ICD: The HIDDEN Mechanic They DON'T Want You to Know About | Genshin Impact Mechanics



A detailed explanation of what is ICD (Internal Cooldown) and how it’s related to some of the game’s strongest characters, such as Hu Tao, Yelan, and Nahida. Refer to this page for a full list of ICDs for different attacks in the game: https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Internal_Cooldown/Data

Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
01:02 ICD
02:28 Different Types of Attacks
03:44 The 3-Hit Rule
05:38 Non-Standard ICDs
06:59 Teams that Cheat ICD
08:25 Outro
09:14 Builds

Genshin Impact 3.3 Spiral Abyss

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50 thoughts on “ICD: The HIDDEN Mechanic They DON'T Want You to Know About | Genshin Impact Mechanics”

  1. Wow! Although I knew about this mechanic already, this was the best and the most understandable guide I've seen so far. All these examples were just great and list of characters with shorter or no ICD was really helpful. I've been wondering why Diluc works better with Xingqiu than Chonguun, for some reason I didn't realise it's because of ICD, thank you for pointing at that!

    Special thanks for clear pronunciation and subtitles, English is not my native language and autosubs don't work well with game slang and names, so really appreciate it! I've been watching your guides for quite a long time and the quality only gets better. Showing builds in the end of the video is also an amazing update. Happy to see you're getting more and more attention, you deserve it!

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  2. Even though I already knew about ICD and how it works its always good to go back and make sure your understanding of the game's mechanics is correct as you never know when something might change or if you have forgotten/somewhat misunderstood a term and wanted more clarification on your understanding

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  3. After listening to this concise and detailed explanation, i now fear the actually strong kit characters can just be gunned down to having nerfed ICD's just like collei's. And how kokomi has her main convenience as both healer and 'off-field hydro applier with no icd every skill tick' very coincidentally put by the devs. They can just sell whatever they want right under our noses and make a 'balance' however they want.

    It's just like, even if the players found out a strong combination of team compositions – And if it's too powerful i guess they could just nerf it like Xingqiu's burst having icd with three hit rule, but this time to a newly marketed 5 star lul.

    After having some thoughts, I realized if Diluc – as a slow Claymore user – can have less ICD on his normal attack it would have been really strong, if hutao could have 0.5 icd but diluc slow normal attack does not.. or his charged attacks? Well not much vape could be done if diluc holds the charged attacks anyways. But at least his normals would. But then again diluc is not a premium limited 5 stars hahahahaha. Yeah. Just play the game, and don't pull too much because lf hype. They can always nerf the combos from special ICD's and whatnot.

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  4. Please stop using “bypassing ICD.” It’s not that they’re bypassing the set ICD rules of 3 hits and 2.5 seconds, but are coded and designed in that way. For example, Alhaitham’s skill has a 2-hit ICD and it is not “bypassing ICD” or any of the sort, he was just designed so that his 3 mirror attack would apply Dendro twice and become more of an incentive to always have 3 mirrors. This language is misleading new players who do not understand ICD into thinking that ICD can be “bypassed” where it can not and it is only because some characters have different ICD based on how they are coded and designed. Set rules are always in practice generally, like 2.5 seconds, 3 hit, and multi target rule, unless the character has a special ICD.

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  5. Speaking of reactions I just wanna share something 🤣
    I'm on AR 45 WR 5 I got lucky and got Raiden Shogun, I leveled her up to the allowed max level same with weapon ( the catch ) and talents and my deandro traveller is maxed out to the allowed level too. I would hit the enemy with a deandro skill and then use the raiden shogun's elemental skill then finish it with my level 40 barbara's basic attack. The damage was insane because of the green hearts that were popping out, now i am not even struggling with boses unless it's an electric type one 🤣🤣🤣 my 4th character is beido because she can block and reflect the damage but mostly the 3 is enough.
    I don't know how this game works yet, i just started a few weeks ago and it was fun 🤣🤣🤣

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  6. I am sad that childe is not mentioned in this video. Childe riptide slashes have no icd. his na(melee) and ca(melee) both have different icd, His burst needless to say have different icd thus making the strongest applicator in game.

