EvelynBuild and Guide

Evelyn is our first Limited S-Rank Fire Attack Agent and just like so many of her recently released DPS peers, she immediately soars to the top of the meta with her incredibly potent and unique kit. What makes her so unique? Well apart from all the fiery cables, wires and that killer jacket, it’s her ability to use Chain Attacks whenever she damn well pleases - Stunned enemy or otherwise. This paired with the fact that Evelyn just so happens to also get one of the strongest Chain Attacks in the game equates to quite a potent kit focus - one which players can absolutely take extreme advantage of, assuming they know how.

Evelyn’s Kit contains 3 Unique mechanics - 2 of those are resources and one is a debuff, but all of them need to be managed effectively. That might seem daunting but in practice is actually quite simple. Playing Evelyn boils down to executing a few basic combos to build up her resources followed by another sequence of combos consisting of multiple chain attacks during a Stun window in order to spend them. While that sounds simple it must be noted that Evelyn is easy to learn but certainly hard to master. A skilled Evelyn player capable of getting the most out of her resource accumulation and spending phases will deal significantly more damage than a player who is less capable. To ensure you’re one of the players getting the most out of her kit let’s dive into the details!

Unique Resources

Evelyn’s two resources are Burning Embers and Burning Tethers. Burning Embers can be accumulated via the majority of Evelyn’s Standard Attacks and are used to fuel her Enhanced Basic Attacks. Evelyn can hold up to 16 Burning Embers and she generates the following amount from these attacks:

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P1 = 1

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P2 = 1

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P3 = 1

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P4 = 2

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P5 = 3

• Special Attack: Locked Position = 1

• Special Attack: Binding Sunder - First Form = 1

• Special Attack (Perfect Dodge) = 4

• EX Special Attack: Binding Sunder - Final Form = 8

• Dash Attack: Piercing Ambush = 1

• Dodge Counter: Strangling Reversal = 1

• Quick Assist: Fierce Blade = 1

Whereas, Burning Tethers are accumulated primarily from a few of Evelyn’s Enhanced Attacks and are consumed to allow her to execute Chain Attacks outside of the Stun Window on demand. Evelyn can hold up to 3 Burning Tethers at once and generates them from:

• Basic Attack: Garrote - First Form = 1

• Basic Attack: Garrote - Second Form = 1

• Ultimate: Lunalux Garrote - Timbre = 1

• Ultimate: Lunalux Garrote - Shadow = 1

We’ll cover how to generate and spend these resources efficiently when we get to the rest of Evelyn’s abilities but knowing how to accumulate them is enough for now!

Evelyn’s other signature mechanic is Binding Seal - a special debuff that attaches one of her wires to an enemy upon using certain abilities. Binding Seal has some interactions with a few of her abilities but its main purpose is to activate and maintain her Core Passive: Entangle. While Binding Seal is active and for 10 seconds after it expires, Evelyn gains 25% Critical Rate. Also when switching Evelyn out while Binding Seal is active, she’ll immediately execute her Special Attack: Binding Sunder - First Form, after which she’ll break the Seal. Keeping this Core Passive active at all times is important and fortunately it’s not hard, as the majority of her abilities apply the debuff and you have a 10 second grace period even after it expires. In the event you break your Binding Seal or don’t have it active, re-apply it as soon as you can, also pay careful attention to avoid any non-essential abilities that break the seal.

Now that we’ve covered all her Unique mechanics and resources it’s time to get into her main kit!

First up is her Basic Attack, which consists of a standard 5 part attack sequence (3 Physical, 2 Fire). Standard Basic Attacks are one of the major tools Evelyn has to generate Burning Embers - as such you can expect to use them a lot. Also worth noting is that the 5th attack of the sequence is one of the abilities that applies Binding Seal.

In addition to her Standard Basic Attack sequence, She also possesses two individual Charged Basic Attacks, Basic Attack: Garrote - First Form and Basic Attack: Garrote - Second Form. These attacks are the abilities you’ll be spending all of your Burning Embers on. Using either of them consumes 8 Burning Embers and the second form can only be used immediately after the first form (thus requiring 16 Burning Embers or a full gauge to use both at once). Executing either of the attacks will deal significant Fire damage, generate a single Burning Tether and grant Evelyn Anti-Interrupt and DMG Taken Reduction during its duration. Both attacks have similar damage and speeds so executing them back to back isn’t mandatory.

