Lurker > azuarc

My usual hyperbloom: Nahida, Kuki, Yelan, Beidou (or other electro)

This abyss cycle, where the enemies aren't necessarily electro friendly, but hyperbloom still looked like a good idea:
Xingqiu on side 1; Nahida, Kuki, Yelan, Traveler

Simoun posted...

Phoenotopia: Awakening (PC)

Has anyone played this game? Or did I just miss this during the hype?

Played but did not finish. Got stuck a couple times because the game's tricky without a guide, and then I just grew apathetic when I finally hit a dungeon crawl and didn't feel like doing all the puzzle solving. Wasn't really sold on the gameplay, tbh.

Alwa's Legacy

Sprite-art metroidvania. Cute. Mostly pretty good. Very open-ended until you realize how you can't actually do anything in the dungeons that you aren't supposed to be in yet. About 8 hours to beat.

Epistory: Typing Chronicles

Got to the end of this one and stopped a while ago, but finally returned and finished. As far as typing games go, I guess it's pretty good. Some jank. Map navigation is annoying at times.

The event basically is the patch cycle, so yeah, they'll give you a while. It's the not-archipelago of the summer.

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of work they're willing to put into temporary content that will be relegated to youtube archives afterwards.

He's certainly comic relief gold. I'm working on a second story to follow up the last one, with Inazuma characters, and Itto is just so stupidly easy to work in levity with.

I saw an analysis on why we should have known Signora would never be playable, and it basically boiled down to "interesting stuff up front, completely boring from behind." I don't know that will be the case for Arlecchino, ironically because of the recently-discovered hair. She also has something much more akin to the regular character models.

I didn't like Childe on release, but I don't mind him much now.

Scaramouche will never endear himself to me. Though, TBF, I'm not sure how much I would have liked Signora, either.

swordz9 posted...

its a little sad she was hiding long hair behind her back. Id rather just short hair than a hidden long ass ponytail behind her.

Same for Arlecchino?

I would presume he's blind, yes.

I did a youtube search for Genshin, and it's all reaction videos...and every single one of them is the streamer alongside the same exact image of Arlecchino in the thumbnail. It's uncanny how everyone picked the exact same shot. (TBF, it's also the main video's thumbnail.)

They just teased three characters, too.

Lyney (prob pyro)
Lynette (prob anemo)
Freminet -- claymore, prob hydro, professional diver, younger brother of L&L.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SbgmM3mSps

Welcome to Fontaine.

Razor is Eula-at-home, so it's not too weird to pair them up. With Mika there as well, this is the dedicated physical banner. Thoma could have been a more ideal choice, considering I don't think he has anything to do with Klee, either.

No Liloupar. Just another Klee event with tons of area to explore and lots of mini-games, a la GAA, but in the desert.

And a preview of Fontaine, but most importantly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VENFnlBsfZQ

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/0/5/AAUC3iAAElwF.jpg

So first we have a Sorush event, and now we're going to have a Liloupar event? At least, that's how I'm interpreting this. I could be way off.

swordz9 posted...

Fontaine gonna be 4.0 at the earliest probably.

By definition, 4.0 is Fontaine, 5.0 is Natlan, 6.0 is Sznehnahtanyahanaa...Russia. But version numbers are not counting by tenths. 4.0 does not distinctly come after 3.9; it could be after 3.8 or 3.10

And I certainly assume at this point that 3.8 goes to 4.0, but we'll know for sure in ~36 hours.

Fontaine hype?

I'm about to start on an 8-week job that should wrap up right around the end of 3.8, so that timing would work out well for me, assuming there's no 3.9.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Yeah well I'm basically cleaned out now so I could use it, although I'm not terribly excited for most of the Fontaine characters I might snag the archon or something.

I find the implication here that the cast of Fontaine has already leaked disgusting.

Do you have another dendro healer? I had Yaoyao before Baizhu (or Kirara) was in the game, and she's served me well.

