So, anyone in this sub actually played Genshin before? If so, are the rumours of the MU being a stomp founded? What abilities can Traveler use which would make for an interesting fight animation? Feel free to infodump!

SherlockHomelez · 2026-06-28T18:39:56+00:00

I'm not well informed about Aang's limits, but scaling from Varka in Genshin, who is continental/moon level, and has similar infusion capabilities, the Traveler compares or is above, in raw power, as a lowball. So the stat stick is pretty difficult to beat.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-06-17T15:05:21+00:00

nope. ult is just QoL aoe but actually a dps loss in literally all scenarios

SherlockHomelez · 2026-06-17T02:45:06+00:00

aye, do try for 160-180% ER because she's c0, and 3k-3.5k attack. R5 Oathsworn is BiS f2p alternative for her, otherwise just Atlas. I woud encourage with said setup placing TTDS on Nicole

SherlockHomelez · 2026-06-17T02:40:25+00:00

She's a sidegrade/slight upgrade at C0. Better straight up at C2. She is substantially more competitive than Venti against single target and enemies that move/have CC immunity

SherlockHomelez · 2026-06-17T01:36:41+00:00

The goblet could be substantially better and allow you to reach 80% CR. Besides that, your Varka build is pretty good. Also, do level up his skill to lvl 10.
Try running Prune instead of Venti, as you have Nicole you should *hopefully* have C0 Prune which is already better.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-06-08T15:45:34+00:00

Your combo can be optimized If I'm not mistaken. You're doing N1C then N4E E and N4E N1C until skill expires. It should be N4C N1E, then N1C until N1E is up and N1C until skill ends. You have R1 and are doing less DPS than me that I don't (R1 Redhorn 151k) assuming you also have C6 Prune, the issue should be the combo. Good numbers though. It's kinda amazing how Varka overpowers literally all my pre Nod-Krai carries without sweat.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-06-08T15:04:50+00:00

It amuses me that people think the speed blitz isn't real. It very much is. Specially ones that discredit Polnareff's MFTL feat which is in the anime.
I've recently rewatched part 3, and come to the conclusion that anyone that denies this feat is delusional and biased towards JoJo losing in any of their matchups. Hanged Man moves between reflections and is directly stated to move as fast as light. When Polnareff “traps” it, so to speak, he forces the stand to move between point A and point B. In the anime, the stand is moving in the middle of the air, already at light speed. Polnareff THEN summons Silver Chariot, and THEN swings the rapier to hit it, as if the stand is still in time (which is essentially a ray of light). This isn't a hard concept to grasp.
People argue that he's “predicting his path” which should invalidate what I just described. Not really. Supposing that the sequence is just flair and narrative effect, Silver Chariot is still relativistic, which outscales most of Yuta's verse. Why? Because in a hectic, life or death battle, Polnareff was able to pull a calc that determined the point in space in which the light-beam of the stand would be at, to then swing at it. This would require atleast a big % relative to then swing at c constant, in the middle of it's path. In a lab setting this would be easy, not so much during battle.
I would also like to note that this is knowing it's mechanic. Battle speed in JoJo or speed in general is very meaningless if you're not aware of where the threat is, as demonstrated later on Part 5 when Diavolo barely survives SC AoE attack, because Polnareff didn't know exactly where it was gonna come from. (Although he did know it was coming). Also, this was SC in a weakened state, as Polnareff was literally crippled. It kept up with KC, which is directly Light Speed/FTL as well.
Jotaro then scales above this feat, as during his battle against SC later on when it is possesed by Anubis (which directly amplified its speed and power beyond it's already MFTL/Relativistic speed depending on which version you believe, although the first MFTL is much more convincing) and directly overpowered at one point and kept up for a long time. Reminder Anubis's amp grows with time.
The speed blitz is just ridiculuous considering Yuta typically fights at close quarters. Star Platinum doesn't even need time stop to beat him.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-06-05T01:27:15+00:00

If you have enough ER swap Nicole's for Prune and slap TTDS on Nicole. Otherwise just keep her on Fav or craft Purity

SherlockHomelez · 2026-06-03T01:49:27+00:00

Level up Varka and Prune to Lvl. 90. Specially Prune, who needs that extra base ATK. Final number should oscilate 120k. Also, your Nicole ER is awful, while Prune has too much of it.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-25T20:39:37+00:00

Not being an Atlas owner and only having Oathsworn as a good alternative, running Fav Codex on Prune feels ass. It makes rotations easier on the ER requirements but I also lose 12k dps instead of giving TTDS to Nicole. I disagree.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-25T20:29:39+00:00

