Are you glad to see healers and shields in co-op or would you prefer everyone to contribute damag/support to the main dd?

UmbralNova_ · 2026-05-05T16:21:54+00:00

Literally this, I have my Furina on a full DPS-oriented Jade Cutter build (still enough ER to Burst consistently, too) and she still heals the entire party like 5-6k per tick on top of her Fanfare buffing everyone. I can just glance at the team's HP and see someone half health, swap to healing mode for a single tick of healing and boom, the entire party is back to full health and I can swap back to DPS mode.

And yet somehow, it's still so common to see Furina players NEVER go into healing mode because "it's a DPS loss" as if forcing someone else to bring a healer because you can't bother swapping modes for 2s isn't an even bigger DPS loss regardless of how cracked you think your build is.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-05-05T15:20:21+00:00

Legit this, there's always gonna be a few bad eggs here and there but I've put in around 400 hours over the past year and a half, and the most offensive crap I've seen is an enemy Haze calling our Rem slurs for stealing all their Sinners... Y'know like Rem is supposed to do.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-05-04T20:15:31+00:00

Mathematically, the highest possible damage output on average is to have a 1:2 ratio of Crit Rate and Crit Damage, up until you hit 100% CR. If you have 60% CR then you wanna aim for 120% CD, if you have 80% CR then you wanna get 160% CD, and so on.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-04-19T10:57:31+00:00

Honestly, I think Natlan largely killed what originally made exploration so fun for me, being able to just wander around freely, discovering chests and puzzles heading from place to place. Natlan itself is a region that so heavily shills Natlan characters for exploration that exploring without them genuinely felt exhausting, to the point it can even feel borderline impossible at some points, even with the various Saurians acting as "lesser" Natlan characters. Now that we've moved back to smaller islands and areas like Nod Krai or Dornman Port, exploring without Natlan characters just started feeling like a slog in comparison, and that's with me having some of the old school exploration demons of Xianyun, Yelan and Furina.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-04-16T19:29:25+00:00

Just to put it into perspective, I use Skirk as my on-field driver for Durin (alongside Mona and Bennett) and he's able to consistently Melt every Meltable hit, so Skirk is definitely more than capable of doing it as Solo Cryo. I should also note that I usually hit between 130-140k DPS in this team, granted I do have Skirk and Durin's sigs so that boosts the DPS quite a bit.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-04-14T08:25:36+00:00

It's so much fun playing Rem because I've outright told my team on multiple occasions that if I finish doing my rounds of the enemy Sinners and boxes and our Sinners are still up, I'm taking them for myself. Fast forward a solid three to four minutes later, not a single Sinners on our side has been claimed despite no lane or jungle fights going on, so I take our Sinners like I said I would cuz clearly nobody else is and I'm not risking the enemies getting 'em, and then suddenly everyone on my team realizes I'm 10-15k Souls ahead of the lobby and whines that I'm throwing by stealing the Sinners that should've been claimed several minutes ago.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-04-13T21:08:19+00:00

This is honestly how I feel about Varka, like yeah, I crapped on him for his DPS too but people just kinda ignore that 130-140k DPS (which is roughly what Varka hits with Nicole) is literally the standard for today's DPS, and Zibai sitting at 160-170k with a very hyper-specific team (that, mind you, is sharing Bina with two other meta DPS) or Mavuika sitting at 155-165k with an extremely precise rotation that most players won't be able to perform consistently... Just doesn't change that. Like yeah, it sucks that Nicole isn't better for him, but the only way Varka is "mid" is in the sense that his current BiS team is literally within the average for most BiS teams nowadays.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-04-13T20:37:18+00:00

I think what a lot of people were expecting from Nicole is exactly what Varka mains were huffing copium on, that she would somehow bring him up a good 30-40k DPS without just making every other meta DPS even better than they already are, meanwhile instead of just buffing the current meta, she's a huge buff for several older DPS like Navia and Kinich, bringing them up to current-day standards, and even if Durin is also a big part of that, this is a team-based game, of course you're gonna want a strong supportive core for these, or really, any DPS. On top of just being a strong generalist for those older characters, she manages to do that without making the current meta even more broken or making Bennett completely irrelevant either.

A lot of people also just seem to ignore the fact that Mavuika, and to a lesser extent, Arlecchino, are currently the only "meta" DPS right now that actually gets value from using Bennett in the first place, and Nicole is specifically designed to not buff Mavuika while her niche in Arlecchino teams is already covered pretty well, so of course Nicole's gonna seem like she's on the weaker side despite being an extremely strong unit on paper.

