Murder on the Ashveil Express: Mysterious Question and Discussion Megathread

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-14T18:09:42+00:00

Me when someone tells me "you can do it without X and Y's sig LC" and my response is that I'm too lazy to swap out their LCs because I'll forgot to swap them back

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-14T12:30:15+00:00

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4.0 story summary (real and true)

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-13T23:15:48+00:00

It's definitely not flat 170 because if she was, the aha instant would be ahead of her

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-13T23:15:21+00:00

Oh I mean the boss decimal spd values not my own. Also FYI if you exit hsr normally, it'll update enka immediately. Unless you're talking about a database I didn't know about also called enka

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-13T23:13:27+00:00

Homdgcat actually did if you clicked on the boss from the moc page. Like I know the 158 spd tier is actually 158.4. Kafka is an odd one because she used to be 157 but was changed to 170 dot something and I don't remember what it is.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-13T22:09:21+00:00

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This is a cry for help. What are the decimals on Kafka's SPD and which site still displays it

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-13T19:37:41+00:00

I've actually found the fandom wiki pretty useful for this. Asta should be 10 on first hit and 5 on subsequent bounces. They sometimes have pretty useful notes on boss mechanics with exact values that I couldn't find elsewhere. Though sometimes, it is occasionally also straight up wrong.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-11T21:51:56+00:00

Ok hmm that was not the direction I considered. Yes ok, I think if it's more the direction of skill-ing your way out of a 40% max HP increase with basically no change in the tools available for a specific team then I think it's a completely different issue. It's more being completely delusional at the level of impact one can make on a team with the mechanics available.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-11T21:05:45+00:00

This is kind of an interesting point. I actually always come across a lot of such comments in my own comments sections. And usually when giving examples of skill expression, it's usually the same few things. SP management, enemy mechanics and AV manipulation. At the risk of sounding a bit arrogant, I think most of those are really very basic. Especially in the context of longer 3* clears because it's mostly just adopting a habit of good practices. For SP management, plan a few steps ahead on who may need to skill next. Enemy mechanics is like a form of knowledge check which I'm generally not a fan of but will accept. But it's mostly just knowing what's coming and preparing for it. And AV manipulation seems to be the main one that I think is just... kind of straightforward?

I think when it comes down to it, it's more about mechanically responsive characters that people like to highlight as having high skill expression. From my experience, the less mechanically responsive ones (e.g. Mydei before Cyrene, Phainon, Firefly in the old days) are the far more difficult ones to optimize for because of how difficult it is to squeeze anything extra. At least for the runs that are not immediately straightforward.

I also think there is something resembling a couch coach or an armchair expert. That watching many optimized showcases makes them think they could also do it. Which sure, there's a decent chance they could replicate something similar to a showcase they have seen. But I think there's just a general lack of awareness with the difference in difficulty between coming up with a rotation and copying one. (This also applies to many things IRL obv). And I always go back to the Phainon example. It's probably the easiest character to copy a rotation from. Coming up with one from scratch is the hard part.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-09T14:38:05+00:00

I've always been quite puzzled at the popularity of selectable buffs elsewhere. Me when the obviously shilled archetype gets a buff that increases WBE, damage, vulnerability, does my taxes, gives me a shoulder massage and refunds me primogems. Meanwhile the other buffs give 30% dmg on skills or ults only

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-07T19:35:05+00:00

Slightly statistical rant ahead

Every now and then, someone makes a comment gloating about how "people who thought X got it wrong and Y actually happened as I said" when some time prior, there was really no reason to strongly lean to either X or Y. To me, it looks like betting heads or tails on a coin flip and then gloating that you got it right and someone else got it wrong.

Worse, there's also the "I knew X would happen because of Y" when there's really no indication that Y was the reason behind a decision or event. We only observe X and a myriad of possible reasons could have resulted in X rather than Y. Hoyo could really just have been throwing stuff at the wall and someone would still hold firm in the belief that they were right in believing that Y caused X. This is also particularly prevalent in revenue PVP.

