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[Pejo]

Question about Star Rail: I just beat Phantalia or whatever her name was. How far behind am I until I reach the current planet, with the new events?

You have the Luofu Epilogue which is like an hour or 2 if you're reading it and not skipping, then I think you'll have to do the "continuation" mission with Argenti, possibly the Ruan Mei thing to in Herta's station since it sets up a new villain group. I'm pretty sure that's all. I honestly don't know if they will make you do the Ruan Mei stuff first or not, but if you care about the story you should probably do it before Penacony. It's the (now permanent) event where you meet the pudding cats. Just doing the main story mission there should be enough, if you don't wanna piss with the cats/side content.

And we can't even use her with Furina, which is the only way the HP drain would have had any kind of positive effect.

Yea they really want it to be Overload. They're going out of their way to make sure. Fucking HATE that design style where they limit a character to only work 1 way.

I don't really understand what her kit does. So she can change her stance depending on whether you're fighting single targets or groups of enemies, but what does her E even do? Is it just enhanced damage or something? Infusion? Maybe it's cool in practice when you see the DMG numbers and animations and stuff, but for now it sounds really simplistic.

I'm guessing it has other effects than just draining HP and switching the burst mode. Probably an imbue or some sort of stat increase/buff, etc. I picture her kit having a lot of parallels to Childe.

Arle herself was a disappointment already within the story (design doesn't do much for me either) so if her kit sucks too that's an easy skip. Not an issue by itself, but two busts in a row is pretty concerning. Guess the streak had to come to an end after Navia and CR.

Yea they really hyped her up to be a big bad, in charge of a lot of stuff, but we had like 2 cutscenes with her, one with her bullying Furina and the other one saying "ah yes we've done well and ACCCKKSHUUUALLY I helped out Fontaine so I'm not really that bad of a person and you can feel good about pulling me later". They took away all of her bite before we even got to see her do anything.

So apparently this chibi was modeled after an early version of Murata, the Pyro Archon from Natlan. I hope to god the jacket/outfit was just from a template and they're showcasing the head, because right now her theme looks like 'circus ringleader' which is not the aesthetic I hoped for, with Natlan.

Spoiler

 

[Nankatsu]

You have the Luofu Epilogue which is like an hour or 2 if you're reading it and not skipping, then I think you'll have to do the "continuation" mission with Argenti, possibly the Ruan Mei thing to in Herta's station since it sets up a new villain group. I'm pretty sure that's all. I honestly don't know if they will make you do the Ruan Mei stuff first or not, but if you care about the story you should probably do it before Penacony. It's the (now permanent) event where you meet the pudding cats. Just doing the main story mission there should be enough, if you don't wanna piss with the cats/side content.

Oh god please no. You mean the mission where you have to fight a scarab at the end? Been stuck on there for a long time. Ended up leaving it be

 

[InterMusketeer]

Yea they really want it to be Overload. They're going out of their way to make sure. Fucking HATE that design style where they limit a character to only work 1 way.

Yep, but we're stuck with it for a while methinks. At least we got Xianyun who can be built as a DPS. Have you made any progress on that front?

Yea they really hyped her up to be a big bad, in charge of a lot of stuff, but we had like 2 cutscenes with her, one with her bullying Furina and the other one saying "ah yes we've done well and ACCCKKSHUUUALLY I helped out Fontaine so I'm not really that bad of a person and you can feel good about pulling me later". They took away all of her bite before we even got to see her do anything.

I assume they'll attempt to fix this with her quest or other story content. We're still due another weekly boss in Fontaine. She might have something to do with that. But IMO that's too late.

So apparently this chibi was modeled after an early version of Murata, the Pyro Archon from Natlan. I hope to god the jacket/outfit was just from a template and they're showcasing the head, because right now her theme looks like 'circus ringleader' which is not the aesthetic I hoped for, with Natlan.

Spoiler

From what I read, this is an existing Jean emoji, just redrawn with some of Murata's features as a prototype. It's not fully accurate. Leaks are saying her theme is Brazilian carnival and bullfighting. Not a terrible idea for a character, but not so much for an Archon. And folks seem to agree with me since Reddit and 4chan are pissed. That's supposed to be the goddess of war? Come on now. I see way too many similarities to Furina, so I hope this is fake but it probably won't be.

Also, lots of people angry that she's fair-skinned. I sorta agree because I wouldn't mind some more delicious chocolate in this game a la Candace and Dehya. Hopefully some other Natlan characters will be like that.

 

[Pejo]

Oh god please no. You mean the mission where you have to fight a scarab at the end? Been stuck on there for a long time. Ended up leaving it be

Yea that's the one. If you want to build out any new-ish characters you're gonna need to beat it eventually anyways. After you beat the story version it turns into a new Echo of War boss with Trace materials that you have to farm from it.

Me, as a Himeko main on that boss:

Yep, but we're stuck with it for a while methinks. At least we got Xianyun who can be built as a DPS. Have you made any progress on that front?

I still haven't finished the Lantern Rite quests yet, and I'm only about half done with exploring Chenyu/Fontaine, I've barely been able to play lately, so nothing yet. I did just get her to lv90 9/9/9 a few days ago. Gonna triple crown her but it'll be a few weeks to get drops from the narwhal to do it. I also got the Enka catalyst to 90 and I have a r5/90 Widsth ready to go when I piss with the DPS stuff.

I assume they'll attempt to fix this with her quest or other story content. We're still due another weekly boss in Fontaine. She might have something to do with that. But IMO that's too late.

