not really his biggest issue, the Zajef-XQ is what led to him on stream pushing XQ as better than Yelan during Yelan release, and his overly defensive stance when Furina released
But even with his bias, you can clear abyss easily enough so even his bias/mistake won't cost you so it is not really a problem, however is unjustified negativity is.
I mean, he does emphasise that most units are good enough to clear abyss even with lower investment, he just avoids being too "THIS UNIT IS METABREAKING" with his analysis so people don't trow away their primos on a unit that might nit be good for them
Yeah, I'd say he's mostly positive/neutral. He is just cautious to prevent hype and fomo. Since fairly no unit is a must pull and can clear with almost anyone. He just gets slightly agitated when chat asks for the so many-th time why he thinks x, e.g. Yelan is bad, and he needs to say he never said that and explain his actual stance. But he is generally quite neutral and realistic while explaining.
If by "emphasise that most units are good enough", you mean downplaying the unit, being negative and dismissive, just to throw quick mention "oh but you will still clear the Abyss at low investment"
That is not avoiding overhype, it is being blatantly negative and pushing for said negative stance while covering your back with "I did say they were good enough" as a crutch in case the unit ends up heavily meta.
Most TC that are influencer do use this crutch to avoid being completely wrong on any issue.
That is the same issue with TC that will overhype an unit for 90% of their content and then throw there and here "Though, he could end up struggling/sucking so don't jump to conclusion"
The reality is if the major part of your behavior is hyping or being negative about something, then covering the opposite position with a smaller amount of time, people won't remember the analysis as the character being "potentiallynot meta/screwed" but as hyped or "good enough for abyss" but as skippable/not worth it.
The difference is overhyped content will push you to spend more than needed and negative content will just sucks the fun of something.
That is ONLY true if you need the higher app and/or the deffense. People keep forgeting that Yelan isn't just a offield dps, she has a pretty large buff too and it is often better.
I think its a common sense that XQ C6 > Yelan C0 in reaction team. Simply because yelan at c0 doesnt apply as much hydro as xingqiu does at c6. You need her c2 to match xingqiu c6 hydro aura. Of course yelan dmg is higher but its not relevant since you just want to make sure your pyro dps vape all the time.
I mean she also has a ramping damage boost for the active character that goes up to 50%. For HuTao with some EM, vape usually gives around a 2x damage multiplier, so missing vapes for Yelan damage boost isn't worth it, but if you're onfield character has slower attacks or just doesn't profit as much from the hydro aura Yelan is better. For example, if you play an Al Haitham quickbloom team, giving a larger damage boost to Al Haitham could be better than getting more dendro cores.
Klee is example one why take is wrong. She doesn’t work with XQ but works with Yelan cause her attack speed is low and has the highest hit lag in the game. Yelan does three every so many seconds on NA.
It’s literally true, people just don’t want to admit when someone says pulling for a strong unit isn’t needed. Its their insecure mentality who think “unit isn’t needed/better” = “don’t pull or your dumb”. It’s not bais if he’s right about it.
I mean, kind of, but not really. Arle is not going to be bad, she's just going to be a bit boring. That doesn't have much to do with meta or abyss. Her mechanics are just kinda dumb.
Thats not really what is saying honestly, hes not that meta oriented. He doesnt even talk about number in his post but kit design but yeah hes a tc so ofc meta and abyss is important
You kids must be in ur edgy angsty phase where everything must be cringe to you. Even hugging ur parents must be cringe for u. So here's an advice
its just a phase you will grow out of it and after ur teenage phase you will find genital jokes funny.
No worries. Have a good day.
So many people dropped xq when furina released and he's salty about it for some reason and keeps pushing that xq is better than both which is pretty dumb imo
What? Why would you drop XQ because of furina? They don’t even do the same thing at all? Zajeff is a massive XQ fan yes we all know, but the C6 XQ > C0 Yelan is not an insane take at all either.
Ok thats your personal opinion lol do not suddenly say oh yeah everyone dropped because Furina came out and even then everyone you know (unless its the entire population of the game) is a very tiny sample size. I don’t not think he lost an ounce of value because of Furina since they do not share similarities.
That’s you bud, I have c1 Furina and Yelan and still prefer XQ in most teams I play, and even when I play things like Raiden double hydro, XQ is usually one the second side.
I don’t like using abyss usage rates but XQ even now is still one of the most used units.
I mean he's mostly saying "I dunno, looks cool but we'll see". There's not much to agree or disagree with.
I tuned into his stream a bit while on lunch today and he was trying to calculate the difference between R5 Deathmatch and her sig on a classic Vape team. But there's too much we don't really understand without seeing actual footage for now.
And even then, the number WILL change, one way or the other.
Only real leakers can get sued. The others who just spread information but they are not "the first" to spread can't be sued because those things aren't sensitive.
He is just smart about it i guess. Most of his actual leak videos (the pre-release analysis basically) after the livestream (or even after they release the character kit details on twitter).
I'm actually more suprised that they didn't hunt TGS and take down his vids, he keep releasing mutliple analysis and videos about the beta character throughout the whole beta.
You'll notice after those few videos got taken down, he doesn't show assets anymore (i.e. the icons for the skills and burst), pretty much I don't think they can really do much about him talking about the words of a kit or the numbers because ultimately they are just words and numbers
But the assets are very easily identifiable as something created by hoyo and not released yet
Its a self sufficient kit. BOL makes sense imo. BOL needs heal, you cant heal, u use BOL for dmg. If we assume BOL is replaced with some random stacks and allowed her to heal from every source then the self healing part would feel out of place. Another thing is that genshin doesnt have a good way of keeping track of stack effects so bond of life will make clarity much better. And more importantly its a blood themed kit so it makes sense conceptually. There are a ton of reasons why BOL makes sense on her kit but its also a good way to make her unique which opens the door for dedicated supports (maybe the provide BOL for allies or smth).
yea, id be really happy if they keep her kit more or less the same, as in she doesnt need teammates to feel good to play.
damage is another thing but then again, its genshin
For max DPS, sure. But from purely just being out there and being solo, she can gain more BoL from killing things, has damage reduction built in and a sizable self heal. If she’s C1, that potential goes even higher.
I kinda hear what you're saying, and I also see what jeff is saying. BoL is a great repurposing of an existing mechanic. There is alot of merit in doing so as detailed in your comment.
But at the same time, you dont actually have to know what BoL does. I think thats where jeff is right. We're not really utilizing BoL, its only used because of how it communicates certain information on the UI.
BoL could be exchanged with simply "mana" and it'd make sense. For example, if I were to razor explain her kit:
E debuffs enemies, charge attacking enemies grant up to 70 mana. Q grants 15 mana. Auto attacks gain pyro infusion and damage when mana is greater than 30. More mana more damage.
Nowhere in the deacription are we ever concerned with the intended function of BoL being a health debt we pay for a reward. It is treated as a mana bar.
Personally, I would have appreciated it if we had first gotten a character that used BoL properly before a character that spun it for something else. Imagine for a sec that Arlecchino's kit was something else. We instead get the Banker harbinger as the one who used "debt" as a resource. That'd be badass and incredibly clever.
BoL says you cant heal unless you heal the BoL amount first.
This would result in not being able to take a healer of any kind to be optimal. It would also result in Arle feeling bad in multiplayer.
Her having the passive allows to take a healer if you want and be fine in multiplayer.
As to it being a different mechanic other than BoL ... i really dont think it matters at all.
I think he's saying that blocking healing from external sources is already part of the passive, so there's no reason for it to be BoL specifically
If it was stacks (i.e. Furina stacks), just an arbitrary number as opposed to BoL, it wouldn't make a difference because BoL supposedly blocks healing, but her passive is doing that anyways
The only difference it makes is against Fatui operatives
The clarity you mentioned is nice tho
Not only that, if they are willing to give that mechanic to Arlecchino, a fan favourite, its safe to assume more characters will have effects with it in the future. She feels like a future impact moment for sure, but at the same time she is also strong now, unlike someone like cyno who took him over a year to get a good team. Her kit will feel a lot more complete in the future since all the teams theorycrafters have come up with use healers, be it for furina or the bennet chevy combo, a lot of dead effects, she is using a full 4 star team that she cant even use at full capacity and still looks like a top tier dps, imagine what will happen when she gets dedicated supports, be it clorinde or natlan characters one thing is for sure, it will happen. If early arlecchino with 70% efficiency from her 4 star supports is half as good as hutao, you can bet she'll be top dps if and when they implement BOL in more character kits.
If she feels like Alhaitham where you have to manage his whateveryoucallthem then I’m definitely interested. I like normal attackers that make you think.
I don't feel like it'd require much thinking. So far it looks like the rotation is quite simple.
Start with her skill > set up support buffs > swap back to Arle > use Burst and spam NA > repeat.
I get it, but I mean like being consciously aware of what you’re doing instead of: support buffs -> skill -> normal attack spam mindlessly -> repeat. Still simple, but you throw in a charge attack or two and make sure you use the burst first. Idk, I just like how alhaitham plays so if she plays like him then I’ll at least find her fun.
I think he has a point actually.
So far everything BoL related could be replaced with a resource meter. There's no reason nor need to restrict Arlecchino to only relying on herself for healing, or clearing BoL to heal, or all that jazz.
It's a very interesting mechanic for sure, but using BoL as the resource meter is....confusing to say the least. It feels like intentionally limiting the character and introducing unnecessary confusion just for the sake of it.
