Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae

Imbibitor Lunae is a supremely powerful damage dealer in both single-target and Blast scenarios. His upfront damage multipliers are unrivalled and he also deals vastly increased Toughness damage. Imbibitor Lunae has intrinsic DMG% and CRIT buffs as well, making him very self-sufficient in terms of damage output. The cost of this is up to 3 SP on every one of his turns, as well as a lot of forethought, careful gameplay, and quite demanding team management.

Dan Heng’s secret form, revealed at last. The majestic visage of his true Vidyadhara state brings with it hitherto unmatched damage output and a gameplay style reminiscent of that of Qingque. While Imbibitor Lunae does not need to roll the dice like Qingque does, much like Qingque he too can consume extra SP on his turn to substantially boost his own performance. The cost of this is equally similar, requiring a healthy and persistent flow of SP to him, and this can bring quite the headache to players who are not prepared for the foresight and strategy required to utilize Imbibitor Lunae’s power to its fullest.

Imbibitor Lunae’s Skill is where the fun is. Each use of his Skill will Enhance his Basic ATK, up to 3 times in total. At x1, his Enhanced Basic hits 3 times and deals 260% of his ATK to a single target. At x2, his Enhanced Basic hits 5 times and deals 380% to a single target, with the final two hits also dealing 60% to adjacent foes. Finally, at x3 his Enhanced Basic hits 7 times, dealing 500% to a single target, with the last four hits also dealing 180% to adjacent foes.

Yes, you are reading that correctly. A x3 boosted Enhanced Basic deals up to 500% ATK at max Trace level, with 180% to adjacent targets, meaning that this one attack is dealing the equivalent of 860% ATK, and if you’re able to hold onto enough SP between turns, Imbibitor Lunae can be casually dishing this out on every single one of his turns. Keeping this amount of SP available is difficult, but it’s highly worthwhile since the damage increase per SP spent is very large, meaning that for every enhancement used, each SP used is also retroactively worth more.

Important to note as well, each tier of Enhancement will also increase the amount of Energy and Toughness damage brought by each attack; x1 is 30 Energy and 60 Toughness, x2 is 35 Energy and 90 Toughness, and x3 is 40 Energy and a ridiculous 120 Toughness damage. That’s the highest single instance of Toughness damage we’ve yet seen. The extra Energy gains also mean that it’s easier for Imbibitor Lunae to regain his high 140 cost Ultimate quickly.

His Ultimate hits 3 times and deals up to 300% ATK to a single target and 140% to adjacent foes at max Trace level. His Ultimate then grants him 2 stacks of a buff called Squama Sacrosancta, and he can have up to 3 of these at any time. You can consume these in place of Skill Points when using Imbibitor Lunae’s Skill Enhancement, greatly reducing the strain on your team’s SP for his next turn. Because of the increased Energy gain on Enhanced Basics, the more of them you can use, the faster you can regain his Ultimate to continue the cycle. 

You may have noticed that I’ve been mentioning how many hits each attack of his deals, and that has to do with Imbibitor Lunae’s Talent. He will gain 1 stack of Righteous Heart after each hit unleashed during an attack, meaning that the more hits an attack deals, the more stacks you will gain. This effect stacks up to 6 times and each stack grants up to 10% increased DMG at max Trace level, lasting until the end of his turn. His Skill also has an extra passive only for a x2 or x3 Enhanced Basic, where starting from the fourth hit onward, before every hit he will gain a stack of Outroar up to 4 stacks, with each stack increasing Imbibitor Lunae’s CRIT DMG by up to 12% at max Skill Trace level. These also last until the end of his turn.

What this ends up amounting to is a lot of extra damage entirely for free, and there’s really no extra thought required for this. A minor optimization could be made if the situation arises where you can transfer these powerful buffs to Imbibitor Lunae’s Ultimate by using it after your Enhanced Basic but before the turn ends, much like how Qingque can transfer her Skill buffs to her Ultimate as well. However, because of the large Energy returns on Enhanced Basics, this should only be considered if using the Enhanced Basic will grant you enough Energy for the Ultimate on that turn.

Imbibitor Lunae’s Bonus Traces provide passive benefits that just improve his performance; A2 grants 15 Energy upon entering battle, while A4 grants a significant 35% chance to resist Crowd Control debuffs. A6 makes Imbibitor Lunae even more adept at dispatching Imaginary weak foes, granting him a persistent 24% increased CRIT DMG when dealing damage to them.

