Banyue Best Builds, Teams, Guide & Review

Banyue is a Fire Rupture Agent, distinguishing himself from others through various complex systems that reward player skill expression.

He has a lot of unique characteristics, namely:

• Lacks a non-EX Special, with the button instead being reserved for a secondary Basic Attack string.
• Casts EX Specials with "Quick Input" commands, such as .
• Has a baked in Animation Cancel feature, where he can interrupt his own EX Specials and still get their full damage out.
• Is the first character to have an on-field parry, Dodge: Immovable Mountain, with an alternate "Dodge" that counters enemy attacks.

All of which make for a highly technical and engaging character, whose damage potential is very closely tied with a player's ability to optimise and work around his mechanics.

Core Passive & Additional Ability

Core Passive: One With the Mountains

As with all Rupture Agents, Banyue's matching elemental attacks (Fire) will ignore all enemy DEF and scale with Sheer Force instead of Attack, which itself is converted off Max HP at a rate of 1:10.

In addition, he begins combat with 60 Adrenaline built (180s cooldown in Investigation Zone Mode).

It also gives:

• 300 Flat Combat Sheer Force
• 36% Fire DMG Bonus
• 36% CRIT DMG

For 30s whenever Banyue uses an EX Special or an Assist Follow-Up. As his EX Specials cost only 20 Adrenaline, and his on-field parry Dodge: Immovable Mountain can be chained into Assist Follow-Up: Pierce Heavens, this should have full uptime in fights.

The rest of Core Passive: One With the Mountains deals with Banyue's "Wrathful Fires", "Visage of Wrath" and "Mountain's Might".

Wrathful Fires

Under Banyue's portrait in combat, he has a gauge that tracks the number of Wrathful Fires he has in stock. It has a cap of 150 and a notch at 120, where building it up is the gameplan priority in combat.

The following skills generate 4 points:

• Any Banyue Perfect Dodge
• Defensive Assist: Iron Bastion
• Dodge: Immovable Mountain

If Dodge: Immovable Mountain is executed with a "perfect" timing, it generates 6 points instead. All of these have an independent, 1 second cooldown - meaning it is not shared. This opens up some opportunities; refer to "Dodge Parrying" in the Additional Tips section for more.

Banyue also gets 0.5 Wrathful Fires for every point of Adrenaline spent. While it is important to make use of his Dodges and Assists, the majority of his Wrathful Fires will come from Adrenaline conversion.

Lastly, when out of combat and once per encounter (180s cooldown in Investigation Zone Mode), if at over 50% HP, he can hold the Basic Attack button to use Basic Attack: Immolate. This will consume up to 50% of his HP and generate Wrathful Fires from them, building up to 120 points and then entering the Visage of Wrath state once maxed.

This does not have to be charged fully, and in fact, it is better not to. You can refer to Banyue's Teams for a more detailed look into why this is the case for some of his routes.

Visage of Wrath & Mountain's Might

When Banyue is at 120 or above in Wrathful Fires, he can enter Visage of Wrath. He can do so by:

• Holding the Basic Attack button out of combat for Basic Attack: Immolate
• Holding the Basic Attack button in combat for Basic Attack: Inflame
• Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath
• Ultimate: The World Trembles

Once he's in the Visage of Wrath state, no more Wrathful Fires can be built by any method!

Upon entering Visage of Wrath, Banyue gains 4 stacks of Mountain's Might. While he has these in stock, using an EX Special will negate their Adrenaline cost and instead generate 10 Adrenaline on use.

It also unlocks access to 2 moves: Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks and Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain. The former always links into the latter, and upon use of Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain, 120 Wrathful Fires are consumed and the Visage of Wrath state ends.

Additional Ability: Mountain's Zenith

When Support or Stun characters are on the team, Mountain's Might has the added benefit of providing 5% Fire DMG Bonus, up to 3 stacks, for 8 seconds when consumed.

Stacks are refreshed fully whenever Mountain's Might is used, so it can last until the end of stun combos, but as it needs to be built up it does mean the first few attacks will not get full benefit from its buff.

There are more properties related to Visage of Wrath and Mountain's Might, but to understand what they are, one must know how Banyue's Basic Attack and EX Specials work, as the Quick Inputs related to the latter have special interactions.

Basic Attacks & EX Specials

Hold Basic Attack

As previously mentioned, Banyue can hold his Basic Attack to access 2 moves: Basic Attack: Immolate and Basic Attack: Inflame.