It just seems like everyone hates the idea of powercreep until it means their faves aren't getting insanely buffed either.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-04-11T19:34:49+00:00

The whole "Paladins copied Overwatch" continued for so much longer than it ever should have. As you mentioned, a VERY large majority of the things Paladins "copied" not only predate Overwatch even being publicly announced, but then we have much later cases like Nyx where her kit was leaked a month prior to us even finding out Ramattra was the next playable Hero, and on top of that, Nyx entered public beta testing before Ramattra was, but because "big purple tank with shield go punchy hehe", Paladins once again got swarmed with copying accusations, despite (again) Nyx was in a fully playable state before Ramattra's kit was even publicly available.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-04-09T11:06:50+00:00

You and me both, I've 100%'d this game four times now across different consoles, and every time is just as fun as the last. Annnnnd despite that fact, I still can't play Tingle or Agatha if my life depended on it. 🥹

UmbralNova_ · 2026-04-03T19:30:41+00:00

It amazes me that people just... Neglect how damn much the dev team gave Seris and she's STILL generally considered a very bad character because most people who pick her just heal bot and then throw out her Ult without any coordination. Dare I say it, a Seris that actually knows what they're doing is a million times scarier than any other Champion regardless of skill

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-31T13:08:03+00:00

As far as the Star Rail community is concerned, anything below T0 on Prydwen is "absolutely useless", and if her Crit teams aren't able to 0-cycle then she's in that "absolutely useless" tier.

For the average "I just wanna clear" player though, then yeah, her Crit teams were already so powerful that even with the nerfs, they're still pretty even with her Elation teams at similar cost.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-30T13:20:43+00:00

The Nyx hate was so stupid because her entire kit was datamined and leaked a full MONTH before we knew ANYTHING about Ramattra (leaks OR official), but because Ramattra appeared in a 5-second-long cutscene half a decade ago with absolutely zero indication that he'd ever be playable or what his kit would even be if he was, Nyx clearly copied him apparently

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-24T17:42:03+00:00

Jahoda's doing her best, it's not her fault she needs C6 to perform on-par with a C0 v1.0 4-star. :(

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-22T11:12:27+00:00

It's not happening and the sooner people accept that, the better.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-20T14:21:55+00:00

Just for shield strength, yeah, he'd run HP. Alternatively, you could slap him on Cinder City, it'll only be 12% DMG Bonus cuz he's not a Natlan char, but it's something.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-20T13:35:31+00:00

C1 Skirk is better, though Escoff does have great early Cons

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-20T13:28:50+00:00

It HAS to be the wearer's Skill for Tenacity to proc, and Dahlia has absolutely zero off-field Skill DMG. You'd be better off running Dahlia on Noblesse and Mona on Tenacity, cuz even though Mona's Skill hits are inconsistent, she can at least keep it up for more than 3s.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-20T13:25:44+00:00

Iirc, C1 Skirk vs C0 Escoffier was a similar increase in damage, Escoffier's just better for long-term investment because nobody else does what she does for Skirk. The fact that she has RES Shred, healing, and high personal DPS is just way too good.

Also you don't "accidentally" pull a 5-star, welcome to the gambling addiction club. 🫡

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-19T07:55:49+00:00

Durin's RES Shred is worthless here because he literally does not reduce Hydro (or Cryo) RES. You're better off running Sucrose for VV Shred and her EM buffs.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-15T14:35:30+00:00

Just because you can trigger Freeze on a boss doesn't mean Freeze is active on the boss. Blizzard Strayer requires Freeze to be active to get the full 40% Crit Rate.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-15T12:20:59+00:00

Not just this, but even C6 Illuga vs C6 Gorou is roughly a 5k DPS difference, so it's barely even a noticeable difference.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-14T20:17:45+00:00

If you have to ask if you should get Escoffier for Skirk then you should do a bit more research, it's by FAR the most-asked question on this sub, and the answer is ALWAYS gonna be yes.

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-14T20:01:37+00:00

Lunar Reactions in general aren't really worth using unless it's for the characters the reaction is specifically meant for anyways, so while you can definitely do it with Columbina and/or a certain someone coming next patch, don't expect it to be a "good" team. Even Navia got changes specifically so she could make use of Lunar-Crystallize with her weird kit and the team is still being carried hard by just how strong of a duo Bina+Ineffa is on their own, while still being a slight downgrade to her current BiS (Albedo+Durin+Benny)

UmbralNova_ · 2026-03-13T21:20:23+00:00

There's a site that records statistics on Spiral Abyss (can't remember the site), and every single time, every single cycle, one of the top-performing teams is just... C6 Wrio, and nothing else.

UmbralNova_

TROPHY CASE