|OT| Genshin Impact - Breath of the Elements
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The range is fairly large, but not oculus-locator-large that you can use in general areas and still get a hit. It also does not show challenges and puzzles, only chests, so... depends where you are and how much you found.
Raiden Shogun is strong and versatile, any team will benefit from her energy recharge and her skill is extra damage on all your attacks. Ironically, there's two characters that work a lot less with her mechanics due to barely activating her skill. Dehya and Tighnari.I was talking to a friend who plays the game and he insists that I should not pull for any character before Raiden Shogun. I was telling him I'm thinking about Wanderer and Yelan and Zhongli and he was like "No. Absolutely not. Nobody at all before Raiden." I looked her up and she's apparently super popular and powerful but is she that good that you should just not pull for anyone at all before her? She's rumored to appear in 4.1 I believe.
Anyway, all you guys will be in Fontaine tomorrow. Hope you have a great time there
She wouldn't be the first character I'd go for, despite getting mileage forever with her kit, she's probably one of the worst cases of "endgame review", heavily reliant on using her burst on demand, extremely heavily dependent on having a good weapon, not practical at all for early game.
But now with all those Fontaine characters coming up, I wonder how it'll go. The early ones at least will only require easily accessible bosses, so they might become a much better get for early game?
I can imagine Neuvilette being strong.
That sure is a strange start for Fontaine, not a bad thing to break the usual formula. We'll see how it goes.
The music at night in Fontaine is
Lyney's trial is pretty clunky, and it's mostly one mob at a time... definitely one of those characters that wants a shielder, but in his mono pyro that's Thoma or Xinyan... yeah I'm not so convinced by him.
The music at night in Fontaine is
Lyney's trial is pretty clunky, and it's mostly one mob at a time... definitely one of those characters that wants a shielder, but in his mono pyro that's Thoma or Xinyan... yeah I'm not so convinced by him.
The new party menu and animations are beautiful...
Really enjoying Fontaine so far, I'm loving the underwater stuff. Visuals and music are beautiful, as expected.
Fun start to the archon quest too!
Really enjoying Fontaine so far, I'm loving the underwater stuff. Visuals and music are beautiful, as expected.
Fun start to the archon quest too!
Poor Dehya, always forgotten
Just finished Act I of the new Archon Quest.
I'm so happy right now. I was hoping Fontaine story would be as good as Sumeru, and so far that seems to actually be the case - I'd even say this first Act was a lot stronger than Sumeru's opening act.
Onto Act II later on and hopefully it keeps going strong!
I'm so happy right now. I was hoping Fontaine story would be as good as Sumeru, and so far that seems to actually be the case - I'd even say this first Act was a lot stronger than Sumeru's opening act.
I fucking love that we basically went Ace Attorney. Evidence Gathering, poking holes into accusations, twists and turns galore. Camera was way more dynamic than usual too. Great fun!
Whole lots of juicy info got unearthed during it as well. Can't wait to see how things continue.
Furina and Neuvilette are both a-ma-zing.
I love how Furina is a celibrity, and is basically a haughty brat that wants to stay in the spotlight and have fun (but also doesn't want to harm innocents) and Neuvilette is basically the annoyed dad that has take care of her shenanigans.
Childe stuff was quite interesting and ominous as well, and I'm curious to see where the Arlecchino stuff is going.
Fantastic stuff all around.
Whole lots of juicy info got unearthed during it as well. Can't wait to see how things continue.
Furina and Neuvilette are both a-ma-zing.
I love how Furina is a celibrity, and is basically a haughty brat that wants to stay in the spotlight and have fun (but also doesn't want to harm innocents) and Neuvilette is basically the annoyed dad that has take care of her shenanigans.
Childe stuff was quite interesting and ominous as well, and I'm curious to see where the Arlecchino stuff is going.
Fantastic stuff all around.
Onto Act II later on and hopefully it keeps going strong!
Done with the first act, really surprised that the quality is here and... actual revelations that you cannot see coming from a mile away? Who are you and what did you do to Hoyoverse.
Fontaine is very pretty, nice music, but underwater you don't always have it going. Never understood why it became popular to forsake ambience with the likes of BotW...
At least it plays fine, but it's not Guild Wars 2 levels of good. Oddly plays more like a puzzle game at times, with the various powers and mechanisms to chain together, much more so than the overworld.
Fontaine is very pretty, nice music, but underwater you don't always have it going. Never understood why it became popular to forsake ambience with the likes of BotW...
At least it plays fine, but it's not Guild Wars 2 levels of good. Oddly plays more like a puzzle game at times, with the various powers and mechanisms to chain together, much more so than the overworld.
I've been hooked for the past two days. I enjoyed Sumeru, but I feel Fontaine intro has topped it. Very cool to see a game improve with time, rather than go down the toilet.
More story, some side quests progressed, and some exploration done... yep, it's great.
Pleasantly surprised that between the overworld being more mountainside Alps with steep cliffs and the underwater areas, both with good verticality... and the other stuff you can discover; it really doesn't feel like Mondstadt part 2 at all. Much less so than Sumeru 3.0 actually.
Also I dig the named minibosses in the open a lot. More of that everywhere please, those are very fun and actually can potentially kill you for once.
Can't wait for Natlan, especially if it is indeed heavily based on central and west Africa.
Since I brought Guild Wars before, it had an entire expansion based on the same premise, and it was by far the best expansion I've ever played in an MMO. Criminally underused setting, between the savannah and the deep and dark jungles to mangroves and underground desert cities straight from the 1001 nights, there's so much more to do than just the Egyptian desert in Africa!
Pleasantly surprised that between the overworld being more mountainside Alps with steep cliffs and the underwater areas, both with good verticality... and the other stuff you can discover; it really doesn't feel like Mondstadt part 2 at all. Much less so than Sumeru 3.0 actually.
Also I dig the named minibosses in the open a lot. More of that everywhere please, those are very fun and actually can potentially kill you for once.
Can't wait for Natlan, especially if it is indeed heavily based on central and west Africa.
Since I brought Guild Wars before, it had an entire expansion based on the same premise, and it was by far the best expansion I've ever played in an MMO. Criminally underused setting, between the savannah and the deep and dark jungles to mangroves and underground desert cities straight from the 1001 nights, there's so much more to do than just the Egyptian desert in Africa!
Finished the Archon Quest, the major sidequests + some more and did a whole lot of explorationing and yeah, I still think this is a stronger start than 3.0 was even though that was already very strong.
The story and sidequests are tighter but equally as good or better, underwater exploration is fantastic, visually and musically everything naturally continues to be gorgeous. Some of the side quests are just wild (mainly the 2 big ones we got this time).
I do think it's probably a bit smaller than 3.0 was in terms of exploration size? But it might just feel that way since a whole lot of it is underwater and exploration there is quite fast since you have full 3D movement without Stamina constraints and lots of streamlined extra traversal options on top).
But the density of unique vistas is probably higher in Fontaine even then.
It's a good amount of stuff though, I've only got so much done already because I was on vacation and played a whole lot whereas I remember not being on vacation when Sumeru dropped so it obviously took longer to get through stuff.
The story and sidequests are tighter but equally as good or better, underwater exploration is fantastic, visually and musically everything naturally continues to be gorgeous. Some of the side quests are just wild (mainly the 2 big ones we got this time).
I do think it's probably a bit smaller than 3.0 was in terms of exploration size? But it might just feel that way since a whole lot of it is underwater and exploration there is quite fast since you have full 3D movement without Stamina constraints and lots of streamlined extra traversal options on top).
But the density of unique vistas is probably higher in Fontaine even then.
It's a good amount of stuff though, I've only got so much done already because I was on vacation and played a whole lot whereas I remember not being on vacation when Sumeru dropped so it obviously took longer to get through stuff.
I've actually almost finished everything out in Fontaine already, barring a few quests (and a few hidden things, maybe? I did the ??? one though). That's a first for me, but I just really enjoyed it, very little friction with having effectively 2 stamina bars now for some areas.
I haven't actually pulled for a character since I lost the 50/50 for Shenhe so I'm looking forward to the new ones in 4.1.
Also appreciate the amount of introvert representation so far, like half the playable Fontaine cast so far I can relate to in that way to some degree or other
I haven't actually pulled for a character since I lost the 50/50 for Shenhe so I'm looking forward to the new ones in 4.1.
Also appreciate the amount of introvert representation so far, like half the playable Fontaine cast so far I can relate to in that way to some degree or other
Pretty much done with the available content, 20/20 quests, 100% in all three zones (but 38% total, so I'm missing plenty, I'll get it once we have the chest locator).
