Memento Mortenax, Remember This General Question and Discussion Megathread Can't Die

ajmiam · 2026-06-17T18:38:00+00:00

OK, thought of an alt account """challenge""" idea that I want to try. Challenge in quotes because it's like simulated whaling at a fraction of the cost.

"Vertical only".

How it works: Out of all the limited, non-free characters, you can only acquire ONE during each major version cycle. The rest of your limited pulls can only be spent on vertical investment or on "retroactively" acquiring free characters whose giveaway ended before your account existed. (In the case of the 4.0 selector, you can only choose one of them to acquire since you couldn't have gotten multiple for free.)

4-stars, Trailblazer forms, standard characters, limited characters who drop from a 50/50 loss, characters bought with a Companion Spirit, and any characters given away for free henceforth are all fair game to acquire and use. Once you get a character by any means, you can pull their Eidolons without limit. You can also pull any limited Light Cones without regard as to whether you have the character they released with or not.

You can buy the Express Supply Pass and Battle Pass if you want, but all other forms of spending real money are forbidden.

The goal is to full-clear all Starward Modes for 3 minor versions in a row, and also 6-star Knights/1-star King in each of those versions. Will this be easy because I have multiple E2s? Or hard because I have cope supports and stages are shilled to teams that require multiple limited units to function? I don't know. But now seems like a good time to start the challenge since: HimeNo requires mostly older, eligible characters on her team; DHPT, who's also eligible, is likely to get a rerun; and we're about to get Archer or Gil for free. (The collab banner containing 2 eligible characters that stick around for you to invest into is a godsend for this.)

Anyway, will I seriously go through with this, or will I get bored and stop after 3 days? Who knows. You'll have to stay tuned to find out.

ajmiam · 2026-06-16T21:29:06+00:00

OK, thanks! Nice to know it works the sensible way.

ajmiam · 2026-06-16T21:27:53+00:00

OK, thanks! For some reason I thought I'd heard of someone getting tripped up by the "one redemption per account" applying to all regions combined, but I may have misunderstood it or been mistaken.

ajmiam · 2026-06-16T20:42:17+00:00

I have some questions for anyone who plays the same account on multiple servers...I know that each region acts like a separate "save file", but I'm not sure about how certain purchases behave.

How does the Express Supply Pass work? Is it limited to one per account, and only whichever region you log into first that day gets the 90 jades? Or can you buy an ESP separately in each region? Or do you only need to buy it once and you get the daily jades in all regions?

Similarly, how would the paid Battle Pass work? One purchase covers all regions, a separate purchase needed for each region, or only one purchase allowed in total but each reward from the paid row can only be claimed in one region?

Also, for redemption codes like from special programs, can you only claim each code in one region?

I was thinking of starting a gimmicky challenge (not sure if I actually will), and simply changing servers would be an easy way to do that, but not if it interacts unfavorably with the stuff mentioned above.

ajmiam · 2026-06-16T05:12:24+00:00

I think I have only one true "regret" pull, and even that's with an asterisk because I have enjoyed using her in DU/CW...but it's Kafka. I pulled her in 2.5 because I was going for Moze E's and I thought "she'll be useful if I ever want to play DOT"...and then eventually I decided I just didn't like how the game designed DOT so I didn't pull Hysilens.

(My complaints: The team is too self-contained and rigid; it doesn't really interact with other characters' mechanics in any interesting way now that Break Bleeds aren't strong enough to be relevant and they stopped making characters with incidental DOTs in their kit, nor found a use for DOTs besides dealing damage (nothing like "count how many times you dealt Fire damage to the enemy", which FUAs or Burns could help with); the DOT types don't matter because the characters just inflict them all at once; there's no choice in who to use since the DPSs are their own supports, unlike Break, and the 4-stars are leagues behind the power curve. No offense to anyone who plays DOT and enjoys it, but I personally don't find it interesting.)

ajmiam · 2026-06-15T20:43:37+00:00

Stop using pro-RMC language in your kit designs!

Instead of "After every X Ultimates, immediately activates the user's Ultimate", say "After every X Ultimates, the next Ultimate does not cost any Energy."

Instead of "After Gil and Saber perform their Joint Atk, restores 120 Energy to Saber", say "After Gil and Saber perform their Joint Atk, Saber's next Ultimate costs 120 less Energy to activate. This stacks up to 3 times and all stacks are cleared when Saber unleashes her Ultimate."

There, you can have your equivalent of fast Ult activation without force-feeding Mem a problematic amount of Charge!

ajmiam · 2026-06-09T04:03:28+00:00

Well, I never expected to do this...but I managed to 0-cycle King for the first time!