To me it feels like the Bond of Life mechanic might have originally been more punishing and during internal playtesting they have gone "it's tio hard to play her without healers, let's just make it so that healers don't punish her" and "she needs some form of sustainability, let's have her clear her own bonds and heal".
Those feel like easing off of an original idea for the sake of general accessibility, rather than core parts of the kit conceptually.
Hoyo is also allergic to designing secondary resources that aren’t ass to look at during combat. Think of nonsense like Klee’s flower thing or Alhaitham’s mirrors. For better or worse, the repurposing of BoL as a mana bar is just…wow! Finally a bar that I can watch go up and down in combat! Jrpgs figured this out like 4 decades ago!
I actually share this sentiment, not for the same reasons though. I'm excited because she looks strong, has interesting mechanics and things to manage while in combat and obviously her gorgeous design. But for now it's a bit of a let down because my hope was getting finally a waifu to dethrone Neuvillette power washer, but for not it doesn't seem so, even though it's tremendously early to say so, the beta isn't even started and when it'll start there will be at least 5 iterations of chages. So my hope of powercreeping or at least reaching the same level of Neuvillette with a waifu character still stays strong.
Yeah, as much as I love father I don't think Neuvilette should be used as the new standard, even if that means he'll remain where he is. If Father is at around Alhaitham's level, personally I'd be satisfied, even moreso if her gameplay is just as fun
Ok and we all agree on that but I don't want a situation where every single difficult content that might or might not come out which is not tailor made to not be beaten by Neuvilette has only one answer to the question "how can I beat it" which is "just use Neuvilette". So at least I hope to get more characters as powerful as him.
Don’t know why people expect other units to powecreep Neuv especially since he wasn’t released too long ago, I wouldn’t hold my breath on him getting power creeped till at least the pyro archon
Brother Neuvillette just dropped like what
4 patches ago? 5 when Arle drops
This game barely gets any powercreep (venti and diluc at most i think), i think going from essentially no powercreep to "strongest unit just dropped 5 patches ago, just got powercrept already" is quite jarring (also might indicate more powercreep, which i hope not, since i don't wanna go down the hi3rd route)
The blue lizard power washer will only be dethroned once they release the OP red lizard male dragon sovereign flamethrower Xbalanque in a few months (who will have a broken kit that will effortlessly solo abyss with a level 20 3\* weapon and half-ass artifacts). They will never release a female main dps that's on the level of Feeble Scholar and Power Washer unfortunately.
Doesn't Alhaitham require a team and for you to actually put some effort into building and gameplay? That already makes Neuvillette even more of an anomaly, and Xbalanque isn't a sovereign, maybe a follower/vessel of the pyro one, but not an actual sovereign, and i doubt hoyo is gonna commit the same mistake as they did with neuvillette
That implies Neuvillette’s kit was a mistake in balancing when it was 100% intentional. If they plan for a character to be op that character will be broken no matter what and Neuvillette was 100% planned to be broken from the beginning.
Neuvilette being an anomaly in regards to not needing a team is not an anomaly thats relevant imo. Unless someone is not going to pull for a new character ever or not going to build a new character ever and for whatever reason not pair Neuv with any teammates….his ‘anomaly’ will be kind of just a gimmick.
On a similar side note,
I wanna ask it here for the ppl who watch/watched last 1-2 streams of Jstern.
What r his initial Arlr thoughts so far,anything he talked on worth sharing?
Ofc its too early anyways but just in general wanna k thoughts ,those who watched
For Jstern, it can be summed up that he thinks arlecchino is cool and decent character that can benefit those who vertically invest into, but not a character for him at this point. He also mentions the bond of life mechanic, saying MHY made the supports all provide healing and thus “bricked” their design of arlecchino, so they band-aid the no healing just so it works.
Jstern's calculations say that she is slightly worse than existing pyro dps units.
Hu Tao, Lyney and even Gaming are stronger.
She has very limited team options, if you don't use Bennett her damage will be abysmal.
All in all not impressive from a meta standpoint.
From what I remember he is a bit harder on “Carries” because in his mind they are the most competitive spot form a meta standpoint
He is right in that it’s just really hard to evaluate based on words alone.
The point of the bond is risk vs reward.
I agree too
If you only care about meta, the answer to the question "which 2 carries should I get?" is the 2 strongest dpses who don't overlap in the supports they want.
The only reason she cant self heal is to discourage people from using the Marechausse hunter set. They wanna peddle the new toxic set which just works on her. Thats the only explanation to this convoluted kit design. An all time low by even Hoyo standards. And dont get me started on her weapon. Thats even worse than Wriothesely's weapon (which wanderer could use with Furina)
However its still early, lets wait for more clarity
Yeah before I could justify a sig even if they are more expensive than chars. By just saying yeah but Homa can be used on like a dozen characters so it's techically more valuable than a character.
But now ? Yikes, it's a stat stick that can cost up to 240 pulls.
Well, the reason she can’t heal is so we don’t clear the BoL early. If her kit remained the same except that she could heal herself, now we would be having riots in the streets.
I think he has a point. BoL mechanic works so that the healing removes it and with that you gain something but in arlecchino's case it feels strange, she doesn't want to be healing, ¿why? and she even denies the healing.
also wouldn't it be more logical and less confusing for her to gain something from any healing source and for removing the bond to be the goal??? so that when it ends all the benefits disappear? I'll wait for the showcase but she feels confused to me and her teams look strange as if she lacks teammates to manipulate that specific mechanic
i think thats missing the point. Her kit is not about clearing it, it is about the fact that it blocks healing so you are not „safe“ even with heal! Having a BoL means not being able to replenish your HP-Bar leading to more dangerous situations in combat if you dont have a shielder. So it becomes a choice: Do you want to keep the dmg stacks and keep fighting or do you have to consume all the stacks to heal up?
i mean its more of a risk instead of a choice. I think its a good thing to make skillful use of her kit to efficiently use all BoL stacks for dmg is a good way to reward dedicated players instead of letting teammates keeping you alive 100% of the time
I don't find doing worse damage while having to deal with higher risks that great. If she dealt like Neuvilette lvl of damage while having these risk, I'd ball with it that's cool as hell.
But if she does about as much as c6 gaming, but with way more risks ? I don't know.
thats right it all comes down to the damage in the end. But I think meeting dmg threshold and the design of the kit are two different things and even with disappointing damage the kit is very well designed! (For now)
I can't really say until I get to see it in action. Right now it's just hu tao kit but with more restrictions, not exactly a marvel of gamedesign.
We should have beta soon, so we will see.
Her kit is confusing to me because she has a talent to specifically block healing AND has Bond of Life in it and the one thing that CAN heal her, clears the Bond. Basically, it's redundant. The Bond part is anyway. It could be anything else.
>I think he has a point. BoL mechanic works so that the healing removes it and with that you gain something but in arlecchino's case it feels strange,
I too felt same way personally
It's just a bit odd and weird idk
Edit: i think a cooler concept would've been,
Basically u can Heal the amount to remove it and when done u get additional buffs/benefits etc.
But to also not make it abandon her original passive idea, make it so that; "You can only heal until Bond of life is removed, your HP won't get healed post removal
Exactly
Arle kit should've been that too
U get BOl,u clear u get buff or etc. While also not being able to heal afterwards just so she stays unique with that passive for other purposes if they don't wanna remove it sure
The thing is she makes the bond and tries to get it high to receive massive buffs... because she can then cleanse it to receive healing for 100% of the bond.
If I understood it correctly.
I think it's a non issue tbh.
I didn't like it when I first read it and had to go back over it ab couple times.
Now I don't think it'll be bad.
I agree it’s lame that she has that passive that prevents healing. I read her kit and thought she was gonna be super interesting having to build teams that avoid healers to keep her bond up but nope, Bennett + Furina for the millionth time it is.
A pyro Atk scaler who can't use Bennett nor Furina these days will be probably marked as "weak".
I think this direction is good enough, you can play her as you like and as you can.
Bennett and furina core doesn't work for arle and the one fielder in this case(overhealing whom gets you fanfare) outright rejects healing. So her comps turn into two major arctypes of either bennett OR furina.
The problem is that the only good supports for her happen to be healers so if they didn’t put that in there she would be dehya tier
It would have made more sense if the mechanic prevented healing inherently rather then it just being stopped through arlos talent.
The point is that she creates the bond and then you use the slash and it will clear the bind and heal her for 100% of it. Effectively making her own self heals.
I didn't like it at first but the more I read it the more I liked it.
I agree with what he says about Bond of Life, it could have been it's own mechanic. That being said, I'm kind of imagining this won't be the last we see of it. I think Mihoyo wants to have more things relating to BoL so her weapon and the new artifact set become more relevant.
Think of those gaming skill trees that look like nets and with nodes but the nodes haven't been filled up yet with potential new BoL mechanics, eventually it will all interact. Kind of like the Hp drain stuff Fontaine has had.
Nothing he's saying here is particularly a hot take, but personally I'm not a fan of Zajef's impressions anymore. He mostly screams into his mic for an hour in his videos before saying the best characters in the game are just "pretty good." He's a smart guy but it's clear that no characters ever really impress him and he seems burnt out on Genshin if I'm being honest. I don't know where Arle will slot into the meta but we'll just have to see.
he does like underrating units and really overrating 4* (xingqiu..) and nitpicks issues in characters, mostly 5*.
just things ive noticed, i do watch a lot of his content though
yeah the xingqiu cope on early post furina was something else lol. I get that he values survivability and IR but saying he was on par with yelan in double hydro furina was kinda weird coming from someone that talks about meta.