I really liked it, the story lines were very good and I really want to know more, both for the main cast and the side quests. Underwater content was well done, if simple.
My only real gripe we saw coming a mile away, the pneuma and ousia mechanics are a complete non factor, either you ignore it for weak enemies... or you still ignore it for stronger ones because we barely have anyone using it otherwise, and it's nothing but a lame "Fontaine check" for an extra window of damage/shield removal.
That sure ain't like the arrival of Dendro... and I can already see Hoyoverse nuking the entire system and remaking it entirely when we reach Natlan or something, making it some sort of environmental mechanical change.
I really liked it, the story lines were very good and I really want to know more, both for the main cast and the side quests. Underwater content was well done, if simple.
My only real gripe we saw coming a mile away, the pneuma and ousia mechanics are a complete non factor, either you ignore it for weak enemies... or you still ignore it for stronger ones because we barely have anyone using it otherwise, and it's nothing but a lame "Fontaine check" for an extra window of damage/shield removal.
That sure ain't like the arrival of Dendro... and I can already see Hoyoverse nuking the entire system and remaking it entirely when we reach Natlan or something, making it some sort of environmental mechanical change.
Time for an update with how things are going.
After finishing the Liyue archon quests I did all the other main quests that appear. I liked Shenhe's story arc and the Dansleif quest was okay too. I just hope the story doesn't go towards where it implies it's going (that you were the villains all along) because that trope is not surprising or interesting anymore. I also did the fishing and teapot quests. As a general thing I like fishing and the animal crossing type building game mechanics but I find both kind of tedious in this game. Fishing because having specific bait is mandatory instead of optional like most games and the fact that you can only fish for like 5 minutes in one spot before having to go somewhere else. I kind of prefer fishing to be a relaxing activity that you can do with relatively low investment by just standing in one place for a while. Likewise, the teapot furniture building thing was ok for a couple of weeks while I used up all the wood I had accumulated along the way but now that I actually have to farm wood to continue I don't feel like doing it anymore lol.
Anyway, I had a question about teapot etiquette. I've been visiting you guys' teapots (Line Ascheroth ) for the battlepass weekly thing and one time I saw that the vendor had a radiant spincrystal that I didn't have so I bought it. I realized later that me buying it might have deprived you of the chance to buy it (if stocks are limited and you needed it). I'm sorry if that was the case. I didn't really think about that before clicking buy. So my question what is the etiquette to buy something from someone else's game in that scenario?
I also went and did all but 5 Liyue world quests (the unfinished ones are AR locked). Then I decided to finish off the annoying Mondstadt world quests I had left (including that one on the unknown island and one that requires so much ore farming in Dragonspine). I used a video to collect all the crimson floaty thingies in Dragonspine and did all the chests/puzzles I could find while doing this quest and ended up with 96% completion of that region. Not bad. I also did the underground quest of the Chasm in it's entirety but I didn't do all the sidequests there because I know I'll have to go back there later anyway.
Then I headed to Inazuma. And again, that first time you see Inazuma city is a revelation. It was so beautiful walking up that path for the first time. I finished the first part of the archon quest on the first island and got my ass kicked by Raiden Shogun. Headed to the second island and met Kokomi. That's where I am in the story now. I have to say, I've found Inazuma to be a little... jarring... as an experience. It's a large enough area but everything feels so clumped up and claustrophobic. Also the new mechanics were hard to pick up for a while. The electrogranum thing and it's mechanics weren't that intuitive and there are still things I don't properly understand about it (like for example, I've seen these breakable walls around the map which have this obvious purple glowing thing behind it but I've not been able to figure out how to break that wall or what to do with it). I didn't even recognize the electro seelies for a long while because they look and act so different from the regular seelies you've seen so far. It was only by accident that I figured that out. The second island was also frustrating because of all those areas which have the electro thing all around that causes damage while you're there. I know there are quests to get rid of it and I did them but one of those was timegated for 7 days and I just finished it yesterday. And you absolutely do not feel like exploring the place while it's so dangerous to just run around. So exploration on both islands so far as been quite limited. And also, is it just me or are there far fewer chests that give primogems than there used to be in the earlier zones? I know there are lots of chests but the ones that give primos seem few and far between for some reason.
Also I pulled for and got Yelan. She is an amazing character and makes the game so much better. Just her ability to dash around will save so much time in a game where you have to travel such large distances. Her damage is great as well. I managed to get fairly decent gear for her as well, which was a minor miracle because I had at most 2 pieces of any set to choose from. Leveled her up to 70 alongside Lisa who is also 70 and then I have Dehya and Tighnari still chilling at 40. This is what gear I've managed to get for her
Getting Yelan was expensive though. Went to pity, got Jean and then went to pity again to get her. That wrecked my plans of maybe getting Zhongli and anyone else down the line. I've made my way back up to 130 wishes now and Zhongli is here. I can't decide whether to get him or not. On the one hand, best shielder in the game and will make life so much easier for the rest of the game. But I'm not sure who I'd replace in my team to accommodate him. My friend told me that I can just build Noelle if I want a shielder and that's a good point right? But he was the same friend who was like "You must get Raiden Shogun no matter what". He was also like you must get her signature weapon as well and at that point I just tuned his advice out.
So what do you guys say? Should I try to get Zhongli then? I've been playing Starfield this past week so all story progress in Genshin has stopped, which means I'm no longer getting story primogems. I expect I'll get another 20 wishes from dailies before his banner goes away, which means I'll have 150 by the end. That should be enough (or close enough) to guarantee him if I lose the 50-50 again. I was thinking maybe I should just wait until the end of his banner and see what is coming up next and then decide. My friend also said I should try and get the hydro archon and just all archons in general and yeah, makes sense, but it's not possible to catch up to 3 years worth of characters as a new player unless you spend unreasonable amounts of money. My friend did in fact advise me to buy primogems now because the first time purchase bonus will reset during the anniversary so I can 'double dip' on it again. Is it true that the first time double bonus is platform specific? So if I bought primogems on iOS and got double, I'd be able to buy it on PC and get double again? He said that's how it works but that seems unlikely. Anyway, none of that is happening of course.
After finishing the Liyue archon quests I did all the other main quests that appear. I liked Shenhe's story arc and the Dansleif quest was okay too. I just hope the story doesn't go towards where it implies it's going (that you were the villains all along) because that trope is not surprising or interesting anymore. I also did the fishing and teapot quests. As a general thing I like fishing and the animal crossing type building game mechanics but I find both kind of tedious in this game. Fishing because having specific bait is mandatory instead of optional like most games and the fact that you can only fish for like 5 minutes in one spot before having to go somewhere else. I kind of prefer fishing to be a relaxing activity that you can do with relatively low investment by just standing in one place for a while. Likewise, the teapot furniture building thing was ok for a couple of weeks while I used up all the wood I had accumulated along the way but now that I actually have to farm wood to continue I don't feel like doing it anymore lol.
Anyway, I had a question about teapot etiquette. I've been visiting you guys' teapots (Line Ascheroth ) for the battlepass weekly thing and one time I saw that the vendor had a radiant spincrystal that I didn't have so I bought it. I realized later that me buying it might have deprived you of the chance to buy it (if stocks are limited and you needed it). I'm sorry if that was the case. I didn't really think about that before clicking buy. So my question what is the etiquette to buy something from someone else's game in that scenario?
I also went and did all but 5 Liyue world quests (the unfinished ones are AR locked). Then I decided to finish off the annoying Mondstadt world quests I had left (including that one on the unknown island and one that requires so much ore farming in Dragonspine). I used a video to collect all the crimson floaty thingies in Dragonspine and did all the chests/puzzles I could find while doing this quest and ended up with 96% completion of that region. Not bad. I also did the underground quest of the Chasm in it's entirety but I didn't do all the sidequests there because I know I'll have to go back there later anyway.
Then I headed to Inazuma. And again, that first time you see Inazuma city is a revelation. It was so beautiful walking up that path for the first time. I finished the first part of the archon quest on the first island and got my ass kicked by Raiden Shogun. Headed to the second island and met Kokomi. That's where I am in the story now. I have to say, I've found Inazuma to be a little... jarring... as an experience. It's a large enough area but everything feels so clumped up and claustrophobic. Also the new mechanics were hard to pick up for a while. The electrogranum thing and it's mechanics weren't that intuitive and there are still things I don't properly understand about it (like for example, I've seen these breakable walls around the map which have this obvious purple glowing thing behind it but I've not been able to figure out how to break that wall or what to do with it). I didn't even recognize the electro seelies for a long while because they look and act so different from the regular seelies you've seen so far. It was only by accident that I figured that out. The second island was also frustrating because of all those areas which have the electro thing all around that causes damage while you're there. I know there are quests to get rid of it and I did them but one of those was timegated for 7 days and I just finished it yesterday. And you absolutely do not feel like exploring the place while it's so dangerous to just run around. So exploration on both islands so far as been quite limited. And also, is it just me or are there far fewer chests that give primogems than there used to be in the earlier zones? I know there are lots of chests but the ones that give primos seem few and far between for some reason.
