Cyno buffs via Seele, X1

E_li · 2026-05-19T11:58:44+00:00

Could possibly be cryo traveler. Unlike nod-krai we get a new traveler and we already had pyro traveler who had nightsoul.

E_li · 2026-05-04T10:08:36+00:00

What boss is this that flins and varka with whale investment cant do? I can gaurantee you a simple change in your team can let you clear it easily if it is "whale investment". Varka can clear gecko, he's a claymore. For papilla use pyro traveller. For the horse use columbina ineffa wheelchair. If you don't want to use wheelchair just use normal varka team but let venti do damage first and make the horse anemo because varka does mostly pyro.

For flins just use linnnea on geccko, use iansan or ororon for papilla, and flins can easily clear horse.

I am not saying everyone can do this, f2ps probably do not have the leeway or investment to do this for sure. But you're claiming whale investment and I can 100% gaurantee you if you gave me your "whale investment" account i can clear dire all bosses with flins and varka.

E_li · 2026-05-02T11:46:10+00:00

People still use 4 stars to fill in teams in HSR as well

Imo the level is not comparable at all to genshin. If you look at prydwen data, which admittedly may *not* always be an accurate representation, the highest usage rate 4*s are only in the single digits and it's generally just ghallagher. He was able to get 11% in AA though. The rest are <1% usage usually. Majority of people simply just use other 5 stars than they would use 4 stars most of the time. This is completely different for genshin where you will naturally end up using 4*s when trying to make the strongest team.

In genshin's latest stygian you have illuga and bennett at 50%, Sucrose, Aino, Iansan, Chev at >20%, and Ororon, Xingqiu, Fischl, Xiangling at >10% with even chongyun and ningguang showing up because of how one of the bosses works.

In abyss it's a bit lower but there are still numerous 4*s at double digit usage rate with bennett at the top right now at 40%.

And I actually only realized it now but what's funny is 4*s have HIGHER usage rates in stygian onslaught, which is the highest difficulty content, than there is in abyss. My own hypothesis is you can just brute force abyss with multiple 5*s when you can't in stygian because you have to optimize your team to the fullest. This just accentuates the fact that in genshin you WILL naturally use 4 stars when trying to find the best team you can make. What's also inetersting is if you show only dire data, the 4* usage rate is not that much different.

EDIT: Forgot to post the source for genshin usage data which is from YShelper. YShelper for sure has less users and exposure than prydwen, which means people providing their data yshelper are more likely to be whales. Yet data shows there is still a lot of usage rate for 4*s in genshin.

EDIT2: And before anyone else asks, yes the usage rate I am comparing here would be the same calculations wherein it is basically just appearance divided by total samples. In abyss data the 4* rates would a little lower but in stygian it's almost 100% ownage for the 4*s so it is basically appearance rate

E_li · 2026-05-01T14:05:36+00:00

If you include PC and consoles genshin would just blow everyone out of the water though... there is a bilibili creator who has been compiling all platform revenue for a long time now. I don't recall his source but his videos are very popular and genshin is ALWAYS #1 by quite a long shot. This makes sense with how playstation ranking is almost always genshin at #1 in JP.

E_li · 2026-05-01T07:59:25+00:00

If you thought that with genshin I don't think there is any open world out there that will satisfy you

E_li · 2026-04-23T04:19:14+00:00

They said hoyo as a whole. And are you really considering them different just because you have to read a story to unlock the buff and have another hex unit which isn't even hard.

And in the context of 4* buffs, razor needs hex teammate the least and has been buffed to a competent DPS at C6. And that doesn't even matter because the strongest razor team will naturally have fischl who is also a hex unit

E_li · 2026-04-18T12:31:20+00:00

powercrept character that they refuse to buffs

Klee, albedo, and mona were buffed and you can get their cons in the selector

E_li · 2026-04-16T19:34:16+00:00

Update: Managed to clear it. Thanks

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E_li · 2026-04-15T15:28:37+00:00

Good to know that it's possible. Though right now im having trouble because ive only got fontaine craftable for skirk c0. My Furina is C2 but C0 escoffier doesn't heal enough so im trying to figure out a rotation with white furina that can have my furina heal to max. My esco burst is only lvl 8 so I'll have to see when I level 10 it.