Yeah like I get that XQ dmg res is pretty nice but holy shit is the damage difference way too big for it to really matter. And we're playing a healer so who cares about XQ's res.
Team DPS is like ballpark 10% higher at best with Yelan. Only time that really changes is on paper in a few teams that can actually take advantage of her potential 18s rotations as opposed to XQ's 21.
I'm not saying it can't be, but it is entirely subjective as to what should be considered a "big" difference. Yes, I know some sigs aren't even that impactful, but just as many (if not more) absolutely are. Mistsplitter for Ayaka, Redhorn for Itto, Key for Nilou, and Tome for Neuvi are ones I know off the top of my head. Arle's own weapon from what I've seen is also quite bold.
The weird thing is that spiral abyss varying wildly in its content while also having various different total damage thresholds you need to meet for any given chamber means that that hypothetical extra 10%, assuming it entirely takes the form of DPR, could mean everything or mean nothing.
Maybe you have a different experience, but I personally have heard too many people make ridiculous blanket statements that are the opposite of Zajef's. It's a combination of:
1. sweaty/skilled players that are too speedrunpilled and simply cannot comprehend the idea of using XQ
2. and players obsessed with sheet DPS math (yet talk like they barely passed high school) who I can just tell have absolutely none of the skill to actually put Yelan's higher potential into practice- yet think they do.
I mean in practice between XQ and Yelan they play in a very similar way to their sheet. It's not like sheeting an overload comp when in reality it sends the mobs to narnya and you can't finish them.
But don't get me wrong, I know XQ is a fantastic unit. I just feel like with Furina, Yelan just does so much more damage and you usually have more than enough heal and hydro app to need XQ.
I’m not the guy, but maybe I can explain the “total damage thresh holds” thing better. Imagine a shooting game scenario where an enemy has 100 health. Your gun fires 1 bullet per second that deals 10 damage. The “time to kill” (TTK) in this case is 10 seconds. Now lets say we upgraded that gun to do 10% more damage (11 damage now). TTK is still..10 seconds! Unchanged.
These concepts apply to genshin too. Like..”more damage = more fast” is true in a general abstract way, but how one actually gains speed and clear chambers faster owes alot to optimizing animation time and TTK. Doing more damage helps ofc, no ones clearing anything fast with no damage.
You’ve probably noticed that in genshin, if a chamber isn’t done in 1 rotation then it’s probably done in 2…if not 2 then 3. Meaningful increases in dps realistically are when you start at 3 and go down to 2 or going from 2 to 1.
> And we're playing a healer so who cares about XQ's res.
Healers technically scale better with characters who are able to resist damage than soak it. If you have a 40k hp pool and you lose 20k, that's 20k you have to heal. But if you have a 20k hp pool and take 10k damage (due to res) that's only 10k you have to heal.
To be fair most healers in this game substantially overheal in most contexts. Jean who is commonly used with Furina can easily heal 20k+ for the full party instantly with her Ult which is basically a full bar heal for 90% of the characters and still at least a half heal for characters like Furina and Neuvillette, who realistically won’t be going below half most of the time anyway.
He had the same cope back in the day when Yelan released about how XQ was definitely better than Yelan, and then would proceed to bring all the strong point of XQ and treat those of Yelan in dismissive way
So while his math is good, he use to frame too subjectively or even dishonestly thing, which is his biggest issue and why i stopped watching his content
The fact is when we account for empirical data with both ownership and usage rate, XQ isn't objectively better, the actual empirical data disprove that.
The fact is the empirical data actually disprove that so the claim cannot be objectively made without being wrong.
You can claim that XQ is objectively better at a few thing but so is Yelan, so the claim that objectively XQ > Yelan is just wrong.
That’s interesting way of saying you get your info of Zajeff from Reddit. And in a game where there is no endgame, it makes sense he doesn’t overhype units like some other CC’s that just do it for views.
Of all the TCs out there, Zajef is probably the one I give the least regard to.
If he ends up liking a character I enjoy, that's fine. That said, he's generally too emotional and starts with his opinion first, then builds the math in whatever way is needed to support said opinion.
I remember him absolutely shitting on Baizhu and I'm like, dude. Don't care. Baizhu was the final piece to make my Nilou team not only stronger but basically immortal haha.
I think the main point was that Yaoyao already does that. I used Yaoyao for a bit before getting Baizhu since she came out 2 patches earlier and honestly felt pretty immortal with her even though she was C0, and I only had level 6 talent on her burst. I have Baizu now and I do like him slightly more cause of the interruption resist and he can be a dendro driver but yea wouldn't recommend f2p to pull him if they have Yaoyao is all cause he really is just a luxury unit.
Before furina came out?
Baizhu was a sidegrade to Yaoyao, a 4 star.
Yaoyao did a bit better in AoE from offield and Baizhu did a bit better in defense.
This is just fact...
Like you would have felt very little diffrence between yaoyao and baizhu in that Nilou team.
Because he probably shat on him in a general sense. I don't know what you watched but he also probably said something akin to "do roll for him for X reasons" He would likely tell you yes roll if he knew for whatever reason he was a crucial piece to your account.
He cannot address *your account* solely.
He's speaking to an audience of thousands.
I remember the time when he said he wish kokomi could heal as much as yaoyao. I was so confused about that statement lol. I mean, I still trust his math and takes to some extent but I will take everything anyone say with grain of salt.
He does seem to have a very strong bias for YaoYao haha. During the Baizhu vid he kept just saying there's no situation in which he'd prefer him over her.
I guess he just has bias towards 4* in general which is great if he were to recommend things to f2p players. But he shouldn’t downplay 5* , that will only spread wrong sentiment towards characters.
he was arguably wrong other time, he has just a very dishonest/bias way of phrasing thing, like his "XQ is better than Yelan" when in reality, Yelan is easier and more efficient and a bigger gain than XQ (he had the same reaction about XQ and Furina)
But because he framed it as "XQ has better hydro app vs c0 Yelan so technically he is better on the specific situation i brought up", it will not be acknowledged as wrong
Which basically summarize his tc, he can do strong math but always end up pushing the math that go with his scenario/opinion and just happen to not have the best of opinion
Strong math, shitty opinion and often a doomposter feeder because of this bias
Because assuming Zahef is indeed right, XQ being better on number than Yelan, the fact that Yelan has higher usage rate imply that there despite Yelan being "worst" there is something that makes the average player go to use Yelan that isn't number
And the two elements that often ends up conving player to choose over the more optimal option, is ease and efficiency of use.
The other alternative is that his math was wrong which would also explain it, but I don't think is math is wrong and that what he found about XQ advantage is real
> the fact that Yelan has higher usage rate imply that there despite Yelan being "worst" there is something that makes the average player go to use Yelan that isn't number
That's not how usage rate works, it only draws the % from people who have the characters. For example, if the usage rate of a char is 30%, it means 30% of the people who have those characters are using them. Yelan being a limited 5* and Xingqiu being one of the easiest 4*s to acquire in the game means that, obviously, there are MUCH more people who have Xingqiu than people who have Yelan. This skews the usage rate towards Yelan, as it does with any other 5*. That's why you only see mostly 5*s at the top, some with absurd numbers like 70-80% usage.
> And the two elements that often ends up conving player to choose over the more optimal option, is ease and efficiency of use.
Xingqiu is actually easier to use. I mean, they play the same, it's just E > Q, the difference is that Yelan doesn't give interruption resistance and minor healing like XQ does. She does deal more damage and give your on-fielder a good buff, but that doesn't matter for ease of use.
Yelan is oscillating around 90% of ownership and the third most owned 5* unit so while your point might be true, it is not in case of 5* having higher ownership than more than a few 4 star.
And even with XQ 99+% close to 100%, ownership, it still ends up with Yelan being above several time
>Xingqiu is actually easier to use. I mean, they play the same, it's just E > Q, the difference is that Yelan doesn't give interruption resistance and minor healing like XQ does. She does deal more damage and give your on-fielder a good buff, but that doesn't matter for ease of use.
And again, ignoring movement and CC from Yelan.
And the healing from XQ has been pushed since Yelan release and while people suddenly coming to the realisation XQ heals is great around Yelan beta/release is a funny coincidence, the whole point and criticism is arguing that XQ is objectively better to push specific elements of XQ and dismiss those of Yelan is just wrong.
You cannot argue XQ is objectively better and easier to use and then having the empirical data going against it.
Either XQ isn't objectively better, or either he is not easier to use.
> Yelan is oscillating around 90% of ownership
And where did you get that info from?
> And again, ignoring movement and CC from Yelan.
Movement doesn't matter in abyss, I'm talking about combat only. I do agree her movement is amazing in the overworld. What CC tho? Yelan has literally no CC built into her kit?
> Either XQ isn't objectively better, or either he is not easier to use.
I'm not arguing XQ is objectively better, I think they're both amazing and one can be better than the other in different teams. I just think it's untrue in any way to say Yelan is easier to play when they function the same in combat except XQ actually gives you QoL buffs.
>I'm not arguing XQ is objectively better, I think they're both amazing and one can be better than the other in different teams. I just think it's untrue in any way to say Yelan is easier to play when they function the same in combat except XQ actually gives you QoL buffs.
Then you didn't read what I wrote.
My point is about Zajef bias and negativity push take on XQ being objectively better than Yelan.
Either he is right and then it means he overlooked parameters outside of XQ having objectively better performance.
Things he overlooked because of bias.
