Genshin Impact Gacha-of-the-Wild All

Oh, one quick suggestion:

If you have enough starglitter saved up, get Bennett from the shop before it resets at the end of the month. Heck, even if you already have him, buy him a constellation. From my experience so far he's one of the two most useful 4 stars in the game, and provides immense benefit to nearly any team.

His support ability is easy to use and universally useful (super fast long lasting heals when you're below 70% health, strong offensive buff when your above, or even stronger offensive buff all the time with his first constellation). That alone would be enough to make him a solid addition to nearly any team, but on top of that the super short cooldown and easy versatility his primary skill make him wildly effective at applying fire statuses for either priming or triggering reactions, and make him a spectacular energy battery if you're using a fire character as your main DPS carry (ie, Diluc, or Xiangling configured for DPS instead of support, probably using the crafted Cresent Pike polearm).

Build him for energy regen, and you'll pretty easily have his support available on cooldown, meaning that you'll be having it active for 12 out of every 15 seconds. It's just wild. (And if you have a Favonius or Sacrificial Sword for him, even better.)

Oh, and if you're curious, Xingqiu is the other 4 star support who seems to me to punch WAY above his weight, although sadly he was on the Klee banner, so there's no easy way to force the game to give him to you at the moment and it might be a while before there is again. He is a bit more dependent on properly set up gear to really shine than Bennett is -- using a Sacrificial Sword on him, for example, is a HUGE boost, and even more than most characters, having a cup artifact with a boost for his elemental damage type (hydro) is almost required -- but it's wild how much damage he can add to your team if used right. Bonus points if you're using a DPS carry that can convert their auto attacks to elemental damage, such as Chongyun or Keqing, because his burst ability basically lets you never stop triggering elemental reactions even while waiting for the rest of your team to cooldown, since it's effectively a long lasting turret activated and targeted by your auto attacks.

EDIT:

Recorded a quick video to demonstrate Bennett and Xingqiu a bit. Nothing special going on here, and you don't get to see me make a lot of good use of Xingqiu's burst ability since I was getting good luck with energy regen and thus I didn't have a lot of downtime to abuse it in combination with Keqing's electro converted auto attack, but you still see a bit of the idea.

So here is my roster, I have spent some money (not a whale but perhaps a small dolphin lol) but also gotten incredibly lucky on my pulls:

IMGUR of my roster

My main team is typically QiQi, Razor, Klee and then the third spot I rotate to deal with elemental resistances. I suspect I am building my team in entirely the wrong way. I do have Ningguang, but I am having a hard time getting her leveled up, the Geo Hypostasis is a pain to kill and takes absolutely forever. I am AR42.

I have collected all of the Anemo oculus (well missing the one extra) and my geo oculus status is at level 9, so I guess I am just dodging too much. I almost never used charged attacks.

To be honest I mostly just brute force my way through most things when possible, sadly I am just having trouble grasping the nuance of combat I guess. I am very open to suggestions and help!

Ooh, there's a lot to work with there! Give me a bit and I'll write up some thoughts. Might get dragged away for the business of the day before I can wrap up, but some of what I posted above might be helpful to start since you've got Bennett and Xinqiu in your roster.

EDIT: Oh, in the meantime, what 4* weapons do you have available?

I have pulled a ton of 4* weapons, here is a screenshot of the weapons bag: Weapons

NOTE: I ran out of time in the middle of editing, so apologies for what I'm sure are a ton of remaining typos and mistakes. Have to go do the rest of my day for now though, but hopefully this helps!

So here's the basic philosophy of team building I've been following so far, which has worked well for me. (Incidentally, most of this is generally cribbed from various Reddit and Youtube resources, and there are far smarter people than me out there out there really doing the work of figuring this stuff out, so this is just the distillation of general wisdom that’s worked for me.)

You main DPS/carry

Basically, you want to build a team around what most people seem to be calling your “DPS” or “carry” character. This is going to be a character that excels at dealing damage even when all your abilities are on cooldown, and thus they are carrying your team with their sustained DPS ability while others are waiting to have skills to contribute. This is the character that you want to go heavy with for resource allocation, because as I’m sure you’ve noticed, you will simply never have the resources needed to keep everyone fully leveled.

- They get leveled up to the max as soon as possible after a rank up allows it.

- They get maxed out weapons, and get the first choice of your best weapons available.

- They absolutely have a maxed out feather artifact and a maxed out cup that’s well chosen to boost the best possible stat (often their elemental damage, but sometimes physical damage or your ATK stat). They probably also most of their other artifacts mostly maxed out, except maybe their flower since that always gives HP, and that generally isn’t a stat you care about on most characters (other than healers that scale healing output based on HP, ie, Barbara and to a lesser extent Bennett).