Yea I still don't get why they always push so hard to finish the archon quests so quickly in each region. Why not flesh out the plot and characters and have it conclude in the .5 patch instead of squishing everything into the first 3? IMO they should have had a series of quests about Arle in the .2 version showing how tough/evil she is, then at the end when she chooses to help Fontaine, you get the dichotomy that she can also be caring/supportive and then it actually hits like its supposed to. Having her go from ominous to neutered puppy back to ominous feels stupid. Especially with how they leave her at the end of the archon quest.

From what I read, this is an existing Jean emoji, just redrawn with some of Murata's features as a prototype. It's not fully accurate. Leaks are saying her theme is Brazilian carnival and bullfighting. Not a terrible idea for a character, but not so much for an Archon. And folks seem to agree with me since Reddit and 4chan are pissed. That's supposed to be the goddess of war? Come on now. I see way too many similarities to Furina, so I hope this is fake but it probably won't be.

I'm alright with it honestly it's just draw over Jean's body. There's only so much you can gleam from a stylized head, so I'll wait to see the full design.

Also, lots of people angry that she's fair-skinned. I sorta agree because I wouldn't mind some more delicious chocolate in this game a la Candace and Dehya. Hopefully some other Natlan characters will be like that.

This was just never gonna happen. They serve CN market first and foremost and the darker skin characters just don't do as well there (and in east asia in general). They need the archons to hit big. Also from the lore we have, Murata was not a native of Natlan, she was an implant there, so in that aspect it makes sense.

I'm more surprised (from previous leaks) that they're leveraging their "strongest dps" as a dark skinned male character. You have a lot of the asian market that won't like that he's brown, and people like me that aren't happy it's another male hypercarry, so they stand to lose a lot on that one if they go through with it.

But yea, another cute brown waifu would be cool too, but between Dehya/Candace/Xinyan they haven't done right by them even once yet, designs aside. I always kinda hope that if we do the time travel "past Monstadt" arc like I think we will, they will make Vanessa (from the manga) playable.

I was also hoping that how Raiden Shogun was obviously based off of Raiden Mei from Honkai Impact, that they'd be making Murata based off of my favorite all time HoYo character (whose name is Himeko Murata):

I mean obviously she won't look like a mecha pilot in Genshin, but I was hoping for enough design elements to be the same, or at least the facial/hair features.

 

[Pejo]

Damn, I really like this guy's Genshin art. Only 3 images so far, but all good.

大河

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Spoiler: NSFWish

 

[Icymanipulator]

That Mona art is nice.

Also I got my first crowned talent, Raidens burst is officially level 10

Edit.
Is there a site anywhere that lists how many gems are contained in each area/update.
I’m trying to get a rough estimate of how many gems I have left in the game.

 

[deanote666]

Anyone figure out what those 2 pressure plates do?

 

[Pejo]

Anyone figure out what those 2 pressure plates do?

Is that one of the ones that start the "collect the brown orbs" minigames, I'll check next time I log in.

In other news, I finally had some time to play tonight.

I saw abyss was ending this cycle tonight, so for shits 'n giggles I thought I'd just try it, since I have never tried above abyss 8. Managed to get all but 4 stars (lost 2 stars on each of the worm bosses that are constantly underground on floor 12) but otherwise it was a super easy clear. Beat the whole thing with Childe/Dehya/Collei/Shinobu and Alfred J Haitham/Yae/Kirara/Kokomi. Probably not the right teams but they're the ones I was most comfortable with and was just trying this as a "dry run" anyways. Can't believe I've been avoiding free primogems this whole time for something (mostly) so easy. It's not even combat event Hard Mode - tier until floor 12. Needless to say, I will be doing those each reset from now on. Might even try to build some more "meta" teams to handle the bosses on floor 12 a little better. Childe's great vs. many small enemies but that first team kills bosses slow as fuck since it's like death by 1000 papercuts. Might try to build out a proper Navia team. for boss slaying.

Anyways, I actually had a bit of fun. Afterwards, with the primos I got, I did a 10x roll and got my Cloud Retainer constellation, so that felt pretty good. All in all, a good night.

Did the rest of the Lantern rite quest, it wasn't so bad after the first one. I enjoyed the epilogue one where we just talk to the Fontaine gang. Also Cloud Retainer's shenanigans with Shenhe was fun. Still don't really like Gaming but it was nice to see a father/son patch up their issues in a game when western games are constantly trying to drive a wedge between families in stories.

Question - I remember all the drama circulating about Star Rail getting like 20 free wishes and everyone said that Genshin only got "3 wishes". Was that a culmination of the primogems for doing the whole questline, or is there somewhere that I was supposed to collect 3 wishes from (in addition to the login event one that comes with 10 wishes)? I assumed you'd get them at the end of the questline, but I just got some furniture and normal quest rewards from that.

 

[jonnyXx]

Anyone figure out what those 2 pressure plates do?

If I remember correctly they open the way into the nearby cave.
I think initially one of those owl statue guys is already on one of the plates and you activate the other plate which opens the way into the cave.

Question - I remember all the drama circulating about Star Rail getting like 20 free wishes and everyone said that Genshin only got "3 wishes". Was that a culmination of the primogems for doing the whole questline, or is there somewhere that I was supposed to collect 3 wishes from (in addition to the login event one that comes with 10 wishes)?

The 3 wishes would be sent by in game mail though I don't know when they are supposed to be sent or if they even said when.

