Lohen

Lohen

5★CryoPolearmMain Damage

TL;DR

Lohen's Skill drops him into a state where his sword swings turn Cryo and hit much harder. While he's swinging, one meter fills off his own attacks and pays for a big empowered strike, three of them per state. A second meter fills off your other characters' damage and decides how hard that strike lands. So he's a front-liner who wants something loud going off behind him.

Rotation

  1. Supports and your off-field damage dealer go first, so their damage is already landing when he arrives.
  2. Skill (E) to enter the state.
  3. Normal attack into charged attack, over and over, firing the empowered Skill (E) each time it comes up. Three times.
  4. Burst (Q) somewhere in there whenever you have the Energy for it.

Abilities

Skill (E) Puts him into his state. Attacks become Cryo and hit harder, and he can't plunge. About an 18 second cooldown.
Skill (E) in the state The empowered strike, once you've built enough of the first meter. Three uses per state, then he stops charging it.
Burst (Q) Costs 60 Energy. A flurry of forward strikes that spends the whole teammate meter at once and gets bigger the fuller it was. Cast inside the state it also buys a little extra time on it.
His two meters One fills from his own attacks and unlocks the empowered strike. The other fills from your teammates hitting things and is the multiplier on it.

The one mechanic to understand

Your teammates load his big hit.

While he's in the state, every instance of damage a nearby teammate deals feeds his second meter, and genuinely big hits feed it several times faster than chip damage does. That meter is the multiplier on both the empowered strike and the Burst. It's the reason he wants an off-field damage dealer in the team rather than a fourth body who stands there looking supportive. Nothing on screen tells you the number, and you don't need it: bring something that keeps hitting while he's on the field and the meter looks after itself.

What actually matters

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

  • An off-field damage dealer behind him. A Pyro one is the usual pick, since melt is where his numbers go furthest and the Pyro is filling his meter at the same time.
  • The Skill talent is the whole character. His attacks in the state read off the Skill talent level, not the normal attack one, so every book goes there.
  • Don't overbuild Energy Recharge. His Burst is somewhere to dump the meter, not the payoff. If it won't come back every rotation, cast it every other one and put the stats into crit instead.

Gear

A build that works. KeqingMains lists every other option.

Weapon Crit first, attack second. Deathmatch turns up in Paimon's shop for starglitter and gives both.
Artifacts 4-piece A Day Carved From Rising Winds. 4-piece Shimenawa's Reminiscence is close enough that it's not worth farming a new domain if you already have it, and his Burst being low priority takes the sting out of Shimenawa's downside.
Main stats Attack sands, Cryo damage goblet, crit circlet.

Works well with

PyroHydroCryo

Pyro for melt, Hydro if you'd rather freeze things, and a second Cryo works too since his passive pays out whenever a teammate triggers a Cryo reaction.

Don't bother

  • Watching your stamina. His charged attacks cost almost nothing inside the state, which is why every string ends with one.
  • Frame-tight cancels. The combo is forgiving and the loss from playing it plainly is small.
  • A shielder who does nothing else. Every slot that isn't dealing damage is a slot not filling his meter.
  • Watching either meter. Attack until the Skill button lights up, press it, repeat.

Want the full theorycrafting version? Read Lohen on KeqingMains.