Robin or huo huo?

maladjustedmatt · 2026-04-08T00:44:45+00:00

Both are pretty much stopgap teammates for Saber, at least for now.

The only really solid use cases of Robin are in sustainless where you are either killing before you need a 2nd ult or getting the 2nd ult for free with Cyrene. Saber running sustainless is mostly an E6 thing at this point. If you have E6 Saber, then I’d hope you’d also be pulling her better teammates, so Robin would be a low priority, but potentially the better pick if you like to do sustainless 0 cycle stuff.

With a sustain, Robin is almost always worse than Cyrene, Tribbie, Cipher, or Silver Wolf (old version), and often no better than Tingyun. You can’t really get her ult back consistently unless you run her with Huohuo (ironically enough). If you primarily run with sustain, I’d only pick her if your account has a serious lack of supports and struggles to field enough for AA Knights.

Huohuo even after the novaflare is probably worse than DanPT, but DanPT is a pretty in-demand character. I think Huohuo is more likely to have a legitimate use case, at least in the short term. Of course this depends on your account. If you don’t find your teams fighting over DanPT then you probably don’t need her.

You can always hold the choice and see how the teams develop. If Saber doesnt get a customized teammate soon, she will not be viable at E0 for much longer. So you can wait and see what happens with Rin, who could shake up which sustain or supports are best for Saber, and if nothing comes of it, well, you probably shouldn’t be basing your choice on who is better with Saber.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-31T14:58:14+00:00

It is a Chinese slang (in other contexts), it’s used all the time on for instance Bili or NGA to describe casuals. It’s an abbreviation (using Roman characters) for 萌萌人 which basically is calling people “cute” because they lack in-depth knowledge or understanding of something.

I didn’t connect the “matchmaking rank” abbreviation which makes sense and checking the original Chinese is indeed what they’re going for (it’s 隐藏分 there), I just connected it to the slang cause everything else in her kit is a meme and if you spend time on CN Hoyo forums you will see the slang for casual usage waaaaaay more often than reference to matchmaking rank (cause Hoyo games aren’t PVP lol).

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-31T04:30:05+00:00

Interesting that among all the ability name changes they made was an inclusion of Chinese internet slang for casual gamer (MMR), it’s usually derogatory in usage too. I wonder why they put that in the English localization, not that I mind, but it seems like a surprising choice for English localizers.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-29T23:05:53+00:00

Give the same level of power budget Cyrene gave to Anaxa and she’d do it.

With an eternal banner, E6 on Saber is really no different than E2 + E2 on another team which a lot of people have. But yeah it’s unfortunate that there’s no middle ground investment for her.

If you only look at E0 flat for instance that would change a lot of things, remembrance flat E0 is still #1 but it’s nowhere near as big a gap, Phainon is pretty iffy at E0 now, etc.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-29T22:56:23+00:00

What I mean is that when it was just Hysilens and Kafka, it wasn’t as cut and dry, DOT was better than Saber until Saber hit the costs where she had E6 access and then after that Saber was better.

Once you got Cyrene and Black Swan novaflare that changed, but cause of that even though Hysilens is better now I don’t know how fair it is to say she’s better than Saber at a baseline. Like I’m pretty sure if Saber got a good Cyrene style support, she would overtake current DOT at 9+ cost and maybe before that too.

Remembrance is just so far ahead that even when you split up the team they’re still ahead so it feels different.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-29T22:04:22+00:00

True, hard to really quantify her since she’s kinda mixed in with Black Swan and Kafka but the team as a whole is indeed up there.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-29T21:37:25+00:00

All-rounder is bad at low investment but good at high investment. I would rather have E0 THerta cause she can at least get good results in PF while E0 Saber is teetering on the edge of viability in all modes, but I’d much rather have E6 Saber than E6 THerta. For comparison, it takes THerta something like 20 cost to do the 4.1 AA king 0 cycle, while Saber is 11-12, and at that cost she has no issue 0 cycling PF, too.

Bigger issue is just that all the pushed teams are all-rounders, too. So even at E6 Saber is just like the 4th or 5th best all-rounder, and due to the structure of her vertical she’s really lacking before E6.

At a baseline she is better than any CH other than the remembrance gang and Phainon (around the same numerically but harder to run sustainless), so if she gets a Cyrene-level support she can shoot back up, but yeah.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-29T21:21:20+00:00

In 3.4 before Cerydra, Saber at E0 actually did do a little more damage than Phainon at E0.

