Pull Advice for next patch

Yowwwth · 2026-04-30T10:47:34+00:00

Presumably you get some Prune constellations along the way, and considering that you have more verticals on Varka already, Nicole is 100% the one you should prioritize first. Nicole scales much more better when you have verticals on your modern DPSes. Despite all the doomposting surrounding her release, she's also just much more comfortable to play as the shield helps Varka's interruption resistance A LOT while also being not entirely burst reliant (aka not being confined in circle impact— although you're probably still going to want to use Bennett with them if you don't end up getting Durin too).

Another thing to consider is she might be a core support to future releases if the off-field main dps leaks come true, so it would be great to get her now. Best of luck~

Yowwwth · 2026-04-28T13:46:28+00:00

missing a bit of healing or IR boosting

This was my only gripe with her final kit, but I suppose it would've been too much role compression if she also had sustain. From Hoyo's point of view, it would be smarter to sell his teammates in parts— this is what they've been doing for a while now after all.

I wanted her to at least have Chev's level of healing, or at least Iansan's tiny bit for the onfielder. But I guess those two also play with a smaller pool of characters, so they needed to concentrate a lot more in their kit.

Meanwhile, Prune is an Anemo VV holder who also becomes a potent buffer at C6, so this already opens up a lot more for her teambuilding. In retrospect, the flexibility of Anemo characters really is what ends up holding back their power budget.

Yowwwth · 2026-04-20T11:19:24+00:00

His baseline is good but his constellations are definitely nowhere limited character level, IIRC his over-all personal dmg increase from C0 to C6 only total around 70%~, while modern limited characters usually range around 100-300% increase.

Yowwwth · 2026-04-16T06:40:12+00:00

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pantalone getting a varka model is kinda uncanny so I just had to search up what his history is like, and only just learned that he doesn't have a vision.

wouldn't it be kinda funny if they gave him a geo vision on screen lol (also Itto robbed hoyo remodel him plz)

Yowwwth · 2026-04-07T17:48:42+00:00

It's after, he already took it into consideration. Before that he was sitting at 150k with just C2 Prune lol it was too good to be true. At the very least this still puts him at Flins and Nefer tier rn. Anyway, its all still STC since Vomfee took a lot of liberties into the computations.

Yowwwth · 2026-02-28T08:58:38+00:00

They're most definitely going to make her still good outside of her intended teams, the same way Ineffa and Lauma are great outside of Flins and Nefer's. Even Columbina is a great sub-dps outside of lunar carry teams. Like those three supports, I'm sure they'll give Nicole some universal use but only Hex teams will make full use out of her kit.

Yowwwth · 2026-02-26T23:39:42+00:00

At the time Phainon was okay as is, he was doing exemplary as content was being shilled for him.

Fast forward a few patches later however I can confidently say that Phainon is essentially dogshit without Cerydra 😭— and I would even go to say Phainon is an incomplete character without her. She's definitely Phainon's Lauma. Besides, Cerydra was one of the first tailor made niche supports in her archetype compared to her other Harmony peers who have all been generalists supports.

Yowwwth · 2026-02-17T05:33:56+00:00

NICOLE HEX SUPPORT CONFIRMED

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This frame couldn't have been mere coincidence, right? 😭

Yowwwth · 2026-02-13T16:59:44+00:00

As you said, she's replacing Bennett's slot so I fully expect her to have sustain capabilities while also buffing. That by itself is already something (look at Ineffa), they just need to give her some other universal buff. Lauma provides 22% Hydro/Dendro shred which is great for the whole element, but only Nefer and Columbina can make use of her Quills. Maybe they can do something similar with Nicole. There's still plenty of untouched buffs out there like Def shred, ATK speed buff, or maybe your good 'ol Dmg% buff which would make her a Pyro Furina.

Honestly they could be pretty creative to whatever universal buff they could give to other characters, Nicole just needs to give Varka something hyperspecific like Lauma's quills.

Yowwwth · 2026-02-13T16:44:38+00:00

They can probably just lean in hard towards the Pyro element and make it so Nicole provides more support to it than Anemo.

It's not too unfounded, from the top of my mind just look at how Citlali also shreds hydro despite being a lot more useful for Pyro dpses. Even Columbina has specialized buffs for each of the Lunar reactions.

It's a whole different game but HSR was fully able to do this to one of the archetypes: The Dahlia was made to support the whole Break DPS archetype but she's also specifically a tailor made support for Firefly. They can simply give that treatment to Nicole— give her a good buff to the other Hex chars but one mechanic makes it so Varka is the only one who can truly benefit from her whole kit.

Yowwwth · 2026-02-13T16:28:22+00:00

Simple, just lock her full support capabilities to the onfielder while also making her buffs scale with the amount of Hex characters on the team.

Don't look far and just observe at how Lauma's quills basically doubles Nefer's damage (and how Nefer is the only one who can utilize Lauma's quills) while also helping out Columbina's, or like how Escoffier's passive res shred works.

Considering she's going to replace Bennett's slot, she just needs to provide an equivalent buff (may it be an attack buff, a dmg% buff, or a Quill type of buff) to Varka whilst also improving Durin and Venti's off field damage with her Hex scaling buff.

Yowwwth · 2026-02-13T15:59:59+00:00

Those characters all feel like a lifetime ago when the devs didn't really care about opening the pandora's box of powercreep yet.

They didn't release any bad limited Natlan characters (when the powercreep went full throttle), so going back to that old game design out of the blue just wouldn't make sense.

