Table of Contents
Rarity: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Element: Glacio
Weapon: Gauntlets
Early Overview
Releasing alongside Jiyan’s rerun as part of the second half of version 1.3, Youhu is a 4★ gauntlet user of the Glacio element. Like The Shorekeeper, she is a completely new arrival and virtually nothing is known about her lore- or story-wise.
To address the elephant in the room, Youhu is more of a “for fun” character given her kit’s inconsistent mechanics. Her skill set features a lot of (semi-)random effects that make it difficult to predict what her Resonance Skill and Forte will do exactly. Fortunately however, all the extra effects are at the very least beneficial, be it to her or to her whole team.
That said, Youhu’s gimmick is gambling. Seriously. About 2/3rds of her kit causes or directly interacts with her Lucky Draw mechanic, which has a direct impact on (semi-)randomly enhancing her skills. While it’s technically possible to almost always get the result you want, it requires either a high degree of sleight of hand, or nailing the timing of her Lucky Draw. You can also of course just get lucky™, as that will solve all your gacha issues too.
On a more serious note, thanks to how the guaranteed portion of her kit is designed, Youhu can find a place in any of the three main team roles. Her relatively high damage multipliers (for a 4★) make her a decent fit for the role of the main damage dealer, and her high Concerto Energy generation lets her pull sub-DPS duty - albeit with a mostly wasted Outro buff. Finally, the healing she provides is surprisingly plentiful for her rarity, letting her fill the role of a budget support surprisingly well.
I believe it’s safe to say Youhu doesn’t come anywhere close to being an outstanding unit. For a 4★ character, she is remarkably competent in what she does, but her overall performance, held back by the unreliability of her skill effects, doesn’t allow her to go beyond that mark. Even so, she looks to be a fun character to run in the general game content with a lot of potential for some controlled chaos, especially in the Illusive Realm environment.
Skills
After a short break with Xiangli Yao and The Shorekeeper, Kuro Games’ confusing wording saga continues with Youhu’s skill set descriptions.
Basic Attacks
Youhu can perform four consecutive attacks in quick succession, dealing Glacio damage and generating points of Frost, the amount of which is displayed in her Forte bar.
Once her Frost gauge is full, Youhu is able to cast her heavy attack Frostfall. For the price of some stamina and one full Frost gauge, Youhu will roll forward and deliver six hits to the target enemy, dealing Glacio damage and performing Lucky Draw once. If Youhu’s Frost gauge is not full, her heavy attack input will perform a Lucky Draw and generate Frost at an accelerated rate. More on her gacha mechanics in the Resonance Skill section.
Aside from that, Youhu has access to the plunge attack and Dodge Counter moves like any other character, with the added caveat of the Dodge Counter also allowing her to perform a Lucky Draw if she has no Antiques. See below for more on those.
Resonance Skill
Youhu bonks the target enemy with her scroll, dealing Glacio damage and healing the party for a portion of her ATK stat, then performs a Lucky Draw.
Youhu’s Lucky Draw is essentially playing a gacha game inside a gacha game. Lovely, isn’t it? Whenever she performs a draw, she obtains a random Antique, represented by the icons above her Forte bar. They are part of Youhu’s Forte Circuit however - more on them later.
Using her basic attack after gaining an Antique will appraise it, dealing damage to the enemy and trigger one of the following effects (listed in the above order):
- Ruyi: Increases the attack’s base damage multiplier.
- Ding: Increases the damage done to the enemy stance, making them easier to stagger.
- Chime: Increases the attack’s Vibration Strength damage.
- Mask: Pulls in nearby enemies.
Forte Circuit
Youhu can hold up to four Auspices, gaining one that corresponds to each Antique she appraises. Again, they’re represented by the icons shown in the previous section. After gaining four of them, using Youhu’s heavy attack will have her cast Poetic Essence, taking priority over Frostfall if applicable.
Poetic Essence has Youhu turn into a comical cloud of dust as she deals AoE Resonance Skill damage and heals her party members. The attack is further enhanced by the combination of Auspice icons present:
- Free Verse (Four different): Increases the attack’s Vibration Strength damage.
- Antithesis (One pair): Increases Poetic Essence’s damage bonus by 70%.
- Double Pun (Two pairs): Restores additional health to party members.
- Triplet (Three of a kind): Increases Poetic Essence’s damage bonus by 175%.
- Perfect Rhyme (Four of a kind): Activate effects of Free Verse, Double Pun and Triplet simultaneously.
Yes - Youhu’s Forte is literally playing poker with her Antiques.
Resonance Liberation
Youhu throws her scroll at the target enemy, dealing Glacio damage to all enemies within the blast radius.
During the explosion animation, a prompt will appear on the screen for roughly four seconds. Pressing one of the buttons shown will grant Youhu the associated Antique after the animation finishes. Failing to press either of them in time will have the game assign Youhu with a random one instead.
Antiques gained this way follow the normal behaviour described in prior sections.