Because Imbibitor Lunae is already somewhat overkill for most things, his Eidolons are even more so unnecessary for him to be strong. E1 increases the maximum Talent stacks by 4, up to a new total of 10, and doubles the stacks gained per hit. E2 grants 1 extra Squama Sacrosancta for a new total of 3, and also advances his turn forward by 100%. This makes it so that he can instantly act again and get a full x3 Enhanced Basic for free, which is absolutely ridiculous. For spenders, this is the recommended stopping point, as neither E4 nor E6 have anywhere close to as much impact as E2 does.

With this much power under his belt already, finding teammates for Imbibitor Lunae is as simple as enabling him to deal this damage as often as possible… with the added challenge of not taking away any of his owed SP. How this is achieved depends on how you choose to play him. If you’re aiming to utilize his x3 Enhanced Basic on every single one of his turns (all-in), then you’re going to need the other three teammates to be completely SP-positive (or have 2 SP-Positive and 1 SP-Neutral). For example, Tingyun and Luocha are considered as SP-positive characters because the first only uses her Skill every 3 turns and Luocha never needs to use his. Also, someone like Pela is fully SP positive unless you need her dispel effect, meaning she is a great pairing with Imbibitor Lunae, since she also provides AoE DEF shred with her Ultimate, though do note Pela will need to be very fast.

Running an all-in Imbibitor Lunae is also quite difficult with other defensive units that aren’t Gepard or Luocha; neither Gepard nor Luocha need to use SP to provide all of their defensive utility, but other defensive units like March, Natasha, or Bailu, all will need to be using their Skills every so often to ensure that they’re actually providing their benefits, meaning it will also inevitably become unsustainable within an Imbibitor Lunae team.

Conversely, you can play Imbibitor Lunae by only using his x3 Enhanced Basic every other turn, and regular Basic ATKs in between (alternating). This substantially lowers his SP requirements, especially when factoring in the ‘free’ Skill Point usage his Ultimate gives him, and this allows him to have more flexible team comps. Obviously, this method of playing him deals less damage than the former method, but it’s far less SP and brain-intensive, and personal comfort is also a valid reason to switch things up. That said, this alternative playstyle still offers extremely competitive damage output when compared to other top damage dealers, so don’t feel forced into using the all-in playstyle to see success.

No damage dealer review is complete without mentioning Bronya, and it must be said that utilizing her with Imbibitor Lunae is inordinately challenging. Bronya naturally brings with her conversations about SPD tuning, and it all spirals from there. A super-fast Bronya will be able to provide a lot of value for Imbibitor Lunae because she will be able to generate a fair amount of SP as well, but she is far more usable on an alternating playstyle than on an all-in playstyle - in that playstyle, you make Bronya 1 Speed slower than Imbibitor Lunae, so she goes right after him and boost him with her Skill. You physically do not have the SP required to do a x3 Enhanced Basic into Bronya Skill into x3 Enhanced Basic, since that line would cost you 7 SP. This would only be possible with Imbibitor Lunae’s Ultimate and even then it would cost you all 5 of your team’s SP. Would it completely mince whatever’s in front of you? Absolutely, but it’s just not practical.

Yukong is also a remarkably powerful support option here, especially due to her A4 granting a permanent 12% Imaginary DMG boost to the team. Her CRIT buffs are undeniably powerful, but like Bronya, she is incapable of sustaining these benefits indefinitely onto an all-in Imbibitor Lunae. An alternating Imbibitor Lunae would allow Yukong more freedom to utilize her buffs without completely draining the SP tank in the process. However, the SPD issue is far more pronounced for Yukong than for Bronya, as Yukong does not have any natural Turn Advance in her kit, neither for herself nor allies. Using her with Imbibitor Lunae will demand very strict SPD tuning to ensure that Yukong is always acting at least 2 turns before Imbibitor Lunae does, else her presence is entirely wasted on that team. E6 for Yukong can significantly alleviate this issue, but even then it’s still extremely difficult to use her.

The final note is about Welt and the mono-Imaginary team. It’s a fun team, potentially even good in some specific circumstances, but is also unfortunately unsustainable, as both Welt and Yukong also want to have as much Ultimate uptime as possible, which necessitates using their Skills for more Energy. Welt is potentially decent to use with Imbibitor Lunae for the purposes of activating the very potent 4pc effect of the Wastelander of Banditry relic set, as Imbibitor Lunae has no way of activating this on his own. Similar issues can arise as mentioned previously, and SP management is the name of the game. Since Welt can also be used as a competent damage dealer of his own, it’s up to the player whether or not they’re comfortable relegating him to a more support-oriented role.

If you don’t want to deal with all that hassle, just use Tingyun and Pela instead.

Imbibitor Lunae might be an SP-consuming fiend, but his damage output and somewhat flexible playstyle make him extraordinarily powerful, and usable almost anywhere and against any foe. Where will the Trailblaze take him next, I wonder…?