Table of Contents
Rarity: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Element: Glacio
Weapon: Rectifier
Early Overview
Releasing in the first half of the version 1.2, Zhezhi is a 5★ rectifier user of the Glacio element and the newest addition to the game’s character roster. She fills the role of a team’s sub-DPS, focused around the inky cranes that come from her Forte and Resonance Liberation’s Coordinated Attacks. Being an entirely new arrival to the game’s story, nothing is really known about Zhezhi lore- or story-wise.
While Kuro seemingly tried to obscure Zhezhi’s mechanics behind several layers of confusing skill descriptions like with previous releases, they turn out to be nothing we haven’t seen before with the likes of Yinlin and Mortefi. So instead, let’s briefly talk about her interesting quirks. For starters, the Coordinated Attacks from her Resonance Liberation do not need timing as they are queued up and launched at a flat rate. They also count as Basic Attack DMG, unlike the ones from Yinlin (Skill) or Mortefi (Liberation).
Of particular note is also her second Inherent Skill, which grants Resonance Energy on Outro to the next character swapped in. For all intents and purposes, it could be classified as Zhezhi’s second Outro skill as it does exactly what Yangyang tries to accomplish with her own, but the energy is instead given to the character upfront instead of over time. At least it doesn’t copy her entire kit…
Outside of her visual and sound effects, there isn’t much that is actually unique to Zhezhi. She mostly serves as a different flavour of off-field sub-DPS that finally gives Resonance Skill damage-oriented characters a dedicated support unit. While her combat performance is likely to be solid, her overall design might not be to everyone’s taste. Even so, Zhezhi looks to be a valuable and future-proof pick thanks to her supporting capabilities and lack of real competition in the niche she fills.
Skills
Thanks to Kuro Games’ impeccable EN translation, deciphering Zhezhi’s skills took a bit more effort and brain power than with their usual fondness of prose and obsession with uniquely naming every character mechanic. Never change, Kuro... That said, final names are potentially subject to last minute alteration.
Basic Attacks
While on the ground, Zhezhi can cast three attacks in quick succession, dealing Glacio damage. This chain gets shortened to just two attacks while in the air, but she is allowed to repeat it upon casting her skill mid-air through her Forte.
Her heavy attack consumes stamina to deliver a charged attack, dealing Glacio damage. It also indirectly interacts with Zhezhi’s Forte Circuit, as described later.
Aside from that, Zhezhi has access to a Dodge Counter like any other character.
Resonance Skill
Zhezhi uses her ink to strike a target, dealing Glacio damage.
If she has at least 60 points of “Afflatus”, represented by two filled sections of her Forte bar, the skill also summons a Phatasmic Imprint on both sides of the target. Yes, “Phatasmic”, not “Phantasmic”. Keep in mind only one Imprint can exist on each side of an enemy and it will last for 15 seconds if left unused.
The spawning location of the Imprints depends on whether you press or hold the skill button. Pressing it will spawn them on the ground, while holding it will spawn them mid-air. There is no difference in damage dealt or energy regenerated between either location.
Recasting the skill as part of Zhezhi’s Forte Circuit while in proximity of a Phatasmic Imprint will cause Zhezhi to blink towards it, deal Basic Attack damage, and refresh both her mid-air dodge counter and attack chain.
Forte Circuit
Zhezhi can hold up to 90 stacks of Afflatus, which can be gained by using her Intro Skill or hitting enemies with Basic Attacks. Neither the skill description nor any pre-release source states how much each of the moves restores because that’s apparently not very important or something, but every 30 Afflatus corresponds to one section of her Forte bar.
Afflatus can be used to either:
- Summon Phatasmic Imprints on the left and right side of an enemy via Zhezhi’s Resonance Skill. As previously stated, this consumes 60 Afflatus.
- Summon Phatasmic Imprint behind the enemy, which exists independently of the ones summoned by her Resonance Skill. This can be done by heavy attacking after dodging, using Stroke of Genius/Maestro, using Basic Attack 3, or while in mid-air, or normal attacking right after using her Resonance Skill. This consumes 30 Afflatus.