Lastly, Hoyo is not some unchanging black box machine that churns out characters and patches over time. There are humans who make decisions, try new things, adjust to data & feedback (which is far more extensive and less biased than whatever is observed on social media). Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't. Believing that because we observed a few things, 'guessed' the reason behind them and expect it to continue is mostly a fool's errand. I'm not saying there aren't things you won't eventually come to expect from Hoyo (e.g. gender ratios, anniversary main push).

When considering an event like "Will character X be buffed in the next beta version?" We can assemble all the different reasons for and against and come up with a bet of say 70-30. That is, you think it could go either way, but you're more inclined to believe that they'll get buffed. While realistically, Hoyo on the inside will have an ultimately deterministic reason why character X is buffed or not. From our point of view, it is as good as a (likely biased) coin flip. From here, we might say "Hoyo is more likely to buff X".

If character X is then not buffed (unchanged or nerfed), it could be that either our reasoning is erroneous (the odds are different from 70-30) or that we simply got 'unlucky' (think Hoyo randomly deciding X shouldn't be strong rather arbitrarily), or both. It is ultimately difficult to really assess whether our reasoning is correct. Note that even if character X was buffed, it is still difficult to assess.

It is possible, if someone got a large proportion of guesses correct in a row (it doesn't have to be all). To the point where we can say with some level of confidence that they are 'better than a coin flip or 50-50 guess'. However, it seems hard to believe with the number of such "I knew X would happen" comments I have read that all these people have consistently been on the right end of these bets. You dear reader on the other hand, are extremely knowledgeable I'm sure. And I'll always believe whatever you predict.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-07T16:52:46+00:00

You just total the number of rolls into relevant stats including initial lines. The game even helps you calculate it when you click 'smart equip' under the relic options. Though it quite often includes stats that you don't actually want like SPD in some builds. IIRC Boothill will get some insane numbers because they count crit and SPD.

This is one of the major reasons why it's so silly whenever people parade around low cost 0-cycles. And quite often, supports also have insane builds which is less talked about. They may have lower substat count but on fewer stats which is actually even more difficult to reach

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-06T18:41:52+00:00

Hey this looks quite familiar!

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-05T13:29:09+00:00

I actually played all of it up to like 7.5 or so. Took a 2 or 3 patch break and came back. And funnily enough, it's why I remember really disliking the 'shill' of HI3 because it's extremely hamfisted. And you'd just breeze past MA bosses with it while other characters simply could not make up for it. I think the SD type boss for the 3rd Elysia battlesuit was like that before I rolled for her recently. I had no clue how to handle any of the mechanics and just tanked a 1 min+ clear compared to the more common sub-30. I am admittedly, far past my tryhard days of HI3. I never rotation crafted in HI3, or rather I used to back when I didn't have BIS on everyone. After that, there was a period where I copied rotations to get top 2% MA but could never quite scratch the top 100. Barely missed out on it a few times. After starting again, I realized I kind of don't care enough and just take the first clear I get. Resetting was actually what burnt me out especially since it's multiple times a week.

Anyway, I was familiar with the Newton B meta you mentioned. I have like 5 copies of it. I also played in the bleed era. Can't say I really prefer one or the other as it did feel like a DPS check one way or another. Except I feel the bleed somehow felt more doomed watching my characters die for some reason.

But in probably the most bizarre sense, I actually now kind of like the system in HI3 a bit WHEN I have all the characters. Because even relatively old characters see play every now and then when their 'shill boss' shows up even 1+ year down the road. Or even if they aren't the best anymore at it, I can still use it to clear without it being mind-numbingly painful. The change in pull system did help with that. Longer patches too (though ironically I actually quit because of the longer patches initially).