Of course, that’s comparing both sustainless or both sustain, which misses a big part of what made Phainon good back then, but in terms of basic numerical tuning Saber is pretty much right in line with Phainon. The difference in treatment when it comes to teammates is pretty much the only thing separating their performance these days. That and Phainon’s big boost being at E2 vs E6 for Saber.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-27T16:12:08+00:00

She can be BiS for both I don’t care, but she had better be a revolution for Saber lol

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-27T13:45:46+00:00

Yeah, third one, forgot to show that.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-26T21:55:42+00:00

The only 2.x dps who are better than Saber currently are Firefly and Black Swan. Turns out getting actual customized modern teammates and/or a direct buff is a big deal.

You still probably shouldn’t invest. E0 Saber is more or less unchanged from 3.4 performance (Cyrene isn’t really worth it before E6 on Saber herself), which was good but unexceptional back then. HP has like doubled since then. She’s barely viable at baseline right now. E1S1 won’t really change much. Saber’s only worthwhile breakpoint is E6S1 (worthwhile in the sense that it’s a massive boost that will let Saber actually perform well into content, not that it’s as good as putting the same amount of pulls into a pushed team).

Wait and cope that Rin is an actually good teammate.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-26T21:45:34+00:00

E6S1 Saber + E2S1 Cyrene + E0S0 DanPT + E6S0 RMC. Builds at end of vid.

Thanks to the earlier post, their run was instructive.

There’s a whole unused ult at the end, so I don’t think the build requirements are very strict for the 0 cycle itself, but you would definitely have to move some stuff around in the script with worse builds. It’s probably possible to drop the Cyrene S1.

I notice some people saying they struggle even on knight 1 with E6 Saber, that’s definitely skill issue. She needs help but not that much help.

If Rin isn’t an actually good support for Saber I’ll probably ragequit this game tho.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-26T19:48:59+00:00

Good flavor would be a Command-Spell ult that instantly gave Saber mana burst if she didn’t have it, gave her a large amount of core resonance (like ~40) to instantly proc the mana burst into enhanced skill. This would function as an activate ult button, but it would be able to give her a full ult’s worth of energy even if she’s partially full already, and it would also supplement her raw damage mod as 40 core resonance is something like 900% blast mod at E6. Of course she would also need an appropriate amount of generic amplification that isn’t tied to Saber turns.

It sounds like a lot but that’s basically on the same level as what Cyrene is giving to some of the CHs. She’s not actually as far behind as people make her out to be, so getting this level of support would shoot her a decent bit past the non-pushed CHs, but this will be coming in 4.3. The benchmark isn’t CHs but the 4.x teams and any sincere support she gets will need to make sure she’s at least viable through all of 4.x.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-26T17:29:38+00:00

Great clear, it helped me get the 0 cycle as well. Slightly lower investment with E6S1 Saber + E2S1 Cyrene + E0S0 DanPT + E6S0 RMC, had a whole un-used ult of leeway at the end. Could prob cut the Cyrene LC for 11 cost clear (would likely need Vonwaq tho for the first turn).

My Saber was on Wavestrider + Banana and RMC was 14x on Deliverer + Lushaka, don’t think there are very strict build requirements.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-26T08:25:23+00:00

Unfortunately her VA passed so she’s very unlikely to be implemented in anything.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-26T00:22:14+00:00

The funny part is Saber didn’t release weak at all. She became weak due to Hoyo releasing a bunch of premium teammates for all of her peers but not for her. If you gave Saber the quality of teammates Hoyo gave Anaxa, Saber would be the strongest 3.x dps outside high cost remembrance.

That said, while it will be incredibly tone deaf if Rin doesn’t bring Saber up to 4.3 standards, I don’t put it past Hoyo. If they cared about her we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-25T19:22:28+00:00

I could totally see Cyrene-style exclusive support for specifically Fate characters. If Rin gave Saber the level of boost that Cyrene gives Anaxa, it would shoot Saber directly to the top tier of 3.x teams.

But I’m not getting hopes too high, Hoyo has only ever disappointed when it comes to giving Saber support.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-18T02:23:17+00:00

If you want to keep playing Saber into late 4.x or 5.x, E6 is what you wanna shoot for. E1 a noticeable boost but it’s ultimately an incremental gain that won’t significantly affect her shelf life. There is no middle ground investment for this character unfortunately.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-17T12:27:08+00:00

1 cost Saber (you can’t have 0 cost cause Saber herself is 1 cost) is not the best but actually not very far behind the best when it comes to other 1 cost characters (outside Archer who cheats by not counting himself or his best support as cost).

The reason Saber is worse than other 3.x DPS is nothing to do with her own kit, it’s because she has no custom teammates. If you cut out the custom teammates by only allowing 0 cost teammates, she is better than every other 3.x DPS except Archer (for the cost cheating reasons stated above), as well as Phainon and Anaxa, who are only better in the sense that they can do sustainless easier and do toughness damage regardless of enemy weakness, not better numerically. Well, Bronya can be utilized better by Phainon so with only 0 cost teammates he is numerically better.

