Originally uploaded to Bilibili.tv
Skirk was first introduced to us through Childe's backstory where he told us she was his master. Given Childe's storyline powers this interested many players who were looking forward to a powerful Abyss enemy/character. Then in Fontaine we got to see that character and she was Abyss powered and so strong she could kick a giant blue whale monster through a tear in space. Now we finally have a playable version of her.... and she's just got ice powers.
I mean her ice powers are unique to the gameplay we've been accustomed to in this game. However it's not that nuanced and in fact feels too niche. We started this off with Mavuika where she doesn't charge up her Burst with energy but instead "fighting fervor" or something to that effect. Basically you use her skill and then anytime your other teammates hit enemies, it charges her Burst. She was the first and so far only human Archon so it might make sense from a story side that her powers are directly proportional to the conviction of her people. But then we got Varesa and she too has a Burst that while charged with energy is actually used through a weird mechanic in conjunction with her skill. You use her skill twice and do a butt stomp and that triggers the Burst to go into a continuous mode. After that you just keep repeating: skill, skill, butt, Burst. If you can hit enemies consistently with that you'll be able to continue using your Burst even though it'll look like it's only half charged.
Therefore now we've got Skirk where you use her skill, it charges her Burst a little and then you need to switch away from her to hold onto that initial charge. Then you set up her team's attacks and then you go back to her to skill again for more charge which then lets you do her Burst. During battle she'll be able to get her Burst charged again while fighting as long as your team's attacks are also going at the same time and your team needs to be doing freezing reactions so it needs to be made up of only Hydro and Cryo Characters to do so.
On top of that Skirk has what amounts to the same Nightsoul Blessing State with her skill. When Natlan released the gimmick for each character was that their skills give them a Nightsoul State that lasts for a while and puts them into pretty much "vehicle mode." Mualani gives you a surfboard for faster travel including travel over water, Kinich lets you teleport (technically grapple) Kachina gives you a little drill car that can access underground lava paths, Xilonen does the same thing as Kachina but with rollerblades that are faster, Chasca gets on a rocket gun for flight, Ifa holds onto his pet Biyomon for the same effect, Citlali and Ororon have very high jumps, Iansan and Varesa run really fast and can run over water and finally Mavuika has a motorcycle that can fly and also go over water. So Skirk follows this trend by having a flying mode when you long press her skill and it can also go over water. All of these modes last as long as you have a certain kind of energy. For the Natlan characters that's the Nightsoul thing and then for Skirk it's her Burst's charge.
Personally I think miHoYo would have done better just waiting. The girl is Abyss powered and even though they gave her ice powers instead, miHoYo specifically stated during her announcement that storywise her ice powers aren't the same as normal characters and instead Abyss ice powers. Therefore had they just waited until the game was dealing specifically with Abyss stuff they could have done what they did with Yixuan in Zenless Zone Zero, a brand new playstyle. Yixuan is the first Rupture Character of that game with a playstyle using the new Sheer effect that ignores enemy DEF stats and she also relies on counterattacking. The new enemies therefore attack much more often which can overwhelm the other characters of the game thus offering a major change to the game's dynamics. Skirk could have been like this too. She isn't the only nor is she the first Abyss powered character we've gotten in game. Dainsleif has been around since the beginning and won't be releasing until at least the end of next year. Rather than "Abyss ice" power they could have developed something new like an Abyss element with brand new effects just like Rupture did for Zenless.
Anyway I thought I'd talk about that instead of the other characters from this banner since I doubt anybody is going for them. But let me know if you weren't actually interested in Skirk and were going for Shenhe, Dahlia or the others.
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