・tc-thoughts

[rugged warren]

Eula Mika Early Thoughts by TWICE#9958

About Me
👋 TC at Eula Mains, KQM Eula guide (rewrite WIP)

Assumptions (BETA-CONFIRMED)
Takes ~2.15s between E, Q, N1 (Fav). Exact rotations TBD. 4 NO, Fav, HP/HP/CR. 4 Cryo particles/Skill. AoE is 2 targets, so Detector stacks buff 30% Phys DMG (max 50% with C6, 4 targets).

C6

• DMG buffs still relatively rare, unique Phys CD buff
• SPD makes 15 stack rotations comfortable, need ~18% more for 16 (e.g. pre-stacked R3 Pines)

• 15s CD => one Skill per rotation, can't really consider as a battery. Can extend rotation to 30s to use twice, still much worse than other batteries.
• Buff uptime fairly low. Immediate particles => need Mika QE > Eula EQ instead of Eula E > Mika QE > Eula Q, losing Eula E particles (can't prefunnel) => higher ER needed
• Max 20% DMG in ST (C2+)
• Buffs only active char, can't swap early for buffs (e.g. for Rosaria CR buff) or shorter rotation time.
• Healing isn't amazing. At T12 Q with 4 OHC and he can cap the first bubble, rest do very little.
• Poor attack MVs, personal damage negligible.

C0-5

• Initial heal is team-wide

• Not a particular upgrade for most established Eula teams.

General Thoughts
At C6 he's around Bennett for team DPS. Poor energy generation and suffers from only buffing Eula if running Eula Raiden. Higher Bennett investment (crown, Mist/Aquila) and Raiden investment (e.g. C2+) will favor Bennett, higher enemy count (3+, low Raiden investment) will favor Mika. Unfortunately requires multi-target for maximum buffs so worse against bosses, only active char buffed => awful for C6 Eula and can't take advantage of speed besides higher stacks. Better with no Raiden, but likely need another Cryo battery. Restrictively long Skill CD. Average before C6, C6ing a 4* can be very expensive.

Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WfbkXkVIjg7s6YMac6O-AjVi8wJRVuhM5cP-6bhaHP4/edit

Rough team ranking for subset of Eula teams, C5 and C6 (old, see sheet):

Could have potentially higher DPS by foregoing 15 stack rotation and using 14 stack/standard rotation for lower rotation time and better buff uptime, Eula attack speed TC coming sometime soon

[rugged warren]

Extremely Early Thoughts on Beacon of the Reed Sea for Eula by TWICE#9958

Eula loves the CR this weapon comes with, especially with all the memes about her not critting. The Skill proc of the passive is easily attained in her typical rotations, and the DMG proc should usually just happen when playing the game. Assuming it doesn't change, Beacon is Eula's best-in-slot weapon when it comes to consistency (especially if your artifacts skew to higher CR than KQMS), and scales well with Bennett buff. Song of Broken Pines is still better when it comes to screenshots (and looks), as CR is a dead stat when playing Reset Impact. Pines also can be better for team DPS, such as buffing Raiden with ATK% and SPD.

Eula weapon ranking: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C0WGIlFa5idv8HJ0E0aZAkYEKVTsl6mNBpaHE9xS6iU/edit
Eula weapon ranking (Bennett buff): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j4OBwTjGjrqjFx1ifb-_Gos3sdV4dmpSo07BMOw3djs/edit

[frosty pagoda]

Day 1 Thoughts by KB#1111 (very subjective and early)

Hey guys KB here (one of the WFP TC Leads), going to try something a bit new and let you guys know what my personal thoughts on the two upcoming characters are. This is going to be less mathematical forward content since I think most people are less interested in all of the back-end details of calcs and whatnot for the first day. So the elephant in the room rn is how do these characters feel, are they good/bad?

Mika/Eula
For context, like TWICE I am also personally a long-time tcer and player for Eula and thus am personally interested in how he does. So far it does not seem like C6 Mika really raises the team dps ceiling for Eula teams like how C6 Faruzan skyrocketed the performance of Xiao/Wanderer. I will say that his addition is appreciated as he is one of the few Eula defensive units that offer more team dps, with the other options being Zhong in Raiden/Eula or Bennett. Currently, I see him as a character that kind of fuels more into the one-shot power fantasy that Eula has rather than covering her weaknesses in consistency. How appealing it is for Mika to lean into that is very dependent player personal preferences. I guess I wouldn't be as disappointed if the success case of landing your burst with full stacks + crit was much more powerful to keep her average team dps closer to what xiao/itto/wanderer teams have with their respective c6 specialist supports. Overall disappointed because the Eula/Physical archetype needs much more help than what Mika is providing.

Dehya

No other way to say this kindly, but she has a lot of major issues with damage output and identity. Doesn't seem that you can really make her work with Burgeon well since the tick rate is so cringe. Her off-field support damage is not really there. The burst phase also strangely does no damage for how short of a period it is. It is not a good sign with most tc'ers are looking to shove her into a pure pyro team with bennett c6 to make up for her strange dps profile. IMO it is very likely that her kit gets adjusted because there is no way that they would release a character in her current state.

Closing Thoughts
Overall, it's been a long while since I was this disappointed in both characters during a pre tc cycle. Hopefully, there will be major follow-up adjustments in future patches. As a reminder, these are my personal opinions and that doesn't mean that my fellow staff or TC'ers necessarily think the same way. I am around in the discord chat and I don't really bite if you disagree or want to discuss anything that I have said.

[hearty ruin]

Dehya Overview

thoughts stc as time goes on and dehya potentially gets buffs

Dehya is just pretty bad. You can probably toss her in a pure pyro team (Bennett/Xiangling/Dehya/Kazuha or something) and it will work by virtue of Dehya being a Pyro unit, but there is no real reason to roll for her specifically to fill this role given that other Pyro units like Xinyan or Klee can fill this role.