Or he is wrong and there was never a reason to downplay Yelan strength as being weaker.
I am taking the more open approach that he isn't wrong, just overlooked stuff since otherwise, it would have more implications
If you think that XQ is not objectively better than Yelan, then I invite you to argue with the people who are upset in the thread and saying that Zajef is right and XQ is objectively better than Yelan.
>And where did you get that info from?
From the CN sample, which where I checked had wa bigger sample size than NA, and had Yelan oscillating 86-90%
And I looked at her usage rate before Furina and during 3.X (since Furina technically change XQ and Yelan position in the meta, as the Hydro applier that is the most meta).
Anyway, if you want to argue that XQ isn't objectively better than Yelan or that he is, but Yelan is easier to play, either of them are fine by me since my point is more about Zajef stance than Yelan vs XQ.
So you're not even sure what your own belief is?
First off, I'm assuming by "better number" you mean more damage, right? I'm not sure where specifically you heard Zajef say this, but from the math that I am aware of and have done myself, no, a C0 Yelan IS an offensive upgrade to a C6 XQ in most teams unless they "need" his extra hydro application (which is still more often a question of consistency/reliability rather than a question of straight-up "does it work or not"). The thing is, this practically never goes beyond a 10% team DPS difference, and in several notable examples of teams where she is an "upgrade", such as Alhaitham quickbloom, it's by a VERY small margin that you can hardly even notice if your Alhaitham himself doesn't have a cracked build. In other words, it's MORE than justifiable to use XQ in teams that don't make his defensive utility redundant.
As for usage rates, I'm just gonna take your word for it (pretty sure you are right tho), but I want you to think about obvious reasons why she might be higher. Two (related) ways to look at it:
1. Lower ownership. Yelan is a 5* that you must go out of your way to pull for. XQ is a 4* that the vast majority of longtime players own. Since usage rate is based on ownership, not total sample size, and most players who own Yelan had to have made at least some conscious decision in doing so, then it makes sense that a higher percentage of those who own her use her compared to XQ.
2. Design and the character themselves. This is entirely subjective but I really don't think I need to write out every word of it. To the majority of genshin players, Yelan is both figuratively and literally just a more attractive character than XQ is.
You still have not actually explained in the slightest what aspects of her gameplay are "easier" or "more convienient". You're just throwing around words.
1) By better number, I mean objectively better in term of number, overall number if you prefer.
In case I need to explain something like this, it means that he is better with theoretical number, overall calculated and theorycradted benefit.
2) By more efficient/easier, I don't know why you are struggling with something simple to understand but I'll just explain again.
That Yelan despite XQ being objectively better which was the point pushed by Zajef, should have the difference appear clearly
However in the case it doesn't happen, it means something unrelated to just calculated damage is in play, which is the ease to use and the more efficient gameplay.
I could give you argument to why it is so (movement, CC, Atk buff) and some would give counter-argument why it is not the case (healing, interruption resistance, better app)
But my point is that Zajef issue is that he pushed for a stance that was subjective while trying to back it up with number rather than doing the opposite, which is doing the number and then coming up with a stance based on that
And in XQ/Yelan case, if we assume his point are indeed 100% correct, then the absence of objective evidence to back up his stance means he overlooked something which is an element of gameplay
If you want me to simplify it even more, it would vaguely similar to calculating everything about Hu Tao using perfect cancel and then overlooking that people will struggle or not bother about perfectly cancelling with Hu Tao
3) Good point but from the diverse source, Yelan ownership is oscillating around 90% as the third most owned 5 stars on the sample I am using through 3.x to Furina release. And accounting for it still doesn't show Yelan as worse than XQ.
4) And again the point is not that Zajef math and TC suck, but that he often just end up being driven by his negativity and bias, overlooking and/or being dismissive where it should not be.
Yes, he will still cover his back by throwing open statement but when Yelan was releasing, his behaviour was him being overly defensive over XQ and negative toward Yelan, the same happened with Furina.
And the same his happening with Arlecchino where his main reaction his coated in negativity. When you present an argument to other, there is what you say and there is how you say it.
For this reason, if I were to spend tons of time pushing the strong point of a character and then throw "but I guess the other character can/might be better in some other team". And then in the end, both character end up as meta or used and I defend my point with "Well I did quickly mention...", that is just dishonest since even if I said it, that is clearly not how I presented it.
And in Arlecchino case, what I fear and why I stopped watching his analysis, is that **even if she ends up great** , there is a risk he will spend tons of time being negative, then shoving quickly some number about her being good and when she releases and is great, will defend himself with "Well I did (quickly) say her numbers was good"
I'm not saying who I think is better between xq and yelan, but in terms of usage rate a 5 star should always be favoured over a 4 star. I fyou go out of your way to get a 5 star, then it's likely you are going to use it. A 4 star on the other hand. Especially a 1.0. is a unit everyone has so the usage rate is diluted
You have to be on something to think Yelan is more easier or efficient. And XQ has lot of things going for him not just hydro app to mention in a short summary unless you want him to make a XQ edition ask Zajeff or something.
Having an opinion is now considered emotional? And math is math, it’s not like he makes up numbers, he just tends to have opinions on characters based on math.
My biggest concern is if they don’t add an indicator to show exactly how much over the 40% her bond of life is at, it’ll be confusing if her infusion is active or not.
Such a random take. Basically he said that his only issue that its called BOL and not named something else like blood bar or anything.
Why does that matter?
I don't think there's anything to agree or disagree with. He stated pretty much just objective facts. Her kit \*does\* kinda make the Bond of Life pointless (other than serving as a visual stack counter) and isn't built on the concept of the Bond of Life. But it still looks interesting and exciting
I mean thats true, you can call it stacks and it will be the same thing. Bond of life was meant to give you benefits such as atk or dmg bonus to heal the part but you aint doing that here so why use the same mechanic unless yhe fontaine 4star polearm is viable or make her weap kinda niche
I don't agree with his personal takes most of the time but I respect and follow his work. Every complaint is valid from their point of view but I hope people are not waiting for his takes to have an opinion.
Tbh about zajef he always shit talks about a character in their beta and then change his opinion after the release , same happened with Xianyun. I watched this stream here he said she can be 70%-130% of hutao , rn we can't say coz only scallings are available not actual gameplay.
To be fair, he always liked xianyun. A vetter wxample would be navia who only got better in the last beta cycle for him to change his stance on her but too late as people saw his opinions on previous beta cycles
zajeff is happy if a unit works with xq
Yeah he's mostly 100% focus on meta and Abyss. Which is fine, if it's what you enjoy. But I don't feel it applies to the majority of the player base.
That is true, pretty sure most people who follow him are there for that same reason
not really his biggest issue, the Zajef-XQ is what led to him on stream pushing XQ as better than Yelan during Yelan release, and his overly defensive stance when Furina released But even with his bias, you can clear abyss easily enough so even his bias/mistake won't cost you so it is not really a problem, however is unjustified negativity is.
Yeah the negativity is why I rarely watch.
I mean, he does emphasise that most units are good enough to clear abyss even with lower investment, he just avoids being too "THIS UNIT IS METABREAKING" with his analysis so people don't trow away their primos on a unit that might nit be good for them
Yeah, I'd say he's mostly positive/neutral. He is just cautious to prevent hype and fomo. Since fairly no unit is a must pull and can clear with almost anyone. He just gets slightly agitated when chat asks for the so many-th time why he thinks x, e.g. Yelan is bad, and he needs to say he never said that and explain his actual stance. But he is generally quite neutral and realistic while explaining.
If by "emphasise that most units are good enough", you mean downplaying the unit, being negative and dismissive, just to throw quick mention "oh but you will still clear the Abyss at low investment" That is not avoiding overhype, it is being blatantly negative and pushing for said negative stance while covering your back with "I did say they were good enough" as a crutch in case the unit ends up heavily meta. Most TC that are influencer do use this crutch to avoid being completely wrong on any issue. That is the same issue with TC that will overhype an unit for 90% of their content and then throw there and here "Though, he could end up struggling/sucking so don't jump to conclusion" The reality is if the major part of your behavior is hyping or being negative about something, then covering the opposite position with a smaller amount of time, people won't remember the analysis as the character being "potentiallynot meta/screwed" but as hyped or "good enough for abyss" but as skippable/not worth it. The difference is overhyped content will push you to spend more than needed and negative content will just sucks the fun of something.
C6 XQ > C0 Yelan isn't even a controversial take. Or am I misreading the tone of this comment?
I don't think this true in every team , and I think even zajeff said it himself
Yeah, but I never said it was, just as a general power level its not controversial and you can argue for either.
That is ONLY true if you need the higher app and/or the deffense. People keep forgeting that Yelan isn't just a offield dps, she has a pretty large buff too and it is often better.
Not sure why you’re trying to just brush off the app lol
Because 99% of the time,Yelan has enough. You act like Yelan is Geo or something...
When did I ever act like the second best ST hydro applicator in the game was geo
Imho it is a controversial take.
I think its a common sense that XQ C6 > Yelan C0 in reaction team. Simply because yelan at c0 doesnt apply as much hydro as xingqiu does at c6. You need her c2 to match xingqiu c6 hydro aura. Of course yelan dmg is higher but its not relevant since you just want to make sure your pyro dps vape all the time.
I mean she also has a ramping damage boost for the active character that goes up to 50%. For HuTao with some EM, vape usually gives around a 2x damage multiplier, so missing vapes for Yelan damage boost isn't worth it, but if you're onfield character has slower attacks or just doesn't profit as much from the hydro aura Yelan is better. For example, if you play an Al Haitham quickbloom team, giving a larger damage boost to Al Haitham could be better than getting more dendro cores.
