If anyone is going to be on later today and wants to try teaming up for Theater Mechanicus, I could use some help on this fourth difficulty level. I can't for the life of me get through without at least one enemy escaping. The map I am on has two entrances and two exits, just spread so thin being alone.
I'll be around throughout the day, other than the morning chores and lunch... and probably a bit of Overwatch in the evening. Feel free to poke me on Steam or Discord (Mantid#4327).
Same. My accounts are linked in my profile and I'd love to try the co-op.
Edit:
Just finished some co-op with Arkon, and it's definitely the way to go for fun and effectiveness.
You still are limited to 14 constructs, right? Basically you just gain the ability to have characters applying elements in two locations at once?
You still are limited to 14 constructs, right? Basically you just gain the ability to have characters applying elements in two locations at once?
Each player also seems to get the full starting veneficus points and full gain from kills. So you start with far more towers up and can far more easily swap them to adapt to waves. Additionally, each player can choose a buff at the end of each round, so each individual tower ends up more powerful.
These effects seem bigger than being in multiple places to hitstun and apply element.
Ahh, yeah, for sure.
My problem with the RNG is after 2 rounds of Pyro RES artifacts, I get a Pyro DMG timepiece with Cryo % up as the main. Or HP, or DEF. Constantly. I just want the main stat to be good. I can't even put together a single 5-piece set, even after using a flower and feather. I've gotten Anemo, Geo, Cryo, and Hydro attack up, but never Pyro % up on the Crimson Witch set. I think the game is trolling me after handing me Diluc (+C1 right after).
But hey, Diluc still rolls enemies despite being poorly equipped while constantly hitting the elemental skill, attack, attack, repeat x3, then burst loop. His burst tends to be on a small cooldown when it fills back up.
I don't think I have a single goblet where the elemental damage up matches the elemental damage type of the set. Since sets bonuses are at 4 pieces I tend to piece in the goblet from whatever set I have that has the right primary damage type and then get the 4 piece bonus from the remaining slots.
My problem with the RNG is after 2 rounds of Pyro RES artifacts, I get a Pyro DMG timepiece with Cryo % up as the main. Or HP, or DEF. Constantly. I just want the main stat to be good.
I don't think I have a single goblet where the elemental damage up matches the elemental damage type of the set. Since sets bonuses are at 4 pieces I tend to piece in the goblet from whatever set I have that has the right primary damage type and then get the 4 piece bonus from the remaining slots.
Right. Just assume the goblet is going to be your off-set piece when farming artifacts because trying to get the right elemental main stat there is extremely difficult. There is no 5-set bonus, so you just need the other 4 slots to have the right main stats.
I think I have two characters currently that lucked out and have the right goblet as part of their set bonus. It's my flex piece for everyone else.
Game is trolling me. Got a claymore billet last week and this week. Already have an R5 Prototype Archaic. Wish I could spend a few days resin to transmute it to a bow.
At least you got something, I have yet to get a single prototype drop in my time playing!
But yes I agree, they need a system to transmute them.
At least you got something, I have yet to get a single prototype drop in my time playing!
But yes I agree, they need a system to transmute them.
True. Though more claymore billets are currently useless to me, it's possible they'll pay off in future.
I pulled on Keqing's banner a bit. Initially had bad luck getting 2 Barbaras and a flute in the first 30 pulls.
Next 10 pull was better yielding a Bennett and the fifth 10-pull was a jackpot, yielding 2 Ningguang and 1 Keqing. Was around 70 since Ganyu, so it came early and was on banner.
So, thread, I suddenly have a surfeit of carry options. C1 Ganyu seems like a given, even though I'm struggling to find her a good bow. I'm less certain who's the next best to build around between C0 Keqing (black sword or aquila favonia), C2 Ningguang (widsith) or C2 Razor (R5 Prototype).
I think I'm done with Razor. He's just too selfish to use in Abyss, though he's quite useful in the over world. Some hasty reading suggests phys Keqing would do well with his 2 glad, 2 chivalry set with the phys cup. Been building Ning up for a while now as she's supposed to be OP with the new geo resonance. Any input on relative power level, ease of play, or versatility in the abyss between the two?
