Durin

Durin

5★PyroSwordOff-field Damage

TL;DR

Durin's Burst sends out a Pyro dragon that follows your active character around for 20 seconds. There are two versions of it and the Skill picks which one you get. Press Skill twice and you get the wide one plus a resistance drop on anything your team sets off reactions on. Press Skill then attack once and you get the narrow one plus a bonus to Durin's own Vaporize and Melt damage. Either way it's four presses and then you swap off.

Rotation

  1. Skill (E) once. He loads up and his next press goes one of two ways.
  2. Skill (E) again for the light form, or one Normal Attack for the dark form. Whichever you press puts him in that state for 30 seconds.
  3. Burst (Q). Three Pyro hits go out and the dragon appears.
  4. Swap off. The dragon trails whoever you swapped to for the next 20 seconds.

Abilities

Skill (E) The first press loads him up, on a 12 second cooldown. The second press is a Pyro hit around him that unloads him into the light state for 30 seconds.
Normal Attacks Ordinary sword swings, apart from one case. While he's loaded up, a single attack becomes three Pyro hits in front of him and unloads him into the dark state for 30 seconds instead.
Burst (Q) 70 Energy, 18 second cooldown. Three Pyro hits, then a dragon for 20 seconds that follows your active character and attacks on a timer. The light state gets you the one that hits everything nearby. The dark state gets you the one that picks a single target. No state at all gets you the light one.

The one mechanic to understand

The button you unload him with picks the dragon.

Unload him with the Skill and you're in the light state, which gets you the wide dragon and a passive that drops an enemy's Pyro resistance by 20% for 6 seconds. It fires when your team triggers Burning, Overloaded, a Pyro swirl or a Pyro crystallize on that enemy, or hits a Burning enemy with Pyro or Dendro. The resistance for the other element in the reaction drops too. Unload him with a Normal Attack and you're in the dark state instead, which gets you the single target dragon and 40% more Vaporize and Melt damage on Durin's own hits. Nothing else changes: same Energy cost, same duration, same four presses. Entering either state during a fight also hands him some Energy back, once every 6 seconds at most, which is most of how he pays for the next Burst.

What actually matters

The two or three real decisions. Everything else is noise.

  • Pick the form again every rotation. The state runs 30 seconds against an 18 second Burst cooldown, so on paper you could recast without touching the Skill. Doing the Skill anyway keeps the state topped up and pays for the Burst.
  • Attack. For 20 seconds after the Burst the dragon's hits spend from a pool of ten stacks. Each one adds damage read off Durin's Attack, up to 75% more. Recasting the Burst refills the pool.
  • Energy Recharge. The Burst is the character and it costs 70. Roughly 130% if he's your only Pyro, less with another Pyro on the team.

Gear

A build that works. KeqingMains lists every other option.

Weapon Attack and Crit, with enough Energy Recharge that the Burst comes back. Amenoma Kageuchi is craftable in Inazuma and hands some of the Energy back on its own.
Artifacts 4-piece Noblesse Oblige. He casts the Burst every rotation and the 20% party attack lands on whoever the dragon is following. Take 4-piece Crimson Witch of Flames instead if your team's damage comes from reactions rather than from Attack.
Main stats Attack sands, Pyro goblet, Crit circlet. Energy Recharge sands while the Burst isn't coming back every time.

Works well with

DendroHydroElectro

The light form's resistance drop needs a Pyro reaction to fire, so a Dendro or Electro teammate gives it something to work with. The dark form only cares that Durin's own hits are Vaporizing or Melting.

Don't bother

  • Keeping him on the field. The dragon does its work while he's somewhere else.
  • The dark form, unless your team actually Vaporizes or Melts. Without one of those the 40% does nothing and you gave up the resistance drop for it.
  • Crit on him past a circlet. His own hits are a rounding error next to 20 seconds of dragon.
  • The Hexerei bonus, unless you have a second Hexerei character. Two of them in the party makes his passives 75% stronger, which is a team building question rather than a button.

Want the full theorycrafting version? Read Durin on KeqingMains.