While Noelle may be a fan favorite, Zhongli’s animations and backstory have endeared him to many fans. But picking which of the two is better Genshin Impact character is not so easy. So out of Noelle and Zhongli, who is the better for your party composition?
Noelle is likely the best choice due to her higher damage and good healing abilities, but Zhongli can be useful to do a lot of burst damage with a powerful shield, useful for taking down a mage shield.
Let’s consider what makes Noelle and Zhongli so powerful, what their weaknesses are and the best way to use them to get the most out of their skill sets and passives.
Noelle’s Strengths and Abilities
As a Geo user, she can summon stone armor for both shielding and dealing Geo damage to enemies.
The shield will both regenerate HP for all characters while also giving additional damage absorption efficiency to the team that will scale with Noelle’s defense.
On top of this, her Sweeping Time Elemental burst attack will use stone power to boost her weapon’s damage as well as grant a Geo AoE attack.
Her 1st Ascension Passive is Devotion which brings up a shield for your active character when Noelle is in your party but off the field. It will last for 20 seconds when your active character’s HP falls below 30%.
This absorption will be up to 400% of Noelle’s defense and give 150% damage absorption effectiveness against all physical and elemental damage, with a 60 second cooldown.
Nice and Clean is her 4th Ascension Passive which means every four normal or charged attacks will make Breastplate’s cooldown reduce by 1 second.
A defense-boosting dish that you get Perfect Cooking for will give Noelle a small chance to obtain double the product called Maid’s Knighthood.
Her Constellations will work on Breastplate, as well as decrease the stamina consumption of her charged attacks and increases her charged attack damage.
Her other Constellations will boost Sweeping Time and gain attack boosts by an additional 50% of her defense when Sweeping Time is active.
Zhongli’s Strengths and Abilities
Being the current vessel of the Geo Archon, Morax, Zhongli is a lot more powerful than first may seem.
Zhongli’s main Elemental skill is Dominus Lapidis, which creates a Stone Stele on press. Holding causes nearby Geo energy to explode, causing either another Stone Stele to be created, creates a shield of jade, deals Geo AoE and also drains Geo element.
Planet Befall is Zhongli’s Elemental burst skill that deals AoE Geo damage to opponents as well as applying the Petrification status to them, a crowd control effect preventing opponents from moving.
Her Utility Passive is Arcanum of Crystal which will refund 15% of the ores used when crafting any Polearm-type weapons.
Her Constellations include Rock, the Backbone of Earth which will further boost Dominus Lapidis by increasing the maximum number of Stone Steles by two.
Stone, the Cradle of Jade means that Planet Befall will grant nearby characters on the field a Jade Shield and Jade, Shimmering through Darkness further increases Dominus Lapidis by three levels up to a maximum upgrade level of 15.
Topaz, Unbreakable and Fearless will also increase Planet Befall’s AoE by 20% lengthen the duration of Planet Befall’s Petrification effect by two seconds.
Lazuli, Herald of the Order boosts Planet Befall by three levels to a top of 15, and Constellation Chrysos, Bounty of Dominator will ensure that Jade Shield converts damage to HP for the current character.
Noelle vs. Zhongli: Who Is Better?
Zhongli is generally considered to be one of the worst five-star characters in the game. He is seen as being underpowered and can be replaced by almost anyone else.
While Zhongli’s shield has 100% uptime, it won’t come up instantly, unlike Noelle’s which will instantly shield and deal damage simultaneously.
Zhongli’s pillar is difficult to wrangle with, making pillar placement difficult to control.
Generally, you will want to stick with Noelle for a shielding role as she is better in regards to support, having a great shield, AoE healing that doesn’t require her to be on the field, and also deals Cryo damage which is great for reactions or resonance.
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