Also I pulled for and got Yelan. She is an amazing character and makes the game so much better. Just her ability to dash around will save so much time in a game where you have to travel such large distances. Her damage is great as well. I managed to get fairly decent gear for her as well, which was a minor miracle because I had at most 2 pieces of any set to choose from. Leveled her up to 70 alongside Lisa who is also 70 and then I have Dehya and Tighnari still chilling at 40. This is what gear I've managed to get for her
I know this is still probably bad for endgame stats or whatever but again, these are just artifacts I had lying around and it works quite well for going through the story.
Getting Yelan was expensive though. Went to pity, got Jean and then went to pity again to get her. That wrecked my plans of maybe getting Zhongli and anyone else down the line. I've made my way back up to 130 wishes now and Zhongli is here. I can't decide whether to get him or not. On the one hand, best shielder in the game and will make life so much easier for the rest of the game. But I'm not sure who I'd replace in my team to accommodate him. My friend told me that I can just build Noelle if I want a shielder and that's a good point right? But he was the same friend who was like "You must get Raiden Shogun no matter what". He was also like you must get her signature weapon as well and at that point I just tuned his advice out.
So what do you guys say? Should I try to get Zhongli then? I've been playing Starfield this past week so all story progress in Genshin has stopped, which means I'm no longer getting story primogems. I expect I'll get another 20 wishes from dailies before his banner goes away, which means I'll have 150 by the end. That should be enough (or close enough) to guarantee him if I lose the 50-50 again. I was thinking maybe I should just wait until the end of his banner and see what is coming up next and then decide. My friend also said I should try and get the hydro archon and just all archons in general and yeah, makes sense, but it's not possible to catch up to 3 years worth of characters as a new player unless you spend unreasonable amounts of money. My friend did in fact advise me to buy primogems now because the first time purchase bonus will reset during the anniversary so I can 'double dip' on it again. Is it true that the first time double bonus is platform specific? So if I bought primogems on iOS and got double, I'd be able to buy it on PC and get double again? He said that's how it works but that seems unlikely. Anyway, none of that is happening of course.
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I respect Zhongli enjoyers, I use him myself when I use Yoimiya or Wanderer (they REALLY need a shield), but I would not say he is required. There are 4* units that provide a decent shield. And the 4* on the banner are kinda crappy, If I was starting from scratch I would rather get some Xiangling, Bennett, Fischl and Xinqiu constellations. Those really help to get thorugh Abyss and can fit on any team.
I have never straight out bought primogems. The best deal is the Welkin Moon. I have also done the battle pass like twice, that is not as optimal in terms of primogems as Welkin, but you do get some decent 4* weapons. If you plan on spending some real money (as in hundreds of dollars), I do think the bonus primogems reset.
Now I've been playing since release, but I've been able to pull some good shit just by doing the daily chores and playing through events and world exploration. You can also get some decent 4* weapons with the fishing minigame and on limited time events once in a while. Some craftable weapons are also good. Eventually by doing your weekly boss run you will have enough billets to craft and fully upgrade those.
I have never straight out bought primogems. The best deal is the Welkin Moon. I have also done the battle pass like twice, that is not as optimal in terms of primogems as Welkin, but you do get some decent 4* weapons. If you plan on spending some real money (as in hundreds of dollars), I do think the bonus primogems reset.
Now I've been playing since release, but I've been able to pull some good shit just by doing the daily chores and playing through events and world exploration. You can also get some decent 4* weapons with the fishing minigame and on limited time events once in a while. Some craftable weapons are also good. Eventually by doing your weekly boss run you will have enough billets to craft and fully upgrade those.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention I did the new character trials. Zhongli was okay. I couldn't really figure out how Childe is meant to be used. But the highlight for me were Keqing and Fischl. Both were amazing fun to play.
The fishing is pretty annoying. Note that if you need specific fish, you can also join someone's world when they're online and fish there. I need to do that at some point for the achievement actually...
For the housing system, they constantly add to it... but it is indeed pretty clunky largely because of the UI to make new elements, and how the game doesn't let you keep a checklist of everything needed to build up the premade sets... so many annoyances in that, I don't use it much (despite there being thousands of primos to find in that, every char has multiple sets they like, put them down inside one, they give you primos each time - but you need all the characters to get all the rewards of course...).
The farming spots I would totally buy and use however, they're called "path of value: X", you need to buy seeds (or pick up plants with the seed dispensary gadget equipped) and plant them, but then it makes free materials, both the cooking ones but also some character ones like the valberries for Noelle and such.
Note that you can also transform ores into wood in the third tab of creation, up to 50 per week. Not sure it's really worth it since wood is much easier to gather in general though. I just whack some trees during dailies, sometimes.
People have access to their shop on Friday, while other people can only buy those items on Saturday onward, so if there's anything players want they can get it first. Don't hesitate to buy anything you need in there.
Inazuma... is a bit jank. The archipelago model feels a bit limited, the story beats are pretty off, the mechanics don't work super well (the grappling hook in particular, huge improvement over it in Sumeru).
For passing the electric walls, you need to carry an electrogranum on you... but that's an ability you unlock later on with the Sacred Sakura (the big tree like the one in Dragonspine), and it has multiple levels of strength.
And yeah, most zones are much more hostile (and once the quest is done all the environmental threats are gone forever...), and it has less chests in the open. The puzzles are also significantly harder, you've seen the electro seelies, later you're gonna see the weird puzzles released...
It makes for a different experience, but if that's not your thing, Sumeru and Fontaine go back to something much more in line with the early game. I do not particularly enjoy Inazuma mechanics.
I like Zhongli, but I'm not sure I'd even get him nowadays. He's relegated to my mono Geo team where he really shines.
Otherwise? You rarely need such a shield, except maybe with Wanderer; and the rest of his kit is marginal a best (to not say worse, like every single Geo character that is not Albedo - it's just a terrible element).
Plus you have Layla, she does the same job but with extra damage and freeze potential. Way better as a shield bot than Noelle which has far too long a cooldown for that to be useful.
I... don't think you can get double primogems on multiple platforms at once? You can buy the double bonus on any platform, and then buy it again for double primos once the reset has happened, but it would be an account reset, not a platform specific one... I think that's what your friend meant? They reset the bonus once a year during the anniversary.
Aqua Simulacra, Yelan's weapon, is great and not only on her; but you need gargantuan amounts of energy recharge to compensate and probably two hydro characters for that to be worth it. That's a DPS focus for the very, very late game when your characters are super pumped. Before that, that will just make her weaker since you will barely be able to use her burst.
For characters, Childe is pretty much the example of a quickswap team - activate his skill, hit ennemies, once he's back to bow form, swap characters to do their own skill/burst window, then go back to Childe because his skill CD should be done and ready to go.
Strong, but unwieldy.
As for what's coming next, it's already teased: Wriothesley, the first cryo catalyst user. And Neuvillette, a hydro catalyst user. Both are main DPS, can't tell you how strong they are though, of course.
And in 4.2 we will get Furina the hydro archon (they always come in X.2 patches up until now). No doubt she will be strong, all the archons are. Venti and Raiden Shogun should come back fairly soon too, they have more frequent banners than other characters. Venti is almost guaranteed for the next patch, it's been a while as you can see here:
Also, don't sleep on Jean! Maybe don't drop everything for her right now, but she's a very solid healer, and her anemo element makes her a fantastic debuffer with the Viridescent Venerer artifact set. Incredibly useful for almost all teams (outside of Geo and Dendro because it doesn't work with those), good example of role compression.
Teapot owner has first dibs on Fridays, others can only buy on Saturday or Sunday. Feel free to buy whatever you want.
Inazuma is definitely more hostile
. Harder puzzles too. I really enjoyed it, personally, but I'm also kinda happy we went back to less hostile exploration (I wouldn't mind an occassional subarea like that though).As for chests and primos, Inazuma is the first region where they started having all chests give Primos, Mondstadt and Liyue have a lot of common chests that don't give any. (Chasm came after Inazuma, so it will have the "better" chests).
He's a big comfort pick, but I don't think he's super essential (I feel like no unit really is at this point tbh), especially if you're just in it for exploration and story and not Abyss.