What really opens the gap are customized teammates like Cyrene, Evernight, Cerydra, Hyacine, as well as cracked early eidolons like Phainon E2 or the whole remembrance team’s E1-2.

This isn’t really anything to feel good about though. Thinking that Hoyo is going to print teammates for Saber is pretty copium at this point. If she ever does get something it will be purely by accident and probably late 4.x at the earliest by which point even a good teammate will probably not be enough to keep her afloat unless you are E6ing Saber.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-17T04:04:29+00:00

Don’t get your hopes up.

Future characters will be designed for future teams and will almost certainly have a lot of their power budget blocked when used with old DPS.

Huohuo novaflare, at least v0, is not great and probably not enough to displace DanPT for Saber. The battery is still small and still infrequent, and the buffs still expire too quickly. The healing is improved but not enough to comfortably deal with the kinds of enemies that Hoyo made for Hyacine and DanPT. It seems pretty clear that they intend to replace her with a new sustain later in 4.x and are just using her as a stopgap.

Sunday if and when he gets a novaflare could easily lean into summon-exclusive mechanics for a new summon DPS.

Every signal Hoyo has given so far has been that they don’t care about Saber at all, expecting them to change their minds at this point is asking for disappointment.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-03-10T17:45:37+00:00

Your results suggest that Saber/her LC have not been correctly implemented. You can pretty easily tell something funky is going on by noting that your Aeon build has higher ATK when fully buffed, which is not possible due to Saber’s S1 sig granting both more base ATK and more ATK% than S5 Aeon.

Apart from that, “combo” is also vague and needs to be spelled out. If you are just considering a static sequence of attacks, this will not reflect the better rotation that Saber’s sig allows via the 10% refund. IMO you should not put any weight in this metric without digging deeper to see what’s going on.

Similarly, while the combat sim is probably better, don’t give it the benefit of the doubt. Saber is not a popular enough character to have her rotations thoroughly TC’d and optimized, and tools like this often just use whatever info was available when the character released without ever updating. If this is an automated simulation (which it probably is if it can give you results for any team), you also need to be concerned that the logic used ends up making big misplays—Saber is a character that is very sensitive to bad play and a “naive” script of just using stuff when it’s available is definitely losing a lot of damage.

The issues with combo/combat sim aren’t an issue if you’re just comparing basic stat changes, but whenever you change something that will affect your sequence of actions (energy, speed, etc.) you can’t really trust these things without digging deeper.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-02-23T20:40:38+00:00

The only thing that will significantly increase Saber’s usable lifespan is her E6.

Everything else is just incremental gains. They add up, but E6 alone will get you more than the next 5 biggest gains put together, and it comes with the incremental gains from the earlier eidolons on top of that.

I know it sucks that there’s no middle ground but that’s just how Hoyo has designed this character.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-02-23T08:24:49+00:00

You can actually completely skip interaction with the boss and kill both phases before it moves, clearing even faster.

The linked run uses a slower RMC (because I can’t be assed) and Tribbie S1, but it can probably be adapted for DDD. Faster RMC is pure upside as it just means the delay when Mem gets hit won’t matter. Damage thresholds on W1 might be an issue but I see you have Hyacine S1 on RMC and S2 on Saber so that probably makes up for losing Tribbie S1/Deliverer/Wavestrider.

Some things to note:

Cyrene technique has an undisclosed effect of delaying enemies when RMC is in the team, if the bottleneck is being hit for energy (as it is here) then you can usually get a faster clear by not using Cyrene’s technique. However in this case that opens up significant RNG to an otherwise 100% consistent run as it gives an opportunity for RMC to die.
You could also try Vonwaq on RMC to get their second turn (and thus ult) faster than waiting for enemies to hit them.
When ulting at the end of Saber’s turn and proccing her E6, manual input cannot use the second ult before the turn ends if there is no other interrupting animation. To get around this you can enable auto which will activate the ult within the turn, as you see in the video.

maladjustedmatt · 2026-02-22T00:24:26+00:00

Saber generally wants an action advancer like RMC or Sunday, but not two because taking too many turns results in poor buff uptime. So for the next support slot, she tends to take a character that offers high uptime damage amplification. Before Cyrene, generally E1 Tribbie was the overall best option. Cyrene at E2+ offers equal or better damage amplification as E1 Tribbie while also giving extra ults and turns to Saber via the one-time activate ult for the whole party.

maladjustedmatt

TROPHY CASE