesna and Vodyanitsa share pity? Almost certainly, though it is not confirmed for 7.1. HoYoverse's notice text on every parallel Character Event Wish so far — including both banners live right now — states that the wish guarantee count for "Character Event Wish" and "Character Event Wish-2" is shared and accumulates between both. The 7.1 notice has not published, so this is precedent, not a published fact. Plan on one guarantee count, not two.
Does Vesna need Vodyanitsa? No. Vodyanitsa is Hydro, and Stellar Swirl is an Anemo-and-Cryo reaction, so she is not part of the requirement at all. Vesna's identity card prints her as "Stellar Linchpin: Anemo" and her own showcase advertises "Stellar Swirl Reactions", so on the published material she brings the Anemo side and needs a teammate who applies Cryo — that reading is our inference, since HoYoverse only says the reaction fires "under certain conditions" and has never published what they are. Vodyanitsa enhances the reaction and shreds Anemo RES on top, which makes her a strong partner rather than a prerequisite.
Is Vodyanitsa's healing party-wide? No. Her showcase panel tags the DMG increase as Party-Wide, the RES reduction as applying to the Enemy, and both the continuous healing and the increased interruption resistance as applying to the Active Character. It is active-character sustain, not team-wide healing.
How many free wishes does Version 7.1 give? Announcement 21923 lists 1,600 Primogems by mail (10 wishes) and 10 Intertwined Fate from check-in — 20 wishes in total, by our count, plus two free 5-star character selectors covering 14 names between them.
What happens between the old banners and the new ones? The live 7.0 Event Wish notice prints its duration ending 2026/09/22 14:59; the three version-level 7.0 notices expire at 2026/09/23 06:00. But 06:00 is when the old version stops, not when the new banners start, and no 7.1 maintenance preview has published — so the gap with no character banners at all is at least 15 hours, and only HoYoverse knows the real figure. If you want anything from the live 7.0 banners, spend before the 22nd cutoff — otherwise hold, because a 5-star pulled there resets the same guarantee count you would be carrying into 7.1.
When the 7.1 Event Wish notice publishes the phase dates, boosted 4-stars and official rates, this page gets updated against it. Until then, the rest of our coverage sits in the Genshin Impact guides hub.
