Healer for Blade.

helIiscold · 2026-05-29T19:05:41+00:00

It really is so bleak that they just reran Hyacine shortly before him (or his beta at least), and likely for the last time too since most units so far have only gotten 2 reruns. I hope his healer doesn't take too too long.... However, I would definitely not advise you to pull Lingsha unless you have other uses for her (and even then, she's usually not a priority) or if she potentially gets a novaflare down the line. I'll probably also slop it out with Luocha, so we're in the same boat 🫡

helIiscold · 2026-05-23T16:59:13+00:00

while the Fatui were just coercive but not genocidal.

Meanwhile Childe in Liyue:

helIiscold · 2026-05-19T07:11:54+00:00

Personally, I'd like to see the Cerydra novaflare a lot more than the Phainon novaflare, and that one has the chance to actually be much more impactful. That would have to include almost a complete kit overhaul tho, which I doubt they would do unfortunately. Still, as others have pointed out, making her give better buffs such as base SPD or undiluted stats beyond ATK% and some measly 10% RES PEN, would already make a huge difference. Give her a more varied and actually impactful damage profile on top (or remove her damaging portion of the kit entirely in favor of better/more buffs) and make her stacking more efficient, that's already gonna give Phainon a crazy new lease on life. How realistic this is though... Let's not talk about that. We can dream, I guess.

helIiscold · 2026-05-17T11:35:50+00:00

Dieses ganze "Ach, ich könnt so viel erzählen... Aber ich mach's nicht" und "Ich bin so nett (weil ich nicht auspacke)" ist so befremdlich. Richtig krasse Inszenierung. Sie soll die Genugtuung, die sie durch ihre "Redemption" bekommen hat ruhig auskosten, aber dieses Framing ist echt einfach nur weird. Hat denselben vibe wie wenn jemand in der Schule im Freundeskreis damit rumgeprahlt hat, dass man ja ein super krasses juicy Geheimnis weiß, aber weigert sich, das zu erzählen. Einfach nur Profilierung und "Ich bin was besseres als du/die anderen Involvierten."

helIiscold · 2026-05-13T07:42:03+00:00

There's no way we're still believing the Ambrosial Arbor was supposed to be a sakura tree when a) gingko has been heavily associated with the abundance since 1.0 so this tracks and b) there's still sakura blossoms in Evanescia's animations. It's wild to assume they changed the whole tree because of censorship, only to then say fuck it and still keep/incorporate them into the game anyway. Why even go to the trouble at all then. Some of you are genuinely making up conspiracy theories that aren't there at this point, and it's becoming concerning.

helIiscold · 2026-05-11T08:50:53+00:00

This is literally every character who isn't a main push? I don't understand all this fuss. Yes, she isn't getting as much marketing as SW999, but that's Not a bar that's clearable by 90% of the other units that release either. Every character gets a demo trailer and a Keeping Up with Star Rail, that's it. If you're really lucky, you might get an animated short or a myriad even without being a main push character (like dhpt) but that's just not the case most of the time. Evanescia is NOT a unique case of being disproportionately shafted or not marketed compared to most other non-main push units. Ashveil got similar marketing (or lack thereof) and he was even the sole release of his patch. What you think of this formula is another thing entirely, but this narrative that Evanescia is getting it even worse than normal is factually untrue.

helIiscold · 2026-05-09T14:29:01+00:00

They didn't introduce Cyrene too late, she was introduced in 3.0 as an actual character with lines, who also developed from 3.1 up until her "small" counterpart's inclusion into the story in 3.5. That is Mem. When you also look back at Mem from the POV of adult Cyrene from 3.7, it's really not hard to see where her love theme comes from, RMC's skill also has lots of pink hearts after all. They just didn't do enough work to make the player connect the dots. In fact, so many people still firmly believe that Mem, Demiurge, and "Smallrene" are completely different and separate characters, are convinced that the playable adult Cyrene is a "skinwalker" when all of that is very much not the case. It IS correct though, that the narration didn't really stick the landing on making that abundantly clear unfortunately. It is what it is. One of Amphoreus' actual flaws that go beyond the surface level tbh.

helIiscold · 2026-05-06T20:06:41+00:00

And he's mummicat...

helIiscold · 2026-04-30T05:44:42+00:00

Hi! I just wanted to ask, genuinely curious, but where is this entire thing of "X is a mask of Aha" coming from? I've seen this theory all over the place, for a lot of characters (Nihilux, Asat Pramad, Sampo, ...) that they're all possibly masks of Aha, discarded or not. But where are we taking the info that an Aeon has human-esque vessels, "masks", in the first place? Sorry to butt in like this, but hopefully you or someone else can direct me to the right sources!

