In Genshin Impact, al-Haytham is the secretary of the Twilight Academy, which will become a playable character after the release of update 3.4. In this guide, we will tell you whether it is worth spinning al-Haytham as part of the action of his banner, indicating the main features of the hero, and telling who exactly he should be knocked out.
Key features of al-Haytham
< h3>Pros and cons of al-Haytham
First, let's briefly tell you what exactly this fighter is – he is a 5-star Dendro character armed with a one-handed sword. His set of abilities and mechanics is focused on inflicting high and constant damage to Dendro, both single opponents and entire enemy groups. Next, we briefly consider the main advantages and disadvantages of the hero. The former include:
- It has a relatively high base attack, defense and health, which makes it much easier to use as a main damage dealer.
- Can create Dendro's infusion, meaning all his normal attacks begin to deal damage to Dendro, which helps to permanently apply the appropriate status to enemies, thereby facilitating the triggering of reactions. Increasing Dendro's damage bonus when ascending a hero makes this feature even more useful.
- Pairs well with Pyro, Electro and Hydro sub-DD and supports that help him create various Dendro reactions.
- Thanks to the passive, the damage from his elemental explosion and elemental skill begins to scale not only from attack power, but also from elemental mastery, which makes it possible to significantly increase the damage he deals with the proper selection of weapons, artifacts and team.
- Using elemental dash skill, the character can quickly climb ledges and get into other hard-to-reach places, making it easier to collect materials and explore the world.
- Allows you to get more weapon elevation materials with your passive.
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However, the secretary of the Academy is not the ideal character. The fact is that it has a number of disadvantages:
- It does not pair well with characters that belong to the elements that do not interact with Dendro: Geo, Crio and Anemo. True, there are a few exceptions to the rule – they mainly concern supports that give powerful buffs to the main damage dealer. These include, for example, Zhong Li, Kazuha and Layla.
- Problems can arise even when combining al-Haytham with Pyro and Electro heroes, since the damage from Burning can hardly be called outstanding, but to realize the maximum potential from Stimulation and its derivatives, you will have to knock out constellations, signature weapons and artifacts with ideal characteristics, which not everyone can afford, and have certain legendary fighters with you.
- Elemental skill and Elemental Burst have a rather long cooldown (18 seconds). In addition, the hero's ult is very expensive (70 units), so he may need a battery or equipment that increases energy recovery.
- It may be difficult to build an optimal build, since it will be necessary to increase attack power, crits at the same time and elemental mastery.
For more information on al-Haytham's stats, abilities, constellations, and tactics for playing as him, see our separate guide.
Reasons to spin al-Haytham
Now that you are more or less clear what this hero is capable of, you can answer the question of who should knock him out. If you managed to pull Nahid in one of the previous banners and you still need a strong Dendro damage dealer that can play the role of a pro caster or a hyper carry, then al-Haytham can be a great addition to your squad. He becomes a real monster on the battlefield thanks to Dendro Resonance and the insane MS increase from Nahida's passive and ult.
Academy Secretary can show incredible damage values if you are ready to invest in his leveling as much as possible (at the level of whale players ). His fourth and sixth constellations significantly increase crits and Dendro damage, and his 5-star weapon, Light of the Leaf Slash, increases critical mass and damage from normal attacks even more.
He pairs well with Hydro heroes to play through Budding, so you should consider knocking him out if you managed to get Neela earlier. Recall that this heroine can create her own sort of Dendro cores that do not need Electro and Pyro recharge for amplification, so it is al-Haytham who will close the reaction, so you will have to pump his MS well.
Here are some more reasons why you might want to draw this character:
- You liked his gameplay and/or look. Don't just look at the numbers though – if you like the look of a hero and are comfortable playing as him, you can ignore the stats.
- You're interested in collecting characters that have affordable infusion ( these include Ayaka and Ke Qing).
- You are missing characters that make it easier to explore the world and collect materials (Wanderer, Kazuha, Nahida, Ke Qing, and so on). Let us remind you once again that al-Haytham's skill allows you to quickly climb ledges, trees and rocks.
Reasons not to spin al-Haytham
First of all, let's talk about infusions. There are three types of characters with similar mechanics, and one of them is considered much weaker than the other two. The first type is the pure element. For example, Itto and Ayaka can be attributed to him. They don't rely on elemental reactions, but only one element and a huge amount of damage multipliers.
The second type is reactions without an internal cooldown. This group, for example, consists of Hu Tao and Xiang Ling. They rely on huge damage from elemental reactions or on a wide variety of them, as in the national with Raiden, and are not limited by a long cooldown. Unfortunately, al-Haytham belongs to the third type, which includes infusions that follow the internal cooldown rule, which means that not every attack of his will lead to a reaction, which negatively affects his overall damage.
F2P players may have difficulty unlocking the potential of this character. Of course, it can be equipped with 4-star heroes such as Xing Qiu, Collea and Kuki Shinobu, and also equipped with some free weapons like Steel Sting or Dawnbringer, however, the damage figures will still be lower than with paid weapons and legendary allies.
Assembling an effective budget team for Stimulation will be completely impossible. A good option includes such 5-star heroes as Nahida (or Albedo), Yae Miko and Zhong Li. It will also be necessary to use the signature and artifacts with perfect stats.
In addition, you may not like the gameplay for al-Haytham, which involves constantly monitoring the mirrors of light and choosing the right moment to activate the explosion of the elements. On a phone, it will also be quite difficult to aim to perform a dash.
Conclusion
Due to the sheer number of characters, weapons, and tactics already in the game, almost all heroes in Genshin Impact can show the highest class even in the most difficult dungeons and quests, and al-Haytham is no exception. He looks like an extremely strong primary damage dealer, but the amount of resources needed to unlock his maximum potential can scare off many F2P players.
In addition, Hu Tao and Ye Lan will rerun immediately after his banner. Both heroines are considered one of the best in the game – the first one perfectly plays the role of a main DD, and the second is a sub DD. So if you're looking for a powerful damage dealer and you're more into classic responses like Vapor or Melt, it might be better to save spins to knock out Hu Tao.