I always forget about this topic, but I finished a game a couple days ago, so sure...

Afterimage
Indie metroidvania that reminds me of a blend between Ori and Ender Lilies, with Hollow Knight's movement. The story is nonsensical (and maybe questionable translated,) and the quest instructions are obtuse, so despite there being full voice acting, the writing is by far the worst part.

What's fantastic about Afterimage, though, is the world. It's enormous, it's beautiful, and although I'm able to in hindsight see that the progression is fairly linear, it doesn't feel linear when playing it. It feels like I can go all over the damn place, and the game is just very sparing with new abilities. Like, seriously, this map is enormous. Each area is on par with the largest areas from HK -- think Deepnest or Kingdom's Edge -- though they feel even bigger because they're seamless rather than divided into rooms. But there's also like 30 of them, whereas HK has maybe 12?

Like Ender Lilies, there's a leveling system, so if you hit something hard, the solution is usually to just come back later. There were a few bosses I beat my head against a little, but none of them are genuinely hard. If you're an ultra-hardcore challenge-seeking gamer, you might not find this one to be the hardest you've ever played, but there's six weapons to customize your combat, and the joy of exploring in Afterimage is unparalleled.

Sceptilesolar posted...

Are you making condensed resin? That at least halves the time to do domains.

Reputation reward. He wouldn't have it yet.

And I can only speak for myself, but I didn't have a clue how to gear my characters until like AR40. (Which was still poorly, granted, because nobody understood how the game worked back then.)

But co-op is certainly a thing. Our UID's are in the OP.

When you're new, it's not uncommon for a single domain run to take 3-5 minutes. They do tend to get faster, for what it's worth.

Is she? She disappeared from the game for a long time due to the VA debacle. She was in Unreconciled Stars back in 1.2, and then last summer's archipelago, and...not a whole lot else tbh.

Childe/Osial -> Dainsleif quest -> Go to Inazuma -> Do everything in Inazuma -> Chasm -> Sumeru

Pretty sure. Chasm is treated as an interlude quest, same as the Dainsleif thing because Dainsleif is there, too.

The payoff for the Liyue quest confused me the first time through it. In hindsight it made a lot more sense.

Inazuma has promise but feels like it skipped over act 3 and went right to the conclusion.

Sumeru's story is awesome, though. Like, repeatedly. Block out some time for that.

BK_Sheikah00 posted...

Aquila Favonia has really good base atk. So it can work on Bennett

Oh, I forgot about that. Yes, good call. My Bennett is still stuck with Rancour.

I've never been into Mona. Of the original five, she was my least-desired, and the first to genuinely ruin one of my 50/50's. I do tend to use her in Abyss when I use a "Morgana" team, but that's for five minutes every half a month? And the people who like her physically need to take a sec to check out the rest of the cast and ditch her skinny ass. =p

BK_Sheikah00 posted...

Don't waste your primos on Standard Banner.

Also, this. Free fates only.

Have a nice climb up Dragonspine?

Oh, you got Bennett, huh. I don't like the little snot much myself, but he was a staple of EVERY meta team for the first 2 years of the game, until people gravitated toward swirl, electrocharged and dendro reactions. If you're doing the meta thing, make sure you use his burst before Beidou's, since her attacks "snapshot."

And Aquila Favonia is not the most ideal weapon to pick up because the main stat is physical damage, but don't knock weapons. Who would you have wanted instead? Okay, Dehya's on standard.

Pity is preserved indefinitely. However, the standard banner, the character banner, and the weapon banner all have separate pity counts. Also preserved is your guarantee on a 50/50 if you lost the previous one. The only thing that is not preserved is the primary guarantee system on the weapon banner.

It's a really long quest chain.

And yes, there's a card game. The current limited time events are centered around it, too...which means I need to look at it again before long.

What, the two small areas you're missing on your map? They're quest-dependent, iirc. At least the one against the desert was when Sumeru first launched.