Immolate has been covered previously, and Inflame is little more than a means to enter Visage of Wrath. Unfortunately, it is quite slow in casting, so while it can serve as a back-up option if there are no opportunities to Chain Attack or Ultimate in a critical burst period, it is better left unused.

Light & Heavy Strings

Unlike all characters that have come before him, Banyue has not 1, but 2 sets of Basic Attack strings.

Basic Attack: Towering Peaks is the "normal" Basic Attack string, which is accessed by pressing the Basic Attack button. For ease of understanding, this will be referred to as the "Light" Attack string.

Basic Attack: Majestic Summit on the other hand, is the "alternate" Basic Attack string, which is accessed by pressing the Special button. For ease of understanding, this will be referred to as the "Heavy" Attack string.

Both are similar in their damage multipliers, with the Light Attack string being slightly faster, but weaker, whereas the Heavy Attack string is slightly slower, but stronger. In general play, it is often always better to stick with the Light Attack string as it provides more DPS and consistent Adrenaline generation.

There is reason to use the Heavy Attack string at times though, as Banyue's EX Specials relate to his Basic Attacks.

Depending on which Basic Attack string is being used and where in the sequence Banyue is, pressing the opposite button will yield an EX Special. These are split in terms of inputs executed after the 1st/2nd or 3rd/4th hits of each string:

• or leads to EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar
• or leads to EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker
• or leads to EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor
• or leads to EX Special Attack: One's Path

What this amounts is that to get a specific move, a specific Basic Attack string must be used.

EX Special Quick Inputs

There is an alternative way of casting EX Specials, and that is through Quick Input commands.

So long as Banyue is in a skill animation that is not either a Basic Attack string - be it Light or Heavy - or Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain, pressing a set of 3 inputs in quick succession will queue an EX Special cast of choice for when the skill ends. These inputs are:

• for EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar
• for EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor
• for EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker
• for EX Special Attack: One's Path

In fact, if these commands are inputted and Banyue is swapped out of before the skill animation ends, he will still execute it. For example, if bringing him in via a Quick Assist, then inputting and swapping out before the Quick Assist is over, will have Banyue automatically transition into EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor despite not being an active character.

It can be difficult to remember which EX Specials come after which Basic Attack strings, and what the inputs are for each, so refer to "Remembering EX Specials" in Additional Tips for more.

Perfect Cancelling

There is one exception to the queueing mechanism, and that is Cancel. If a Quick Input command is used during an EX Special's animation, it will not queue the skill but immediately interrupt it; a baked in animation cancel feature.

All EX Specials have a "Perfect Cancel" point, which is when even if they are interrupted, they will still do their full damage regardless. Using Quick Inputs too early means little to no damage, whereas using it too late is a time waste.

Each EX Special has its own, distinct Perfect Cancel point, and you know it has been correctly executed by a round circular flash that will appear alongside a standard cross flash. If no circular flash appears, then it was a normal cancel instead of a Perfect Cancel.

There is no disadvantage to a normal cancel over a Perfect Cancel (so long as it isn't done before the Perfect Cancel point) other than it not being as fast a transition as it could have been.

Mountain's Might Cancel Buffer

In the Cancel description, note that it says that "If in Visage of Wrath and with Mountain's Might, "Perfect Cancel" is easier to trigger."

Easier to trigger does not mean that the Perfect Cancel point is earlier or that the window is bigger, but rather, that EX Specials can now be buffered just like regular skills.

Doing a Quick Input command too fast will have the game prevent an interrupt from occuring. It is now no longer possible to cancel skills too early and lose out on their damage - instead, it will queue the skill so that it gets cast the instant that the Perfect Cancel point arrives.

Which means that one can do EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker, then Quick Input EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor - Wrath, and much like with regular skills, swap out of Banyue long before Earth Shaker is over and still get Mountain Tremor to cast.

This is important for Banyue's combos; refer to "Combos" in Additional Tips section for more.

Visage of Wrath Hold Basic Attacks

As previously mentioned, when in Visage of Wrath, Banyue gains access to Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks and Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain.

These are both accessed by holding down Basic Attack, but which are used ride on how EX Specials are used while in Visage of Wrath. If 2 different EX Specials were cast, either through the Basic Attack string chains or via Quick Inputs, then Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks is used first and then transitions into Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain.

If that criteria isn't met, such as if not enough EX Specials were used, only 1 EX Special was used, or EX Specials were cast via the "Auto Combo", then only Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain follows.