 

[InterMusketeer]

Yea I still don't get why they always push so hard to finish the archon quests so quickly in each region. Why not flesh out the plot and characters and have it conclude in the .5 patch instead of squishing everything into the first 3? IMO they should have had a series of quests about Arle in the .2 version showing how tough/evil she is, then at the end when she chooses to help Fontaine, you get the dichotomy that she can also be caring/supportive and then it actually hits like its supposed to. Having her go from ominous to neutered puppy back to ominous feels stupid. Especially with how they leave her at the end of the archon quest.

I'm assuming they just want to release the Archon soon-ish, and they feel that their story has to be mostly wrapped up before that can happen. That doesn't excuse them fucking up other characters though.

I'm alright with it honestly it's just draw over Jean's body. There's only so much you can gleam from a stylized head, so I'll wait to see the full design.

Don't have much to say about the design itself for now. I just don't like the theme. I was expecting a warrior princess or something, or maybe even a barbarian-style character. She's no shaping up to be like that. It also implies that, once again, the Archon is just messing around while the devs' favorite husbando goes around to save the land. We don't need that again.

This was just never gonna happen. They serve CN market first and foremost and the darker skin characters just don't do as well there (and in east asia in general). They need the archons to hit big. Also from the lore we have, Murata was not a native of Natlan, she was an implant there, so in that aspect it makes sense.

Oh, I didn't know about that lore. But Xinyan is also randomly tanned, so Murata could have been too.

I'm more surprised (from previous leaks) that they're leveraging their "strongest dps" as a dark skinned male character. You have a lot of the asian market that won't like that he's brown, and people like me that aren't happy it's another male hypercarry, so they stand to lose a lot on that one if they go through with it.

I don't know how well Kaeya and Cyno do with the female audience. Maybe they don't mind darker characters as much?

But yea, another cute brown waifu would be cool too, but between Dehya/Candace/Xinyan they haven't done right by them even once yet, designs aside. I always kinda hope that if we do the time travel "past Monstadt" arc like I think we will, they will make Vanessa (from the manga) playable.

Vanessa looks cool, but I don't think they will release time travel/time skip characters. They already did a bunch of time travel stuff with the story (Most notably that event with Xiao) so I think they've had their fill.

Also just wanted to mention how much I hate the current event for forcing you to play trial characters. I don't want to play their team suggestions. Fuck off.

 

[Pejo]

The 3 wishes would be sent by in game mail though I don't know when they are supposed to be sent or if they even said when.

Well at least I'm glad I didn't miss a code or something for them.

I'm assuming they just want to release the Archon soon-ish, and they feel that their story has to be mostly wrapped up before that can happen. That doesn't excuse them fucking up other characters though.

Their whimsy on character release order will never not confuse me, but yea I see what you mean.

Don't have much to say about the design itself for now. I just don't like the theme. I was expecting a warrior princess or something, or maybe even a barbarian-style character. She's no shaping up to be like that. It also implies that, once again, the Archon is just messing around while the devs' favorite husbando goes around to save the land. We don't need that again.

Carnival/Bullfighter doesn't exactly fit the warrior amazon I had in my mind for her either, so yea...

Oh, I didn't know about that lore. But Xinyan is also randomly tanned, so Murata could have been too.

Hell just from staying in a hot tropical environment with a lot of sun for a few hundred years would tan just about anyone, so they didn't need a lore reason for it to happen, but I agree.

I don't know how well Kaeya and Cyno do with the female audience. Maybe they don't mind darker characters as much?

The only two things we can base it off of (abyss usage rate and in Cyno's case - banner sales) tell us that there wasn't a huge market. I actually have Cyno C4 so I enjoyed him a lot but he's just so damn hard to use in anything that isn't a single boss. He's way too strong for smaller enemies (so you end up not using his burst to 'save' it), and his ER requirement makes him very difficult to keep in rotation without gimping his stats for ER. 60 cost Burst would have made him a lot more popular in the gameplay department, or even just a better elemental skill. He's got one of the worst in the game, in my opinion. It's like Xiao's skill if Xiao could only use it on the ground and only once every 8 seconds. Absolutely terrible to play outside of his Burst.

Vanessa looks cool, but I don't think they will release time travel/time skip characters. They already did a bunch of time travel stuff with the story (Most notably that event with Xiao) so I think they've had their fill.

As a MHY veteran, I can tell you for sure that they have not yet had their fill of time travel shit. Especially with all the setup in both amount of ancient lore provided in the game as well as level of detail of said lore. If not having us go back in time physically, I'm 99% sure they will have us "see" or "live" the past at the very least. Guess we'll see, but if anywhere is gonna get the time travel shenanigans plot, I feel it will be Mondstadt due to connections with the time god.

Also just wanted to mention how much I hate the current event for forcing you to play trial characters. I don't want to play their team suggestions. Fuck off.

Man I actually had the most fun in this battle event since Misty Dungeon v1. Other than them constantly trying to shove Lyney down my throat at like 3 out of 4 team selections, I love the idea of being forced to adapt. Then again, I almost always play with weird/off-meta teams, so this isn't a big deal to me. I always hate when they force trial characters, but at least it let me use characters that are low on my build priority list like Neuvi and see what he's capable of. I feel like maybe they shouldn't include pure elemental enemy types though like slimes/water eidolons because I was pretty fucked one time when I had Navia and 3 Hydro characters as my only choices and was forced to fight a bunch of those water animals. Luckily Navia powered through, but still that's kind of poor design for the type of event.

 

[Icymanipulator]

I would like an eventual update that adds (or takes us to) a prehistoric land, if time travel is on the table. Dinosaurs, and cavemen and women.
I’m thinking Alya from chrono trigger.

