Outside of this role, she doesn’t work anywhere else. As a DPS, she simply lacks the damage, AOE, and consistency to compete with other DPS units in-game – especially against her fellow Cryo units that are miles ahead of her. And as a support, she doesn’t offer enough utility to compete with other supports. There’s basically no reason to build her – but of course, this is based on meta only. So if you like Aloy regardless of her power level, don’t let this stop you from playing her.
Pros & Cons
Aloy Strengths
Aloy’s strong energy particle generation is the best part of her kit. Each skill cast consistently generates 5 Cryo particles. This is especially valuable in her role as a Cryo battery – it lets her efficiently charge energy-hungry Cryo units like Ayaka and Eula. In a support build, she can further generate more particles when using a Favonius Warbow or Sacrificial Bow. This is also great for a DPS build Aloy. She can easily charge and spam her low energy cost burst.
Aloy Weaknesses
Aloy competes with other Cryo units in all her roles and team slots. And in most cases, these other units outperform her. Here’s a better comparison between her and some notable Cryo units. Aloy’s skill casts 6 Chillwater Bomblets that give one Coil stack when triggered. Only 1 stack can be gained every 0.1s. And upon reaching 4 Coil stacks, Aloy gains the Rushing Ice state that increases her normal attack damage and converts it to Cryo damage for 10s. This sounds pretty simple, but it’s difficult in practice – there are multiple ways this could go wrong. For instance, multiple bomblets can be triggered simultaneously, thus only gaining 1 Coil stack. Or the enemies can be far apart or distant from the bomblets, thus not triggering them at all. This issue is mainly solved by using an Anemo unit or other grouping abilities that can move the bomblets toward the opponents. But this does make Aloy reliant on other units to consistently get 4 Coil stacks every rotation. Aloy’s scaling and damage are decent, but they pale in comparison to other Cryo DPS units. Her damage is definitely enough for a role as a sub-DPS or Burst DPS. It’s just underwhelming when compared to equally accessible Cryo characters like Kaeya. And as a Main DPS, Aloy is mainly single-target and unfavorable against AOE content. In contrast, all currently playable Cryo DPS units excel both against single-target and AOE. So unless you don’t have the better Cryo options – which is unlikely since you get Kaeya for free –, there’s simply no reason to use Aloy. Constellations provide multiple buffs to a character and further increases their potential. Unfortunately, Aloy doesn’t have any constellations. So there’s no way of improving her past C0. This includes the lack of extra talent levels, damage buffs, and quality-of-life upgrades. This greatly limits her potential compared to other units – effectively making her even worse than characters that do have constellations unlocked.