Unfortunately, "get a sac sword" isn't always that simple. Ushi, which 4-star weapons do you have, out of curiosity?

And after shortening your name to Ushi, I'm reminded of https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Ushi

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I like Beidou and Miko the most, I just didn't think I should be fielding 2 lightning. If so then hell yeah I'm going for that!

When you first start, doubling on an element seems bad. You want the most coverage for reactions and taking down shields, right? But eventually you learn what works for shields, and as long as you aren't playing a mono team, you're probably okay to handle whatever the game throws at you.

The thing that's tricky is energy. Understanding energy isn't the easiest concept in the world, but the short version is particles are generated by hitting/killing enemies and by using skills. Some are white (neutral) and some have a color (elemental). How much of a character's burst meter they gain depends on if they match the element (white particles are somewhere in-between) and if they're the one on-field at the time. I have no doubt you're aware of those particles, but for me they just blend into all the on-screen effects, alongside the giant pile of numbers, so I would forgive you for not thinking much about them.

Beidou is notorious for needing an electro teammate to help her with her burst. Even if you perfect counter every time, you probably need some kind of extra help. Later on, you can tailor her gear to help this, but 2- and 3-star artifacts don't give a ton of Energy Recharge (ER). Only the middle slot of the five can have it as a main stat.

As for double electro specifically, electro was considered one of the weaker elements in the game before dendro. However, both of dendro's reactions can make use of electro and can really help carry it. Whether you throw in hydro for hyperbloom (dendro+hydro, then electro) or aggravate (dendro+electro to make vulnerable, and then pummel with electro,) dendro is a great support for electro. If you've already been to Sumeru, you may want to think of dendro traveler longer term. I know you don't have any other anemo currently and there's lots of puzzles, so I get why they're anemo.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

You'll actually need to do Inazuma's (place called Enkanomiya) for Yae even though it's side content.

Oh god, I didn't think about that. Really should have warned you.

One of the biggest problems in the game for newer players is that the ascension materials -- both the random plant and the boss materials -- are usually centered around the nation the character is from, and sometimes not in the most generous of fashions. Miko has one of the absolute worst placements for her boss material. You're going to have a hard time ascending her past 40. It requires AR28 (iirc) just to start the quest to be allowed to go to Inazuma and then you have to do a bunch of extra shit to open up the side area where her boss drops are...and you have to full-clear that map's quests to reach the boss, too. Any Inazuma character is bad, but Yae is especially bad. If you want to stick with her, you may want to power through the main quests as soon as they unlock.

(edited down because I was being way too freaking verbose, but feel free to ask for clarification)

Pick a team of four to stick to, and save your resources for them. There will come a point later where branching out will make sense. For now, fight the overworld bosses for character ascensions, the weapon domains for weapon ascensions, and when the time comes, talent domains as well. Don't bother with artifacts until later; just use what you pick up. But this should be the focal point of your resin, plus weekly bosses.

Important question: Are you playing the characters you like, or do you want suggestions on what would make for the most powerful team? Miko+Beidou is a good start since they both (especially Beidou) want energy and a second member of the same element helps that out. They both work from off-field, so you have freedom to play them with pretty much anyone. A hydro or especially dendro character would make for good reaction damage.

If it were me, and feel free to ignore this, I'd use Xingqiu and Kirara with them. Alternatively, Barbara and Dendro Traveler. This is only considering who you have right now and not future pick-ups. You might not know this yet, but Traveler can use any element. You just have to travel to the corresponding nation to attune to that element. (It's like the Trailblazer, except you have to go back to switch.)

https://genshin-impact-map.appsample.com/#/ if you want to just hotfoot it to the anemoculi.

PrinceKaro posted...

I am looking at things in the long term, an active f2p player will eventually end up with most if not all 4 stars as they rotate through the featured banners, but their resources to obtain 5 stars are very limited and it seems a waste to expend it to get a 4 star character a little bit sooner. It is not like the storyline content of genshin is exceptionally difficult, until you get to the Abyssal Moon Spire team power is more a quality of life thing where you can clear out groups of overworld monsters more quickly.