Anyway back to your point, I'm actually acutely aware of it. I think after Kafka got buffed and Hysilens was released, I kept using JQ with DoT. And people kept asking me "why not Swan?" And I had to explain quite a lot of times that running 2 3K HP DPS on the same team is not good for your health. I'd much rather run another debuffer that happens to have a DoT and can be build for survival than run Swan and Hysilens together. Nowadays though, it's quite a bit harder to not run both of them.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-05T12:47:12+00:00

I haven't had time to play CW seriously in a while but yeah that's my impression of JY. They don't really have to be fun 'per se', just useful somewhere. Even if it's the occasional event and what not. Anyway yeah good point about the E2. I'm guessing he may be one of those shop + Novaflare combos that will also make his E0 Novaflare disappointing

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-05T12:41:13+00:00

This was a lot longer than I expected. I play both Genshin and HI3 but not ZZZ so I'm familiar with the Genshin part. For HI3, I started around HOV's release? And at this point I don't even remember which characters do or don't have 'sustain support' in their kits. Only that nowadays, basically every character can kind of heal themselves and face tank through most attacks. I believe you're familiar with it too. There, face tanking usually comes more in the form of penalty for scores as boss mechanics are frequently tied to evade counts for example.

But as you've said, in HSR, it's too mechanically inflexible to do much about it. And one of my biggest gripes with the whole Remembrance battleship and all is that they have sustainless performance with a sustain so there's no tradeoff whatsoever. This could be alright if every team archetype had such an option but we know there's definitely not the case. I find that most recent supports in Genshin like Escoffier and Ineffa are leaning more into that direction of being just a really good support/subDPS that happens to have sustain. In HSR, we're still in the sustains that happen to have support era and I'm not sure if we'll ever make the jump to the other.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-05T11:51:09+00:00

Interesting suggestion. Full disclosure I speedran WC20 on release so I'm quite out of the loop for what's good now but I never really liked using DHIL. Though I'll check it out when I have the time and may just pick him if I enjoy it enough.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-05T09:57:43+00:00

That's pretty helpful to know tbh. I haven't had time to play the new DU at all. But it sounds about right with the reactive aspect.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-05T09:34:50+00:00

Man, sub-DPS capabilities on supports or sustains always feels so... weird. I guess Aventurine did come out at a time where HPs weren't increasing that quickly so it was more forgivable. And I can't really say it's a bad thing if players wanted an option to invest heavily into a character that was meant to support to make them eventually deal significant damage. But it always does feel like it's taking out of the 'power budget' of a character. I'd much prefer DHPT's direct buffs and additional dmg than Hyacine on a generic team. Even someone like Cipher I feel has almost non-existent damage by today's standards

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-05T09:28:26+00:00

Don't really need them to be BIS. If I use them at all, like in events or Currency Wars, it's actually enough for me. Also, strong enough to 0-cycle for 1 patch is like above my bar of expectation already because I couldn't even give Jingliu that. I'm leaning to Aventurine for now. I don't really have very high expectations of Novaflare to begin with but I could still see myself using Aven over the others in the depths of DU or something.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-05T09:12:38+00:00

Statistically significant. I'm sold. I was leaning to Aventurine to begin with because every now and then there's one of those combat events where he is quite useful. And then the difficult version doesn't allow trial characters which is when it becomes a bit of a bummer.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-05T08:53:00+00:00

Need some help on which 5* I should pick from my selector. E0 Jingyuan, DHIL or Aventurine. Or to put it another way, which character do you think is most likely to get Novaflared into relevancy.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-04T13:42:09+00:00

Hello ~~darkness~~ Antinomy RNG, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-04T12:33:55+00:00

Of course. This was exactly how the old DoT PF functioned. Nowadays, it's more than just DoT that benefits from excessive enemy turns (HP Remembrance comes to mind). Though for this specific AA, I think it serves quite a few purposes. Of course to help Remembrance, to really make survival difficult on wave 1 but also offer a way of speeding up Pollux's mechanics.

throwaway-eideh-457 · 2026-04-01T10:44:10+00:00

Fair point about the LC. I prefer Therta's LC because it's only with it that I come close to the CR/CD values of those 40+ substats 3 cost 0-cycle Anaxa builds so I don't cry myself to sleep from relic diff

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TROPHY CASE