|OT| Genshin Impact - Breath of the Elements

[Ascheroth]

Got Qiqi'd

But I outsmarted the game and that was on the Standard banner

And then Raiden came on the first 10 pull (pity was at 46, only 50/50). Literally the first time I got a limited character before soft pity.

And then it took another 50-ish pulls to get a single Sara
But yeah, that went as well as it could be. Means I'll definitely go to 50/50 for Kokomi.

 

[Ascheroth]

I'm supremely disappointed that Raiden's Burst doesn't work together with Beidou's. There goes my team plan. Apparently she's only really good as an Eula support or in a Tortellini team, which I don't have so yay?


And the Electro Crit Damage bonus on Sara's C6 can't be snapshotted, so it doesn't work well with Beidou, Fischl or Lisa, whose abilties do snapshot and would have made Sara's short buff duration not an issue (I mean I only have her at C0 so it's not like it matters to me, but still).

Why does Mihoyo hate Electro so much.

 

[Line]

Yeah, seems like both of them are niche at best.
Probably won't roll, despite loving their designs... but it's hard to justify ultra specifics supports instead of a regular unga bunga like Ayaka...

 

[jim2point0]

For anyone that runs into this puzzle and cant figure it out

Answer in spoiler

Spoiler

Orient yourself this way so you're facing north on the compass.

A block with a light on certain sides add up to a certain number.
North = 1
East = 2
South = 3
West = 4

A block with a stone on top adds 4, so they become 5, 6, 7, and 8
They tell you the missing block is 9.
There are certain blocks you can't change. Ill underline those.
Each row and diagonal has to add up to 15. Here's the solution if you're facing the way I am.

4 3 8
9 5 1
2 7 6

 

[Durante]

The news kind of makes me not want to "waste" my pity on the current banner.

On the other hand, I really do want those constellations.

On the third hand (what?), both Sucrose and Xiangling will eventually show up in a banner again.

 

[jim2point0]

 

[Ascheroth]

The news kind of makes me not want to "waste" my pity on the current banner.

On the other hand, I really do want those constellations.

On the third hand (what?), both Sucrose and Xiangling will eventually show up in a banner again.

Chasing 4 star constellations is always a crapshoot. I spent 100 pulls on Ganyu's banner and didn't get a single Noelle.
Took me 60 wishes for a single Sara.
You want 2 so chances are probably better to get at least one of them, but yeah.
It really depends how far you are into pity.
I'd spend a few wishes if you aren't close to soft pity at all, because I'd consider getting spooked by an early 5 star a win regardless, but that's just me and it might mess up any future pulling plans if you have any.

 

[Durante]

I'm ~60 wishes in, but I could trust my "luck" consistency in Genshin and assume I don't get anything before 90 anyway

I do have ~22k primogems and ~15 fates, without anything we get from 2.1, so I guess I could afford missing using up one pity and still get Kokomi, but then I'd be pretty low on pulls for a while.

 

[Ascheroth]

I'm ~60 wishes in, but I could trust my "luck" consistency in Genshin and assume I don't get anything before 90 anyway

I do have ~22k primogems and ~15 fates, without anything we get from 2.1, so I guess I could afford missing using up one pity and still get Kokomi, but then I'd be pretty low on pulls for a while.

In that case I'd sit out. 60 is too close to comfort when you don't want the 5 star.

 

[Durante]

I do really like how she looks and I appreciate the basic idea of solving energy issues in a team which builds on spamming a lot of bursts (since that's basically the opposite of my main Ganyu playstyle -- which I also enjoy, but variety is nice), while not having to farm for great ER artifacts. Given that I don't really care much about Abyss I probably also shouldn't worry too much about meta optimality.

I think I'll give it a two 10 pulls.

 

[Line]

Well, maybe I'll roll for Kokomi to get another hydro char (why are they so rare nowadays?), but otherwise I decided to just ignore the banner and fully upgrade Xinyan instead.
Fuck the meta, let's rock

 

[Dinjoralo]

Are they going to make all the future regions this dangerous? Seirai Island has to be the most uninhabitable place I've seen in a game, like, ever. And those specters I need for Aloy are right in the danger zone...

 

[Ascheroth]

Are they going to make all the future regions this dangerous? Seirai Island has to be the most uninhabitable place I've seen in a game, like, ever. And those specters I need for Aloy are right in the danger zone...

