Corrosion was added to the game at a time when the shield was the meta and Genshin had recently released a dedicated 5-star healer- one which didn’t belong to the Standard Banner pool. The Corrosion status was new and hinted at the future of Genshin Impact. After all, this was a status that shields couldn’t block and it depleted your health.
How Corrosion Showed Us The Future of Genshin Impact
Corrosion wasn’t a brand new status. There were other similar statuses in the game like Sheer Cold and Balethunder which couldn’t be blocked by shields but were naturally inflicted by their respective environments. Corrosion was the first DoT (Damage over Time) status inflicted on our characters by enemies.
The Rifthounds and Riftwolves in Tsurumi island balanced the Genshin shield meta to an extent by finally having a use for healers in the game. Players could finally flaunt their Qiqis and Barbaras. Those who wanted to flex got their Kokomis and aced the fights and Abyss for as long as enemies who could inflict Corrosion existed.
This was the first enemy-inflicted debuff in the game and we can expect more of such enemies with their own debuffs in the future. Sumeru leaks talk about an area that will have a similar natural DoT debuff for our characters called Dehydration. There are also Dendro reactions like Burgeon and Burn that will see more use of their DoT effect.
This also hints at Genshin Impact trying to balance the position of its healers against its shielders. Kokomi, Qiqi, and Barbara became relevant out of the blue because of this dangerous status. The fact that Corrosion can be stacked also made it scary for players who didn’t have any of the dedicated healers built. Going forward, we can expect more of such debuffs which will most definitely shift the meta drastically for our players.