Genshin Impact

OK, so this is the second event in a row where Dornman Port gets namedropped

we gonna get to go there soon?

so apparently (upcoming stuff in spoiler)

Instead of Furina or Neuvillette getting an Act 2 for their story quest in 4.6, we're getting Cyno's instead?

Assuming so, it's possible that this hypothetical Story/Interlude Quest for Cyno may give some insight into the Temple of Silence, the enigmatic organization to which even the Akademiya apparently defers and which appears as his affiliation per his in-game profile.

Also, assuming Arlecchino's raw power is offset by needing strong shielders (e.g., Zhongli) to survive, and given the influx of new Geo units as of late (e.g., Navia and Chiori, in addition to a recent re-run of Itto and rate-ups for Gorou and Yun Jin), I've this gut feeling that the Natlan patches may be partly built with the idea of incentivizing players to use Geo constructs and/or shields to survive whatever it has in store—walking on magma, extreme heat, enemies with gimmicks that discourage healing (e.g., absorbs healing intended for the party) and/or encourage using shields/constructs (e.g., weak to rebound damage), etc..

Edited by zero5889 on Mar 15th 2024 at 1:14:37 AM

Please make Cyno do bad puns in his own story quest, that was literally why I did his first one in the first place and literally none of that happened. But also, dammit, I would love to see an Act 2 to Furina or Neuvi's quests. Especially the former. IDK how they can top the latter's.

Maybe this is going to make Amber useful if there are times when you just need to get out of dodge instead of facing a horde of strong enemies.

hahahahahaha, no.

For one I don't think there's a single enemy in the game that can actually outrun the player, even the ones that teleport have a long wind up. For two enemies are coded with pretty small territory zones that they're forced to reset to if outside of too long. All to decrease this game's very high data load.

So I don't think we're going to suddenly get a Xenoblade Territorial Rothbart in Natlan.

Perhaps, but it sure does feel like Abyss Mages have an infinite aggro radius and can teleport all the way across the world

Ruin Graders have some obnoxiously long range too, to the point where you might as well just kill them to stop the annoying missile barrage interrupting you when you're exploring if you aggro them.

So apparently Cyno's Korean VA died

Am I the only one who thinks we're getting an oversupply of Pyro characters recently? Like, Arlecchino will be the fourth since Fontaine dropped. And we're probly gonna get at least a few more in Natlan.

Honestly, based on the fact that we only got 2 Hydro characters throughout 4.x, I am betting Natlan will just have their flagship character and their archon as Pyro.

Hoyoverse has never been the best at balancing. There was a long stretch of pyro and cryo between versions 1 and 2, geo went missing for over a year, there was only one polearm character at launch, dendro didn't drop until version 3 and seems to have left us when that version finished.

Fire getting way more focus is pretty typical, given it's association as a "hero" element.

Edited by Stage7-4 on Mar 16th 2024 at 12:39:07 PM

Overall the elements are pretty fairly distributed. 80 playables

• 11 Anemo
• 15 Cryo
• 8 Dendro
• 11 Electro
• 9 Geo
• 11 Hydro
• 15 Pyro

Cryo and Pyro do have more than anyone else but I would expect Electro and Hydro to catch up in Natlan. Anemo, Dendro and Geo lagging behind largely makes sense, Geo especially is problematic.

Edited by Memers on Mar 16th 2024 at 12:46:37 PM

IIRC, the distribution over time of the various elements is lopsided, which can lead to there feeling like there's more or less of each element than there actually are.

Like, I too often feel like there's less Hydro characters than there actually are, but that may come from the fact that for the longest time there were only three hydro characters, and they suddenly had a bit of a boom after Inazuma.

Unrelated, but I love that the latest event is a mini-potion store management sim. I like that little subgenre of management sim.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 16th 2024 at 2:13:56 AM

Pyro was very front-loaded with Diluc, Klee and Hu Tao, but then it took up to Dehya until we got another Pyro 5* or until Lyney if you only count limited ones. But yeah it is wild that Xiangling is still the only real Pyro-Offielder with only EM-Thoma coming remotely close.

woops forgot about Yoimiya

I've enjoyed this event so much I even looked up some actual potion management games because I wanted to keep going after I hit the time block.

