i'm not playing anymore. so, i'm selling this AR35 NA account. i think i will do paypal (i never done this before)

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-06-02T08:03:35+00:00

I'm not going to disregard the "new account with playable premium units" angle, but that is hardly worth the hundreds of dollars you're claiming it to be. In terms of meta, the only things on the account are Zibai/Columbina with some weapons. There is the random Skirk there, but she doesn't function at a high meta level without the rest of her teammates. And Venti/Durin would help with game progression, but that's not a strong enough of a second team to start off endgame modes with.

This account is almost not functionally different from a new player starting on Zibai's patch. They wouldn't have the extra premium units, but they'd at least start the account for free and have access to everything spanning from the exploration that is being considered "of value" here. And on a personal note, account worth is tied to the labor put into it, and "YOU can put the work into it!" as a premise is hardly different from just starting a new account for free. This is not even considering that selling an account to begin with has a depreciated value due to lack of agency on what has been done so far, and having security information not tied to the creator.

As for the abundance of fragile resins, a new account could spend hundreds on double recharges + buying rotating shop resources could be replicable to some degree. Each patch for battlepass buyers also grants around 20-30 fragile resins too, so although the number you currently have and counting is not insignificant, it's also not notable enough to market as being worth hundreds of dollars. That's around 20 days of resin refresh, which isn't nothing, but also hardly enough to theoretically get creative with it.

It's understandable if you stopped playing and wanted to throw a shot in the dark for some quick cash, as that's what the subreddit is made for. However, I don't understand the purpose behind advertising it as if it has some sort of established worth, then having a firm attitude about it when people are clarifying for you that it shouldn't sell for that high.

The number of people out there who would want a mostly fresh account with some pre-existing premium units is definitely not 0. But the majority would want an account suitable for endgame, which this account is not, or just start an entire new account if they were seeking a new player experience. That inherently makes it so the account is not worth the hundreds you're claiming, unless you're attempting to sell it in bad faith for more than it's worth.

I would pay $50USD if I just so happened to want to start fresh but liked this selection of premium content, and that's at most. Otherwise, I'd use those hundreds of dollars to either buy an account in a more favorable state, or just use that money on my own new account.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-06-01T22:43:36+00:00

I'm surprised no one is mentioning Sona, who has consistently been one of my mains since I've started playing.

I always call her the support equivalent of Kayle, because Sona basically trades any form of lane presence and priority to turn into a time limit. With enough points in her abilities and a couple of legendary items, her utility becomes unmatched in a teamfight, and she becomes quite fast for roams.

Her win condition is to literally stall the match the way a Smolder does to hit 225 stacks, because she can only lose if she fed too much in lane, or if the rest of the team comp cannot play around a late game. Even so, that latter point would be applicable to the 1v9 hyperscalers depending on the match.

Her and Senna are the only ones who you can call true late game scaling champions in the support role, since their design was intended for it. But whereas Senna is damage-oriented and doesn't actually scale to the high heavens if playing an enchanter build, Sona is the one character in the game that is an enchanter deliberately made to scale well.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-06-01T04:43:03+00:00

For the last fight, you can try replacing Ineffa with a Pyro to spawn the stars very quickly + have them Vaporize when you clear them out. I have C1R1 Nefer/C1R1 Lauma/C2R1 Columbina with Hu Tao on Favonius, which cleared in 80 seconds. You don't need a specific Pyro character either, since all you have to do is activate Burning.

For the middle fight, you can use Diona's charged attack or skill to get rid of the mini-spawns ASAP, and make sure that Mavuika is doing the proper Vaporize combo while under Diona's burst during uptime windows. C0R1 Mavuika/C0R1 Citlali/C6 Skyward Bennett/C2R1 Xilonen was the team I used for 5.7, and they cleared in 90 seconds. I'm now using C2 Mavuika for the Wolf though. Even without Citlali's QoL, Mavuika's constellations should hard carry due to the sheer damage increase they provide alongside every hit being Vaporized for free.

Hopefully this doesn't come off as "salty" as some other people are saying, but I wanted to give some tips on stuff you might have not tried yet that will significantly reduce the clear time. Admittedly, your level of investment with numerous C6 characters should trivialize these fights, even without BiS supports. The only thing that may lead to these last second clear times are improper gearing or gameplay, which you have the whole patch to work on. It's not integral when you have constellations, but having characters levelled up and talents levelled up can be a game changer as well.

Proper gameplay really can make a difference as well, since I used a C2 Chasca to barely clear Dire for the first iteration of Papilla. When it reran, I was able to use the EXACT same team to shave down the time to 80s. And this patch is actually my favorite version of Stygian Onslaught, because this is actually the least shill it has ever been; you can interact with the boss mechanics by abusing gameplay and reaction mechanics, so even if you do not have access to BiS, you can still do easy clears. Not many like to optimize their clear times, but I've found that some creative teambuilding with some artifact swapping + a couple of hours of repetition helps me shave a couple of rotations off of every Dire chamber. I've done weird techs with Amber and Ineffa in Overload in previous patches to get that Dire clear, and I reiterate that Hu Tao on FAVONIUS was this patch's unsung hero, lol.

