Zi Xiao is the ninth playable Hero in Gunfire Reborn, unlocked with the new Artisan and Magician DLC. With mastery over Occult Scrolls and the stars, Zi Xiao possesses unmatched cosmic power, commanding the very stars above to shower foes in cosmic radiance while manipulating luck to always be in his favor.
In this article, we will examine how to play and build Zi Xiao in Gunfire Reborn, helping you manipulate the stars and twist luck itself to favor you above all else.
Without further ado, let’s dig into this great new playable character.
Zi Xiao Hero Summary
Zi Xiao’s playstyle mainly focuses on luck manipulation as you progress slowly through the run, primarily in the form of Occult Scrolls.
Many of his Ascensions also focus on improving his luck or using already obtained luck to benefit him in several ways, usually by enhancing his Primary and Secondary abilities, leaning him towards a caster playstyle. Additionally, he can use his manipulated luck to improve his weapons, such as giving them random effects.
With a Good Build, Zi Xiao Shines in the Late Game of Gunfire Reborn
However, Zi Xiao’s biggest downside is that he starts running fairly weak without obtaining Occult Scrolls or Ascensions that boost luck early on.
He becomes significantly stronger once he acquires a lot of scale items. This is mainly showcased through his Primary skill, Falling Star, as it becomes almost impossible to use at its full potential until you start acquiring high-rarity Occult Scrolls.
How Zi Xiao’s Abilities Work in Gunfire Reborn
Passive – Astrohouse
Before we delve into Zi Xiao’s abilities, let’s first discuss his Passive, which greatly impacts his gameplay. The Astrohouse is highlighted by an additional tooltip beneath the Primary Skill, Falling Star UI. The Astrohouse consists of three square slots that are filled whenever you use your Secondary Skill, Astroforecast.
Understanding Astroforecast’s Role
When using Astroforecast, you fill up one square in the Astrohouse along with its other effects, which we will discuss later. By default, the Astro House has three slots to fill, each with different rarities influenced by the quality of your Occult scrolls.
With more Rare Occult Scrolls, you have a higher chance of filling your Astrohouse with Rare Astroaspects. Depending on your Occult Scrolls, you can obtain Normal, Rare, Legendary, and even Cursed Astroaspects.
Therefore, the rarer your Occult Scrolls, the greater the influence on your Primary skill and other luck-manipulating abilities.
Primary Skill – Falling Star
Falling Star is Zi Xiao’s Primary Skill. When used, it casts out a blue AoE that locks onto nearby enemies and strikes them, along with all other enemies within its radius. The effects and damage of Falling Star vary based on the Astrohouse.
How the Probability Bar Works in Your Zi Xiao Build
Directly underneath Falling Star, there is a Probability Bar. The number of colors on the bar represents the chance to obtain different quality Astrohouses. So, if your Probability Bar is mostly purple, you will have a high chance of obtaining Rares in your Astrohouse. But why does the Astrohouse matter for Falling Star?
By filling the Astrohouse with the same Astrospects, they create a certain damage type for Falling Star. If you have a Mixed Astrohouse, your Falling Star will deal 800 damage in a 3.5m radius.
As for the rest of the effects, here is what happens to Falling Star based on the rarities of the Astrohouse:
- Normal: Deals 800 damage twice to nearby enemies within a 3.5m radius of the target.
- Rare: Deals 800 damage twice to nearby enemies within a 3.5m radius of the target, then deals 1000 damage within a 7m radius.
- Legendary: Deals 800 damage twice to nearby enemies within a 3.5m radius of the target, then deals 1000 damage within a 7m radius. Finally, deals 1000 damage per second and reduces Movement Speed by 50%.
Zi Xiao’s Secondary Skill – Astroforecast
Astroforecast is Zi Xiao’s Secondary Skill. When used, it summons multiple cards that home in on enemies within 7 meters of him or fly towards a target he is aiming at. Additionally, each use of Astroforecast randomly creates an Astroaspect to use in Falling Star. The chance of obtaining different quality Astroaspects depends on the quality of your Occult Scrolls.
Astroforecast’s Mechanics
Even if your Astrohouse is full, you can continuously use Astroforecast to shuffle more Astroaspects into your Falling Star until you get a match. This is extremely important to note as it ensures that you can benefit from rarity synergies when using Astrohouse.
