Genshin Impact | 5.2 Special Program

[Mr EliteL]

I think we need this dear boy, even if it's just the two of us for the time being that'll mainly post in here. Instead of General Gaming/Last Game Played because I keep wanting to post more stuff but stop myself because the post will be huge.  

For a quick first note if you haven't seen yet but from the Special Program today, lovely for codes for some sweet free Primogems! (only available for today)

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1.5 Trailer



Yup yup, I'm always playing daily and enjoy it greatly. I've mostly kept to myself and been avoiding news as I wanted to wait to find out in-game or in the game mail about new things. When I do look it's usually leaks or something that pops up and I don't want leaks (although I did look at one about upcoming bosses). After finding the Special Program on today live in my recommendation feed, I watched. Then at the end was the look at Inazuma! 12 days away, can't wait.
English version, if you want to watch/take a peek through the video.

I've recently just reached AR 50, my team is underleveled compared to the enemies but it's not any issue with my best characters which are still Ganyu, Klee and Keqing.

I got Rosaria in the first ten pulls when the banner dropped, only done another 10 but that was in the other permanent banner with the Aquaint Fates that I earned through Battle Pass and levelling up characters. Saved up 3649 Primos since then and will likely be buying the 3,280 Genesis Crystal Top-Up (first time for double amount) when the new banners come around.

These are the characters that I have and levels at present

My Characters

Lv 79 C3 Barbara (main healer)
Lv 75 C0 Klee
Lv 75 C1 Keqing
Lv 75 C0 Ganyu (main DPS, sometimes swap her out to give others a chance)
Lv 75 C1 Kaeya 
Lv 71 C0 Sucrose
Lv 70 C0 Fischl
Lv 70 C4 Xiangling
Lv 70 C1 Ningguang
Lv 70 C0 Rosaria
Lv 40 C1 Noelle (ascended 2*)
Lv 40 C1 Lisa (ascended 2*)
Lv 40 C4 Beidou
Lv 40 C2 Xinyan
Lv 40 C1 Amber
Lv 39 C2 Aether
Lv 20 C1 Razor (ascended 1* for easy Aquiant, same for below)
Lv 20 C4 Xinqiu
Lv 20 C3 Bennett (I know he's like the best 4-star healer but prefer Barbara and she's good for Freezing)

I know you need at least two main DPS for a A and B teams, my second one changes but it's usually Klee taking that role. I use all my Lv 70's and above in some capacity and swap out when I need to.

[Dragon Lord]

I almost forgot about the codes today, so thanks for that. The last one was already expired, but oh well.

I'm pretty excited for the Zhongli re-run. Since I skipped out on him the first time, prior to his buff, I've been kicking myself since, and now I finally get to fix that mistake. He's the last major piece missing from the puzzle of my perfect team. That new artifact set looks like it'll make him even better, too, giving team members 20% more attack and increasing the strength of Zhongli's already ridiculous shields by 30%. I can't wait to see what kind of damage I can do with Hu Tao once I have Xinqui giving me Vaporize procs and Zhongli buffing my damage, lowering enemy resistance and making me invincible.

The only bad thing is that I want Eula too, but Zhongli is worth getting to C1 at the least, so I may have to dip into the ol' bank account to make getting C1 Zhong and Eula possible.

Since you posted all of your characters, I shall do the same:

Spoiler

Hu Tao (C1 - Level 90)
Ganyu (C6 - Level 90)
Klee (C0 - Level 90)
Mona (C6 - Level 80)
Keqing (C1 - Level 80)
Venti (C0 - Level 80)
Diluc (C3 - Level 80)
Qiqi (C2 - Level 80)
Traveler (Level 90)
Jean (C1 - Level 20)
Bennett (C2 - Level 80)
Xinqui (C6 - Level 80)
Fischl (C5 - Level 80)
Diona (C1 - Level 70)
Chongyun (C6 - Level 60)
Razor (C3 - Level 60)
Xiangling (C6 - Level 56)
Ningguang (C6 - Level 50)
Sucrose (C6 - Level 50)
Kaeya (C4 - Level 50)
Beidou (C4 - Level 50)
Lisa (C5 - Level 50)
Barbara (C6 - Level 50)
Noel (C6 - Level 22)
Xinyan (C2 - Level 20)
Amber (C5 - Level 20)

Main team is going to be Hu Tao/Xinqui/Zhongli and then probably Klee for back-up DPS when Hu Tao is on skill cool down. Zhongli will provide big support and near unbreakable shields so Hu Tao can stay at low HP and not fear dying, and Xinqui provides Hydro application so that Hu Tao can pull off 75K-100K damage Vaporize charged attacks.