If you don't really want him because of his design/animations/story, I don't think there's anything wrong saving for another character.
Sorry for not replying earlier. Starfield is absolutely sucking up all my free time and when I'm not playing the game I'm thinking about playing the game. That's quite rare for me. This is not good for me with regards to Genshin because the farther away I get from the game the less likely I am to remember the story beats with my goldfish tier brain. These days I'm just doing the daily chores and battlepass stuff. Which I got to level 47 today so at least this time I'll finish it off. I suppose I should buy it when it's finished to get maximum benefit. Don't know how often I'll be able to finish the whole thing.
So it seems the consensus is that Zhongli is okay/good to have but not necessary. The thing about being so far behind and only half way through the story is that I haven't even met half the characters yet and I don't really know who I'd want. Archons seem to be the 'safe' choice where they're good characters and you can try to get them without having to second guess yourself about whether you've made a mistake. But I guess Zhongli can wait for another rerun and I'll save wishes for someone else. Since Venti might be next, is he a top tier sort of must-have character? TBH I've not been super impressed with Anemo in the game so far but that might just be because I haven't had a very good Anemo character. If not Venti then I guess I can wait for Furina or Raiden and see if maybe one of those is someone I'd want. I might get through Raiden's story by that point but it's impossible that I'll have met Furina by then.
I'm thinking maybe I'll try 20 wishes on Zhongli's banner and see if I can get super lucky.
UPDATE: I did not get lucky. Got a Noelle constellation. Okay then.
So it seems the consensus is that Zhongli is okay/good to have but not necessary. The thing about being so far behind and only half way through the story is that I haven't even met half the characters yet and I don't really know who I'd want. Archons seem to be the 'safe' choice where they're good characters and you can try to get them without having to second guess yourself about whether you've made a mistake. But I guess Zhongli can wait for another rerun and I'll save wishes for someone else. Since Venti might be next, is he a top tier sort of must-have character? TBH I've not been super impressed with Anemo in the game so far but that might just be because I haven't had a very good Anemo character. If not Venti then I guess I can wait for Furina or Raiden and see if maybe one of those is someone I'd want. I might get through Raiden's story by that point but it's impossible that I'll have met Furina by then.
Yeah I wasn't seriously considering buying primogems. I live in a poor country and the iOS markup on prices is ridiculous and I'm just not rich enough to be spending that kind of money on wishes. Was just curious if the double bonus was actually tied to platforms as I was told.
I actually like Jean ever since I first played the game 3 years ago. I was quite pleased to get her when I lost the 50-50, even though I expect she's not 'top-tier' being an OG standard bannner character. She's my only Anemo character now that Lumine changes element when required. That said, there are several reasons why I don't think I'll be leveling her or anyone else up for a while. Firstly, I have Barbara leveled up to 60 with some okay relics and talents leveled up and she reached C6 when I went to pity on Yelan's banner. So I have a healer if the need arises for any specific part of the game. Second, and this is a real problem, is that I just don't enjoy doing domains and the boss fights to level up characters/talents. I'm forcing myself to do enough to keep Lisa, Yelan and Lumine leveled up and when I reach Sumeru I'll switch over to leveling Dehya and Tighnari. The idea of leveling up more characters when I could instead be playing the story is not that appealing. In spite of that, the other day I went to the domain that drops the Viridiscent set that you mentioned and used I think 7 or 8 condensed resins there. I got exactly 2 usable pieces from what is effectively 15 odd dungeon runs. The whole artifact/relic RNG is one of the biggest pain points of both Genshin and Star Rail for me and that's a whole other discussion but this felt really bad. And I think it is absolutely not worth putting up with it when I'm only able to farm purple relics at best. We'll leave this RNG bullshit for until when I can get yellow relics from domains.
I'm thinking maybe I'll try 20 wishes on Zhongli's banner and see if I can get super lucky.
UPDATE: I did not get lucky. Got a Noelle constellation. Okay then.
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Yeah the BP is worth it if you intend to continue. You get loads of ressources out of it. Also a good weapon, now that one you'll have to think hard about it, because it totally depends on what you have and what chars you want to use.
But for characters... I never particularly liked Venti, he got "nerfed" almost immediately with heavier enemies that are not affected by his burst... but even beyond that, tons of characters struggle hard to hit things when he does that, non-AoE damage is kinda pointless with it, he's mostly irrelevant against a lot of newer bosses that either move around a lot or have invulnerability phases.
On the other hand, when you get into chump fights like the current combat event, he annihilates everything. And his skill gives you a sort of super jump+glide anywhere at any time, that's more useful in exploration than Zhongli's pillar (which still has uses to get higher).
Of the two, I'd take Zhongli first, that's for sure. Or wait. But we don't know anything about Furina yet.
I hope Neuvillette+Yelan comboes well, they are two characters that work with the same stats and amplify each other...
Still, be careful to not neglect your characters too much, it's always a risk long term. At least as far as ascending and upgrading weapons and talents, even if it's boring (though I guess you can do it in multiplayer too, that breaks the monotony a bit).
Anemo characters are almost always good (I think only Sayu is underwhelming) because of their dedicated set. 40% more damage for another element for just swirling once is crazy. Without it, the 4* are not necessarily the best, Jean gets extra mileage because she's a group healer so that's a "free" bonus.
Artifacts are just an awful grind, yeah just wait till later and rock on with +16 purples until you can get 5* reliably.
At least you a bit of leeway in Genshin compared to HSR...
Seems like the first 4.1 banner is Neuvillette/Hu Tao with Fischl, Xingqiu, Diona.
Now that's horrible for old players, I think we all have those three at C6 since 1984, but for a new player, that's probably the best 4* line up ever. Last minute banner changes happen, though.
Maybe it's worth going for him or Hu Tao spindoctor ?
I think Sucrose is the only anemo character I've totally sidelined, and that's only because I have Kazuha. I use Sayu a lot for exploration teams - anemo duo bonus, can claymore things, rolly mode, and a heal all are nice in one unit since they keep adding great exploration characters.
Also on the 4.1 banner, I have been playing since 2.2 and I've only got 1 of those C6 and that was recent, so hey bonus I guess. Really hope Kaveh comes back with Writhosiscles since I'm missing him.
Also on the 4.1 banner, I have been playing since 2.2 and I've only got 1 of those C6 and that was recent, so hey bonus I guess. Really hope Kaveh comes back with Writhosiscles since I'm missing him.
Yeah I'm trying to keep them up. I'm still at AR35 so my characters are capped at level 70. Will stay at that ascension until I'm done with Sumeru probably, although I believe I'm past AR50 in terms of XP earned. Currently Lisa and Yelan are level 70, with level 70 weapons, the best level 16 artifacts I could muster and about level 4-5 in talents. I intend to pre-farm ascension materials to take them to level 80 before going to do the ascension test. It'll take so long that I can probably pre-farm materials to take them all the way to 90 but I'm assuming 80-90 will be extremely expensive and I'm not sure if it'll be worth it to get these characters there. Dehya and Tighnari are locked at level 40 with level 50-60 weapons, level 16 artifacts and no talents because those aren't unlocked yet. Again, the plan is to get them to level 70 and then farm for level 80 before doing ascension. All this means I'll probably be somewhere near the end of Sumeru before I think about ascension.
See this is the problem. I have no idea who most of these characters areSeems like the first 4.1 banner is Neuvillette/Hu Tao with Fischl, Xingqiu, Diona.
Now that's horrible for old players, I think we all have those three at C6 since 1984, but for a new player, that's probably the best 4* line up ever. Last minute banner changes happen, though.
Maybe it's worth going for him or Hu Tao spindoctor ?
so I don't know if I'd want to get them.No clue who Neuvillette is. New Fontaine character I assume. I had to look up who Hu Tao is and she was briefly part of the story in Liyue. I remembered Xingqiu but again had to look up Fischl and Diona. I had fun playing Fischl in the current character trial but I did think Keqing was better. In any case, you don't pull for 4-stars right? So I figured I should look into Hu Tao. I found this video where the person says she's a very powerful dps character but she has a very involved playstyle. I suppose my question is whether she's still worth it if someone is not mechanically skilled enough to pull of that kind of playstyle? And it seems this upcoming banner synergizes with her well (by design I assume). So yeah, she seems like something to think about.
Hmmm, that's going to be a big jump on AR... and it actually slows you down quite a bit to farm at much lower AR, I dunno.
Most people will stop at 80/90 for characters, sometimes less for supports, so you'll manage without going super high. But if you kept up your weapons and talents up to date, that hurts less, the latest upgrades are much less about levels (world level 8 is a measly +2-4 levels but the stats still go up).