Zi Xiao Strengths in Gunfire Reborn to Build Off Of
His strengths involve changing his luck and the rarity of his items, giving him more influence on his build and the damage of his Primary Skill and Secondary Skills. Zi Xiao is the only character in Gunfire Reborn who can reroll and upgrade Occult Scrolls in his inventory.
Scroll Upgrades
Whenever scrolls are updated, they remain the same, but their rarity increases, which helps influence the Falling Star skill. You can upgrade a Normal Occult Scroll to a Legendary, but its stats will remain the same.
Scroll Rerolls
On the other hand, Zi Xiao can reroll scrolls he doesn’t want, giving him more chances of obtaining better or rarer Occult Scrolls. This potential allows him to scale harder than other characters, especially with his Ascension, which influences his luck.
Tips & Tricks for Playing as Zi Xiao in Gunfire Reborn
Occult Scrolls and extra Ascensions are more valuable than acquiring good guns on Zi Xiao. Hidden Vaults, obstacle courses, and any additional challenge that can reward you with an Occult Scroll have a greater impact on Zi Xiao since his Astrohouse affects his Ability and Weapon damage.
It’s also important to note that some Zi Xiao builds require you to keep your Astrohouse filled, while others reward you with constantly emptying your Astrohouse to keep buffs rolling. These two very different playstyles are best when they are focused independently instead of combined into the same Zi Xiao build in Gunfire Reborn.
Note: Ascensions that shift Zi Xiao towards a certain build can hinder other choices, so be sure to read which Ascensions you are taking to determine your build. Otherwise, you might only be obtaining half the rewards of either.
Related Article: Top 10 Tips and Tricks to Get Better at Gunfire Reborn
Zi Xiao’s Best Talents
Every character in Gunfire Reborn has three talent trees that focus on enhancing their guns, abilities, or utility. Zi Xiao’s talent tree focuses on improving his weapon damage, Falling Star, and Astroforecast.
There are many viable Zi Xiao builds in Gunfire Reborn that focus on one tree over the rest. However, we found that focusing on enhancing Zi Xiao’s Astroforecast is our favorite build path in Gunfire Reorn because we can increase the total Astrohouse capacity and the number of cards we throw out at once. We’ll focus on this really fun build for the rest of this Zi Xiao guide.
1. Under Control
Card holding capacity increases by four, up to a maximum of 10, while summoning two additional cards, up to a maximum of 6, when using Astroforecast.
For every Normal or Better quality Astroaspect, an additional one to two cards are summoned. At max rank, Legendary and Wild Astroaspects grant an extra card. Cards exceeding the holding capacity are included in the reserve cards.
“Under Control” is a core Ascension for this build, providing us with more cards to hold and throw, and we can acquire additional cards whenever we start manipulating Astroaspects better.
2. Perfect Deck
Cards deal extra damage, scaling from 80% to 480% depending on the rarity type of the obtained Astroaspects. Wild Astroaspects grant a random bonus. If Legendary, Rare, and Wild Astroaspects are obtained through Astroforecast summoned cards deal elemental damage and can pierce infinitely.
Astrohouse Optimization: Enhancing Zi Xiao’s Performance
Since our build primarily focuses on enhancing our cards, this Ascension is perfect because it gives our cards the extra scaling we need.
With the added benefit of dealing elemental damage, we can trigger numerous elemental combinations with whatever guns we are using.
3. Card Printer
Gain +4 to +12 Astroforecast capacity. After summoning more than eight cards, you can gain an additional five to eight reserve cards. The maximum number of reserve cards given at once is equal to the card holding capacity. Missed cards have a chance to be included in reserve cards.
Continuing with our card build for Zi Xiao in Gunfire Reborn, the Card Printer gives us even more reserve cards by spending those same cards. This continuously fuels the cycle of throwing one card after another without running out of Grenade charges.
4. Fate Thread
Increase Astrohouse slot capacity from one to three. If Falling Star is an Impure Astrohouse, replace one to three of the lowest quality Astroaspects with Wild Astroaspects. Falling Star also gains extra damage if it is not an Impure Astrohouse.
Increasing our Astrohouse slot capacity is primarily why we want this skill so that we can store more charges and ramp up our damage even more. The more we have in our Astrohouse, the more damage our other Ascentions will deal with this Zi Xiao build in Gunfire Reborn. Plus, the bonus damage to Falling Star is also a good addition.
