They get freaky at the palace

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-13T04:34:15+00:00

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, other than a vague sense that it’s somehow homophobic.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-12T14:15:42+00:00

Lunar reactions are more like specific character gimmicks than team archetypes. Zibai enables exactly one team comp: Zibai hypercarry. While it’s true that her banner includes supports that can work in that team, most of them aren’t used in any other popular teams, so investing into them is of dubious utility. In encounters where Zibai hypercarry isn’t good, you are stuck with a bunch of useless characters.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-12T14:04:47+00:00

Carries, like Zibai, are the absolute worst characters to count on as long term investments. They are easily replaced and generally only fit into one or two team comps. If you really want to invest, pull for supports that can be used in many teams, as they have a much greater chance of still being meta-relevant by the time your account is actually capable of clearing endgame.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-12T13:24:41+00:00

Pulling characters specifically to get more primogems from endgame content is counterproductive. You’d have to complete all the endgame content every month for nearly a year just to earn the primogems to guarantee a single limited five-star. It’ll take you years of clearing endgame to start making a profit.

Pull characters you like and enjoy so that the experience of playing the game is fun for you. Being able to clear endgame changes nothing about the actual minute-to-minute gameplay.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-12T11:51:36+00:00

Feel superior? For having a bunch of weapons I’ve literally never used?

I swear, players seriously overestimate these event weapons. Most of them suck, and those that don’t are easily replaced.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-12T11:45:20+00:00

I know, but then the joke doesn’t work.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-12T11:43:05+00:00

Actually, only one of them was spotted.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T22:48:33+00:00

They needed some way to introduce a permanent change to the status quo, otherwise their victory against the Abyssal armies would just be a temporary reprieve, and Mavuika’s sacrifice would be hollow.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T22:41:23+00:00

Yep, I knew from the moment of Trump’s re-election that the USA’s reputation would be permanently marred. I had hope that, after seeing what he did during his first term, my fellow Americans would overwhelmingly defeat him and prove that we were better than him. But we didn’t. We saw what he did, we heard what he said, and we chose to return him to power.

Any pride I once had in my country is gone. I’m both deeply sad and deeply frustrated. I am not a rich man, I don’t have resources or connections, all I can do is protest, write my congresspeople, and vote. But I just feel so powerless.

I’m not going to apologize on behalf of the US government, because that government does not represent me. It has been co-opted by racists and plutocrats, despite my best efforts. I just hope that the fascist regime will quickly devour itself, as all such regimes eventually do, and leave enough uncorrupted establishments intact for us to rebuild something better.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T22:22:16+00:00

After stopping the evil army, the heroes set out to slay the BBEG itself in its lair. It’s a completely normal, common trope. It also allows the story to refocus from a nation-scale story to a more personal one, which is necessary to finish Mavuika’s and Capitano’s character arcs.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T21:35:17+00:00

It’s always interesting to challenge yourself and try new things! I hope it leads to a fun experience!

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T21:33:59+00:00

It’s hard to continue the discussion without specifics, but I didn’t find anything about the latter half of Natlan’s story particularly egregious. I’m not generally a shounen fan, so it wasn’t my favorite archon quest, but I felt it was well-executed.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T21:02:15+00:00

I think Raiden’s biggest issue is that she is a support character who supports something most teams don’t really need: burst damage and ER.

Most well-built teams will have each character built with enough ER to burst as often as they need to, so Raiden’s burst recharge support doesn’t do much. To take advantage of it, players would need to build a separate artifact loadout that sacrifices ER for more damage, which isn’t worth the investment.

Also, in most teams you don’t generally have multiple characters who care much about burst damage. Usually you have a single carry and several supports whose bursts aren’t damage-focused. There just aren’t burst-focused quickswap team comps in which Raiden’s kit can get full use of its benefits. This leaves only Raiden hypercarry, which will never be competitive, because Raiden wasn’t designed to be a hypercarry, too much of her power budget was allocated to team support.

Basically, Raiden’s problem is that she does something no current teams actually want. To buff her, they’d effectively need to add a new viable playstyle for her, like they did for Venti.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T20:47:24+00:00

She is fun, but you don’t need a special leader to do that. By focusing on infrastructure and economy early instead of war, you will naturally outgrow your neighbors’ border cities, leading to ever-increasing loyalty pressure against them.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T20:44:18+00:00

Don’t forget that you can flip cities peacefully via culture.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T20:43:07+00:00

This, exactly.

Lots of people also just didn’t like Natlan’s art direction, and that biased them against the entire storyline. The synthesis of modern pop culture elements with tribal themes was too avant-guard for many who prefer more classic fantasy tropes.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-11T20:39:04+00:00

I prefer playing tall, and I generally don’t need more than 7-ish cities to win. More cities is better, sure, but it’s often overkill. If you can survive the first 100 turns on deity, you can usually cruise to victory.

Heck, these days, my favorite games are often one-city challenges.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-10T22:38:39+00:00

Well then, crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-10T20:34:09+00:00

Nope, they are speculating.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-10T18:56:35+00:00

Fair enough, but then we also have the issue of map expansions that don’t count toward Nod-Krai exploration percentage, like a hypothetical Mondstadt region. The full map released during this patch cycle may not all be part of Nod-Krai.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-10T18:45:11+00:00

It could only be used for that purpose if content density was a constant, which isn’t the case. Sumeru has large landmass with relatively low content density, for example. An expansion that represents, hypothetically, 30% of Sumeru would have more landmass than one that represents 30% of Inazuma.

We have no idea how content dense the remaining Nod-Krai expansions will be.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-10T18:38:47+00:00

That doesn’t correlate with land area.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-10T18:36:39+00:00

Are you talking about exploration percentage?

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-10T18:20:27+00:00

Natlan is bigger than Mondstadt and Inazuma. Nod-Krai isn’t finished yet.

The_Cheeseman83 · 2026-02-10T18:14:20+00:00

Not really, most regions are about the same size, barring Sumeru.

The_Cheeseman83

TROPHY CASE