 

[Pejo]

I would like an eventual update that adds (or takes us to) a prehistoric land, if time travel is on the table. Dinosaurs, and cavemen and women.
I’m thinking Alya from chrono trigger.

Such a time is written about in the lore. Before Celestia showed up in Teyvat, it was all elemental lifeforms, like vishaps, dragons, etc. The world was ruled by the Dragon Sovereigns, like Apep. It'd be cool to see that time for sure, but I don't think Genshin will visit it because there were no humans to interact with until Phanes, so it'd be tough for them to give us a quest.

 

[Pejo]

Supposedly this is a 7 out of 10 on closeness to the actual design based on leakers....

She looks like a fucking clown...

 

[InterMusketeer]

Man I actually had the most fun in this battle event since Misty Dungeon v1. Other than them constantly trying to shove Lyney down my throat at like 3 out of 4 team selections, I love the idea of being forced to adapt. Then again, I almost always play with weird/off-meta teams, so this isn't a big deal to me. I always hate when they force trial characters, but at least it let me use characters that are low on my build priority list like Neuvi and see what he's capable of. I feel like maybe they shouldn't include pure elemental enemy types though like slimes/water eidolons because I was pretty fucked one time when I had Navia and 3 Hydro characters as my only choices and was forced to fight a bunch of those water animals. Luckily Navia powered through, but still that's kind of poor design for the type of event.

I like trying unconventional teams too, but on my terms, not theirs. No MHY, I don't want to play your not-French prostitute boy, no matter how much you shill him. And heck, even if I was interested I wouldn't be able to properly use them anyway because all these trial characters have crappy artifacts and weapons.

She looks like a fucking clown...

Not looking good for Natlan. Apparently Furina's design was leaked last year in January, which ended up being correct, so I don't expect them to change it anymore. Only hope left is that this is actually a different character but I doubt it.

 

[Pejo]

I like trying unconventional teams too, but on my terms, not theirs. No MHY, I don't want to play your not-French prostitute boy, no matter how much you shill him. And heck, even if I was interested I wouldn't be able to properly use them anyway because all these trial characters have crappy artifacts and weapons.

Yea the builds are funny. I saw a post that the trial Wrio uses 147% crit rate. I dunno why it's so hard for them to just include the option to use OUR characters or the trials.

Not looking good for Natlan. Apparently Furina's design was leaked last year in January, which ended up being correct, so I don't expect them to change it anymore. Only hope left is that this is actually a different character but I doubt it.

Man I can't describe how much I hate this.

*edit*

Looks like our guesses were right for 4.8 skins.

That means we're getting a fairy tale themed summer event. Hopefully sans Klee this time so it won't be baby goo goo gaga shit, but you know damn well she's gonna be involved.

 

[InterMusketeer]

Man I can't describe how much I hate this.

I saw someone describe her as flamenco Furina. Pretty accurate.

If the matador leaks are true, maybe they wanted to communicate how she revels in the spectacle of fighting by toying with her opponents rather than victory. Would explain why the civil war's still going when the Archon is involved.

The issue is that A: She looks ugly as sin, and 2: We just got an Archon who does performances and relishes attention and showmanship. That's just way too similar. There's even some similarities with Clorinde (bullfighting is a duels of sorts) so she overlaps in both looks and theming with multiple characters.

All we can do is hope that the leaks are wrong or that the final design is somehow leagues better than what we see in this crappy paint drawing.

That means we're getting a fairy tale themed summer event. Hopefully sans Klee this time so it won't be baby goo goo gaga shit, but you know damn well she's gonna be involved.

Wait, does that mean we're getting two free skins? I mean, nobody's buying Amber and/or Sucrose skins, that's for sure. Heck, even Albedo is a very suspect choice. Who the heck cares about him!?

 

[Icymanipulator]

Supposedly this is a 7 out of 10 on closeness to the actual design based on leakers....

She looks like a fucking clown...

No way in hell I’m pulling for that Meta or no

 

[Pejo]

I saw someone describe her as flamenco Furina. Pretty accurate.

If the matador leaks are true, maybe they wanted to communicate how she revels in the spectacle of fighting by toying with her opponents rather than victory. Would explain why the civil war's still going when the Archon is involved.

The issue is that A: She looks ugly as sin, and 2: We just got an Archon who does performances and relishes attention and showmanship. That's just way too similar. There's even some similarities with Clorinde (bullfighting is a duels of sorts) so she overlaps in both looks and theming with multiple characters.

Yep, i literally hate everything about it.

All we can do is hope that the leaks are wrong or that the final design is somehow leagues better than what we see in this crappy paint drawing.

I would love to see MHY shit in the face of clout chaser leakers, but i dunno, it's been a long time since they've been outright wrong about a design.

Wait, does that mean we're getting two free skins? I mean, nobody's buying Amber and/or Sucrose skins, that's for sure. Heck, even Albedo is a very suspect choice. Who the heck cares about him!?

I'd guess Amber = Free, Sucrose and Albedo probably gonna be paid and part of some thematic set. I don't think we've ever been able to select Sucrose for free or get her from an event before, so I dunno if that matters. Who knows, maybe they will do 2x free skins.

No way in hell I’m pulling for that Meta or no

I just can't believe I've been waiting for Natlan this whole time for... that. MHY does a lot of research into their areas and stuff, I have to wonder if they went to the wrong place in Brazil to get this design. I mean Carnival has plenty of good crazy shit, this is just no good.