She's not a good unit for Burgeon teams because Thoma exists, who can trigger more Burgeon reactions while providing damage prevention. Dehya importantly only offers damage mitigation - you'll still take a lotta damage from Burgeons, meaning you will still need a healer on her teams.

She's not a good Reverse Vape carry because she doesn't trigger rainswords or other Normal Attack effects. She could potentially work in VV Vape teams because she doesn't trigger rainswords, and players can use her to quickly apply Pyro to enemies with her burst so that an Anemo unit can shred Pyro resistance. However, this still needs testing, because you definitely could have issues with her E applying Pyro and causing your DPS to miss vapes or Xingqiu orbitals messing things up or whatever.

She's not a great hypercarry either. While she does have a super short uptime of 4s, allowing her to take more advantage of short buffs like Mona's Omen (although she still can't get full uptime because of burst animation), she doesn't deal much damage within that window. She only gets 10 punches, and unless there's some cancel that we haven't found yet that allows her to get more than that, her burst damage isn't looking too hot.

She also, very importantly, has energy generation problems. She can't generate many particles off-field, and with a 70 cost burst she needs Bennett as a battery and even then needs a significant amount of ER (think like, Xiangling levels of ER - Xiangling has basically the same energy gen with only 1 E, and Xiangling actually has more energy gen with 2 Es). This makes it really difficult to have her burst up consistently without significant fav/pyro battery support.

Also her ascension stat being HP is wack.

TL;DR Dehya kinda sucks lmfao

[hearty ruin]

Dehya changes hit her pretty hard. Survivability changes are whatever, probably don't make a big diff one way or another (could be important maybe in Yoi teams where you need interrupt res and maybe Dehya + XQ makes her much more able to shrug off attacks but why would you play Dehya with Yoi anyways tbh)

Biggest change is to burst damage. Decreasing burst punch damage by ~13% (and buff burst kick by 1.5%) is a pretty big hit to her damage, making her damage go from bad to worse. Cons scaling made worse too.

TL;DR bro why did they nerf Dehya of all characters

[rugged warren]

Updated this, but to summarize: Mika is honestly getting worse and worse (for Eula) the more we understand his kit. You're capped at a maximum of 2 Detector stacks (C2+) in ST - 1 from A4, 1 from C2. A1 requires additional enemies. This means Mika is pretty bad for screenshots as every good target (Scara, Raiden, Masanori) is ST. Mika's buff is only maximized in multi-target (4+) scenarios, but that's also where Raiden buffers are comparable because her Q's great AoE. If not running Raiden, Mika will still be a good pick.

Mika generates particles immediately on Skill (tap or hold), meaning that to get his particles your rotations need to be along the lines of Eula E > Mika QE > Eula N1-2 Q (extending rotation) or Mika QE > Eula EQ (losing Eula E particles). Eula mains still getting screwed by no prefunnel, Hoyo please change this.

Mika only buffs the active character (think Yelan A4). Both his Phys DMG% and Phys CD go away if you switch off Eula, so she has to be on-field for Lightfall. You can't use the speed to do the standard rotation and swap early to take advantage of shorter buffs like Rosaria's CR buff. Any potential future off-field Physical DPS can also go screw themselves.

Eula needing to stay on-field for her entire Burst means you're also not likely going to get Bennett's buff for Raiden if you're using him too. One option might be to treat this as a true "dual carry" team - deal one wave with just Mika+Eula (no Bennett buff for Eula), and the next wave with Bennett+Raiden. Good luck with ER.

Mika is also generally a worse option for C6 Eula, who will very often swap early (e.g. E Q hE N4 swap) because how overkill Lightfall can be at C6, and for speedrunners that want to swap earlier to clear a chamber.

Here's to hoping he gets better in beta and not worse, but if not, at least our wallets are fat and safe this patch.

[zenith tapir]

Early Thoughts on Dehya and Vourukasha's Glow by Leifa#1359

Haii haii, Leifa here! First time writing one of these so we’ll see how it goes. As you know, two new artifact sets are coming in 3.6, one of these being Vourukasha's Glow, an artifact set tailor-made for Dehya, providing HP as well as Elemental Skill and Burst DMG. However, how does this artifact set stack up against other options for Dehya’s personal DPS?

2-Piece: +20% HP

Although Dehya scales off both HP and ATK, her MVs still heavily lean towards preferring ATK% over HP%. 20% HP also only provides her 3135 HP, which isn’t a significant amount of extra health for tanking against Redmane’s Blood, although is still nice to have. When taking constellations into account, C1 gives Dehya increased HP scaling. This makes HP stats about equal to ATK stats, increasing the value of the 2-Piece bonus.

4-Piece: Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst DMG will be increased by 10%. After the equipping character takes DMG, the aforementioned DMG Bonus is increased by 80% for 5s. This effect increase can have 5 stacks. The duration of each stack is counted independently. These effects can be triggered even when the equipping character is not on the field.

TLDR, this set provides 10% Skill and Burst DMG and an additional 8% upon taking damage, stacking up to 5 times. The effects also work off-field, implying that this set was tailor-made to fit Dehya’s unique circumstances.
However, this set has its downsides. The requirement to get hit can be annoying or sometimes impossible against boss enemies, making the 4-Piece effectively useless. On the other hand, after being hit once whilst Dehya’s Elemental Skill is on the field, Dehya will take DoT DMG from Redmane’s Blood for 10 seconds, causing her to reach max stacks relatively quickly. If you’re still taking damage from Redmane’s Blood as you enter her Burst, the set will have 100% uptime for its duration, resulting in the full 50% Burst DMG Bonus.
Unfortunately, the artifact set was recently nerfed so each stack only lasts 5 seconds instead of 8. Because of this, Dehya may lose out on one or even two stacks near the end of her Burst if Redmane’s Blood ends before casting it.

Vourukasha's Glow VS Emblem of Severed Fate
Based on calcs of Mono Pyro with Favonius Greatsword at C0, C1, C4 and C6, as well as C6 with Beacon of the Reed Sea, assuming 100% uptime on Vourukasha’s Glow, thanks @winged flax!

