At Ningguang’s advice, you verified the Fatui’s schemes regarding the Sigil of Permission before continuing to help Zhongli prepare for the rite. you met Ganyu once again at Dihua Marsh before returning to Liyue Harbor — only to find that things in the city seem to be spiraling out of control.

Steps¶

1. Go to the Golden House
2. Examine the Exuvia
3. Duel Childe

Go to the Golden House¶

The Golden House can be found south of Liyue Harbor, teleport to the lower Liyue waypoint and follow the path to the west until you reach a crossroad and then head south and follow the path to the Golden House, enter it and you’ll receive a prompt to enter the Domain “The Golden Shadow”.

Party Recommendation¶

You should bring a balanced party of consisting of one Geo Shield user, so Noelle, Beidou or Zhongli, someone capable of healing like Jean, Barbara or Qiqi and two damage dealers with high dps like Diluc and Keqing. Chongyun, Fischl and Klee are also great here.

Examine the Exuvia¶

After the cut scene, head straight forward and interact with the Exuvia for another scene where you’ll meet Childe, after some back and forth you’ll have to fight him.

Duel Childe¶

This is arguably the hardest fight in the game at the moment due to the power of his attacks as well as them being hard to dodge, it’s also a test of your endurance due to the multiple phases which you won’t get your health back in between.

Phase 1: Hydro Vision¶

In this phase, Childe will be using a combined stance with a bow and twin daggers and is capable of the following attacks:

• Riptide (Hydro): Any attack that connects with you will mark you with the status Riptide, this will make all his attacks deal AoE Hydro damage. You can remove this effect by touching the barrier on the edge of the arena as it will cause the Vaporize status on you.

• Hydro Shield: Childe will create a Hydro Shield on himself which will absorb a certain amount of damage, if you keep attacking him from melee range, he’ll counter attack you with a quick slash.

• Solo (Hydro): He’ll charge towards you with a slash attack.

• Blast (Hydro): With this skill, Childe will unleash Hydro energy around himself, dealing moderate damage if you get to close to him.

• Havoc: He’ll perform a spinning slash attack that deals Hydro damage if you get to close.

• Cutting Torrent: This is a regular six-fold attack with his bow. This will also put the Riptide effect on you.

• Tidebringer (Riptide): Childe will shoot his bow to the sky and it’ll rain down up to six shots which will cause Hydro damage in a small AoE marker.

• Wave Onslaught: He’ll leap and launch up to six Hydro waves in a straight line.

• Celestial Voyager: Childe will charge up this attack for a short while and then unleash a large whale in front of him which will cause major amounts of damage to you from the beginning of the attack until the end, this attack covers a large amount of the arena and leaves no visible lines of what that impact is. You can use Elemental Bursts to completely nullify this attack if you time it correctly.

• God Arrow: Once again, he’ll charge up this attack for a short while, then unleash four arrows which will cover a large amount of the area which will deal major amount of damage in the markers. You can move into the center of them to avoid this or make sure you’re not in the circular marker on impact.

Phase 2: Electro Delusion¶

On the transition to this phase, Childe will crash to the center of the arena causing a large Hydro knockback around him, this will not cause any damage. For this phase, Childe will switch to melee stance with his Twin Daggers and a Spear.

• Riptide (Electro): Same as before, any attack that connects with you will mark you with the status Riptide, this will make all his attacks deal AoE Electro damage. You can remove this effect by touching the barrier on the edge of the arena as it will cause the Overload status on you.

• Electro Shield: Childe will create a Electro Shield on himself which will absorb a certain amount of damage, if you keep attacking him from melee range, he’ll counter attack you with a quick slash.

• Electro Blast: He’ll counter with a large Electro Blast towards you dealing major damage.

• Solo (Electro): He’ll charge towards you with a slash attack.

• Blast (Electro): With this skill, Childe will unleash Electro energy around himself, dealing moderate damage if you get to close to him.

• Dual Strike: Dashes forward with two quick slashes.

• Cross Slash: Childe will dash to certain parts of the arena and deal a Cross Slash at the end.

• Dash Combo: Similar to the last attack in that he’ll dash around the arena whilst dealing a five hit combo with the fourth part of the combo having extended range. The sequence of the combo will be three slashes, a thrust and then a spinning slash to finish it off.

• Obliteration: Childe will do a slash like attack in a 180 degrees arc in front of him dealing a moderate amount of damage.