Auto Combo

The "Auto Combo" can be accessed while there are Mountain Might stacks by pressing the Special button. It will do a string of:

• EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker
• EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor - Wrath
• EX Special Attack: One's Path
• EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar - Wrath
• Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain

Being an accessible way to do a full combo string, however there a few caveats though which mean the Auto Combo is significantly worse than regular Quick Input commands:

• It does not execute Perfect Cancels despite it using up Mountain's Might. This massively increases the delay between skill casts and means fewer attacks can be used in stun.
• Manual Chain is mandatory for it in most combos, as swapping out of Banyue then back will reset the Auto Combo string.
• It cannot be buffered during skills, making it awkward to use after Chain Attacks and Ultimates.
• No Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks means it's a damage loss even without factoring in the above.

So while it is possible to fall back on this as opposed to Quick Input commands, it is not recommended.

Dodges & Assists

Dodges

Banyue has 3 types of Dodges, each accessed via different commands:

• Dodge: Overcome Peaks - a standard Dodge. Accessed either via the Dodge button or by holding a directional input and pressing Dodge while Banyue is in an attack animation.
• Dodge: Immovable Mountain - an on-field parry Dodge. Can only be accessed while Banyue is in an attack animation by pressing Dodge without any directional inputs.
• Dodge: Battle Cry - a "taunt" Dodge. Needs a half-circle joystick input and can be done at any time, even during other skill animations.

All Dodges serve a different purpose. Most of the time, Dodge: Immovable Mountain should be the only Dodge used, as it has the potential to generate 6 Wrathful Fires when perfectly timed, more than the 4 from Dodge: Overcome Peaks' Perfect Dodge.

However, Dodge: Immovable Mountain does not generate any Decibels - it is not a Defensive Assist, so it does not get its bonuses, nor does it count as a Perfect Dodge. This means that if the priority is Decibel generation, then Dodge: Overcome Peaks is better.

If needing to swap out of Banyue, then an Assist Counter with Dodge: Overcome Peaks is better, as it can transition into Dodge Counter: Stoneburst while still getting parries on other characters, whereas Dodge: Immovable Mountain cannot go into its follow-up without remaining active on Banyue.

Using the "Dodge Parrying" tech outlined in Additional Tips is also a way to integrate both together.

Dodge: Battle Cry has no use in most of combat, but it is considered a type of Quick Input. This means that it can be used to interrupt EX Special animations, allowing for fast transitions into Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks (which normally need to wait for a full EX Special animation to play), and so can be integrated into combos.

Assists

Defensive Assist: Iron Bastion, Assist Follow-Up: Lofty Ascent and Quick Assist: Batholith all function as normal, being rather unremarkable and doing what one would expect a Defensive Assist, Assist Follow-Up and Quick Assist to do.

However, after using Dodge: Immovable Mountain, Banyue can follow with Assist Follow-Up: Pierce Heavens. So while his on-field parry is not considered an Assist, its follow-up is, which is helpful for certain boss mechanics, like building Wavering stacks on Wandering Hunter without needing to swap out.

This unique Assist Follow-Up also works differently from most. Usually, Assist Follow-Ups do not generate any Adrenaline, but Assist Follow-Up: Pierce Heavens does (and quite a bit at that), at the cost of having lower Decibel generation. It is also not swap locked, so one isn't forced to stay on Banyue for its animation.

Chain & Ultimate

Chain Attack

Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath is a staple of Banyue's combos, as it is the most accessible way to enter Visage of Wrath without needing to fall back on Basic Attack: Inflame.

Its multipliers aren't paritcularly inspiring, but it does do decent damage for the time it takes, meaning that it is almost always worth it to use 2 of them in combos where possible. As Banyue can suffer with Decibel generation, it is also useful in that regard.

Ultimate

Ultimate: The World Trembles is one of the fastest Ultimates in the game. This is reflected in its lower than average damage multiplier, but given that Banyue is a Rupture Agent, it hits very hard.

It is useful to interrupt other skill animations, like Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath or Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain, and in the case of the latter, is especially good as Quick Input commands can be buffered during its cast, allowing for a quick transition into EX Specials for more damage.

1. Core Passive
2. EX Special | Ultimate | Basic Attack
3. Dodge | Assist

Banyue is a very expensive character to build, as every single one of this skills are meaningfully contributing to his damage and daze.

Core Passive: One With the Mountains is a priority for both its general bonuses (e.g. CRIT RATE) and for the fact that levelling it increases the Sheer, DMG and CRIT DMG bonuses that it provides.