I think I'm done with Razor. He's just too selfish to use in Abyss, though he's quite useful in the over world. Some hasty reading suggests phys Keqing would do well with his 2 glad, 2 chivalry set with the phys cup. Been building Ning up for a while now as she's supposed to be OP with the new geo resonance. Any input on relative power level, ease of play, or versatility in the abyss between the two?
I can't speak to Keqing, but you really can't go wrong with Ning, especially at C2. She is a 1-woman army, and the geo resonance makes her even more so. Because she's so self-sufficient, you can pretty safely focus on building up your second team synergy first and then toss your best leftovers with Ning. She breaks non-fatui shields with ease and deals strong single target damage, so she really only needs assistance with heavy AOE sections. The one enemy I hate fighting on Ning is the electric Cicin mages. You end up auto targeting her flies unless you stay on top of her.
She's relatively easy to play, but she is a tiny bit awkward until you get used to the quirks of maximizing her attack patterns. You want to throw out 2 or 3 auto attacks followed by a charge attack. Move while auto attacking. Forward, left, back...it doesn't matter. Just make sure you're holding some direction. This auto-cancels the end of the attack animation and noticeably increases your attack speed. When it's time to charge attack, stop moving first. If you don't, the charge attack doesn't always come out reliably. Once the charge animation starts, you can go back to holding a movement key.
Aside from that, she's pretty straightforward. You'll just need to learn to how to position your screen for damage/defense and to always have a screen down before ulting.
I can't speak to Keqing, but you really can't go wrong with Ning, especially at C2. She is a 1-woman army, and the geo resonance makes her even more so. Because she's so self-sufficient, you can pretty safely focus on building up your second team synergy first and then toss your best leftovers with Ning. She breaks non-fatui shields with ease and deals strong single target damage, so she really only needs assistance with heavy AOE sections. The one enemy I hate fighting on Ning is the electric Cicin mages. You end up auto targeting her flies unless you stay on top of her.
She's relatively easy to play, but she is a tiny bit awkward until you get used to the quirks of maximizing her attack patterns. You want to throw out 2 or 3 auto attacks followed by a charge attack. Move while auto attacking. Forward, left, back...it doesn't matter. Just make sure you're holding some direction. This auto-cancels the end of the attack animation and noticeably increases your attack speed. When it's time to charge attack, stop moving first. If you don't, the charge attack doesn't always come out reliably. Once the charge animation starts, you can go back to holding a movement key.
Aside from that, she's pretty straightforward. You'll just need to learn to how to position your screen for damage/defense and to always have a screen down before ulting.
Thanks for the advice. I'll stick with Geo Momma. I was having a hell of a time getting the Charged Attack to come out, but I've let up on the directional input for those and it's a lot more reliable now. Now I just need to figure out my Abyss teams.
For what it's worth Peanut, my well invested carries are now Ganyu, Keqing, and Ningguang, and I couldn't be happier with the fun and variety that set of three offer.
As you say, Ganyu is the no brainer -- she's just so damn strong, and the focus on aimed shot gameplay is a welcome bit of variety compared with the heavily melee focus for most teams. I mostly run her in one of these two comps:
which are both very, very powerful, but fun in very different ways. Eventually I'll set up devoted artifact sets for each team, but for now I have a nice generalist set that works well either way.
That said, Keqing has been my main carry since almost the beginning of the game for very good reason. While she maybe doesn't top the theoretical charts and electro reactions maybe aren't as wild as pyro or cryo ones, she's a spectacular generalist and very, very versatile.
While I've always run her as an electro build, she's almost unique among the cast of the game in that she can be just as strong built as a physical carry, and if you've already got a physical damage set somewhat constructed for Razor AND and an Aquila Favonia, you're more than off to the races for that. Set her up with a solid superconduct team, and go nuts. (From your showcase, you could do Fischl, Diona, and Sucrose, or if you have them, Fischl, Keaya, and Jean would probably be the best team. Heck, Ganyu could even fill the cryo slot in a pinch, if you don't have Kaeya built, maybe as a double resonance team with Fischl and Diona).