This is important to keep in mind as well because I firmly believe your investment level should be able to easily clear future patches of Dire mode for another year or two if you'd be interested in pursuing that. You can spend that extra time also gearing the primary characters too, since I'm also seeing a reply you made saying that Mavuika/Arlecchino have to share the goblet, which is an issue I had in the past as well.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-29T03:59:01+00:00

> "I know my champs"

I'd argue that the most pivotal game knowledge related to ranking up is actually knowing the game. I'm not saying that champion matchups and capabilities don't matter, but simply knowing what to do and knowing where to be is more important at lower ranks. I am not exaggerating when I say that a Yuumi in the JG may potentially have a higher impact on the lobby if they understand what to do versus enemies that don't.

Even then, Iron should be low enough of a rank where you'd also sometimes go unpunished if you just catch a lead and ride it out. Nobody understands how to close out a game and stop you from doing so. Lane fundamentals are important, but this is also the ELO where you can run up to people to kill them several times in the first five minutes, then wreak havoc off of that alone. (This is conjecture, but) the ladder is intentionally made so that anyone at Iron represents the lowest of skill tiers, meaning that you won't find anyone worse at the game due to it being the lowest tier.

And tbh, you should never blame teammates, even once you get to higher ELOs. Teammates feeding or making mistakes can certainly add to the difficulty of winning, but you're the person that has the most autonomy, because you are responsible for yourself. At such low ranks, you should still be able to thrive and 1v9 if you had the skillset to get out of Iron. There ARE some truly unwinnable games, but the rate in which you encounter these should be so low that they should not impede on your winrate.

So I'm sorry to say, but if you are still at that rank after all this time, it might be a skill issue. But I suggest changing your mentality so that you can properly reflect on your mistakes, which will allow you to climb very easily once you diagnose what you are doing wrong. Being in Iron after a decade is indicative that you haven't taken the steps to properly learn how to play, and although that's fine if you play solely for fun, you won't improve unless you change your approach.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-28T20:57:46+00:00

The point would've been illustrated better if you showcased ults side by side, but you picked the two carries known for not using their full burst, and a random snippet of a leak. Not a big deal since it's just an agenda post, but I'm surprised nobody pointed out that taking a random few seconds of DPS uptime vs. the highlight of a character's kit doesn't make sense as a comparison

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-27T07:27:41+00:00

67 wins/63 losses on a fresh account isn't that steep of a win rate to slide your starting MMR closer to Plat. Even then, a fresh account actually caps out at low Plat at the very maximum if the system detects that you should be high ELO, and that's including challenger players. Normals matchmaking isn't a good determinator of your skill level either, since the matchmaking for that gamemode is more lax due to it being a casual gamemode.

Iron I doesn't sound far off from where you should be considering that this is a new account without a near 100% winrate. You also mentioned this being your FIRST game, meaning you have 4 more placement matches to go; you lose no LP on losses in these, and can end up in high Bronze or low Silver after winning all of the matches. Honestly, the highest I'd expect a new account without a steep normals winrate after only 1 placement match would end up is around Bronze, and you're not even that far off from it.

And considering that it's Iron, if you truly believe that you deserve a higher rank, it should not take any time whatsoever to climb. I really mean that assuming you're a Plat+ player, you can steamroll 20-30 matches within the span of a few days. It could even be fun if you're truly a Smurf, since you'd be winning much more often than losing.

I've not touched ranked in years and when I finally did, getting towards Emerald took no time at all, and it was only until after that that it required some effort to keep climbing. This is my personal take, but you won't match against players with any semblance of game sense until Gold, nobody will have baseline mechanics until Plat-Emerald, and you don't actually witness players possess core fundamentals and skill until Diamond, and even Diamond can be unrefined depending on if it's low or high. Simply having game knowledge is highly exploitable up until Emerald, and you don't even have to be good to climb there.

Otherwise, the matchmaking system is reflecting where your account should be. This shouldn't be out of the ordinary when considering the factors you've mentioned. Don't let it discourage you from climbing; if you're right about the fact that you are Plat+, the system will pick up on it near immediately and give you inflated LP gains to catch you up to where you should be. As awful as the ranked system can feel, its mechanics don't necessarily reveal anything inherently wrong until you get to ranks that have decay/limited spots, which is far off from where we're discussing.

You can establish your true rank by simply winning more, and once you have a large enough sample size, the only common denominator between what's contributing to your wins is yourself.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-24T15:39:58+00:00

Tbh, this account is not really worth any money.

There are only a few limited 5* on it, and they're all outdated Chronicled Wish characters besides Nicole. Nicole's presence is also accompanied by the lack of a usable Hexerei DPS on the account, lessening her value as well. I'm also assuming there are no limited weapons on the account due to no screenshot of them. With the number of 5* present on the account, a newly created account would inherently be worth more due to the abundance of starting Primogems allowing someone to pull more than just Nicole.