I expect more like that, but probably not as frequent. That seems to be the Inazuma special.
Though I don't really mind it. As with the other islands, there's a quest that fixes things. Talk to Inazuma Katheryne

 

[NarohDethan]

I played a bit more up until unlocking 'wishes', which I presume it's the gacha system? How does it work? What currency must be purchased in order to give it a go? I see that only Crystals are sold but those ones aren't used for each try?

 

[TioChuck]

I played a bit more up until unlocking 'wishes', which I presume it's the gacha system? How does it work? What currency must be purchased in order to give it a go? I see that only Crystals are sold but those ones aren't used for each try?

You can convert crystals into primogems 1 to 1 and buy wishes that way, primogems can be earned in game in a reasonable fashion tho', you really don't need to spend money on the game unless you want all the 5* characters and weapons.

 

[Involution]

I played a bit more up until unlocking 'wishes', which I presume it's the gacha system? How does it work? What currency must be purchased in order to give it a go? I see that only Crystals are sold but those ones aren't used for each try?

There's like 6 or 7 different currencies floating around in this game that you can use/collect and it's kinda ridiculous. Let's go through the hierarchy:

$ (or symbol of choice) - Straight from your wallet
Genesis Crystals - Purchased with $, basically how you divide paid from free currency
Primogems - Given through gameplay, or converted through genesis crystals
Acquaint Fate - "tickets" for the generic banner, purchased with primogems or through the shop for stardust/glitter. Wouldn't recommend primogem spend on this cause it's the default ticket you get through gameplay and battle pass.
Intertwined fate - "tickets" for focus banners, purchased with primogems or through the shop.
Stardust - you get a paltry amount of this per 3* pull
Starglitter - you get a paltry amount of this per 4-5* pull

Costumes can only be purchased with Genesis crystals so if you hastily converted all of them to primogems you're SOL
Welkin Moon and Premium Battle Pass can only be purchased with $ even if you already purchased Genesis Crystals because I guess somehow that doesn't count as $ despite the fact you have to pay $ for it.

I didn't think it was that bad before typing it out but typing it out I thought, "man this sucks lol"

 

[Durante]

So my wishes were a disaster. Here's everything >=4 stars I got:
First 10: The Flute (I should have understood here that the game is telling me not to pull)
Second 10: Raiden, Xiangling C6 (easily the best set)
Third 10: Favonius Sword
Fourth 10: Xiangling "C7" (at least that's so bad it brought me back to my senses and made me stop)

So yeah, not a single Sucrose constellation, and no Sara either. Luckily I didn't really want the latter anyway.
Although I might still pull more on this later depending on what leaks as the 4* characters on the next banner, because I could at least get closer to soft pity again while rolling on a banner that has 4*s I actually want.

On the bright side, what I've played of the new island so far has been great, and I love the aesthetics of it. Even after all this time it's such a strange dichotomy to have such a great open world ARPG combined in an unholy union with such blatant gacha-ass gacha.

 

[jim2point0]

Oddly enough I wanted Sara mora than Raiden. I have a "no ideal 4th teammate" problem for Hu Tao in the abyss. I cant run Bennett because you don't want to heal Hu Tao. So budget electro Bennett (which is what Sara is) sounds perfect. I still get a nice dmg boost for Hu Tao with no passive dmg that will mess up my melts.

My other abyss team is still up in the air. I can't find a way for Ganyu to kill the Maguu Kenki faster than Hu Tao, even though she's supposed to be the best DPS in teh game. I don't know what I'm doing wrong with her. So I need to swap teams around in order to get 3 stars on 12-2. Super annoying.

 

[Line]

I played a bit more up until unlocking 'wishes', which I presume it's the gacha system? How does it work? What currency must be purchased in order to give it a go? I see that only Crystals are sold but those ones aren't used for each try?

Beside the good explanations above, the basic loop in the game is to do quests, explore and open chests, and later at rank 20 to do dailies to get primogems, then to roll on the character banner with them to get someone you want (we can talk about pity later). The game is surprisingly not that random since you're far too likely to get virtually nothing while rolling.

Advice for early on: roll on the beginner's banner. It's 20% off, your first 16 acquaint fates should go there; you get Noelle+another character guaranteed at the very least. It disappears after two 10 pulls.