Set her up for electro, though, and she can work well with a wide variety of teams constructed from your showcase characters. For example, for the vast majority of the game I've run with this generalist comp:
which you could essentially do with Sucrose instead of Venti. Also, depending on elemental requirements, Xiangling mixes in very easily in place of either Xingqiu or Venti/Sucrose.
Most recently I've been running her a lot with this team though, since I've been farming a TON of geo artifacts (my kingdom for a crit dmg Archaic circlet that doesn't have literally the worst possible substats):
Ningguang is my newest focus, though, and does a decent job of filling in some team niches that are missing between Ganyu and Keqing, and provides yet another completely different gameplay style for fun and variety. I've mostly been running her with this crew:
swapping Xingqiu or Xiangling in for Fischl as appropriate for elements. Zhongli and Albedo are the stronger choices to get the geo resonance, but geo traveller is a fine substitute if you didn't roll either of them. If you do have Zhongli though, you'll never go mining without geo mommy and daddy ever again. 
So now all I really need is a good pyro carry, since the game hasn't seen fit to give me a Diluc yet and I had zero interest in rolling for Klee. Hu Tao is going to be tempting, but I'm really unsure -- after all, if the new banner pattern continues, we could be seeing a Diluc banner in either 1.4 or 1.5 pretty easily.
Until that happens, though, all I've got for now is sweet little Bennett with Xiangling as support when I need something approximating a pyro focused team. Which, you know, works, but it's barely satisfying.
Oh, and speaking of Bennett and Ningguang. I made a terrible, terrible mistake. Even though I had already reached C5 on Bennett, I decided to make one more roll trying for another NIngguang constellation. Instead, I now have this garbage to frustrate my OCD foreever:
Fun. Please, Mihoyo, please implement a way to toggle the effects of constellations on and off so I can activate this stupid thing and make the little red nightmares go away.
(It's bad enough I have to have the notification sitting on my battle pass for a few weeks until I decide which weapon to take!)
Thanks, zero. That's a lot of info. I wish I had a Jean, as she would go perfectly in my Ganyu team. As it is, I'm always trying to figure out how to make my non-Bennett team work. Diona goes well with Ganyu for the ice resonance that gives 15% crit, but she also goes well with Ningguang to make sure she always has a shield up for that insane geo resonance.
I think I'll need to work on moving my Ganyu to a Blizzard Strayer set freeze comp from my current Wanderer's set. Then I could run with Xingqui, Sucrose and Diona fairly comfortably. Going away from melt Wanderers would free up Xiangling and Bennett for the Ning team along with Geo MC. I might even take a look at replacing Xiangling with Xinyan for another shield generator.
Thanks, zero. That's a lot of info. I wish I had a Jean, as she would go perfectly in my Ganyu team. As it is, I'm always trying to figure out how to make my non-Bennett team work. Diona goes well with Ganyu for the ice resonance that gives 15% crit, but she also goes well with Ningguang to make sure she always has a shield up for that insane geo resonance.
I think I'll need to work on moving my Ganyu to a Blizzard Strayer set freeze comp from my current Wanderer's set. Then I could run with Xingqui, Sucrose and Diona fairly comfortably. Going away from melt Wanderers would free up Xiangling and Bennett for the Ning team along with Geo MC. I might even take a look at replacing Xiangling with Xinyan for another shield generator.
Yeah, that's kind of why I decided to just go with the generalist set (2 blizzard, 2 gladiator) on Ganyu for now -- even though I'm neither maximizing my melt damage nor getting all the way to infinite crit perfection, the numbers are still big enough and I can easily have fun with either comp without feeling like I've left too much on the table with a set tuned for the other. Eventually I'll get to the point of having two sets, but for now all my artifact fodder is going towards getting all my utility players set up with full +16 (or at least four pieces at +16) rather than the feather/cup +16 where many of them have been for a long time.
The other thing to keep in mind is that 1.4 will almost certainly bring at least one banner with a character that might help you fill in some of those gaps. The rumors of a Venti rerun seem to have a very strong chance of being correct, what with the combo of 1.4's focus being on a Mondstadt festival and it being roughly six months since his first banner AND there being datelines showing that one of the weapon banners will have a new bow, but also the chances of a Zhongli rerun also seem high given that his buffs in 1.3 were so well received. Also, if they do continue this new three banner per patch pattern with the middle banner being a rate up on a character from the standard banner, again the Mondstadt theme of the patch points towards good chances of a Jean banner (although Diluc would be just a likely).