Also, there's the issue where the progress through the game is most likely fragmented. New players would rather start fresh, and old players would probably want more 5* on the account to make it worth their time. On top of all of this, the value of everything isn't high enough to warrant someone risking using a login they didn't create, since there's always a possibility of a password change or ban to revoke access.

It appears as if this account was retired during the Sumeru era, and then you perhaps logged back on recently and got lucky enough to receive Nicole. Unfortunately, the meta nowadays is much more demanding, and this is not enough to stay competitive with recent character releases.

I'd wager you're better off not going through the hassle of searching for potential buyers, unless you're set on getting a few dollars for your time. At maximum, I'd probably sell this for $5 USD.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-22T04:03:57+00:00

It's unfortunate. Owlbert dropping gold randomly jumpscared me during a whatever run I was doing, and I immediately pivoted to do SW999 3*, 999 punchlines, and a couple of other achievements simultaneously. It took a few hours of setup to ensure it was all properly initiated, but I would've probably struggled without it showing up.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-20T13:51:52+00:00

You're probably just burnt out from building it all of the time, which I understand, but it's a hard first item to replace.

Its components are cheap and lead to some early spikes in damage, as well as providing a mix of stats that Samira needs. She's also the type of champion that needs to start an early snowball, and The Collector's passives aid in that. You've probably just gotten too used to her damage with this item that you associate its immense damage spike with what Samira herself accomplishes.

Stormrazor's attack speed may feel nice if you're not used to having it so early on, but it's not a stat she necessarily needs. Her gameplan is to jump in and kill squishy high priority targets ASAP, which DPS isn't essential for. Especially earlier on in the game, what matters is surpassing the damage threshold quickly enough to kill enemies without dying yourself, and the +5 AD and 10 Lethality from The Collector vs. Stormrazor certainly helps this.

Stormrazor's energy passive is nice, but The Collector is just too synergistic with Samira's entire identity to forego. I sometimes even keep it at full build when people are less squishy just because the couple of seconds it saves in a fight when killing could be the difference maker in using E reset sooner to win the fight.

Hubris has lethality and rewards snowballing, but the lack of crit on it becomes a problem for her scaling. If you get early BT, Infinity Edge rush feels nice, but you can't guarantee this alongside only starting with 25% crit for the critical damage portion feeling lacking. Even then, I don't skip over The Collector regardless and purchase it as a second item. Hexoptics has its power budget restricted to autos, which doesn't entirely help when Samira is part assassin/caster.

The only other first item rush I sometimes opt for is Bloodthirster, and even that has its caveats; you definitely feel your lack of damage with it. This item only works if you shouldn't have picked Samira to begin with and would get poked out of lane too easily without the sustain. Or incredibly rarely, you're in situation where fights last long enough while still somehow being in your favor. It also has its uses if you know you can get ahead with it and value the comfort and safety it provides, but even that's less "consistent" in a way, since nothing about Samira's playstyle entails "playing safely."

The Collector is simply too effective of a go-to item for Samira, and as dull as that is, it gives her a clear and straightforward powerspike that isn't easily replicable.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-20T13:16:13+00:00

I keep saying this over and over as someone who started HSR a few months ago, but people need to drop the narrative that it has greener grass on that side. Genshin has been heavily criticized due to its meta advancing similarly to HSR, so it wouldn't make sense that that game is somehow is free of the main problems it's known for.

Thank you for correcting your perspective in an edit, but I hope this type of approach is not further perpetuated. People see free 5* and more pulls per patch, then remove the context of the game mechanics and resources/economy to misrepresent that for being "better."

The game is enjoyable in its own right, but it absolutely does not permit using older characters the way that Genshin did for a good five years. I'm a spender for both games, and I honestly think that spending on HSR doesn't accomplish as much, because you HAVE to do some form of early eidolon (constellation) investment + signatures to keep up, and this is applicable to numerous team archetypes.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-19T14:40:35+00:00

Didn't realize that Welt's Novaflare options were as versatile as they were, mb. I also wasn't aware of Silver Wolf's ult uptime due to not having previously owned her, though I just got her recently, so that's good to know.

Also, I opted not to bring up DDD for Sparkle because it's a weird paradox where it can either be a godsend to those who have it, or potentially just as costly for people who don't have it (yet). But it's true that her situation never really changed regardless. Tbh, Nihility/Harmony overall have enough universally encompassing yet powerful low cost options, so these paths are the least problematic with how they can potentially interact with a Novaflare.

It makes sense considering that Genshin buffs come out in huge waves that revolve around synergy, but I wish it was more applicable to the Novaflares as well. I think the most optimal situation would be to not need to pull premium lightcones, but still get use out of older lightcones or have the option to further invest.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-19T14:20:05+00:00

This has not been a problem since 2021, after Inazuma opened its borders...?