AR45 is when you always get 5* artifacts by the way.
Neuvillette you won't have met for quite some time, but Hu Tao... I don't even remember when she appearsSee this is the problem. I have no idea who most of these characters are
No clue who Neuvillette is. New Fontaine character I assume. I had to look up who Hu Tao is and she was briefly part of the story in Liyue. I remembered Xingqiu but again had to look up Fischl and Diona. I had fun playing Fischl in the current character trial but I did think Keqing was better. In any case, you don't pull for 4-stars right? So I figured I should look into Hu Tao. I found this video where the person says she's a very powerful dps character but she has a very involved playstyle. I suppose my question is whether she's still worth it if someone is not mechanically skilled enough to pull of that kind of playstyle? And it seems this upcoming banner synergizes with her well (by design I assume). So yeah, she seems like something to think about.
I know she has her own character quest, though. Have you been unlocking and doing those too?I can't say I like using Hu Tao very much, she's not really hard to play, but she's not practical. Plus she sacrifices her health for extra damage, though that seems to have become ubiquitous with Fontaine...
Fischl you play more for her "turret" than her gameplay, she's always good. Diona is also a bow character, her skill is a small shield, and her burst is a healing zone. Great char for cryo based team, she does a lot and generates good energy for the team.
We'll have to see how the banners end up going, but Neuvillette seems like a much, much easier character to play than Hu Tao for now.
Also that means the weapon banners will be crazy good, but don't roll on that
I'm not even sure Hu Tao shows up in any mandatory quest. She has her own character quest and makes an appearance in Baizhu's, other than that.... it's just event appearances iirc. She is featured fairly prominently in those, but that doesn't help players that start after they are over (one reason why they really should bring back event stories permanently, they are marketing for the characters. It's dumb they are temporary - Star Rail realized that and has made all major events involving gacha characters permanent so far, with only better rewards being temporary so here's hoping they can eventually retrofit that approach into Genshin as well.)
Personally I'm not a fan of her playstyle either, which is why I've never pulled her despite liking her as a character. Best to get a feel for her in her trial or an event trial if we get one.
Neuvillette is probably gonna be pretty strong and he's amazing in the story... but yeah it will take a while to get there
Personally I'm not a fan of her playstyle either, which is why I've never pulled her despite liking her as a character. Best to get a feel for her in her trial or an event trial if we get one.
Neuvillette is probably gonna be pretty strong and he's amazing in the story... but yeah it will take a while to get there
So hum, those 4* on the Wriothesley/Venti banner... that's a bit different now. Thoma, Chongyun, Dori? Yeah... I think that will push me to get Neuvillette, because I'll take the extra dust over those threes.
At least it makes room for some interesting 4* for 4.2.
And yeah spindoctor I'd say the 4* are very important for a banner, really. Especially early when they're your bread and butter. But later, it's more that completing strong supports is worth a lot more than yet another 5* DPS, like Neuvillette will be. He's just a frivolous waste of primos, ain't no need for him but you get the chars you like.
While my Sara is still left in the dust because I never got her to C6 to be very useful...
At least it makes room for some interesting 4* for 4.2.
And yeah spindoctor I'd say the 4* are very important for a banner, really. Especially early when they're your bread and butter. But later, it's more that completing strong supports is worth a lot more than yet another 5* DPS, like Neuvillette will be. He's just a frivolous waste of primos, ain't no need for him but you get the chars you like.
While my Sara is still left in the dust because I never got her to C6 to be very useful...
Both of these banners have super bad 4 star selection for me (Neuvillette/Hu Tao's is amazing for new players though).
It is what it is, I've come to terms with the 4 star gacha being the most awful part of the system in Hoyo games...
At least that increases the chances of Furina/Clorinda/Navia banners being better, but they could still put all the good stuff on rerun banners...
I'll grab 5 stars I want regardless of the 4 stars though.
It is what it is, I've come to terms with the 4 star gacha being the most awful part of the system in Hoyo games...
At least that increases the chances of Furina/Clorinda/Navia banners being better, but they could still put all the good stuff on rerun banners...
I'll grab 5 stars I want regardless of the 4 stars though.
Hu Tao appears once or twice in the Liyue story. She works at the funeral parlour that Zhongli owns and you'll have an interaction with her when you go looking for him and he's not around or something like that. As for character quests, I've done a few that were available to me but the majority are AR locked above AR35 so no, not done those yet.Neuvillette you won't have met for quite some time, but Hu Tao... I don't even remember when she appears
So are you guys saying one should pull on a banner for the 4-stars even if you don't really want the 5-star? I've stopped playing the story for now so primogem income is limited to daily chores and it feels like I should maybe save wishes for when a 5-star I'd want actually comes instead of 4-stars but I don't know now.
Nah, I'd never pull on a banner if I don't like the 5 star, but say if am interested in multiple 5 stars but couldn't get them all, the 4 star selection would be something to consider and possible give one banner an edge over another.
It's not so much rolling on a character that I don't want, and more a character that I don't need now. Ain't no hurry to level up every character immediately once you get a good team running.
It's a bit like rolling for Zhongli, it's never a waste even if you don't intend to use him now... while stashing primos for months for one character you really want... that's fine when you already have a stacked account and you know who you want.
When you don't, that's waiting for a long, long time only to potentially get a poor 4* line up on top, and you end up with 180 rolls for one char, 179 of them being completely useless to you.
That's a bad, bad feeling.
Also, most of the primogem income comes from the constantly rolling events, the dailies... they're pretty stingy in Hoyo games.
Okay well I'm confused now. Should I pull on a banner with good 4 stars if I'm not really interested in the 5 star or not?
Definitely not. Chasing 4 stars is the territory of whales, there is NO guarantee of getting a given 4 star ever unlike with 5 stars. If there's a 5 star you might like but aren't sure on and they have great 4 stars maybe that could encourage you but even the weapon banner is a better investment for F2P than chasing 4 stars. You'll eventually have all of them anyway more than likely due to the fact all of them are on the standard banner and all of them are possible on the limited banners, just less likely than the featured.
"Adventure Encounters" Available, We're Working on One-Click Expeditions! Developers Discussion - 09/13
Stream on Friday
As expected the changed daily system is similar to how Star Rail does it, but not quite.
I want to see a detailed list of what gives you Encounter Points, but effectively it will mean that you no longer have to "play the game" and "take care of the daily chores" separately, but rather playing the game will also just take care of the chores.
Stream on Friday
As expected the changed daily system is similar to how Star Rail does it, but not quite.
I want to see a detailed list of what gives you Encounter Points, but effectively it will mean that you no longer have to "play the game" and "take care of the daily chores" separately, but rather playing the game will also just take care of the chores.
I reached level 50 on the battlepass and I'm going to buy it soon. Was looking for some advice on which weapon to take. I know the answer to this question depends on who you have and what you need. I'm actually looking for something for Lumine and I'm wondering if the Black Sword is a good enough general purpose weapon for her. The thing about Lumine is that she can keep changing element and her gear requirements change along with that so for now (while leveling) I'm just trying to build her with general purpose stats that can work with any element even if they're not ideal. So for her gear I've given her basic HP/attack/crit stats and the sets are generic +attack bonus things. She's currently wielding the Prototype Rancour which is the best I had at the time and I also have the Sacrificial Sword from some random pull. Since all her items are basically sub optimal I'm wondering if I should bother with the battlepass sword for her. Or should I just pick something else entirely?
Nice stream, the trailer was reeeeally good and for once was perfectly understandable even if you were not up to date with the story.
Now the codes for the freebies:
I really like the gameplay of both characters, I'm curious about their final numbers.
And to come back to the 4* on a banner, that's my point: if say, Wriothesley is not that strong and you miss the 50/50, that's an awful lot of primos invested... and a set of 4* that you'll probably never use. That hurts general progression a lot on a new account.
In the end, you should get 5* because you really like them, but always be aware that it can also cause problems for a long while if your team doesn't make sense. If you for example end up going for Shenhe, Cyno, Eula and Itto... yeah that's not going to go so well for a new player.
Thing is, for the Traveler, the weapon and the build is entirely different depending on element and team composition, the jack-of-all-trades aspect is not really a thing with characters like these.
And in general for sword users, Sacrificial Sword and Favonius Sword are excellent and work all the time (and it very much apply to the Traveler with their short CDs and energy requirements, both arguably their BiS for Dendro).