I know Venti is technically the better character and his grouping would make Ganyu's ult hilariously powerful, but I would be far more likely to spend money on a Jean. Having a second strong healer with great utility is exactly what I need for two comfy teams.
Yeah, I'd maybe recommend the same given the teams you're working with.
Venti is every bit as wildly good as everyone says, and you can put him into nearly any team and make it better (with geo resonance teams perhaps being the only question mark in that sentence, since you can't really get a swirl and veneero shred on geo). Also, as you say his silly grouping ability makes Ganyu's ult even more devastating. But, two things:
1. As you say, if you're tying to make two teams for the abyss having the two best healers is going to be more impactful in most cases (the current 11-2 notwithstanding), and while Qiqi, Barbara, and Diona all have their niches, Jean and Bennett really are the all around healing champs in most circumstances (by a strong margin).
2. As good as the ult interactions are, the movement of enemies stuck inside Venti's ult can easily cause you to miss frostflake shots into the effect. Granted, it's not too different than trying to shoot enemies bouncing in Sucrose's ult, and they'll be more tightly packed for a longer period of time, so really it's still a big win -- just, there's nothing more annoying than whiffing a charged shot because your target suddenly bounced up a few feet unpredictably.
Anyway, I'm not sure who you currently use as the fourth character in your melt team, but it's worth being aware that Venti brings a bit of annoyance along with the awesome in that comp before you potentially roll for him. And, since you've already got a reasonably leveled Sucrose, you do have a functional facsimile of most of what he brings to most parties.
So yeah, if we get reasonably good intel that there will be both Venti and Jean on banners, for your case specifically I'd definitely recommend going for Jean if you can only pull one.
Now, if the Zhongli rumor proves true, that's a more interesting question.
If it's Jean vs Zhongli, probably still Jean for your setup?
Zhongli would be ideal if you're trying to get a good Ningguang team assembled, and post 1.3 buffs he's very similar to Venti in that he brings incredible burst damage, crowd control, and debuffing utility that can enhance nearly any party. But, just as with the the Venti comparison, having Jean will really open things up for building two teams in the abyss (not to mention just giving you more all around variety since you don't have to feel like Bennett should be on every team).
But, if it's Venti vs Zhongli, that's a tough call. Zhongli is clearly better for Ningguang's teams, but Venti is probably slightly more useful in most Ganyu and Keqing comps? I guess the big differentiator is that Venti is more effective at clearing large groups (particularly of enemies small enough to be lifted, ie Fatui and smaller), whereas Zhongli will probably feel more useful in situations where you're fighting single enemies or anything larger than a Fatui that won't be lifted and thus will resist a sizable chunk of Venti's damage.
I haven't been back to the Abyss since getting Ganyu and Diluc, and I also have Jean and Bennett...
I just haven't gotten Ganyu very well built. Part of it being I just can't seem to make charged shots super reliably hit weak points so I've not focused on her build.
I haven't been back to the Abyss since getting Ganyu and Diluc, and I also have Jean and Bennett...
I just haven't gotten Ganyu very well built. Part of it being I just can't seem to make charged shots super reliably hit weak points so I've not focused on her build.
Sooo, I'm not going to try to pretend that landing hits on weak points isn't helpful, especially if you're using Prototype Crescent. But, I AM going to suggest that you might both have more fun playing Ganyu and potentially end up being more effective if you let yourself stop worrying quite so much about achieving perfect aim.
Even if you are using Prototype Crescent you only need to hit a weak point once every 10 seconds to keep that buff rolling -- that's like one out of every five charged shots if you're running her selfishly, although admittedly you're probably going to want to swap through your supports after three or so shots in most cases. So, when I was using Prototype Crescent I was putting a bit more effort into trying to land a weak spot hit with my first shot, and then just tried to focus on making sure I was lining up a hit of some sort by the time my charge was ready.
