Genshin Impact’s Chevreuse fixes one of the F2P game's biggest issues

Explosions are good now

Genshin Impact’s Chevreuse is here, and she finally resolves one of the free-to-play mobile and PC game’s oldest problems. Elemental reactions are one of the things that sets Genshin Impact’s take on action-RPG battles apart, a system that encourages experimentation in party setup to see how different characters work together, but one of them never had much use: Overload.

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Other reactions have clear benefits. Vaporize deals extra damage. Superconduct lowers enemy defenses. Freeze, well, you can guess that one for yourself. Overload creates an explosion that pushes enemies away and also damages you. It’s not great in the open world, and it’s even worse in the Spiral Abyss endgame challenges, where grouping enemies together – not blowing them away – makes clearing battles easier.

Overload still hurts you and makes trouble, but Chevreuse’s talents add a silver lining to the cloud of annoyance. Her skill powers up when an Overload reaction happens nearby, and her second talent reduces enemy Pyro and Electro resistance by a hefty 40 percent after they suffer from an Overload reaction.

She's judging you / HoYoverse

Sure, you still get hurt if you’re nearby, but Chevreuse’s talent is the one-person equivalent of the Viridescent Venerer Artifact set’s high-powered bonus, only it applies to two elements instead of just one.

It’s a brilliant addition, in other words, one that makes different team combinations viable and even gives underused, less-than-stellar characters like Thoma a chance to shine.

After Genshin 3.0 in 2023, I was curious and a little hesitant to see how HoYoverse could keep battles interesting. All the elements were here now, after all, so once you had a good Dendro character or two, what need was there to keep pulling for more characters?

Maybe someone at HoYoverse asked the same question after the team finalized Dendro, as it seems like the entire point of Fontaine’s cast so far is giving you new ways to use familiar characters. There’s Lyney, the first character who buffs Pyro; Furina, who gives healers greater importance by raising the party’s attack when HP increases; Navia, a character who actually gives the Crystallize reaction new life; and now Chevreuse.

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HoYo isn’t done yet, either. Cloud Retainer and Gaming seem well-positioned to do for plunging attacks what Chevreuse does for Overload in Genshin Impact 4.4, which makes me hopeful that, as Genshin Impact seemingly enters the final stages of the story that began in 2020, these next two years might be some of its best.