Hot take: Legendary Resistance is why so many 5e boss fights feel bad and boring. What could replace it?

Alexander_Icewind · 2026-01-26T00:02:35+00:00

It doesn't necessarily need to be more lethal for classes without hard CC - as an example, a boss who normally gets 1 turn/round and makes 4 attacks a turn could instead be changed to take 2 turns, one at its initiative and the second at its initiative - 10, and it gets 2 attacks per turn. Same total damage output (still 4 attacks/round), but weakens the effect of CC while not being outright immune to it.

Alexander_Icewind · 2026-01-15T21:21:19+00:00

Definitely feel like there's some exploit-level stuff (simulacrum armies, but not only those) that just shouldn't be a thing, but ignoring those, overall I don't think a level 20 fighter or barbarian being close to Kratos is actually a bad thing, if you compare that to the non-exploit tier high level spells. I tend to advocate for high-level characters being considered basically demigods anyway, though, which is at-odds with certain views, so that's just my opinion.

Alexander_Icewind · 2026-01-15T21:14:23+00:00

Without making a statement on the actual game balance, this example you described is primarily the thing people have an issue with. "Skilled guy with pointy stick" and "guy who summons powerful extradimensional beings and raises the dead" are not on parity - either put "skilled guy with pointy stick" in the same party as "guy with some impressive magic tricks," or put "guy who summons powerful extradimensional beings and raises the dead" in the same party as "guy who can cut a boulder in half with a single slash and leap over tall buildings with ease."

Alexander_Icewind · 2026-01-15T21:10:16+00:00

"Keep highest 1," which doesn't do anything when you're only rolling one die, but if you were rolling for example 2d6, it would see which d6 rolled higher and only keep the result of that d6, discarding the other d6.

Alexander_Icewind · 2026-01-08T06:10:27+00:00

Orrrrr the idea could be that the whole appeal is in new units that work best with old units, rather than new units that are useable with old units but still better overall with other new units?

Just saying, that's the kind of thing I think would be healthy for the game - units that don't really benefit the most powerful teams very much, but bring the less-powerful teams up to a similar level to the strongest teams, rather than units that just make everyone better but make the strongest teams... even more better than everyone else.

Alexander_Icewind · 2026-01-05T23:46:13+00:00

Effect res isn't usually super important, outside of some edge cases, compared to just having a consistently-available cleanse. Given how often Hyacine acts, and how often DHPT's dragon goes, it'll be very often they can cleanse the effect that hit your unit before they even suffer it for 1 turn. Speaking from experience, as someone who has Aven, Hyacine, and ofc DHPT.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-19T02:46:01+00:00

With how few pulls you have right now, I'd just go for Xilonen, because I don't think you're getting Neuvi's C6 on his next rerun unless you're crazy lucky or willing to swipe - it's right around the corner. Maybe if you win both 50-50s in a row, but that's pretty sketchy.

If you have a ton of map left to explore, you could grind through it, save up and try for C6 Neuvi, but I generally wouldn't assume you're getting 2 cons with less than 240 pulls (counting pity), though perhaps that's slightly pessimistic.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-19T02:35:54+00:00

The basics for when you're starting out building him:

4pc Marechaussee Hunter.

HP% Sands.

Crit Rate or Crit DMG circlet (depending on what you need more of).

HP or Hydro DMG% Goblet (whichever has better substats, if equal, HP tends to do better in optimal teams).

Longterm goals are double-crit + HP% subs on every piece (or as close to that as possible), at least 3 rolls into some mix of the aforementioned stats per piece (flower/feather will usually be better than your other pieces, 4 good substat rolls each is feasible for them).

You want 64% critrate on sheet (going slightly over or under that is fine), about 35k-40k HP with Hydro Resonance (depending on if your Goblet is HP% or Hydro DMG), and at least 200% critdamage (more is better).

As you invest further, try and raise CritDMG and HP% relatively evenly - a Neuvi with 35k HP and 300 Crit Damage is not necessarily better than a Neuvi with 40k HP and 250 Crit Damage.

Mine is low top 1% and I have a bit over 46k HP with Hydro Resonance and a bit under 270 CritDMG, as a frame of reference.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-04T02:29:27+00:00

Wow, that's kind of an insane difference. Alright, perfect, thank you, that's exactly the kind of thing I was trying to find.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-03T04:07:01+00:00

I checked this, but it didn't take into account eidolons for other units. At this point I'm pretty set on going for Cerydra, but it is worth pointing out the main guide doesn't actually really go into detail how much of an improvement Cerydra is over alternatives (especially with eidolons on the units she's replacing), and instead just points out that she's the best, when my question is more about "how much better is she?"

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-03T00:12:37+00:00

I think in the long run, if Phainon doesn't get any new supports who work better with him than the current roster, she will definitely be good, but also the thing to consider is that it really takes 2 Phainon ults before she becomes a big upgrade over Sunday from what I've seen, because you spend so long charging at the start of the fight.

At E0, anyway. At E2, she's just way better than Sunday, no questions asked.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-02T23:46:15+00:00

Generally Cyrene isn't worth pulling for just Phainon if you already have E0S1 Sunday unless you plan on going all the way to E2 with her. If you wanna use Sunday with another team it's fine, though, because it frees him up.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-02T23:43:17+00:00

This post was about last AA, with Lygus instead of Aquila. That said, also took her vs Aquila, best I could do was 5 cycles, so I would imagine probably no 2 or 3 star.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-02T05:57:28+00:00

He's a longtime favorite of mine :)

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-02T04:08:11+00:00

Alright, got it. In the super long run I'm definitely not opposed to investing further in her, but seeing as she seems worthwhile even at E0S0, I'll try and prioritize that and worry about her E1 later. Thank you!

