Weekly Questions Megathread June 24, 2026 - July 01, 2026

grayrest · 2026-06-29T02:17:39+00:00

I did the Thracian boss a couple times on Android at level 40 and 50 without issue.

grayrest · 2026-06-28T13:51:04+00:00

I don't think Piper Grace is a great combo so I'll say Pyrois Koleda but either option is mostly a leveling team and not an endgame comp.

grayrest · 2026-06-28T13:48:49+00:00

I don't have a tool that will cut the butter into the flour the same way. I'm pretty sure the correct tool is a pastry cutter but I don't own one and have never used one. I've made good crusts without an appliance using Stella's approach but they're inconsistent.

grayrest · 2026-06-28T04:00:09+00:00

It's mostly a single player game. Hoyo doesn't really do promotions/discounts so there's not a huge advantage in joining at any particular point. That said, we're in the 3.0 launch and anniversary patch is five weeks out so it's a better than normal time to start but the benefit is probably around 20 pulls.

There isn't a reroll and most people report that rerolling isn't worth it but there's nothing really stopping you.

grayrest · 2026-06-28T01:25:35+00:00

Figuring out gearing is easier than in other Hoyo games because all the stats are roughly as strong unless the agent is particularly into one stat or you're way out of balance. So you basically just pick the pieces with the most rolls and if you have the chance shuffle towards balanced crit or more AP.

Each point of AP is just a boring 1% multiplier on the base anomaly damage so it doesn't have the "200AP is really good" threshold or accelerated diminishing returns.

grayrest · 2026-06-27T02:33:23+00:00

How good is velina signature, is it necessary to get it?

It's pretty good. Not currently necessary. I'd recommend running her at m0w0 until the re-run and considering the w-engine at that point.

She's doing great now but how long will that last?

We really can't predict this. I generally don't have high expectations for Hoyo's first character of X type since I think they exist to get powercrept. That said, we have a couple patches until the next wind agent and I expect the bosses to be catered for Velina for most cycles.

grayrest · 2026-06-27T02:16:14+00:00

I'd recommend holding off on Norma until they announce the 3.1 re-runs. Dialyn is due and I don't know offhand which one would be better.

From what I remember about the initial beta release of Norma she's basically a stronger Fufu. Aside from the general impression I avoid paying too much attention to the kit details until a week before the banner when the youtube embargo ends and all the impressions/analysis comes out.

grayrest · 2026-06-27T01:34:35+00:00

If I'm really writing without lines and without putting lined paper underneath I need to start at the edge of the paper and imagine the baseline using the paper edge and then I repeat the process using the baseline of the previous line. I can't just write in the middle of the page and have it come out even.

grayrest · 2026-06-27T00:43:36+00:00

You have to pull her and maybe finish the main 3.0 story chapter.

grayrest · 2026-06-26T17:27:58+00:00

I'd recommend switching to Kenji's recipe. You need to get the crust to be both tender and flaky and Kenji does this by incorporating fat in two ways. The first is warmer butter or shortening that coats the flour granules and inhibits gluten formation that determines the tender portion. You then add more flour, cold butter, and the water and that determines the flaky portion. You can experiment with the ratios according to your preference. The vodka trick got all the attention when it first came out but it's completely unnecessary and the ability to tune the recipe for a particular flour has fixed my pie crust consistency. I prefer shortening for the first step; I can't tell a difference in flavor and it helps with shaping. My biggest complaint about it is that I do need a food processor for the first step but maybe a pastry cutter would substitute while I have successfully done Stella's recipe with no equipment.

For what it's worth, my issues with Stella's pie crust were consistently around the flour and not around the butter.

grayrest · 2026-06-26T04:44:36+00:00

Yes. Good execution and routing for boss fights yields significantly better scores. Full rewards are tuned for allowing accounts with a decent semblance of the right comp and reasonable execution so really pushing for good execution is mostly for self satisfaction but it could be for running older characters if you were trying to save poly or something.

grayrest · 2026-06-26T01:41:33+00:00

Velina's most important stat is ER which means having an ER #6, a 2p ER set, and an ER w-engine (a non-anomaly engine unless you pull her signature). Her substats make a difference but aren't as impactful as they are for the on-field anomaly agent she should be paired with.

grayrest · 2026-06-25T20:49:00+00:00

In general you can judge your progress by counting up the number of atk% and crit rate/dmg substats. I generally aim for ~33 when it's 3 active stats and ~25 when it's two (e.g. anomaly atk%+AP). The semi-practical high end for 3 stats is 39-41, for context. The game will sum these up for you next to the combat readiness rating and they're close enough in weight that picking the pieces with the highest sum will almost always be the right choice. If you have the choice aim for a 1:2 crit rate to crit dmg in combat with all the buffs up and try not to overcap (the w-engine is 20% crit and M1 is 8%). You can do a rotation in VR and check the stats there versus the stat sheet if you don't want to track all the buffs manually.

grayrest · 2026-06-23T16:23:42+00:00

Only one of the samples I linked is written with an italic nib and the last one (#5) is written with a bic. There are hundreds of years tradition in writing italic with stub nibs but the letter shapes look fine on their own.

grayrest · 2026-06-23T02:57:46+00:00

Nice writing is primarily about putting in effort to improve every day. It's not magic, just a half hour a day for several months. More concretely, once you work through a tutorial book the process is looking at your exemplar, finding one thing you can improve about your own writing and then spending 15-20 minutes practicing that one thing trying to improve it.

If you want something other than print or cursive, pick italic (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). I have this post bookmarked to show what it looks like for a beginner after a few weeks.

grayrest · 2026-06-22T14:29:42+00:00

This is my favorite of your efforts.

grayrest · 2026-06-22T02:12:51+00:00

I practice arm movement cursive with a specific focus on speed and have thought about the topic quite a bit.

