How Shikanoin Heizou Breaks the Catalyst Curse (Genshin Impact Gameplay Design Analysis) 

And still inferior to Sucrose

It's my favorite weapon type as well. It's so easy to do reactions around and simple teams. My favorite being yanfei (main dps) with supports like xingqiu, fishcl and diona/Bennet. You have good taste 👌 😌

@@sasha8578 if you're a "real" catalyst main. You know full well that the fantasy of being a catalyst user isn't supposed to be melee. Heizu while a good character doesn't feel like a catalyst. He feels like another sword user. If this is other game he's a fighter not a mage.

The one I'm most exited about is dainslef's gameplay. He coats himself with that abyss magic to enhance his physical abilities, making him sprint like yelan, and he can choke his enemy from afar which is really cool

@@Vizible21 are you really trying to gatekeep catalyst mains?

@@Vizible21 bruh what makes a catalyst user a catalyst user is the fact that thier normal and charged attacks are always elemental damage it is not whatever your talking about also it is literally imposible to make a character that punches and kick without making them a catalyst user! Why? Cuz all the other weapons needs you to use that weapom to make the character be that weapon type.

Yup it totally makes sense. Afterall we all have been asking for a fist fighter and here he comes. And now after experiencing that how much of an awesome all-rounded character he is I am now more excited to see how future catalyst will turn out to be as I've also heard that Scaramouche is going to be a 5 star Anemo Catalyst user and if it's true then I hope that just like Heizou he's a fist fighter too.

Yeah. Like if you look at his character, he's a detective. And what do detective value? Smart deductions. So catalyst thematically match.

Honestly Though Heizou is a catalyst user (basically a mage because catalysts are basically spellbooks/objects with magic) i'm still weirded out to see him basically doing "punches and kicks powered up by elemental magic" So in the end,in my eyes,he breaks the general concept of Catalyst (Magic),but...why not lol,i don't really mind since i don't care about Heizou,gameplay wise. Still,i like him and i am happy he exists,even though i don't like Anemo that much. I do believe that some games/series/movies probably had their moments where a person mixed their physichal strenght with the power at magic within to create a powerful impact (Punch,kick,etc.), it's just not as common. And in the end,i am simply not a big fan of such concept/fighting style. Anyways now i wish they release a female catalyst fist fighter someday,maybe a Hydro one. And male "ranged" Catalyst,maybe cryo,so i can add at least one more male in my team besdies Venti. And no,i don't care about Meta nor about the fact he is a Catalyst DPS done right.

@@zekinha2971 a mage who cant adapt is a mage that is dead

Heizou's play style matched his personality so much i love him

DUDE im glad im not the only one who plays him with thoma and yelan, though ive never thought of pairing him up with my albedo before! i usually use my last slot for beidou to have an overvape thing going on, but now i want to try him with albedo

yeah Heizhou and Thoma = firebending I built Thoma just for this and now they are inseparable during my commissions

Putting Heizou on Kazuha's banenr was a really smart move since it guarantied almost everyone who is gonna pull for Kazuha gets him.

Finally mah boi Thoma has a proper team than Hu Tao. Thank god for Heizou

I might make a fully 5wirl team if I get kazuha. Because I have so far 4/5 members. And lumine is subbing for her brother. I have venti, Xiao and heizou. I'm legit missing kazuha.

This is so true.

Sorry for ruining your 69th like

Aye aye. Heizou's simplicity and fun gameplay makes him feel like a 5 star then a 4 star.

CATCH IT KUJOU SARA AND THOMA

specific - gorou underwhelming - thoma confusing - sara just exists - kuki 💀

They already reworked it once. The targeting system was worked on for Ayato's release. It included stuff like tightening the arrow accuracy zone on bow users.

Tmw running towards an enemy as Yoimiya, press attack, and she starts shooting backwards at something off screen lol

idk i always mained ranged characters and never meelee and never had any problems

Yeah catalyst for me I just don't like how repetitive it feels, 1 2 3 1 2 3 on catalyst and it's so slow, make me feel locked in the animation. Heizhou is much better, hopefully they figure out a ranged version. Bow is ok IMO

45 second cooldown go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

@@itsnothiptotimetravel3757 learning rotations go brrrrrrrr

@@mc9474 reject rotations embrace unga bunga

@@itsnothiptotimetravel3757 i feel like you've never played him before

@@heather-sj2pi hes been sitting in my characters since the first time he came out LOL

I think the closest to this is that one part in Kuki's NA sequence where she throws a bunch of blades at the enemy as she does a backflip, with an honorable mention being Albedo's who has that one NA where he summons his sword parallel to his arm with his signature flower symbol appearing. I do hope we get more on-field attackers with similar NAs to them but with more range because I'd love to see it, even better if they make that character as cohesive and fun as Heizou :D

An archer but instead of shooting arrows they throw the bow like a projectile

@@Pika-sp9cs Yelan does that if you are close enough on her second attack

Soooooo the new pink loli from sumeru

Theresa in Genshin impact when?

