How to play Arlecchino in Genshin Impact

Arlecchino is the first playable character in Genshin Impact with Bond of Life mechanics built into her kit. If you don’t want to read a novel to find out how to play her, though, here’s a rundown of how she works.

What is Bond of Life?

Bond of Life is a debuff that prevents your character from receiving a set amount of healing. It appears as a red border around your health bar. Any healing you receive will chip away at the red border instead of replenishing your actual HP. The length of the red border denotes how much Bond of Life you must clear before you can start filling your green HP bar.

Enemies like Fatui Operatives can put a Bond of Life on you, but Arlecchino is able to apply it to herself. This is good news, since Arlecchino must have a Bond of Life in order to achieve a Pyro infusion on her Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks.

How to get Bond of Life on Arlecchino

To achieve a Bond of Life, use Arlecchino’s Skill to apply Blood-Debt Directives to enemies. They should appear as red X-shaped marks. Then, use Arlecchino’s Charged Attack to absorb the marks and gain a Bond of Life.

Ideally, you won’t be using a Skill and Charged Attack back-to-back. Instead, I recommend you use Arlecchino’s Skill, swap to teammates to set up their abilities, and then use Arlecchino’s Charged Attack. The delay will allow for Blood-Debt Directive to become Blood-Debt Dues, increasing the Bond of Life you get.

This matters because Arlecchino gains bonus damage from having more Bond of Life. Once you have your Bond of Life, Arlecchino will gain a Pyro infusion on her Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks. 

Pyro-infused attacks will deal increased damage but also consume some of her Bond of Life. As her Bond of Life decreases, Arlecchino deals less damage. When her Bond of Life drops below 30% of her max HP, her Pyro infusion will disappear altogether, but her combo should be over before she ever reaches this state.

Best Arlecchino combo

Once she has her Pyro infusion, Arlecchino’s best combo is just spamming Normal Attacks. Her Normal Attack combo is quite fast and great for triggering Xingqiu or Yelan’s Burst effects.

Arlecchino’s kit leaves room for Charged Attacks or Plunging Attack shenanigans if you want to try them, but the optimal combo is to just keep using Normals.

Healing Arlecchino

Arlecchino has a unique passive that prevents her from receiving healing from external sources while in combat. Pairing her with a healer has no effect. So, how does Arlecchino stay alive?

When in combat, Arlecchino can only heal herself with her Burst, Balemoon Rising. Casting her Burst deals AoE Pyro damage and heals Arlecchino, clearing her Bond of Life.

This also means that casting her Burst ends Arlecchino’s Pyro infusion, reverting her Normal and Charged Attacks to Physical damage. You should only cast Arlecchino’s Burst at the end of her combo or during emergencies. 

Tl;dr: Arlecchino rotation

Given the above information (or if you can’t be bothered to read it — I don’t blame you), Arlecchino’s teams’ rotations will look something like this:

1. Start with Arlecchino’s Skill.
2. Swap through teammates to set up their buffs or abilities.
3. Swap back to Arlecchino and use her Charged Attack.
4. Spam Arlecchino’s Normal Attacks for roughly 10 seconds.
5. Finish with Arlecchino’s Burst.