Intro and Outro
Youhu’s Intro has her toss her scroll at an enemy, dealing two instances of Glacio damage and performing a Lucky Draw once.
On Outro, the next character swapped in has their Coordinated Attack damage Amplified by 100% for 28 seconds.
Inherent Skills
Youhu’s first Inherent Skill, Treasured Piece, has Youhu restore the party’s HP whenever she casts her Resonance Liberation. The healing provided is equal to 30% of the healing coming from her Resonance Skill.
Her second skill, Rare Find, grants Youhu 15% Glacio DMG Bonus whenever she casts her Intro Skill. The buff lasts 14 seconds and does not stack with itself if you manage to cast her Intro multiple times in a row.
Resonance Chain
| Sequence 1 | Youhu has a 10% chance to gain immunity to damage and interruption after casting Lucky Draw. This effect lasts for 5s or until she is switched out. |
| Sequence 2 | Antithesis, Triplet and Perfect Rhyme additionally increase the DMG of Poetic Essence once. |
| Sequence 3 | Youhu gains a passive 20% ATK Bonus. |
| Sequence 4 | Every time Youhu casts her Resonance Skill, she has a 20% chance for it not to enter cooldown. |
| Sequence 5 | After casting her Intro Skill, Youhu gains a 15% Crit Rate bonus for 14 seconds. |
| Sequence 6 | After casting her Resonance Skill, Youhu gains a 15% Crit DMG bonus for 7 seconds, stacking up to four times. The duration of the buff is refreshed each time she gains a stack. |
Possible synergies
 | Zhezhi | |
| With the Coordinated Attacks mechanic being half of Zhezhi’s whole schtick, it should come as no surprise she is the prime target for being supported by Youhu. The duration of Outro buffs lining up perfectly between the two is just a cherry on top. | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • 20% Glacio DMG Amplify • 25% Resonance Skill DMG Amplify • 15 Resonance Energy regenerated instantly • Moonlit Clouds and Impermanence Heron | ||
 | Yinlin | |
| Although Yinlin would much rather prefer to have her Resonance Skill DMG be Amplified instead, she can nevertheless make a surprisingly decent use of Youhu’s Outro thanks to her Chameleon Cipher. | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • 25% Resonance Liberation DMG Amplify | ||
 | Mortefi | |
| Similar to Zhezhi, half of Mortefi’s schtick is the Coordinated Attack mechanic tied to his Resonance Liberation and as such can take a great advantage of Youhu’s Outro. But unlike other characters listed, he is more limited in the selection of characters he can effectively support. | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • 38% Heavy ATK DMG Amplify • 20% Teamwide ATK Buff (Resonance 6) • Moonlit Clouds and Impermanence Heron | ||
 | Yuanwu | |
| Really only seen in budget Jinhsi setups, Yuanwu can make a limited use of Youhu’s Outro due to his extremely mediocre Coordinated Attack damage and the longest attack interval out of all the characters featuring this mechanic. | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • Shields (Resonance 4) • Moonlit Clouds and Impermanence Heron OR Rejuvenating Glow with Originite: Type IV | ||
Accompanying Rate-ups
Youhu’s accompanying units are Jiyan, Sanhua and Mortefi, making for a lineup that’s strong (if not a tad outdated) as far as rerun banners go.
Jiyan needs no introduction - he’s been around since version 1.0, and both the main story and his companion quest do enough justice for him to not need a separate rant. Performance-wise however, he’s not doing as well nowadays. With the Tower of Adversity shifting from multiple smaller enemies to fewer but chonkier elites, Jiyan finds it difficult to keep up with newer releases, in large part due to his AoE pull gimmick not working on elite enemies. Regardless, he is still very much usable thanks to his 5★ rarity stat line and sits far away from the label of useless.
Sanhua’s Resonance Chain sequences continue to be a valuable pickup, boosting the free Sanhua copy received from the login campaign with a bunch of extra damage and quality of life, as well as the extra ATK provided to the whole team for just executing her rotation properly.
With newer releases favouring Resonance Skill and Liberation damage in their kits, Mortefi has started to fall behind other sub-DPS units due to his schtick being dependent on primarily using basic and heavy attacks. Even so, he still manages to be very competent at supporting the likes of Jiyan and Encore, or any future characters reliant on left clicking.
Should you pull?
First and foremost: if Youhu is a character you will enjoy playing or is your waifu, then don't let this stop you from pulling her. At the end of the day, it’s your account. Note that we will be using information provided by the latest beta test and this information is subject to change.
Yes?
- You find Youhu’s kit gimmick fun
- You are in need of another support or sub-DPS
- You often use Resonators that feature Coordinated Attacks in their kits
- You like playing gacha in your gacha game
No?
- “Fuck it, we ball”
- You don’t plan on pulling for Jiyan
- You don’t want or need another support or sub-DPS
- You’re against gambling in your gacha games
Regardless of your decision, always remember to spend responsibly and to never use “building pity” as an excuse for gambling.