EX Special, Ultimate and Basic Attack as all are key to his in-stun burst. As Banyue is constantly using EX Specials and Basic Attacks out of stun, that also helps with daze build so that he is able to sustain 4 stuns in fights.

Lastly is Dodge and Assist, both of which are also very frequently used out of stun (remember that Assist Follow-Up: Pierce Heavens is an Assist and Dodge: Immovable Mountain is a Dodge).

The goal really would be to have every skill at 11+, but Dodge and Assist can lag behind if one doesn't need to squeeze out every last bit of daze for a fight.

Banyue is incredibly restricted in his W-Engine choices; without his Signature he lags behind, and if only A-Rank options are available, his performance is not signficantly above that of Manato.

Wrathful Vajra

Wrathful Vajra (P1) provides:

• 30% HP
• 20% CRIT RATE
• Up to 18% Fire Sheer DMG after using EX Specials

There is nothing all that outstanding about Wrathful Vajra specifically, It has good stats and Banyue is easily able to maintain full uptime of its Fire Sheer DMG Bonus, nothing more, nothing less.

It is by far and away his best option though, as the wide damage spread he has across his multiple attacks and lack of distinct features (like consistent HP drain mechanics) means many of the other W-Engines don't work all that well for him.

Qingming Birdcage

Qingming Birdcage (P1) provides:

• 30% HP
• 20% CRIT RATE

The second best W-Engine would be Qingming Birdcage. There's nothing special about it: it's an S-Rank W-Engine with an HP % mainstat and an unconditional 20% CRIT RATE boost, meaning it can at least somewhat match the benefits from Wrathful Vajra.

It's raw stats alone are enough to make it competitive, being the only real alternative that doesn't significantly tank his damage.

Grill O'Wisp

Grill O'Wisp (P5) provides:

• 25% HP
• 15% Fire DMG Bonus

Grill O' Wisp would be best A-Rank option if at P5. Although Banyue does drain his own HP with Basic Attack: Immolate at the start of combat, this happens only once, meaning he has no way to benefit from the CRIT RATE bonus.

This ends up being above others solely due to the fact it has a HP % mainstat and unconditional Fire DMG Bonus.

Puzzle Sphere

Puzzle Sphere (P5) provides:

• 25% ATK
• 25.6% CRIT DMG on launching an EX Special
• 32% EX Special DMG Bonus when target is at under 50% HP

On the surface, Puzzle Sphere seems like it would be a competitive option, considering how often Banyue is using EX Specials. He is able to maintain full uptime of the CRIT DMG effect, so it is not that bad a choice, considering that it is a craftable weapon.

The problem arises with how evenly spread Banyue's damage output is. A lot of his burst comes from Chain Attacks, Ultimates and Basic Attacks, so the CRIT DMG increase is decent, but the DMG Bonus is rather limited.

Having an ATK % mainstat means that it suffers in comparison to Grill O' Wisp in its offering, which can offer 15% Fire DMG Bonus to everything.

With it, Banyue's performance is still greater than Manato with a P5 Grill O' Wisp, but not by much, limiting the value of the character.

Radiowave Journey

Radiowave Journey (P5) provides:

• 25% HP
• 128 Sheer Force for 12s (3 stacks, up to 384 total) when using Chain Attacks or Ultimates

Radiowave Journey should be strong, given it has a HP % mainstat, but its Sheer Force bonus isn't particularly good. Banyue already gets some from Core Passive: One With the Mountains, which is further diluted by Lucia's Darkbreaker.

It doesn't help that the stacks are counted separately, so the first stack will drop long before a combo ends, leading to a 2 stack average in combos, further diminishing its value.

Even at P5, it'd perform worse than Puzzle Sphere - a gap that gets even bigger if one is unable to sustain a 4 Stun, 4 Ultimate rotation, so it isn't worth using.

Stats

D4 - CRIT RATE | CRIT DMG

D5 - Fire DMG Bonus

D6 - HP %

D6 is HP %. Even if Sheer Damage does scale off ATK, HP % will always be the better choice, with no other option here coming close.

Despite the Fire DMG Bonuses that Banyue gets from Core Passive: One With the Mountains (and that from teammates, like Dialyn and Lucia), it far surpasses HP % as a stat option. It should always be the pick for D5, but if there are significant substat differences between Drive Discs, an HP % one will do, even if suboptimal.