Evelyn’s Special Attack comes in three variants, all of which directly synergize with her Basic Attacks and Resource Generation and together they make up the majority of her combos. Her first Special Attack is her usual Standard Special, Special Attack: Locked Position. Using this is free, deals a small amount of Fire damage and immediately applies Binding Seal to the enemy if it’s not already active. This is a good way to start off your combo initially or establish your Seal if it ends up breaking.

Evelyn’s second Special Attack, Special Attack: Binding Sunder - First Form similarly does not consume energy and is only usable after the enemy is already Tethered, attempting to use it while the enemy isn’t will use “Locked Position” first instead.

Binding Sunder’s main function is to shorten and enhance Evelyn’s Basic Attack sequence. After using it, she can directly follow it up with an alternative (Fire instead of Physical) Basic Attack 3, 4 and 5, making it an essential combo piece for optimal rotations. Outside of this, Binding Sunder has two other features, the first is that it can be used in place of Evelyn’s Dodge and when used successfully it will grant her 4 Burning Embers in addition to its usual effects. The other feature is that when uninterrupted, Binding Sunder executes two separate instances of damage, an initial attack and a Seal Snapping finisher. This finisher breaks the Binding Seal to deal its damage causing you to need to re-apply it, fortunately the damage sucks. You can avoid triggering the snap simply by executing the Basic Attack 3 as soon as the first part lands, skipping the second part entirely.

Last but not the least is her EX Special Attack which is functionally identical to Binding Sunder outside of the fact it deals more damage, generates 8 Burning Embers instead of 1, gathers enemies around your Sealed target and costs Energy.

With all of this covered we can finally form the “accumulation” portion of Evelyn’s combos but without the spending side it would be useless! So before we get into combos it’s finally time to cover what’s most important: her Chain Attack and Ultimate!

Evelyn’s Chain Attack like most character’s can be used while the enemy is Stunned, but unlike those characters, her’s do significantly more damage and can be used outside of that window as well. To do so she must expend 3 Burning Tethers by holding Basic Attack or Skill after which she’ll immediately break the usual chain requirements and execute her Chain Attack.

Evelyn’s has two Ultimates, one called Timbre and one called Shadow, they are very similar but have a few key differences:

• Your first Ultimate will always be Timbre.

• Using Timbre will cause her to permanently enter the Dance of Awakened Fire state enhancing Evelyn for the rest of the fight

• While Dance of Awakened Fire is active all subsequent Ultimates will be Shadow.

Outside of these points, both Ultimates deal the same damage, grant one Burning Tether and apply Binding Seal on use.

Outside of resource generation and damage the main purpose behind Evelyn’s Ultimate is entering the Dance of Awakened Fire state. While it’s active every time she consumes 3 Burning Tethers to trigger a bonus Chain Attack one is immediately refunded. This makes comboing with Evelyn far, far more potent and boosts her damage considerably, as such accessing this state as early as is convenient (without wasting damage) is a priority.

Now that we understand her primary abilities let's dive into her base combos. Our primary goal when playing Evelyn is to accumulate Burning Embers to then use Enhanced Basic Attacks in order to gain Burning Tethers to finally spend on as many Chain Attacks as possible.

Here are a few of the best ways to generate Burning Embers and spend them efficiently:

Opening Combo - When starting a fight or if you find yourself without a Burning Tether you can execute the following combo to generate and spend 8 Burning Embers while setting up:

• Special Attack: Locked Position (1 Burning Ember)

• Special Attack: Binding Sunder - First Form (2 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P3 (3 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P4 (5 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P5 (8 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Garrote - First Form (-8 Burning Embers)

Standard Combo - Alternatively if you already have a Burning Tether active, you can replace the initial attack with either of the following:

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P1 OR Dash Attack: Piercing Ambush (1 Burning Ember)

• Special Attack: Binding Sunder - First Form (2 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P3 (3 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P4 (5 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P5 (8 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Garrote - First Form (-8 Burning Embers)

Extended Combo - If we include the EX Special attack we can quickly generate an additional Burning Tether as well as perform both Garrote Forms.