You could get the Wolf-Fang for your Lumine, but is that worth a BP weapon? I don't really think so... even without Sac/Fav, you can also craft Iron Sting or Sapwood Blade depending on needed stats. Even Amenoma Kageuchi is good for some chars. Swords have plenty of great options.
There's also good polearm options with Ballad of the Fjords for elemental mastery chars and Deathmatch for more common crit characters. But note that you can get The Catch for free from fishing, and it's the BiS of many, many supports, it's even your best option for Raiden Shogun as F2P.
I should say that Ballad of the Fjords is excellent for Hu Tao, if you want her.
Solar Pearl is a fine catalyst too, but most catalyst users want something supportey that you can craft, or The Widsith... not bad for Lisa though.
The bows are not very good.
As usual, depends on what character you want to see get stronger. The sword will always be great, but for Lumine? I don't know.
Now the codes for the freebies:
- FB8PFFHT364M
- JS96FEZS3P59
- 2T86EWGBJP6V
I really like the gameplay of both characters, I'm curious about their final numbers.
And to come back to the 4* on a banner, that's my point: if say, Wriothesley is not that strong and you miss the 50/50, that's an awful lot of primos invested... and a set of 4* that you'll probably never use. That hurts general progression a lot on a new account.
In the end, you should get 5* because you really like them, but always be aware that it can also cause problems for a long while if your team doesn't make sense. If you for example end up going for Shenhe, Cyno, Eula and Itto... yeah that's not going to go so well for a new player.
Generally, the two all rounders are the Serpent Spine claymore and now the Wolf-Fang sword, which will be usually better than the Black Sword.
Thing is, for the Traveler, the weapon and the build is entirely different depending on element and team composition, the jack-of-all-trades aspect is not really a thing with characters like these.
And in general for sword users, Sacrificial Sword and Favonius Sword are excellent and work all the time (and it very much apply to the Traveler with their short CDs and energy requirements, both arguably their BiS for Dendro).
You could get the Wolf-Fang for your Lumine, but is that worth a BP weapon? I don't really think so... even without Sac/Fav, you can also craft Iron Sting or Sapwood Blade depending on needed stats. Even Amenoma Kageuchi is good for some chars. Swords have plenty of great options.
There's also good polearm options with Ballad of the Fjords for elemental mastery chars and Deathmatch for more common crit characters. But note that you can get The Catch for free from fishing, and it's the BiS of many, many supports, it's even your best option for Raiden Shogun as F2P.
I should say that Ballad of the Fjords is excellent for Hu Tao, if you want her.
Solar Pearl is a fine catalyst too, but most catalyst users want something supportey that you can craft, or The Widsith... not bad for Lisa though.
The bows are not very good.
As usual, depends on what character you want to see get stronger. The sword will always be great, but for Lumine? I don't know.
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That's not really accurate though. You still get random non-featured 4*, you still get 4* from the standard banner, and you still get all the free automatic 4* (plus event ones), and for anything short of Abyss or the hardest event challenges that's more than enough for everything. You can do 100% of non-Abyss content with the right Lumine + the auto characters you get, everything else is just "what do you want / who looks coolest". I've spent 160 primos on a 5* and didn't see a specific one of the featured 4* more than once.
Given the complete RNG of 4* and the fact they just aren't needed, I would never encourage or discourage anyone from pull based on the 4* pool. The 5* are guaranteed, they are clear what they're about, and you'll eventually get all 4* no matter what if you keep playing the game and pulling for 5*. I don't have C6 XQ despite having played for 2 years but it doesn't actually impact me in any meaningful way, I JUST got C6 Fischl, it just really doesn't matter.
Shenhe + Cyno + Eula + Itto can clear probably every boss in the game (except dendro cube?), as dumb as the team is, if you try, and it's statistically unlikely that you wouldn't have any better synergy characters after an average of 480~ pulls no matter how "trash" the banners are.
Sure, we get a character every 12 weeks, and some characters on the standard banner that we almost never rolled on... now would I ever say to a new player to rely on those? Certainly not.
Rolling for your favourites is good, but as I said, that's making that choice instead of going for the meta.
And we've seen again and again, even in this very thread, what happens when a player doesn't have good chars or functional synergy when they suddenly get world levels forced on them.
No matter how much we in Genshin like to say that "you can play anyone"... that really isn't true, especially not when you consider endgame which is always harder and harder.
The long term goal of beating SA at release went from weeks to months and months and potentially more if you don't invest a massive amount of time and skill today.
I said that was disingenuous to compare the streamers playing 10h a day with their full F2P teams finally beating SA after countless tries three years ago, it's even far more so today.
How many people play the end game? How many people actually build hard-meta teams? It's a small minority at its' biggest. The World level difficulty spike happens whether you have the "best" teams or not because as-is it's probably the worst balanced thing in Genshin. You have people being told what to do every step of the way and it STILL sucks because of how it works out.
You absolutely can play any character and any team in 99.9999% of Genshin. Floor 12 of the Abyss and the optional hardest difficulty of some combat events just aren't that popular, and people who want to do those things already should know more about the game than someone asking for advice about whether 4* matter for pulling on 5* banners. I say this as someone who has cleared floor 12 and sometimes does those hardest events: 4* on banner should never be a factor for your pulling. You can also just... do those things without the standard meta teams, as randoms on reddit have repeatedly shown. There is no required character or teams of characters for any content in Genshin, there just isn't.
Only pull if you want the 5*, and if you want the 5*, pull regardless of the 4*. If you aren't sure if you want a 5* or not even after the trial, as a f2p player, probably don't pull because someone you want more will come along. That is the best general advice for pulling for anyone asking, and people who care about 4* that much should be making their own decisions at that point. I am not f2p and I would never pull for 4*, it's truly gambling with your primos and again it's 100% unneeded.
Edit: Just to really emphasize this, XQ, Fischl, and XL, the 3 of the 4 "core meta" 4*, I basically do not use. Either because I don't like their mechanics or I'm bored of them or I find someone else more interesting, and I can still clear those endgame challenges. I can use Dori (Dori!) instead of Fischl and be fine. I actually barely used Bennett until I finally got around to trying Sunfire Jean and it's kinda fun, although surely not as good as other Bennett teams, it still does the job. I was using a dull blade on Kuki in my teams for like, months, without noticing, because it just doesn't matter that much. I still sometimes drop Barbara into my teams 2 years later because she's still fine.
I will admit Xinyan and Alloy require special care to make work outside of overworld (or even in it to an extent) though
You absolutely can play any character and any team in 99.9999% of Genshin. Floor 12 of the Abyss and the optional hardest difficulty of some combat events just aren't that popular, and people who want to do those things already should know more about the game than someone asking for advice about whether 4* matter for pulling on 5* banners. I say this as someone who has cleared floor 12 and sometimes does those hardest events: 4* on banner should never be a factor for your pulling. You can also just... do those things without the standard meta teams, as randoms on reddit have repeatedly shown. There is no required character or teams of characters for any content in Genshin, there just isn't.
Only pull if you want the 5*, and if you want the 5*, pull regardless of the 4*. If you aren't sure if you want a 5* or not even after the trial, as a f2p player, probably don't pull because someone you want more will come along. That is the best general advice for pulling for anyone asking, and people who care about 4* that much should be making their own decisions at that point. I am not f2p and I would never pull for 4*, it's truly gambling with your primos and again it's 100% unneeded.
Edit: Just to really emphasize this, XQ, Fischl, and XL, the 3 of the 4 "core meta" 4*, I basically do not use. Either because I don't like their mechanics or I'm bored of them or I find someone else more interesting, and I can still clear those endgame challenges. I can use Dori (Dori!) instead of Fischl and be fine. I actually barely used Bennett until I finally got around to trying Sunfire Jean and it's kinda fun, although surely not as good as other Bennett teams, it still does the job. I was using a dull blade on Kuki in my teams for like, months, without noticing, because it just doesn't matter that much. I still sometimes drop Barbara into my teams 2 years later because she's still fine.
I will admit Xinyan and Alloy require special care to make work outside of overworld (or even in it to an extent) though
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How many people do the endgame and go for the meta? A lot, else we wouldn't see massive revenue when strong characters are released or come back for the first time, and pitiful chars like Dehya wouldn't be so low on the charts with a huge campaign to buff her.
And we're talking about someone that struggled at times, and it's perfectly understandable why that happened with the way the game is structured.
But your solution to that is to say "people did it on reddit".... which is totally true.
And is also literally answering Spindoctor woes with "just git gud".
Exactly why I always disagree with that "you can play with whomever, people cleared it all with free chars!" while neglecting the time investment and the skill and focus required, especially when there already were justified roadblocks.
