Steelheart DinahBuild and Guide

Steelheart Dinah is a Constant Affinity Support/Debuffer hybrid, providing multiple powerful effects ranging from Damage mitigation and Silence to even Dispels, all on fairly short CDs.

Skill 1

Dinah’s S1 deals little damage to a single enemy, but comes with a moderate chance to inflict [Silence] to her target for 1 turn, on top of increasing her own Turn Meter by up to 25%.

Dinah wants to cycle her Skills as often as possible, and the extra turn Meter from level 5 helps a lot with that. Being an SR, raising this skill is quite cheap and definitely worthwhile. This skill has lower priority than her two other abilities, however.

Skill 2

Dinah’s S2 is an extremely strong passive that can only trigger once every 3 turns. After being hit by an AoE, Dinah’s passive triggers, granting all allies a stack of [Sword’s Soul] and having a high chance to Purify 1 Debuff from each ally.

[Sword’s Soul] can only be stacked once on each Animus, and this Buff cannot be interacted with (yellow icon). Whenever an  Animus under its effect is attacked by, the stack is consumed from them in exchange for a complete immunity to skill damage, HP removal effects, all Debuffs, Dispel effects, CD increase effects, as well as Turn Meter- effects.

This is by far Dinah’s most important skill, and leveling it up to 5 as soon as possible is highly recommended if you ever plan to play her in PVP. Has the highest priority out of all her skills.

Skill 3

Dinah’s final skill is an AoE that deals little damage to all enemies, but comes with a very high chance to Dispel 2 Buffs from each target, and also comes with a high chance to [Silence] them for 1 turn.

Given how short the duration of Silence is and how devastating its effect can be, taking this skill to level 5 is also highly recommended to improve Dinah’s overall performance. Has the 2nd highest priority.

PVE

Dinah’s kit is fairly simple, especially in PVE, with an emphasis on Dispel, while the [Sword’s Soul] and [Silence] effects are a lot more situational. Indeed, most Bosses in PVE are fully immune to Silence, and few enemies hit your entire team frequently enough to require having Sword’s Soul effect to protect your team. Still, for new players, this can be a very useful ‘All-Purpose’ Mitigation effect that can buy you time during a fight to recover your Supports/Sustains’ CDs and keep your team in top condition. The main problem is that, aside from this protection and a relatively good Dispel capability, Dinah offers nothing else in the majority of PVE content. Even then, her Dispel potential has to be compared to the likes of Plume, Xuan Chi, and many other well-established Animuses, which greatly lowers her chances to shine.

Overall, a potentially good Animus who lacks the punch of other Meta-defining characters.

PVP

In PVP, Dinah has a very clear design: counter AoE-heavy strategies, and more specifically, AoE setups that do not rely on killing you in a single attack. More broadly, slower teams that mix AoEs and ST can also be disturbed by Dinah, even though at that point it’s more useful to bring a different kind of Support/Debuffer.

Dinah’s relevance is hugely reliant on the Meta, and she definitely struggles to shine if the right conditions aren’t met. Similarly, her usage can see a big uptick whenever she’s able to fully express herself.

Conclusion

Dinah is a PVP-minded Animus, designed to answer specific threats and strategies, without warping the Meta around her. That leaves her use-cases limited even in PVP, and almost irrelevant in PVE where clear speed and offense are favored.,