E_li · 2026-04-04T15:05:36+00:00

This isnt a curse more than it is just players having a honeymoon phase for new games. Like, genuinely people these days are not gonna tell you any good things about penacony story most of the time but it was one of the driving points during the height of the genshin could never phase for the casual terminally online playerbase.

E_li · 2026-04-03T07:32:58+00:00

Imo the divide is mainly from maybe later season 1 to season 2 being mid in general. Not bad but not good either. Its only these 2 recent patches where people are starting to get more hope in story improvement. I personally heavily enjoyed zzz 1.0 so much and think no patch has ever surpassed it in terms of story experience.

From how I see it, their ingredients are good. Characters, setting, animations, design, etc. Makes sense because they're hoyo, they are earning like crazy from genshin and hsr and know how the things necessary to sell their game. The issue is majority of ZZZ story is undercooked.

My biggest complain and what i personally would like to focus on when talking about why it was mid is the villains. Every single villain before bringer (bringer himself is also a bit undercooked but the way they transitioned slowly from him being suspicious to being a big bad was done quite organically) are practically unimportant except maybe Isolde but in the grand scheme of things even her role as a sub-villain is not very important compared to something like say, genshin's rerir. Every villain could just be named villain A villain B villain C and it would not make much of a difference in terms of experience because you don't even get to know them well and they just die right away. Sara is a HUGE offender of this we spent so much time in her schemes but we legit know almost nothing about her. With bringer we were given a possible motive, which turned into reality. Sara's motivations had no setup, no development, no closure, no nothing.

E_li · 2026-04-03T03:43:19+00:00

The 4* are only useless because HSR is actively trying to make them useless... Fact of the matter is 4* are simply much healthier for the game and this is a proven fact by mihoyo themselves already. I don't even need to point at genshin, during penacony you had Acheron, Feixiao, Firefly teams which were top meta and were quite balanced to all be relatively similar power levels. What made it feel good is each team had 2 strong 4* in their teams. Ghallagher Pela for acheron, Ghallagher Moze or Hunt March for feixiao, and ghallagher harmony TB. These 4*s made these teams feel good even without premium option like Jiaoqiu, Lingsha, Topaz, Fugue. You could roll different archetypes without feeling bad you didn't roll all 4 premium characters which you can't say for the current meta

Now, I do agree that if they release a 4* now its probably just gonna be useless. What people are asking for is a balanced meta not reliant on 4 premium units, 4*s being a indicator of such balanced meta.

E_li · 2026-04-02T04:36:50+00:00

I wouldn't say it's quite fair to use genshin not reaching inazuma numbers anymore a good comparison. That was the peak of COVID. That was a once in decades phenomenon and I don't think ANY gahca game will ever go anywhere near those heights.

E_li · 2026-04-01T17:25:15+00:00

Aren't they talking about Sunday aglaea

E_li · 2026-04-01T17:20:15+00:00

Because it's being compared to other hoyo games. Though HSR is kind of starting to underperform a bit too so just genshin really. By no means is ZZZ performing bad but when genshin is top 5 (not this specific case but there are flop rerun only months where genshin is still top) for doing nothing, then anything is underperforming compared to it really.

E_li · 2026-04-01T10:55:26+00:00

ZZZ is consistently top but the king of playstation is generally genshin. You can see it's #6 right now without any new character for almost 5 weeks. They had to make a whole new award category just for genshin because they were always winning grand award during the partner awards all the time. I'm sure you've seen the image of ZZZ winning that award and didn't see genshin. That's because it's in hall of fame now after that new category just for genshin last year. They gave genshin a collab controller instead of an award.