1) The only reason I have all four-star characters is because I've gone out of my way to make that happen. I used my Lantern Rite picks to complete my account, and I pulled on banners with 5-stars that I didn't really need. These characters would not have simply fallen into my lap otherwise. So no, a long-term player isn't just magically going to end up with all the four-stars.

2) A new player won't ever become a long-term player if they aren't enjoying themselves. Even a waifu > meta player is going to want the appropriate support characters. If you simply get locked out of that character because you reason "eh, I'll get them some day" when that constitutes two years or more of making your gameplay experience more miserable...because you wanted LESS THAN A TENTH OF A PITY...that's just stupid. Like, it's not even a ten-pull. I'm not sure how many wishes worth of glitter would make me question this trade-off, but it's definitely more than seven.

3) On most support characters, constellations are not unwelcome. Bennett's fine at C1, but that C1 makes a noticeable improvement in his consistency. However, other characters in question want to be C6. Plus, if the character in question is Amber, Lisa, or Kaeya, you literally won't get their constellations because they're only found on the standard banner and you get, like, 10 of those wishes per month, spread across all the possible four-stars in the game.

I am not advocating auto-purchasing every character that appears in the shop just because you don't have them maxed yet, but targeted selection is extremely efficient here and far outweighs the benefit of restricting yourself to the gacha.

oh, lol, I assumed the pale blue royalty chick was Ayaka.

edit: I misread. It was short blue hair.

PrinceKaro posted...

A new player is not going to be get that much starglitter in such a short period of time, and what they do get is probably better spent on Intertwined Fates to hasten the acquisition of their first 5 star.

I vehemently disagree with this statement. You're talking about 7 wishes for a choice 4-star. Given the power level of characters like Bennett, Xingqiu, and Fischl, being able to add them to a new account at C0 early on is vastly more valuable than earning yourself a tenth of the way toward pity. The knee-jerk reaction of "see 5 glitter, make a wish" is extremely counterproductive to all accounts, but especially when the characters in the shop have value.

Okay, if you put it that way, it makes little difference whether you start fresh or not. Maybe you'll do better on a reroll. But in terms of waifus, Beidou's still my favorite, and you've got her, too.

You could certainly start anew, play to where you'd been, see how it goes, and then flip back if you don't like the results. I just checked, and the second batch of free wishes comes at Adventurer Rank 7. So maybe play to AR7 twice -- which shouldn't be too much of a time commitment -- and compare after.

(Note: the rewards at AR7 are primogems rather than wishes. You use gems to buy wishes, but there are two types. Make sure you're pulling on the character banner, aka the one with the pink, colorful wishes.)

Okay, so, if you're interested in playing and willing to get on it right now, there's a guy who's in the "shop" -- which is a monthly rotation of things you can buy with one of the currencies. It's normally a total afterthought for anyone who's played the game for a while, but for the month of May, you can pick up Bennett. He pairs with Xingqiu (blue-haired water guy) and Chongyun (pale blue cryo guy), plus a fourth character you'll get for free later as one of the gold standard early meta teams...if meta matters to you. Problem is, Bennett's available for May and won't rotate back into the shop for another 5 months. (The June characters are not anything to worry about.) You'd have to rush a little over the next two days to get him that way and I always believe you should play this game on your own terms, so it might not be worth it.

Assuming you even care at all. People generally go waifu > meta or meta > waifu. Neither is right or wrong. Personally, I don't really like the characters in this meta team ("National Team") very much, and I didn't find the team very enjoyable to play at low levels when I started an alt account. By contrast, I love Beidou, your eyepatch chick, even if she's not on the same level as Xingqiu for power.