• Electro Crash: Childe will perform up to five consecutive plunging attacks that will deal Electro damage on impact. The first two attacks are easily avoidable via dodging away from him, the third attack will require perfect timing using invincibility frames double dodging through the AoE damage which can make the fourth attack miss, saving and timing your Elemental Bursts can also cause invincibility frames which can allow you to avoid some of the damage. Alternatively using one of the Shield users Elemental Skill to put a Shield on the party prior to this can help with the damage.

• Crashing Thunder: This attack can instantly kill one of your party members if you are not careful. Childe will mark you with a circular marker of lightning and then charge up for a short while, then he’ll leap into the air and crash down instantly at your location for major damage on impact as well as dealing Electro damage on the aftershock.

Using Elemental Bursts which have a scene can cause the attack to miss as well as perfect dodging at the point of impact. You can also cause confusion to the circular marker by touching the barrier on the arena but you’ll need to be near it otherwise you won’t have the time to get there and the aftershock can still deal damage to you.

Otherwise, make sure you have defense food on and switch to a Geo character and put a Shield on yourself and then change to your highest health and highest defense character to help mitigate the damage.

Phase 3: Foul Legacy - The Devouring Deep¶

This phase has Childe combine all his stances (Bow, Twin Daggers & Spear) as well as both his visions (Hydro and Electro). On top of that, he is able to use all of the attacks from previous phases but at increased damage. He also has a few more tricks up his sleeve.

• Crescent-Swipe: Childe will switch stances and unleash a horizontal swipe of Electro energy in from of him, being close to his sides makes this easier to avoid.

• Teleport: He can teleport instantly at any location in the arena.

• Tri-Combo: He’ll perform a slash, then horizontal swipe followed by throwing his spear towards you dealing Electro damage.

• Thunderbolt: Childe will consecutively launch four Thunderbolts at your location, make sure to stay on the move and dodge if needed.

• Wheeling Thrust: He’ll launch an attack in the form of a wheel which will travel forwards and then return to him.

• Hydro Pillars: Child will launch several Hydro pillars in a straight line towards you which can easily be avoided by running/dodging to the side and then rushing in for a few attacks.

• Hydro Dragon: He’ll charge up energy and fire a shot in the form of a Hydro Dragon towards you, as soon as you see him charge, be ready to quickly dodge to the side.

• Hydro Arrows: Childe will continuously fire arrows towards you, these can be dodged by going in a clockwise direction.

• Lightning Blade: Childe will back away and launch a spinning blade around the edge of the arena, this will rotate around the arena dealing damage if it touches you, stay in the center to avoid this.

Strategy¶

This is probably the first stand out difficulty spike the game has had so far as it requires you to time your dodges perfectly at times, he can also be relentless in his attacks. In the first two phases, ranged attacks will fare better as he is unforgiving to anyone who dares enter his melee range as it doesn’t give much time to dodge his attacks, if you do go melee, keep up Geo Shields on your party at all times as a lot of his attacks hit for major amounts of damage, defensive food is also recommended for the fight for that reason alone.

One move that will give you a lot of problems is his phase 2 attack Crashing Thunder as it can almost instantly kill the controlled character if you are not prepared for it, again, keep your Shields up and switch to a character that has high health and high defense like Noelle or Zhongli.

In terms of avoiding the attack, you’ll have to either perfectly dodge it, use invincibility frames from using skills that have animations which give a brief period of invincibility like some Elemental Bursts like Barbara’s or Zhongli’s or going to the touching the barrier at the edge of the arena which will remove the Riptide effect making Childe attack the point of the barrier you last touched although you’ll need to be near the edge already as you won’t have time to get there otherwise.

On the third phase, you’ll have a little bit more time to avoid the attacks as he slows down a bit but to make up for it he’ll hit harder and have some new moves on top of all the other phases attacks, he’ll mainly use Electro if you are near to him or Hydro if you’re further away.

His ranged attacks can generally be avoided by moving in a circular motion which will cause the attacks to miss. His Celestial Voyager skill will hit you twice, once at the beginning of the attack and again on impact where the whale lands, this can be easily avoided by standing either side of it as it will cover the area in front of him.

In short, use defensive food and keep it up at all times, have health food equipped on the NRE (Menu 30) if you have gotten it from the Mondstadt City Rep level 5 reward, keep Geo Shields up at all times to negate a portion of the damage received and keep your health topped up. Pyro is good against him as it is strong to both Hydro and Electro and Jean and Qiqi are great healers against him. Once you have defeated him, you’ll get a cut scene and the quest will end.