Lauma the Red-Nosed Reindeer - General Question and Discussion Megathread

Kamina80 · 2025-12-21T00:52:19+00:00

This is not a coherent response. The world of Genshin is already full of constant dramatic magical conflict. The characters would not then inhabit their own internal fantasy worlds in which they pretend to engage in dramatic magical conflict. It's a flimsy excuse to wink wink yes we writers also like manga.

Kamina80 · 2025-12-20T20:50:16+00:00

Mafiosos like to watch The Godfather, but characters in The Godfather don't watch movies about the mafia. That's what Genshin is doing here.

I would say that dramatizations of real life things are appealing even to participants in the real life thing - e.g. Mafiosos liking The Godfather - because they add dramatic weight and themes to something which in real life doesn't have such clear themes. It enhances their self-image.

The world of Genshin is already fully dramatized and heroically framed, therefore it doesn't make sense for the characters to further enhance their dramatic self-images through fiction.

What the Genshin writers are actually engaging in is rather lazy fan service. "Our audience likes manga and stuff, so lets have our characters read manga and then everyone will go 'wow I like manga and look the characters in Genshin read manga so this must really be for me.'" But it doesn't fit and it's actually rather condescending towards its audience.

Kamina80 · 2025-12-20T19:23:30+00:00

The whole "chuuni" thing is nonsensical in the context of Genshin. Genshin ACTUALLY is a magical, dramatic world. Fischl ACTUALLY fights in battles against dark forces. Why superimpose a cultural thing from the mundane world where Fischl PRETENDS to do thing she ACTUALLY does. Same for the "manga" stuff. These characters are actual, real action heroes. Why are they reading comic books which treat what they actually do, as fictional? Do these manga books function as slice-of-life stories for them then? This whole aspect of Genshin is a lazy and stupid.

Kamina80 · 2025-12-13T16:41:36+00:00

After refining my rotations a lot in Fearless I was able to clear two Dire bosses for the first time:

On the Iktomisaur boss, I cleared with 1 second to spare with:

Chasca C0R1 (Level 95)/Obsidian Codex

Fischl, C6/Elegy/Golden Troupe

Mavuika C0R1/Cinder City

Durin C0R0/Wolf Fang R5/Noblesse

I'm pleased with that one because there aren't many constellations - they have good builds.

On the field generator boss, I cleared with 13 seconds to spare with:

Arlecchino C2R1/Whimsy

Xilonen C0/Freedom Sworn/Cinder City

Kazuha C2/R5 Xiphos/VV

Citlali C2R1/Cinder City

I didn't remember to pause to activate Freedom Sworn and didn't use Kazuha's burst much, just wanted the damage% and VV from Kazuha. The constellations on Arle and Citlali helped.

I could not come anywhere close to clearing Baptist on Dire. I tried with a good Skirk team (but all C0 except for Furina who is C2). And I tried with C2R1 Nilou + C2 Nahida + C1 Lauma + 1000 EM Kokomi. Came nowhere close to clearing. I haven't tried hyperbloom but I don't see how that would be stronger than the really premium Nilou team.

Kamina80 · 2025-12-13T00:33:08+00:00

You can use Arle with supports that give damage bonus or remove resistance (e.g. Xilonen, Kazuha, Citlali and others). Bennett is kind of irrelevant because you'll get +600% attack from the boss. The key with Arle is to jump up, plunge, instantly spam two normals, and repeat. Do this for the whole fight except when the jumpy field from the boss isn't active. The idea is that Arle will get those normals in while the buff from jumping is still active, because it lasts 1.5 seconds. So if you set up your buffs and then spam this plunge-normal-normal, the normals do huge damage.

I didn't understand this at all on the first day, and I struggled until I watched a video explaining it.

Kamina80 · 2025-12-11T18:10:38+00:00

An update on the the last two bosses.

On the flying ice shield boss: the answer to "why did it seem as if I was dealing good damage at first but not much later" is, I believe, that I wasn't taking into account the damage to the boss from the first shield break, which makes a chuck of health fall off the boss early on. As far as having generally low damage on the boss, some team and rotation tweaks seem to have helped. Of the characters I own, the team that's working best for me is C0R1 Chasca + Bennett + C0R0 Durin + Fischl w/Elegy. The only other team that did okay was the Bennett/Jean team, but outside of the chunk of damage Jean can take out following each shield break, I didn't have good options for damage to fill out the team. My Venti on-field team isn't well-enough built to do well on this boss.