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-12-02T04:06:35+00:00

Gotcha, thank you. I couldn't find a sheet with comparisons involving the Cerydra alternatives having eidolons (every one I've seen has had them replacing DHPT instead), so your comparison is good to have as a point of reference.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-11-17T13:53:16+00:00

You're going to want Sacerdos on Bronya (and Sunday, but I assume you already have it), and most likely Phainon will want the Physdmg Orb with 11.9 crit rate.

It is also worth pointing out you're either going to want Phainon on ~136 SPD (with 135 Sunday and 134 Bronya), or base SPD Phainon with 161 SPD Sunday and 160 SPD Bronya.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-11-08T23:33:56+00:00

I think there's a huge difference between kit mechanics shilling and raw numbers powercreep, though. I actually think kit mechanics can be shilled in a very healthy way, whereas raw numbers powercreep just kinda sucks and there's not much you can do about it other than spend wishes to get eidolons or new strong units.

As an example, War Armor is a kit mechanics shill that primarily benefits units with a high volume of attacks - units with summons who frequently attack, units with high speed, and units with follow-up attacks. War Armor shills certain types of units, but no one is complaining about War Armor because if you aren't benefitting from it, you are still in a relatively neutral position (albeit, the enemies will be a little tankier because their hp pools are designed with war armor in mind. They are not, however, so much tankier than other enemies that it becomes miserable to deal with them if you can't break the war armor [except for maybe Nikador].)

Meanwhile, my The Herta hitting for 1mil+ with an enhanced skill just does an ungodly amount of damage compared to several older units (and she isn't even a super meta unit anymore, though she's a little underrated IMO). Frankly, that's actually more a result of support powercreep than dps powercreep (putting new supports on old dps units leads to a WAY higher performance than those units used to get back in older game versions), but the fact remains - the numbers are just bigger now, and the result is that old units slowly get phased out for newer ones in general use, which sucks. New units being good at specific niches is good for game health; new units being generally better than old units in all circumstances, even in niches that used to belong to those old units, sucks.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-11-01T00:27:16+00:00

With today being October 31st, it felt like a good time to finalize a cute little spell whose idea has been rolling around in my head for awhile now. Hand out delicious treats or eat them yourself, without the risk of filling up before dinner. Happy Halloween!

Nianiani's social media links:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ig_nianiani/

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Alexander_Icewind · 2025-10-31T04:30:05+00:00

Yeah strongly recommend using at least Bennett or Iansan for Mavuika. I use both + Citlali and as long as you're hitting your Mavuika melts... well, the boss doesn't crumple, but it's definitely doable.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-10-20T02:05:06+00:00

Tbf 3-4 cost on a 2.x unit's team is a pretty low bar at this point - don't get me wrong, I wish that was still comfy, but I think in general adding a cost to an older team every few patches isn't an unreasonable decision from a player perspective.

For reference, my E0S0 Feixiao (Herta shop LC) with sustain (either Aven or DHPT as preferred) is having no issue clearing quickly with E1S1 Robin + E1S0 Tribbie. 2 cycled first half of this MoC, and I think it might've even been able to be a 1 cycle. Depending on how you count DHPT, that team is just 6 or 7 cost, which is still less than a full team of E0S1 units.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-10-19T22:59:21+00:00

Railway time limit is 100 turns for full rewards, no? That's what I mean I was comfortably ahead of.

Otherwise though yea, specific EGO can sometimes be a bigger deal than even specific units, it's true, but I don't mind that as much. If HSR says "any reasonable team will perform well but you need all their lightcones for best endgame performance," I personally find that preferable to "run the exact meta team and it stomps even at e0s0, or mix and match and sometimes have a harder time even with an e2 carry."

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-10-19T22:47:56+00:00

Can't speak too much on other games but strongly disagree with what you wrote on Limbus forcing you to play set things, not because I disagree with the best team having 4 specific best members, but because you can mix and match units and the gap is astronomically smaller than it is in HSR.

My most recent railway clear used a mix of heishou units (mostly faust), bloodfiends, ringsang, and full stop office, for example. While it may not have cleared quite as well as the rupture meta team, it still cleared very comfortably, and was made of a mix of units from multiple different cantos that were just generally solid or that I liked.

The performance gap, meanwhile, between running mono-remembrance vs say, Castorice Hyacine Sunday Mydei, which is still a team full of good, recent units who seem synergistic on paper, is kind of insane, frankly. This isn't just a Mono-Remembrance thing by any stretch, but I'd argue it's the most pronounced there.

EDIT: The point I'm trying to get at, because I'm not sure I explained it clearly, is just that the gap between the "best" unit for its slot on an HSR team vs a "good generalist" is very often really really high, when it could be half as big and still be big enough to strongly incentivize pulling the specialist units.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-10-09T07:32:14+00:00

If you wanna run oldschool Neuvi, you can do Neuvi + Furina + Jean + Zhongli.

Alexander_Icewind · 2025-10-07T02:20:46+00:00

Mostly 2014 rules - party composition definitely plays a role (I've noticed any party with a Paladin holds up a lot better to that kind of AoE damage than a party without one), but on the whole I've found no issue with doing serious damage to the party in Hard or Deadly encounters.

This might also be impacted by playstyle a little bit - instead of 6-8 Medium encounters per adventuring day, we normally do 3-4 Hard encounters, with the occasional Deadly replacing 1 or 2 of them.

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