D4 is dependent primarily on which W-Engine is being used. Wrathful Vajra and Qingming Birdcage both have hefty CRIT RATE bonuses, allowing for CRIT DMG to be used, but if not, CRIT RATE is required to hit 100% (or as close to it as one can get).

Drive Discs

Drive Disc options are straightforward:

4-piece Yunkui Tales is a perfect fit. Banyue is constantly using EX Specials, and given both their low cost and integration in stun combos, this has effectively full uptime during fights.

As for 2-piece, either Woodpecker Electro for CRIT RATE or Branch & Blade Song for CRIT DMG - as with D4, whichever works best given substat spreads. Inferno Metal is also an option assuming it has great substats, although it does trail behind the other 2.

Banyue's teams are going to be a shell of:

• Banyue | Stunner | Support

Stunners

Dialyn is one of the best Stunners for him. Although she does require some field time to apply her debuffs with EX Special Attack: Paper!, it isn't enough so as to take time away from Banyue's resource generation. As Banyue has both a strong and fast Ultimate, Dialyn's conversions can be easily integrated into combos, and her high Daze output means she can still sustain 4 Stuns even against some Physical resistant enemies, like Wandering Hunter.

Norma can be competitive with Dialyn. Although she isn't going to match up in terms of increasing Banyue's damage output, her additional Chain Attacks make it much easier to sustain 4 Stun/4 Wrath/4 Ultimate rotations. She's also the one Agent that can make effective use of the Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain Chain Trigger tech, as it's possible to swap back into Banyue quickly through her Chain conversion. Given they have matching weaknesses, the 2 make for a great pair.

Roxy is another high performing pick. She may not offer any conversions or additional attacks, but Contamination's distinct multiplier means she is highly competitive for when endgame buffs are highly saturated. Her field-time demands can make it awkward to manage Wrath at times, but her high Anomaly build-up and Vortex decibel bonuses alleviate Decibel issues.

Ju Fufu falls behind the above 3 Stunners, but is still a decent pick. She has a matching element (so her Daze ends up being acceptable on Fire-weak enemies), her buffs are fine and both the Decibel cap increase and refund means that getting Ultimates every stun is no problem. Her strength isn't all that notable, but Ju Fufu is one of the most comfortable Stunners to use, pairing naturally with Banyue's needs.

Supports

The only 2 viable Support options for Banyue are Lucia and Pan Yinhu, as others do not provide enough buff value to Rupture Agents to be worthwhile.

Lucia is significantly better than Pan, but he can work as a F2P option when she's not available. If Tusks of Fury happens to be available, pushing for 4 Stun/4 Wrath/4 Ultimate rotations gets a little easier owing to the team-wide Daze increase.

TBC

Combos

Banyue's Combos all follow roughly the same shell:

Open with Banyue's Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath to enter Visage of Wrath

Buffer an EX Special during the Chain animation, Cancel, then buffer another EX Special (ideally a Wrath variant) by making use of Mountain's Might buffer.

Swap to another character to trigger a Chain Attack window the moment the 2nd EX Special's Perfect Cancel window arrives.

Another Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath (or Dialyn's Ultimate Conversion) into x2 EX Specials, with one being a Wrath variant.

Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks into Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain, with its recovery animation interrupted with Ultimate: The World Trembles.

Buffer an EX Special during the Ultimate animation to squeeze in as many as possible

The ideal combo will have 1 set of EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker + EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor - Wrath, as well as 1 set of EX Special Attack: One's Path + EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar.

Earth Shaker + Mountain Tremor is higher damage, but a fair bit slower, meaning that it isn't usually possible to fit 2 of them in unless very fast attacks are used for Chain triggers, like Lucia's Special Attack: Symphony of the Reaper - Storm.

On the flipside, it may also be worth using only One's Path + Lion's Roar, as they are so fast that it may allow for more EX Special looping to land at the end of a stun period.

Combo variants then would be as follows:

Standard Combo

• Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath
• Cancel
• EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker
• EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor - Wrath
• Trigger a Chain Attack window with another Character
• Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath
• EX Special Attack: One's Path
• EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar - Wrath
• Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks
• Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain
• Ultimate: The World Trembles

Dialyn Double Chain + Double Ultimate Combo

• Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath
• Cancel
• EX Special Attack: One's Path
• EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar - Wrath
• Trigger a Chain Attack window with another Character
• Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath
• EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker
• EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor - Wrath
• Swap to Dialyn for EX Special Attack: Get Lost! Ultimate Conversion
• Ultimate: The World Trembles
• Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks
• Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain
• Ultimate: The World Trembles

For both of the above, moving Ultimate: The World Trembles to earlier in the combo is fine to do (and in fact required for some routes) so as to not waste Decibels.