5. Bet It All
When clearing the Astrohouse, you can obtain different weapon bonuses for 5 seconds based on the quality of Astroaspects. Normal Astroaspects give you additional base damage, while Rare or Legendaries give you Lucky Shot Chance. Wild Astroaspects also provide a random bonus.
Combined with Fate Thread, we can acquire numerous Wild Astroaspects to grant temporary random bonuses to our weapons. As for the other rarities, using our cards to clear our Astrohouse will consistently keep our guns buffed with more base damage and Lucky Hit Chance, creating a synergy with our Occult Scrolls.
Alternate Talents Worth Considering for Your Next Zi Xiao Build in Gunfire Reborn
A few other strong talents to consider are Mirror Hand, Star Protection, and Lucky Day. Mirror Hand provides extra chances to obtain additional Astroaspects through Astroforecast.
Star Protection recovers a small amount of your Shield for each Astroaspect you obtain or consume.
Lastly, Lucky Day grants extra Weapon and Skill damage for every Normal/Rare/Legendary Astroaspect obtained, while Wild Astroaspects grant a random bonus.
The Best Weapon Builds for Zi Xiao in Gunfire Reborn
For weapon builds, we recommend using mid-range weapons or single-shot weapons that help you stay within your Falling Star and Astroforecast range. Weapons like the Arc Light, Star Ring, Cloud Weaver, Prism, Jet Octopus, or any of the Laser Gloves are good choices.
Single-shot Weapons
Single-shot weapons like the Arc Light, Cloud Weaver, and Prism are especially effective because they all deal elemental damage, which synergizes well with our Perfect Deck Ascension. The Laser Gloves are also a great option as they allow you to focus on one target while maintaining any range you desire.
Advantages of Star Ring and Jet Octopus
Lastly, the Star Ring and the Jet Octopus are particularly advantageous for the same reasons we mentioned earlier. However, we are especially inclined to use the Star Ring on Zi Xiao because it perfectly complements their aesthetic and caster playstyle.
Best Occult Scrolls for Zi Xiao
There are many Occult Scrolls in Gunfire Reborn. They can shape the outcome of your build by adding quality-of-life improvements or drastically impacting your damage output. To complete our Gunfire Reborn Zi Xiao build, we recommend the following Occult Scrolls.
- Elemental Relic: +5% Elemental DMG for ten seconds whenever you kill any enemy affected by an Elemental Effect.
- Elemental Torment: +20% Lucky Shot Chance against enemies affected by Elemental Effects.
- Double Exhilaration: Secondary skill Capacity gets doubled.
- Wait For Good: First shot after each 10s will deal Crit DMG.
- Energy Sandals: Dash stacks 24 energy. Using Primary Skill or Secondary Skill consumes all energy and increases Skill DMG. +1% Skill DMG for each energy consumed. (Up to 600 energy can be stacked).
- Skill Booster: Crit Hit stacks four energy. Using Primary Skill or Secondary Skill consumes all energy and increases Skill DMG. +1% Skill DMG for each energy consumed. (Up to 500 energy can be stacked).
- Effective Split: Randomly get two non-discardable Occult Scrolls.
- Curiosity Box: Randomly get 1-3 occult scrolls when picking up this scroll. (Extremely small chance of obtaining cursed scrolls)
- Good and Evil: +15% Lucky shot chance if you don’t own any cursed scroll; +15 max shield/armor for each cursed scroll you own.
- Sucker Punch: +45% Skill DMG when your skill hits an enemy with more than 70% HP.
- Vindictive Nature: +40% weapon and skill DMG for 10s upon being hit or taking DMG.
- Magic Watch: There’s a 33% chance to reset the cooldown every time you use Primary Skill/Dash.
- Terrific Crossfire: -1s Primary Skill cooldown upon casting a Secondary Skill.
- Take It All: You can select all options in a Mysterious Chest. But you can no longer discard scrolls anymore. (cannot be discarded)
- Spirit Bible: +120% Skill DMG.
Wrapping Up Our Zi Xiao, Gunfire Reborn Build Guide
That’s our build and guide for Zi Xiao in Gunfire Reborn. Zi Xiao is the second caster-type character we have gotten in Gunfire Reborn, but with the unique ability to manipulate your Occult Scrolls and influence your luck, it’s a breath of fresh air.
If you enjoyed our guide and want to try another caster character, check out our Li guide or our ranked Gunfire Reborn Characters tier list. For now, Happy Hunting!