- They are probably the only character who you want to focus on leveling their auto attack talent. Others will take a swing or two from time to time depending on what they are doing, but for your carry character(s) auto attack matters a lot more.

- You probably also want all their other talents leveled as much as possible too though!

For me, my main carry is Keqing, and I’ve got Chongyun as the leader for my B team. At AR 44, she’s level 80 with a level 80 weapon, but he’s still 70/70, but generally does fine in most contexts.

The good news for you is you’ve got your pick of all the most popular carries. It looks like you’ve invested hard into Klee, who I hear is a pretty great as a carry, but I don’t have any experience with her other than the trial run when her banner was active, so I’m not going to have as much solid advice for her (ie, I don’t know what weapons or artifact sets are going to be best for her, although of the ones I have on my account, I’d use Sacrificial Fragments or Eye of Perception probably, but it looks like you've got a five star for her, so that's probably best). Worth noting, however, that I think maybe using her optimally as a carry involves doing some clever bits of animation cancelling and other high twitch skill operation, but again, I can’t really speak from experience there.

You’ve also got Razor leveled up, which is another character I don’t have a ton of experience with, but I’m told he’s also quite good, and could make a great alternate team leader if you stick with Klee as your main carry. The crafted Prototype Aminus claymore is an excellent choice for him, especially since being crafted means you can much more easily get it a few refinement levels. Looks like you're using the sword that boosts damange when under the effect of electro or hydro which is also probably a good choice, but the base stats on Aminus might be a better fit with Razor in a carry role. (Noelle is going to want the other crafted sword anyway, the Whiteblind, since it gives DEF.)

Other top tier options for carry characters in your roster include Keqing and Diluc. Granted, since you haven’t invested in Diluc much yet, that might be a big change to make, although he’s probably going to want very similar artifact sets to Klee, so you could just trade sets if you wanted to make that change. Keqing is maybe closer to consideration there, but since you’ve already invested so much in Razor, if you like him, no reason not to stay with him as your electro carry choice. (He also works a LOT better with Qiqi, who you’ve also invested in already, since he can make better use of the superconduct debuff than Keqing can.)

As for your four star options, Chongyun and Beidou are also great carry choices, but I’d probably stick with one of the above mentioned instead given who you’re already leveled. Beidou would probably be a particularly bad choice for you, since you’ve got Razor and Keqing competing with her as an electro carry and much higher level already. Chongyun might eventually be someone to look at if you want an ice carry, but honestly, for now you’ve got so many hot choices that I wouldn’t give it much thought. Xiangling (who is usually more of a support character) can also be set up as a carry with the crafted Crescent Pike polearm, but you’re probably better off going with Klee or Diluc as a fire carry. Also, Ningguang can be set up as a carry if you want, but given your quantity of choices I’d probably try to keep her as a support character as well.

Oh, and Childe is also a solid carry choice, and has a very unique and fun playstyle (from what I got to try in the trial and in his quest), but similarly, I’d stick with who you’ve already go leveled for now, unless you decide you really like his playstyle, in which case go wild! He’s your go to hydro carry, for sure.

The Wide World of Supports

Okay, so moving on from carries: the rest of your team is there to provide support in various ways. It’s maybe useful to try to spit support into several subcategories though, and ideally look for a mix of characters that find a good balance between providing element variety (and/or elemental resonance) and filling the various support roles.

Others break it down in different ways, but I like to think of the support categories as:

Enablers: characters who create opportunities for elemental reactions. Good choices in your roster: Xingqiu, Fischl, Bennett, Xiangling, Qiqi, Diona

Healers/shielders: characters who mitigate or heal damage. Good choices in your roster: Bennett, Qiqi, Diona, Barbara, Jean, Xingqiu, Ningguang

Crowd controllers: characters who help manage the battlefield. Good choices in your roster: Sucrose, Jean, most pairings of ice and water characters, Mona, Amber

Burst DPS: not to be confused with this game’s “burst attacks” although burst DPS often comes from a strong “burst attack”, just characters who can do a ton of damage quickly, but lack solid sustained DPS. Good examples in your roster: Ningguang, Xingqiu, Xiangling, Fischl

Energy batteries: characters who help the team build energy; especially if they are the same element as your carry, since they’ll get extra benefit from matched elemental energy orbs. Good examples in your roster: Bennett, Fischl, Xiangling

Buffs/defuffs: this isn’t a big focus for most characters, and often it requires specific gear to activate, but there are some valuable buffs and debuffs scattered here and there. Good examples in your roster: Bennett, Sucrose with the right artifacts, the right pairing of ice and electric characters, Barbara with the Thrilling Tales weapon

Exploration utility: characters that do stuff you need outside of combat, like swing a big sword that can break rocks, or reduce stamina usage, or make resources appear on the minimap. Good examples in your roster: anyone with with a claymore, Ningguang, Klee, Kaeya and Razor (sprint stamina), Beidou (swimming stamina), Amber (gliding stamina), anyone with fire for puzzle solving

Incidentally, that list is roughly in the order of my priorities when building a team, although obviously context matters - if I’m setting up for running around the world, exploration utility will get a significant bump, obviously!