TLDR: 3 options

• Play with a decent level of intensity today and tomorrow in order to buy Bennett out of the shop, and for the "national team"
• Don't do that, but keep the account. Xingqiu is a great late-game character. However, due to his long cooldown and energy issues, you need to understand the game's mechanics to make him shine. Ideally, you also have a sacrificial sword (4-star gacha weapon).
• Start fresh

Worth noting is that as you play through the story and explore the game world, you will get currency for the gacha. In fact, I'm pretty sure you get another ten-pull for free just by playing the introduction up to about level 8, so you will most definitely have more characters than just Chongyun, Xingqiu, and Beidou.

If you want to plan and save for (or swipe for) the five-star characters you listed, two of them are very good. The third, sadly, is a total flop in terms of in-game power...but the thing about Genshin is that unlike other gachas, there's no power creep. If anything, the reverse is true, TBH. And you can genuinely play through the game with any hodgepodge of four characters and succeed at mostly all of the content. So if you decide you want to play with a particular team, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

edit: I have no idea how much you'll need to work at the Bennett plan if you want to go that route. Maybe you even start with enough of that currency to grab him straight away. If this sounds like the direction you want to take, I'll explain further. I just don't want to overwhelm you with stuff you don't need to hear.

I'm actually not looking forward to the TCG stuff because I haven't touched it since the patch it debuted, and I don't wanna relearn it all over again. I didn't really have any good tactics for it to begin with, and then people started finding OTK decks, and nothing chases me from a card game faster than unstoppable combo bullshit.

I got her (C0) and Yoimiya in 40. I had some materials ready for both, but I'm not entirely sure what I intend to do with them once leveled.

People had views of her vision that said cryo. Her weapon was anybody's guess -- wouldn't be the first time a more academic type had a bow or a sword. But our first cryo catalyst!?

It looks like I'll finally have an opportunity (and excuse) to pull for Yoimiya.

C4 used to be the landmark constellation, because of the anemo shred, which was once virtually impossible to come by. However, C2 adds attack speed, which is not a super common stat, so in that sense it's valuable if you're pairing her with a normal attacker. There's no one team that specifically wants Jean, outside of Sunfire nonsense, but she's fine in basically any team that can flex their healer. I've seen C2 used, for example, with Eula on Broken Pines to get more attacks in before the burst pops.

I forgot about Chasm being in 2.x

Is that official or based on rumors?

I wonder how many versions we're getting in Sumeru. After the latest area, we've got to be getting down to the end, right? Inazuma was 3 islands, then 2, then 1 more, then Enkanomiya. Sumeru was rainforest, then 3 regions of desert, then 1 more, then 1 more. Has to be roughly equal, right? Unless they're going to jam us with a Mondstadt festival and another trip to the Golden Apple Archipelago while people play HSR.

We need to get back to posting in this topic so we can start a new topic when Fontaine comes out lol.

I did 2/3 of the event last night. It was cute. Thankfully, I didn't have to do Dehya's entire quest to unlock like I feared. The idea of being "commentator" for the event is a surprisingly good explanation for why we'd be there watching everything closely. I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen in the final third, but maybe the writers will pull a swerve. It sure seems like they're setting up for Wanderer to win the last round after scoring zero previously, and win the competition, but Kaveh will be rewarded by Sachin, the sponsor, for being the first participant that impressed him and his nihilism. I still dunno what's up with the cursed diadem.

I'm waiting to hear more about the dendro boyz before I pull. I have to assume Fontaine is on the horizon, so maybe we'll start seeing characters for elements besides dendro again soon.

NFUN posted...

If you want to find out for sure, mix bleach and ammonia and see what that smells like. It should also produce chloroamines

While I'm sure most people recognize this as a joke, please don't make homebrew mustard gas. I did that inadvertently once, and I was fortunate that I was doing it outdoors in a well-ventilated area.

But I live in the US.

While I understand the argument you're presenting, and how that shouldn't be completely shut down by the statement that where I live simply isn't there *yet,* I think we both know better.

DoctorJimmy133 posted...

Desperate doubles:
+ Astebreed | The Void | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVKJVyWTZ4k

You saw that I supported that, right?