And why I consider the meta as vitally important for entirely different reasons than the people that want to push the best times (good for them): I want the game accessible and doable for newbies and returning players alike without them having to hit a break wall until they can finally do it. And just giving the advice of "play who you want"... is fine, but "ignore the 4* and everything else around the meta" certainly isn't.
We already had multiple people giving up in this thread because the difficulty spike was too much for them to have fun.
So first off, we are arguing three different things. Endgame content is endgame content - it doesn't matter, meta is overblown and not even required as much as people say, and there's almost none of it. Floor 12 abyss and the odd combat challenge difficulty that gives ore no one at that stage needs. The second thing is the difficulty spike - this is way, way, way before endgame and 4* do not help here, I know from personal experience and from helping other people through it. Third thing is "should you pull for 4* on limited banners".
The core argument was "should you pull for 4* on limited banners" asked by anyone who is newer to the game and the answer is no. End of story. You said "well sometimes" but I will never agree with that. All cases of someone pulling for 4* are exceptions that they themselves should make for a personal reason, not because it's good advice. The difficulty spike is an unrelated discussion.
I had the "right" 4* when leveling up and the difficulty spike was unbearable. Actually, trying to follow endgame/meta guides probably made it worse because a lot of that just doesn't pan out the same way when your characters are level 30 with level 4 talents and blue artifacts - I wish there were better mid-game guides than there are, because I couldn't really find much. It took longer to get through that than to explore an entire nation. I already said it's the hardest, worst designed thing in Genshin but having end-game "meta" characters does not affect it because that's not really the core problem. I want Genshin to flatten out that insane curve for everyone but I vehemently disagree that having certain 4* makes it better, especially not to the point where you should ever, as a new player, prioritize 4* on banner over the 5* (even many whales don't pull for more than 1 copy of a new 4*, that's how rubbish 4* pulling is).
I'm not telling anyone to 'git gud', at high levels you can literally do all the not-floor-12 level content (which is most of the game) with utter jank without having to 'git gud', stuff just dies when you push buttons. Outside of the difficulty spike, it's INCREDIBLY accessible which is why Genshin is so popular - the overwhelming majority of people are not making meta teams with carries having 35+ CV artifacts on every slot. I've literally been giving advice and watching my brother play from AR like 5 to 45 over the past half a year, he has gone through all of this in front of my face, and I STILL, still remember how awful the middle world levels were for me personally.
The difficulty spike in Genshin is infamous, and who knows if they're ever going to actually overhaul it, but I really hope so because it keeps me from ever recommending the game. Pulling for 4* does not and will not make it easier. Some 5*, like Zhongles or Yelan, do have a pretty immediate impact (if you can farm for them, which itself can be difficult, and is again another systemic issue that is infamous and unlikely to be solved soon), but even then there are more 5* options than ever for units that just make the game easier, and it still doesn't help with the difficulty curve that much because it's so poorly built. It was from a different iteration of Genshin, and it just kinda doesn't work anymore, and it's a completely separate issue that just to reiterate pulling for 4* won't help with.
The reason Genshin has so little "endgame" content is because it's not popular nor as accessible. Do you really think most of the ~65,000,000 players are out on Keqing mains and min-maxing their teams constantly? There's absolutely no way. Even the reddit population, which is almost always a more hard-core representation, is mostly more casual fans. Sales numbers are also from people buying crystals which is not what the majority of the playerbase does so that's not really a relevant topic to "what most people do", of course the people spending the most are going to chase more powerful characters, if they're investing in the game they likely do the (sparse) endgame stuff.
Edit: changed you to we because while my original intent was to just clarify that "no, don't summon specifically for 4*", it has clearly spiraled out into other issues. I consider myself very open to changing my mind based on new information but as far as advice for new players goes, this is pretty immutable. Pulling for specific 4* is a bad idea unless you're a whale.
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But the thing: this is not technically a matter of talking about different things, you just contextualize it as "pull for specific 4* on banners" again and again. Which is not what I'm saying, that's the high end view of trying to get all characters (and people failing at it is hilarious).
I'm saying they matter far more than the 5* for a new player. Which is the opposite vision of it, not getting everyone, but getting the characters that will help you immediately.
On another forum, I just saw someone give up on the game because they pulled Zhongli and "it was not doing more damage than my Traveler".
And I like said to Spindoctor in the beginning, you should start with a main DPS first, and build around it.
The strict opposite of "pull for you like" because that means getting stuck with random teams otherwise and not having a main is a huge downside, no matter how strong Yelan can be.
Thankfully, they already have a backbone, but Traveler/Kaeya/Lisa? Yeah, that explains a lot of the difficulties when you run with them together.
And here is the crux of the matter.
And that's why I say: focus on your 4* and consider them on banners.
You get Yelan, cool. You have no energy so she's relatively weak, your main is a dodgy Traveler? You just spent a pity or two on a sub par character.
You get Zhongli, yeah okay, that's a lot of damage you will avoid. But killing things on time without it being a slog, like the infamous Dragonspine challenge that we talked about a while back? Not changing anything about that.
Which is my entire point: the meta matters far more early on than it does at endgame - you really need a team that makes sense and not one focused on a couple of strong 5* that you don't have the gear for, it's why I always put things in context with recommendations, and not to neglect all the 4* like we can do when we've played for three years with plenty of teams available.
It's all a miscommunication, because I don't think either of us is arguing for Spiral Abyss.
I'm not talking about rolling for completion sake on banners, but that the meta is more than just a tier list but also understanding and applying the reactions with chars that work together for maximum effect; and early on it is crucial to have a working team that is not all reliant on one char and no reactions to speak of. Hence the 4* being so importan, a simple Yanfei+Xingqiu will do far more than getting Zhongli would for enjoying the game and not spending 5mins on each hilichurl.
I just completely disagree. 4* do not matter more than 5* early on - 5* are explicitly more powerful, and the majority (especially lately) of 5* are on-field or sub dps that can work with a ton of random 4*, including the guaranteed ones. If you ave 4* you should build them, I'm not saying to ignore them, but telling people to pull on a banner because of the 4* is like telling them to spend money on the premium stardust weapons or the adventurer's pack in the shop - it's almost universally bad.
The meta mid-game during the spike is different than the meta for endgame challenges. You CAN use the same teams, but as you yourself highlighted, a lot of them don't work well without actually decent artifacts and leveled up weapons, which is very difficult at that point.
If you want to give someone advice for what characters to get to make the game easier, then tell them to pull for Raiden and/or Alhaitham and slap EM on them. There is almost nothing that can beat that, the other 2 characters barely matter, EM Raiden with any dendro will wreck stuff and EM is very midgame friendly since it has diminishing returns anyway. Nilou is also solid because she works well with dendro lumine + collei + barbara (all guaranteed) and will destroy anything that isn't immune to dendro damage. Telling someone to pull on like Ayaka's banner because it has XQ + Bennet + Fischl isn't going to help them and it's just bad advice. Most, if not all, 5* have very flexible 4* supports.
And someone pulling for Zhongli and being confused they don't do more damage than traveler (which, he can easily, but yea not at level 1) is probably them being bad at reading or being given bad advice or just trying to navigate the game on their own which is probably the worst way to play, unfortunately.
Hoyo needs to spend some time and revisit the early-to-mid world levels, and that system entirely (why the hell is it so restrictive on changing? Makes no sense). They also need to redo the Mond + Liyue domains, they're the first ones in the game people will run into and after 3 more nations they're still the most anti-fun, annoying ones in the game. Genshin is staggeringly popular but it is still held back from more people by some of the stuff we're arguing over.
Since we seem to fundamentally disagree on the importance of 4*, and any proficiency I claim to have at team building or balancing is meaningless on the internet, I don't know if there's any productive discussion to be had here. I will call out people advising new players to pull for 4* because I believe absolutely that it's the wrong advice. If a 5* someone wants has "important" 4* than great, hopefully they get lucky and get them. If a 5* banner someone doesn't want has top-tier 4* I'm still gonna tell them not to pull for the 5* they don't want. Pulling for 4* is not a smart use of primogems, free or paid, and it's something the community almost universally agrees on (only pull on a banner if you want the 5*)
Edit: Also if we want to talk anecdotal Zhongli pull experience, I pulled for him even though I wouldn't have because people said he was the best defensive option. And you know what? He was. He made the game so much easier for me, just not having to heal, giving me that bigger team flexibility, and the 20% damage bonus to my existing characters to boot. If they ever add artifact loadouts I'd like to try his other builds but I have not changed his gear hardly at all since his initial 5* artifacts (obviously not what he was using when I first got him). I was still exploring Liyue and I just remember going from stressful fights to fun fights in like a day of farming him.