C0: 3.75% worse than EoSF
C1: 1.43% better than EoSF
C4: 10.47% better than EoSF
C6: 8.50% better than EoSF
C6 R1: 22.06% better than EoSF

Most signature artifact sets tend to be 5-15% better than the current alternative sets available upon release. However, even assuming 100% uptime on all 5 stacks, C0 doesn’t even beat out her current highest damage option, Emblem. This is due to Dehya requiring a lot of energy recharge in general, which Emblem then turns into burst damage. On top of that, not only is the 4-Piece unconditional, the 2-Piece provides +20% Energy Recharge, which is much more useful to Dehya. Unfortunately for F2P or low spenders, Vourukasha’s Glow isn’t going to be a substantial increase, if at all, over the current options for Dehya’s personal DPS.
Upon higher investment, the set does start to reach the ~10% increase range that signature sets are known to be, with C6 R1 being a 22% increase over EoSF. However, whether that increase is worth farming a completely new set over using existing EoSF pieces isn’t for me to decide at that level of investment.

Closing Thoughts

In my opinion, for the majority of players, this set will not be worth farming. Not only is its performance either worse or on par at best compared to EoSF, but most players will have also farmed the Emblem Domain previously to gear other characters, due to both artifact sets being liked or preferred by a majority of existing characters. It's unconditional, generally more resin efficient to farm, and turns the Energy Recharge she’s going to be building anyways into meaningful stat bonuses.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to farm a domain for one specific set that doesn’t even beat out an existing option, even in its ideal conditions. If you chose to C6 R5 Dehya and want her to be on her specific artifact set regardless of performance, feel free and I wish you the best for your substats. If y’all need me, just ping me, I’m on Discord almost constantly

[wise prairie]

**Kaveh: Early Thoughts **
Kit TLDR
-On-field Dendro driver/support
-Can instantly rupture Dendro Cores with E/Q cast/C6
-Partywide Bloom reaction bonus after using Q (this buff does not apply to Hyperbloom/Burgeon). Buff strength is based on Q Talent Level
-Heals himself when hit by Dendro Cores
-MVs are pure ATK scaling. Healing and reaction damage are still EM-based

Pros
+Instant Bloom explosions frontloads some damage
+Grants his team a Bloom reaction bonus after using burst
+Has sustained AoE Dendro application
+Has good self-healing and interruption resistance. Could forego a healer/shielder slot, though it might be a bit rough
+Swings a suitcase at enemies

Cons
-Low damage
-80 energy burst
-Bloom buff and Dendro application are locked behind burst
-Buff lasts for only ~12s or whenever you switch out of Kaveh
-Mild Dendro application before C6
-Dendro application mandates long field-time, reducing flexibility as a support
-Manual detonation can steal Hyperblooms/Burgeons. This issue worsens with C6
-Healing doesn't apply to teammates, which some players might find uncomfortable

[wise prairie]

How good is Kaveh’s buff?
Depends on Kaveh's Talent Level and how much EM you already have. The graph below shows how much effective EM is given to your team at Talent Level 9—thanks to @winged flax for the help.

Note that while Kaveh’s buff is partywide, it requires his burst and doesn't have 100% uptime.

Noteworthy Constellations
C1: A significant boon to survivability.

C4: +60% Bloom bonus when Dendro Cores are ruptured by E/Q cast/C6 (regardless of who has Bloom ownership).

C6: Adds up to 4 more instances of Dendro application and ruptures. Effectively detonates twice the amount of Blooms per rotation, increasing the value of C4. Will steal Burgeon/Hyperbloom procs, though.

Closing Thoughts
It's evident that Kaveh was designed for Bloom and will have a special place there. On top of his utilities, he also has strong survivability which is especially valuable for Bloom and Burgeon. He can be added to Nilou teams, but her Bountiful Cores already explode instantly and gain a hefty reaction bonus from Nilou's passive, diluting the value of Kaveh's utilities. With an expensive burst, unimpressive Dendro application, and high field-time requirement, Kaveh frankly provides less than what other Dendro units do outside of Bloom teams. Nonetheless, he will get the job done.

[shut heron]

Early thoughts on Baizhu:

Hello everyone, Raikh here! For those unfamiliar with me or those who have forgotten due to my at best sporadic activity in recent time, I’m Senior TC Staff here and mostly occupied with early Character/Unit analysis and evaluation. Let's have a look at Baizhu, who, as a Dendro Catalyst Healer+Shielder Hybrid, is our third limited 5* defensive Support.

How exciting is he as a new Dendro and Healer addition?
As of right now I‘d describe expectations for him as lukewarm. Somewhat unsurprisingly and possibly disappointingly, he presents himself mostly as a comfort unit, being unimpressive in terms of Damage Contribution, Buffs and Dendro Application, focussing on healing and some shielding instead.

Kit:
Functionally, Baizhu‘s abilities are interesting. His Elemental Skill applies Dendro to up to 3 enemies and provides a generous amount of healing to the entire party, although delayed with the healing occuring at the end of its duration, rather than immediately. Generating 3.5 particles on average is also fine for a 10s CD skill.

His Burst is pretty unique, providing a small shield every 2.5s that upon breaking or expiring causes Dendro Damage to a single target (no icd) and heals the currently active character.

If only hit infrequently, this makes the small shields act as ample interruption resistance as a hit breaking a shield will not stagger a character even if they still take damage from it. However, if hit frequently or being caught by multi-hit attacks/combos, chances are high that you will see your character sent flying across the scenery regardless.

