Xingqiu: Rain Swords Follow Normal Attacks

Fatal Rainscreen, the skill, creates orbiting rain swords, deals Hydro, and reduces damage taken while those swords remain. Use it before the burst when you need the protection, or after the burst when Sacrificial Sword can reset it and feed energy. The orbiting swords from the skill are not the same as the burst's shots.

Raincutter, the burst, lasts while you stay in combat and fires Hydro swords when a normal attack hits an enemy. Hu Tao's damage is her charged attack, so the combo is one normal attack and then the charge. The normal attack is what calls the rain. The charge is what Vaporizes. If you only charge, the rain slows to nothing and the charge hits a dry enemy. The same rule applies to any driver: Yoimiya and normal-attack catalysts keep the swords busy. A character who only plunges does not.

With Xiangling, his job is the Hydro aura under Pyronado. Burst, then normal-attack on Bennett or Sucrose so the swords keep applying while the wheel spins. With Hu Tao, skill and burst, then Hu Tao's skill, then normal-into-charge. Zhongli's shield can come first so Hu Tao is not interrupted during the charge. Do not let Zhongli's pillar pulse the enemy Hu Tao is charging, or the Hydro aura disappears into Geo.

He needs energy every rotation. A second Hydro, or Sacrificial Sword's reset, is the usual answer. One skill and a hope is how his burst fails on the second wave.

Sacrificial Sword is the weapon that lets the skill cast twice and pays for the burst. Four-piece Emblem, energy recharge sands, Hydro goblet, crit circlet. Level the burst first. The skill's damage reduction is real at higher levels, so it is second if Hu Tao is getting hit. His normal attack is irrelevant. He is not on the field.

If the team already has so much energy that the burst is early, a damage sword can replace Sacrificial. Check the second chamber before you believe the first one. The first chamber starts with a full burst.