Aloy is a 5-Star Cyro Bow character, originally from Sony Interactive Entertainment and Guerilla Games’ Horizon series. She is Genshin Impact’s very first collab character and is available for free to players of all platforms until the end of Version 2.2. Aloy is intended to serve as a carry though she can alternatively serve as a support for your team.
When Aloy uses her Elemental Skill, “Frozen Wilds”, she throws a “Freeze Bomb”, which explodes on impact and then splits up into a bunch of “Chillwater Bomblets” for additional DMG. Should either the Freeze Bomb or any Chillwater Bomblet deal DMG, they will decrease the enemy’s ATK and garner Aloy a “Coil” stack. Once Aloy has 4 Coils, she enters the “Rushing Ice” state, gaining a Cryo Infusion and a DMG Bonus to her Normal Attacks. A nice thing about this Skill is that it actually is not a very selfish one. So long as Aloy gets 4 Coils within 30 seconds, she will enter Rushing Ice. She does not need to be on the field for the state to trigger nor will she instantly clear its effects upon trading places with a teammate. The game also provides a graphical effect to inform you if your off field Aloy can use Rushing Ice or not.
Unfortunately, getting Aloy in Rushing Ice is really obnoxious. Without a unit with crowd control capabilities, you have to pray that the enemy AI will step on any Chillwater Bomblet and net you a Coil. Even if you check that box off, gaining a Coil stack can only happen once every 0.1 second. That may sound short but it nevertheless screws Aloy over in reliably obtaining Rushing Ice and it kills any viability for a carry build. You could detonate 4 Bomblets simultaneously and there’s a good chance that you will still not get Rushing Ice because of this cooldown. Compare this to Yoimiya, who simply needs the press of the Skill button for her Elemental Infusion and Normal Attack DMG Bonus. Aloy requires more setup, effort, and even luck to achieve the same effect. Frozen Wilds is still worth using for the Freeze Bomb’s AoE DMG. It’s also a good source of Energy, generating 4 Cryo particles when the Freeze Bomb hits an enemy. But as Aloy’s primary means to serve her intended role as a carry, it just isn’t worth it.
Conversely, Aloy serves much better as a support thanks to her Elemental Burst, “Prophecies of Dawn”. Upon casting, Aloy chucks another bomb and then detonates it with an arrow for AoE Cryo DMG. Even though it is a single instance of DMG, it does boast a respectably high multiplier (502.88% at Lv. 6). Combined with either a combination of CRIT and Elemental Mastery for Reverse Melt or a high CRIT Ratio for Frozen, Aloy’s Burst can make for an effective nuke. Adding to the Burst’s appeal is how easily and frequently it can be used. It only costs 40 Energy and takes 12 seconds to cooldown. In fact, provided that Aloy has sufficient Energy Recharge, she can actually cast her Burst twice before her Elemental Skill finishes its cooldown of 20 seconds. Simply put, Aloy’s Burst is her most reliable means of dealing DMG and I strongly advise building the character with it in mind over trying to make a Carry build work. I recommend equipping Aloy with at least The Stringless and 2-Piece Noblesse Oblige to optimize her Burst DMG.
Oddly enough, Aloy has no Constellations to obtain. She still has a Constellation tab on her Status like any other character in Genshin but there is no means to activate any of the six nodes and each one bears the same generic title and description, telling you that Aloy’s Constellations are unavailable. It is possible for Constellations to be properly added in the future but the lack thereof combined with Aloy’s limited release has me thinking that Aloy is stuck at C0. Admittedly, most 5-Star characters are stuck at C0 for most Genshin players but the fact that there are no Constellations at all for Aloy gives her little room for improvement apart from her stats.
Since she’s being given out for free and for a limited time, you might as well claim Aloy for your account while you can. But unless you’re a huge Horizon fan or you’re new to Genshin and you don’t have a lot of units, I don’t see Aloy at the top of your list of units to build. As a carry, she’s awkward and impractical to use due to the Coil mechanic. As a support, she can be a effective nuke but there are more versatile Cryo characters out there who are more worth spending your Resin on. Aloy is usable but she’s also pretty underwhelming and I find that to set a worrisome precedent for collab characters to come (if there are more planned for Genshin).
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