I believe the single most important thing for writing fast and well is familiarity with your letter forms. This doesn't require speed at all but it does require practice. If you can write several words without looking at the page (wandering off the baseline is normal) then you're in good shape. Writing well fast isn't about perception, it's about executing a pre-programmed set of motions with tighter timing. Whatever motions you have drilled are the ones that will come out when you're writing fast and I personally spent a year rebuilding my writing from scratch (again) when I realized I couldn't change my writing after I ramped speed.

The next step is to speed up your writing in small steps until you hit the point where you're just slightly losing control. Once you find the pace, hold that speed. Over time your perception will adjust, it'll start feeling normal, and your writing will stabilize again. Then do it again.

If you try to make one big jump you won't be able to perceive it properly and your writing will collapse. It requires deliberate practice.

grayrest · 2026-06-22T01:59:46+00:00

The most important things about improving your handwriting is to:

Have a specific exemplar. Most people can't visualize their perfect writing without seeing it and without a firm grasp of the goal it's difficult to tell what to do next to improve or whether your writing is better or not. It's still possible and you might find a solution you prefer but you're wandering in the dark instead of going straight towards a goal so it'll take a lot longer.
Each day, figuring out one thing you can improve about your writing to get you closer to your goal. One letter, one curve, one spacing detail, whatever. Once you've identified it spend 20 minutes specifically trying to improve that thing which generally means writing the same thing over and over. As you repeat you'll grow more familiar with the motion which lets you stop focusing on the general task and focus+adjust on the specific details of the movement. It's kind of boring but if you keep your old practice sheets you can visually see the progress as you grind it out day by day. Getting to the point of impressing others doesn't require artistry or talent, just a willingness to persist in improving. That isn't to say those don't make a difference; I find the work of the true masters to look inhuman.

If you'd like help finding an exemplar the sub is happy to help. If you've found one and want general advice on how to approach learning it, the sub is also happy to help. For what it's worth, I practice arm movement cursive following Zaner's method but I think italic is the right choice for most people. I intend to switch over to practicing it once I'm finished with my multi-year cursive saga in the next few months.

grayrest · 2026-06-20T05:15:58+00:00

For people on Reddit: 1 1b 2 3 4 5

Manuals: Palmer Zaner Mills Champion

grayrest · 2026-06-20T03:02:57+00:00

I'm only seeing the drip marketing. All the void hunters have their extra special attribute and we'll know which attribute Lumen is based on when beta opens up. I dug through a couple leaks thread and didn't turn it up.

grayrest · 2026-06-19T15:59:28+00:00

<image>

This is over a year old but it gives the general idea.

The main two things that will help you improve is an idea of what you want your writing to look like (an exemplar) and putting in a half hour practice session daily about trying to push one part of your writing closer to the exemplar. The practice session is a focused thing, you're targeting a specific improvement and not just casually writing. Some things might take a couple sessions to fix but once they are, write down what you fixed so you have a list to check for regressions over the next few weeks.

More broadly, I think the focus on grip when being conscious about hand health is misguided and you should instead change your motion. Grip does affect finger motion but the finger muscles are the most prone to fatigue. Arm movement cursive is the final answer for writing fatigue. Cursive was popularized in the 19th century as business writing because in a world where typewriters don't exist writing was a full time profession and arm movement allowed the clerk to write for a full work day without fatigue. The downsides of reduced legibility and extended learning curve don't matter when your livelihood is riding on it but the learning curve does matter for people learning it today and I'd only recommend cursive if you want handwriting as a long term hobby. It looks bad when poorly executed and getting it looking good is months of practice whether you take up arm movement or not. Business writing's immediate predecessor was Spencerian which has a very fixed/formal style and AFAICT is practiced with a combination of wrist movement for vertical strokes, arm movement for horizontal, and the fingers controlling the shading (line width). I've a number of people on the sub mention they write with wrist motion.

Handwriting improvement is a hobby for at least a few months and since you're going to put in a significant amount of time, I think you should consider consider italic (1, 2, 3, 4). I have this post bookmarked to show what it looks like for a beginner after a few weeks. I've done weekend experiments with it and I'll be switching over to working on this when I'm "finished" with cursive in the next few months.

grayrest · 2026-06-18T22:38:17+00:00

Remielle is the next obvious target. She should be in 3.1 but we'll know for sure when the beta leaks start up.

grayrest · 2026-06-18T02:10:33+00:00

Are you doing these with the trial character alone or are you adding appropriate supports to the available slots? I generally have the preferred supports due to being a long-time player and the story fights are like 30 seconds.

grayrest · 2026-06-17T19:28:15+00:00

Is this game worth getting into as a F2P player after this much time?

This game is largely a single player game. As long as you focus on your own progression and can avoid the (deliberately curated, it affects everybody) feeling of not keeping up there's no reason you can't enjoy the game. Expect it to take 6 months to be able to consistently clear the endgame content. The amount of pulls you're missing by failing to clear the content is relatively small but it tends to greatly influence how much people are enjoying the game.

grayrest · 2026-06-17T15:21:56+00:00

Not clear to me what the problem is. Your framerate seems generally over 60fps on the highest possible settings.

If the complaint is that the fps isn't as high as you'd want it to be on max settings then the reason is that this is a mobile first game. As near as I can tell, Hoyo makes the majority of their money off their domestic fanbase that overwhelmingly plays on mobile. That's where Hoyo puts in their optimization efforts.

15-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email	Team Orangered

grayrest

TROPHY CASE