His A4 provides a Dendro Reaction DMG Bonus based on his Max HP for 6s to units healed by his Burst. While you can technically apply this to more than the active unit, its short duration and the slow-ish,variable healing tick rate of Baizhu’s Burst makes it very impractical to do so. Because of this, it is mostly a smaller passive benefit for your primary on-field unit.
_

**Pros and Cons Overview:

Pros:**

• Provides Healing and some Shielding
• Small Shields provide interruption resistance if hit infrequently
• Burst provides off-field Dendro Application
• Can drive Dendro Reaction oriented Teams as a Catalyst user
• Provides a strong burst of teamwide healing via his Skill
• Provides a Buff to Dendro Reaction damage to character healed by his Burst for a short time
• Easy to build as he primarily wants HP and ER
• has a craftable 4* weapon among his best Weapon options in Prototype Amber
• Functionally complete at C0

Cons:

• Does near non-existent personal damage
• Dendro Reaction Buff doesn‘t mesh well with a number of Dendro Carries/Teams
• Dendro Application is primarily Single Target
• Dendro Application being based on his shield breaking/expiring can create awkward gaps in Dendro Application
• A high 80 cost Burst, making him reliant on high ER, specific Weapons or other Dendro units
• Small Shields do not provide satisfactory interruption resistance if hit frequently
• Is a short ranged/melee Catalyst, which can make him feel impractical as a Driver
• Has a terrible Signature Weapon
• Has weak Constellations, making further Primo investment unattractive (Pro for some I guess)
• Has to compete with Nahida in some teams and even has her rerunning in the same patch
• Doesn‘t utilize Changsheng in his kit and doesn‘t utilize his snake motif to any satisfactory degree
  _

Thoughts & Expectations:

Offensively, Baizhu offers very little to Dendro teams and is somewhat unreliable being used as the primary Dendro applicator, as his shield breaking can affect his Dendro Application interval for the worse. His A4 Buff fails to impress as well. While his Reaction DMG Buff potentially translates to an impressive amount of effective EM, a lot of Dendro Reaction DPS have additional EM interactions, making them value EM much more than just Reaction DMG. Otherwise, Dendro Reaction triggers are also commonly off-field, in which case the buff will likely provide no value at all.
A fairly obvious use case of Baizhu is as a Zhongli replacement in Dendro teams, with at best mild gains over the Geo Archon for less reliable interruption resistance.
In Hyperbloom teams you are trading a lot of DMG for comfort as Nahida outclasses him severely in that role and most Hyperbloom Teams don't have the space for multiple Dendro Supports or lag behind other variants. He also can’t replace Kuki Shinobu directly either, as she doubles as a Hyperbloom trigger.
Nilou teams are notoriously difficult to sheet/sim properly without thorough playtesting, but given Baizhu offers largely a slow-ish single target application, I wouldn’t expect any game changing improvements to Bloom if he is convincing at all.
On a last note, it’s worth mentioning that his Elemental Skill that provides a large amount of team wide burst healing makes him a very practical healer for open-world activities in contrast to most other healers, relying on their Elemental Burst and thus energy to provide team wide healing.

Baizhu presents himself as a comfort unit through and through and is a pretty luxurious pickup at that. He is cornered by Nahida as a Dendro Support and Zhongli as a more universal defensive Support, making him at best a minor improvement to a select few teams and at worst a substantial DMG loss in exchange for overall comfort.

[frosty pagoda]

Kirara Playtesting and Valuation thoughts by KB
Hey guys, this will be shorter than usual since Kirara is somewhat of a simple unit. Overall her role is just functioning as a basic shielder for units such as Tighnari or Haitham. Unfortunately, Yaoyao is pretty competitive in the defensive Dendro slot and generally comfier to play with. Her damage is nothing notable and she has some awkward properties with her Skill. The range is rather short, so you can sometimes miss and lose out on particles if you are not careful. In addition, her Skill hold's move speed is much lower than Sayu which makes tagging multiple enemies less practical unless the enemies are already close to each other. It's recommended to Hold Skill for a brief moment instead of tapping to get an additional dendro particle. For builds most people can go with ER/HP for comfort playstyle. You can build damage on her, but the returns are not outstanding.

Nilou Bloom
Even with funny ideas such as using Barbara and Nilou's Hydro rings while driving her around, the sluggish speed of her Box form really limits the effectiveness of this playstyle. When using her more of an offfield unit she doesn't perform as well as Yaoyao or Baizhu as a defensive option. The extra dendro resistance with her shield is nice for tanking the blooms but again, Yaoyao/Baizhu are tough competition for her slot. For teams with Kokomi or Barbara, other non-defensive options such as DMC or Collei just apply Dendro more easily. Not a fan of Kirara for Nilou teams.

Haitham/Tighnari
She works as a dendro shielder here and the 12-second cooldown on her shield is easier to use with these units' rotations. Shields can be preferred to heals here for the interruption resistance. Nothing particularly outstanding here.

Overall, feeling pretty meh about this unit. It's a shielder that doesn't bring much to the team. Also, us getting a dead patch next is going to be . Thankfully Star Rail is pretty fun, so a lot of the TC staff from KQM/WFP have something to work on while we wait for Fontaine.

https://tenor.com/view/dance-vibing-vibe-cute-honkai-star-rail-gif-12579524235325687092

[wise prairie]

4.0 Battle Pass Weapons Review
Disclaimer: This is just an overview. Wait for calcs to come out before buying a BP weapon.

Ballad of the Fjords (Polearm) 510 Base ATK/27.6% CRate
When there are at least 3 different Elemental Types in your party, Elemental Mastery will be increased by 120/150/180/210/240.

Great stat stick with a condition that’s reasonably easy to meet. Of course, the passive is only useful if your character wants EM. Otherwise, Deathmatch is a more generalist and versatile option.

Wolf-Fang (Sword) 510 Base ATK/27.6% CRate
DMG dealt by Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst will be increased by 16/20/24/28/32%. When an Elemental Skill hits an opponent, its CRIT Rate will be increased by 2/2.5/3/3.5/4%. When an Elemental Burst hits an opponent, its CRIT Rate will be increased by 2/2.5/3/3.5/4%. Both of these effects last 10s separately, have 4 max stacks, and can be triggered once every 0.1s.

Definitely an improvement to our selection of offensive 4* swords. On top of the CRate, the unconditional 16-32% Skill/Burst DMG buff is useful to many characters. The CRate on Skills/Bursts cannot be snapshotted, so characters who snapshot like Ayaka can benefit. Unfortunately, like most weapons with a stacking mechanic, you cannot stack this passive off-field, so units such as Xingqiu won't benefit much from it. Still, even without the extra CRate, Wolf-Fang is still an excellent weapon for general use.

