|OT| Genshin Impact - Breath of the Elements

[hersheyfan]

After a year of consuming this game indirectly through highly lewd fanart, i've finally decided to start playing.
At adventure Rank level 28 already, 40% of the first two regions explored, more than halfway done with main story quest apparently, and already having two 5 Star chars (Mona and Keqing) and -80$ in my bank account.

Feels like a normal, offline singleplayer RPG, just with co-op modes and Gacha/MMO like content delivery plans.

A gacha game i actually like playing.
Dangerous combination.

Welcome to the club! Once you're in, you're in forever.

Seriously, GI is a very well made game at its core. Just keep your head on straight when it comes to managing how much you spend and you'll have a blast (I only ever get the passes from time to time, never buy currency).

 

[Involution]

After a year of consuming this game indirectly through highly lewd fanart, i've finally decided to start playing.
At adventure Rank level 28 already, 40% of the first two regions explored, more than halfway done with main story quest apparently, and already having two 5 Star chars (Mona and Keqing) and -80$ in my bank account.

Feels like a normal, offline singleplayer RPG, just with co-op modes and Gacha/MMO like content delivery plans.

A gacha game i actually like playing.
Dangerous combination.

Welcome to the abyss, it's a fun ride until it's not lol.

Also did you spend money on the standard banner? I would've recommended otherwise but congrats on your 5* characters regardless.

 

[Ascheroth]

After a year of consuming this game indirectly through highly lewd fanart, i've finally decided to start playing.
At adventure Rank level 28 already, 40% of the first two regions explored, more than halfway done with main story quest apparently, and already having two 5 Star chars (Mona and Keqing) and -80$ in my bank account.

Feels like a normal, offline singleplayer RPG, just with co-op modes and Gacha/MMO like content delivery plans.

A gacha game i actually like playing.
Dangerous combination.

Yeah, it basically feeling like a regular offline singleplayer Action-RPG is probably the reason why it's the first live service game I've played for more than a few weeks.
Played the game daily for like 10 months and even now still play it regularly (but not every day anymore, and I have to say being able to not play it daily and not miss out on anything worthwhile is probably another reason why I'm still sticking with it).

Congrats on the 5 stars. Still missing Keqing and Mona
Be careful about your bank account tho.

 

[Dinjoralo]

It feeling like an actual game is a big part of why I've stuck with it too. I think I've said this before, but most gacha games feel like they're slot machines first, with a small game attached to give the prizes value. Genshin feels like the opposite.

 

[Dinjoralo]

Actually going around and exploring the new parts of Inazuma finally. It's fun! Exploration is still really good.

 

[Durante]

and already having two 5 Star chars (Mona and Keqing)

I hate you

 

[Ascheroth]

I hate you

One of these days we too will have Mona. One of these days...

 

[Line]

So, guess who won a Welkin blessing?
Not me

 

[Involution]

So, guess who won a Welkin blessing?
Not me

I also was not blessed with Welkin. Just the measly 100k

I hate you

One of these days we too will have Mona. One of these days...

That's just how the desire sensor works, you never get what you ask for. Anything/Everything else on the other hand...

Fun fact, I never really wanted Diluc either.

 

[SkyStarblaze]

I hate you

We should make a "We don't have Keqing" club

 

[Acidote]

So, guess who won a Welkin blessing?
Not me

I did

 

[Dandy]

For some reason this game always fucks up my bluetooth headphones. For most games, I've easily fixed this by disabling the headset in Windows 10, and just leaving the headphones, but for some reason Genshin Impact still randomly cuts out my sound, and I have to tab out, disable bluetooth, turn my headphones off, enable bluetooth, and turn them back on... and then it happens again randomly.

 

[Ascheroth]

New patch just hit today. New island seems interesting. And check your mails, Aloy arrived for non PS players.

New characters for the next patch:

Arataki Itto

Gorou

 

[Dinjoralo]

Now everyone can bask in the mehhhhhh that is Aloy. She honestly seems like she's worse than most 4-star damage dealers...