 

[Icymanipulator]

Pejo
I’m thinking of playing HI3rd again, it’s been a few months since I’ve played, at this point would it be better to wait for part 2 to drop, or just log in now?
Will anything carry over to part 2? I had a small but nice roster of characters before I stopped.

 

[Pejo]

Pejo
I’m thinking of playing HI3rd again, it’s been a few months since I’ve played, at this point would it be better to wait for part 2 to drop, or just log in now?
Will anything carry over to part 2? I had a small but nice roster of characters before I stopped.

Definitely wouldn't start now. This whole patch has been filler garbage. I barely have been logging in. Well, I guess the summer rerun event has a selector to pick between some of the swimsuits, so if you care about that, you might want to play it. If you like plants vs. zombies, you might enjoy the event gameplay itself.

Part 2 got shat on by the CN fanbase (it's not out yet in Global, a few more weeks to go), MHY sent them a bunch of apology currency and some other stuff (that global probably won't get). I hate all of the new Part 2 character designs, but I'm only keeping the game installed to see if the 3 axis combat is fun (they're adding jump to every new character and combo ults and stuff). But no, there's not been anything added in the game that's been good in a very long time as for right now. If you aren't caught up on the story yet, I recommend playing the old stuff up through the Herrscher of Domination arc and the Elysian Realm arc if you like the Flamechasers.

Everything will carry over to part 2, and I still don't understand how they're adapting old characters to work in the 3 axis combat system, so I'm a bit excited to see how that's gonna work, so your old account will be fine. They will be updating a bunch of the shops and the gear system in general, but I don't think you played long enough for that to matter very much to your account. (some of the currency is going away and getting converted automatically into new currency). They'll probably also do some sort of returnee special if you wait until Part 2, to give you extra free stuff. Has it been at least a month or two since you last logged in?

 

[Icymanipulator]

Definitely wouldn't start now. This whole patch has been filler garbage. I barely have been logging in. Well, I guess the summer rerun event has a selector to pick between some of the swimsuits, so if you care about that, you might want to play it. If you like plants vs. zombies, you might enjoy the event gameplay itself.

Part 2 got shat on by the CN fanbase (it's not out yet in Global, a few more weeks to go), MHY sent them a bunch of apology currency and some other stuff (that global probably won't get). I hate all of the new Part 2 character designs, but I'm only keeping the game installed to see if the 3 axis combat is fun (they're adding jump to every new character and combo ults and stuff). But no, there's not been anything added in the game that's been good in a very long time as for right now. If you aren't caught up on the story yet, I recommend playing the old stuff up through the Herrscher of Domination arc and the Elysian Realm arc if you like the Flamechasers.

Everything will carry over to part 2, and I still don't understand how they're adapting old characters to work in the 3 axis combat system, so I'm a bit excited to see how that's gonna work, so your old account will be fine. They will be updating a bunch of the shops and the gear system in general, but I don't think you played long enough for that to matter very much to your account. (some of the currency is going away and getting converted automatically into new currency). They'll probably also do some sort of returnee special if you wait until Part 2, to give you extra free stuff. Has it been at least a month or two since you last logged in?

At least 3 months since I’ve logged in

Thanks for the detailed reply. Ya being caught up in Genshin (no pressing need to grind) and taking my time with Star rail has left me with a ton of time lol

Good to know that things will carry over. I was also wondering how old character would be handled by the update, maybe they will rework everyone?

 

[Pejo]

At least 3 months since I’ve logged in

That's good. Usually there's some minimum threshold you have to hit to get the returnee stuff, I think typically it's 45 days of not logging in.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Ya being caught up in Genshin (no pressing need to grind) and taking my time with Star rail has left me with a ton of time lol

See when I hit those times I don't even look at games and just do something else for a while, feels freeing to not need to grind out stuff due to FOMO.

Good to know that things will carry over. I was also wondering how old character would be handled by the update, maybe they will rework everyone?

They mentioned it back when they first announced Part 2. I think they said the newish characters would get reworked to have a jump attack, but they don't know if they're gonna do everyone or not yet. Truthfully, most of the really old characters feel awful to play and are weak as hell, even at SSS and full gear, so they probably won't waste effort on those, but I'd like it if the newer characters like Luna and Fu Hua's new battlesuit get updates, since they're relatively new and it would suck to featurecreep them so quickly when some people spent lots of money or resources on them.

This guy's channel is like the unofficial (official) HI3 english information source. He plays CN version and then translates and explains everything in english so we have some idea what's coming. If you are curious about what's out in CN, his videos are usually worth a watch and he timestamps everything in the description if you just wanna skip around on the longer videos.

 

[Icymanipulator]

I’ll check the video.

I’m actually reinstalling as I write this…
Also
Who is this and can I still get her?

 

[Pejo]

I’ll check the video.

I’m actually reinstalling as I write this…
Also
Who is this and can I still get her?

That's the new battlesuit for this patch, Fu Hua. She's ok. Her gimmick is that she can't die. She's not really gamechanging, but at least her gameplay is more thought provoking than just "mash attack then ult" I don't think she's available in the gacha anymore this patch though, I think it just changed today. She'll rerun probably soon though. You can do her trial run to see what her gameplay is like.

 

[Icymanipulator]

That's the new battlesuit for this patch, Fu Hua. She's ok. Her gimmick is that she can't die. She's not really gamechanging, but at least her gameplay is more thought provoking than just "mash attack then ult" I don't think she's available in the gacha anymore this patch though, I think it just changed today. She'll rerun probably soon though. You can do her trial run to see what her gameplay is like.

Nice, great design. She looks amazing.

