Genshin Impact debuted the five-star geo character Zhongli a week ago and the community has been ablaze with discussion and criticism towards him ever since, some arguing that he needs a buff and others claiming that making him stronger would be absurd. Developer MiHoYo replied today, explaining his goals for Zhongli as a character and stating that he has been an “effective” support.
“Zhongli is defined more as a supporting character, and the core of the supporting role is the ability to protect other characters in the group,” says MiHoYo. “Based on this, we define his two main abilities as creating shields and controlling the enemy… From a design point of view, these two characteristics allow Zhongli to fulfill his role as a support character, and from a review of the actual game data, we have found that Zhongli is, in fact, effectively improving the Survival capabilities of Travelers. ”
Zhongli can place pillars that deal damage over time in a small area, create a shield for your characters, and summon a meteor that briefly petrifies enemies in place (and gives you a handful of invincibility frames during his animation of launching). Players like Zhongli have been praising his defensive character, while those who find him disappointing have argued that his damage is too low even as support or that his shield is not durable enough. If there was ever any doubt before, it is now clear that MiHoYo created Zhongli for the supporting role, placing him in the same league as five-star characters like Qiqi and Jean, who deal less damage overall, but make up for it with the utility of the party.
MiHoYo says it is still “engaged in an in-depth analysis of Zhongli” and maintains that it has been “closely following the situation, both in terms of reviewing comments on social media and in terms of analyzing game data on how people they obtain, building and using Zhongli ”. The study has not described any potential or incoming profit from Zhongli, nor has it touched on its often-debated pillar power generation, but did confirm that one of its buggy abilities will be fixed soon. This bug can cause Zhongli’s second Constellation and the shield it spawns to not trigger shield-related damage buffs, and should be fixed in the December 10 update if things go according to plan.