If the Auto Combo is used, then Perfect Cancels are not executed, which significantly slows things down. This means Manual Chain must be used with the following route:

Auto Combo

• Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath
• Cancel
• Hold the Special Button for Auto Combo
• EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker
• EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor - Wrath
• EX Special Attack: One's Path
• EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar - Wrath
• Trigger a Chain Attack window with another Character
• Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath
• Ultimate: The World Trembles
• Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks
• Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain

Ultimate: The World Trembles must be used after Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath for the recovery frame cancelling, else there isn't enough time t ofit everything in.

As Quick Input EX Specials cannot follow Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain, ending with it means one cannot loop EX Specials after it, but if doing so then it opens up the potential for more damage if stun extensions are present.

Stun Extension EX Special Loop Combo

• Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath
• Cancel
• EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker
• EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor - Wrath
• Trigger a Chain Attack window with another Character
• Chain Attack: Blazing Wrath
• EX Special Attack: One's Path
• EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar - Wrath
• Basic Attack: Crushing Peaks
• Basic Attack: Toppling Mountain
• Ultimate: The World Trembles
• EX Special Attack: One's Path
• EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar - Wrath
• EX Special Attack: One's Path
• EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar - Wrath

Dodge Parrying

As the cooldown for Wrathful Fires generation on skills is independent, it means that it's entirely possible to get multiple points built at the same time.

On attacks that have lingering hitboxes or multi-hits, both of which are very common against the boss Banyue is most likely to be run against (Wandering Hunter), one can do a regular Perfect Dodge, then use Dodge: Immovable Mountain and get 8-10 Wrathful Fires instead of 4 or 6.

The 4 Stuns/4 Visage of Wrath/4 Ultimate routes that Banyue can do are often dependent on this, as otherwise, he can struggle building up Wrathful Fires quickly enough for every stun.

Inputs for the tech are simple, but demanding in execution. Hold a directional key and Dodge: Overcome Peaks, then immediately release the directional key. After which, press Basic Attack and Dodge in quick succession to get Dodge: Immovable Mountain.

Although not intrinsic to the 1 second independent cooldown, making use of Assist Counters (a Perfect Dodge into Dodge Counter on Banyue while swapping for a Defensive Assist on another character) is also very helpful at keeping up Wrathful Fires generation without sacrificing Daze.

Remembering EX Specials

There are a few tricks that make it easier to remember which EX Specials and how they relate to each other. For example:

EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar - Wrath will always follow EX Special Attack: One's Path, as both are "aerial" and fast attacks, with Lion's Roar being about sound waves that propagate around the air and One's Path being floating beads that hover around enemies.

EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor - Wrath will always follow EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker, as both are "ground" and slow attacks, with Mountain Tremor literally lifting a slab or rock and Earth Shaker being a bunch of ground pounds in quick succession.

Remembering which attack is the one that comes first can be done based on their Quick Input order. Both EX Special Attack: One's Path and EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker have alternating sets of inputs, namely:

• for One's Path
• for Earth Shaker

Whereas the other moves and their Wrath variants are all repeating inputs:

• for Lion's Roar
• for Mountain Tremor

With this in mind it then also becomes easy to remember which attack comes where in Basic Attack strings. The game doesn't want you to access the first moves easily, so EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar and EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor always follow the 1st and 2nd hits, whereas EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker and EX Special Attack: One's Path always follow the 3rd and 4th hits.

If struggling to remember which comes after the Light or Heavy strings, it's worth thinking about the inputs used. Which EX Special is used is always tied to the first input of their string.

So when doing the Light Attack string, which is accessed via Basics, the 1st/2nd EX Special follow-up is EX Special Attack: Lion's Roar, which you get with - first input being a Basic. Likewise, the 3rd/4th EX Special follow-up is EX Special Attack: Earth Shaker, which you get with - first input also being a basic.

Conversely, when doing the Heavy Attack string, which is accessed via Specials, the 1st/2nd EX Special follow-up is EX Special Attack: Mountain Tremor, which you get with - first input being a Special. Likewise, the 3rd/4th EX Special follow-up is EX Special Attack: One's Path, which you get with - first input also being a Special.

All these little mnemonic tricks can help with remembering which move goes where, but muscle memory will ultimately be your best friend.