Zhezhi

Quick Verdict

Zhezhi is a specialist, and her specialty is narrow in a very specific way: her Outro is gated twice, once by element and once by damage type. A partner has to be Glacio and deal Resonance Skill damage to collect all of it. In the tested data exactly one carry meets both conditions, and that carry is Carlotta. Her second home, Jinhsi, collects half the Outro and pays her back through a different mechanic entirely.

The pulling advice follows from that: she is not worth pulling for power right now. Both carries she was built for are older, their tested teams sit in the lower half of the validated projection, and even inside Carlotta's teams there is a tested partner for the same slot who scores higher. Everything below this paragraph is for owners and returning players who want to build and play her properly, because the kit itself is excellent and well worth learning.

At S0 she is complete. Afflatus, all three Imprints, both Skill upgrades, the 18% Basic Attack bonus, and the full 21-spirit Liberation all work with no sequences at all. S1 is the one cheap node worth taking, and S4 is the only sequence that improves her team rather than her own numbers.

How Zhezhi Works

Her field stay has two halves: an on-field chain that turns Afflatus into big Ivory Herald hits, and a Liberation that keeps attacking after she leaves.

Step 1: Afflatus into Imprints. Zhezhi holds up to 90 Afflatus. Normal Attacks grant it on hit, and casting her Intro grants it. There are exactly two ways to spend it, and both summon Phantasmic Imprints:

• Resonance Skill Manifestation consumes 60 Afflatus and summons Phantasmic Imprint - Left and Phantasmic Imprint - Right.
• Heavy Attack: Conjuration consumes 30 Afflatus and summons Phantasmic Imprint - Middle. Conjuration is a Heavy Attack reached by pressing Normal Attack immediately after Manifestation; it can also follow Basic Attack Stage 3, Stroke of Genius, a mid-air action, or a dodge.

Only one of each Imprint can exist at a time, and each lasts 15 seconds. A full setup is three Imprints and costs 90 Afflatus, exactly her maximum.

Step 2: Imprints into Ivory Heralds. While an Imprint is nearby, her Resonance Skill becomes Stroke of Genius. Casting it moves Zhezhi to the Imprint, removes it, and summons an Ivory Herald to deal Glacio damage considered Basic Attack damage. Each cast also grants 1 stack of Painter's Delight, which lasts 8 seconds and stacks twice.

With 2 stacks of Painter's Delight and an Imprint still nearby, Stroke of Genius becomes Creation's Zenith. It consumes both stacks, summons a stronger Ivory Herald, and gives Zhezhi 18% Basic Attack DMG Bonus for 27 seconds.

Three Imprints therefore feed exactly three casts: Stroke of Genius, Stroke of Genius, Creation's Zenith. Every tested rotation follows that chain.

• The 18% bonus is what her off-field damage rides on. Ivory Heralds and Inklit Spirits are both tagged as Basic Attack damage, so Creation's Zenith buffs her own summons after she swaps out. This is why it always comes before the Liberation in tested rotations.
• Her failure point is the Imprint supply. Every enhanced Skill needs a nearby Imprint. Reaching Manifestation without 60 Afflatus means it summons nothing. Summoning only the two side Imprints and skipping Conjuration gives 2 Stroke of Genius casts and no Creation's Zenith, losing the third Herald and the 18% bonus her spirits need.

Inherent Skill I, Calligrapher's Touch, gives 6% ATK for 27 seconds each time she casts Stroke of Genius or Creation's Zenith, stacking 3 times. The three-cast rotation caps it exactly at 18% ATK.

Step 3: Living Canvas and the Inklit Spirits. Her Liberation summons Inklit Spirits. Whenever the active Resonator deals damage, a spirit performs a Coordinated Attack for Glacio damage that is considered Basic Attack damage:

• For 3 seconds after any damage is dealt, 1 spirit is summoned per second, and the effect can trigger only once per second.
• Damage from a spirit does not retrigger the effect, so the spirits cannot feed themselves.
• Maximum 1 spirit per second and 21 spirits total.
• The window lasts 30 seconds, or until all 21 are summoned.