Scion of the Blazing Sun (Bow) 565 Base ATK/18.4% CRate
After a Charged Attack hits an opponent, a Sunfire Arrow would descend and deal 60/75/90/105/120% ATK as DMG. After a Sunfire Arrow hits an opponent, it will increase the Charged Attack DMG taken by this opponent from the wielder by 28/36/42/48/56%. A Sunfire Arrow can be triggered once every 12s.

A bow tailored for any unit who cares about their Charged Attacks. The passive is fairly strong and has high uptime but may be single target only. If your character doesn’t use Charged Attacks, this bow will only matter for its base stats, in which case, it won’t be beating The Viridescent Hunt.

Sacrifical Jade (Catalyst) 454 Base ATK/36.8% CRate
When not on the field for more than 6s, Max HP will be increased by 32/40/48/56/64% and Elemental Mastery will be increased by 40/50/60/70/80. These effects will be canceled after the wielder has been on the field for 6s.

Right now, no character can fully use this weapon. There are no catalyst users who want CRIT Rate, HP, and EM all at once while taking minimal field time. Sacrifdical Jade probably isn't beating other 4* catalysts like The Widsith or Solar Pearl, even with its high uptime.

Talking Stick (Claymore) 565 Base ATK/18.4% CRate
ATK will be increased by 16/20/24/28/32% for 15s after being affected by Pyro. This effect can be triggered once every 12s. All Elemental DMG Bonus will be increased by 12/15/18/21/24% for 15s after being affected by Hydro, Cryo, or Electro. This effect can be triggered once every 12s.

A claymore with an odd design, odd name, and even odder passive. The conditions to trigger the passive are highly specific—not just character-specific, but team-specific as well. You could also get the enemies to hit you to trigger the passive, but this method isn't reliable. For such niche conditions, the payoff is meager: only 32% ATK and 24% Elemental DMG (physical units don't care much for Elemental DMG) at R5. Serpent Spine provides 50% universal DMG at the same refinement (unless you’re Dehya), and you can guarantee it by standing for 30s and not getting hit. Sure, Serpent Spine is inconvenient to stack, but so is Talking Stick. Serpent’s Spine higher CRate and DMG buff are also more universal in comparison.

TLDR
Polearm: Good for characters who want EM
Sword: Great generalist sword
Bow: Good for Charged Attack users
Catalyst: No one can make full use of it right now
Claymore: Why does this even exist

[winged flax]

4.0 Craftable/Free Weapons Early Review by Athena
Disclaimer: This is just an overview. Wait for calcs to come out before deciding on investing billets.

Bow: Song of Stillness & Claymore: Tidal Shadow: 510 Base ATK | 41.3% ATK
After the wielder is healed, they will deal 16/20/24/28/32% more DMG | 24/30/36/42/48%ATK will be increased by 24% for 8s. This can be triggered even when the character is not on the field.

Two ATK stat sticks. DMG% and ATK% are stats that are usually snapshottable, but with the niche passive of acquiring it after the wielder is healed, it usually isn't worth building a team/rotation to maximize the passive uptime.
For Bow characters, Prototype Crescent/Hamayumi are much easier to access with a more laxing passive, while Luxurious Sea-Lord or Prototype Archaic are already available as ATK% claymore.
Viable wielder:
Bow: Kujou Sara, Ganyu, Yoimiya, Fischl, Lyney
Claymore: Diluc, Beidou, Eula

Polearm: Rightful Reward: 565 Base ATK | 27.6% HP
When the wielder is healed, restore 8/10/12/14/16 Energy. This effect can be triggered once every 10s, and can occur even when the character is not on the field.

A weapon with high Base ATK (565) while also having HP% substats, and an interesting passive that restores Energy upon getting healed. However, at the current moment (4.0) there are only two candidates that can utilize the passive well enough: Yaoyao and Mika. Kitain Cross Spear does also already exists with energy regeneration passive as a craftable polearm, but with an EM substats; Favonius Spear will not only help lower the wielder's ER requirements, but the entire team when it procs. And if, for some reason, you need an HP% stat stick, then Black Tassel should be a better choice with more HP%.

Viable wielder: Yaoyao, Mika, Thoma, Zhongli

Sword: Finale of the Deep: 565 Base ATK | 27.6% ATK
When using an Elemental Skill, ATK will be increased by 12/15/18/21/24% for 12s, and a Bond of Life worth 25% of Max HP will be granted. This effect can be triggered once every 10s. When the Bond of Life is cleared, a maximum of 150/187.5/225/262.5/300 ATK will be gained based on 2.4/3/2.6/4.2/4.8% of the Bond for 12s. Bond of Life: Absorbs healing for the character based on its base value, and clears after healing equal to this value is obtained.

A sword with high Base ATK and high ATK% (from substat and passive); the holder will gain additional ATK after the Bond of Life is cleared. This is a very solid craftable sword, even without the Bond of Life passive, for characters that have lower ER requirements and want ATK%. If you can clear the Bond of Life comfortably, it is not recommended to build more HP just for more ATK from that passive, nor should you dedicate a team/rotation to maximize the passive uptime before snapshotting. If your character needs energy though, either Amenoma Kageuchi or Favonius Sword would do the trick.

Viable wielder: Ayato, Ayaka, Xingqiu, Kaeya, Keqing

Catalyst: Flowing Purity: 565 Base ATK | 27.6% ATK
When using an Elemental Skill, All Elemental DMG Bonus will be increased by 8/10/12/14/16% for 12s, and a Bond of Life worth 24% of Max HP will be granted. This effect can be triggered once every 10s. When the Bond of Life is cleared, every 1,000 HP cleared in the process will provide 2/2.5/3/3.5/4% All Elemental DMG Bonus. Up to a maximum of 12/15/18/21/24% All Elemental DMG can be gained this way. This effect lasts 12s. Bond of Life: Absorbs healing for the character based on its base value, and clears after healing equal to this value is obtained.