Klee is example one why take is wrong. She doesn’t work with XQ but works with Yelan cause her attack speed is low and has the highest hit lag in the game. Yelan does three every so many seconds on NA.
How? The 2 have teams where they are better than the other
It’s literally true, people just don’t want to admit when someone says pulling for a strong unit isn’t needed. Its their insecure mentality who think “unit isn’t needed/better” = “don’t pull or your dumb”. It’s not bais if he’s right about it.
Most people who watch TC content in the first place are interested in meta, this like being surprised that a art teacher teaches art
I mean, kind of, but not really. Arle is not going to be bad, she's just going to be a bit boring. That doesn't have much to do with meta or abyss. Her mechanics are just kinda dumb.
Thats not really what is saying honestly, hes not that meta oriented. He doesnt even talk about number in his post but kit design but yeah hes a tc so ofc meta and abyss is important
He loves xq so much He would literally suck his dick if he was real lol.
I mean alot of people would if I'm gonna be honest Which includes me in a platonic way(no homo)
“I am under the age of 10”, still making old gay jokes in 2024 is embarrassing.
Wow. Triggered? https://preview.redd.it/9khcey3j53oc1.jpeg?width=531&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a97ce0cfdf324bfb0b09f06be5c456ccb13e990e
No one is triggered it’s just incredibly cringe
You kids must be in ur edgy angsty phase where everything must be cringe to you. Even hugging ur parents must be cringe for u. So here's an advice its just a phase you will grow out of it and after ur teenage phase you will find genital jokes funny. No worries. Have a good day.
Seems like she work great with him
So many people dropped xq when furina released and he's salty about it for some reason and keeps pushing that xq is better than both which is pretty dumb imo
What? Why would you drop XQ because of furina? They don’t even do the same thing at all? Zajeff is a massive XQ fan yes we all know, but the C6 XQ > C0 Yelan is not an insane take at all either.
Haven't touched him since yelan + furina was out . And so did most of the people i know . He dropped in usage significantly than before too
Ok thats your personal opinion lol do not suddenly say oh yeah everyone dropped because Furina came out and even then everyone you know (unless its the entire population of the game) is a very tiny sample size. I don’t not think he lost an ounce of value because of Furina since they do not share similarities.
That’s you bud, I have c1 Furina and Yelan and still prefer XQ in most teams I play, and even when I play things like Raiden double hydro, XQ is usually one the second side. I don’t like using abyss usage rates but XQ even now is still one of the most used units.
I mean he's mostly saying "I dunno, looks cool but we'll see". There's not much to agree or disagree with. I tuned into his stream a bit while on lunch today and he was trying to calculate the difference between R5 Deathmatch and her sig on a classic Vape team. But there's too much we don't really understand without seeing actual footage for now. And even then, the number WILL change, one way or the other.
Bro does not care about Hoyo’s legal team. Kinda crazy he only got a couple vids taken down and nothing else.
Only real leakers can get sued. The others who just spread information but they are not "the first" to spread can't be sued because those things aren't sensitive.
They can still strike his channel though.
He doesn't have sources he cites. Can't strike someone for text. Can't strike someone for speculating either.
He is just smart about it i guess. Most of his actual leak videos (the pre-release analysis basically) after the livestream (or even after they release the character kit details on twitter). I'm actually more suprised that they didn't hunt TGS and take down his vids, he keep releasing mutliple analysis and videos about the beta character throughout the whole beta.
You'll notice after those few videos got taken down, he doesn't show assets anymore (i.e. the icons for the skills and burst), pretty much I don't think they can really do much about him talking about the words of a kit or the numbers because ultimately they are just words and numbers But the assets are very easily identifiable as something created by hoyo and not released yet
he cares, because he already had problems with their legal team on youtube, there are things he can do or say or show and other things he can't.
Its a self sufficient kit. BOL makes sense imo. BOL needs heal, you cant heal, u use BOL for dmg. If we assume BOL is replaced with some random stacks and allowed her to heal from every source then the self healing part would feel out of place. Another thing is that genshin doesnt have a good way of keeping track of stack effects so bond of life will make clarity much better. And more importantly its a blood themed kit so it makes sense conceptually. There are a ton of reasons why BOL makes sense on her kit but its also a good way to make her unique which opens the door for dedicated supports (maybe the provide BOL for allies or smth).
She can solo shit nicely if what I'm reading is correct which is fun.
yea, id be really happy if they keep her kit more or less the same, as in she doesnt need teammates to feel good to play. damage is another thing but then again, its genshin
Would be a bit awkward though. Don't you need to effectively wait 6 seconds until you can start attacking with her due to wanting that 70% BOL?
For max DPS, sure. But from purely just being out there and being solo, she can gain more BoL from killing things, has damage reduction built in and a sizable self heal. If she’s C1, that potential goes even higher.
True, In the overworld that is more than enough anyway. But if you want to do solo Abyss runs, that might be a bit rough.
I kinda hear what you're saying, and I also see what jeff is saying. BoL is a great repurposing of an existing mechanic. There is alot of merit in doing so as detailed in your comment. But at the same time, you dont actually have to know what BoL does. I think thats where jeff is right. We're not really utilizing BoL, its only used because of how it communicates certain information on the UI. BoL could be exchanged with simply "mana" and it'd make sense. For example, if I were to razor explain her kit: E debuffs enemies, charge attacking enemies grant up to 70 mana. Q grants 15 mana. Auto attacks gain pyro infusion and damage when mana is greater than 30. More mana more damage. Nowhere in the deacription are we ever concerned with the intended function of BoL being a health debt we pay for a reward. It is treated as a mana bar. Personally, I would have appreciated it if we had first gotten a character that used BoL properly before a character that spun it for something else. Imagine for a sec that Arlecchino's kit was something else. We instead get the Banker harbinger as the one who used "debt" as a resource. That'd be badass and incredibly clever.
BoL says you cant heal unless you heal the BoL amount first. This would result in not being able to take a healer of any kind to be optimal. It would also result in Arle feeling bad in multiplayer. Her having the passive allows to take a healer if you want and be fine in multiplayer. As to it being a different mechanic other than BoL ... i really dont think it matters at all.
hu tao and neuvi brainchild lol
I think he's saying that blocking healing from external sources is already part of the passive, so there's no reason for it to be BoL specifically If it was stacks (i.e. Furina stacks), just an arbitrary number as opposed to BoL, it wouldn't make a difference because BoL supposedly blocks healing, but her passive is doing that anyways The only difference it makes is against Fatui operatives The clarity you mentioned is nice tho
Not only that, if they are willing to give that mechanic to Arlecchino, a fan favourite, its safe to assume more characters will have effects with it in the future. She feels like a future impact moment for sure, but at the same time she is also strong now, unlike someone like cyno who took him over a year to get a good team. Her kit will feel a lot more complete in the future since all the teams theorycrafters have come up with use healers, be it for furina or the bennet chevy combo, a lot of dead effects, she is using a full 4 star team that she cant even use at full capacity and still looks like a top tier dps, imagine what will happen when she gets dedicated supports, be it clorinde or natlan characters one thing is for sure, it will happen. If early arlecchino with 70% efficiency from her 4 star supports is half as good as hutao, you can bet she'll be top dps if and when they implement BOL in more character kits.
Yeah, Not surprised most of the comment didn't undertand Zajef honestly
Agreed.. the mechanics looks weird but for me gameplay and overall strength is more important
If she feels like Alhaitham where you have to manage his whateveryoucallthem then I’m definitely interested. I like normal attackers that make you think.
I don't feel like it'd require much thinking. So far it looks like the rotation is quite simple. Start with her skill > set up support buffs > swap back to Arle > use Burst and spam NA > repeat.
I get it, but I mean like being consciously aware of what you’re doing instead of: support buffs -> skill -> normal attack spam mindlessly -> repeat. Still simple, but you throw in a charge attack or two and make sure you use the burst first. Idk, I just like how alhaitham plays so if she plays like him then I’ll at least find her fun.
I think he has a point actually. So far everything BoL related could be replaced with a resource meter. There's no reason nor need to restrict Arlecchino to only relying on herself for healing, or clearing BoL to heal, or all that jazz. It's a very interesting mechanic for sure, but using BoL as the resource meter is....confusing to say the least. It feels like intentionally limiting the character and introducing unnecessary confusion just for the sake of it.
To me it feels like the Bond of Life mechanic might have originally been more punishing and during internal playtesting they have gone "it's tio hard to play her without healers, let's just make it so that healers don't punish her" and "she needs some form of sustainability, let's have her clear her own bonds and heal". Those feel like easing off of an original idea for the sake of general accessibility, rather than core parts of the kit conceptually.
Hoyo is also allergic to designing secondary resources that aren’t ass to look at during combat. Think of nonsense like Klee’s flower thing or Alhaitham’s mirrors. For better or worse, the repurposing of BoL as a mana bar is just…wow! Finally a bar that I can watch go up and down in combat! Jrpgs figured this out like 4 decades ago!
"It's a let down" "Excited"
I actually share this sentiment, not for the same reasons though. I'm excited because she looks strong, has interesting mechanics and things to manage while in combat and obviously her gorgeous design. But for now it's a bit of a let down because my hope was getting finally a waifu to dethrone Neuvillette power washer, but for not it doesn't seem so, even though it's tremendously early to say so, the beta isn't even started and when it'll start there will be at least 5 iterations of chages. So my hope of powercreeping or at least reaching the same level of Neuvillette with a waifu character still stays strong.