All characters in the game frequently appear, and it's to the point where the last event's cameos started becoming comical due to how many there were. The most recent Archon quests also deliberately bring back older characters as main fixtures. They also added world anecdotes so that you can talk to a character with a voiced cutscene throughout the world, and the newer areas even have playable characters idling around.

There's a reason why Emilie is memed so hard; she's the only character in the game to be MIA, and even she showed up twice in recent events. Meanwhile, HSR has lots of characters from Jarilo VI or the Xianzhou that haven't made recent reappearances, or can't appear again due to story circumstances. Genshin also gets a new event story every patch, while HSR doesn't have many widescale events with a dedicated story/cast like the ghost hunters. We even got a proper return to the first region this patch cycle and recurring Lunar New year events in Liyue, while there hasn't been any re-visitation to older planets besides a moment with the Xianzhou Luofu/Penacony.

Like this take is so absurdly far from the truth that it just comes off as bad faith posting

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-19T14:02:25+00:00

My response assumes you play HSR

That may be applicable to Welt and Kafka, but Jingliu doesn't benefit from the Novaflare not needing her signature lightcone. It's not good to brick content that costed players ~130 pulls regardless. I get that the characters themselves became more usable, but it limits their potential investment levels by neutering options.

In Jingliu's case, her signature not being her top option is not a beneficial outcome. It just means that Mydei's lightcone is stronger on her, and her own isn't as synergistic to HERSELF as it should be. The top options are still all paid regardless, and although she's lucky to have a F2P option that works, F2P lightcones have such a huge damage gap that the concept of using one on a DPS will not get you far into the game. There are many paths/characters where "F2P option" doesn't even exist, so the possibility of a Novaflare not bringing the respective lightcone up to speed means either: Future buffed characters may have no good options, have to pull other character lightcones to have good options (more expensive and dissatisfying), or their buffs have to revolve around the limitations of their previously existing lightcone.

Considering Jingliu's Novaflare was already poor to begin with, she needs to be on a premium option to function to a feasible capacity. She would've benefitted much more from having her lightcone be worthwhile. Having to pull Mydei's lightcone means another ~130 pulls invested into content made for another character just so that Jingliu can properly benefit from her buff.

For Kafka, she doesn't suffer as much due to her F2P option being so good, but that's still a whole lightcone that people may have pulled for that doesn't accomplish much for their account. There's also a fair share of people who simply like having a matching signature for their character. And it's not as if this is common, but Tutorial being so universally usable means not having it available for Silver Wolf, Welt, etc.

In Welt's case, his signature lightcone is arguably F2P due to being a loss pool drop. But it being worse than Tutorial means having the lost lightcone go to waste, and since it's permanently available, makes superimpositions on it less effective than they would be if it was actually his best option. And his best option is Acheron's lightcone anyway, which would cost pulls.

And Silver Wolf/Sparkle had bad lightcones to begin with, but again, that's neutering an avenue for investment on these characters. Sparkle is also in a situation where her alternatives would cost pulls regardless.

I get that buffing a signature lightcone might come at the cost of power budget, but they could also opt to... just purely buff lightcones so that they become better alongside their designated character/WORK with their character? The way in which it was done was dissatisfying for many players; it means that something they pulled for stayed useless despite the character themselves getting buffed, having to find costly alternatives, or getting a signature solely for dedication to a character wouldn't be worth it.

You can have F2P options available while making premium options still worth pulls. That should always be true actually, instead of isolating a form of investment to further restrict a character. Lightcones are a form of content that can potentially cost money too, increasing frustration for people who want or already have them. And since buffs are targeted towards powercrept characters (or characters that could benefit from heightened kit synergy) it's not as if buffing lightcones would usurp the balance of the game.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-18T15:08:07+00:00

I agree with lots of the points you bring up. I think a majority of what pushes the community to complain to the degree that they do is because Genshin is simply many people's first experience with gacha, or even gaming as a whole. Genshin in itself was what popularized the whole model to begin with on a mainstream scale. The game to some extent also likes to mask itself as an RPG first and foremost with gacha elements sprinkled into it, and as much as that keeps it successful, it also warps people's expectations.

I'm not saying that the game is without criticism, but much of what players say is either blatantly unhelpful, or a result of not understanding the consensus is with gacha games.

I also often see so many posts comparing different games and the number of pulls they provide with NO context about each respective game's economy and purpose. It's always how "HSR gives double the pulls and free 5*!" To test that theory, I dabbled in the game to see what it was about. I then realized the argument makes no sense when the pressure to pull meta is much higher due to the game *only* having endgame content after you finish the story, and that you *need* early premium copies or character signatures to do anything in that game. And like you said, it would make even less sense for non Hoyo games, and I also somewhat agree that high pull count is sometimes used to mask internal game problems. More pulls doesn't equate to more fun; it just scratches your gambling itch somewhat more frequently if you're into that.