Get enabled

Purely for combat, though, my first priority is to pick a character who is a strong enabler for my chosen carry, both in terms of simple elemental pairings and (maybe more importantly) how the characters in question use those elements. Some examples from your roster:

For Klee, good enablers include:
Fischl: her bird turret is going to create tons and tons of overload opportunities.
Xingqiu: as discussed above, especially if you can give him a Sacrificial Sword, he’s a top tier enabler for just about any carry. His elemental skill is high damage, sets up a shield that periodically applies wet, and his burst attack is a simply out of this world damage ability when you switch back to a carry who’s auto attacks are elemetal, as Klee’s are.
Qiqi and Diona: these two fill very similar roles, so incidentally, it might be good to pick one you prefer and invest in them. While healing is maybe their primary support focus, both do a decent job of priming ice combos, although I’d still go with either of the above two as a primary enabler for Klee.

For Razor, good enablers would be:
Qiqi and Diona: Razor can make good use of superconduct reaction, which lower’s affected target’s physical damage resistance, since his primary auto attack damage always stays physical (ie, white damage) unless changed by another character’s skill. Same with Beidou, mostly. As a result despite the fact that your ice healers don’t have extreme priming abilities, they still become top tier enablers for Razor and Beidou.
Xiangling: Her fire turret is decent at priming for overloads, but her burst attack is where the real magic is. You want to be sure to build her for energy recharge so that you can have as much uptime as possible for her spinning fire wheels of death.
Bennett: Not as flashy a fire applyer as Xiangling, but a lot easier to use effectively, plus he brings the extreme healing and buffing of his burst attack. Honestly, ever since I got him Xiangling has sort of been relegated to B team status.
Xingqiu: Again, he’s a good enabler for anyone, but maybe a bit less so for Razor (and Beidou) due to the auto attack staying physical.

If you decide to give Keqing a go as a carry, you’d be looking at the same set as Razor above, except that Xingqiu becomes a MUCH better choice, and the ice options sort of drop away due to the whole auto attack elemental conversion thing.

Likewise, if you decide to try out Diluc, you’ll be looking at similar enablers to Klee.

The rest of your team

So once you’ve got a good carry/enabler pairing, you then need to think a bit more broadly about where you want the balance of other things to lie.

Are you trying to use one of the double element resonance effects? Double fire and double electric offer pretty powerful offensive benefits, for example, and if so you probably want to consider someone who provides good battery support.

So if you were trying to do a double fire team with Klee, for example, Bennett would be an EXCELLENT choice as a second fire character, since he can generate so many fire orbs with his short cooldown basic skill (also, all the other things about him that are great).

Or for Razor, you’d probably be looking at Fischl if you want to get the double electro bonus, since she’s maybe the best electro battery support you could hope for.

If you aren’t going to go for a double element composition on the other hand, you get to play a bit more with variety. But regardless of whether you have one or two slots left to fill, it’s time to think about your balance of the other support categories.

You probably almost always want to have at least a bit of healing or shielding (except maybe on a team that will be mostly exploring and/or resource gathering), but from there it gets a lot more situational and preferential.

Maybe you double up on enablers, creating a situation where you can capitalize on at least two, if not three or four different reaction types giving you more options for handling different enemy types. Or maybe you want to get some crowd control or debuffing going on, in which case you might be looking at one of your wind characters (debuffing comes either from the wind artifact set or in some cases from constellations). For me, the answer here is just “Venti” because he’s silly good at CC, burst DPS, energy generation, and exploration utility, but Sucrose makes a solid backup, especially if you have either her first constellation or Sacrificial Fragments for her weapon. Or, maybe you just need to bring along someone with a claymore because it hurts your soul to run past unbroken rocks, even if they are trash for your team comp, as I often do bringing Chongyun into my team with Keqing. (His elemental skill overwrites hers and her auto attacks come out as ice, completely wasting how I’ve built her. :P)