That creates her one real uptime requirement: 21 spirits at one per second need at least 21 seconds of somebody dealing damage inside a 30-second window. There are 9 seconds of slack and no way to recover them. A team that stalls, or a fight with long travel between enemies, loses spirits. This is also why she is a sub-DPS rather than a pure buffer: those spirits keep landing while the carry holds the field.

Outro Skill, Carve and Draw. The incoming Resonator has their Glacio DMG Amplified by 20% and Resonance Skill DMG Amplified by 25% for 14 seconds or until they are switched out. It reaches one character, only while that character remains active, and ends as soon as they leave. It never touches Zhezhi's own off-field spirits. Her off-field damage instead relies on the 18% Basic Attack bonus from Creation's Zenith, her weapon's off-field clause, and her Echo set. Inherent Skill II, Flourish, adds 15 Resonance Energy for the same incoming Resonator.

Standard tested route — about 7.8 seconds of field time:

Intro > Basic 1, 2, 3 > Skill > Basic > Skill > Skill > Skill > Liberation > Echo > Outro

The single Basic after the first Skill is Conjuration: pressing Normal Attack immediately after Manifestation performs the Heavy Attack. Liberation comes last so the spirits fire under the fresh 18% Basic Attack bonus. Zhezhi's difficulty rating on this route is 0, the floor of the projection.

Fast rotation variant — about 6.2 seconds of field time:

Zhezhi visits the field three times. Her two short cameos are:

Basic 1, 2, 3 (cancel the third by swapping out)

Liberation > swap out

Her main window is:

Intro > Skill > Basic > Skill (Jump Cancel) > Skill (Jump Cancel) > Skill > Echo > Outro

The speed comes from moving her two slowest non-damaging jobs, banking Afflatus and casting Liberation, into swap-cancelled cameos that overlap teammate animations. Her main visit becomes only the Imprint-to-Herald chain, the spirit window starts earlier, and the jump cancels shorten each Stroke of Genius. The Imprints and both enhanced Skills support mid-air use, so those cancels are legal.

The cost is real. Her part of the fast route is rated 4.5 difficulty against 0 for the standard one, and the tested team note records a stall: after the fast support rotations, Carlotta's Intro arrives with her Skill still about 0.5 seconds from cooldown, even though she needs it to fill her Forte gauge. Treat the fast route as an execution upgrade, not the default.

One rotation to learn. Across every tested team the damage core remains Intro, Skill, Heavy, Skill, Skill, Skill, Echo, Outro. Only the Afflatus build and Liberation move, either inside that string or into cameos.

Build Priorities

Build her for her summons, not for the labels on her damage chart.

Solo damage profile:

• Basic Attack: 80.92%
• Resonance Skill: 5.46%
• Intro: 4.78%
• Heavy Attack: 4.61%
• Echo: 4.23%

Talent priority: Forte Circuit, Resonance Liberation, and Intro Skill to Lv. 10; Normal Attack and Resonance Skill to Lv. 6. Ivory Herald multipliers live in the Forte Circuit and Inklit Spirit multipliers live in the Liberation, while both are tagged as Basic Attack damage. Her actual Basic Attack string generates Afflatus, and Manifestation is mainly a summon, which is why the talents named Basic and Skill remain at Lv. 6. The damage tag still matters for stats, so Basic Attack DMG Bonus is a real stat for her.

Sub-stat priority: Crit Rate > Crit DMG > ATK% > Basic Attack DMG Bonus > Energy Regen.

The Energy Regen target is not a kit cap. Her Max Energy is 100, she must cast Liberation on every visit, and that visit lasts only 6–8 seconds, so 130% is the point where the loop stops missing. It stays last in the priority because anything beyond the required amount is wasted.

Weapon: Rime-Draped Sprouts at R1. The page lists it alone at 100%: 500 ATK, 72% Crit DMG, 12% ATK, and a clause written for her rotation. Each Resonance Skill cast grants 12% Basic Attack DMG Bonus for 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. Casting the Outro with 3 stacks consumes them to give 52% DMG Bonus to off-field Basic Attacks for 27 seconds. Her tested route naturally presses Skill three times, then uses Liberation, Echo, and Outro, so the 52% lands on the Inklit Spirits.