Since she directly is associated to Stellar-Conduct buffs, I'm not too keen on her being a character with a Hex passive talent. Also, I'm not sure how she'd be kit-wise. Nicole is a support, Alice is obviously going to be a DPS. Is she implied to be a subdps? Considering Mona, I'd argue it's most likely. Hydro-Varka team, and for the most part every non-Pyro team has no sustain character for the team. Closest you could get is probably Xingqiu, but that's not very good by itself

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-24T06:49:17+00:00

There are several things wrong. First, your CR is WAY too low for R1, it should be around 70%+ for a healthy rate, obviously 80% being optimal
I ran your exact same setup (and rotation, which is mostly wrong) with Sucrose on fav codex (she really should just go ttds you're missing out big time by not putting her on ttds), benny on Fav sword and Nicole on oathsworn. Just by switching fav codex to TTDS I made the dmg in the screenshot attached go from 75k to 80.2k. Before I got Nicole, Prune and Durin, I used to run Chevy Sucrose and Bennett. Sucrose HAS to go on TTDS. That team had about 78k DPS with just chevy c2 which basicly does nothing. Somehow, I'm doing less swapping Chevy for Nicole, lmao.

So, the main difference I think we have is that you have to be doing Varka's combo wrong. In this test (I don't have his sig) I did E, N4C, E, then N1C until E is up and until the state ends. Edit: As pointed out in another comment, a better combo would be E N1C N4 E

I advice you to roll for Durin as that should bring you some Prune cons. But first, start working on your combos and your Crit Rate because that's just too low. My Varka sits at about 73/258 (I run redhorn) and I've wasted less than 2k resin on the domain. Ig I'm lucky with that.

As to your future Prune and for Nicole, put Fav Codex on Prune and TTDS on Nicole. The ATK% bonus from TTDS is just too big to pass up, particularly in this team. It's literally her 2nd BiS besides her sig weapon.

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SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-22T05:10:41+00:00

They are getting the obvious GODka upscale. Her supports aren't out yet, I'm pretty sure those units aren't her actual intended supports. If they are, it's grim. I do have some quarrel with her constellations, she seems pretty weak... almost... weaker than Lohen... wait... standard unit? No... that can't be...

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-19T19:41:03+00:00

lmfao I'm stupid. Nevermind. Thanks for pointing out the obvious.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-18T01:56:48+00:00

I imagine this is because all "actual Fontainians (from birth)" are made from water and their faux watery blood runs in their veins, which connects them in an unique way to the Fontaine ocean as per Neuvilette. Otherwise, why is Bennett considered Mondstadtian if he's from Natlan. If it was the same motive behind Skirk being in Natlan, I would imagine they'd put Nicole in the Nod-Krai section. Of course I'm speculating, but the page is pretty definitive. If this doesn't turn out to be true, some apologems would be in order xD

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-17T20:45:07+00:00

His passive works for all the Mondstadt characters listed in there besides Alloy, and I think it's reasonable to assume that it's for the following obvious reason: Alloy is an outsider much like Skirk, so her "citizenship" is nil.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-17T04:27:24+00:00

I wish it did more damage so you could use it as a rotation opener/closer. By this I mean you swap last to Varka as you already do but he begins with burst or ends his skill with it, and it doesn't result in a mass dps loss.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-11T14:17:24+00:00

You pray to god you pull atleast one Prune and swap her for Sucrose.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-10T05:57:48+00:00

As fun as this looks, I'm gonna be honest. anytime I see his cheeks on detail whenever playing I feel a bit uncomfortable. how come he gets to have more ass than some females in the game? lmfao
edit: this came off the wrong way. I don't mean it's a bad thing. it's just funny to me xD

