Zhongli

Zhongli is a support focused Geo character that provides many utilities to help with survivability and damage. Many of his skills scales off of his max HP, and he naturally has one of the highest base HP out of all the other characters, making it easy to reach around 30k+ HP with some artifacts. He can create a Geo shield that lasts longer than its cooldown, and can reduce all damage taken at 150% damage absorption, as well as reducing all nearby enemy's RES by 20%. His elemental burst can deal respectable damage even with a full HP build, and it also petrifies most enemies for a few seconds.

Zhongli is best with his normal attacks and physical damage increase IF you want to build him as your main DPS. This is because his elemental skill has low damage for tap, and long cooldown for hold. The elemental burst may not be super reliable since you need to keep charging it as well as wait for the cooldown.

There are several ways to go about it. If you only want to focus mostly on his normal/charge attack damage, you can go with 4 piece Gladiators Finale, or Retracing Bolide. Otherwise, it's either 2 piece Bloodstained Chivalry with 2 Gladiator or with 2 Noblesse Oblige for higher meteor damage. Go with the one that fits your preferred playstyle, or the one with better substats on the artifacts. You mainly want Phys DMG increase on the cup, and crit rate on the crown, crit dmg up if you use a crit rate up weapon.

The weapon of choice is Crescent Pike if you are free to play. It helps boost damage by a noticeable amount, and can be refined for further increase if you happen to get the drop material from weekly bosses. Otherwise, any 5 star polearm is a good option, Primordial Jade Winged-Spear being the better one, or the weapon that will be coming with Zhongli's banner.

If you want to build him for full HP that can reach up to 50k max HP, since there are no 5 star artifacts that gives more HP, you'll want to just get any HP mainstat artifacts. This does give some options as to what set to use, 4 piece Noblesse Oblige gives some nice attack buff after you use his burst, 4 Archaic Petra is also a nice supporting ability if you can make good use out of it. 2 piece petra with 2 noblesse if you want to just see higher numbers on Zhongli's damage. For the weapon, Black Tassel is the one and only main choice due to its secondary HP% stat.

For a more damaging support build, then ideally it's 2 petra with 2 noblesse. The only thing you want to change is mostly just their artifact mainstats. HP% on sands and crown pieces for a comfortable 30k+ HP with up to 50k+/- damage on crit for the meteor. 4 piece noblesse works as well. For the weapon, either Deathmatch or Favonius Lance for easily accessible weapons, otherwise it's Primordial Jade Winged-Spear for possible best in slot weapon.

If you are building him for damage, then you're going to want to put him in a party with at least another Geo user to help with energy gain. Zhongli works well with Geo main character because their elemental skill and burst creates Geo constructs. There's also Ningguang that can really generate a lot of energy if you have her at constellation level 2. For the other 2 in your party, you can consider someone like Xingqiu for extra durability as well as high damage elemental burst support, and / or double Pyro characters for the resonance using characters like Bennett for easy atk increase.

A superconduct team is also very good on him since most of his attacks are physical, and he attacks fast. Fischl or Beidou are really good Electro options to bring. As for Cryo, there's Kaeya or Diona. Chongyun won't be a good option since his elemental skill makes normal attacks into Cryo within the field, which won't work well for superconduct physical damage focused setup.

Normal Attack

Performs up to 6 consecutive spear strikes.

Charged Attack

Consumes a certain amount of Stamina to lunge forward, causing stone spears to fall along his path.

Plunging Attack

Plunges from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging enemies along the path and dealing AoE DMG upon impact.

Every mountain, rock and inch of land is filled with the power of Geo, but those who can wield such powers freely are few and far between.

Press

Commands the omnipresent power of earth to solidify into a Stone Stele, dealing AoE Geo DMG.

Hold

Causes nearby Geo energy to explode, causing the following effects:

• If their maximum number hasn't been reached, creates a Stone Stele.
• Creates a shield of Jade. The shield's DMG Absorption scales based on Zhongli's Max HP.
• Deals AoE Geo DMG.
• If there are nearby targets with the Geo element, it will drain a large amount of Geo element from a maximum of 2 such targets. This effect does not cause DMG.

Stone Stele

When created, deals AoE Geo DMG.
Additionally, it will intermittently resonate with other nearby Geo constructs, dealing Geo DMG to nearby opponents.
The Stone Stele is considered a Geo construct that can both be climbed and used to block attacks.
Only one Stele created by Zhongli himself may initially exist at any one time.

Jade Shield

Possesses 150% DMG Absorption against all Elemental and Physical DMG.
Characters protected by the Jade Shield will decrease the Elemental RES and Physical RES of opponents in a small AoE by 20%. This effect cannot be stacked.

Brings a falling meteor down to earth, dealing massive Geo DMG to opponents caught in its AoE and applying the Petrification status to them.

Petrification

Opponents affected by the Petrification status cannot move.