Never use primogems on the permanent banner "Wanderlust invocation", it's always here, and the chances to get good stuff are lower. You'll get plenty of free rolls for it through the game.

If you really want to spend money, your best bet is the Blessing of the Welkin Moon, it's a sub of sort getting you primogems every day (but you have to connect or you lose your daily primogems of the day).
Buying genesis crystals to convert them into primogems is ridiculously expensive.

 

[Durante]

Good points. Also, you probably shouldn't roll on the weapon banners as a new player either for at least a few months. (Personally, I basically never roll on them at all)

And yeah, even if you want to spend money on the game, only the Welkin and the cheaper tier of the Battlepass are remotely worth it (and the latter only really if you unlock all its levels by playing, which might be difficult early on, but is rather easy later).

 

[NarohDethan]

Beside the good explanations above, the basic loop in the game is to do quests, explore and open chests, and later at rank 20 to do dailies to get primogems, then to roll on the character banner with them to get someone you want (we can talk about pity later). The game is surprisingly not that random since you're far too likely to get virtually nothing while rolling.

Advice for early on: roll on the beginner's banner. It's 20% off, your first 16 acquaint fates should go there; you get Noelle+another character guaranteed at the very least. It disappears after two 10 pulls.

Never use primogems on the permanent banner "Wanderlust invocation", it's always here, and the chances to get good stuff are lower. You'll get plenty of free rolls for it through the game.

If you really want to spend money, your best bet is the Blessing of the Welkin Moon, it's a sub of sort getting you primogems every day (but you have to connect or you lose your daily primogems of the day).
Buying genesis crystals to convert them into primogems is ridiculously expensive.

I got Noelle, Sucrose and Fischl on the first roll of the beginner banner. I want to get Raiden as I missed Ayaka, sadly.

 

[Durante]

That's extremely lucky, Sucrose and Fischl are both great supports both at low investement at the beginning of the game and very viable throughout the end-game content.

 

[Line]

Three characters in a 10 rolls? Damn. Sucrose and Fischl are very good too.

Raiden feels... pretty complicated for a new player. You'll need super endgame areas to get her upgrade materials, so she'd be stuck at a low level for a while, plus she only works well on ultra specific teams... same for Sara.
On the other hand, more Sucroses and Xianglings are always good.

 

[NarohDethan]

Thank you everyone for the tips

I also download it on my iPad but I get a 'download full package' message, is this normal? lol

 

[Dinjoralo]

I'm super glad I got Sucrose and Sara in only 20 pulls, even if I'm not gonna be building them up for a long while. Now to hoard till Gorou comes out...

It's also turning out that A: Yoimiya's a great help when farming Specters, and B: The Viridescent Hunt I got for Aloy works a lot better on her since it makes overload reactions much easier to work with. Prolly gonna stick the Amenoma bow on Aloy then since it'll work better with her low energy requirements. Again, that'll take some time...

 

[Ascheroth]

PSA: Fishing totally rules.

 

[TioChuck]

Fishing is pretty good, but its a lot a grind to get stuff from the merchants.

The new event tho', its good fun, I liked it a lot.

 

[Line]

Reached pity at 76 on the permanent banner.

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Finally something else than Keqing (and one Mona)!
Guess I won't focus on Xinyan right now then, but at least I was preparing the rights materials and the weapon already.

 

[NarohDethan]

Paypal is supported for this now right? I remember it wasn't, at the beginning.

And what would be the 'Season Pass'? the blessings? cause i didn't see anything labeled as such. Or maybe I need to play a bit more?

 

[Line]

I can't really remember when the game teaches you about the Blessing o the Welkin Moon, but it should be in the recommended page of the shop otherwise.

The season pass only starts at rank 20, and you may as well complete its free version before the paid one, just in case you don't finish it on time. There's nothing to lose by waiting for that.

 

[NarohDethan]

I can't really remember when the game teaches you about the Blessing o the Welkin Moon, but it should be in the recommended page of the shop otherwise.

The season pass only starts at rank 20, and you may as well complete its free version before the paid one, just in case you don't finish it on time. There's nothing to lose by waiting for that.

Ah I see. I'm just adventurer rank 6 so maybe that's why.

 

[Ascheroth]

I have built a fishie pond

 

[Durante]

I just crafted 700 bait by accident.