Example Teams

So hopefully that gets you a better idea of how to approach team building. In case it’s helpful though, here some example compositions I’d try with your roster:

Klee, Fischl, Bennett, and either Xingqiu, Sucrose, or Ningguang
Klee and Fischl should be able to create never ending explosions and Bennett will feed Klee energy while also keeping everyone healed and buffed in his circle of power, and provide the very powerful benefits of the double fire buff. Xingqiu brings more elemental diversity, damage, and minor shielding and healing. Sucrose brings CC and if you get her the wind artifacts, powerful debuffing. Ningguang provides strong shielding, good burst DPS, and backup carry ability, although this would really be more of a niche/variety choice, or an option if you need those other characters to make a solid second team for the abyss.

If you choose to try out Diluc, swapping him in for Klee here should have very good results as well, and might be easier to play from what I understand about making Klee work.

You could also substitute Qiqi in for Bennett if you want more elemental options instead of the double fire buff. If so, Xingqiu as your fourth would be a very solid choice, since the two of them together would give you good CC and damage. Not sure how that would compare to using Sucrose since I haven’t really given her much of a go, but lots of solid options either way.

Razor, Qiqi, Xingqiu or Xiangling, and Fischl, Sucrose, or Ningguang
The core of this team is about abusing superconduct with Razor and Qiqi, and as a bonus Qiqi is also there keeping you alive. The choice of Xingqiu or Xiangling mostly comes down to whether adding in water or fire reactions makes sense for the context, although I’d probably default to Xingqiu for both damage output and CC. Bennett could also take this third slot in a pinch if you needed fire but decided to stop investing in Xiangling, but it might be overkill on healing to have both Qiqi and Bennett. For the final slot, Fischl is going to be a very solid choice since you’ll get the double electro buffs and a strong electro battery -- you should have energy pouring out your ears. Sucrose and Ningguang would sub into this team for the same reasons as with the Klee team above.

If you decide to give Keqing a try, she’s going to vary a bit more. As mentioned above, she’s not going to pair nearly as well with Qiqi as Razor does, and Bennett is probably going to be your top choice of healer. Xingqiu will be a shoe in for your primary enabler, but Xiangling might do in some situations, particularly if you don’t use Bennett. As for the fourth, I personally rarely go with Fischl -- I just don’t feel like I need a battery and the double electro buff nearly as much as I need, well, Venti usually. Not sure how that would play with Sucrose as the wind choice, but I’d probably still go that way.

Miscellaneous Bits

So, a few final bits about levels and gearing and whatnot:

- As mentioned above, it seems best to have your primary carry as maxed out as possible. I try to then keep my enabler characters about ten levels below the current max. Other miscellaneous supports can be fine as much as 20 levels below the current max, if you need to conserve resources for a bit.

- As alluded to above, in almost all cases your feather and cup are going to be your most important artifacts. The feather always gives ATK which is great for nearly everyone except some healers who scale off HP. (Qiqi’s healing scales from ATK though, so that’s what she wants.) The cup is the only slot that can give elemental damage boosts, and most of the time you want that on all your characters. Klee, for example, you’ll definitely want to give a fire damage cup. However, characters that do mostly physical damage might want a physical damage cup, and characters somewhere in the middle will want an ATK cup (Razor, for example, is one of these two cases).

- Good sets for many carries: martial artist, berserker, gladiator, element specific ones where available (for fire, elector, and geo currently).

- Good sets for many supports: instructor, exile, noblesse oblige, element specific ones where available.
Elemental mastery is a weird stat. The power of most elemental reactions is based on the level and elemental mastery of the character whose ability is the trigger. But, figuring out who is triggering in some situations can be tricky. Usually, the trigger is the ability that applies statuses slower. Anyway, it’s a good stat to have, but in cases where a character is never triggering, it can be a waste. The rule of thumb that’s worked for me so far is to build my supports for energy regen until I can use my burst on cooldown, and then get a healthy mix of elemental mastery, ATK, and crit stats unless I’m sure the character doesn’t trigger, in which case I’m leaving out elemental mastery.

- No one wants HP except Barbara. Bennett and Qingqiu’s heals also scale from HP, but you probably don’t want it to be a priority for them.

- No one wants DEF except Noelle. Not like it’s going to kill you, but choosing gear that gives offensive stats is going to be much more useful.

- Oh, and one tip about character switching that might not be immediately obvious. Everyone gets energy from all orbs, but the character on the field gets more than those in waiting, and in all cases you get more from matching elements. When you use your base skill, it always generates orbs, so you want to pay attention to whether you want to wait and gather those orbs on the character that generates them, or quickly switch so another character gets more benefit from them. Also, if you have full energy but it makes sense to use your skill before your burst, be sure to burst immediately after so you don’t lose energy from the orbs generated by your skill.