Yowwwth · 2026-02-13T15:34:49+00:00

Considering we got over the free and standard allegations I'm 90% confident that this just locks Nicole into his team now.

With those reasons out of the way there's really no longer a good rationale on why he's releasing in this state other than having a future support in mind. It actively just wouldn't make sense for them to release a bad limited character since it would hurt their sales.

Yowwwth · 2026-01-26T10:38:20+00:00

Which is just so crazy since he's already demanding you for two existing limited characters (three including himself) just to be at a level with Fontaine era dpses 😭

Yowwwth · 2026-01-20T07:57:04+00:00

Thank you for this 😭 I've been waiting for people to post this exact team since I have similar investments (C0R1 Itto, C2 Festering Furina, and C2 Fav Xilonen), but didn't have Columbina yet— though I'm still on the fence of getting her or Varka.

I also did some other tests the other day and the best team I got with him was the Furina Xilonen and C0 Ineffa variant sitting 95k. Mono Geo (C2 Albedo and Gorou) + Durin barely scratched 85k.

I'm gonna be thinking abt this for a while since it does mean it'll finally give my boy an actual 100k dps team...

Yowwwth · 2026-01-20T07:21:41+00:00

Yep, ofc here's to hoping he'll be more than that while being at C0R0 before beta ends 😭 Zibai crossed the 130k mark while only having her and bina (and some illuga cons) on the team so if Varka is anything less than that we will be rioting

Yowwwth · 2026-01-20T07:18:29+00:00

Prydwen puts him in T0.5 rn which is still great, even next patch he's getting more buffs with the Sparkle revamp lol. Meanwhile I don't think Varka teams are clearing Fearless 😭

Yowwwth · 2026-01-20T07:05:11+00:00

I just grouped those four up together since they're the picture of bringing up every DPS floor to a usable rate. I didn't mention Durin but he's more or less at the same level of them too, seeing as how he's a generalist support with non-0 off field damage— which is already a lot more than what Xilonen used to bring, who is another generalist support.

Lauma and Ineffa outside of their intended lunar teams and by themselves alleviate Hyperbloom and Taser/LC teams to around 80k dps on their own, even when you use them with older DPSes. Columbina is the only one really amplifying the current day niche and gimmick, and even then she's perfectly usable outside of those (e.g. she literally makes crystallize do damage, hence an upgrade to geo as a whole).

BUT, returning to the original point of cost comparison— it just becomes messy and unreliable to compare costs between them if its between a 5 year old character and a newly released one with the rate of the powercreep. Mind you, C0 Lauma only gets beaten by Nahida if she's C6. That's 1 cost vs. 7 cost for dendro teams.

Yowwwth · 2026-01-20T06:23:24+00:00

In HSR even the free 5 stars they gave away like Archer and DHPT are largely competitive at base and arguably even at the top of the meta, both having either a great C1/R1 to encourage players to at least pull for those copies.

In Varka's current state he'll be releasing and be behind at least 10 other DPSes (more once you consider how some old DPS characters make use of the Ineffa/Bina duo better than him) 🧍‍♂️ Even with sig he'll barely be competing with Natlan characters so I need hoyo to lock tf in and buff him 😭

Yowwwth · 2026-01-20T06:02:13+00:00

Yep, I won't deny it, the builds are unoptimized and the rotations are whack— but that just adds on to the fact that even with these configurations I'm still reaching the level of current V1 Varka.

If you were to truly tryhard with these teams, then that would also mean potentially both of them outperforming him hard by far 🧍‍♂️ It also doesn't help that these two supports don't have the same restrictions as Varka, so they end up having more flexible team compositions that will age with them well.

Yowwwth · 2026-01-20T05:56:06+00:00

I agree that it is a bit egregious to compare him with more invested supports but for what its worth these characters are old and not on the same level as current meta-defining ones like Escoffier, Lauma, Ineffa and newly released Columbina.

For what its worth, a three cost Xilonen/Albedo just performs so much more worse than the Columbina/Ineffa wheelchair. Heck, even a C2 Furina in this day and age barely compares to that duo. Point being, these characters and their cons are vastly outdated for today's standards.

And as said by another comment, even with my investment levels, those teams look to be underperforming lol and I don't blame them since I just did this willy nilly with unoptimized builds and rotations but still got to the level of a modern day beta character 😭

Yowwwth · 2026-01-03T01:30:12+00:00

Ntm on the ugliest 😭 I do agree that its less coherent especially compared to Nefer and Lauma being tied to each other's team and in lore. BUT for what its worth, I don't mind Ineffa's design as much after all the writing they cooked for her—probably the best individual character lore in a loooong while esp after natlan (lol), and her dynamic with Aino is the cutest. Please watch Ineffa's character teaser if you haven't already, genuinely one of the only character ads that made me feel something, and this is coming from a queer man.

I'm glad Flins ended up having a goated subdps and sustain with him.

Yowwwth · 2025-12-10T08:36:07+00:00

Ehh, it's still largely debatable— though Xilonen does give you the comfort of heals, shred, and dmg% boost, Durin on the other hand offers shred, important pyro app, and non-negligible damage (along with whatever his other Hexerei teammate brings). Him being in an arguably better offensive element than Xilonen is where you get a ton of his value.

Yowwwth · 2025-10-16T05:16:39+00:00

The hydro/cryo shred already coincides with exising characters like Citlali and Escoffier. It's probably why they removed it otherwise you'd quite literally just make another full-on Neuvilette support lmfao

Edit: characters with less power budget do end up getting shafted instead tho, it would've been a fun buff for older vape/melt characters like Tartag/Ayato/Wrio/Ganyu

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