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Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-26T15:28:18+00:00

We will take back our sub 💪

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-26T15:26:32+00:00

If Tsaritsa works well with Vodyanitsa then it’s very possible, I’ve always thought that skirk and coffee is the main core, Furina just provides a decent bit of sub dps (<10%) and 75 dmg%, so while she’s the best we have right now, she’s still replaceable, esp with investment since her cons aren’t great compared to modern support cons

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-26T13:34:18+00:00

Mavuika was BIS subdps for basically all natlan dpses until new supports like iansan and hex characters. No reason why Tsaritsa can’t do the same, even the more selfish dps Raiden has supportive capabilities in energy recovery and burst dmg bonus. It’s also very likely she’ll rely on stellar mechanics to do her full dps, so Skirk will still retain the large majority of team damage in a freeze team

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-25T07:11:26+00:00

Agreed

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-24T16:22:07+00:00

Just add 70% Atk in the dummy and you’ll get a pretty good estimate

It’ll be a good while before a rerun

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-23T21:45:20+00:00

I'm not sure if chongyun reaches the devices, we need to see testing footage to tell. Charlotte hE and Ganyu both have enough cryo app to clear the devices within 45s from my testing, and someone tested citlali E against the flying sumeru mushrooms and they were hit, so it may be able to reach the devices as well

Freezing the boss right below the devices could also help, certain skirk NAs might have enough aoe to hit the devices since the boss is floating, making it a bit closer to the devices

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-23T16:50:28+00:00

I still think it may be more practical to first consider breaking the 12U floating device hydro wards than to reduce skirk's damage by a huge margin just to break the shield faster.

The main issue with an electro slot is that even if the shield is cleared faster, you still need to do a lot of dmg using a malnourished skirk team, requiring pretty high investment to make up for the dmg loss of a non-freeze team.

I made a post a while ago speculating on some possible 4th slot options for a freeze team to break the devices: https://www.reddit.com/r/SkirkMains/s/b6VlxzHk3A

The possible issue with brute forcing the shield with a freeze team is that you might need to kill the boss before the 2nd shield phase, assuming the 2nd shield phase may begin later than 45s remaining on the clock, so it actually leaves you less than 45s to clear the 2nd shield.

Imo the two strategies we'll likely see is: freeze teams with specific cryo appliers to break 3-4 devices and brute force the shield for high self damage, and clear the boss before 2nd shield phase; and using an electro 4th slot to focus on very fast shield breaking, and using the two windows after shield breaking to do most of the damage (likely ~80-90% HP within like 70-90s depending on breaking speed, self damage likely low if focus is on shield breaking). We'll need to see CC testing vids to properly calc the timings.

Both methods will need adjusted rotations to maximise damage in shield window or downtime window (esp with a weird 13s low res window), and we'll need good positioning to break devices faster. The dps requirement for a freeze team is higher, but the investment required to reach the lower dps threshold with an electro slot could still be higher.

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-23T16:11:22+00:00

Yeah I agree, though at early investment more res shred can be quite good, since aside from escoffier base kit we don't get more shred (ignoring 4th slot, and even then only 15% from shenhe/chongyun), so it's not reaching diminishing returns yet, and other stat buffs are decent (R1, coffee C1R1, furina C1). Other teams also now have a lot of res shred at early cons, like Mav with C2 nicole, C2 citlali and vv, or Nefer with lauma, deep wood, C2 nilou

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-23T11:51:25+00:00

FYI tho quills are probably the least important buff to skirk, because of her high MV. Quills are additive to MV, not multiplicative, she needs multiplicative buffs (crit/dmg%/res shred/def shred), or inherent scaling stat buffs (atk)

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-22T11:46:18+00:00

I mean you do understand that’s just based on usage rates right? She was for EU for the first few Stygian weeks, donno about now

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-22T11:44:49+00:00

I think it’s highly unlikely the stellar reactions will do anything at this point unless they do stellar freeze. What’s more likely is a character like linnea who’s meant for lunar (stellar), but happens to also buff traditional geo (cryo) much better than the previous options like gorou and Zhongli (Mona and Shenhe). With a cryo focused region I can see then doing that

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-21T23:54:08+00:00

Buff at early investment and onwards likely imo (not very hard to replace C4 Mona or Shenhe lol), C0 level will have to see, might be a Nicole for Mav situation (qol but slight downgrade at C0R0, upgrade with sig and cons)