Arkon wrote:

the Geo Hypostasis is a pain to kill and takes absolutely forever. I am AR42.

I might be missing something, but it feels like a claymore is required for this fight to destroy the pillars. Just focus on pillars with your big sword for the most part, then anytime the core is open and in range, go ham with everything you've got. Then at the end when it puts up three pillars to heal, you'll probably have to take two tries before finishing it off.

Anyone else have a better way of dealing with that one?

Nice post zero! Going to dig into that some more as I've really started to think more about team composition now that I'm getting further into the game.

In case anyone is bored, this is what I'm working with:
Traveler, Fischl and Sucrose are level 28 with 4 star weapons at level 20. Been using them with Qiqi who is only level 20 because I haven't gotten one of her ascension items yet.

Also have, Ningguang and just got Razor. I know there's some good info about about him. And of course, the other free characters. I haven't picked up Xiangling yet.

Happened across this video, thought it was cool:

Looks like she did one with some characters that were added after this as well.

Wow this is a lot to digest! Many thanks Zero. So while I have invested heavily into Klee, I am not married to the idea of keeping her as my main. I have noticed that her animations get me in trouble at times and to be honest not sure I am enough of a "twitch muscle" gamer to be able to get into something as complex as animation cancelling. I am not worried about starting from scratch in building someone else as a main carry, I am in this for the long haul as I am really enjoying the game play, the exploration/puzzles etc. I do like the game play of claymore users which is why I continued to build Razor so perhaps I will bite he bullet and start leveling Diluc. I also do really enjoy Keqing, so many choices!

I had been working on Ningguang as I had read she could be a really great DPS option which also provides support, and I pulled enough times on the Childe banner that she has full constellations.

I guess one of my main issues is I had been looking at team building as having four strong options to be on the field at all times instead of a main carry as they call it.

As for the geo hypostasis, even with Razor built as high as he is it can take up to 30 seconds of wailing on a pillar to take it down with his claymore. Realizing now that he is doing physical damage when autoattacking the rainslasher I have on him probably isn't an optimal choice.

Looking at what I've got, best comp might be Razor, Fischl, Qiqi and then Geo / Anemo support.

I have completely fallen off of this. However, I can report that it does play much more smoothly on the PS5! None of the hitching / dropped frames I was seeing in the town areas. Loads seem roughly the same, but that's probably due in part to the network connection it requires.

Arkon wrote:

Wow this is a lot to digest! Many thanks Zero. So while I have invested heavily into Klee, I am not married to the idea of keeping her as my main. I have noticed that her animations get me in trouble at times and to be honest not sure I am enough of a "twitch muscle" gamer to be able to get into something as complex as animation cancelling. I am not worried about starting from scratch in building someone else as a main carry, I am in this for the long haul as I am really enjoying the game play, the exploration/puzzles etc. I do like the game play of claymore users which is why I continued to build Razor so perhaps I will bite he bullet and start leveling Diluc. I also do really enjoy Keqing, so many choices!

Yeah, it's an interesting choice. I really like Keqing myself, but having your two most heavily invested characters both be the same element might not be ideal, since theoretically they'll be each leading teams in situations like the abyss where you need to have to separate functional teams. On the other hand, with Diluc you'd have two claymore users, which is actually great for exploration -- you'd never have to be annoyed switching around your team to hit a spare rock when you passed by it -- but maybe you'd want more variety?

I think probably in your situation, assuming you're enjoying Razor, I'd level Diluc and promote him to my main carry. You'll still have Klee at level 80 to swap to if you want some variety, and again, they should be mostly interchangeable in terms of team comps and artifacts, so the only cost to swapping between them would be having two weapons leveled.

Then maybe at some future point where I had extra resources lying around maybe I'd spend some time playing around with Keqing, because other than the electro thing she's going to provide a very different gameplay experience from those other three.

I had been working on Ningguang as I had read she could be a really great DPS option which also provides support, and I pulled enough times on the Childe banner that she has full constellations.

Yeah, both of them represent some of the more interesting carry choices in the game.

In Ningguang's case, it's because (as you can see above) a lot of the conventional wisdom for team building is structured around the four core elements and she works outside them as a geo user, so as a main carry you get to think about how you approach combat with her very differently. I'm actually currently working on leveling her for exactly the same reasons -- she might be interesting to play as a carry at some point in the future, and in the meantime she can provide a kind of support that is currently unique amongst my well leveled characters.