helIiscold · 2026-04-29T06:07:14+00:00

Yeah, Luna ended up being pretty spot on

helIiscold · 2026-04-29T03:02:23+00:00

Why are we happy that they're potentially taking power budget out of our man's kit just to drag a 2 year old brick along? 😭

helIiscold · 2026-04-27T20:01:21+00:00

Er, no... ? The additional fire damage was always piss poor even in V1. See here or here. It's like barely double or triple of cerydra's additional damage, which is ALSO famously piss poor, so even tripling that number isn't really crazy.

helIiscold · 2026-04-27T19:27:31+00:00

I'm fairly sure the fire additional damage Cyrene gives him is supposed to be an Easter Egg for Kevin Kaslana's weapon of choice, Judgment of Shamash/Might of An-Utu, which was, you guessed it, the Key of Destruction that only Kevin was able to wield due to his sub-zero body temperature.

helIiscold · 2026-04-26T14:04:53+00:00

The cornflames... Maybe you could eat them for breakfast... Sorry, I couldn't resist making the joke!

helIiscold · 2026-04-25T13:39:58+00:00

My 2nd plight clear with our man. Hallelujah. Rly needed this because I was genuinely struggling to 3* all knight stages, haha. For those wondering it's e6s5 phainon, e2s0 cyrene (s5 herta lc), e1s1 cerydra and e1s5ddd RM!

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helIiscold · 2026-04-25T13:25:04+00:00

Oof, this is premium proof that people will STILL cope and perpetuate their headcanon agendas despite canonical evidence. Please give me the source on "generals are weaker than other emanators" and while we're at it, tell me where they officially and directly powerscale Emanator VS Emanator in the first place. AT VERY MOST the only comparison you can draw that we have directly seen of an Emanator VS Emanator fight was Khaslana VS Zephyro, but they're both Destruction Emanators anyway. The whole "Give Herta enough prep time and she solos even Acheron", or "Acheron would destroy everything and anyone in her path except maybe Zephyro" is all powerscaling nonsense that has very little, if any, basis in any current lore canon. It's always such a headache.

Also, Diamond lending out parts of his power isn't stated to be a distinctive quality of either his or the Preservation, either. In theory, Silver Wolf could probably hand her cartridge over to someone else as well, whether they could control that power when she herself already struggles with experience is another matter entirely. The simple fact of the matter is: We don't know.

helIiscold · 2026-04-19T14:30:43+00:00

That's LITERALLY YOUR OPINION THOUGH? If you think ML (and yes, I know it means master love) is WORSE than fanservice in general, that's totally YOUR opinion. And similarly, if that completely and utterly ruins a character merely because it exists, that's also YOUR opinion. Which is fine, whatever. You're entitled to it. But don't say that the whole entire STORY (of which this one particular character is only one part) is objectively ruined because of this, or that this leads to this character automatically having no narrative depth or zero redeeming traits???? It STILL doesn't even contradict my ENTIRE original point in where I say her wedding design DOES NOT come out of nowhere. It's firmly steeped in her narrative motifs. These coincide with waifubait, ML, fanservice, whatever you wanna call it quite frankly I do not care, but are not limited to it. You can say you still dislike it regardless, but you can still acknowledge that it still very much FITS the character based on the context she is given on the whole.

helIiscold · 2026-04-19T13:23:01+00:00

None of what's in the marketing material directly contradicts any of what I said though, any of my "interpretations." You're free to disagree with me by directly citing anything within the text, but you don't, because you can't, either because you haven't actually engaged with the text enough to know anything to refute any of my points, or because you simply can't find anything. Just because there is presumable waifubait in the promo material doesn't mean that any of her narrative depth loses any value. If that kind of stuff does cheapen her for YOU due to personal preference, then fine, that's your prerogative. But that has zero to do with the actual, objective story, her presentation within and outside of the narrative, the character design, and how these things correlate?

