The immense world of Teyvat within Genshin Impact can feel exceptionally complex at times, but the one key feature that ties everything together is the seven elements. Teyvat’s seven distinct elements make up everything that players come into contact with and are also the key way that Travelers inflict damage against foes.
There are seven unique elements in Genshin: Anemo, Geo, Electro, Dendro, Hydro, Pyro, and Cryo. While all elements have their own unique effects, players will find the most power when they combine the various elements to produce powerful elemental reactions.
Related: Who are the Hexenzirkel in Genshin Impact?
One elemental reaction that players may have come across during their Teyvat travels is Quicken. As far as Genshin’s collection of elemental reactions goes, Quicken is a fairly new addition and was only introduced in August 2022 when the Dendro region of Sumeru also introduced the very first playable Dendro characters to Teyvat.
Most of Genshin’s elemental reactions are fairly straightforward once players have seen them in action just once, but Quicken is rather tricky and overly complex in comparison. Any player that is wondering how this elemental reaction works or is looking to construct a team based around it will need to ensure that they fully comprehended how it functions.
What is Quicken in Genshin Impact?
Quicken is a type of elemental reaction that players can activate while playing Genshin. Elemental reactions occur when players inflict certain combinations of elements on foes. These are generally created entirely by the player’s hand, but can also be the result of environmental surroundings like bodies of water mixing with another element that players cast out.
Unlike most elemental reactions that players are likely familiar with, Quicken is an especially unique buff because it falls under a larger elemental reaction called Catalyze, and also has two other smaller elemental reactions that fall under it which are Spread and Aggravate. This makes it one of the most confusing elemental reactions in Genshin.
How to trigger Quicken in Genshin Impact
Although this elemental reaction falls under the larger category name of Catalyze, Quicken is the very first step within the process.
Quicken can be triggered when Dendro is inflicted on a target that already has Electro applied, or when Electro is inflicted on a target that already has Dendro applied.
Quicken effects in Genshin Impact
Quicken inflicts no damage by itself, but does apply the Quicken Aura on the afflicted target. This aura will decay over time, but while it is active, players can utilize it to trigger the secondary Catalyze elemental reactions.
Once the Quicken Aura has been activated, players can then inflict further Dendro on it to activate Spread or instead inflict Electro on it to trigger Aggravate. Either elemental reaction will then deal damage, but players will want to keep in mind that the Dendro attacks dish out more damage than Electro ones do because they receive a higher damage bonus.
Neither Spread nor Aggravate will consume the Quicken Aura and it instead will simply decay over time. However, players can also choose to cast a Hydro or Pyro attack on the Quicken Aura to trigger Bloom or Burning, which will consume the Quicken Aura in doing so.
Both the Bloom and Burning elemental reactions do not fall under the Catalyze category, and instead exist as separate reactions that can take over the Quicken elemental reaction by consuming the Quicken Aura. In doing so, both elemental reactions will function as they usually do.
Is Quicken good in Genshin Impact?
Now that you know how Quicken works, you might be wondering whether or not it is considered to be a powerful elemental reaction. There are many unique elemental reactions that players can choose to base their team around, so it is important to know which ones are worth focusing on.
Compared to the other elemental reactions that players can produce in Genshin, Quicken falls somewhere in the middle. There are many other elemental reactions that are more effective at producing damage, but there are also many that are much worse than Quicken.
Thus, it is generally a good idea to not construct a team entirely around Quicken but instead incorporate it into a lineup that is built around another elemental reaction if possible. One example of such a team is one of Nahida’s best teams which includes the five-star Dendro Catalyst character Nahida, the five-star Electro Polearm character Raiden Shogun, the five-star Hydro Bow character Yelan, and the five-star Hydro Catalyst character Sangonomiya Kokomi.
While this team is built around the Hyperbloom elemental reaction, it also incorporates Quicken as another elemental reaction that players can utilize because Nahida wields Dendro and Raiden Shogun wields Electro.
Which characters can trigger Quicken in Genshin Impact?
Players can utilize any Electro and Dendro characters to activate the Quicken elemental reaction. The roster of playable characters is always growing, but for now, there are 12 Electro characters and six Dendro characters to choose from.
The Electro characters that can be utilized to activate Quicken are:
- Five-star Electro Polearm character Raiden Shogun
- Five-star Electro Polearm character Cyno
- Five-star Electro Catalyst character Yae Miko
- Five-star Electro Sword character Keqing
- Five-star Electro Sword character Traveler
- Four-star Electro Claymore character Beidou
- Four-star Electro Bow character Fischl
- Four-star Electro Claymore character Dori
- Four-star Electro Catalyst character Lisa
- Four-star Electro Claymore character Razor
- Four-star Electro Sword character Kuki Shinobu
- Four-star Electro Bow character Kujou Sara
The list of Dendro characters is significantly smaller than all other character types. This is because Dendro was the only missing playable element out of Genshin’s seven elements until Sumeru officially launched.
There will certainly be more Dendro characters released in the future, with the first Dendro character that players ever met named Baizhu set to debut very soon and a newer Dendro character named Kaveh also on the horizon.
For now, the Dendro characters that players can utilize to activate Quicken are:
- Five-star Dendro Catalyst character Nahida
- Five-star Dendro Sword character Alhaitham
- Five-star Dendro Bow character Tighnari
- Five-star Dendro Sword character Traveler
- Four-star Dendro Bow character Collei
- Four-star Dendro Polearm character Yaoyao