Because she is a sub-DPS, the signature is not automatically as valuable as a main DPS signature. However, the page lists no alternative weapon and every tested team uses Rime-Draped Sprouts at R1, so this review has no evidence for a substitute. Without it, expect the off-field half of her damage to suffer most.

Echo main stats: Cost 4 Crit DMG or Crit Rate, Glacio or ATK on both Cost 3 slots, and ATK on both Cost 1 slots. Her main Echo is either Nightmare: Lampylumen Myriad or Impermanence Heron.

The page prints both set choices. With Rime-Draped Sprouts, Cost 4 Crit Rate, 2 Cost 3 Glacio, and 2 Cost 1 ATK, Empyrean Anthem is 100% and Moonlit Clouds is 74.54% of her personal damage. Replacing one Cost 3 Glacio with ATK on Moonlit Clouds gives 73.71%, close enough that sub-stat quality decides the Cost 3 mix.

• Empyrean Anthem raises Coordinated Attack damage by 80%, directly multiplying every Inklit Spirit. Its other clause gives ATK to the active Resonator when a Coordinated Attack crits, in short refreshing windows.
• Moonlit Clouds instead sends 22.5% ATK to the next Resonator through Zhezhi's Outro, a buff she hands away and never benefits from personally.

The set choice is therefore a team question. Carlotta's team-buff study shows her own damage at 100% with Zhezhi on Moonlit Clouds and 95.31% with Zhezhi on Empyrean Anthem. Empyrean gains Zhezhi roughly a third more personal damage and costs Carlotta roughly 5%. With Carlotta carrying about four fifths of team output and Zhezhi about one fifth, tested totals finish slightly ahead on Empyrean Anthem, while both remain valid.

Practical choice: Empyrean Anthem for the higher team total; Moonlit Clouds when maximizing Carlotta's own number matters more. Nightmare: Lampylumen Myriad gives Zhezhi 12% Glacio DMG Bonus and 30% Coordinated Attack damage, fitting Empyrean Anthem. Impermanence Heron gives the next character 12% more damage through the Outro, fitting Moonlit Clouds. Jinhsi teams test Zhezhi only on Moonlit Clouds.

Team Fit & Account Value

Her partner rule is strict: her Outro pays out in full only for a carry who is Glacio and whose damage is Resonance Skill damage. Miss the element and 20% is lost. Miss the damage type and 25% is lost. Her number 1 team is Carlotta, Zhezhi, and Shorekeeper, tested with both standard and fast-swap routes; everything else is an alternative.

Use the live Team DPS section for current tested compositions, ordering, DPS values, equipment, and rotations. Those cards update from the validated Team DPS projection and are the only source for mutable team results on this page.

• Carlotta is the only carry in the tested data who collects the entire Outro. Her damage is 87% Resonance Skill-typed and she is Glacio, so both halves land; her Liberation sequence also counts as Resonance Skill damage. Flourish adds 15 Resonance Energy, and Zhezhi's Inklit Spirits keep attacking through Carlotta's entire 12-second field window. The team-buff study on Carlotta's page puts Carlotta's personal damage highest with Zhezhi, ahead of Lumi and Taoqi.
• The limit on that pairing: Carlotta's highest-tested structure uses Lynae in the second slot, not Zhezhi. Lynae takes about 7.3 seconds of field time against Zhezhi's 7.8, both at the projection's lowest difficulty, and Lynae takes a larger damage share on either Zhezhi set. Lynae's buff fit is weaker: her 25% Resonance Liberation Amplification finds nothing on Carlotta and only the 15% All DMG Amplification lands. What she adds is the 24% All DMG Bonus her Liberation gives the whole team for 30 seconds, plus her own damage. Zhezhi is the better buff fit; Lynae is the better tested result.
• Jinhsi is Zhezhi's second home and a partial fit. Jinhsi is Spectro, so the 20% Glacio half is wasted; the 25% Resonance Skill half covers about 68% of Jinhsi's damage. The deeper synergy is that Inklit Spirits are Coordinated Attacks: Jinhsi's Incandescence gauge gains 2 points for a Coordinated Attack against 1 for ordinary attribute damage, so Zhezhi charges Jinhsi's largest hit from off the field. This is not exclusive; Cantarella also brings Coordinated Attacks and the same 25% Resonance Skill Amplification.
• Shorekeeper holds the third slot in the strongest structures because her buffs reach Zhezhi's off-field spirits. Stellarealm gives all party members up to 12.5% Crit Rate and 25% Crit DMG, while her Outro amplifies all nearby party members' damage by 15% for up to 30 seconds. These are team-wide and persistent. Buling is the tested alternative, and Zhezhi's own damage drops in those versions for exactly this reason.
• Listed synergies without tested teams: the page also lists Hiyuki and Youhu. Hiyuki is Glacio, so the 20% half lands, but her damage is Resonance Liberation-typed and her Resonance Skill share is under 4%, leaving almost nothing for the 25% half. Neither has a tested Zhezhi team.