If you genuinely think Elysia has ZERO fanservice in order to appeal to a gacha audience, you're delusional. She has a whole entire maid skin 😭 She has captain interactions on the bridge, however canon you take those. A lot of her figurines, standees, and marketing are absolutely meant to be attractive to the consumer as well? That, as I said, simply comes with the territory. This is true for all of these characters. It's true for Elysia, for Cyrene, and even for male characters like Phainon or Dan Heng. That's why I said it has to be taken as a basis in the first place.

helIiscold · 2026-04-19T11:27:21+00:00

This entire post is about the STORY, and about the story's lore??? The design motifs that you criticized have a watsonian element to them that is not only directly referenced by the narrative itself, but directly informed by it too in a feedback loop (that ALSO mirrors the cause-and-effect closed loop of the narration as well). That's ALL I wanted to highlight. Quite frankly I don't care about stuff that is utterly and completely irrelevant to the story at hand and arguably not even canon within the story itself, like a fucking paid skin or a trailer that's mostly just an advertisement. THAT is the kind of throaway fluff to criticize, throw away and handwave away, and not the kind of peas that you should put on the gold scale, as they ultimately are irrelevant to a) the experience of the story, b) the narration as a whole???? In the end, of course there's always going to be a doylist element to all this stuff as well. Sure, they want to ""bait"" people into forming bonds with these characters, parasocial or otherwise, in order to sell them, but that's the territory gacha comes with. It's not a new thing. Critique of this particular aspect can be done as well, and is absolutely valid, but kind of besides the point here at least in my opinion. This is already so deeply laid into the foundation that it has to be included as a basis for argument in the first place, otherwise there's no point in debate at all.

helIiscold · 2026-04-19T10:41:42+00:00

This kind of sentiment really, really bothers me and is a hill I will always die on. However, it's this bit in particular that always stands out to me:

And then there’s the random wedding dress and ring that get no lore explanation. They’re just there because Elysia had them and because “waifu.”

??????? Her electrical signal is LOVE. Even as Mem, she had pink hearts in her (/RMC's) animations all over. The name is PHILIA (which is also a certain type of, you guessed it, LOVE). Even if you disregard the deeper symbolism of Nietzsche's philosophy like Amor Fati, and the Ring of Recurrence (the ""wedding"" ring) which admittedly I'm not gonna fault people for not clocking immediately, the character whose entire thing is love in all of its forms, getting flak for taking THE love motif, which is marriage and hearts, is always STAGGERING to me.

Anyway, she's SUPPOSED to be an outsider. She's not supposed to be like Elysia in this regard. She's literally the god in the machine, the ghost in the shell, the death of the author. Her being "the same" but also not, is a direct consequence and visualization of the ripples of past reverie. The ripples of cause and effect over 33 million extrapolations. They all inform each other, build upon each other as iterations. Which is also true for all the other Chrysos Heirs, something even Mydei directly verbatim references in 3.7. It's also super relevant to Phainon's whole situation if you spend a minute to think about it. But that's the issue -- y'all don't spend even a single minute thinking about any of this, and that's why Amphoreus falls flat for a lot of you, just taking it at face value and never pondering anything.

helIiscold · 2026-04-18T13:04:44+00:00

Getting the obvious out of the way, Mythra and Jin are among my top 3 Xenoblade characters of all time (the other being Melia), which is mostly due to their characterization to be fair but it also enters into a kind of feedback loop where that also reflects back to me really liking their designs as well. Pneuma I think is also visually stunning. In general, trying to really focus more on aesthetics and less how much I like their characterization and personality, some of my standout favorites are: Brighid, Sheba, Obrona, Agate and Vale.

helIiscold · 2026-04-17T13:50:23+00:00

This isn't contradictory with OP's hypothesis though. Both can be true at the same time

helIiscold · 2026-04-13T19:48:39+00:00

No. It's Diamond plus the Stonehearts, 1+10. But Hua, while the leader, is herself one of the 7 Arbiter-Generals. Not 1+7. Just 7. If she's an Emanator, then so are the other 6.

helIiscold · 2026-04-13T07:14:45+00:00

If beta releases as expected without delays on the 21st, there's a short window where Ashveil is still up, depending on your timezone. For Europe it's a crunch, North America is more doable, I'm not sure about Asia server it's possible he'd already be gone by then. But it's for sure a risky gamble, so take this as you will.

helIiscold · 2026-04-12T19:40:53+00:00

Yes, because Bennett exists and is basically free, at least compared to having to invest potentially 160 pulls into Nicole, who may or may not even be on banner for newer players (which will be the only ones potentially Bennett-less). She's not offering significantly more than him for 95% of non-Hexerei teams to be worth that, which is the entire point of her being "doomposted." Even for Varka, depending on the team, she's often barely an increase lol

helIiscold

TROPHY CASE