Got Tartaglia in 20 pulls! After a few on the weapon banner to try for Rust, I've got about 74 pulls left for whatever comes my way. Nice.

 

[Ascheroth]

Now everyone can bask in the mehhhhhh that is Aloy. She honestly seems like she's worse than most 4-star damage dealers...

Honestly I don't think I'll ever even use her, I'll just get to 70/80 for the fates and that will be it. Ganyu satisfies all my Cryo archer needs.

Congrats for the Tortellini. He's easy to sit out for me since I don't really gel with his gameplay.
Personally I'm in the Yae and Shenhe waiting room.
Though I might grab Itto.

 

[NarohDethan]

Gross. No more GI for me.

 

[Hektor]

I have reached the point where i have to strategically prioritize the grinds i suppose since ressources are becoming spraser.
Though i'm still busy with the main quest in totally-not-Japan.

Spoiler

So i am trying to focus on my mains and their weapons now, but given the choice, should i prioritize weapons or characters?

Also, can i say that all the bow chars kinda suck? Or at least the three that i have.
Having real trouble defeating that oceanied because of his birds, whereas all over of these monsters are easy as fuck.

 

[Ascheroth]

I have reached the point where i have to strategically prioritize the grinds i suppose since ressources are becoming spraser.
Though i'm still busy with the main quest in totally-not-Japan.

Spoiler

So i am trying to focus on my mains and their weapons now, but given the choice, should i prioritize weapons or characters?

Also, can i say that all the bow chars kinda suck? Or at least the three that i have.
Having real trouble defeating that oceanied because of his birds, whereas all over of these monsters are easy as fuck.

The go to recommendation is to focus on 1 or 2 main dps (level, talents, weapon and artifacts) to carry you comfortably through stuff, and keeping supports behind, their main use will be for reactions and shield breaking.

From your chars the easiest main dps choice would be Razor, since he excels in physical damage so you don't need to care about enemy immunities, they all will die. (source: my C0 Razor essentially carried me all the way up to AR 50+).
You could pair him with Diona for Superconduct reactions + Shield + Healing and you should basically have no issues with anything. You probably want to give him the Prototype Archaic that your Noelle currently has instead of the fish, he can't really make much use its passive. Though if you want it for the memes or because it's your highest levelled Claymore, it's good enough.
Every character can work though, so if you wanna focus on someone else, feel free to do that. But stick with 1 or 2 until you get some leeway for resource grinding.
Regarding the archers: Most archers are just used for their skillset and not really for normal or charged attacks. Amber would be charged shot focused but is unfortunately just underwhelming. Dunno about Aloy, I haven't tried her yet and probably never will tbh.
For the Oceanid birds, Razor's Hold Skill can hit them, Lisa should be good as well, Beidou can probably counter-parry them.

Feel free to hit me up though if you're struggling, my Ganyu makes quick work of it.

 

[Ascheroth]

Will be getting Aloy to 70/80 today. Haven't used her and likely never will, but free fates are free fates.
After that it's back to the Viridescent mines and I'll have a bunch of explorationing to do. Wanna get the Tree to 40 for the Inazuma layout. (I could barely scrounch together enough sigils for the free fates at 37 since I'm not even really done explorint Watatsumi, lol)

I'm kinda itching to invest some time into the teapot again. Have been neglecting it for a good long time cause the load limit sucks, but the Inazuma layout looks really pretty, there are lots of cool new blueprints and most importantly: flying rocks!

I have 99 speed up vials, gonna blow through all of them crafting the new blueprints (already bought them all).
Unless load limit kills my motivation again.

 

[Line]

I have reached the point where i have to strategically prioritize the grinds i suppose since ressources are becoming spraser.
Though i'm still busy with the main quest in totally-not-Japan.

Spoiler

So i am trying to focus on my mains and their weapons now, but given the choice, should i prioritize weapons or characters?

Also, can i say that all the bow chars kinda suck? Or at least the three that i have.
Having real trouble defeating that oceanied because of his birds, whereas all over of these monsters are easy as fuck.