Curiously some content creators leaked that there soon might be a rework of how HOYO handles beta content, allowing stuff on the Test Servers to be shown to a general public as long as they approve of the script (meaning they won't tolerate people calling new chars "mid" or similar smack talk).

Edited by Kiefen on Mar 16th 2024 at 2:05:47 PM

I had a good time with Potion Craft, if you're down for a recommendation.

Edit: Oh, man. I love the design of the event spear. It's straight up a Rod of Asclepius.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 17th 2024 at 5:07:03 AM

(it's actually the Caduceus, for Hermes. Asclepius is one snake and no wings)

But it is a sweet looking weapon. Too bad it completely invalidates the Fontaine forge weapon. Guess it's back to the Kitain Cross Spear as the only one worth forging.

that stupid sudoku puzzle on watatsumi island can go suck a dick

and you have to do it three times too

Oh that was Sudoku? I just brute forced it...

Dendro not having many characters makes sense given when it was introduced. I expect Natlan will have some, and hopefully Nahida won't be needed in almost every single Dendro team anymore.

Geo needs a rework. We need a Nilou for Crystallize. Navia at least does something novel with the shards but she's more like a Eula than a Nilou. Chiori is a massive disappointment, we didn't need Albedo II slapping Albedo fans in the face while doing nothing to solve Geo's fundamental problems.

Well, there's potential in Natlan to give Geo and Dendro a much needed boost since it's the nation of war and all.

For Geo, we could get a unit that uses the shards to make elementally charged quakes around them while making defense count for the final damage output like Noelle, that would make Geo more useful in general and encourage using either Pyro units to make the quakes more lethal or Electro units if this ability comes from an ultimate.

For Dendro, the focus could go into Burning and/or Burgeon. For Burning they would have to design a unit that enhances DoT to make it a more viable reaction, as for Burgeon, they need to add a gimmick that makes it more attractive than Hyperbloom, maybe have the cores pack a health drain that heals you the more it hurts enemy?

The trouble with Burgeon and Burning right now is that they risk killing you a lot faster than your enemies. Pyro doesn't really have any viable healers besides Bennett right now and Bennett means you have to stay in your circle to heal. Burning also just doesn't do enough damage to enemies, so to make it viable you'd need something that massively increased its power without murdering you at the same time. Burgeon is good in AOE, but there aren't enough units that can reliably Burgeon right now and it has the same issue as Burning where you risk killing yourself with Burning. Hyperbloom is safer because you won't die doing it and Nilou teams have way more choices in units to protect themselves with, making them the better options at the moment.

If we had a Pyro Kokomi who healed you and did off-field damage, or a unit that made Burning heal you rather than burn, Burgeon would probably be more popular.

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 18th 2024 at 11:47:37 AM

Chevreuse is a healer, but she's built around overload, not dendro reactions

Actually, this is my other problem with Pyro. Despite having the most units in the game, they all do the same thing. Like, Xiangling is still the only viable off-field applicator. Of the four Pyro characters we've had this year, three of them are on field main DPS units (if the leaks about Arlecchino's kit are accurate.)

I think they're terrified of accidentally making another Xiangling. Not that that stopped them from making Yelan when Xingqiu existed, mind you. The problem is if they make the character weaker than Xiangling, no one will pull for them. Why spend for a worse character than a free 4*?

EDIT: On the elements that need help, Cryo could probably use some love too. Not reacting with Dendro has kind of pushed it out of the meta except for Freeze, which is useless for bosses. Yes, Melt is still viable, but there's not really a unit yet that really capitalizes on Melt (Ganyu, yes, but she's not really meta anymore).

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 18th 2024 at 12:33:32 PM

they should make every element interact

dendro crystals and dendro swirls

IDK what cryo/dendro and geo/anemo would be though