Ya I will mess around for like a week or so and see what’s up. At this point I’m literally just waiting for FF7Rebirth. Got that Friday and Monday off lol, just gonna no life that game over 4 days. Sucks because that weekend the new season for Formula 1 starts too. Life just isn’t fair.

 

[Pejo]

Nice, great design. She looks amazing.

I hate it personally. When she was revealed they had some monster like features like scales and feathers and stuff and she looked really menacing, but then they took all of that out for the playable version and gave her my arch nemesis Chinese Censorshorts. Part of the reason I'm down on HI3 is that they're getting all the typical CN Censorship that Genshin/Star Rail has when they never had to deal with it before. Like 2 years ago they started adding shorts to the younger looking characters which is whatever, but now all of the new designs have shorts and cleavage blockers and that weird hosiery/spandex material like 90% of Genshin's outfits. Pisses me right off.

Ya I will mess around for like a week or so and see what’s up. At this point I’m literally just waiting for FF7Rebirth. Got that Friday and Monday off lol, just gonna no life that game over 4 days. Sucks because that weekend the new season for Formula 1 starts too. Life just isn’t fair.

Well that's why I was suggesting just waiting until the new patch when you could get some better stuff for returning. This is literally the deadest patch we've had in a long time because they were getting ready to launch Part 2 so they put basically zero effort into this patch. But I get the timing now and if you're just trying to kill some time there are some things to check out.

*edit*

Icymanipulator here's a better video for all of the 7.3 patch. I linked just the login bonus one earlier. This shows everything we get for Part 2.

 

[Icymanipulator]

I messed around in HI3rd last night, holy shit the returnees stuff seems endless, they just throw resources at you lol. I see Raiden Mei is the current banner. She seems pretty cool. Also once again, this game is so overwhelming with 50 different currencies lol but I may just go through the story and see what’s up.

 

[Pejo]

I messed around in HI3rd last night, holy shit the returnees stuff seems endless, they just throw resources at you lol. I see Raiden Mei is the current banner. She seems pretty cool. Also once again, this game is so overwhelming with 50 different currencies lol but I may just go through the story and see what’s up.

Like I mentioned, this is an extraordinarily bad time to spend any resources. Raiden Mei will go into the grindable (for free) shop next patch, so don't roll for her. They're also reducing the number of shops and currencies next patch too, so just hoard everything and do story, that's my best advice.

 

[Nankatsu]

May I kindly ask with whom you guys beat Starcrusher Swarm King?

 

[Pejo]

May I kindly ask with whom you guys beat Starcrusher Swarm King?

I use my default team of Fu Xuan/Himeko/Silver Wolf/Ruan Mei for pretty much everything other than Phantylia, but I'm probably the only one that plays the game that uses such a seemingly anti-synergy team. I beat the story mode version (because I didn't know a boss was coming) with Fireblazer/Yukong/Jingliu/Natasha though, and that was also pretty easy.

*edit*

Here's something that looks like a decent guide for that fight:

Starcrusher Swarm King - Best Teams and Boss Fight Guide | Honkai: Star Rail｜Game8

Everything you need to know to beat Starcrusher Swarm King - Skaracabaz (Synthetic) in Honkai: Star Rail including the best teams, drops, weaknesses, and resistances.

game8.co

 

[Icymanipulator]

May I kindly ask with whom you guys beat Starcrusher Swarm King?

Jingliu, Hanya, Luocha, flex (usually pela, or Argenti)
I could see that this fight might be rough for new accounts. I even sometimes end up with a dead character by the end.
Isn’t this a fight you can use supports in? Or maybe not the first time in story mode.

 

[Pejo]

I gotta say, after having C2 Cloud Retainer for a day now, I am embarrassed with myself about how much I like her wing glow when her C2 passive is activated. It's just got such a satisfying sheen to it.

 

[Sakura]

May I kindly ask with whom you guys beat Starcrusher Swarm King?

If you don't have any characters you could use a team like March, Melee protag, Pera, and Herta.
I typically just use Fugen, Ruan Mei, Argenti, and Kafka (or dragon boy) and leave it on auto.

 

[Pejo]

If you don't have any characters you could use a team like March, Melee protag, Pera, and Herta.
I typically just use Fugen, Ruan Mei, Argenti, and Kafka (or dragon boy) and leave it on auto.

Who's Fugen?

 

[Sakura]

Who's Fugen?

Chinese loli tank.

 

[Nankatsu]

Thanks for the tips. Yet again I need to build more characters, ffs.

I am using fire MC, Bailu, March 7th and IL Dan Heng.

How exactly does the boss shield mechanic work? It came to my understanding that when his shield is up you shouldn't attack him, but target the mobs units he summons.

If you attack him, another mob summon comes out.

Thing is, I'm not attacking him when his shield is up, but even so he randomly pops out mob units, and I end up being overpowered.

Can reach phase 2 but that's it. I easily die there.

 

[Pejo]

Thanks for the types. Yet again I need to build more characters, ffs.

How exactly does the boss shield mechanic work? It came to my understanding that when his shield is up you shouldn't attack him, but target the mobs units he summons.

If you attack him, another mob summon comes out.

Thing is, I'm not attacking him when his shield is up, but even so he randomly pops out mob units, and I end up being overpowered.

Can reach phase 2 but that's it. I easily die there.

When he puts his shield up, any attack that hits him will cause a minion to spawn unless there's already 4 out. You need to bring AoE damage dealers to keep them exploding and applying the debuff to the boss. So Himeko/Herta/Argenti/etc are important. He pretty much has that buff up the entire time after his first health bar so you need to deal with the ads while also doing damage to him.