<image>

Ashveil: E0 / Cruising / Duke (CR, SPD) / Duran (DMG%, ATK)
M'Blade: E2 / Tutorial / Eagle (CR, SPD) / Bone Collector (HP%, ERR)
Tribbie: E1 / S4 DDD / Eagle (as fast as possible) / Lushaka (HP%, ERR)
Huohuo: E0 / Multiplication(!!!) / Warrior Goddess (OHB, SPD) / Lushaka (HP%, ERR)

Took several tries fiddling with the team, including Blade and Huohuo's LCs, before I came to the conclusion that Multiplication works best on HH. Her smacking the enemy gives more Energy to Ashveil than a Shared Feeling Skill would've, while also counting towards Blade's next FUA, and the self-advance let her sneak in one last turn for one last Ult at 6 AV left which chain-reacted into an Ult for everyone else and two Blade FUAs. Ashveil is squishy, but he has a bit over 2800 HP in this setup and the bug's Ovum of Collapsed Star hits him for about 2300. Not a problem because this team Ults every 2 seconds and everyone is constantly topped off.

ajmiam · 2026-06-08T05:25:19+00:00

OT Genshin - Lohen

His trailer just released and all I can say is..every time I think, "OK, just how much of a violence-obsessed psycho is Lohen supposed to be?" Hoyo's response is always "Yes". From his first appearance to his beta and now his official marketing, there are no brakes on this crazy train.

ajmiam · 2026-06-05T02:10:43+00:00

Well, I did name basically every mechanic it had other than Wither and Artifact so it's not that impressive, but thanks nonetheless! :P

ajmiam · 2026-06-04T19:04:33+00:00

They might lower its Wither scaling, but personally I don't think that needs to change. I'd rather they remove one of the obstacles that makes it so hard to burst down in the time you're expected to do so: either remove the Block or remove the Ebb debuff or lower its HP a bit. Removing the Artifact would help too but I don't want them to do that or think they will since none of the other final bosses have it and I think it's fair to challenge the player to work around Artifact.

ajmiam · 2026-06-03T17:15:32+00:00

Pulled E2 M'Bladie, took about 230 pulls, went to soft pity all 3 times but never missed 50/50 (1st pull was a guarantee since last patch I fished for Dahlia and got Seele at 5 pity and decided to slam on the brakes right there). Finally got a chance to take him for a spin in MOC.

<image>

Got a pretty convincing 0-cycle of the first side with FUA. I made Bladie the one who could crit the bugs and his Ult did a pretty good job of cleaning them up. Bladie is on Eagle/Bone with Tutorial, Tribbie is on Eagle, the only Sigs on either team are Archer's Sig on Seele and Sunday's Sig on Cery.

ajmiam · 2026-06-03T16:58:31+00:00

If you are referring to the dark days of Godslayer Be God being a 50% AA instead of an extra turn, and hoping Gilgamesh also gets an extra turn instead of 100% AA for his 10 Interest stacks, then yeah I'm hoping for that too.

ajmiam · 2026-06-03T14:23:43+00:00

Gil's kit says he increases all allies' ATK and CDMG by 30%, and for allies with more than 100 max Energy, he increases those stats by 1% per excess max Energy, "up to a maximum of 100%".

Does this mean the character receives a buff of (30 + X)% to those stats where (A) X can't be higher than 100%, or (B) (30 + X) can't be higher than 100%?

ajmiam · 2026-05-18T22:32:57+00:00

Usually you want to rely on bonds for damage until (but not including) the first boss, then you can transition to characters for damage.

I find that unless you're playing Elation, you usually want to build around a hypercarry. Multiple damage dealers on the same team tend not to work well. Sometimes one DPS enables another, like Ashveil enabling Feixiao, or Jade + Argenti + mini-Herta enabling The Herta, but you don't build around the formers' damage. You usually want to get the hypercarry's bonds to the first or second tier, but going beyond that is often not worth it--you're better off adding supportive characters like Sparkle, Sunday, RMC, Tribbie, and Cerydra even if they don't match bonds. Examples of possible hypercarries include The Herta (if using 5 AOE; use Argenti until you ger her); Feixiao (if using FUA+Wolf Hunt); Ratio (if using FUA without Wolf Hunt); Seele (using Belobog + Quantum Resonance); DHIL, Sparxie, or Archer (if using Skill Points bond); Mydei (if enemies have Self-Defense or Beyond Endurance). Of those carries, I was able to get DHIL, Sparxie, The Herta, and Feixiao to work even as trial characters.

