Genshin Impact: How to clean the Withering Zones

Last Updated on: 27th August 2022, 06:42 pm

The first hazard we meet in the rainforests of Sumeru in Genshin Impact 3.0 is the Withering zones, making learning how to clean the Withering zones a valuable skill.

If you try to walk through these zones and deal with the enemies nearby without caring about the effects, you’ll find your elemental resistances and maximum health continuously reduced, effectively turning every fight inside them into a much more uphill battle.

So, with the negatives involved established, let’s move on to how to clean the Withering zones. Otherwise, they’ll need to be avoided to escape those horrid debuffs springing up on us when we can’t deal with them.

How to clean the Withering Zones in Sumeru

To clean the Withering Zones present in the Sumeru Rainforest, you’ll need to make use of nearby Dendrograna. These handy little sources of Dendro damage can be used to break the deep red plants – known as Withering Branches – within the Withering Zones, and are key to cleaning them up for good.

Grab one from one of the summon Dendrograna shrines nearby, then use a charged attack on the Withering Branches. Each Withering Zone typically has three of these, and using a charged attack on them will fling a Dendrograna at them, breaking them shortly afterwards. When you’ve used the powers of the Dendrograna to break each of the nearby branches, you’ll come under attack.

Credit: HoYoverse, TheClick

Breaking the three branches will spawn a disciple of decay, who will defend the Withering Zone. Defeating these enemies plays out much like a normal fight, but they can increase the decay meter above your health bar – something best avoided, as decay can kill off your entire team if allowed to grow too much – so dispatch them as quickly as you can.

With their defeat, you will be able to approach the largest red plant in the area; the Tumor of Withering. With it now defenceless, you can interact with it to destroy it for good, ending the presence of the local Withering Zone.

Congratulations, you’ve successfully started to clean the Withering Zones, though Sumeru has quite a few of them to work through.

READ MORE: Genshin Impact: How to find Sumeru bounties and Sumeru requests

Everything you need to know about the Decay from Withering Zones

The reason that Withering Zones are a problem isn’t actually due to the zone itself, or the enemies within it.

Much like Dragonspine, or the boss fight with Signora before it, Withering Zones come with a mechanic that adds an additional bar to your HUD. This mechanic is known as Decay, and displays as chunks of red while in a Withering Zone, of which you can have up to ten total. You do not want to get ten total, for reasons I’ll discuss in a moment.

So, is Decay bad enough to merit bothering to clean the Withering Zones when you encounter them? It certainly can be. Previously I mentioned that the Withering Zone decreases your maximum health and elemental resistances – the scale of the effect is determined by what level of Decay currently affects you. Entering a Withering Zone will instantly apply two levels of Decay, but taking damage from an attack or even the nearby environmental can increase your decay gauge immediately.

Fortunately, not all enemy attacks will do so. Still, it’s best to avoid letting it stack up – you can reduce it much like other environmental effects. Standing next to a teleport beacon will instantly clean it off you, but using the readily available Dendrogranum or the Candle of Life found in just about every Withering Zone will also reduce it.

If you fail to do and manage to reach 10 stacks of Decay though, you’ll find out why to avoid it quite quickly. Failing to clean the Withering Zones and allowing Decay to build up to the maximum of 10 full guages, you’ll have precisely 10 seconds to do something about it or your entire team will be dead in moments. You can delay the effect briefly with i-frames, but much like the i-frames of Dark Souls, panicked evading won’t keep you alive without a more long-term solution employed shortly afterwards.