The meta mid-game during the spike is different than the meta for endgame challenges. You CAN use the same teams, but as you yourself highlighted, a lot of them don't work well without actually decent artifacts and leveled up weapons, which is very difficult at that point.
If you want to give someone advice for what characters to get to make the game easier, then tell them to pull for Raiden and/or Alhaitham and slap EM on them. There is almost nothing that can beat that, the other 2 characters barely matter, EM Raiden with any dendro will wreck stuff and EM is very midgame friendly since it has diminishing returns anyway. Nilou is also solid because she works well with dendro lumine + collei + barbara (all guaranteed) and will destroy anything that isn't immune to dendro damage. Telling someone to pull on like Ayaka's banner because it has XQ + Bennet + Fischl isn't going to help them and it's just bad advice. Most, if not all, 5* have very flexible 4* supports.
And someone pulling for Zhongli and being confused they don't do more damage than traveler (which, he can easily, but yea not at level 1) is probably them being bad at reading or being given bad advice or just trying to navigate the game on their own which is probably the worst way to play, unfortunately.
Hoyo needs to spend some time and revisit the early-to-mid world levels, and that system entirely (why the hell is it so restrictive on changing? Makes no sense). They also need to redo the Mond + Liyue domains, they're the first ones in the game people will run into and after 3 more nations they're still the most anti-fun, annoying ones in the game. Genshin is staggeringly popular but it is still held back from more people by some of the stuff we're arguing over.
Since we seem to fundamentally disagree on the importance of 4*, and any proficiency I claim to have at team building or balancing is meaningless on the internet, I don't know if there's any productive discussion to be had here. I will call out people advising new players to pull for 4* because I believe absolutely that it's the wrong advice. If a 5* someone wants has "important" 4* than great, hopefully they get lucky and get them. If a 5* banner someone doesn't want has top-tier 4* I'm still gonna tell them not to pull for the 5* they don't want. Pulling for 4* is not a smart use of primogems, free or paid, and it's something the community almost universally agrees on (only pull on a banner if you want the 5*)
Edit: Also if we want to talk anecdotal Zhongli pull experience, I pulled for him even though I wouldn't have because people said he was the best defensive option. And you know what? He was. He made the game so much easier for me, just not having to heal, giving me that bigger team flexibility, and the 20% damage bonus to my existing characters to boot. If they ever add artifact loadouts I'd like to try his other builds but I have not changed his gear hardly at all since his initial 5* artifacts (obviously not what he was using when I first got him). I was still exploring Liyue and I just remember going from stressful fights to fun fights in like a day of farming him.
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If you start with a 5* main DPS, it's different, certainly.
But the "explicitly more powerful"... is completely at odds with
Tons of the more supportey, or very specific 5* are not very good early or mid game.
And those stardust weapons... are actually not a actually a bad choice, depending on the characters you have. It's not even the cost of a 4* - even though there are better options like Xingqiu, a good fitting weapon can be far better than 4.8 more rolls.
See that's my problem, your view is ironically meta focused, because I'm arguing with making do with what you have and can get right now, and not a nebulous "just pull Nilou or Raiden" - which are both excellent starters for sure, and also not available all the time - people don't always have enough for a double pity, they don't always have the best 4* weapons on hand, and before endgame, people really should try to go to maximize their own general account potential without being too specific; as long as it does not stop them from getting the chars they really want of course.
And this I just don't understand. Except if you really don't want Ayaka or she's filling a role you already have, what is there to lose with potentially getting a prime Cryo DPS, and the trio of reverse powercreep?
Now they are not to your taste, that's totally fair, but otherwise? Yes, I would recommend new people to roll on very strong banners rather than bad ones because it comes with the super specific support that they have nothing to use with. That's the privilege of an endgame player to spend 180 rolls on something of limited use with no way to gear it correctly, and the consolation prize being a whole bunch of "bad" 4*.
If players don't want the 5* because they hate playing as them, or hate their design, of course they should not roll.
But you're mixing up the why people don't want 5* in general: they already have them and getting dupes feels terrible. It's not the newbies scrounging for primos that are saying that, it's the veterans trying their luck to get new 4* and "accidently" getting constellations.
If you start today and you roll Neuvillette early, welp, that's annoying as you'll have a harder time to get him up to speed after the first ascension. But a ridiculous main DPS 5* is never a waste (if you don't hate him for some reason) for your account.
While if you try to get Venti... and you fail to get him after, say, 150 rolls? That feels horrible, and if the 4* you got are not very good at all, and also suffer from not being able to be brought up to speed like Neuvillette? That will severely impact your account for the foreseeable future.
It's not about trying to get specific 4*, it's about optimizing your primogem spending, which is reeeally important before you have a team strong enough to ignore all the non-endgame content.
Again, I just absolutely disagree. People trying to min-max their primo spending for power are a minority, and even then the 4* is NEVER THE FOCUS of advising people to pull on banners - it's if the 5* is good and they don't have it. There is never a time when a non-experienced player should be given advice leading to them thinking they should pull because of 4*. Your advice led directly to this
My answer is no. Never pull on a banner if you don't want the 5*. That's also, at large, the accepted standard of the community, from whales to f2p to those in between. The difficulty spike in Genshin exists whether you min-max your primos or not, at best having the absolute perfect mid-game characters shaves like... a small percentage of difficulty off, but that's trivial for most.
If Genshin didn't have the horrible difficulty spike, would you still be giving the same advice? My stance (and again, the common wisdom of the Genshin community) is that 4* should never influence your decision to pull on a banner, because 4* slots are very flexible and because they are absolutely not guaranteed, which you seem to be glossing over. Your stance seems to be power > all and "meta" 4* on banners of a non-Dehya-level 5* you don't have means pull for it. There's just no world where that's solid advice.
I love powerful builds and breaking games as much, probably more, than the next person, but that's not how I tell anyone else how to play, and that's absolutely not required in Genshin nor the way MOST people want to play. If someone asks me, what is the most powerful way to spend primos, that's a different conversation but even then 4* on banners are not the deciding factor.
You seem to believe it's "reeeally important" which based on all the evidence of the vast, vast, VAST amount of casual players in Genshin, is wrong. If it's important to you, then that's fine - but it's not important to tens of millions of other players and they seem to be enjoying the game fine without playing it like you, and it's just factually not important to progress in the game.
See, I did say that players shouldn't roll if they don't want the character for X or U. But otherwise... well yeah, we should recommend newish players to roll on good banners and not on bad ones? That's kind of a gacha staple, that one.
Difficulty wise, trekking along with Ayaka sure is easier than playing Cyno.
If people didn't leave on the original Tartaglia fight that needed to be nerfed, or when they can't even kill world bosses with their usual team because of a world level up, or any of those potential roadblocks - that we've seen people hit in this thread - I'd be much more inclined to say "play whatever". But clearly, that has not always rung true for everyone.
So I will certainly give advice to focus on power early rather than later. I run with whacky ass teams, with a Candace main in a taser team. That's fun, but also miserable for a new player. You can have fun... when the difficult parts are not applicable to you anymore. Otherwise, there's a very high risk of the "just git gud streamers have done it with F2P chars" effect, all too common in gachas like this. Though Genshin isn't devastated by powercreep at least, that helps a lot.
Otherwise I would very much say "don't roll on X, Y or Z because they're powercrept to hell, even if you like them" like it happened in Honkai 3rd.
Now on the topic of 4* flexibility... that one is not really true? Some characters really want their dedicated partners to shine like Hu Yao and Xingqiu or Itto and Gorou... not mandatory, but a non-vape Hu Tao... may as well play Yanfei.
Some teams can be played with multiple chars, some are reeeeally reliant on some characters like Shinobu or Nahida.
Now for those I'm not going to tell people to roll for them, but if they intend to do something specific like hyperbloom... it's a lot harder to tell them "wait until Nahida is available".
I'm literally arguing for the opposite.
I want people to have fun and not struggle by ending with a half baked hyperfridge team that can't complete Dragonspine and end ragequitting half way through Inazuma.
And I know how bad it sounds, because I end up saying "play strong things early, you'll have fun later", but.... sadly that's just the way gacha works.
We're just going in circles, and there are contradictory points in your posts, and there are points you are arguing which don't address points I
made. We aren't going to see eye to eye on this because I fundamentally disagree with your take, so I think best to just leave it there. I don't have the energy to argue point by point on something that is so clear cut to me.
made. We aren't going to see eye to eye on this because I fundamentally disagree with your take, so I think best to just leave it there. I don't have the energy to argue point by point on something that is so clear cut to me.