In Phase 1 of Genshin Impact Version 5.3, you saw the addition of two new characters, Mavuika and Citlali. In Phase 2, you will see two banners for rerun, Arlecchino and Clorinde, both of which are excellent DPS units, and F2P restrictions have made many players look forward to their return.

More importantly, both characters will use the gacha system in the second phase to obtain their own weapons, namely the 5-star polearm Crimson Moon’s Semblance and the 5-star sword Absolution, so that their combat capabilities will rise to a higher level.

Both character banners will be rerunning from January 21st to February 11th, so this guide will break down the pros and cons of Arlecchino and Clorinde in Genshin Impact Version 5.3 so you can make your Phase 2 character choices.

About Arlecchino And Clorinde

Arlecchino is Fourth of Fatui Harbingers and entered the game in Version 4.6. This 5-star character excels at applying Bond of Life to herself and infusing Pyro into her Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks for sustained Elemental DMG. If you make an optimal build for her in Genshin Impact, she will easily become one of the most powerful Pyro-based DPS units.

As for Clorinde, she is a 5-star sword user who also uses Bond of Life. However, Clorinde may enter a special state during the rotation of skills that increases the power of her normal attacks and infuses them with Electro. Unlike Clorinde and Arlecchino, however, the amount of Bond of Life she has directly affects the type of attack she can unleash on enemies.

As a result, both characters will use Bond of Life, a mechanic that can make characters more vulnerable to damage, as health healing can only be provided from external sources after Bond of Life has been cleared. So before the challenge, you can use Genesis Crystals obtained in Genshin Impact Top Up to enhance the maximum health in your character build to ensure smooth gameplay.

Select Arlecchino

As mentioned above, Arlecchino is a 5-star Pyro on-field DPS. The character’s rotation involves using her Elemental Skill to apply Blood-Debt Directives to opponents, which will periodically cause Pyro damage to enemies, but most importantly, they can be absorbed. Arlecchino can absorb Blood-Debt Directives or Blood-Debt Due (which is a strengthened version of Directive) through her Charged Attack or Elemental Burst, so that she can build up her Bond of Life counter.

When Arlecchino’s Bond of Life equals or exceeds 30% of her maximum health, she enters the game’s Masque of the Red Death state. Once in this state, all of Arlecchino’s Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks are converted into attacks that deal additional Pyro damage.

Normal Attacks deal additional damage based on Arlecchino’s current attack damage and a percentage of her Bond of Life. In this case, each attack will consume a portion of her Bond of Life, and her Elemental Skill cooldown will be reduced. In addition, her Elemental Burst is literally a nuclear bomb, automatically absorbing and clearing all nearby Blood-Debt Directives to deal with a large amount of area Pyro damage. On top of that, this skill also heals Arlecchino’s health and resets her Elemental Skill cooldown.

So you can start with Blood-Debt Directives when playing Arlecchino, then use her Charged Attack to absorb all Directives and collect Bond of Life, so that you can deal a lot of Pyro damage to the enemy later. Then her Burst can be used as a nuclear bomb to clear all the adds on the battlefield or reduce the enemy’s health by a large amount, or you can use it as a means of damage to reset the cooldown of Elemental Skill, so that your entire character rotation can be reset again. In fact, these rotations are not difficult, but you just need to practice more.

But there are some downsides to this powerful damage ability - the amount of Bond of Life Arlecchino gains during a fight increases with the amount of Blood-Debt Directive. This makes the character less effective against single targets when using Skill and Charged Attack than against groups of enemies. Here, if you accidentally mix up your rotation, such as using Burst too early, you will be stuck with a very long skill cooldown and less Pyro DMG.

Also, since Arlecchino is mainly focused on Pyro DMG, you will have a high chance of setting the entire area on fire if you fight in a regular battle in a field, etc. This will also cause Arlecchino to receive environmental Pyro DMG or have fewer shields in this situation.

Overall, Arlecchino’s combat ability can only be very strong in a fight without Bond of Life, otherwise she can only maintain her health, which is the price of her amazing damage ability. What’s more, Arlecchino’s builds in the game are just as difficult as those of standard DPS units, so you may not maximize her potential because it takes a lot of effort.

Select Clorinde

With Clorinde, you can use her Elemental Skill to put her into Night Vigil state. In this state, her normal attacks become Swift Hunt attacks that deal with Electro DMG, but she cannot use Charged Attacks. If you cast an Elemental Skill again while this state is active, the attack becomes Impale the Night, a powerful lunge that deals with Electro DMG.

As mentioned above, Clorinde’s Bond of Life affects both Swift Hunt and Impale the Night attack types - if her Bond of Life is equal to or greater than 100% of her maximum health, Swift Hunt will perform pistolet shots during combat, which first pierce the enemy for a large amount of damage, and secondly reduce the enemy’s resistance to subsequent damage types, making them more vulnerable.

If her Bond of Life is less than 100%, her shots will also grant her Bond of Life and heal her based on the current value. When Bond of Life reaches 0%, Impale the Night will do a regular lunging attack. Clorinde’s Elemental Burst is also a nuke that first grants Bond of Life to the character, then attacks the enemy and deals AOE Electro DMG.

So Clorinde’s rotation is all about getting those skills into Night Vigil state as quickly as possible, and then collecting Bond of Life through healing and Swift Hunt to get it to 100% or higher. Before that expires, you can use Impale the Night to deal more damage and heal continuously. The problem you need to overcome here is that this state only lasts for 7.5 seconds, which makes the whole rotation a bit difficult to master.