Same advice for Razor+Diona making things pretty trivial. But Diona being an hybrid does mean slow healing (and only for the onfield character) and smol shields. Rosaria goes well with a physical char like Razor too.
Amber and Aloy are just bad all around.

Keeping Xiangling, Kaeya and Mona up to par is good, but they are secondary, push your mains first and weapons as the most important thing (but then, you' dont have many for now - Keqing is far superior to Razor, but she also requires pretty specific swords to be good, unlike claymore users or support focused chars which have great crafted options) and you get to use them on other chars later too, it's never wasted.
Beidou and Benett are very strong, but you'd have to make big changes in your team to make them work (likely an Hydro/Cryo main DPS or using them as resonance - not something relevant to your current chars, except Yanfei), Ningguang I wouldn't play much if you only have Noelle to get with her (and you really, really want two geo chars together, always).

I can't see much of your artefacts, but they are far, far more important than levels and even talents.
If your Razor is using a DEF circlet, that's already a massive loss of damage. Set bonuses are important, but not as much as effectively losing an entire piece of gear. Though don't grind artifacts for now, just use decent ATK or CRT pieces on him (and a Physical Damage hourglass as much as possible).

 

[Huggy]

Sweet I was able to beat the 50-50 this time and got Childe! Been really needing a Hydro character and while Xingqui is great, he's pretty much taken by my other comps (mainly Ayaka or Diluc). Still haven't gotten Mona yet from a lost 50-50 so it's nice to finally be able to cover that element.

 

[Ascheroth]

The new teapot layout sure is pretty

 

[Line]

Well that new rogue like dungeon event is really, really cool. We finally see Xinyan, lots of characters interacting with one another, interesting background and some very solid evolution on the first rogue like dungeons that they had.
It has much more interesting encounters with a lot of player agency in where to go first, the charm RNG from the latest tower defense is back but in a less obnoxious way, and having to actually find little things around for tokens sprinkles a little bit of exploration that was missing before.

Now, it is too easy when you stack charms, and it would benefit from a minimap, but I wouldn't mind this mode being permanent with some expansion (especially in the level design between rooms which is pretty limited right now).

Made me want to finish the content I haven't done before, Watatsumi Island really isn't fun to explore... but it's good to have a large chunk of content to play, gonna start the character quests I haven't done yet too.

 

[Ascheroth]

Yep, the new event is conceptually really good.
It's visually more interesting than the misty dungeon, there is both per-run progression with the randomized charms and overall progession where you can spend the currency you got on permanent upgrades for every run. And having both investigation points and sometimes more, sometimes less hidden chests sprinkled in every now and then indeed makes all the difference.
Having more options whth the 3 charms you can take with you as well as 4 support characters with which you can rearrange your team at certain points is also good.
Story is also great fun. The game is always at its best when it has lots of characters interacting with each other in lower stakes situations.

My only issue so far is that it's really, really easy.

 

[Hektor]

I got childe after 3 tenpulls and Hu Tao after 5 tenpulls, let's go

I also got my first 5 star weapon

 

[TioChuck]

I had 115 wishes saved to try and get the Staff of Homa, on the weapons banner I got that at 60 pulls and a Barbara constellation too which was a nice bonus, than I decided to try and pull for Thoma, I got C6 Diona, C5 Sayu and C1 Hu Tao and no Thoma...

 

[Ascheroth]

I got childe after 3 tenpulls and Hu Tao after 5 tenpulls, let's go

I also got my first 5 star weapon

Congrats. I decided I don't really want Hu Tao all that much and will be skipping out on the upcoming Geo boys as well, so I'll just keep sitting in my guaranteed pity with ~300 wishes while I continue to wait for Yae, an Eula rerun and hopefully Shenhe.

Regarding you 5 star weapon: if you got it from the standard banner - great. If you pulled on the weapon banner - hopefully it was one you liked but be aware that banner is by far the scummiest one, so unless you're really sure think at least twice about pulling there.