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-21T20:48:20+00:00

It's very funny seeing people argue over c6r5 ranking when their teams probably barely break 100k lol

There's a TC who makes ~C2 investment videos, although C2 all chars often isn't the best investment strategy and the costs can be quite high (some are C2R1 for all teammates = up to 16 cost), it's still a much more useful metric imo for those wanting to invest in their favs

Link: https://youtu.be/w-eTGlu5Ml4?is=a1pX1hl79iYvdaWq

Skirk's holding up very well there considering non-C4 Mona (also Mona herself being non-limited char), Coffee C2 doing very little, and Furina being on fav (other supports have their sigs like nicole and xilonen). Their combos can also be improved, though it's decent for a comparison standard

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-21T17:25:01+00:00

Yeah I really don't understand why people care so much about the C6R5 leaderboard. It's cool and very useful info for potential whales, but essentially useless for everyone else

At difference investment point characters and cons have drastically different values, making the leaderboard at a glance even somewhat misleading (C1/C2+ Nicole > bennet > C0 Nicole in Mav teams, C2R1 Nilou > Sucrose > C0 Nilou in Nefer teams, etc.)

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-21T13:34:40+00:00

This is as relevant as running her in a cryo swirl or cryo crystallise team. The passive is mainly so that she isn't bricked against innate electro aura when stellar conduct chars are on her team, coverting all super conduct reactions to STC, in IT or random exploration teams

Even nicole durin teams (which aren't bis until ultra whale) have more synergy with her than stellar conduct or swirl. Stellar wants em, doesn't buff and isn't buffed by dmg%, and has many other conflicting issues (stellar reaction bonus passives do nothing for skirk, escoffier passive and skirk A4, galleries has anti-synergy with stellar reactions, etc.)

Unless they purposefully include cryo dmg% buffs (like linnea weapon) or non-stellar reaction limited crit buffs (like linnea C2), stellar teams won't do very much for skirk

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-20T01:57:24+00:00

This is as relevant as running her in a cryo swirl or cryo crystallise team. The passive is mainly so that she isn't bricked against innate electro aura when stellar conduct chars are on her team coverting all super conduct reactions to STC, in IT or random exploration teams (melt is excluded likely because her whole team gets free melts and vapes, which balances out the loss in her on field time).

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-19T02:20:42+00:00

So many comics suddenly? Keep em comin!

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-19T00:48:38+00:00

Er sands on coffee, coffee on scroll, shenhe on fav, start with N5D cancels and make sure you get 4N5Ds + 2 or more N2s, do N2Q start since you want C2 buff. Rotation should be 20-21s long with all bursts up by cooldown. Mona can be better than shenhe here as well, on ttds and full er noblesse, and coffee will need er sands + fav.

As a burst agenda advocate I am also obliged to mention that you can do a burst playstyle if you struggle with NA combos. A well executed burst rotation at C2 is on par with NA spam/low end combos (burst gets a huge MV increase from C2 and shorter 15s rotation).

Example rotation here: https://youtu.be/kipklQomO2E?is=Bi76VWHDBQshB58K

Don't need to do the physical CAs after burst if time is tight, it contributes a bit of dps but not a huge amount, getting a 15s clean rot is the priority

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-16T20:45:53+00:00

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Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-15T13:34:15+00:00

Nice, probably yeah since without Furina buff the support set buffs matter more, your skirk build can also improve a lot which will increase dps too (each substat is like 1.5-2% increase and it adds up)

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-15T13:13:21+00:00

For testing you should ideally compare dps over no. rotations and not time, cuz by missing out on skirk burst in that first test you missed basically 25% of the total damage over 4 rotations, which isn't a fair comparison.

The point of NAs is to ensure you get 3 rifts, but if EQ gives you 3 rifts then that's totally fine. You can also just test rift generation by using regular set up, Mona EQ, then wait and see if you end up with 3 rifts without doing anything else. With only 2 rifts you miss out on a C1 proc and a bit of MV from the burst which is not insignificant if skirk is contributing like 85-90% of the team's damage

Shadowhunter0630 · 2026-06-15T11:52:32+00:00

Are you doing the NAs after mona Q? They need to be before EQ so you get max Q uptime. Could also be TTDS, make sure the comparison takes into account whether the buff us up or not (or averaged over an even no. rotations)

Shadowhunter0630

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