Shield Breaking Guide

Elemental shields are commonly found in higher floors of spiral abyss, usually in the abyss herald and lector type enemies, as well as the iniquitous baptist world boss. In the following sections, tier lists will be shown along with explanations for how to break specific elemental shields.

Hydro is most efficient at breaking pyro shields. The best choices are characters who have high and consistent hydro application, but electro applicators can also be used in the absence of hydro.

Kokomi's healing can counteract the pyro abyss lector's team HP drain attack, and Neuvillette can easily reach multiple lectors at once, making them especially valuable.

Dendro, Pyro and Cryo are efficient at breaking electro shields.

Electro abyss lectors can drain team energy with their attacks, which can make burst reliant characters lose consistency in practical combat. However shielders can prevent this debuff from being applied, making them valuable assets when facing electro lectors or the baptist's electro form.

Alhaitham has the highest AoE elemental application out of all the non burst-reliant dendro/pyro/cryo characters, making his spread team consisting of Nahida, Alhaitham, a shielder and an off field electro applicator the most comfortable pick against electro lectors as the team is protected by a shield and none of the members are burst reliant, making this team able to ignore the enemy's energy drain.

By overlapping Jean's burst with Bennett's, the self anemo infusion and self pyro infusion can apply pyro to the enemies at a very fast pace, making this combination one of the fastest ways to break shields vulnerable to pyro. However, Jean loses a lot of shield breaking potential if she's not teamed up with Bennett.

Dendro is the most efficient at breaking hydro shields, but cryo attacks can also break hydro shields in the absence of dendro application.

Nilou's bountiful blooms can explode instantly, which can be useful to mitigate the high mobility of hydro abyss heralds.

Hydro heralds can apply the slowing waters debuff to increase skill cooldown, making shielders and Jean's elemental cleanse on her burst especially valuable.

Pyro is most efficient at breaking cryo shields, but electro is also a good choice in the absence of quick pyro application. Off field pyro applicators are the best choice, and among the pyro on fielders, Arlecchino has the widest AoE and most consistent pyro application.

Bennett's burst has self pyro application which makes the enemy cryo herald or baptist able to trigger melt, and in order to prevent this, the Beidou and Fischl duo can be used instead of Bennett, using resistance to interruption and damage reduction to drastically increase survivability.

Geo is the most efficient at breaking geo shields along with Blunt Damage (claymore normal attacks, overload, shatter, specific character talents).

Zhongli is by far the most versatile character at breaking geo shields, usually using the tap skill - burst - hold skill combo. Navia is the fastest at breaking geo shields, having off field geo damage and claymore normal attacks.

Albedo's skill does not proc if the enemy does not take damage, making him subpar against enemies that are immune to damage while shielded.

Overload can be used as an alternative to geo. Kaveh's normal attacks allow bloom and hyperbloom teams to chip away at geo shields and Wriothesley's charged attack can deal blunt damage to let freeze or melt teams break geo shields.

Some enemies have elemental armor, indicated by a shield meter. Unlike shields, enemies protected by elemental armor have high elemental resistance, up to 70%-90%, unlike the immunity that elemental shields provide.

The Millennial Pearl Seahorse has electro armor, the Golem Overseer has geo armor and the Emperor of Fire and Iron has pyro armor. It is possible to rely solely on resistance shred to defeat these enemies without breaking the elemental armor.

Zhongli is the most accessible and universal way to shred enemy resistance, and the Viridescent Venerer set works if elements can be applied to the enemy. Wanderer and Heizou can use this set to drive off field sub-dps characters such as Yelan and Furina, ensuring permanent uptime on resistance shred.

The Deepwood set allows consistent dendro applicators to have permanent uptime on 30% dendro resistance shred.

Faruzan, C4 Jean and Shenhe can shred resistance of their respective elements. Chevreuse has high resistance shred in overload teams, and geo resonance gives a sizable amount of geo resistance shred.