Genshin Impact Aggravate reaction: effects and how to trigger it

Genshin Impact is an ARPG that emphasizes exploration and character design. Players will spend most of their resources to get their favorite characters, and then level them up and gearing them.

One of the most essential traits of playable characters in the game are the element their vision is tied to, which grants them special abilities to fight and fulfill their destiny. Their whole playstyle revolves around their affiliated element.

There are seven different elements in Genshin Impact: Pyro (Fire), Hydro (Water), Anemo (Wind), Electro (Thunder), Dendro (Plants), Cryo (Ice), and Geo (Earth).

All those elements bear different reactions from one another. Although mono-Element teams exist in Genshin, most players will maximize their characters’ potential by triggering at least one Elemental reaction. They’re key to a team’s strategy and damage output.

Many teams are made of four different elements too, triggering many different reactions while switching from one character to the other. Aggravate is one of them. Here is how this reaction is triggered and what are his effects.

Genshin Impact Aggravate reaction: effects and how to trigger it

Aggravate is not a standard Elemental Reaction in Genshin Impact. It’s actually one out of three distinct stages belonging to the Catalyze reaction.

The Catalyze reaction is caused by a combination of Dendro and Electro elemental triggers. The Catalyze reaction has three successive stages. Each stage is triggered with one more hit.

As shown in the video, the three stages rotate pretty quickly. Quicken is the first one. It doesn’t deal additional damage but sets the effect for the next reactions.

With one more hit, either Spread or Aggravate will be triggered. Spread will be triggered by Dendro damage, while Aggravate will be by Electro damage. It bears almost the same effect, which is dealing additional damage to the enemy.

While Aggravate has a 1.15 damage multiplier, Spread is generally considered more potent since it has a 1.25 damage multiplier. However, both effects will be triggered almost simultaneously, as shown in the gif above, when the enemy is affected by both elements.

Related: Genshin Impact tier list: Best and worst characters ranked

You won’t have to worry about triggering one or the other reaction first. Nahida, for example, is a great Dendro applier and functions very well with all kinds of Electro characters to put opponents in Quicken effect, subsequently inflicting Spread and Aggravate reactions.

Aggravate is one of Genshin‘s strongest reactions because it’s caused in tandem with the Spread reaction. Together, they deal strong damage to enemies.

If you can integrate a Hydro character on top of a Dendro and Electro characters in your team, you’ll be able to deal even more damage with the Hyperbloom effect, which is considered as the strongest Elemental Reaction by many players —provided your characters are geared up appropriately.

If you’re unsure about other reactions, here are all the other Elements and Status effects explained in Genshin.