Her honest limits: she buffs one character at a time, only on the swap, only for 14 seconds, and only while that character stays on the field. Nothing in her kit reaches a second teammate except the Liberation's off-field damage. She applies no Negative Status, so she cannot activate mode buffs keyed to one. Her Liberation needs a flowing fight to deliver all 21 spirits. The accounts that want her already own an older carry, so her pull value is tied to characters most players are no longer building around.

Sequence Value

Zhezhi is complete at S0. Afflatus, all three Imprints, Stroke of Genius, Creation's Zenith, the 18% Basic Attack bonus, Calligrapher's Touch, and the full 21-spirit Liberation all work without sequences. The page's personal-damage chart is S0 100% → S1 108% → S2 123% → S3 141% → S4 146% → S5 181% → S6 248%.

The chart measures personal damage, while the star ratings also weigh team value. That is why S4 carries 4 stars while moving the chart by 5 points, and why S3 and S5 move the chart hard on 2 stars each.

• S1 — Brushwork's Finish (3/5): Creation's Zenith restores 15 Resonance Energy and grants 10% Crit Rate for 27 seconds. The energy eases her 130% Energy Regen target and the Crit Rate is real on a build seeking 75%. This is her cheapest genuinely good node, at 108%.
• S2 — Vivid Strokes (2/5): Maximum Inklit Spirits rises by 6, from 21 to 27. It adds off-field damage but also raises the uptime requirement: 27 spirits at one per second need 27 seconds of team damage inside the same 30-second window. The extra spirits only appear in fights that do not stall. Her chart reaches 123%.
• S3 — Reflection's Grace (2/5): Manifestation, Stroke of Genius, or Creation's Zenith grants 15% ATK for 27 seconds, stacking 3 times. Her rotation contains four qualifying casts, so it caps at 45% ATK on top of Calligrapher's Touch's 18%. It is the largest early chart step, from 123% to 141%, but every point is personal.
• S4 — Hue's Spectrum (4/5): Casting Liberation increases the ATK of all Resonators on the team by 20% for 30 seconds. This is her only team-facing node, explaining why its rating sits above its 5-point chart step. If she already uses Moonlit Clouds and gives the carry 22.5% ATK on Outro, the second ATK buff is worth less than it reads because that team is already saturated with ATK.
• S5 — Composition's Clue (2/5): For every 3 Inklit Spirits summoned, 1 extra spirit appears and deals 140% of a normal spirit's damage. This is the largest chart jump before S6, from 146% to 181%, and remains entirely personal.
• S6 — Infinite Legacy (4/5): Every Stroke of Genius and Creation's Zenith summons a second Ivory Herald dealing 120% of Stroke of Genius's damage. With three enhanced Skill casts each rotation, the chart reaches 248%.

Realistic stopping points: S0 is the honest answer for the job she is pulled to do. S1 is the cheap node worth taking for energy and Crit Rate. S4 is the only sequence that makes her team better rather than only raising her own numbers. S6 is the whale ceiling, but it buys personal damage in a slot where personal damage was never the reason she was there.

Pull Value