While in the vicinity of a Phatasmic Imprint, Zhezhi can recast her skill without cooldown as Stroke of Genius. This will cause her to blink to the target Imprint and deal Glacio damage, removing the Imprint. After performing two recasts within 8 seconds, the third will cast Stroke of Maestro instead, which on top of previously described effects, will also multiplicatively increase her Basic Attack’s base damage multiplier by 18% for 27 seconds.
If either Stroke of Genius or Stroke of Maestro are cast in mid-air, they will additionally reset Zhezhi’s mid-air dodge counter and attack chain.
Resonance Liberation
Upon casting, Zhezhi will fill the world around her with colour and summon a crane-shaped Inklit Spirit to assist her in battle. For the next 30 seconds, whenever an active character deals damage, the Inklit Spirit will queue up three attacks and proceed to attack the current target at a rate of once every second. This continues until the duration expires or the Spirit attacks 21 times. The damage dealt by the Inklit Spirit is considered to be Basic Attack DMG, and as such will not benefit from Resonance Liberation damage bonuses.
Intro and Outro
Zhezhi’s Intro skill summons two Inklit Spirits who will both strike the target enemy before causing a small explosion and flying away. This move deals a total of three instances of damage.
On her Outro, the next character that enters the field will receive 20% Glacio DMG Amplify and 25% Resonance Skill DMG Deepen effects, both lasting 14 seconds and stacking additively if applicable.
Inherent Skills
Zhezhi’s first Inherent Skill, Dash the Brush, grants Zhezhi 6% ATK for 22 seconds every time she recasts either Stroke of Genius or Stroke of Maestro. The effect can stack up to three times and the duration will refresh every time she gains a stack.
Her second skill, Ornament, immediately grants the next character 15 Resonance Energy whenever Zhezhi uses her Outro skill. Compared to Yangyang’s Outro, it trades five energy to have the entire amount granted instantly.
Resonance Chain
| Sequence 1 | Casting Resonance Skill: Stroke of Maestro restores 15 Resonance Energy to Zhezhi and grants her an additive 10% Crit Rate for 25 seconds. |
| Sequence 2 | The maximum amount of Inklit Spirits summoned by Zhezhi’s Resonance Liberation is increased by 6 (for a total of 27). |
| Sequence 3 | Casting Resonance Skill increases Zhezhi’s attack by an additive 15% for 27 seconds. This effect can stack up to three times and its duration is refreshed every time she gains a stack. |
| Sequence 4 | Casting Zhezhi’s Resonance Liberation increases the whole team’s ATK by an additive 20% for 30 seconds. |
| Sequence 5 | Every third Inkling Spirit summoned by Zhezhi’s Resonance Liberation spawns an additional Inkling Spirit, with its base damage multiplier multiplicatively increased by 40%. Said extra spirit does not count towards the Liberation’s spawn limit and does not count as a hit for the purposes of the summoning condition. |
| Sequence 6 | Upon casting either Resonance Skill: Stroke of Genius or Resonance Skill: Stroke of Maestro and blinking to a Phatasmic Imprint, Zhezhi will summon an additional Inklit Spirit with its base damage multiplier being multiplicatively increased by 20%. |
Possible synergies
 | Verina | |
| Zhezhi is a sub-DPS and likes to deal damage - preferably a lot of it. Verina provides an ATK buff and All DMG Amplify to the whole team, letting everyone deal more damage. Poor girl’s going to work overtime once again... | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • 15% Team-wide All DMG Deepen • 20% Team-wide ATK buff • Rejuvenating Glow and Bell-Borne Geochelone | ||
 | Baizhi | |
| Being essentially Verina on half the budget, Baizhi provides the same buffs as the resident botanist albeit at lesser strength, with less duration, and to one character only. | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • 15% All DMG Amplify • 15% ATK buff • 12% Glacio DMG Bonus (Resonance 6) • Rejuvenating Glow and Bell-Born Geochelone | ||
 | Jinhsi | |
| Zhezhi covers Jinhsi’s kit almost perfectly, with her Resonance Liberation letting Jinhsi stack Incandescence faster and her Outro further boosting Jinhsi’s already impressive damage output. While the Resonance Energy bonus is nice to have, it unfortunately is still too small to allow the Jinzhou Magistrate to cast her own Liberation every time she enters the field. | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • N/A | ||
 | Changli | |