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P1 OR Dash Attack: Piercing Ambush (1 Burning Ember)

• Special Attack: Binding Sunder - First Form (2 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P3 (3 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P4 (5 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P5 (8 Burning Embers)

• EX Special Attack: Binding Sunder - Final Form (16 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Garrote - First Form (-8 Burning Embers)

• Basic Attack: Garrote - Second Form (-8 Burning Embers)

The basic combos above mixed with the occasional use of Evelyn’s other Burning Ember accumulating abilities will make up the bulk of her Burning Tether generation. When playing Evelyn your goal is to preferably prepare a full set of 3 Burning Tethers and 8 - 16 Burning Embers before the enemy is Stunned allowing you to execute multiple Chain Attacks back to back during their moment of vulnerability. When starting off a fight generating 3 Burning Tethers and 8 Burning Embers before the Stun Window might look like this:

• Special Attack: Locked Position

• Special Attack: Binding Sunder - First Form

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P3 

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P4

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P5

• Basic Attack: Garrote - First Form (1 Burning Tether)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P1 OR Dash Attack: Piercing Ambush

• Special Attack: Binding Sunder - First Form

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P3

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P4

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P5

• EX Special Attack: Binding Sunder - Final Form

• Basic Attack: Garrote - First Form (2 Burning Tethers)

• Basic Attack: Garrote - Second Form (3 Burning Tethers)

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P1 OR Dash Attack: Piercing Ambush

• Special Attack: Binding Sunder - First Form

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P3

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P4

• Basic Attack: Razor Wire P5 (8 Burning Embers)

After this preparation we can enter the Stun window ready to execute a sizeable amount of burst damage consisting of 3 Chain Attacks using the following combo:

• Enemy Is Stunned

• [Standard] Chain Attack: Lunalux - Snare

• [Bonus] Chain Attack: Lunalux - Snare (-3 Burning Tethers)

• Ultimate: Lunalux Garrote - Timbre (1 Burning Tether)

• Basic Attack: Garrote - First Form (2 Burning Tethers)

• EX Special Attack: Binding Sunder - Final Form

• Basic Attack: Garrote - Second Form (3 Burning Tethers)

• [Bonus] Chain Attack: Lunalux - Snare (-3 Burning Tethers)

Keep in mind after Evelyn’s first Ultimate thanks to the Dance of Awakened Fire state a significant portion of the prep work covered above can be completely bypassed thanks to the fact a Burning Tether is always refunded every time you trigger an additional Chain Attack while the state is active, meaning you only need to generate 2 per Chain instead of 3.

Evelyn can push her Chain Attack combos much further than 3 though, that’s just the beginning. If you’re interested in alternative combos, a 4 Chain and even 5 Chain Attack combo make sure to check out the rotation section of her profile.

As should be clear above, the majority of Evelyn’s combos don’t make use of her Dodge, Dodge Counter, Quick Assist or Assist Follow-Up and for the most part they’re stock standard outside of applying Binding Seal but they aren’t useless by any means. While they aren’t mission critical they can still be situationally useful depending on team composition, encounter and playstyle. Evelyn’s Quick Assist for example is very much used in Astra Yao teams while it’s used far less outside of them. Use each of these abilities as the situation arises.

To finish things off we have one final bonus for Evelyn thanks to her Additional Ability. While active, her Chain Attacks and Ultimate gain a generic 30% Damage Increase and as long as her Critical Rate is at or over 80%, the damage multiplier of her Chain Attack and Ultimate is also increased by 1.25 times their original value.This Additional ability is a must. Build your teams around it and ensure Evelyn has 80% Critical Rate at all times.

For players who enjoy preparation & execution, the builder, spender playstyle, and have an itch for Combo based gameplay with a higher-than-normal skill ceiling Evelyn might be exactly what you’re looking for. She shines the most in game modes that allow her to execute multiple rotations in order to leverage her powerful enhanced Ultimate State but is fully capable and even notorious for having the issue of simply killing enemies and endgame stages too fast to even make use of it.

With that said at the time of her release she currently suffers from somewhat lacklustre W-Engine options outside of her Signature, a distinct absence of a perfect Disc Drive Set and a noticeable drop in performance when played outside of her ideal team including Lighter and Astra Yao. But If you’re a Burst Damage Combo Enthusiast and can look past or solve these demerits the upsides are more than worth the trouble, especially if you’re a player capable of mastering all her advanced combos and tricks.