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  7. really helpful, thank you for this! I've always heard abt the term ICD but was never able to fully understood these kinds of mechanics/understand how it works. your explanation's rly thorough & the video's edited pretty well

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  8. 8:18 top left is one my most prominence team rn. Hyperbloom scaling is so absurd and it, in a way helped by a subreaction in its comp which is electrocharge, which maintain hydro aura so you can procc bloom seeds more. Although sometimes I use childe instead of yelan if the other team is a double hydro tao team, or just need AoE

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  9. ahahaha yea, its the same reason why i learn ICD because chongyun. since i kinda early get chongyun to C6 from wishing i wonder if i can melt all the Ice sword with pyro character but there is something wrong. Guoba spit fire only melt 3 chongyun burst, bennet burst only met 3 sword too. but by accident i use bennet Tap E i can met all four my chongyun burst……. WTF. then i asking all around some player in reddit and get introduce to video about ICD related.

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  10. That's a really good ICD overview! It's also worth mentioning that ICD timers are not shared not just by different types of attacks, but also by different enemies and *characters*. That's why Xiangling can apply Pyro to all enemies around with her Burst and Swirls triggered by different characters will still deal damage even though it's limited just by 2 instances per 0.5 sec.
    Plunging attacks also deserve an honorable mention as no-ICD attack imo (Hello, Xiao mains)
    Other than that, this video covers pretty much everything to understand the general idea of ICD mechanic. Well done!

    The logical way to continue this series would be to cover Gauge Unit Theory due to how tightly it's intertwined with ICD to form the whole elemental interactions picture (you mentioned the entire list of topics for the series at 8:32 :D). This should help players get much better understanding of team building basics. Keep up the good work ^^

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  11. I have to say that when I was AR25 and i had to break electro hypostasis' clubes to prevent it from reviving, I used this technique to break all the cubes only with yanfei in the 1st try.
    Something that I have to add is that charged atacks have ALSO their own ICD, so thats why it was easy for me to break those by using reactions.
    There are also characters like Wanderer, who can have no ICD when doing charged atacks (in this case, is after using his E)
    Maybe plunge atacks alsl have their own ICD. Who knows 👀

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  12. Never seen this channel before, but very well-made guide. Nothing I haven't heard before, but I appreciate the formatting and presentation, and imagine it will be quite helpful to those unfamiliar with the mechanics of ICD.

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  13. Something you should consider when talking about units like yanfei who has normal ICD in her normals. Because her main gameplay loop is to stack her sigils and vape her charged attacks, having normal ICD on her normals make sense since in actual scenario when you're using xing qiu on her you dont want the hydro to be immediately snuffed out or to be overridden by pyro right before she can perform her charged attacks. If there isnt any ICD tied to her normals, it kinda breaks her kit design and it'd be impossible to get any actual vapes onto her charged attacks. The same thing can be said for yoimiya who also follows the same idea as yanfei but in her case her normal attacks are a string of continuous pyro instances. Again if she doesnt follow the ICD rule, it'd be impossible to sustain the hydro aura on the enemy with just xing qiu or yelan and you kinda have the same issue with yanfei. Once the enemy gets a pyro aura on them its gg and it'd be impossible to get them back onto hydro.

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  14. "They DON'T Want You to Know About" you can say that to every in game combat mechanics e.g Elemental Gauge Theory, HitLag extension, snapshotting, Elemental absorption priority etc.

    When the TCG got released I questioned on why there is almost zero tutorial on combat mechanics but explained TCG in full detail. Hoyoverse really don't want you to know how fighting in this game works fr

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  15. if i'm not wrong, the part about xingqiu's burst is inaccurate. xingqiu's swords have a separate icd for each wave of swords. the different waves of swords don't share ICD like you show in your example. just from what i know/remember.

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