Look, I don't get to write headlines like this every day. Because it's not every day a Genshin Impact superfan shares the results of a training arc that leads to Zhongli, handily the most eligible bachelor in all of Teyvat, slamming some poor guttersnipe for a million damage with the force of a literal god. But Zhongli devotee Elixir_Jx has finally managed just that after no-doubt countless hours over two years of work – and also a few thousand dollars.
a_journey_to_1m_burst_2_years from r/Genshin_Impact
Elixir_Jx posted an innocuous video to the game's subreddit earlier today. It's a short and familiar montage of elemental burst damage numbers, but the seven-digit finale is worth the watch alone, and the build-up is a display of rare commitment as well as the unshakable power of money in a gacha game. For context, I'd wager the average Zhongli is dealing 50,000 to 100,000 damage per burst – just 5% to 10% of this whaled-out specimen, but more than enough to handle most enemies – and there are a lot of reasons for that.
Zhongli is one of Genshin Impact's oldest characters, and as Elixir's post shows, they've been building up the CEO of Geo since his release. In a comment, they explained that they got three copies of Zhongli on his first banner, the remaining four copies on his second to fully kit the god out, and then finally maxed out his go-to weapon, the staff of Homa he stole from Hu Tao, on his third appearance. "It was a calculated risk, and very expensive to do in one banner," they said.
The setup here is a Rube Goldberg machine of buffs. We've got a ridiculously skewed ratio of 14 crit rate to 291 crit damage, for starters, which would require a lot of retries to actually land a critical hit. Food buffs and potions are a must. Bennett's burst gives Zhongli a huge attack buff, Mona's burst amps his elemental damage for a few precious seconds (and she's rocking an attack-boosting catalyst for good measure), and finally a Wolf's Gravestone-equipped Itto provides another massive attack buff for good measure. We also see regular appearances from Gorou, apparently sporting a max-refine Elegy for the End bow, though Itto's contributions come out on top. I don't even want to think about how much money assembling this team would cost, so let's just say there's a comma in it.
Having already dropped enough meteors to give the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods the Fallout treatment, the final piece of Elixir's puzzle was finding the right enemy to pummel for maximum damage. Several Genshin Impact bosses have reduced defense once you put them into some sort of staggered state, and the squishiest boss of all is Sumeru's newly released Scaramouche mech. It's only fitting that the true, lore-accurate potential of Genshin's contract deity would be brought out to deliver a one-sided smackdown to an uppity My Chemical Romance fan wearing a giant hat and playing at godhood in a violet Evangelion. Truly, one of the sentences of all time.
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