Skirk

5★

CryoSwordMain Damage

TL;DR

Skirk stands at the front and swings a sword. Her Skill puts her into a special state where her attacks hit much harder. That state runs on a timer. Cryo rifts float around while she fights. A Charged Attack near them tops the timer back up. Give her a team of Cryo and Hydro characters and let them go first.

Rotation

Supports first. Hydro and Cryo teammates use their skills and bursts on the enemies.
Swap to Skirk and tap Skill (E).
Burst (Q), then Normal Attack.
Any time rifts are floating nearby, Charged Attack once, then back to Normal Attacking.
When the state drops, swap out and let the supports set up again.

Abilities

Normal Attacks	Ordinary swings until she's in her special state, at which point they get much bigger. Nearly all her damage comes from here.
Skill (E)	Tap to enter her special state for about 12 seconds. Hold it instead for a fast skating dash that crosses water. The dash fills her gauge too and sucks in any rifts she skates through, which is how the Burst version of her is played.
Burst (Q)	Inside her state it's free and makes the attacks after it hit harder, so that's when you use it. Outside the state it spends the whole gauge on one big hit that grows with how full the gauge was.
Her gauge	She has a gauge instead of an Energy bar. Her Skill fills it, rifts refill it, her state drains it.

The one mechanic to understand

Your Cryo and Hydro teammates freezing things spawns small rifts near Skirk. They look like cracks in the air. A Charged Attack pulls in up to three of them at once with no aiming needed and each one buys her a few more seconds in her state. So: attack, hoover up rifts when you see them, keep attacking. Miss the rifts and her state ends early, which is the only thing that really goes wrong with her.

Three dark blue rifts hovering above the ground next to Skirk — This is what you're looking for. Three of them at once, so one Charged Attack takes the lot.

What actually matters

Her team has to be Cryo and Hydro. Unusual and not optional. Those elements are what spawn the rifts and she gets a damage boost for each Hydro or Cryo teammate. A Melt team looks tempting and switches her mechanic off.
She has no Energy. So Energy Recharge does nothing for her, which makes her the one damage dealer you don't have to build around it.
Level her Skill talent, not her Normal Attack talent. The swings inside her state scale with the Skill's level, so the Normal Attack talent does almost nothing for her. Skill first, then Burst.
She can be a Burst character instead. Hold Skill (E) to skate through the rifts, Burst (Q) straight after for the big hit, swap out. Two of those a rotation next to a Cryo or Hydro damage dealer who wants the field. Same gear, but then the Burst talent comes first.

Gear

Weapon	Crit Rate or Crit DMG, then the highest base Attack you can get. If none of your swords have Crit on them, Finale of the Deep is craftable in Fontaine and makes up for it with Attack.
Artifacts	4-piece Finale of the Deep Galleries. It wants a wearer with no Energy, which for her is permanently true.

Sands	Goblet	Circlet	Substats
ATK	Cryo DMG	Crit	Crit / ATK

No Energy Recharge, no Elemental Mastery.

Works well with

Hydro

Cryo

Keep the whole team Hydro and Cryo. Anything else costs her a damage stack and the skill level bonus.

Don't bother

Watching the gauge tick down. If the state ends early you missed rifts.
Dash cancel combos. Normal Attacks plus rifts gets you most of the damage for none of the effort.
Charged Attacking when there are no rifts about. It's just a slow swing.

Want the full deep dive? Read Skirk on KeqingMains.

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