Same as Finale of the Deep, but exchange some of the ATK% and ATK for Elemental DMG. By far, this is one of the best F2P weapons for DPS Catalyst characters that scale with ATK%, since other F2P options are pretty lackluster. Again, you should not aim for more HP to maximize the additional Elemental DMG Bonus when clearing the Bond of Life, nor should you dedicate a team/rotation to maximize the passive uptime before snapshotting.

Viable wielder: Klee, Ningguang, Yanfei, Yae Miko, Heizou, Wanderer

Sword: Crossing of Fleuve Cendre: 510 Base ATK | 45.9% ER
Increases Elemental Skill CRIT Rate by 8/10/12/14/16%. Additionally, increases Energy Recharge by 16/20/24/28/32% for 5s after using an Elemental Skill.

Decent F2P ER stick; the bonus ER will be helpful for characters that frontload their own particle right after using their Elemental Skill (i.e. Xingqiu). Elemental Skill CRIT Rate is also a valuable stat that cannot be snapshotted.

Viable wielder: Kazuha, Jean, DMC, Xingqiu

Closing Thoughts
Overall, with the current roster at 4.0, there aren't many characters that can fully utilize the new weapon series. However, with the new 4.0 characters and artifacts, we can believe that other Fontaine characters may also have mechanics involving changing their current HP, albeit draining or healing, which will place these weapons higher on the list.

[wicked moon]

Hi! I’m Quincy, I usually work over at KQM so I’m probably a new face here. I’m thankful to everyone at WFP for the support, and I look forward to doing more TC with you guys in the future. It’s my first time writing a TC Thoughts page, but I’m excited to have the opportunity to work on it. Without further adieu, let’s get on with the Lyney TC Thoughts!

Lyney Review
Lyney is a Five-Star Pyro Bow user that focuses on Charged Attacks to deal the majority of his damage. Because of his A4, his best teams are Mono Pyro, or Mono Pyro adjacent. He also benefits from Pyro characters in his team which gives some lesser used Pyro units potential.

How Good is his DPS Potential?
He sheets extremely high single-target damage. With adequate investment, he will be competitive with top DPS units in terms of single target. This said, he doesn’t have a lot of AoE potential, though there is some. However, his teams are very rigid but we’ll go over this further later in the review.

Kit:
His kit is slightly complex, but largely relies on him doing Charged Attacks to benefit various parts of his kit.

Like Ganyu and Tighnari, Lyney’s Charged Shot has two levels. The first is a generic Pyro aimed shot, but the second is a “Prop Arrow”. The Prop arrow has increased damage, and will attempt to consume 20% of Lyney’s Max HP. If it does, it deals extra damage through his A1, summons a Grim-Malkin Hat, and generates a Prop Surplus Stack. It can only consume HP if Lyney’s current HP is greater than 60% of his Max HP, so a healer is required to maximize Lyney’s DPS potential.

Grim-Malkin Hats are a taunt. They taunt nearby enemies just as any other taunt would. If they expire, take enough damage, or another Grim-Malkin Hat is summoned, they will explode, sending a Pyrotechnic Strike that targets a single enemy for large damage. If one is on the field when you use Lyney’s skill, it will explode and deal AoE damage equal to that of a Pyrotechnic Strike.

Lyney’s Skill is a simple explosion. It explodes all Grim Malkin Hats and deals significantly more damage the more prop surplus stacks you have. Meaning it’s recommended to use this last after you’ve gathered as many Prop Surplus Stacks as possible. It generates a hefty 5 Pyro particles.

Lyney’s Burst turns him into a Grim-Malkin Cat (not Hat) and allows him to travel and deal damage to enemies for 3s before exploding to deal a large instance of AoE pyro damage. The explosion grants one Prop Surplus Stack and summons a Grim-Malkin Hat. You can cancel the Cat form at any time by pressing the Elemental Skill button. This is recommended as staying in cat form for 3s is a DPS loss unless you need to reposition.

Teambuilding:
Lyney is a very inflexible unit. His reliance on Pyro units leaves very few Pyro support units. All Lyney teams should use Bennett. Not only does he massively buff Lyney’s ATK, he also heals Lyney so that he is able to generate as many Grim-Malkin Hats, and Prop Surplus Stacks as possible.

Lyney will also need a shielder. It’s not recommended to run Lyney in teams without one since getting staggered in aim mode, and dodging are both DPS losses. Zhongli is by far the best option for this, but Layla, Kirara, and Xinyan can also be used. C4 Yanfei and Dehya are niche options that work well, but their 20s cooldown is unoptimal for Lyney, who desires 15-17s rotations.

The last slot can either be a support/buffer or an Off-Field DPS. The best options are Kazuha (or most other Anemo characters), Xiangling, and Albedo. Constellation 2 Klee works here too.

Other Notes:

• Everyone gets Bennett for free! Lyney’s best support shouldn’t be a big obstacle for most.
• Lyney has a pretty mediocre constellation one, but the rest of his constellations are decent save for C5.
• Lyney’s signature at R1 is better than every other R5 weapon, including five star ones.
• Uses both the new Craftable weapon and the new Battlepass weapon well. - Prototype Crescent is also a good option if you can headshot.
• Best set is Marechuassee Hunter by far, which can invalidate CRIT Rate% weapons like Hunter’s Path.
• Prefarming him is a pain because basically everything including the artifact set is in Fontaine.
• He doesn’t want that many stats, so farming for him will be harder.

Pros and Cons:

• High DPS ceiling.
• Utilizes his entire kit.
• Team Building is easy and straightforward.
• Useful constellations.
• Decently good F2P weapon options.
• Damage comes from many sources, not just raw CA.

• Teams are inflexible and steal some of the best support units.
• Standard issues with Charged Attack Bow units. Aiming.
• Non-Zhongli shield options are generally suboptimal.
• Lack of variety in Pyro support units.
• Energy needs can be too high to Burst every rotation in certain teams.