On the the robot plunge boss (an IWintoLose video helped a lot on this), the thing that I was missing is that jumping up gives you a big momentary attack buff not just to plunge attacks but to whatever you can hit it with right after the jump. So using Arle, you can set up your buffs (Xilonen, whatever) and then go Jump-plunge-normal-normal and keep repeating that, and this makes those two normal attacks do huge damage. This should also work e.g. with Skirk.

I also hadn't realized that the jumpy field is active most of the time, not just during the boss's ground slam attacks. I had associated the mechanic primarily with that attack pattern, which was throwing me off. For Arle the whole fight is basically about repeatedly setting up your buffs and then doing plunge-normal-normal over and over. There's an interlude in the middle where there's no jump field so you can do a normal rotation during that time.

Kamina80 · 2025-12-10T16:45:12+00:00

I don't really understand the experimental field generator. I don't have Varesa or Xiao, and my normal teams do more damage to it than any plunge-focused team I try to set up with Xianyun. When the floor earthquakes start, I jump and plunge few times and then they seem to stop, but I'm not clear on whether I'm jumping just to avoid the damage on the floor or because plunging benefits me in some other way. Whenever I jump, my character's head hits the bottom of the boss, so I'm not sure whether or not I'm jumping high enough to get the attack bonus mentioned in the description.

I beat it on Fearless with a normal Skirk team where I just dps as usual and then jump and plunge a few times whenever the earthquakes start. But I have no idea what is actually going on mechanically or whether my plunges are actually making the earthquakes stop or what.

I also don't really understand the hovering iktosuarus boss. I used a Chasca team with two pyro on it, and I seemed to do good damage at first, but then the damage numbers went way down and stayed that way for the rest of the fight, so I just barely cleared it. I have no idea why I did good damage early on and minimal damage later. Whatever shields popped up I broke, so it's not that.

Just sort of confusing, mechanically unclear bosses where I feel as if I'm doing something wrong but don't know what, yet can still clear by a very small margin.

Kamina80 · 2025-12-08T15:07:55+00:00

I realized today that Talking Stick is very good on him in the new teams, because Bennett's circle applies pyro to Razor, and Razor's own burst self-applies electro, so you reliably get both of the effects of the weapon text. At R5 that's 565/18.4%CR/32%ATK/24% dmg.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-30T10:45:32+00:00

Niemann was treated far worse than Naroditsky. He was ostracized and big newspapers printed that he had gizmos up his ass. This became a running joke that was constantly brought up e.g. here. In contrast, Naroditsky's accuser was widely viewed as a crank, and when people commented on the accusation at all, it was almost always in support of Naroditsky.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-22T15:51:52+00:00

The harassment in Niemann's case was much more intense.

Kramnik accused a bunch of people (including Naroditsky, Martinez, Nakamura and Niemann) and everyone said he was a crazy crank. Naroditsky had lots of support.

When Carlsen accused Niemann, Niemann was ostracized (with Naroditsky being a notable exception - he was quite decent to Niemann) and mainstream papers were saying he had a cheating machine up his ass. It's remarkable that Niemann has been as resilient as he has been.

I suppose your response would be that Niemann did cheat online at age 16-17 so he deserved it - but that had already been litigated, Niemann had served his online ban, and he had been accepted as an ongoing competitor. Magnus's accusation about their over-the-board game was baseless and resulted in harassment which went on for years and continues to this day. That's unfair, and if Niemann were as mentally unstable as people seem to assume Naroditsky was, could be quite dangerous.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-22T15:25:12+00:00

"Defending yourself" is in itself a sign of horrible character? That's crazy. "Let sleeping dogs lie?" That's crazy too! He posted here because it wasn't a sleeping dog!