 

[Line]

I had 115 wishes saved to try and get the Staff of Homa, on the weapons banner I got that at 60 pulls and a Barbara constellation too which was a nice bonus, than I decided to try and pull for Thoma, I got C6 Diona, C5 Sayu and C1 Hu Tao and no Thoma...

Well, at least you got incredibly good constellations instead.
I got Thoma in... 2 rolls on the banner.
And... he's just pretty bad, at everything. At least even Xinyan has a huge spike with her burst. Thoma is just weak despite the pretty animations.

Also, the new event is laaame.
Not awful to play, just really slow, repetitive and uninspired.

No idea what I'm targeting now beside a Eula rerun. I don't want the geo boys, but maybe Itto will be very fun to play as, I dunno. Not a fan of Gorou being made for a geo only team, plus their skills look pretty flat.

 

[Ascheroth]

I got 2 Sayu's (didn't have her before) and 1 Sucrose constellation from the Banner (only put in 16 wishes and see if I could get Sayu and/or Thoma without getting Hu Tao cause I'm on my guaranteed), so that worked out nicely as far as I'm considered.

As for what to target... I'm sitting at like 300 wishes or something right now. I want Yae, Eula and probably Shenhe so I'm sitting out the Geo boys as well in case these 3 drop back-to-back. I sorta want Kauzuha too.
The way the game is currently going with what feels almost like reverse power-creep I don't think they'll be able to make anything challenging that I can't easily walk through with my current characters (excluding upper-tier Abyss stuff, but who cares), so there's not incentive on that front either. ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Involution]

I did a few rolls when the banner updated on Tuesday but before that I took a fortune slip :

Man, only an idiot would roll on that kinda fortune. I am that kind of moron though so :

Apologies to people who want Mona

Probably my luckiest 20 rolls in recent memory. I'm glad on some level that I didn't get Hu tao cause that would mean my resources spent on diluc were wasted lol.

The way the game is currently going with what feels almost like reverse power-creep I don't think they'll be able to make anything challenging that I can't easily walk through with my current characters (excluding upper-tier Abyss stuff, but who cares), so there's not incentive on that front either. ¯\(ツ)/¯

I'm pretty sure characters peaked in power with Ganyu. They made her so simply good that every other character can't really match up to her. Everyone after had either some kind of limiting gimmick or requires way too much work to reach a higher damage ceiling while being in more danger.

If bleed becomes more prevalent then healers might be moved to the forefront but till then a good shield and dps are all that's needed. Past that it's just rolling for love... But maybe that's been the name of the game all along.

 

[Ascheroth]

There's a livestream for the next patch now. I haven't seen it, but here are the codes for primos:
KB6DKDNM7H49
BSNDJC747Z7D
AS7CJDP4NG7H

Also first banners are Albedo and Eula (yes, 2 banners at the same time, shared pity so you can just pick who you want more and nothing else changes)
Afterwards Itto and Gorou.

Eula is a nice surprise.

 

[Line]

Eula
Itto and Gorou don't look like my jam.

And this patch is more than light on content, even though I do like to see Albedo, Amber and Eula. They're better with their characters now.
Even the events are reruns, at least they can improve on them... but damn, that really is a transition before 2.4 that should have some new content to explore.

 

[Ascheroth]

Eula
Itto and Gorou don't look like my jam.

And this patch is more than light on content, even though I do like to see Albedo, Amber and Eula. They're better with their characters now.
Even the events are reruns, at least they can improve on them... but damn, that really is a transition before 2.4 that should have some new content to explore.

Good thing I haven't explored the new island yet, can do that next patch instead to tide things over

I don't really mind as long as they don't have multiple "light" patches in a row like early this year. It was always obvious that new area(s) every 6 weeks is not feasible long term.

And yes Eula

 

[Dinjoralo]

I'm soooo ready for Albedo. Imma be picking him... Basically down to him getting a weapon made for him. Saves me trouble trying to get one for Eula or Itto.

I need to look through the stream, I'm guessing PC getting that 120 FPS option wasn't mentioned...