Overall Thoughts:
Lyney will no doubt be a powerful DPS. This said, he is almost a near replica of Ganyu in terms of team building and playstyle. Despite this, due to his lack of Elemental reactions, he is much easier to execute optimally and can be used more freely in teams that don’t require a dedicated Pyro applicator. His teams are demanding of some of the most coveted units in the game, but if you can build them, he becomes an extremely powerful DPS unit.

[frosty pagoda]

KB's quick day one short playtesting thoughts
Neuv feels very strong, would be surprised if he didnt get some form of nerfs
Rizz is very weak 😭

[frosty pagoda]

Hey y'all, a week or so ago I was roped into an internal KQM staff discussion on whether it is appropriate to increase the level of investment the KQM substat standard (KQMs) enforces. The common feedback that was given by readers was something like "i think the investment is too low considering how long the game is out".

So instead of keeping my writup on why I disagreed locked in that internal chat room to never see the light of day, i've decided to copy it over here. That way I would not have to repeat this over and over as this is a very common topic that gets brought up every few months or so. Keep in mind this is just a copy of what I typed in the internal staff channel, so it is not overtly polished with the intention of many casual readers to parse, but rather TC invested people.

---

Question Asked: Should we increase the KQMs investment level?

START OF THE COPY OF MY REPLY

I am also in agreement with not changing the current KQMS. High-investment artifacts is a TC topic that I tend to gravitate to since it matches my personal account (been multi-refreshing resin for over two years). So why am I against adjusting KQMS for high investment?

There are a couple of things I think are misunderstood about the relationship between character archetypes and the statistics behind the progression curve of upgrading units.

1. How large is the disadvantage between team archetypes?

A common argument for changing substat totals is that some characters can benefit more than others since they have more useful sub stats (ex: xl using em/atk/er/cr). However, what is not usually talked about is how big of a difference it makes. We all know that XL does do well with sub liquidity but its important to quantify how much of an advantage this is to determine if a rewrite of the KQMS is appropriate. As an example lets compare a team that scales very well (international) with one that scales poorly with extra substats (mono geo itto):

International KQMS
https://gcsim.app/sh/DrnFR8BjJ69C
49,054 DPS

International KQMS (+5 Liquid)
https://gcsim.app/sh/WNfzFbwJrBzG
52,740 DPS

Itto KQMS
https://gcsim.app/sh/PCfH7TPhMdz6
50,381 DPS

Itto KQMS (+5 Liquid)
https://gcsim.app/sh/JDrPJHrP8hzk
53,224 DPS

As we can see, the difference is not really that large when comparing one of the worst-case vs best-case teams out there. International gets an 7.5% improvement while Itto Geo gets 5.6%. Comparing the other teams the differences would generally be even smaller.

"Well why dont we try pushing to +10 more liquid subs, that should surely increase the difference!"
Pushing to 30 liquid subs we run into a different problem that I am intimate with , which is the artifact statistics wall.

2. The dreaded liquid substat wall

One thing that is not talked about enough is actually how close the KQMS is to the real soft cap for artifacts. It may not seem like it since getting +3-6 liquid stats over the kqms is achievable for a lot of people but once you try to push any further it really gets rough due to how the statistic on artifacts works. One way we can analyze this is by using probability and stats calcs, but that’s a whole can of worms to dive into. So we can use a practical example looking at the akasha leaderboards.

So is an example Yelan, as you can see her stats would be achievable with 29 liquid subs and fixed subs. That doesn’t seem too crazy right? It's just 9 more subs than the KQMS.

Well, guess what her artifact rank is among all of the people that are in akasha database.

With just 29 liquid subs there are only 29 players globally that have a stronger build.
This isn’t just a one off case either, you can see this pattern repeated across many dps characters.

The progression curve on artifact upgrades gets exponentially more brutal the higher you try to push.
So far, we know that 5 subs isn’t enough to make a meaningful difference between team archetypes and we know that going to 9 to 10 subs is basically reaching deranged levels of farming that no one can relate with or use.

“How about we try adding 4 liner artifacts instead of 3 liners to the KQMS?”

This brings a different problem with artifact grinding.

3. 4 liner vs 3 liner

So typically, there is a priority list on how valuable an artifact is going from best to worst. Something like:

• Perfect 4 liner (all usable stats)
• 4 Liner (1 missed roll) = Perfect 3 Liner
• 4 Liner (2 miss) = 3 Liner (1 Miss)
  If we increase the assumption to 4 line artifacts then it only really helps if we increase the liquidity of the starting rolls or else you can’t really leverage much.
  Unfortunately, the odds of getting a 4 liner piece is only 20%. Which isn’t too bad for flowers/feathers as you don’t have to aim for mainstats there, but for the romanticized vape example that is commonly brought up its really, and I mean REALLY difficult to obtain.

This is the odds for a 4liner ATK% sands with er/em/cr/cd.

While getting a 4liner with only 3 usable stats is much easier, you are more likely to find a 3liner with better stats due to how rare 4 liners are. So overall I don’t think it's appropriate for us to push to 45 total subs with the intention of it representing high invest. At most, high-invest players will have only one non feather/flower that is perfect in terms of starting rolls.

I'm not against making changes to the KQMS if there are strong reasons to, but so far I am not convinced that the higher investment bracket requires a sub-category to be officially codified. One of the beautiful things about the current KQMS is how approachable it is for newer tc’ers, its easy to pick up and understand. While also maintaining the elegance of being very close to fair across such a wide range of character types in the game. Sure we could really get into involved, detailed systems such as assigning weights and points to each substat, but that does come at a cost of readability and undermines a lot of existing infrastructure that supports the current standard. We have to keep in mind that KQMS is used in so many places like KQM, WFP, gcsim, and even global communities such as China and Korea also recognize this standard. TC is already somewhat hard for people to get into, and it would be an extra layer for people to figure out what older sheets are using or even how the standards work.

