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Genshin Impacthas a very straightforward combat system. You have the ability to use your Normal Attacks to spam quick attacks, Charged Attacks to consume some stamina to unleash a stronger blow or to use your Elemental Burst, or Skill to perform a specific Elemental attack.
However, the combat is more nuanced than you may first think, and there are many ways to increase the damage your characters can do. While Animation Cancels don’t directly increase the number popping up on the screen, it’s a core mechanic in the game for characters with absurdly long animations, in certain cases even doubling your damage.
What Is Animation Canceling?
Each input in a game is associated with a specific animation. While these animations are usually a benefit,letting you see how your character performs any particular action can be a hindrance, especially when you’re trying to combo stuff together or perform different actions quickly.
This is especially true forfallback animations that happen after an attack has been done, such asHu Tao’s stopping animation after each Charged Attack.
To work around this and get better results,you’re able to utilize a tech called Animation Canceling to eliminate these fallback animations entirelyto minmax your performance.
Why Animation Cancel?
There are a couple of advantages that you get from not being forced to see the full animations. First,it lets you input actions instead of waiting for relatively longer animations,such asNahida’s Charged Attack orEula’s Normal Attack combo.
Another reason to perform an Animation Cancel iswhenyou need to reset your character’s Normal Attack count.This is because certain characters have higher damage values on specific attacks.
For example, if your first two attacks do 200 percent damage and your third one does only 100 percent,you can cancel your combo after the first two hits and repeat them.
Dash Canceling specifically also makes it easier to avoid enemy attacks due to the dash’s immunity frames.
Burst Cancels help you recharge Energy without spending any unnecessary timewaiting for the particle to spawn. This helps a lot in teams with energy-hungry characters such as Xiangling.
For characters like Hu Tao especially,another benefit to gain from Animation Canceling is positioning. Since Hu Tao covers quite some distance with her Charged Attack, it’svery easy to go too far from the enemy you’re attacking. This becomes an even bigger problem when facing multiple foes since you can automatically switch to a target you don’t want to prioritize.
Lastly,the main use of Animation Cancels is toexploit ICD. While most attacks cannot trigger reactions on every hit, there are specific ones that can do so. You can increase the speed of these reactions even further through Animation Canceling.
How To Animation Cancel?
Animation Cancels come in many different ways since there are tons of inputs that take priority over animations.Dash Cancels are the most versatile, being able to be used with any character to increase their DPS.Jump Cancelsare a close second in terms of viability, butthey are a lot slower than dashesandcan run into certain issues.
There are also more niche cancels such as Swap or Burst Cancels that, while not as good as the previously mentioned ones, can still shorten your rotation times.
Lastly, there arecharacter-specific ones for bow users and for Neuvillettethat can increase your DPS drastically under the right circumstances.
How To Dash Cancel?
Once the damage threshold of the animation is met, you immediately follow up with the dash by either right-clicking the mouse button, tapping the sprint button, or using whatever console-specific button you use to dash.Dash Canceling is the fastest and most efficient way to do an Animation Cancel for most characters.
We’re using a C1 Hu Tao to demonstrate dashing in the video. While there is no difference in the damage numbers, a C0 Hu Tao will perform fewer attacks.
However, Dash Cancelinghas some glaring weaknesses. This is mainly for non-bow characters that use Charged Attacks.Since dashing uses stamina, and you need stamina to perform your attacks, you can very quickly run out of it.This makes Dash Canceling significantly worse for characters like Keqing or Hu Tao(unless you have her C1).
How To Jump Cancel?
Jump Canceling is a bit more difficult to do than traditional Dash Canceling, andit’s usually slower as well. To perform this,you have to understand when damage has gone through and then input a jump command immediately afterward.
Unlike Dash Canceling,you can accidentally cancel the damage itself altogether if you do it too soon, which can be a huge detriment to your overall DPS. It’s important to avoid this if you want to use Jump Canceling effectively.
Jump Canceling can also faceproblems when fighting large enemies with weird hitboxes, such as thePerpetual Mechanical Array. This is because you can glitch into their hitboxes and get stuck when attempting a jump. In such cases,not using any cancels may be better.
How To Aim Cancel?
Where most Genshin Impact weapon types function largely the same way,Bow users have access to a special aiming mode for their Charged Attacks.This feature is mainly forcharacters with special Charged Shotssuch as Ganyu or Tighnari.
However, even for Normal Attack users like Yoimiya, the mechanic gives you the ability to use Aim Canceling. This is generally justas fast as dash canceling but it doesn’t use any stamina.
To perform an Aim Cancel,quickly tap the aim button (or the button R if you’re on PC) twice right before a long fallback animation. For Yoimiya, this is after her last Normal Attack in her NA Chain.
It can be difficult to do, but with some practice, you can use it quite consistently. However,there aren’t many characters that can make use of thisto increase their damage due tomost Bow characters not using their Normal Attacks often.
Still, for Yoimiya or physical DPS Fischl users, Aim Canceling provides a better alternative to either dash or jump canceling.
How To Swap Cancel?
Swap Cancel refers to swapping to a different character to prematurely end an animation. While this isn’t always useful,it helps shorten your setup time by reducing the time supports like Xingqiu take. To do this, simplyspam the swap button to change charactersthe moment your input goes through.
How To Burst Cancel?
Burst Canceling is similar to swap cancels in thatit doesn’t always result in a huge DPS increase. However,Burst cancels are a good way to farm energy. Do this by immediately casting your Elemental Burst after using your Elemental Skill.
This works because the game’s time continues forward during your Burst animation. As such, Elemental Particles spawn and get absorbed by your active character before the animation ends.
Swap Burst Cancels
Swapping between different characters doesn’t take much time, butit can be done quicker.The speed bonus aside, this alsohelps you avoid taking damage when a character first takes the fielddue to them immediately using their Elemental Burst to go immune.
Swap Burst Canceling is a lot easier on your phone, since there is aspecific button right beside your off-field characteryou can tap to do it. On PC, you’ll have topress ALT and the number associated with your off-field characterto do it.
Neuvillette Animation Cancel
Neuvillette has a special Charged Attack that takes a while to power up under usual circumstances. However,he can use Sourcewater Droplets to immediately cast itby using his Elemental Burst or Skill.
You need to be near the Sourcewater Droplets for this to work.
you may take this one step further and get rid of the absorbing animation altogether. To do this,instead of holding the attack button fully, hold it just for a moment and then let go.The Charged Attack still functions as normal, only the startup animation is removed.
Can You Do Animation Cancels On Your Phone?
Yes, you can perform all the aforementioned Animation Cancels on your phone. However, the difficulty varies a lot, especially for Aim Cancels and Jump Cancels.
If you find it too difficult to do them,the overall DPS gain is not significant enough that you need to use them to beat any content. However, for characters like Hu Tao, it may be worthwhile to practice a specific tech at least.