 

[Ascheroth]

Next week is finally Eula week, yay. Will take some time to get her ready, but hey what else you gonna do.
Also we should get the new character(s) for 2.4 tomorrow. Let's see if it's Shenhe and whether get some details about her.

 

[Ascheroth]

I really dig Shenhe's design (Yun Jin too). Definitely want her unless she turns out terrible in some way.

 

[Involution]

Shenhe looks great, but why are all the great ones cryo? That's the one element I'm pretty sure I do not need in my roster anymore.

Unless she ends up being game breaking somehow.

 

[Ascheroth]

Shenhe looks great, but why are all the great ones cryo? That's the one element I'm pretty sure I do not need in my roster anymore.

Unless she ends up being game breaking somehow.

Gotta embrace the Cryo.
If I get Eula and Shenhe I can run a mono Cryo team made entirely out of 5 stars with Ganyu + Qiqi + Eula and Shenhe.... which actually "works" in so far as that Qiqi makes you immortal and Eula can deal with cryo-immune enemies and Cryo shields so there's nothing to hard-counter them, lol.
I do hope Shenhe isn't another selfish-dps though. Feels really weird to have no idea at all about her kit right now.

 

[Amzin]

I can't decide if I wanna guarantee Eula or Albedo. I still don't have any one character anywhere near maxed out and most of my roster are still like, A1, so building a hypercarry is a long way off... on the other hand, I like the idea of having a physical dps.

But on the other other hand, Albedo very easily slots into like a bajillion teams including my heavily invested Ningguang. But on the other other other hand, Eula....

 

[Involution]

Gotta embrace the Cryo.
If I get Eula and Shenhe I can run a mono Cryo team made entirely out of 5 stars with Ganyu + Qiqi + Eula and Shenhe.... which actually "works" in so far as that Qiqi makes you immortal and Eula can deal with cryo-immune enemies and Cryo shields so there's nothing to hard-counter them, lol.
I do hope Shenhe isn't another selfish-dps though. Feels really weird to have no idea at all about her kit right now.

Sadly I don't have Eula so the thought of mono cryo is nightmare fuel if I have to deal with elemental armor/barriers that aren't electro.

But yeah, between ganyu and Ayaka I have almost every cryo situation covered on my teams lol.

I'm anticipating seeing her kit though. Maybe it'll be a nice surprise.

But on the other other hand, Albedo very easily slots into like a bajillion teams including my heavily invested Ningguang. But on the other other other hand, Eula....

If you want my opinion as someone who has albedo, he is all purpose and he's great. However he's also the easiest to leave out of my teams since he doesn't really provide any specific synergy. If you wanna invest in pure Geo though he might be a great option.

This is a waifu game though at the end of the day. Even if you decide to roll Eula cause you like her the game won't close off any content to you and you'll be able to build a new team around her.

 

[Ascheroth]

Sadly I don't have Eula so the thought of mono cryo is nightmare fuel if I have to deal with elemental armor/barriers that aren't electro.

But yeah, between ganyu and Ayaka I have almost every cryo situation covered on my teams lol.

I'm anticipating seeing her kit though. Maybe it'll be a nice surprise.

Lol yeah it's rough. I've been running triple-cryo in my friendship team for a while (cause I'm running out of characters to friendship level) with Ganyu (to carry), Jean, Chongyun and Diona and Cryo slimes are the bane of my existence. Jean can barely get rid of their shield and then I can kill them with normal attacks but god is it awful. Eula will fix that.
Edit: Well I guess Chongyun can also break the shield but he hits like a noodle and is made out of paper.

I can't decide if I wanna guarantee Eula or Albedo. I still don't have any one character anywhere near maxed out and most of my roster are still like, A1, so building a hypercarry is a long way off... on the other hand, I like the idea of having a physical dps.

But on the other other hand, Albedo very easily slots into like a bajillion teams including my heavily invested Ningguang. But on the other other other hand, Eula....