For Childe, it just seems like he would be an absolute blast to play, and even though he's within the core four elements, his stance switching also calls for you to approach team building and character switching in a unique way. He shines most in high density combat situations (since his damage goes up exponentially for every extra character within range of riptide effects), and he needs at least one of his supports to be something of a co-carry. Potentially you could create a fun team where you have one carry that you give lead when fighting a single target, who then steps back to a support role when there are more enemies grouped together. I'm thinking Chongyun could actually be a great choice for that kind of team with Childe, and since he's already my second carry, I'm kind of torn right now about whether I should roll for Childe or save my gems for 1.2.

I guess one of my main issues is I had been looking at team building as having four strong options to be on the field at all times instead of a main carry as they call it.

Yeah, I feel you there, as I was doing a similar thing for quite a while. Also, it's well worth realizing that most of the game doesn't really demand the kind of extreme team optimization that my comments above might seem to be implying. For the most part, the combat is light and forgiving enough that there's no reason not to pick a team of characters you who just think are fun to play, or (as I've done for the majority of my playtime) put more of the focus on what makes exploring the world fun. That is to say, a LOT of the time I have Chongyun on my team alongside Keqing since I need him to break rocks, even though using Chongyun as a support for her really doesn't work will if you've built her for electro damage (as I have).

(Incidentally, there are ways to build her for physical damage, in which case superconduct DOES become a good effect for her -- BUT Chongyun still remains a bad support for her in that situation since his base skill converts auto attack damage to ice, removing the benefit of the physical debuff it causes. Wahhh wahh! )

As for the geo hypostasis, even with Razor built as high as he is it can take up to 30 seconds of wailing on a pillar to take it down with his claymore. Realizing now that he is doing physical damage when autoattacking the rainslasher I have on him probably isn't an optimal choice.

So, I think Rainslasher could actually be a great choice if you use Xingqiu (or another support that creates high hydro uptime) or lacking that, if you are using Fischl as a support creating more uptime for electro, especially since you have it at rank 5. Prototype Aminus is going to be better in terms of raw stats, and perhaps in general if you don't have high uptime of hydro and/or electro on the enemies you're hitting.

However, I see you also have a rank 5 Sacrificial Greatsword. If you choose to level Diluc, that should probably stay his sword (again, Aminus provides better base stats, but especially at rank five the Sacrificial special effect will probably just be bonkers.

If it was me, I'd probably use that Sacrificial on whichever claymore user I'm playing most. If that ended up being Diluc, I'd probably leave the Rainslasher on Razor and make sure I always had Xingqiu (using your Sacrificial Sword of course -- Qiqi should be okay with Favonius) in his team. Or, if that wasn't going to be possible, I'd try to craft a few more Aminuses and level that, and then it would be a hard choice which character gets which between that and the Sacrificial.

steinkrug wrote:

Looking at what I've got, best comp might be Razor, Fischl, Qiqi and then Geo / Anemo support.

Yup, that should be a great team!

If you have the starglitter available before the store resets, I'd definitely pick up Bennett. He'd make a great option to swap in and out of that team -- either replacing Fischl at times when you need fire for various reasons or if you don't feel like you need the extra energy she provides as a battery and through the double electro bonus, or just filling out the fourth slot when extra buffs/heals and/or fire makes more sense than CC or shielding.

However, either Ningguang or Sucrose would also be a great choice to round out that team. I'd probably focus on leveling Sucrose first since that will probably be more useful for exploration and puzzle solving (I've found that I'm always leaving the Traveller geo aligned anyway for puzzle solving, so having a different wind option to swap in has made most sense for me as I've been playing). That said, you might find that you have enough resources to also keep Ningguang within the 10 to 20 level range of your max level, and if so, it's always great to have more options.

(The current event is basically giving resources away like candy at Halloween, by the way, so if you make good use of it you should at least be able to level a few folks easily enough to try a few options out.)

Nice, thanks for the suggestions, zero!

Razor is a lot of fun! With Fischl’s help, I feel like I am using his burst a lot and a huge purple spectral wolf appears above him so it’s pretty entertaining.

In good timing, I was able to do his quest line before really starting to use him a lot. I enjoy getting to know the characters I’m using and few more connected to the game that way.

I continue to be impressed with the amount of care put into this game. I won’t say the stories are revolutionary but they are well-crafted and have many moments of genuine humor.

Ok, so I worked on Keqing and have her up to level 80, and build out a team of Keqing, Xinqua, Bennet and Fischl. Have a lot of work to do on Bennet and Fischl as they are lagging way behind in levels, and need so many artifacts. Not sure if Fischl is really adding much but then again perhaps I need to better understand what sort of rotation I would be doing, as it stands I am not seeing many reactions at all from statuses.