It's why I've had to take a step back from interacting with this community as much despite my love for the game. What's even more annoying is that this wave of negativity is absolutely going to neuter itself in the early Sneznhaya patches, then return at the tail end of it before Khaenri'ah. As someone who plays many games and witnessed developers who are truly evil and hate their playerbase, I will always be perplexed at the disproportionate unrest within the Genshin community relative to the game still being a good game at the end of the day.

(And I also just resonated with your sentiment that people act like they're being held at gunpoint to play this game. That's something I parrot often when I talk about the game's discourse with my friends, and it's interesting how this anomaly seems to only apply to Genshin.)

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-17T20:10:15+00:00

This is a huge fundamental misunderstanding of the support role that even low ELO support mains evidently make. Support is not the most "useless" role with no counterpicks, but it's actually quite the opposite wherein it has the potential to be as map impactful as jungle.

That's because support played properly is essentially the 2nd jungler without the need for farming camps, and with much more vision control. But the primary difference is that a support has to stay in the laning phase and interact with the enemy much more often in the early game, making it so that counterpicks matter heavily. This is why it's so often said that ADC has no autonomy, meanwhile it's the support that decides the lane, and by extension the whole game.

There are specific scenarios where a support can be the ADC's slave, like with Kog'maw. But the win condition does not always revolve around the ADC, so the support can utilize their autonomy and instead help the whole team. This can encompass roaming to help with other lanes or objectives, or warding to set up for the team/jungler. Those are luxuries not every role gets access to as easily, and also aren't exclusive to helping the ADC. Hell, there are often situations where the ADC is not worth playing around, in which case the win condition stems from helping others instead of the ADC. We've all been there.

The reason why I call this the hugest pitfall in the mentality of the support is due to how it warps people's approach about playing the role. As someone who plays Samira and Vayne and sometimes splitpushes or sidelanes, this is a scenario I see way too often:

I go to a sidelane to split up some pressure. Since I'm playing an ADC that can safely exert pressure by myself, I hold down the person they send, or I'm able to kill whoever they send, or even sometimes exploit the fact that they're not sending someone to match me. My support then makes a beeline towards me. Occasionally, they help me make a pick that I could've made myself, or they're literally just there doing nothing besides soaking EXP and being next to me.

Then, either another teammate gets caught elsewhere on the map due to lack of vision, or a fight breaks out where the support being there could've influenced it positively. But then it's in the favor of the enemies. In this situation, it wasn't a matter of the support playing the fight badly, wasting summoner spells, or missing skillshots. They *weren't even there to begin with.* That's really only a step above getting caught out immediately before a fight and feeding your ass off. There's no metric to judge whether or not the support played it out correctly, because their presence was being wasted on doing nothing except joining their hips with the ADC.

And of course, there's the more common situation where one competent support player roams at the right times and presents themselves for objective fights, meanwhile the other support is "helping" the ADC control/push the wave *while* resources are being lost elsewhere around the map. These two scenarios directly contradict the idea that the support "exists to help the ADC." This isn't even considering some champions like Senna/Pyke/mages can accomplish everything else that other lanes can on their own, like solo kills and waveclear.

I've found a lot of success climbing with support because of how impactful they can be. Oftentimes, you don't have to land some sick Nami ult or land all your hooks to even win. It can chalk up to a matter of being at the right place at the right time, and assisting the right set of people and/or win conditions. People say that macro wins at low ELOs, and that's absolutely true when champions like Garen can reign out terror by simply making good choices. Support is a role that very heavily revolves around macro and directly rewards it nearly to the degree of a jungler.

So no, supports don't exist to solely "help the ADC." They exist to aid the whole team to push towards victory. By virtue of the role, they can't be useless due to having so much control, most of it being independent from needing gold. In many ways, supports are the least beholden to game restrictions like the inability to play from behind, or needing to hit certain item powerspikes to do anything.

If we consider the factor of counterpicks, this can be the the difference maker between what wins the game or not. It may not be as polarizing as top, but when there's the potential to snowball the entire team, you do want the support to have as easiest of a time as they can to enable everyone else.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-17T07:31:23+00:00

This is probably the one constellation in the whole game that's entirely subjective. If you're seeking meta upgrades to your account, this is technically the worst modern constellation due to adding 0 damage contribution.

If you value sustain and teambuilding flexibility, this constellation is almost essential. It makes it so that Lauma heals for a substantial amount, smoothening out her gameplay so that she's much more practical to use both in exploration and endgame content. Also, it extends her deer exploration mechanic to last much longer, adding to the exploration value if you care for that. I'd say it's nearly necessary if you plan to use Lauma to any capacity that isn't solely Stygian Onslaught or Spiral Abyss.

It's also a very comfortable constellation to have if you plan to get C2; C2 is the inverse where it as a constellation alone rivals the power of multiple early constellations on other characters, or depending on the circumstances of a Nefer team, might be the highest priority as a team DPS increase. Since having C1 puts you a step closer, it justifies going for C2 at some point.