[granite garden]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EUS5YwIUMKEh0lfT5mt1Vvx46Anq_DLcj69XDP07YmQ/edit?usp=sharing

A draft of some thoughts on character value and meta that will be going on the KQM site soon. Written by the heads of theorycrafting for KQM and WFP, artesians and kb.

Feel free to discuss and comment in either server. (cross-posted)

[zenith tapir]

Hey everyone, I've been wanting to start a weekly-ish series giving my thoughts on current beta updates. TC-Bites #1 features a brief explanation of Arlecchino's kit alongside my thoughts on her teams, her weapon and the upcoming artifact sets. If you're interested, please have a read here: https://tcbites.carrd.co/
Any feedback or requests for future versions would be greatly appreciated, thank you very much!

[frosty pagoda]

Hey y'all, let me drop my new TIER LIST with no context and leave.
https://twitter.com/TeamFortuneTC/status/1777156673741688986

Okay now being more serious; I would like to introduce a side project team that I have been working on, Team Fortune 7! Its basically my own internal team of some WFP staff or other veteran TC'ers that I have been working with for a while for Pre Release Character TC. Our goal is to basically fill in the void of faster/informal impressions of beta characters from tc.

This does not mean WFP tc is going away or me moving away from long formal content but rather adding a more casual package of information. I plan on tweeting on this account a bit more often about what I think when gameplay testing these beta characters in the future 🤠. Feel free to ask questions/pvp me in twitter or #・tc-lounge if yall want .

Make sure you read the constellation labels, she is not high A at C0

[frosty pagoda]

Mavuika Day 1 Thoughts By KB

Role:
Atm the most standout role for mavuika is using her as a hyper carry. It is highly advised to use her with xilo since xilo can fill her burst meter with 2x skill due to how low the cooldown is. In teams with both xilo and citali, you can opt to only skill once with xilo. The difference between her with and without xilo is quite large and I would not recommend Mavuika without her if possible.

**Her personal damage in ideal teams is much higher than current genshin characters **. Calcs are still a work in progress atm but initial findings and testing show that she is by far one of the highest personal damage units at C0. Do not be surprised if she gets nerfed or adjusted. One notable property about mavuika is that her initial damage on burst can cross one shot thresholds with the correct team/investment/setup/signature weapons. On top of her high initial damage, her sustained output afterwards is relatively high for a dps character, which means she is not locked to only high investment speedrunning level of play.

Her role as a supportive unit for other natlan characters is something that I will need more time to test/think about but i expect her to be a good pyro slot for mualani teams.

Key Teammates:

• xilonen (highest priority for fueling her burst)
• furina/benny
• citali (more of a luxury option at the moment, you wont notice too much of a difference over furina imo)

Notes

• she does not need ER% since her burst uses fighting spirit instead
• she starts with 200 fighting spirit in the first chamber of abyss
• applying hydro/cryo and immediately dumping the initial 200/200 burst before starting a normal rotation is an option for the first chamber
• burst form CA hits 8 times with 1 final slash
• ring lasts for 15s and the cooldown starts on cast
• 5 particles on skill cast
• currently her CA in burst is more effective than NA
• while her skill version of the bike does less damage than the burst, it can be used to extend your dps rotation to finish off enemies that are low without restarting your rotation
• you really do need xilo for her to do well
• melting burst initial hit with citali + furina can be inconsistent vs non freezable enemies. i havnt really figured out a surefire way to line up the rotation yet
• c1 does not seem like a compelling upgrade for abyss performance, but c2 is one of the largest constellation upgrades we have gotten in a while

[echo scaffold]

TC thought for Citlali

*Credit: @frosty pagoda , @stray egret , @karmic spade , @summer cipher *

Role

Citlali is a unique cryo support. She is the first to be able to combine powerful buffs for the team and a sustained off-field cryo application, in addition to her shielding capabilities. Thus, we will mainly play her with pyro on-fielders for forward melt.

Weapons

In most cases thrilling tales of dragon slayer (ttds) is more than fine, with similar strength to signature. The only situation where signature weapon is much better is if your carry doesnt scale with atk%, you need to buff multiple dps, do rotations shorter than 20s, or want a stronger shield.

Teams

#1: Mavuika - Citlali - Bennet - Xilonen
Probably the team where she will have the biggest impact because Mavuika synergizes very well with the forward melt as a pyro on-field dps. Not each charged attack will melt, but the elemental burst and around 2 charged attacks should melt quite consistently assuming proper play.

#2: Arlecchino - Bennet - Citlali - Flex (Xilo or cryo)
Arlecchino will be able to melt some hits in this team. If we want to melt every possible hit, bringing a second cryo unit like Kaeya or Rosalia can help with consistency. The option to run solo cryo remains very good and we still can melt her first few hits. It is worth knowing that it is possible to cancel Arlecchino's charged attack early, before the damage is recorded, so as not to ruin the cryo aura. We can normally melt 4NA with this technique (the first few NA having the biggest multipliers, so it doesn't matter if the last ones don't melt). But keep in mind that the cancel technique does not work with Arle's signature because she won't get its bond of life.

.
#3: Gaming - Bennet - Citlali - Flex(2nd cryo, Xilonen, Xianyun)
It is a new team melt team for Gaming which has similar performance to the vape teams. If you bring Xianyun, don't try to do plunges outside of the elemental skill, as you won't proc any melts. In solo cryo, some of Gaming's elemental skills might not melt, but the melt damage is so high that it makes the overall dps very high anyway.

#4: Chasca - Bennett - Citlali - Furina
With Chasca, Citlali offer a shield and is the best option for Chasca teams. She is a clear upgrade compared to Layla. She will buff pyro and hydro, so about 75% of the team damage. It is worth knowing that we can bring Mavuika off-field instead of Citlali for very good performances too.

Other:
It is also possible to play her in other teams with pyro characters (Yanfei, Diluc, Lyney, Yoimiya...), as well as with some Hydro characters (Mualani, Neuvillette...). With Hu Tao, it might be complicated to have enough cryo application.