But, regardless of what weapon you are using, generally speaking due to the mechanics of how Frostflake works (more damage from the bloom and lots of bonus crit rate flying around, especially in cryo resonance) the value of delaying a shot to land a precision hit drops off precipitously as the length of the delay increases. And even more importantly, as your gear gets better and your crit rate goes up, the value of that delay drops like a rock towards zero (outside of maintaining the passive for Prototype Crescent). If you aren't going to have the shot lined up within fractions of a second after the full charge is ready, much of the time it will be better just score the hit anywhere you can (or even fire at the ground close enough to get the bloom damage to land) and get started charging and aiming the next shot -- it's likely to be a crit anyway, not to mention the much larger bloom damage that doesn't care where your shot landed.
Also, since we're talking Ganyu playstyle, a couple other tips for anyone who might care:
1. Frostflake Arrows are actually fully charged a little bit before the second charging ring finishes closing. It may not seem like much at first, but at least for me it's felt like training myself to watch for that perfect early moment to release the shot has been a LOT more valuable than worrying about perfect aim.
2. There are two ways to charge an aimed shot -- holding the aim button then hitting the fire button, or holding the normal attack button. If you hold the aim button, you automatically start charging your next shot after firing, BUT there is a delay built in that can be avoided if you are holding and releasing the normal attack button (like you would for a melee charged attack).
This does make it a bit harder to have a continuity of aim (because you drop out of aim mode for a split second between shots), so it's less advisable if you are trying to track a fast moving target, but for easy shots you can get multiple sequential shots fired much faster this way. Also, if you are using Xingqiu as part of a freeze comp, this is far and away the better choice for weaving normal shots between charged shots to trigger his rain swords, and avoids significant delays entering and exiting aim mode via the aim button.
CAVEAT EMPTOR: I do this with a Xbox Elite controller, and I have my normal attack button mapped to a paddle on the back of my controller so I can keep both thumbs on the stick while charging via the normal attack button rather than using the left trigger/right trigger aim and fire mode. If I was actually using a face button for normal attack this would really not work at all. Also, I have no idea how this translates into mouse and keyboard controls. I'm assuming you can do the same thing by holding the left mouse button or whatever, but I'm not terribly interested in trying it myself.
Well, I was supposed to be farming up a better blizzard hat for Ganyu, but I guess a very well rolled cup for Keqing will do.
Wow that is a nice artifact!
Looks like Diona managed to crush the wine industry on the Chinese server! Diluc has been reduced to working at KFC...
So I spent some Primos on the new weapon banner (roughly 100 pulls) and managed to get 2 Staff of Homa and a Wolf Grave Stone. Looks like I am building some new weapons. Also got enough duplicates to R5 both Lithic weapons. Interesting bonus on those and now thinking about how I can best utilize them in an all Liyue team.
Did my first weapon pull and got a Lithic and was thinking that was a very odd bonus/restriction to have to basically ask for a full party of Liyue characters. Then again, from who I have access to and have built up, that includes: Ganyu, Chongyun, Xiangling, Xinyan, and I probably should build up Zhongli fully.
Yeah, the problem with the Liyue party thing is healers. Qiqi just doesn't bring any extra utility, and thus gets powerfully outshined by Bennett and Jean (and even Diona at times) the farther you get into the game. I guess if we had some fights that became genuine healing checks she'd have more of a place (since she CAN generate more healing than anyone else) but it's so hard to fit her into a strong team composition that it kills the fun of the Lithic weapons a bit for me.
That said, if you are lucky enough to get a few refinements then even a team with three Liyue characters can make the Lithic weapons pretty damn strong, especially if you don't already have a five star spear or claymore.
That is, of course, if the gacha gods smile on you. I rolled on the weapon banner a bit too; no Homas, all Gravestones, very few Lithics, all Lion's Roars. Waaaaah wahhh.
So, Hu Tao is still a question mark for me. If it do get tempted, I can grab a Deathmatch from the battle pass and still have great weapons for all my spear users, but the weapon banner seems to be telling me I should wait for Diluc instead. If only I could be sure he'd be on a banner next patch, I'd be delighted to.
Wooo!
Super late to the party I suppose, but I finally put the time in and made a full 36 star clear of the abyss.
Congrats Zero, I need to work on that. I always forget to do Abyss which is causing me to miss out on a lot of resources.
Pages