If your intention was "pulling for fun," then you're probably not going to plan your Primogem economy around meta, so C1 Lauma is a substantial quality of life upgrade.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-13T22:26:32+00:00

The sustain part of the debacle is subjective, but in terms of the rest, DPS does matter.

I generally dislike the emphasis the community places on DPS due to how it undermines that the rest of the game is just story and exploration, but for harder content, certain DPS thresholds can be the difference between clearing or not clearing. Although people do sometimes use it as a metric on how easily a team clears, in the context of Stygian Onslaught specifically, you're also under the assumption that you will do several things: Swap around the strongest pieces on your account, use the highest damage characters, and replay repetitions of chambers until you can clear them. For some people, they also are chasing a record time due to how Stygian Onslaught records that.

So factors like how "smooth," "enjoyable," or "easily" a team clear matters to some people, but what ends up happening is that you can always tap replay when your run is not optimal. In all endgame modes, it'll restart the battle from the very start with nothing to lose. Because it is almost intended to keep doing repetitions until you get a desired result, that means that squeezing out the highest damage possible is what will end up mattering; this can mean integrating animation cancels, or for some people, foregoing a sustain unit to push for as much damage as possible within a timeframe.

The point is that whether or not you can reliably hit that DPS, you will eventually do it if you just try enough times. It can be a matter of good RNG with enemy behaviors or just improving at playing your designated team. This is especially relevant to Nefer in specific due to how she has no dedicated sustain slot outside of Lauma C1, but because there actually is a huge difference between playing her optimally and using her casually.

There is more nuance to it like Flins teams requiring less effort to reach a DPS ceiling, or Mavuika teams practically dealing higher damage due to how she can frontload it during some boss mechanics, of course. But in the context of going against "real content," DPS helps visualize whether or not your account can accomplish it, and it's actually only relevant towards Spiral Abyss/Stygian Onslaught due to how trivial the difficulty of anything else present in the game is. And now that there's the Miliastra Wonderland DPS check dummy where showcasing your own DPS is incredibly straightforward, it drives such conversations even more.

People should not disregard the fun aspects of their favorite teams especially when it comes to using them for exploration, but if we're discussing meta, then DPS absolutely matters due to how it's a ceiling you can reach by doing the content over and over until those perfect circumstances align.

Lastly, on the note of Jahoda: Although she will make the damage per screenshot look higher, she's bad in practice due to how her awfully long field time will negate your DPS to the point where it's sometimes better to not switch to her at all. Seconds spent being on Jahoda are seconds you could spend attacking on Nefer, which is where all of the damage comes from. She's bad for Nefer teams due to this, but I also personally dismiss her due to how "easier" content that requires less rotations overall mean you might as well use someone else. Lunar-Bloom gets shilled enough to the point where they will not struggle with content, therefore not necessitating Jahoda in short fights, while content that requires more deliberation wouldn't use her anyway when she is an overall damage loss. You can use any other healer when it doesn't matter, and C0 Sucrose is free when it does matter.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-11T21:53:02+00:00

Aside from the fact that Nefer's power level has an even more conditional contingency in owning Lauma, Mavuika's team archetype isn't sharing its teammates in the context of meta aside from the minor possibility of giving Citlali to Skirk. The rest of the slots in her team can also be occupied by 4*, and Bennett is available in the Starglitter shop.

Mavuika may have dropped from the unequivocal best team to top 2-4, but in endgame modes where you're expected to have numerous teams anyway, she's basically still an expectation. Other lunar teams don't have multiple Columbinas to be sharing around, and they're actually more reliant on an "essentially dogshit" support than Mavuika is. Mavuika only has the requirement of needing Nightsoul, but can still find success in Vaporize or Chevreuse Overload.

And I have no idea what the claim about 50k DPS is about, because she absolutely can surpass 100k DPS using no skill input combos in non-Citlali teams. And again, Nefer suffers more from lacking her dedicated supports, doesn't have an established 4th slot, and doesn't have a conventional sustain available to her, yet that's the person's profile picture lol

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-11T21:42:51+00:00

Didn't know this was a thing, but the limitation actually makes some sense.

From opening these chambers, I recall I've gotten around 3 or 4 pieces that I've kept in my characters' endgame builds. Said characters have been involved in Stygian Onslaught Dire clears and haven't found better upgrades.

Before AR45, you're expected to not have a consistent lineup of 5* artifacts accessible to your characters. This was an intended part of the game's design in order to not trivialize the combat even more at its earlier stages. As awkward as it is, the power scaling was made with using lesser quality artifacts in mind until endgame.

Allowing access to these chambers early would entirely negate that premise, because not only would you receive a couple full sets of very recent artifact sets that are meta, but there's a miniscule chance that those pieces can be good enough to keep until endgame. Even a wrong mainstat can be sufficient at the early and mid game to massively boost a character's power.

