The Crystallize reaction in Genshin Impact is an elemental reaction that occurs when Geo and certain other elements interact. When a Geo character or a Geo-based ability comes into contact with certain elements like Hydro, Pyro, Cryo, or Electro, it creates a protective crystalline shield of the same element on the character or in the area of effect. As great as that sounds, Crystallize is one of the most if not the most unpopular reaction in the game and for good reason. In the following article, we will discuss the flaws of Crystallize and how it could be getting a buff or a rework.
The Problem with Crystallize in Genshin Impact
While the Crystallize reaction in Genshin Impact offers defensive benefits and strategic advantages, it is not without its problems and flaws. Here are a few notable concerns with the Crystallize reaction:
Limited Elemental Compatibility:
The Crystallize reaction can only occur between the Geo element and certain elements like Hydro, Pyro, Cryo, or Electro. This limited compatibility restricts its applicability and versatility compared to other elemental reactions. It may not synergize well with teams that heavily rely on elements like Anemo or Dendro, limiting the options for elemental combinations and team compositions.
Lack of Elemental Damage:
Unlike other elemental reactions that deal damage over time or have additional damaging effects, Crystallize focuses primarily on defensive aspects by creating shields. While the protective shields can be useful, the lack of offensive capabilities makes the Crystallize reaction less impactful in terms of dealing damage to enemies. This may result in players prioritizing other elemental reactions that offer more offensive potential.
Shield Durability and Scaling:
The strength of Crystallize shields is determined by the level and stats of the character creating them. However, the shield’s durability may not always scale adequately with higher-level content or stronger enemies. As a result, the shields may quickly deplete under intense enemy attacks, making them less reliable for extended battles or challenging encounters. Moreover, the strength of Crystallize shields is weak to begin with and doesn’t even begin to compare with dedicated Shield units which provide much stronger and more reliable shields.
Cooldown and Duration:
Crystallize reactions have cooldown periods between activations, limiting their frequency and availability. Additionally, the duration of the Crystallize shields is relatively short, requiring players to constantly reapply the reaction to maintain their defensive benefits. This can become cumbersome and interrupt the flow of combat, requiring careful timing and resource management.
Elemental Reactions Trade-Off:
Choosing to focus on Crystallize reactions may come at the expense of other more offensive or crowd-control-oriented elemental reactions. In a game where elemental combinations and reactions play a crucial role in combat, investing heavily in Crystallize may result in missed opportunities for more damaging or crowd-controlling effects that can swiftly neutralize enemies.
How to Solve Crystallize
While we aren’t the experts on elemental reactions, here are some creative solutions through which Crystallize can be fixed:
Duration and Durability:
One way to make Crystallize relevant again is by simply changing the shield strength multipliers. By simply making Crystallize shields scale stronger it could live up to its original purpose of damage mitigation and interruption resistance. They could also increase the duration of these shields so that players don’t have to run around the playground trying to collect these Crystals for more shields.
Shield Stacking:
Crystallize shields can be made to stack with each other thereby increasing shield strength and shield duration. This would make collective several Crystals useful on the battlefield. Mono-Geo teams can be made nigh-invincible without any need for the Geo Archon Zhongli.
Elemental Buffs:
This is a rather vague suggestion compared to the other two but if Crystallize shields of each element could give your active character buffs then players would be much more welcome to add Geo characters to their teams. Pyro Crystal Shields could increase the ATK or DMG of your active character, Electro shields could increase ER%, Cryo could increase the CRIT ratio and finally, Hydro shields could give you some healing or maybe increase the duration of your Skills or Bursts- or reduce their CD.
Recent leaks suggest that the developers are in fact working on a Crystallize rework and we can expect it to drop sometime in Fontaine along with a new character who will massively benefit from these buffs. It’s still debatable if that alone will be enough to make Geo relevant- considering the Hydro nation will bring its own gameplay and meta changes to the game.