| Similar to Jinhsi, Changli is likewise able to almost fully utilise Zhezhi’s kit for the exact same reasons. The only major difference is that the extra 15 Resonance Energy Zhezhi provides on her Outro is enough to potentially allow Changli to cast her Resonance Liberation twice during a single skill rotation. | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • N/A | ||
 | Lingyang | |
| A surprising entry on the list, mostly because everyone would rather forget he exists. Lingyang turns out to be able to utilise Zhezhi’s Outro, Resonance Liberation and battery effect from her Inherent Skill surprisingly effectively to boost his skill set. She most likely won’t make him broken or even good, but at the very least Zhezhi should give Lingyang enough of a lifeline for him to matter beyond spooking your beginner banner. | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • N/A | ||
 | Chixia | |
| With Chixia’s Forte Circuit being all about Resonance Skill damage, she makes great use of Zhezhi’s Outro, with the extra energy granted by her Inherent Skill allowing her to cast Resonance Liberation more consistently. | ||
| Buffs | ||
| • 25% Team-wide Basic Attack DMG (Resonance 6) | ||
Accompanying 4★ Rate-ups
The accompanying 4★ units in Zhezhi’s banner are Chixia, Baizhi and Sanhua. While on the surface not the worst lineup that could appear, it’s composed entirely of characters that are given to the player for free early on in their adventures. So since everyone is guaranteed to have them one way or another, the focus should instead be redirected towards their Resonance Chain sequences.
Out of the three, the biggest winner here is Chixia. Her Resonance Chain gives her a bunch of quality of life she desperately needs in the form of extra Resonance Energy generation, extra Forte charges and guaranteed critical hits on her Resonance Skill’s followup attack which serves as her primary damage source. But while the extra damage gain is fairly good for her rarity, it’s also mostly backloaded and will require some luck to obtain. To make things better for Chixia though, she also directly synergises with Zhezhi as most of Chixia’s damage counts as Resonance Skill damage and therefore gets boosted by Zhezhi’s Outro.
Not that far behind is Sanhua, for whom damage is the name of the game. She gains a ton of extra damage bonuses for her rotation, as well as better supporting capabilities with the extra ATK bonus she gives upon executing her Forte. As a sub-DPS however, she still needs someone to support to fully utilise her value.
That leaves Baizhi as the loser of the quality competition. Baizhi’s Resonance Chain sequences fumble in practicality as their effects focus almost exclusively on buffing her individual performance as a healer, and the ones that don’t instead either unsuccessfully buff her low damage output or provide a miniscule Glacio damage increase that might as well not be there - looking at you, 6th Resonance node.
As for the accompanying 4★ weapons, the banner includes Dauntless Evernight, Jinzhou Keeper and Hollow Mirage. Like in the case of characters, not the worst lineup all things considered.
Jinzhou Keeper takes the cake as the highlight of the three, being a stellar offensive option in the absence of more premium rectifiers. A slightly less amazing but nevertheless solid pickup are the Hollow Mirage gauntlets. Both of these weapons provide a sizable ATK% bonus which while not the best, will work exactly as advertised.
And then there’s Dauntless Evernight. To say this broadblade is anything but disappointing in the current version of the game is an understatement. The only time it comes remotely close to ever being good is when using Taoqi as the party's main DPS, which outside of Illusive Realm and “for fun” lineups should happen exactly never.
Should you pull?
First and foremost: if Zhezhi 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 like Zhezhi’s design and her promotional material left you with a positive impression
- You wish your Glacio and skill damage-oriented characters had a dedicated supporting unit
- You need a character with Coordinated Attacks gimmick and you haven’t built either Yinlin or Yuanwu
- You’re an artist and want to project that into the game
No?
- “Fuck it, we ball”
- You are Taoqi God and have found a way to make her broken in a skill damage-oriented team
- You (somehow) do not have or haven’t built any character able to utilise Zhezhi’s Outro or Resonance Liberation
- You hate painters
Regardless of your decision, always remember to spend responsibly and to never use “building pity” as an excuse for gambling.