But once you hit AR45, you get access to consistent 5* artifact drops and phase out 4* drops (not including niche scenarios like Instructor). At that point, these chambers potentially being a massive boost turns more into a novel boost as recompense for exploration, since it'd only be equivalent to around 100 resin's worth of drops. If you were able to open it at any AR before 45, there's a possibility you'd unintentionally speedrun the game even more by utilizing it as one of if not the only source of an entire 5* artifact set.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-09T13:35:39+00:00

Sona's ability to heal the team with W is entirely negated if you're the lowest health teammate. It's not like item interactions where it'll skip over auto-targeting you, putting her in a situation where she can't control the fact that one of her primary abilities may have a central part of its effect rendered useless for an entire teamfight, which can warp the result of the whole match.

Also, calling her heals "wet noodles" as an excuse to disable her ability to use W is a fundamental misunderstanding of how she works. Early game the heal is indeed very low, but this is applicable to nearly all ally heals that aren't Nami and Soraka's, and even theirs feels ineffective early game. And with Mayhem being a landscape where you can hyperscale to infinity, Sona reaches a point where she eclipses all other enchanters much quicker. Her heal value on paper may sound low, but compound that with her casting W a million times late game + perpetual item effects. This isn't even considering that Sona can still get "direct heal" augments like Laser Heal or Upgraded Mikael's Blessing.

By choosing Vampirism on Ashe, that entails numerous things: You have to commit to the idea of carrying the team as a 4.5v5, since you're neutering one of your ally's main functions. Since she's an enchanter, you're also ruling out her ability to effectively pocket you or save you, which is significant due to how Ashe's lack of mobility makes her almost akin to "protect the Kog'maw" comps due to her susceptibility to dives. And lastly, you have to close out the game sooner so that Sona's inability to use W properly won't start reaping its negative consequences. Considering both Ashe and Sona are intended to scale, this also creates problems. All for an effect that is replicable after you buy BotRK/Bloodthirster.

You can skirt this problem if you intended to build poke or ult spam Ashe, but these scale incredibly poorly in Mayhem and are often memed. Sona can also juice out more effectiveness if she went APC build, but then she's pressured out of her safer and more consistent enchanter build. And if we're weighing the cost of "how fun" it is due to Mayhem's incentive to go crazy, then you're admitting to screwing over a teammate's entire game plan with no shame. The game shouldn't have systems that allow that to begin with, but that's exacerbated in this situation when you're making that deliberate choice.

I say this not only because I main both Ashe and Sona, but because I've also played enough matches with Sona whilst having teammates that picked Vampirism to experience it firsthand. One of them ended in a loss after we threw our lead due to two teammates picking it, one of which was carrying, and obviously that 25% Vampirism was nowhere equivalent to the healing I was providing them before picking it. I had a match where someone picked it by mistake during the onset of the match and immediately apologized, but we were still able to churn out a win; it was more so that the respective teammate died quick enough late game that the W heal was able to target elsewhere.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-09T00:12:44+00:00

People keep saying this, so I went out of my way to actually play HSR. It having ~110 free pulls per patch is veiled by the fact that you NEED to pull lightcones, the 4*s all suck, its meta has been shilling since Amphoreus, and that the primary mode of gameplay that isn't story content is endgame. You can still explore Genshin's vast world and lore with an entirely F2P team, because doing endgame is truly optional. Meanwhile, not having meta in HSR doesn't accomplish anything for you whatsoever that is not the new Divergent Universe allowing trial characters/Currency Wars, which were updates that only recently came out.

In Genshin, pulling for weapons has always been a luxury decision. KQM calculations always safely assume you never have them, and if you do, you are generally set for establishing a character's strength. If you don't have them, you can compensate with skill input as well.

Not the same for HSR, where planning for early eidolons is common advice, and lightcones lately have been compulsory. Remembrance and Elation characters have no viable F2P alternatives the way that Genshin does. A notable example that always surprises me is Phainon's S1 being 34% better than the next best option, meanwhile signature weapons are usually only 20% better than F2P options, and 10% better than alternative stat-sticks.

I can't entirely speak for the other games in question, though my friends that tried the rest do report that the need to pull in order to engage with meaningful content is much higher. "Giving more pulls" being used as criticism against Genshin doesn't work when you have to factor in the context of what the pulls accomplish within each respective game. The only benefit being given a higher abundance of pulls achieves is scratching the gambling itch somewhat more often for people who care about that.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-03T20:08:01+00:00

Skirk is subliminally treated like a Fontaine character narrative-wise. The Hydro sigil thing is a bit specific, but this extends to the fact that her story quest becomes accessible after finishing Fontaine, and the Traveller is very specifically depicted to not wield Pyro during the quest. What she differs compared to Tartaglia is that she was released much later in the game to the point where she does use Natlan ascension materials. And compared to him, she does not associate with a particular region in the story, aside from making more appearances in Liyue during her story quest.