Ironically being the last one, at least for a while.

@@Toonrick12 going out with a bang

It feels so liberating to not be shackled to 4pc VV with an anemo char for a change. At first I tried to give him 4pc out of habit, but then realized, if I’m making him a DPS I can have _another_ anemo char on the team who will bear the burden of 4pc, so Heizou can rock a 2pc atk set instead. It adds SO much flexibility to building.

What weapon are you using on him?

I would like to share my Heizou performance too. Ive leveled him up to 90 with lvl10 E. With R2 Widsith his max stack E is giving me about 70k when he crits with the Widsith buff. And this is without Benny buff. He is genuinely a very good unit. Update - got his c3 so with Benny buff it goes upto 100k

@@Vardanix2468 sorry for the late reply but lost prayers since i needed more crit rate! honestly a good weapon

@@fakenamesam7453 yooo you crowned him already? i really hate finding onikabutos, plus i need some for itto too lol. fighting the ruin serpent is also annoying, it just doesn't stay down for long

@@dumbassidot the ruin serpent is definitely annoying. Surprisingly Heizou in a teaser team does decently well against it.

That would actually be so cool!!

I think you are talking about Iansan and from what I know she isn't Archon but yes she would be really cool as a melee catalyst user.

@@ADAM23795 I'm talking about Murata, Archon of Natlan. Natlan actually has a history of martial arts so Melee Catalyst would be so dope for her.

@@kurtkron396 I don't know anything lore wise but from the first look at Murata, she is female Diluc so I was expacting claymore from her. As for Iansan from older trailer she looks like more blood maniac Klee that fights with fists. But if Natlan is known for it's martial arts then we might get a lot of fist fighting characters.

GEEZ- i wish i had more than c0 heizou now...

Well, Zhongli is also the god of Martial Arts.

first, i thought Zhongli is a Catalyst the way he showcase his smol Planet like a catalyst user flex their weapon. but then i saw he have Polearm hiding behind his back destroying my assumption

Canonical speaking he used the memory of dust and the jade winged weapons. So…… he kinda is? 😂

Ganyu was a cryo catalyst originally actuallly. Which makes sense with her splash art and her splash charged shot probably being a charged attack like Ningguang/Yanfei's. I'd love to the alt universe with a melee catalyst Zhongli though.

I'd say lack of range is actually a problem with catalysts. One of the issues with Klee is her short range, and she also throws stuff at the ground. Yae's normals are pretty short range. Sucrose... also not exactly long range. Lisa, again, short ranged attacks. And so on. This, combined with their poor defensive aspects (low hp, easy to stagger), makes playing them rough. The only ones I'd say are proper ranged units are Kokomi, Barbara, Mona, Yanfei, and Ningguang. Three of those even have homing attacks. Sadly, two of them are healers, not characters you generally use to attack, and Mona's normals aren't great, plus she pays full catalyst-user price for her charged attacks (barring her constellation that lets her get a chance at some free ones). So that means for on-field ranged DPS, catalysts are pretty much reduced to Yanfei and Ningguang. We really need more, proper, ranged catalyst users in general, be they male or female.

Same, I was really looking forward to having a male long-range catalyst user 🥲🥲

I love heizous gameplay. Honestly his fully stacked skill does more dmg than my Xiaos skill. Xiaos skill does around 9k while heizou does 20k with a full stack and around 1k on his normal atks.

@@avidreader4140 what a surprise, a skill that requires setup > a skill that does damage up-front. Couldn't have seen that coming at all.

And don't forget Ning. She's also right up there with Yanfei in terms of being a properly designed ranged character. I'd actually consider her to be the best designed one, in that regard, personally.

@@Axterix13 I wouldn't put Ningguang on the same level as Yanfei. Ningguang feels very weird to play Ningguang has a similar "loop" as Yanfei (3 Normal Attacks then Charged Attack) but her lack of a proper Normal Attack combo makes her a lot more clunky

Fr

True, plus yanfeis attack patterns flow and feel good to play

What about Ningguang? She pretty much do the same damage as Yanfei without needing reactions

@@yukinamiuka i dunno i think Ningguang feels a lot less smooth to play optimally than Yanfei because of all the walk canceling and her less flowing animations. Might just be me but eh^^

@@yukinamiuka ningguang is also nice to play but yan fei is more comfortable. if you ove playing her than that's all i am working on building her this month.

That moment when getting a specific 4* is more difficult than a 5*. I experienced that with Gorou: I won my 50-50 on Itto's first banner but I couldn't get the doggo. It was only with the rerun that I was finally able to get him. I still miss Zhongli for a complete geo supremacy team but at least I can finally reveal the full potential of Itto and Albedo. 🪨

Girl u r not alone i literally got klee but not him and I even got kuki like bruhhh i want one heizou

He will be back!