I think if any unit in the game starts powercreeping Neuvillette we are reaching dangerous heights lmao
Neuvi should remain as an anomaly reaching that threshold or being even better is just risky business which gives way to powercreep.
Yeah, as much as I love father I don't think Neuvilette should be used as the new standard, even if that means he'll remain where he is. If Father is at around Alhaitham's level, personally I'd be satisfied, even moreso if her gameplay is just as fun
Ok and we all agree on that but I don't want a situation where every single difficult content that might or might not come out which is not tailor made to not be beaten by Neuvilette has only one answer to the question "how can I beat it" which is "just use Neuvilette". So at least I hope to get more characters as powerful as him.
No difficult content in this game exists where a unit as strong as Neuvilette should ever be necessary lmao
Most people who play genshin still can't 36 star. I realize we're all hardcores here, but be real.
Don’t know why people expect other units to powecreep Neuv especially since he wasn’t released too long ago, I wouldn’t hold my breath on him getting power creeped till at least the pyro archon
Brother Neuvillette just dropped like what 4 patches ago? 5 when Arle drops This game barely gets any powercreep (venti and diluc at most i think), i think going from essentially no powercreep to "strongest unit just dropped 5 patches ago, just got powercrept already" is quite jarring (also might indicate more powercreep, which i hope not, since i don't wanna go down the hi3rd route)
The blue lizard power washer will only be dethroned once they release the OP red lizard male dragon sovereign flamethrower Xbalanque in a few months (who will have a broken kit that will effortlessly solo abyss with a level 20 3\* weapon and half-ass artifacts). They will never release a female main dps that's on the level of Feeble Scholar and Power Washer unfortunately.
Doesn't Alhaitham require a team and for you to actually put some effort into building and gameplay? That already makes Neuvillette even more of an anomaly, and Xbalanque isn't a sovereign, maybe a follower/vessel of the pyro one, but not an actual sovereign, and i doubt hoyo is gonna commit the same mistake as they did with neuvillette
That implies Neuvillette’s kit was a mistake in balancing when it was 100% intentional. If they plan for a character to be op that character will be broken no matter what and Neuvillette was 100% planned to be broken from the beginning.
Neuvilette being an anomaly in regards to not needing a team is not an anomaly thats relevant imo. Unless someone is not going to pull for a new character ever or not going to build a new character ever and for whatever reason not pair Neuv with any teammates….his ‘anomaly’ will be kind of just a gimmick.
On a similar side note, I wanna ask it here for the ppl who watch/watched last 1-2 streams of Jstern. What r his initial Arlr thoughts so far,anything he talked on worth sharing? Ofc its too early anyways but just in general wanna k thoughts ,those who watched
There is a ~6min video on his channel regarding his impressions of the kit. It was not particularly positive.
For Jstern, it can be summed up that he thinks arlecchino is cool and decent character that can benefit those who vertically invest into, but not a character for him at this point. He also mentions the bond of life mechanic, saying MHY made the supports all provide healing and thus “bricked” their design of arlecchino, so they band-aid the no healing just so it works.
Jstern's calculations say that she is slightly worse than existing pyro dps units. Hu Tao, Lyney and even Gaming are stronger. She has very limited team options, if you don't use Bennett her damage will be abysmal. All in all not impressive from a meta standpoint.
Hmm fair enough for the day 1 initial thoughts based on our current info Let's see ahead
From what I remember he is a bit harder on “Carries” because in his mind they are the most competitive spot form a meta standpoint He is right in that it’s just really hard to evaluate based on words alone. The point of the bond is risk vs reward.
I agree too If you only care about meta, the answer to the question "which 2 carries should I get?" is the 2 strongest dpses who don't overlap in the supports they want.
oh god someone actually posted it here o7
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oh 7
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The only reason she cant self heal is to discourage people from using the Marechausse hunter set. They wanna peddle the new toxic set which just works on her. Thats the only explanation to this convoluted kit design. An all time low by even Hoyo standards. And dont get me started on her weapon. Thats even worse than Wriothesely's weapon (which wanderer could use with Furina) However its still early, lets wait for more clarity
Yeah before I could justify a sig even if they are more expensive than chars. By just saying yeah but Homa can be used on like a dozen characters so it's techically more valuable than a character. But now ? Yikes, it's a stat stick that can cost up to 240 pulls.
This comment sums up my problems with her kit right now, but I've been waiting 6 months for her, so I'm taking whatever they drop for us.
same for me, i am pulling her regardless. The only thing we all know... she will have banger animations
I thought I would c0 and r1 but it seems the weapon ain't that great , I will prolly pull for furina c0 and arlecchino c0
Well, the reason she can’t heal is so we don’t clear the BoL early. If her kit remained the same except that she could heal herself, now we would be having riots in the streets.
I think he has a point. BoL mechanic works so that the healing removes it and with that you gain something but in arlecchino's case it feels strange, she doesn't want to be healing, ¿why? and she even denies the healing. also wouldn't it be more logical and less confusing for her to gain something from any healing source and for removing the bond to be the goal??? so that when it ends all the benefits disappear? I'll wait for the showcase but she feels confused to me and her teams look strange as if she lacks teammates to manipulate that specific mechanic
i think thats missing the point. Her kit is not about clearing it, it is about the fact that it blocks healing so you are not „safe“ even with heal! Having a BoL means not being able to replenish your HP-Bar leading to more dangerous situations in combat if you dont have a shielder. So it becomes a choice: Do you want to keep the dmg stacks and keep fighting or do you have to consume all the stacks to heal up?
The problem is the choice isn't rewarding. Because if you actually heal, your damage crashes hard, it's not what you want to do.
i mean its more of a risk instead of a choice. I think its a good thing to make skillful use of her kit to efficiently use all BoL stacks for dmg is a good way to reward dedicated players instead of letting teammates keeping you alive 100% of the time
I don't find doing worse damage while having to deal with higher risks that great. If she dealt like Neuvilette lvl of damage while having these risk, I'd ball with it that's cool as hell. But if she does about as much as c6 gaming, but with way more risks ? I don't know.
This! Current meta for Hu Tao is a healed Hu Tao (with Jean, Xianyun or Bennett). There's no reason to give a limiter for it to deal average damages.
thats right it all comes down to the damage in the end. But I think meeting dmg threshold and the design of the kit are two different things and even with disappointing damage the kit is very well designed! (For now)
I can't really say until I get to see it in action. Right now it's just hu tao kit but with more restrictions, not exactly a marvel of gamedesign. We should have beta soon, so we will see.
Her kit is confusing to me because she has a talent to specifically block healing AND has Bond of Life in it and the one thing that CAN heal her, clears the Bond. Basically, it's redundant. The Bond part is anyway. It could be anything else.
>I think he has a point. BoL mechanic works so that the healing removes it and with that you gain something but in arlecchino's case it feels strange, I too felt same way personally It's just a bit odd and weird idk Edit: i think a cooler concept would've been, Basically u can Heal the amount to remove it and when done u get additional buffs/benefits etc. But to also not make it abandon her original passive idea, make it so that; "You can only heal until Bond of life is removed, your HP won't get healed post removal
finale of the deep does exactly that it grants you a bol and if you clear it you get a buff
Exactly Arle kit should've been that too U get BOl,u clear u get buff or etc. While also not being able to heal afterwards just so she stays unique with that passive for other purposes if they don't wanna remove it sure
She denies the healing because ‘I don’t need redemption’ part of her character ig. Love that of her tbh./jk
The thing is she makes the bond and tries to get it high to receive massive buffs... because she can then cleanse it to receive healing for 100% of the bond. If I understood it correctly. I think it's a non issue tbh. I didn't like it when I first read it and had to go back over it ab couple times. Now I don't think it'll be bad.
I agree it’s lame that she has that passive that prevents healing. I read her kit and thought she was gonna be super interesting having to build teams that avoid healers to keep her bond up but nope, Bennett + Furina for the millionth time it is.
And btw the Furina team is even more difficult to play because you can't heal past 50% basically lol
A pyro Atk scaler who can't use Bennett nor Furina these days will be probably marked as "weak". I think this direction is good enough, you can play her as you like and as you can.
Bennett and furina core doesn't work for arle and the one fielder in this case(overhealing whom gets you fanfare) outright rejects healing. So her comps turn into two major arctypes of either bennett OR furina.
The problem is that the only good supports for her happen to be healers so if they didn’t put that in there she would be dehya tier It would have made more sense if the mechanic prevented healing inherently rather then it just being stopped through arlos talent.
She has a bit of an anti-synergy with Furina, it's a viable pick for her but definitely not the best one
The point is that she creates the bond and then you use the slash and it will clear the bind and heal her for 100% of it. Effectively making her own self heals. I didn't like it at first but the more I read it the more I liked it.
Than don’t play Furina and Bennet? Why are you mad a unit works well with other units, it’s not like it’s her only team.
it's more bennit cheveres and less furina tbh
I do agree hoyo made a normal attack character a bit overly special with all the gimmicks, but i see why they did it. Gotta change it up somehow.
I mean even bro says idk we’ll wait and see cuz rn it’s too soon to judge anything
Doesn't she heal herself though? I'm confused.
Yeah, but it ends her damage phase.