Nankatsu
Here's a video showing Herta destroying that boss. This is at max level for the Trace material farm, so yours should be much easier.


It's also worth noting that this boss/the whole area is relatively new. It came in the patch before this one, so I think the devs were expecting most people to have some stronger/built teams by the point you should be fighting it. If you still haven't finished the Luofu story yet, I'd recommend doing that one first while you build some characters for this fight.

 

[Nankatsu]

When he puts his shield up, any attack that hits him will cause a minion to spawn unless there's already 4 out. You need to bring AoE damage dealers to keep them exploding and applying the debuff to the boss. So Himeko/Herta/Argenti/etc are important. He pretty much has that buff up the entire time after his first health bar so you need to deal with the ads while also doing damage to him.

Nankatsu
Here's a video showing Herta destroying that boss. This is at max level for the Trace material farm, so yours should be much easier.


It's also worth noting that this boss/the whole area is relatively new. It came in the patch before this one, so I think the devs were expecting most people to have some stronger/built teams by the point you should be fighting it. If you still haven't finished the Luofu story yet, I'd recommend doing that one first while you build some characters for this fight.

I've finished the Luofu main storyline. Ready to go to Penacony.

But I read this fight introduces the next main villain, and I kind of wanted to do it before heading there.

But considering I have to build Herta from ground, I might just youtube the quest and try the boss later down the road.

I've been working on Tingyun and March 7th since I have both almost at E6, just the game to throw me another curve ball and make me work on Natasha and Herta. Great.

 

[Pejo]

I've finished the Luofu main storyline. Ready to go to Penacony.

But I read this fight introduces the next main villain, and I kind of wanted to do it before heading there.

But considering I have to build Herta from ground, I might just youtube the quest and try the boss later down the road.

I've been working on Tingyun and March 7th since I have both almost at E6, just the game to throw me another curve ball and make me work on Natasha and Herta. Great.

Yea if you just YT the scene on how that Herta station story ends, you'll get all you need about the new villain. It's not a whole lot of info, but something to note. Plus it kinda expands on Ratio a bit.

In other news, more minor leaks on Chlorinde/Arle:

 

[Sakura]

Thanks for the tips. Yet again I need to build more characters, ffs.

I am using fire MC, Bailu, March 7th and IL Dan Heng.

How exactly does the boss shield mechanic work? It came to my understanding that when his shield is up you shouldn't attack him, but target the mobs units he summons.

If you attack him, another mob summon comes out.

Thing is, I'm not attacking him when his shield is up, but even so he randomly pops out mob units, and I end up being overpowered.

Can reach phase 2 but that's it. I easily die there.

Why fire MC, do you not have the physical MC built either yet? With that team the only one really doing any damage is IL Dan. It also seems kind of SP hungry.
If he was built, I would use physical MC instead as the enemies have physical weakness, and while he doesn't have an ability to attack all enemies, he can attack three with his skill and ultimate.

Killing the mobs puts a debuff on the boss causing him to take more damage (and also exploding to cause damage), but I wouldn't ignore attacking the boss. Just use AoE attacks like March's ultimate, or IL Dan's skill/ultimate, or physical MC's to hit the boss and the mobs at the same time.
Make sure you have a free SP point every time it is March's turn to bubble someone, keeping the team alive.
Bailu can heal when necessary but otherwise just SP generation.

edit: And just in case you've forgotten, you can eat food for a buff before the battle.

 

[InterMusketeer]

There's so many conflicting leaks on Arle by now, that I'm just going to wait and see what happens.

Tried pulling for the last Faruzan constellation again because I'm a dumbass. I figured I wouldn't mind C1 Xianyun if it came early. I ultimately got a 5-star 52 wishes in. It was Mona. The losing streak continues. Took 4 ten-pulls in total but I was finally able to get Faruzan, so I'm happy with that at least. Let's see if I can make DPS Xianyun work now.

Now I'm sitting with a guaranteed pity and (possibly) multiple mediocre characters coming up to spend it on. Not sure how I feel about that.

 

[Icymanipulator]

Building up Cloud Retainer slowly but surely. It’s very nice that Wrio absolutely decimates the Solitary Suanni, I almost feel sorry for it.

 

[Pejo]

There's so many conflicting leaks on Arle by now, that I'm just going to wait and see what happens.

Tried pulling for the last Faruzan constellation again because I'm a dumbass. I figured I wouldn't mind C1 Xianyun if it came early. I ultimately got a 5-star 52 wishes in. It was Mona. The losing streak continues. Took 4 ten-pulls in total but I was finally able to get Faruzan, so I'm happy with that at least. Let's see if I can make DPS Xianyun work now.

Now I'm sitting with a guaranteed pity and (possibly) multiple mediocre characters coming up to spend it on. Not sure how I feel about that.

I've been looking at different Cloud Retainer main dps comps, and I really like this one (timestamped):


It terrifies me thinking about all of the artifact farming I'd need to do to hit those numbers though.

Building up Cloud Retainer slowly but surely. It’s very nice that Wrio absolutely decimates the Solitary Suanni, I almost feel sorry for it.

Eula was basically designed to bully that boss too. It was nice bringin her out and dusting her off when I was farming for CR.

So I'm in the process of installing Wuthering Waves CBT2, finally got my login info and it should be starting tonight. There was no NDA, so I'll be posting opinions and maybe clips if I get inspired. If you guys have questions or want to see anything in particular, feel free to ask.

 

[Icymanipulator]

I’m gonna give WW a try when it releases, why not it’s free, so any ideas you have about it are welcome by me.