Go for whoever you like more. There isn't really much point to roll for power in Genshin. Worst case you can't fully clear Abyss every 2 weeks. Doesn't really matter (I say that as someone who never got full stars on Floor 12 so far).
Physical Claymore DPS are great because there is literally nothing in the game that hard-counters them. Razor basically single-handedly carry me all the way till AR 55 or something. (I haven't used him much since then though, somehow I've also never gotten a single constellation for him, lol).

 

[Line]

With Shenhe soon, I don't know if I want Eula anymore... I already have a physical set for Razor, and I even used physical Keqing for a while, but I also have Ganyu and Ayaka built for cryo... physical isn't very useful and Eula is really slow, so do I even need her or yet another cryo?
I'll wait to see what Shenhe brings to the table before rolling.

Also the Spiral abyss is awful this time, yet again. I honestly don't think I'd go anywhere without Ayaka, she's just a powerhouse that doesn't require annoying gameplay like Ganyu and Hu Tao, no shielders, and no support for cryo application. I just slap Xiangling (crazy how she's the one character that never left the active roster for me and many others) and Sucrose with her and they clean up.
She's just so well rounded and good at her job... she feels nice to play, unlike Diluc which is going to reach friendship 10 soon and probably will be left to rot somewhere.

Surprised at how useful Kokomi ended up being too. I like her playstyle even if it isn't the deepest, but her excellent hydro application and good healing while still being a strong sub DPS with tons of HP and hyperarmor makes her another character that just works well as intended in all situations.
Seems like she's climbing fast in the ranks too, not too surprising, well rounded "comfort" characters that don't have glaring weaknesses are probably what you want in general. And that makes me think I should get Albedo...

 

[Involution]

Surprised at how useful Kokomi ended up being too. I like her playstyle even if it isn't the deepest, but her excellent hydro application and good healing while still being a strong sub DPS with tons of HP and hyperarmor makes her another character that just works well as intended in all situations.
Seems like she's climbing fast in the ranks too, not too surprising, well rounded "comfort" characters that don't have glaring weaknesses are probably what you want in general. And that makes me think I should get Albedo...

I gotta say, Kokomi has been excellent in this newest artifact prison. That healing can't be matched by any other healers and that hydro range comes in handy.

I saw some rumors about Shenhe being a phys def shred character, which means that Eula will benefit greatly. That kinda makes me wanna roll for her but I also feel like it's just fomo hitting me.

 

[Ascheroth]

I saw some rumors about Shenhe being a phys def shred character, which means that Eula will benefit greatly. That kinda makes me wanna roll for her but I also feel like it's just fomo hitting me.

What I saw is that she has both phys and cryo res shred on her Burst + burst and skill or normal/charged/plunge attack damage buff on her skill depending on tap or hold.
But the duration might not be long enough for Eula's Burst.

Everything still unconfirmed and even if it were true now could still be subject to change tho.

 

[Dinjoralo]

Yeah, fifty pulls! That's four 50/50's I've won in a row. If only I had this kinda luck in my job hunt.
Just need his new, probably BiS weapon when that event drops.

 

[Ascheroth]

Was on my guaranteed so unsurprising results: Eula, 3 Bennetts (C4), 1 Noelle (finally C6 yay). Good haul.
Gonna take a while until Eula is up to speed. Probably not happening this Abyss round anymore.

Next up: Shenhe.

 

[Ascheroth]

Press F for Reckless Pallad cause Eula will have her vengeance for the mess he caused last year.

 

[Line]

Now to get the Cliffhanger daily with the right option, I have NINE of the wrong items, so that's nice to see I failed the 1 in 3 that many times already. That's what, 1 in 20000?

 

[Involution]

This Dragonspine event has been nice and smooth in terms of event shop and grinding out the rewards. Finished it quickly before the weekend was even half over. One of the better events for sure.

 

[Ascheroth]

Yeah it turned out quite nice overall.
A bit "thin" considering it's supposed to be the "meat" of this update, but I still haven't done the last island so it's whatever. Having some downtime after the last couple updates that all had new area(s) is not a bad thing to take it easy and recharge the batteries if it's not lasting too long (and next update is already looking packed from the leaks)