... I thought it was 1 per crafting, not 10, and I had a lot of those resources.

 

[Dinjoralo]

I wonder when they're going to be doing regional banners, or something like that. Because it's going to be a problem for newer players if it becomes more and more likely that they're gonna get characters they can't level up at all.

That being said, new players are likely to be blown away by things like fishing and housing just being there to find out as they progress.

 

[NarohDethan]

Is there any benefit in using those items that level up characters?

 

[Involution]

Is there any benefit in using those items that level up characters?

Are you talking about the experience books like the Adventurer's experience/Hero's wit? Cause if so, those are the only ways you should be levelling characters (outside of maybe the tiny sliver at the end (if you're trying to conserve books). You'll die of old age before you reach level 90 on one character if you don't.

 

[Durante]

I wonder when they're going to be doing regional banners, or something like that. Because it's going to be a problem for newer players if it becomes more and more likely that they're gonna get characters they can't level up at all.

That's a good point. I feel like the longer the game runs (and if they want to get through the planned story at the current pace it will run for a very long time) the more the gacha design of it will clash with the open world ARPG design. If every new character requires materials and fights from their new regions (and that seems to be the idea, which makes sense in isolation), then a year or two from now all the banner characters will require at least a few weeks of gameplay to even get to the stuff they need at a normal casual pace.

 

[Ascheroth]

That's a good point. I feel like the longer the game runs (and if they want to get through the planned story at the current pace it will run for a very long time) the more the gacha design of it will clash with the open world ARPG design. If every new character requires materials and fights from their new regions (and that seems to be the idea, which makes sense in isolation), then a year or two from now all the banner characters will require at least a few weeks of gameplay to even get to the stuff they need at a normal casual pace.

Yep, this is going to be a bigger and bigger problem going forward unless they find a solution. They are definitely aware of it, because they changed trial rewards to make it so you can at least ascend a little bit, instead of them being generic resources. And they keep dropping the AR requirements for story stuff so that people won't have downtime where they need to explore until they can continue with the story.
I'm not... super happy with that because exploration is like 90% of what makes the game great and incentivicing people to rush through all the story until they can use a character doesn't sit right with me.

It could also be that other nations can be accessed without having to do the story, like it was with Liyue. Inazuma is kinda special in that regard.
If you can, let's say, theoretically explore Sumeru to do the bosses, domains and collect materials while still being in the Mondstadt story, it could work. But still not really ideal.
I dunno. But they'll have to think of something sooner rather than later.

 

[Durante]

I'm not... super happy with that because exploration is like 90% of what makes the game great and incentivicing people to rush through all the story until they can use a character doesn't sit right with me.

Right. It makes me a bit sad to consider this, because despite all the controversy about the monetization, gacha aspects, and end-game character powerlevels, if they keep up the quality of the overworld exploration, basic gameplay and main story (and IMHO they have done so with Inazuma, especially the open world design) they would have an all-time great on their hands once the game is done -- but the need to keep up with gacha monetization might compromise that more and more in the future.

 

[Acidote]

Got Raiden on the hard pity. Then got a second Raiden 6 wishes later.

Can I get a third so I get to C2?

Also pulled Qiqi on the (permanent) standard 80th.

 

[Ascheroth]

I'm not sure why I find this so funny, but lol.

 

[Dinjoralo]

Aloy... really, really sucks. She just feels so inconsistent to use.
It's the little internal cooldown on her Coil stacks that screws with her. It feels like it's just there to prevent any synergies with Kazuha and other characters with vacuums. Whoops, your bombs exploded too fast, no buff for you. It doesn't help that I don't have a good bow for her and likely won't until the next patch, but dang.

I'm pretty sure MiHoYo knows what they're doing with designing characters, and it wouldn't surprise me if she was like the Anemo traveler where she looks cool and works well for open world fights, but isn't good at the challenges that come up later.

That's a good point. I feel like the longer the game runs (and if they want to get through the planned story at the current pace it will run for a very long time) the more the gacha design of it will clash with the open world ARPG design. If every new character requires materials and fights from their new regions (and that seems to be the idea, which makes sense in isolation), then a year or two from now all the banner characters will require at least a few weeks of gameplay to even get to the stuff they need at a normal casual pace.
[...]
Right. It makes me a bit sad to consider this, because despite all the controversy about the monetization, gacha aspects, and end-game character powerlevels, if they keep up the quality of the overworld exploration, basic gameplay and main story (and IMHO they have done so with Inazuma, especially the open world design) they would have an all-time great on their hands once the game is done -- but the need to keep up with gacha monetization might compromise that more and more in the future.