@@Gonzora 3.0 leaks suggests that Zhongli will be accompanied by Ganyu, so if you're going for him, I highly advice going all out for his shields. I have Bennett, Itto, Zhongli and Gorou in a party together and the damage Itto dishes out is supplied by his supports and Zhongli is one of them. His debuffing when he casts his shield is unprecedented and supports Itto's damage immensely.

When aiming for 4 stars, do single pulls rather than multi pulls.

no, I don't recall seeing a single comment anywhere that said anything like this. From what I saw literally everyone loved his design and the idea behind his kit

@@IrrelevantPlease You weren’t around when he got drip marketed then.

@@Chopsparillo are you talking about the "fan" version? I wouldn't even count that.

@@IrrelevantPlease no not the fan version when heizou was drip marketed everybody called his designe ugly and calling him ugly xaio and stuff .redflaim actually made a video about his underrated designe because of all the hate

And both things can be true at once? He may have a good kit but his design is still rather boring to look at. Not to mention the standard for Inazuma 4*s is in the floor.

ur wish has been granted! although unfortunately wriothesley from fontaine is also a melee cryo catalyst

Baizhu fist fighting... 💀 mihoyo please, first there have been no electro dude for almost 2 years and now this??? I hope not, jfc.

I've also been a little worried about that, but it's still only the first one we've had so not much reason to worry about it yet

@@ch1llpe Baizhu and Scara punching and kicking would have me on the floor laughing.

I don’t think you have to worry too much, tho I understand your concern. Heizou is kinda supposed to be a walking detective Conan reference, so the punching & kicking is expected, since it’s a nod to Conan playing soccer.

Literally that was my first thought when he came out. He seems really cool, but i hope they don’t try to force every male catalysts to have a more physical style

XD

Same, i ask for tall male catalysts! 😂 someday.. someday

That's something MiHoYo should address sometime in the near future. For the other 6 regions, you can simply walk to them. The fact newcomers can and will be locked out on ascending and refining them until they have to speedrun the first two chapters of the Archon Quests feels bad. Have a lost Inazumian merchant in Liyue that sells you a handful of ascendation materials before you unlock Inazuma would be a good starting place.

@@Toonrick12 yes!!! And maybe make it more clear you can't get to Inazuma through the ocean. Like, put a barrier closer to Liyue. I'd spent two hours building ice bridges just to drown after getting struck by a lightning over and over again like an idiot. This and an NPC selling onikabutos would save me so much time and nerves.

They won't have innately lower costs because cost is a function of recharge time. If your recharge time is 20s, you will have a base cost of 80 energy. If it is 10, it'll cost 40. And 15 sits between those two at 60. The reason why you have those refund passives is because most characters get an energy related constellation. The reason why those refund ones exist is to increase the variety in terms of those things.

We dont know what it does yet for atleast a few weeks. Even then, it is going to take a lot of time to figure out how it will affect the meta.

yeah we dont know the multiplier but we are sur that this reaction anplifies electro and dendro dammage

What if you can switch between them using skill or burst

@@miketaya8128 The closest in terms of gameplay might be Seele Styagian Nymph in HI3. Honkai also have several cases where set weapons dosen't fit fighting style at all. Its a good thing, since new weapon types won't be needed. Adding new weapon types in Genshin might be a problem in gacha due to the added pool, plus the capacity is limited enough.

Daaaamn! I’m so happy to see people have fun with him!

@@JellyOnAPancakeAyyyy indeed! And since he's 4* every1 possibly can have him in the future :3

Which characters do you like most? I'd say of these 3 Jean is most likely to be useful for freeze in general, cause she heals and thus let's you comfortably bring another cryo dps benefiting from Blizzard Strayer or a Shenhe buffing your one Blizzard user. Sucrose will be good at C6 too, since she has some pretty good grouping, though not ideal like Venti's sustained and tight clumping that helps Ganyu and Ayaka so much. Vs. mobs you might still wanna bring C0 Sucrose, but ideally you'd use her on a team that benefits more from her EM and/or swirl chain-reactions. Just noticed you said cryo, not freeze, Sucrose can be good in melt, but she isn't usually a part of the most conventional melt-teams. If you've got a roster I can try to help

All of them have different roles but if you are talking about support then sucrose is the best option among the 3. She is really good in vape and taser teams and overall very close to kazuha. Jean is a good healer too

@@vaibhavsharma4111 i head that on c0 she's kinda useless... Wanted Kazuha? But lost on 50/50 :( Guess I need to wait for rerun. :(

@@Gnurklesquimp I play casually and Heizou seems like most fun. But Sucrose wpuld help with gathering enemies. .. Hmm..

@@malwinakob3460 Whoever told you that lied! She basically plays the same as c0 and c6 apart from comps like taser. Her main use is providing cc em bufs and ttds. She can do all of that at c0 fine

He is used for Electrocharge and reaction teams so giving EM to other off-field DPS for free while he is on the field is actually beneficial to his teams