As for weapons, I have Lion's Roar or Keqing, is that a good weapon to go with?

Edit to add: I am thinking of swapping out Fischl for Sucrose. I just realized I have her full constellation from pulling on the Klee banner.

Ok, so I worked on Keqing and have her up to level 80, and build out a team of Keqing, Xinqua, Bennet and Fischl. Have a lot of work to do on Bennet and Fischl as they are lagging way behind in levels, and need so many artifacts. Not sure if Fischl is really adding much but then again perhaps I need to better understand what sort of rotation I would be doing, as it stands I am not seeing many reactions at all from statuses.

Yeah, as I mentioned above, when I'm using Keqing I rarely feel the need for an extra energy battery (or an additional source of electro) so I'm generally putting Venti or some other utility player in that fourth slot. I think Fischl will make a lot more sense if you do end up also using Razor as a main carry, or as an enabler for one of your fire carries.

As such, if I were working with your roster, my Keqing primary team would be Bennett, Xingqiu, and Sucrose -- especially with a max constellation Sucrose -- with Fischl and/or Ningguang as less invested alternatives. The main drawback to that setup is a lack of ice coverage, and no claymore users in the pack. But, as I discussed above, Keqing doesn't really play all that well with ice (it's not terrible, mind you, just not optimal).

Personally, as briefly mentioned, since I have Chongyun leveled to be the carry for my second abyss team, when I need either ice or a claymore I swap him in and just say who cares about maximum combat efficiency. For your roster, using Qiqi when you need ice probably makes more sense, and you have a number of claymore options (especially if you eventually level up Diluc).

As for weapons, I have Lion's Roar or Keqing, is that a good weapon to go with?

Yes, very much so! That and Black Sword (the battle pass weapon) are probably the best 4 star weapons for her. (Black Sword is what I use, since I don't have a Lion's Roar).

So I have been working on my Sucrose, but I am really struggling to understand exactly how to use her. I am running the team of Keqing, Bennet, Xingqiu and Sucrose. I start off with Xingqiu "E" to get damage reduction and if his "Q" is up I use it, then I switch to Bennet and use his "Q" provided it is up for the buff, then switch to Keqing and use her "E" to get electric left click attacks. How do I use Sucrose in this rotation?

So at first, Sucrose will be more of a utility player than the rest of your team -- you still want to use her often, but it's more going to be based on when the context of your enemies calls for it rather than being part of a tight rotation throwing out elemental reactions with the other three. Initially she's mostly there to disrupt, control, and gather enemies, particularly when they are grouped up (swirl will also spread elemental effects to nearby enemies, creating more chances for the rest of your team to go wild). If you've given her a Sacrificial weapon, she'll be able to do that even more effectively, but I believe you have the constellation that gives her multiple charges of her basic skill to begin with, so either way you've got a lot of crowd control potential there.

Once you've unlocked all her talents, and particularly if you've got her all the way to C6, you're going to want to have her regularly rotating in swirling the elements you're doing the most reactions with (in that team, water and electro, generally). Her talents buff your reactions in two different ways, her C6 in a third, and then eventually you'll probably also want to get her the Viridescent Venerer set, which will make her swirl damage spike significantly AND make it apply a VERY strong debuff to enemies for the element you've swirled (again, for that team you probably want that to be electo or water).

I don't know about the rest of you, but every time the male traveler show up in these videos, I'm always wondering who the heck that is!

Mantid wrote:

I don't know about the rest of you, but every time the male traveler show up in these videos, I'm always wondering who the heck that is! :P

Too true. But I also only see my traveler whenever I have a wind (Anemo - blah!) puzzle since I did not get any others with that element.

Arkon wrote:

As for the geo hypostasis, even with Razor built as high as he is it can take up to 30 seconds of wailing on a pillar to take it down with his claymore. Realizing now that he is doing physical damage when autoattacking the rainslasher I have on him probably isn't an optimal choice.

Rainslasher is a good option for a sub-dps Beidou focused on electro damage. I can't see it being a good choice for any other claymore user. Razor deals mostly physical damage and works best in superconduct teams with cryo users. You'd be much better off with Prototype Aminus or most other 4/5* claymores.

Zhongli character demo:

and here's the upcoming rate-up banner:
IMAGE(https://i.redd.it/wikqr7wos3261.jpg)
I don't have Razor or Chongyun, so I will definitely be rolling a few times on that one. If I manage to nab a Zhongli, it'll be a nice bonus. It looks like he'll have great synergy with Ningguang, who I have been loving as a secondary DPS option when Childe's melee skill is on cooldown. I've been contemplating a couple more rolls on the Childe banner to get my Ningguang to C2, but I think I'm just going to hold out for the Zhongli banner at this point.