 

[InterMusketeer]

I've been looking at different Cloud Retainer main dps comps, and I really like this one (timestamped):

It terrifies me thinking about all of the artifact farming I'd need to do to hit those numbers though.

I saw that vid too. I've been using Fischl as a filler character (and contemplating Dehya), but Albedo seems a good fit. Maybe I'll have to pull for Chiori after all...

Seems like the build he went for there was pretty simple with just two ATK% sets. Should be pretty easy to get good stats with that and replicate his performance. He's at C6R5 though... I assume Desert Pavilion would be her best DPS set. It does require you to hit a charged attack first, but will give 40% plunge damage bonus after. That domain is kinda crappy though and it's not in the strongbox yet.

 

[Sakura]

I've been looking at different Cloud Retainer main dps comps, and I really like this one (timestamped):


It terrifies me thinking about all of the artifact farming I'd need to do to hit those numbers though.

Eula was basically designed to bully that boss too. It was nice bringin her out and dusting her off when I was farming for CR.

So I'm in the process of installing Wuthering Waves CBT2, finally got my login info and it should be starting tonight. There was no NDA, so I'll be posting opinions and maybe clips if I get inspired. If you guys have questions or want to see anything in particular, feel free to ask.

I'm playing the CBT2 as well. Playing in Japanese, I've noticed a lot of untranslated text, so it is a little hard to follow the story. Curious if it is like that in the English version as well.
Looks a lot like a Genshin clone (even the same font?), though I'm guessing people already knew that.

 

[Pejo]

Initial WW thoughts after like an hour:

• They're very much making a "Genshin" clone and it's pretty blatant/obvious, not a bad thing, just is what it is.
  • Resin is there, gliding, teleporters unlocking the map, picking up weeds and lizards.
  • Seelies are now light butterflies, same mechanism though.
  • Chests give small amounts of pull currency and are both hidden and locked by enemy encounters. Haven't encountered any puzzles yet, so it seems they're either just hidden or combat for now.
  • Lots of other copy/paste Genshin stuff, done marginally worse but still 'fit' the game.
• World is more empty/bland, color palette uses colder tones and colors, world feels less hospitable. no NPCs found in the overworld (yet), only the towns.
• Traversal is much more fast/fluid. Ground run doesn't use stamina after the initial dash. You can wall run instead of slow climbing up/along walls. If there's an outcrop/awning above your character, he just parkours right up that shit with some cool animations. Swimming is still slow though and the Gliding still doesn't feel like it uses actual physics (Doesn't feel as good as BotW in other words).
• Combat is way way way better. It's a proper action hack n slash instead of elemental reaction based combat. Combos are fast, feel fluid and good hit feedback. I only have 3 characters, but even though two use Sword, they feel sufficiently different. There's a slight 'witch time' when you perfect dodge, as well as counter hits. You can swap after triggering a QTE to have the swapped in character do a special move upon entrance with iframes. Each character has a normal attack, a unique hold attack, a skill, and an ultimate (like Genshin). I feel the combat is a bit easy so far, but I've just been fighting generic overworld trash in the starter area, so that's to be expected.
• There's a pokemon-esque feature of the game.
  • When you kill things sometimes their "echo" remains after the fight which you can absorb. Each echo has passive stats that work in a set based on element, in addition to added base stats to your character.
  • You can equip one Echo as a 'main', which will give you another active attack/buff/move that's unique to that monster. Effects vary from healing to AoE attack, to status effects, to shields, etc. Seems like they can get good mileage out of this sytem.
• Equipment (so far) seems to just be the weapon. I'm assuming RNG artifacts come into play eventually for the long grind. Maybe the pokemon are the equipment.
• Graphics are nice. Again, the environments are lower budget/more bland than Genshin, will probably improve significantly if the game succeeds and gets a higher budget. Character models are good. Enemy models are much more interesting than Hilichurls and slimes and mushrooms.
  • Female characters have big booba, less censored than Genshin by quite a bit. Still a CN game though, so don't expect the sun and the moon with fanservice. I like the character designs that I've seen so far, though.
  • Male MC has a rat tail again Male designs are still better than the femmeboy twinks in Genshin though. Female MC looked nice.
• Game performance has been great other than momentary lag when you open chests/acquire items. I assume this is because the server is scaled back/probably in China
• Story is using a lot of in-universe technobabble and made up terms. Not terribly enthralling, but not awful either. I can at least follow what's going on, but it's all Chinese names and terms. Hope the localization improves at global launch.

Anyways, those are just early thoughts. I'll be playing some more later tonight. I like it overall.

I'm playing the CBT2 as well. Playing in Japanese, I've noticed a lot of untranslated text, so it is a little hard to follow the story. Curious if it is like that in the English version as well.
Looks a lot like a Genshin clone (even the same font?), though I'm guessing people already knew that.

EN has been fully translated but there is zero voice acting, not even CN.

 

[Sakura]

EN has been fully translated but there is zero voice acting, not even CN.

I see. Must be a JP thing then. I've even had times where there is no text for one of the dialogue choices.

I agree about the rat tail. Should give us an option to cut that ugly thing off.

 

[jonnyXx]

I've been looking at different Cloud Retainer main dps comps, and I really like this one (timestamped):


It terrifies me thinking about all of the artifact farming I'd need to do to hit those numbers though.

Holy shit 500k plunges! C6 R5 Xianyun I presume?
I never want to C6 any 5 star characters they just trivialize all the content even floor 12 Abyss. Well except the standard 5 stars I guess.