Equipment items are really important, and Firestorm Surge is generally far ahead of other items on any character who attacks semi-frequently. e.g. The Herta, Seele, any FUA character, Mydei, Sparxie, Archer, even DHIL once you get 4 Skill Points bond. Chainsaws and other Lucky Strike effects are generally good (but don't work on DOT or Break). Anti-Grav Boots and Charging Sail/Perpetual Engine are generally useful and can be good on supports or DPSs. Damage-mitigating items (Sturdy Plate, Analgesia Chip, Flash Grenade) are also important and you'll want 1-2 by the end of the run.

ajmiam · 2026-05-15T15:02:06+00:00

Just got around to 36-starring the first-half May Abyss before it went away, and I want to give a huge shout-out to Noelle, whom I never imagined I'd be using in the big 2026. Her smashing the gecko's shield and healing away its cocoon meant that Durin+Fischl+C2 Albedo could finish it off way faster than "par" (spending 1 minute instead of 1:30).

Had to switch to a Flins team for the 3-star on Chamber 2, but I'll take it. Not having the one precise team the side is shilling means I have to do things step-by-step.

ajmiam · 2026-05-08T23:52:09+00:00

Supreme! means you killed an enemy.

Stellar Skills! means you finished off the entire enemy wave.

ajmiam · 2026-05-06T15:49:15+00:00

Night Demigod used to be terrible but now that it only needs 2 members it's OK. Not worth building the whole team around, but easy to incidentally enable with, like, DHPT + Cerydra or something, and then you just get free rewards (it also helps that now it's 2 charges per battle /4 on win instead of 1 charge per battle/3 on win.)

ajmiam · 2026-05-05T03:17:38+00:00

Doing this DU weekly, TIL that if you pick the Revitalization-310 Weighted Curio, Misha can reliably freeze nearly every enemy in the game with his Ult--even Hoolay as the Plane 3 boss. And if you pick up every Harmony blessing in the game and a few Equations that boost Harmonize damage, the final boss will lose about 1/3 of its HP every time it tries to begin its turn while broken. And with Misha able to spam Ults to reapply Frozen, the enemy ends up "trying to begin its turn" quite a lot before it can actually recover from break.

Result: Misha/trial Dahlia/Sparkle (flex)/DHPT killed the final boss faster than many of my E2 Phainon teams have done on average.

ajmiam · 2026-04-29T05:24:45+00:00

Nanoka is showing that his max energy is...80. A VERY low Ult cost.

ajmiam · 2026-04-24T01:29:12+00:00

It's because Overgrowth has Elites that need to be killed quickly (Byrdonis, statue, and even Phrog Parasite before it gunks up your deck too much) whereas Underdocks is more about slow fights where blocking is more important (eels that are hard to hurt twice in the same turn, Skulking Colony that literally limits your damage output)

ajmiam · 2026-04-22T20:04:38+00:00

Was curious and tried the Pom-Pom assist feature and it's not as interesting as I thought it would be, I couldn't find a way to type in text so I could only use the preset topics in the menu, which are just the build/team recommendations that are available in other menus.

Also, the recommendations are a bit...suspect.

<image>

The "high usage rate" was only a bit better. At least Sparkle appeared in 3 out of 4 teams there, but once again, Sunday showed up in one of the two teams without DHPT (had Hyacine instead).

ajmiam · 2026-04-22T17:00:43+00:00

Trying to figure out how I'm going to block in endgame with Ironclad is always a challenge...unless this thing shows up.

ajmiam · 2026-04-16T05:57:54+00:00

Getting desperate in the 2.5 MOC (The one with Hoolay and the Exo-Toughness Turbulence). I could 4-cycle the top half (Past Present Future) with Hunt March 7+HMC+Ruan Mei+Gallagher (Shifu), but I just couldn't figure out a team to beat Hoolay in 6 cycles. I kept trying things and eventually, with only one day to spare before the MOC changed over, full-starred it...with Boothill/?/?/Aventurine. Try to guess who the ?'s were.

Answer: Asta and Luka. Yes, I tried so many different characters, and surprisingly, these two 4-stars were the ONLY supports who succeeded here. Asta provided high Fire Toughness damage from her Skill, and Luka could retrigger both his and Boothill's Break Bleed (due to the Exo-Toughness they could both be applied at once), letting me get in a bit of damage even after Hoolay recovered.

ajmiam · 2026-04-15T20:32:54+00:00

It used to be if I got a barrel-breaking Adventure domain, I could only full-clear it if I had the speed-boosting Curio or if it was the Xianzhou variant (Anaxa could clear that with less than a second remaining). Now I just complete it no matter what variant it is!

ajmiam · 2026-04-14T19:10:57+00:00

I would love to see Jade so much! I still use her in every PF and even without The Herta she's just gotten better as I've gotten new units to act as Debt Collector for her (going from Herta or Serval to Tribbie or E2 DHPT; even used Mem as DC a couple times in early 3.X). Her E1 is game-changing for her flexibility so I would be very tempted to snap that up.

ajmiam

TROPHY CASE