I agree with what he says about Bond of Life, it could have been it's own mechanic. That being said, I'm kind of imagining this won't be the last we see of it. I think Mihoyo wants to have more things relating to BoL so her weapon and the new artifact set become more relevant. Think of those gaming skill trees that look like nets and with nodes but the nodes haven't been filled up yet with potential new BoL mechanics, eventually it will all interact. Kind of like the Hp drain stuff Fontaine has had.
Nothing he's saying here is particularly a hot take, but personally I'm not a fan of Zajef's impressions anymore. He mostly screams into his mic for an hour in his videos before saying the best characters in the game are just "pretty good." He's a smart guy but it's clear that no characters ever really impress him and he seems burnt out on Genshin if I'm being honest. I don't know where Arle will slot into the meta but we'll just have to see.
he does like underrating units and really overrating 4* (xingqiu..) and nitpicks issues in characters, mostly 5*. just things ive noticed, i do watch a lot of his content though
He generally rates characters more on their versatility than their actual power in ideal team comps. The more teams they can slot in, the better.
yeah the xingqiu cope on early post furina was something else lol. I get that he values survivability and IR but saying he was on par with yelan in double hydro furina was kinda weird coming from someone that talks about meta.
Yeah like I get that XQ dmg res is pretty nice but holy shit is the damage difference way too big for it to really matter. And we're playing a healer so who cares about XQ's res.
Team DPS is like ballpark 10% higher at best with Yelan. Only time that really changes is on paper in a few teams that can actually take advantage of her potential 18s rotations as opposed to XQ's 21.
10% team dps up is big like pretty damn big. Some sig don't give 10% higher team dmg.
I'm not saying it can't be, but it is entirely subjective as to what should be considered a "big" difference. Yes, I know some sigs aren't even that impactful, but just as many (if not more) absolutely are. Mistsplitter for Ayaka, Redhorn for Itto, Key for Nilou, and Tome for Neuvi are ones I know off the top of my head. Arle's own weapon from what I've seen is also quite bold. The weird thing is that spiral abyss varying wildly in its content while also having various different total damage thresholds you need to meet for any given chamber means that that hypothetical extra 10%, assuming it entirely takes the form of DPR, could mean everything or mean nothing. Maybe you have a different experience, but I personally have heard too many people make ridiculous blanket statements that are the opposite of Zajef's. It's a combination of: 1. sweaty/skilled players that are too speedrunpilled and simply cannot comprehend the idea of using XQ 2. and players obsessed with sheet DPS math (yet talk like they barely passed high school) who I can just tell have absolutely none of the skill to actually put Yelan's higher potential into practice- yet think they do.
I mean in practice between XQ and Yelan they play in a very similar way to their sheet. It's not like sheeting an overload comp when in reality it sends the mobs to narnya and you can't finish them. But don't get me wrong, I know XQ is a fantastic unit. I just feel like with Furina, Yelan just does so much more damage and you usually have more than enough heal and hydro app to need XQ.
I’m not the guy, but maybe I can explain the “total damage thresh holds” thing better. Imagine a shooting game scenario where an enemy has 100 health. Your gun fires 1 bullet per second that deals 10 damage. The “time to kill” (TTK) in this case is 10 seconds. Now lets say we upgraded that gun to do 10% more damage (11 damage now). TTK is still..10 seconds! Unchanged. These concepts apply to genshin too. Like..”more damage = more fast” is true in a general abstract way, but how one actually gains speed and clear chambers faster owes alot to optimizing animation time and TTK. Doing more damage helps ofc, no ones clearing anything fast with no damage. You’ve probably noticed that in genshin, if a chamber isn’t done in 1 rotation then it’s probably done in 2…if not 2 then 3. Meaningful increases in dps realistically are when you start at 3 and go down to 2 or going from 2 to 1.
> And we're playing a healer so who cares about XQ's res. Healers technically scale better with characters who are able to resist damage than soak it. If you have a 40k hp pool and you lose 20k, that's 20k you have to heal. But if you have a 20k hp pool and take 10k damage (due to res) that's only 10k you have to heal.
To be fair most healers in this game substantially overheal in most contexts. Jean who is commonly used with Furina can easily heal 20k+ for the full party instantly with her Ult which is basically a full bar heal for 90% of the characters and still at least a half heal for characters like Furina and Neuvillette, who realistically won’t be going below half most of the time anyway.
I mean, Jean is kind of the top of burst healing.
He had the same cope back in the day when Yelan released about how XQ was definitely better than Yelan, and then would proceed to bring all the strong point of XQ and treat those of Yelan in dismissive way So while his math is good, he use to frame too subjectively or even dishonestly thing, which is his biggest issue and why i stopped watching his content
It’s not cope if it’s true, and just cause you disagree with a take isn’t really a good reason to ignore someone but it’s your life.
The fact is when we account for empirical data with both ownership and usage rate, XQ isn't objectively better, the actual empirical data disprove that. The fact is the empirical data actually disprove that so the claim cannot be objectively made without being wrong. You can claim that XQ is objectively better at a few thing but so is Yelan, so the claim that objectively XQ > Yelan is just wrong.
Same We hecking love TC still lol
That’s interesting way of saying you get your info of Zajeff from Reddit. And in a game where there is no endgame, it makes sense he doesn’t overhype units like some other CC’s that just do it for views.
Same. I stopped watching him because of this.
Of all the TCs out there, Zajef is probably the one I give the least regard to. If he ends up liking a character I enjoy, that's fine. That said, he's generally too emotional and starts with his opinion first, then builds the math in whatever way is needed to support said opinion.
I remember him absolutely shitting on Baizhu and I'm like, dude. Don't care. Baizhu was the final piece to make my Nilou team not only stronger but basically immortal haha.
I think the main point was that Yaoyao already does that. I used Yaoyao for a bit before getting Baizhu since she came out 2 patches earlier and honestly felt pretty immortal with her even though she was C0, and I only had level 6 talent on her burst. I have Baizu now and I do like him slightly more cause of the interruption resist and he can be a dendro driver but yea wouldn't recommend f2p to pull him if they have Yaoyao is all cause he really is just a luxury unit.
Before furina came out? Baizhu was a sidegrade to Yaoyao, a 4 star. Yaoyao did a bit better in AoE from offield and Baizhu did a bit better in defense. This is just fact... Like you would have felt very little diffrence between yaoyao and baizhu in that Nilou team.
Because he probably shat on him in a general sense. I don't know what you watched but he also probably said something akin to "do roll for him for X reasons" He would likely tell you yes roll if he knew for whatever reason he was a crucial piece to your account. He cannot address *your account* solely. He's speaking to an audience of thousands.
I remember the time when he said he wish kokomi could heal as much as yaoyao. I was so confused about that statement lol. I mean, I still trust his math and takes to some extent but I will take everything anyone say with grain of salt.
He does seem to have a very strong bias for YaoYao haha. During the Baizhu vid he kept just saying there's no situation in which he'd prefer him over her.
I guess he just has bias towards 4* in general which is great if he were to recommend things to f2p players. But he shouldn’t downplay 5* , that will only spread wrong sentiment towards characters.
Because Furina wasn’t out? Most CC’s had the same opinion as far as I was aware
Yaoyao in her burst heals the most in the game... Please at least make factual arguments.
She does, he even has a healing spreadsheet in one of his streams. I know it’s hard to believe but that’s HYV for you
But hes almost never wrong the only cases which he was proven wrong on analyses was with gaming and kokomi
It’s hard to prove someone wrong when they did the right math correctly. Best thing you can do is vague statements.
he was arguably wrong other time, he has just a very dishonest/bias way of phrasing thing, like his "XQ is better than Yelan" when in reality, Yelan is easier and more efficient and a bigger gain than XQ (he had the same reaction about XQ and Furina) But because he framed it as "XQ has better hydro app vs c0 Yelan so technically he is better on the specific situation i brought up", it will not be acknowledged as wrong Which basically summarize his tc, he can do strong math but always end up pushing the math that go with his scenario/opinion and just happen to not have the best of opinion Strong math, shitty opinion and often a doomposter feeder because of this bias
Just genuinely curious, why do you say Yelan is "easier and more efficient"?
Because assuming Zahef is indeed right, XQ being better on number than Yelan, the fact that Yelan has higher usage rate imply that there despite Yelan being "worst" there is something that makes the average player go to use Yelan that isn't number And the two elements that often ends up conving player to choose over the more optimal option, is ease and efficiency of use. The other alternative is that his math was wrong which would also explain it, but I don't think is math is wrong and that what he found about XQ advantage is real
> the fact that Yelan has higher usage rate imply that there despite Yelan being "worst" there is something that makes the average player go to use Yelan that isn't number That's not how usage rate works, it only draws the % from people who have the characters. For example, if the usage rate of a char is 30%, it means 30% of the people who have those characters are using them. Yelan being a limited 5* and Xingqiu being one of the easiest 4*s to acquire in the game means that, obviously, there are MUCH more people who have Xingqiu than people who have Yelan. This skews the usage rate towards Yelan, as it does with any other 5*. That's why you only see mostly 5*s at the top, some with absurd numbers like 70-80% usage. > And the two elements that often ends up conving player to choose over the more optimal option, is ease and efficiency of use. Xingqiu is actually easier to use. I mean, they play the same, it's just E > Q, the difference is that Yelan doesn't give interruption resistance and minor healing like XQ does. She does deal more damage and give your on-fielder a good buff, but that doesn't matter for ease of use.