I've really been enjoying Childe as a damage option. His single target damage is good enough, but his AOE damage is crazy. I have him equipped with the Viridescent Hunt bow from the battle pass. It creates a small cyclone that deals damage and sucks in enemies for 4 seconds. It's not a crazy vacuum like Venti or Sucrose ult, but it is great for holding small groups of enemies in place to cleave down, enough that I don't feel like I need to include Sucrose in my team.

Yeah, I'm torn.

Even though I was intrigued by Childe's unique play style and I wouldn't have minded getting constellations for Ningguang, I chose to pass on the current banner (although I suppose I have the rest of the day to change my mind).

I'm similarly intrigued by Zhongli, and Chongyun is one of my higher level characters, so I was planning to roll some of the gems I've saved over the last few weeks, but now I'm feeling a bit wishy washy about it. The problem is that while I do have characters that can make Chongyun work as a carry (and one or two that could make him work as a support), they are all characters that also make up my best Keqing teams. Depending on how Xinyan functions as a support (assuming she even does function as a support), she could potentially be the missing piece I'm looking for, but if I'm being honest, what I'd most appreciate is for the game to drop a Diluc on me me (that, or the ability to use Xingqiu or Bennett on both abyss teams :P).

I havent found time to play this game.. but it sure looks promising.
The very few hours I played it.. i liked it!

Wonder if they will do something in NA for Christmas/Winter Season. Genshin Impact Japan is having a lottery, giving away one PS5, one iPad Air 4, ten voice actor autographs (not sure if these is one each or a set), ten Paimon figures (1/7th scale... isn't that really small for her?), ten Jumpy Dumpty mugs, and a hundred 5,000 yen Amazon gift cards.

I mean, look at that mug!

IMAGE(https://monomaniastore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/LIMITED-Genshin-Impact-Klees-Bomb-Jumpy-Dumpty-Mug.jpg)

Edit:

Zhongli's powers and abilities video:

So the male traveler punches the ground when he uses his geo burst. I kinda prefer the female's foot stomp, honestly.

I know no "male traveler," I only know...

Spoiler:

The Prince.

That's a cool giveaway.

Speaking of the Japanese voice actors, I recently discovered that there's some videos featuring them on the Japanese YouTube site. Paimon:

Also, Lisa (Rie Tanaka) playing as Lisa (NSFW audio... listen with headphones unless you want people nearby to mistake you for watching something else...):

Rie Tanaka also has her own gaming channel it turns out...

Thanks for the advice Dyni, went ahead and swapped out the Rainslasher for a Prototype Animus on Razor.

So I decided to use up my saved Primogems and had a total of 54 rolls saved up. I think I used up my luck for the rest of the year, I pulled Zhongli, Diluc and enough Xinyan to max out her constellation (I had one 10 pull that had 3 of her!)

Nice.

Not quite on the same level, but before the last banner ended I thought it might be nice to have a Beidou just because I found her fun in the test and like her look. I'll just Wish once and see what happens...

Beidou.

That doesn't happen often.

Oops...

Argh... I really need to find time to play this game

I have been having fun with the gliding challenges, but man yesterdays challenge was a pain if done during the daytime. I kept missing a token as it was always lost in the sunlight when looking up/around. Ended up having to watch a video guide to see where I was missing a token.

Today's had me worried from the description and as I was flying it I was concerned I wasn't fast enough... but made it to gold on the first shot, so I guess it wasn't that hard.

Tomorrow we get exploding balloons to dodge.

Mantid wrote:

Oops...

Haha, nice. I've had that happen to me a couple times, though not indefinitely like for you.

How are you liking Zhongli? The Genshin community at large seems pretty disappointed that he's not a damage powerhouse, but it looks like he might be fun as a tanky support.

I rolled on his banner 4 times and pulled two Chongyun, a Razor, and two 4* weapons. I'm sitting at 60/90 on my rate-up character banner pity. I was really hoping to pull a Xinyan, but I think I'm content to just wait for the next banner at this point.

I hit AR 45 a few days ago, so I've spent quit a bit of time (and a dozen or so Fragile Resin) on farming artifacts. Now that I finally have a pretty solid set for my Ningguang, she has become a bit of a one-woman wrecking crew. I need to spend some time working on a set for Childe now, because he can only just match her damage without the added safety nets of lock-on ranged attacks and constant shields.