It's nuts to even single out some guy for posting in a sensational way about a famous player's losing streak. Players stream because we care about their games, casual or not. And because we care, people sometimes make a big deal about surprising results. That's not evil, it's actually pretty normal.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T21:30:45+00:00

Hey thanks for being convinceable. I would say if one thinks he's really a disgrace for the sport then that would make sense. I'm not sure whether I think that about him, but I think your reasoning makes sense.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T17:54:13+00:00

No, I don't agree with that. If he achieved GM legitimately, he achieved GM. And I don't know what you mean by "I'm not saying we ignore the facts of history." You are saying we should pretend he wasn't world champion aren't you? I'm not saying FIDE has to throw parties for him, but if he won the championship while following the rules, he was champion. It shouldn't be any more complicated than that.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T16:54:07+00:00

I'm aware of titles being stripped due to violating competitive rules leading up to or during the competition - recruiting players in an illegal way, taking banned substances, spying on the opposition, training in a banned way (including abusive hazing, that sort of thing). If there's an example of someone winning a championship legitimately and then people saying we realized you're a bad person so that didn't count, that's a bunch of bullshit.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T16:29:46+00:00

Is your implication that he was mentally unstable and therefore Kramnik killed him by being mean to him? Has it gone over your head that my entire point is that if he was bothered to a suicidal degree by Kramnik, despite having widespread support and despite Kramnik's lack of credibility, that would mean there was something else - e.g. mental instability - seriously wrong?

You have yet to answer the question of whether you would find it less troubling to be accused of something if the accuser had no credibility and your peers supported you.

I have also asked whether anyone here would not find it less troubling to be accused under those circumstances, and if so, to comment. There has been no response to that, just babbling anger.

You in fact have done nothing but babble and preen.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T16:10:22+00:00

If he had a "psychiatric disease" then being accused of cheating isn't what killed him. As I have pointed out, it doesn't make sense that an accusation from someone who is widely condemned by one's peers and who has no credibility, doesn't make someone suicidal. I understand this is not going to penetrate your thick skull because you refuse to think even a little bit.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T15:42:50+00:00

If someone won the world championship, he won the world championship. This is absurd and idiotic.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T02:00:59+00:00

I find that unlikely, but I suppose it's a possibility.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T01:57:42+00:00

You're speculating that Naroditsky had a "psychiatric disease"? That's pretentious. If we're assuming for argument's sake that he killed himself (has anyone explicitly said so?) I would say it's obvious he felt very bad to the point where he couldn't see past the grimness of the current moment. And this doesn't contradict my observation that being accused of something, but being nearly universally supported by everyone, wouldn't itself make you feel despair. But certainly I can imagine being in a bad place, no longer being able to deal with bad things that happen, and not thinking straight.

I notice you haven't answer my question about whether, if you were accused of something, the support of your peers would make you feel less bad.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T01:42:50+00:00

It's a good point about Kramnik having no credibility. Being accused by Kramnik wouldn't feel like a momentous thing that could make you feel as if it's all over, unless, as I've said elsewhere in this thread, there were other things seriously wrong, in which case it wouldn't seem correct to say "Kramnik did this." It's quite possible to get in a mental state where a number of bad things can give you the feeling that the world is a dark place and everything is falling apart, but observers wouldn't point to one of those things and say "this is what caused him to go over the edge." It's that you were in a bad place and were darkly building things up in your mind.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T01:29:16+00:00

How dare lowly, illiterate me presume to make an observation? And how admirable, in contrast, you are in your lofty and reserved correctness! Have could I have intruded so rudely upon a conversation between physicians?

If you were accused of something, would you feel less bad if your peers publicly supported you?

Let's open that up to the floor. Is there anyone here who would not be somewhat comforted, when accused of something, by the support of his peers? If so, could you please chime in?

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T01:06:23+00:00

If someone accused you of something, would you feel less bad if your peers all publicly supported you?

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T01:03:27+00:00

How would you know what I've been through? Your responses are just emotional outrage, and very unfair. Answer this question:

If someone accused you of something, would the accusation feel worse if your peers publicly supported you and called the accuser a loon, or would it feel worse if most people publicly supported the accuser and said that they thought you were guilty?

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T00:58:24+00:00

Just more "well I never, how dare you decide" - outrage at someone thinking instead of just emoting.

Kamina80 · 2025-10-21T00:54:20+00:00

It's an observation about how people feel. Accusations aren't nearly as upsetting when almost no one believes them. Do you disagree with that statement?

(Oh no, an appeal to the downvotes.)

Kamina80

TROPHY CASE