Fontaine has been one ofGenshin Impact’sbest regionsin terms of meta characters, being the home to top-tier releases belonging to every single role. While most immediately think of Neuvillette’s Hydro laser and Furina’s buffs when they think of the place, Arlecchino’s splendid Pyro DPS is another worth considering, with versatility unseen in other characters.
She has her strengths, and while there aren’t many weaknesses in her kit, there’s a lot to know about her before you decide whether you want to pull for Arlecchino. From her Bond of Life mechanics to everything that makes her unique, here are some things to know before you get Arlecchino!
7Arlecchino Is A Self-Sustained Pyro DPS
She Can Deal Tons Of Damage
From Mavuika to Hu Tao, and even four-star options such as Gaming, Genshin Impact has no shortage of good Pyro hypercarries. However, one issue you may face when pulling for one is team building. Hu Tao needs units like Yelan, Xingqiu, and to a lesser extent, Furina, to function due to her reliance on Hydro application. Mavuika is similar, where she needs Citlali and Xilonen to perform well because theyprovide the most Fighting Spirit.
Arlecchino differs in this aspect, being a character with a fully internalized kit that isn’t dependent on anything else. She doesn’t need reactions to do well, nor does she need healing. She doesn’t even need much shielding due to her passive already giving her tons of damage reduction. Arlecchino is more like Eula in the sense that even without having specific things, she can output absurd levels of DPS.
6Arlecchino Needs Bond Of Life
She Gains Bonus Damage And Pyro Infusion With It
To play Arlecchino well, you need a decent understanding ofhow Bond of Life works in Genshin. Put simply, Bond of Life is a debuff that blocks healing until it gets cleared. For Arlecchino especially, it works more as a resource than a disadvantage, increasing her DMG based on how much of it you have.
The way Arlecchino gains BoL is by first using her Elemental Skill to mark enemies. Then, when she uses her Charged Attack, she absorbs these marks to gain Bond of Life. This also means that external sources that give Bond of Life, such as certain weapons or characters and artifact sets, benefit her a lot.
5Arlecchino Cannot Be Healed
Her Passive Stops Incoming Healing From Teammates
Arlecchino’s first passive gives her a passive 40 percent Pyro DMG Bonus whenever she’s in combat. In exchange for this bonus, she loses the ability to be healed by teammates. This can make her squishier than other characters, especially if you’re not comfortable using immune frames to negate enemy damage.
Arlecchino uses up 7.5 percent of her BoL each time she uses an attack and buffs the damage of said attack based on how much total Bond of Life you have. If other characters could heal her, she’d use all BoL up instantly, messing up her DPS.
However, this isn’t entirely a downside. First, Arlecchino’s ability to weaken incoming damage by 20 percent essentially gives her a shield worth 20 percent of her HP, letting her still tank a few hits head-on. Apart from that, this passive helps Arlecchino continue to hoard Bond of Life, a resource she desperately needs to use for her enhanced attacks.
4Arlecchino Can Deal Damage Faster Than Other Carries
Her Damage Is Frontloaded
DPS isn’t everything when it comes to how much damage a character can deal. Even if two characters have the same DPS, their damage distribution can differ greatly. For example, if you deal 100k damage on a ten-second cooldown, your DPS would be 10k. If you instead deal 20k damage every two seconds, it’d still be 10k DPS. However, if you’re fighting a boss worth 100k HP, the first case would finish the fight in two seconds at most, whereas the second one would take ten.
With all that in mind, Arlecchino’s passive gives her BoL that she consumes to deal more damage. Since this damage increase scales off of how much of the Bond of Life she has at the time of dealing damage, this makes her earlier attacks do a lot more damage than later ones, making her damage more frontloaded and better suited for Burst damage.
3Arlecchino Doesn’t Need Much Energy Recharge
Her Damage Is Tied To Normal Attacks
Alrecchino is a character similar to Hu Tao in that most of her damage is locked to her Normal and Charged Attacks. This means that, in most cases, her Elemental Burst is more of an addition to her kit than something integral to it.
As for what the Burst does, it’s a decentdamage nukethat heals Arlecchino. The damage itself isn’t bad, and the healing can help you tank more hits. Still, from a purely DPS standpoint, Arlecchino can deal more damage if she just sticks to using her Normal Attacks instead of choosing to Burst, making it useless in certain situations, and a detriment in others.
2Arlecchino Can Function In Almost Any Team
She Doesn’t Depend On Specific Teammates
Genshin Impact units are made with certain team archetypes in mind. In anything other than Vaporize, Hu Tao can’t live up to her potential. There are always exceptions, such asGanyu’s best teambeing a Melt one, but this stands true for the majority of carries released in Genshin Impact.
Fortunately, Arlecchino breaks this trend by being completely self-sustained. She can perform well in Melt teams, Vaporize setups, and evenOverload compositions. Even if you don’t have a proper team, just slapping her with any off-field DPS, even the likes of Albedo, makes for a team capable of beating the hardest content in the game.
1Arlecchino Takes Lesser Damage Than Other Characters
Her Passive Gives Her 20 Percent Damage Reduction
If you’re a tank or crusader main in other games and want the same sense of unbending spirit as you walk down hordes of enemies without dying but also don’t want to fill your part slots up with healers or shielders, Arlecchino might be the character for you.
The theme of her being called the Knave aside, her passive talent allows Arlecchino to gain 20 percent DMG Reduction whenever she’s in combat. This can help her survive attacks that can one-shot other carries, letting her live up to her title of one of the Fatui Harbingers.