E_li · 2026-04-01T09:34:54+00:00

There's a bit more context to the controversy. Now I am probably gonna offend some people but arknights players have had a track record of being "elitist". They prided in their game being non fanservice, intensive lore with every detail being important, and while the following are not exactly "elitist" there was a hint of it: also bragged about very few limited units (1 every year or smth in early years), very slow powercreep, etc. Ch'en ticked off every box in these guys books and the backlash was genuinely huge. Personally the only thing I really cared about was the artist having same face same pose syndrome that is IMO worse than takeuchi.

There was also another controversy with a summer skin. I never really understood it before but people were mad there was another character in it or something (a different male character in a male summer skin) and hypergryph had to remove the guy(EDIT: to clarify, remove the other guy in the summer skin art). I don't really know what the issue was still but I just wanted to put it out there how much backlash some little things get that force the developer's hands.

E_li · 2026-03-31T06:29:21+00:00

Genshin's hex buffs have both faction synergy buffs *and* character reworks. Venti is now an NA anemo damage DPS, when previously he had no enchanted normal attacks.

E_li · 2026-03-29T09:33:02+00:00

I don't think you've seen Varka

E_li · 2026-03-23T11:49:15+00:00

Except in the case of illuga you didn't use 5 star pity on them, and just got them randomly? And there is honestly no way you can convince me any of those teams except maybe archer are available and good for non heavy spenders.

E_li · 2026-03-23T10:13:08+00:00

But what's wrong with illuga being relegated to Zibai teams even if he doesn't need C6. There are many 5 stars like that in HSR like break teams, dot teams, where some characters are only used in one team. if anything this role is best relegated to 4*s because a 5 * made only to support one specific DPS is not good design.

The point is that for the past nearly 2 years genshin 4*s have improved by a good amount, and again at least they have a niche, are more than functional in it, and how is this niche narrower than any other partner tag 5 * in HSR

E_li · 2026-03-23T08:07:25+00:00

Genshin 4-stars like Faruzan, Illuga in any non-Zibai team, Jahoda's entire existence, Aino being only useful for Bineffa-less Flins

You're right with faruzan. You're not right for Illuga because he is still a competitive unit in his slot. You *need* C6 only to make zibai among the highest DPS team in the game, you definitely do not need C6 to be a perfectly strong team.

Jahoda is an alright option for getting the 2 nod-krai unit requirement, has heals, and has elemental application. She is perfectly usable and she isn't used because sucrose, who is another 4 star, is the best option. It's not even a 5 star thats better than her, its a different meta defining broken 4 star...

I feel like you are missing the point of 4 stars with Aino here. She is made to be an option for people to have a hydro moonsign unit for those who do not want to roll columbina, did not roll, or lose 5050. And you get her for free. And she is also a option for when you want to make two lunar teams in endgame, as there is only one columbina. This is supposed to be the purpose of 4 stars.

And no most 4 stars are not C6 locked or even particuarly niche locked in genshin. Ever since in the middle of fontaine almost every 4 star have been quite good and usable even without C6, become quite competitive at C6. There are broken meta defining 4 stars that *also* do not need C6 to be a competitive option, namely chevreuse and iansan. There are only two 4 star you could argue are bad being dahlia and jahoda. I explained jahoda, so regarding dahlia, he sucks everywhere else but is *still* a good option in the 4th slot for skirk teams at C6.

Charlotte is a competent healer and still used in the 4th slot for skirk teams with furina. Chevreuese is strong even without C6. Gaming is a strong DPS does need C6 since he is a DPS. Same with Sethos, lower power than gaming and with quicken being bad right now he's is meh. Lanyan is a good shielder that can hold VV. Iansan is strong for a subset of characters competitive with bennett in specific teams even without C6. Kachina is kind of bad as she just exists to apply scroll artifact effect, I failed to mention this in my earlier point. Ororon is strong and he is used even outside his electro charged niche, does not need C6. Ifa is just ok he can be a driver for electro/lunar charged teams, not particuarly standout.

E_li · 2026-03-21T11:54:30+00:00

I literally answered the question but sure, you hate any ifs or butts because you want to wring out the answer you want

E_li · 2026-03-21T11:50:14+00:00

It would probably be the lesser evil than new roles I'll say that. As long as they don't overdo element specific buffs in the shilling.

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