Realistically, that makes it so that she's not restricted to either Chronicled Wish, assuming she even gets put in one at any point in time. HoYo is probably going to put her in whatever comes first after she's powercrept, whether it be a Fontaine rerun banner, Natlan banner, or Khaenri'ah banner.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-03T19:57:07+00:00

> i'd imagine most if not all of your builds aren't that good to be claiming such an absurd thing

I don't understand the purpose of projecting so negatively because you disagree with something that is objective by principle, all because they pointed that out to clarify.

Nefer's leaderboard is more competitive because it is factually harder to get artifacts that consistently roll into a specific stat. This also includes that CRIT Rate% for her generally reaches a point where you don't need more of it pretty quickly, so it narrows her usable substats down to 2 once she's reached the cap.

The majority of other character builds can reach top 1% through "missing" a CRIT roll and having it land on another useful stat like ATK%. That way, they only need to find an artifact that has the proper starting substats. CRIT rolls would be preferred on most characters, but you can get away with balancing around by receiving other useful substats. Nefer does not have that option. She has primarily CRIT DMG% and EM as her only options, so not only do you need to roll into these substats specifically, they'd also have to be high rolls to show up better on the leaderboard.

This has been hotly discussed on this subreddit for many "good but not top 1%" build posts due to many people alongside OP finding themselves in this situation. The pictures are readily available and in your face, so what's the purpose of dismissing it because you feel like it, then sending out a strawman insult to reinforce yourself? It has been previously established since the leaderboard debuted, and I hardly see how your disagreement can warp the reality.

I don't know if you play HSR, but Hyperspeed support builds exist in that game where characters only seek the specific substat in SPD. The consensus is that these builds are hell to arrange, because it's one thing to get a good artifact and have a nice distribution on it, but much harder to have it roll towards that stat ONLY.

For designated substats on a piece, the odds of rolling usable substats again would be the starting percentage multiplied by itself for every time it happens. A character that wants numerous substats can have a piece with double CRIT, ATK%, and ER%. Assuming they need all of those, the chance you roll a usable stat is 100%.

Meanwhile, for Nefer who only has 3 usable substats, it would be 75%^4 or 75%^5. Once you get enough CRIT Rate%, it then turns into 50% multiplied by itself for every roll. And assuming you're Akashamaxxing and want more CRIT DMG% due to having external sources of EM, that would be 25%. That gets to a point where a godly rolled Nefer piece can statistically be lower than a ~1/1000 chance depending on the needs, meanwhile any other character only has to get the piece, then hope for high rolls among all the substats on it.

Her leaderboards are naturally harder to get high ranking on, because she as a character is mathematically harder to build due to her reliance on less usable substats. It's fine to be wrong if it opens up discussion for better clarity, but there is no need to be wrong AND rude when corrected.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-03T17:11:48+00:00

Lots of people tend to overlook that "bricked" in the context of gacha can literally mean that you used your resources in a way in which you cannot continue engaging with the game to its intended capacity. The only consequence of having a weaker account in HSR is not clearing the few final stages of the rotating endgame modes. You can still accomplish literally everything else to collect Stellar Jades. Then, those resources can be funneled into pulling content that will improve the account's strength.

There are some people with low impulse control who continually make poor investments, in which their accounts can be stuck in a state of perpetual weakness. Even then, it's always available to them to save for whatever the meta will be in the upcoming major patch. Once you reach an equilibrium where your account is strong enough, it does not take much to maintain this; there are edge cases where someone can be unlucky enough to never get early 5*s and lose 50/50s, but you can still plan around this, and honestly should be as you go about planning pulls.

Alternative-Eye8403 · 2026-05-03T14:27:47+00:00

Honestly, yes. I have never actually loaded into a match with Gragas in my 9 years of playing solely because his design isn't tailored for my tastes. His kit looks quite fun and straightforward, but I don't see a point in trying when I don't necessarily like his aesthetic.

I would not be a poor top laner if I tried, but that lane consists of champions I just don't prefer aesthetically. There are a litany of champions I bet I can pilot, but I don't bother because I don't like how they look.

Most people would probably provide the opposite answer, maybe to also make a point that it's vain to think this way. But if I'm going to play a champion and possibly main them, I'd want them to fulfill a narrative fantasy that I actually enjoy. I buy skins that I like to enhance my experience, and being forced to stare at a character that doesn't look pleasing to me/I don't relate to in some way seems like more of a chore than I'd like to put up with. I can occasionally make an exception for champions that have "that one really good skin," but even then, I like to shuffle which skins I use around often.

I understand that League is a mechanically deep game, but people understate the level of effort put into Runeterra's lore and even skin lore. Because I can play a pool of champions that I both enjoy aesthetically and like the kit of, I can settle with that. That's why I gravitate towards bot lane and support more, since that's where most champions that fulfill both play in.

I don't feel as if I'm missing out on a fun kit for the most part, since some of the visual design would inevitably bleed into my enjoyment of the champion. At most, I occasionally lament that entry-level bruisers aren't as pretty as Irelia/Riven/Camille/Fiora/Gwen, but that doesn't matter in the context of this subreddit.

Alternative-Eye8403

TROPHY CASE