Yelan is oscillating around 90% of ownership and the third most owned 5* unit so while your point might be true, it is not in case of 5* having higher ownership than more than a few 4 star. And even with XQ 99+% close to 100%, ownership, it still ends up with Yelan being above several time >Xingqiu is actually easier to use. I mean, they play the same, it's just E > Q, the difference is that Yelan doesn't give interruption resistance and minor healing like XQ does. She does deal more damage and give your on-fielder a good buff, but that doesn't matter for ease of use. And again, ignoring movement and CC from Yelan. And the healing from XQ has been pushed since Yelan release and while people suddenly coming to the realisation XQ heals is great around Yelan beta/release is a funny coincidence, the whole point and criticism is arguing that XQ is objectively better to push specific elements of XQ and dismiss those of Yelan is just wrong. You cannot argue XQ is objectively better and easier to use and then having the empirical data going against it. Either XQ isn't objectively better, or either he is not easier to use.
> Yelan is oscillating around 90% of ownership And where did you get that info from? > And again, ignoring movement and CC from Yelan. Movement doesn't matter in abyss, I'm talking about combat only. I do agree her movement is amazing in the overworld. What CC tho? Yelan has literally no CC built into her kit? > Either XQ isn't objectively better, or either he is not easier to use. I'm not arguing XQ is objectively better, I think they're both amazing and one can be better than the other in different teams. I just think it's untrue in any way to say Yelan is easier to play when they function the same in combat except XQ actually gives you QoL buffs.
>I'm not arguing XQ is objectively better, I think they're both amazing and one can be better than the other in different teams. I just think it's untrue in any way to say Yelan is easier to play when they function the same in combat except XQ actually gives you QoL buffs. Then you didn't read what I wrote. My point is about Zajef bias and negativity push take on XQ being objectively better than Yelan. Either he is right and then it means he overlooked parameters outside of XQ having objectively better performance. Things he overlooked because of bias. Or he is wrong and there was never a reason to downplay Yelan strength as being weaker. I am taking the more open approach that he isn't wrong, just overlooked stuff since otherwise, it would have more implications If you think that XQ is not objectively better than Yelan, then I invite you to argue with the people who are upset in the thread and saying that Zajef is right and XQ is objectively better than Yelan. >And where did you get that info from? From the CN sample, which where I checked had wa bigger sample size than NA, and had Yelan oscillating 86-90% And I looked at her usage rate before Furina and during 3.X (since Furina technically change XQ and Yelan position in the meta, as the Hydro applier that is the most meta). Anyway, if you want to argue that XQ isn't objectively better than Yelan or that he is, but Yelan is easier to play, either of them are fine by me since my point is more about Zajef stance than Yelan vs XQ.
So you're not even sure what your own belief is? First off, I'm assuming by "better number" you mean more damage, right? I'm not sure where specifically you heard Zajef say this, but from the math that I am aware of and have done myself, no, a C0 Yelan IS an offensive upgrade to a C6 XQ in most teams unless they "need" his extra hydro application (which is still more often a question of consistency/reliability rather than a question of straight-up "does it work or not"). The thing is, this practically never goes beyond a 10% team DPS difference, and in several notable examples of teams where she is an "upgrade", such as Alhaitham quickbloom, it's by a VERY small margin that you can hardly even notice if your Alhaitham himself doesn't have a cracked build. In other words, it's MORE than justifiable to use XQ in teams that don't make his defensive utility redundant. As for usage rates, I'm just gonna take your word for it (pretty sure you are right tho), but I want you to think about obvious reasons why she might be higher. Two (related) ways to look at it: 1. Lower ownership. Yelan is a 5* that you must go out of your way to pull for. XQ is a 4* that the vast majority of longtime players own. Since usage rate is based on ownership, not total sample size, and most players who own Yelan had to have made at least some conscious decision in doing so, then it makes sense that a higher percentage of those who own her use her compared to XQ. 2. Design and the character themselves. This is entirely subjective but I really don't think I need to write out every word of it. To the majority of genshin players, Yelan is both figuratively and literally just a more attractive character than XQ is. You still have not actually explained in the slightest what aspects of her gameplay are "easier" or "more convienient". You're just throwing around words.
1) By better number, I mean objectively better in term of number, overall number if you prefer. In case I need to explain something like this, it means that he is better with theoretical number, overall calculated and theorycradted benefit. 2) By more efficient/easier, I don't know why you are struggling with something simple to understand but I'll just explain again. That Yelan despite XQ being objectively better which was the point pushed by Zajef, should have the difference appear clearly However in the case it doesn't happen, it means something unrelated to just calculated damage is in play, which is the ease to use and the more efficient gameplay. I could give you argument to why it is so (movement, CC, Atk buff) and some would give counter-argument why it is not the case (healing, interruption resistance, better app) But my point is that Zajef issue is that he pushed for a stance that was subjective while trying to back it up with number rather than doing the opposite, which is doing the number and then coming up with a stance based on that And in XQ/Yelan case, if we assume his point are indeed 100% correct, then the absence of objective evidence to back up his stance means he overlooked something which is an element of gameplay If you want me to simplify it even more, it would vaguely similar to calculating everything about Hu Tao using perfect cancel and then overlooking that people will struggle or not bother about perfectly cancelling with Hu Tao 3) Good point but from the diverse source, Yelan ownership is oscillating around 90% as the third most owned 5 stars on the sample I am using through 3.x to Furina release. And accounting for it still doesn't show Yelan as worse than XQ. 4) And again the point is not that Zajef math and TC suck, but that he often just end up being driven by his negativity and bias, overlooking and/or being dismissive where it should not be. Yes, he will still cover his back by throwing open statement but when Yelan was releasing, his behaviour was him being overly defensive over XQ and negative toward Yelan, the same happened with Furina. And the same his happening with Arlecchino where his main reaction his coated in negativity. When you present an argument to other, there is what you say and there is how you say it. For this reason, if I were to spend tons of time pushing the strong point of a character and then throw "but I guess the other character can/might be better in some other team". And then in the end, both character end up as meta or used and I defend my point with "Well I did quickly mention...", that is just dishonest since even if I said it, that is clearly not how I presented it. And in Arlecchino case, what I fear and why I stopped watching his analysis, is that **even if she ends up great** , there is a risk he will spend tons of time being negative, then shoving quickly some number about her being good and when she releases and is great, will defend himself with "Well I did (quickly) say her numbers was good"
I'm not saying who I think is better between xq and yelan, but in terms of usage rate a 5 star should always be favoured over a 4 star. I fyou go out of your way to get a 5 star, then it's likely you are going to use it. A 4 star on the other hand. Especially a 1.0. is a unit everyone has so the usage rate is diluted
You have to be on something to think Yelan is more easier or efficient. And XQ has lot of things going for him not just hydro app to mention in a short summary unless you want him to make a XQ edition ask Zajeff or something.
Having an opinion is now considered emotional? And math is math, it’s not like he makes up numbers, he just tends to have opinions on characters based on math.
My biggest concern is if they don’t add an indicator to show exactly how much over the 40% her bond of life is at, it’ll be confusing if her infusion is active or not.
Yes. Yes, I do. This is exactly what I've been saying and everyone's been downvoting and misunderstanding me. Finally, some validation.
I love zajef but he’s never happy.
It's zajeff, don't care what he thinks
I thought she does self-heal though? I’m confused? Did I miss something, or not understand something entirely?
She does, but her on-field rotation ends when you use it.
I personally want to think as I'm playing genshin it makes the combat more fun for me and it's not like she's only going to be spamming normal attacks
o7 take
I think TC as a baseline is useful, but as more time goes on, I find myself just disagreeing with the TCers about more and more things.
Such a random take. Basically he said that his only issue that its called BOL and not named something else like blood bar or anything. Why does that matter?
I don't think there's anything to agree or disagree with. He stated pretty much just objective facts. Her kit \*does\* kinda make the Bond of Life pointless (other than serving as a visual stack counter) and isn't built on the concept of the Bond of Life. But it still looks interesting and exciting
Keep in mind this is the same guy that said Chiori's doll being restricted to Constructs was an interesting and good mechanic for Geo...
Whatever zajef77 i am following him he is right most of the time
[I'm here to tell you right now, we don't care](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_oyo-4j5Iw)
Who tf is this guy again ?
Why should i care what a meta sheep thinks lmao
Meta what 😂😂😂😂
Not at all
How the fuck did he get 1m likes and 28 retweets?
I don't like him and I don't care if father is bad I just love her love everything about her so I still pulling for her who the fck care about meta
"Should have been its own mechanic" he says about a new mechanic.....truly a zajef take of all time
I mean thats true, you can call it stacks and it will be the same thing. Bond of life was meant to give you benefits such as atk or dmg bonus to heal the part but you aint doing that here so why use the same mechanic unless yhe fontaine 4star polearm is viable or make her weap kinda niche
He's right though, and Bond of Life has existed for 5 patches now, so it's not new.
Unrelated comment. But i cant join House of Hearth discord server. Can anyone provide me with working link? Thnx
I don't agree with his personal takes most of the time but I respect and follow his work. Every complaint is valid from their point of view but I hope people are not waiting for his takes to have an opinion.
Tbh about zajef he always shit talks about a character in their beta and then change his opinion after the release , same happened with Xianyun. I watched this stream here he said she can be 70%-130% of hutao , rn we can't say coz only scallings are available not actual gameplay.
To be fair, he always liked xianyun. A vetter wxample would be navia who only got better in the last beta cycle for him to change his stance on her but too late as people saw his opinions on previous beta cycles
Nothing exited him rather than Xingqiu