My thoughts exactly. There's just so many little things that make it feel like the gacha aspect wasn't thought through all the way.
Cuz another thing that bugs me that's clearly the byproduct of that gacha element: The Traveler being so bad. That's just the way it goes in gacha, the free characters aren't good, but the story actually centers on them and has me invested, and any other single-player RPG like this would make them objectively better than the rest of the cast. I'm also assuming they're not planning on having alternative versions of characters like other gacha games do.

ARMCHAIR GAME DEV SHIT

One thing I've sent to the feedback bot is having a third passive slot for them that can have talents "mentored" from other characters. So like, Keqing would make Electro-T's skill imbue electro, Zhongli would make Geo-T's boulders resonate, etc. This would make them really flexible while still keeping that gacha thing of making you thirst for other characters intact.

 

[Ascheroth]

Honestly, Raiden is actually a ton of fun now that her build is taking form. Sucks that I still don't have The Catch for her, before that I won't really be able to get a proper feel for her, but still.
I think she's actually very good and very "future-proof", but she isn't as universal as Venti or Zhongli.
Still, her Burst already does respectable numbers, the energy regen for the team is great and I feel like one thing about her kit that kinda gets overlooked/not really talked about all that much is her team-wide Burst damage buff with 100% uptime. That's 24% extra Burst damage for characters with an 80 energy Burst which usually already hit hard to begin with.


Thinking of trying out Raiden/Kokomi/Beidou/Xingqiu if I get Kokomi.

In my head this seems to work well, but I dunno if the actual skill cooldowns/durations work out like that.
Start with Kokomi using her Skill, then Raiden using her Skill.
Rotation would be: Beidou Skill + Burst into Xingqiu Skill + Burst into Kokomi Burst (attack until it expires) + Skill (should hopefully be off cooldown by then) into Raiden Skill + Burst and go ham, repeat.

Yeah, you lose the damage from Beidou during Raiden's burst but welp. The majority of it should happen during Kokomi's turn anyway.
After Raiden's done all the Bursts should easily be up again, I think. The energy she provides is crazy.
Very likely also allows running Xingqiu without a Sac Sword, so even if that particular team ends up not working out, those 2 together should still make very good partners.

Maybe I'll try "simulating" this with Barbara instead of Kokomi once I get the Catch, to get a basic idea about its viability.

 

[jim2point0]

Stupid me thought that you had to get 6000 in a single challenge for the Battle Pass EXP. So I spent like an hour trying to get this.

That's pretty damn hard. But... turns out, it's just 6000 cumulative across multiple challenges. So.... yeah don't be like me unless you're going for a high score or something.

 

[Ascheroth]

I'm sorry.

But damn that's good. I only bothered doing 1 run for around 3k. Getting a feeling for the mode now and I could definitely do more, but not sure if 6k would be in it.
Anyway I like this event. It basically allows you to switch between 12 characters in combat, and you can even do some more customization with the equippable sub-team buffs. It's neat.

 

[TioChuck]

So... fishes respawn in 3 real-time days, The Catch gonna take months to R5...

 

[Durante]

I swear I already saw people posting their R5 Catches, so there must be more to it.

 

[TioChuck]

I swear I already saw people posting their R5 Catches, so there must be more to it.

You can catch fish in other people worlds, just need to find people willing to let you do it, spamming join on the F2 menu sometimes works.

 

[Dinjoralo]

I still haven't touched the new event. Kinda feeling the game's grip on me loosening...

 

[Ascheroth]

So... fishes respawn in 3 real-time days, The Catch gonna take months to R5...

Nah, realistically probably a few weeks or so if you only fish in your world. It is annoying me immensely tho that getting just the weapon takes so long. It's great that it's not time-limited but grah, I have Raiden I wanna actually use her properly.

I still haven't touched the new event. Kinda feeling the game's grip on me loosening...

Nothing wrong with that. It's probably healthy to take a break every now and then anyway rather than getting burned out.