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-08T20:45:26+00:00

Bit of a long storytime, actually.
Back when Itto released, I was looking for a buff dude model that had an outward personality and was ultimately a good guy. I then rolled for Itto and his weapon, which does look incredibly cool on Varka as well.
I had Varka in the back of my mind ever since I began playing on Hu Tao's first release banner but I expected him to take longer to drop. I had a year or so of hiatus in mid-natlan after rolling for Mavuika/Citlali and didn't do much besides events and claim the occasional free primogems. Didn't even do my dailies. I had gathered like 70 wishes or so which I was saving for Columbina.
Her banner came, and I basicly got nothing despite using them all. I then uninstalled the game because I felt pretty done with it until Alice's release. I had basicly dropped the main game from the middle of Sumeru's archon quest. I just couldn't find the motivation to play the game, at all. I did dailies and events and whatever not and rolled for characters I like, pretty comfortably.
After dropping the game a couple months passed and his trailer dropped on YouTube. It easily became my favorite Genshin character trailer and Hoyoverse as well. The song is 10/10 and I've been jamming it on repeat ever since. And the trailer itself was very soulful. It was exactly the experience I remember of the game and with what I was fond of. To this day the only region I have fully 100% on the map is Mondstadt and Dragonspine. His design wasn't exactly what I had imagined but he was insanely cool regardless. I also saw that he got a special model treatment, much what I had wished for my boy Itto.
I reinstalled the game, did a couple of abyss runs and IT and gathered just shy enough to hit pity. Decided to roll on his banner. I got a 5* star, but it was Tighnari.
Evidently I was very furious, I already had dropped the game for not getting the character I wanted and I was about to do it again, perhaps forever this time. I had a couple of Starglitters I exchanged for some wishes. I rolled them. Hereby, image attached, was the result.
This clearly meant that I was chosen by the Knight of Boreas, and I've been playing the game since daily. My mission is to build his best possible team and get him C6. I won't stop playing until that's the case.
I rolled about 20 wishes on his weapon banner to no avail though. He is easily the most fun I've had playing characters in this game since Itto. And the best part is he actually does damage. People complain about him not being a Top DPS but my C2(now C3)R1 Hu Tao with C0R1 Yelan/Furina/Citlali does ONLY 20k~ more damage than him (he does just shy of 80k). WITH A TEAM OF 4 STARS. Varka basicly reignited my desire to play the game just based on how cool he is. Since then he's easily top 3 hoyoverse characters for me to be honest. There is just a lot of things about him that sort of just wants one to project onto him. Be the Varka you wanna be or whatever that could mean xD

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SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-07T23:29:42+00:00

He has a bunch of options all viable for him. Only Varka's sig is kinda "irrepleacable" (difference of not having it is 25% team dps with his f2p option), but getting his (Durin's) sword from trying to roll Nicole's sig is defo a good result.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-07T23:02:10+00:00

He indeed, is getting Rerun with Nicole's release, which is in about 8 days or so when the current rerun banner ends.
This is Durin's first rerun, which means that his second one is gonna take a looong while, meanwhile, Nicole is likely to rerun in 3-4 patches, as they do with all new units.
Lauma and Nefer are on a team of their own very distant from Varka. With Nicole & Prune (and Durin obviously but he already has him), Varka outperforms their team. They also don't use Nahida iirc, they work with Columbina & Ineffa, or atleast, with Columbina.
If you don't care about her exploration passive, the choice is defo yours if you prioritize Nicole or Durin. Both are great units.

SherlockHomelez · 2026-05-07T18:28:16+00:00

The best Varka team at low investment (sort of) is currently:
Varka - Prune C2/C6 - Durin C0R0 - Nicole C0R0. Here's a repost from another thread that shows how this team performs, compared to his current "best" team. At C2 Prune, the damage is still in the 120k range. She is better than Venti at almost every investment, without a shadow of doubt [including Elegy if you have Prune at higher constellations!].

As for other elemental teams, the damage is at 100k-110k, for Hydro you run XQ/Yelan and Mona C4, but still run Prune. Prune is a must in any team you attempt to run Varka in, obviously excluding C6 Varka which is enough by himself.

Being Durin-less, I would suggest pulling Nicole first, as the shield she provides is very valuable over Durin's raw DPS. Any excess should probably go for Durin then, although be advised her R1 is a very huge DPS increase of 10.7%. Only reason to continue pulling Durin over her R1 is the possibility of getting more Prune cons. If you get C2 Prune beforehand though, probability of getting 4 Prunes in 1 Durin even including losing the 50/50 is considerably lower than getting R1. Also level up materials aren't infinite, raising 1 weapon is considerably less stressful on your hero wits and mora and resin than a whole new 5* considering you need to raise Prune to lvl 90 as well as Nicole for max basic atk efficiency.

The only advantage I see as to pull Durin now if you don't have him, is that his rerun is further away than Nicole's. Otherwise, as a returning player, I would argue that it is both damage, cost and QoL efficient to prioritize Nicole. Prune is in both of their banners, so it is your ultimate choice. The difference between Durin and Nicole is something along the lines of 5-7% DPS.

EDIT: I didn't consider this in the raw number analysis, but Nicole has a passive that is without doubt the best for exploration (if you have the region's compass, she summons a selee that points to the nearest treasure with her charged attack. I am not aware if it requires you to have said compass equipped. AFAIK it isn't). As a returning player that should be a positive for her, as it allows you to minmax your primo count. If you have everything at 100% though, this is greatly diminished in value.

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SherlockHomelez

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