In addition, when Clorinde’s Bond of Life reaches 100%, her passive Talent’s CRIT Rate bonus is also activated. Although it can be complicated to keep this value at 100%, as long as you master the rotation and other team members that help trigger Electro-related reactions, Clorinde will be an Electro DPS with above-average damage ability, even if her build is similar to most traditional DPS.

So in summary, there are only two main factors in choosing between these two characters in Genshin Impact 5.3 Phase 2 - the type of damage that can be dealt (Pyro DPS or an Electro DPS) and the comfort level when rotating. Normally, Clorinde will be more difficult to rotate than Arlecchino, but practice always makes perfect. Regardless, as long as you use an effective build, you will have one of the most powerful DPS characters in the game.

As you know, there are a lot of characters in Genshin Impact that can be your partners in battle, and in fact, this team is constantly expanding, as Genshin Impact regularly introduces new characters to ensure that the game can stay fresh.

As for what kind of characters are suitable to be your teammates, this requires you to decide according to your needs after fully understanding their specialties. Some characters are excellent DPS and can output a lot of damage to enemies, such as Neuvillette; others have excellent defensive abilities and can even heal, deal damage, and even enhance allies through their own defensive attributes.

So among all these powerful defensive characters, which ones can be compared with the best ATK or HP hoarding characters and provide you with enough help? Based on this, we will select 8 of them and introduce them to you according to their ranking.

8. Xinyan

Xinyan’s usage rate is not low among Genshin Impact players, but this does not mean that she is a good enough defensive character. Her shield will change according to the attack and defense situation, but the final damage output is all based on attack. Although Xinyan’s C6 increases the damage on defense, it is not enough to solve this problem.

There are also some factors that determine Xinyan’s bottom position in this DEF character ranking. For example, although she enhances the physical damage of allies, because she is a Pyro, Xinyan ultimately cannot provide the elements that teammates really need. So if your Genshin Impact Genesis Crystals are not enough, you might as well leave them for other DEF characters.

7. Noelle

First of all, it is worth mentioning that Noelle is a Genshin Impact character with a good background story. She has always wanted to join Knights of Favonius, but because she is too selfless and overqualified, people are worried that she will sacrifice herself out of kindness and reject her.

In terms of playability, it can be said that Noelle can be self-sufficient. On the one hand, her shield allows her to heal the entire team, and on the other hand, as a four-star carry, her DPS is also very strong, and even has auxiliary functions. In fact, if it isn’t because she needs a lot of energy to recharge in battle, she would have a chance to become one of the best four-star characters in Genshin Impact.

6. Itto

In a sense, you can think of Itto as a 5-star upgrade of Noelle. He focuses on damage and offense by giving up the team-wide defense function, and can have a good synergy with the existing Geo support, allowing you to deal a lot of damage to the enemy at a lower level.

However, because of the elemental function of Geo, Itto is currently not comparable to top characters such as Hu Tao or Arlecchino, and if you want to get him to a level close to other excellent DPS characters, you need to get Itto’s signature weapon and C6 Gorou, which are difficult to access. So the above reasons lead to Itto’s ceiling being relatively low.

5. Albedo

In fact, not long ago, Albedo’s position in the game was awkward. Because on the one hand, he has strong off-field damage, but on the other hand, because of the lack of defense buffs in Genshin Impact, you can’t improve his defense.

Fortunately, Genshin Impact later added some exclusive items to the game to improve this situation, including Albedo’s signature sword and Cinnabar Spindle to solve his defense needs, while even enhancing his elemental skill damage. In addition, Husk of Opulent Dreams artifact set can also enhance his defense.

4. Kachina

Kachina is not a good enough DEF character. It can even be said that as the first four-star character you get for free after unlocking Natlan, she is the most average in combat performance among all Natlan characters. Because as a four-star support based on defense, Kachina has no practical skills.

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However, despite this, why is she not ranked low? Because her origin from Natlan allows her to use Scroll of the Hero of Cinder City, one of the best artifact sets in Genshin Impact at present. In this way, you can provide amazing DMG bonuses to the carry on the field through Kachina.

3. Gorou

If you plan to form a strong team that includes DEF characters, then Gorou can be said to be an indispensable member. Because his elemental skills provide a fixed DEF bonus on the field, and do not require any good artifacts to work.

In fact, Gorou’s independence from artifacts and attributes also means that compared to characters that require specific attributes, Gorou can hold weapons and artifact sets that these characters cannot hold, allowing Gorou to fully demonstrate the power of many four-star artifacts, such as Favonius Bow and The Exile.

2. Chiori

Chiori is a bit like an upgraded version of Albedo. Both of them cause continuous off-field Geo damage by casting an elemental skill, but Chiori will eventually cause more actual damage to the enemy than Albedo. However, this extraordinary performance is conditional. You need to provide Chiori with another Geo structure, so it is best to equip Zhongli, Itto, Kachina, or even Albedo in your team.

1. Xilonen

For a long time, some Genshin Impact characters have been in a monopoly on providing buffs, such as Bennett providing attack buffs, Furina providing conditional buffs, and Kazuha providing elemental damage, which made it impossible for other characters to replace them for a long time, until Xilonen appeared and challenged Kazuha’s position first.

Xilonen’s disadvantage is that her DEF scaling is only used for damage, which is not her strong point. But on the other hand, even if there is no defense at all, Xilonen’s unchanged buff makes her like she has 3,000 defense, which is why she ranked first in the end.

After our introduction, have you decided who to choose as your DEF teammate on the future journey of Genshin Impact? Anyway, I hope you can have fun!