I'm not sure what I plan to do for a second team for Abyss when I eventually stop being lazy and try to clear the rest of the floors. I could go with a perma-freeze comp using Ganyu/Mona/Venti/Diona, but the only problem is if I run into Cryo Slimes, Ganyu can't do a whole lot to those and Venti wouldn't be able to kill them fast enough on his own. If I can get Eula and build her up, then I might go with Ganyu/Eula/Venti/Diona. Ganyu takes care of elemental damage with huge Charged Shot damage, Eula can take over when I need physical DPS/Cryo Slimes, Venti to provide big time support and Diona to shield up Ganyu so I have a bit of safety when I'm charging up shots. The only problem is running 3 Cryo is a waste, since I just need two for the resonance. So maybe go with Ganyu/Eula/Venti/Xiangling for reverse Melt. Or maybe even replace Venti with Bennett, so that way I get the 25% ATK Pyro Resonance, the CRIT Rate increase from Cryo resonance, and have Bennett to buff Eula's physical damage. That might actually be kind of neat.

The upcoming housing system seems neat, and it's something they promised before launch, so it's nice to see it finally coming to fruition. Hopefully there's something about it that makes it worth doing, outside of just being able to visit every now and then.

[Mr EliteL]

Dang I forgot to include the constellations on my characters, edited to add that in.

I wanted Hu Tao and Zhongli too but decided on not focusing on getting them, only if I got lucky on an odd pull. Ah that reminds me do you do single or ten wishes for pulling? I've come across that singles are better but I still tend to do the full ten. I do feel like starting to do singles more often instead for the new banners.

What are you up to in Spiral Abyss then? They should be easy with your pool of characters, or at least the first 8 Floors as the enemy levels don't scale (although I assume you might know already). I've done up to Floor 6 with all Abyssal Stars completed plus Floor 7 with 7/9 Stars at the moment. Fatui Cryogunner and Fatui Electrohammer took me too long to kill in the first two chambers, so I need to get stronger with Artifacts and Ascend the 8 characters I was using. It's going to take me a while because I have low Hero's Wit even when grinding Ley Line Blossoms, although I do still have lots of Original Resin to make use of. I can move on to Floor 8 but I want to get the last two Stars and probably can only achieve 3/9 of Floor 8 as I am now.

Also have you made use of Blessing of the Welkin Moon or Gnostic Hymn at any time? I may get the Hymn as I'll get to BP Lv 50 soon, and I'm assuming all the rewards for that unlock immediately.

Ah so the building a house was already something that was known about before launch? Huh, yeah I'll try that out. Makes it better in a way as we're basically exploring 24/7 with nowhere that our Traveler/playable party can call home really. Except for the real NPC version of the characters that do but aren't seen... Like how the end of Mona's story quest she gets that house in Mondstadt and I got all hopeful as maybe we'll be able to go inside, but nope.

[Dragon Lord]

Depends on how close to pity I am. If I'm far from Pity, I'll just do 10-pulls, but if I'm close, I'll do singles to see if I can snatch the 5* I want with the least amount of Primos spent. But if I'm still 50+ pulls away from pity, I'm not going to sit there and single pull all the way to 90.

I've done through floor 8. I'm pretty sure I could get through 9-12 without too much trouble, but I've just been too lazy to actually go in there and get it done.

I buy the Welking Blessing every month, and I buy the $20 pack for the BP every period as well. I get to BP Level 40 and then buy it, since it gives +10 BP levels. But the main thing is that the extra Fragile Resin I get from it is worth the extra $10 to me.

[Mr EliteL]

I've got to check for my last 5* pulls for the Character and Standard banners as I haven't been paying attention for Pity. I've barely used the Weapon banner so know that's still quite a long while off. Just wish I'll have that luck I had for when I got Klee again sometime soon.

Ah, thought it would be strange if you weren't that far in yet. Does anything happen when you get to the Spire or it just moves on to the high floors and that's it?

I just went and bought the Gnostic Hymn as I'm only one level away from 50, and not in total need of the Resin yet. The Windblume card I'm not bothered about missing too, and probably won't buy either every month. Just once now and maybe again later, since I've decided on a £200 spending cap, perhaps a bit more as I've calculated I'll end up on £189 for what I'm intending to buy. Currently at £98, will get the other three top ups under the biggest one (£45, £27, £14) then a Welkin for May. I hope to get either or both Zhongli or Eula, although I'm not really in need of a 4th Ice, then again I could still get Qiqi, Diona or Chongyun show up too. I assume Eula will be a best Ice pair with Ganyu than them or the other two I have built up, but I don't want to drop my only current male character. Ehh. Suppose I could randomly have two teams that have two different sets of Ice characters for different gameplay then, haha.

[Dragon Lord]

Depends on what you want to use Ganyu for. If you're going for just pure DPS Ganyu and you know you're not going to encounter any ice-immune enemies, then Diona is probably her best pairing (Shield + Healing). Shielding Ganyu makes it so you don't have to worry about getting hit while charging up your shots, and Diona's Burst provides healing while you're inside of it's AoE (plus constant Cryo application to enemies to give Ganyu more CRIT Rate), so she is a really good support for Ganyu.

Xiangling can be a really good sub-DPS to use with Ganyu if you want to go with a reserve Melt set-up. She provides an option for taking down Cryo Slimes/Cryo Abyss Mage shields as well. Ganyu/Diona/Xiangling/???? for a team comp in that case. I don't know who'd best slot into that fourth spot though. You could go with another Pryo for the ATK buff from Pryo Resonance (Bennett for further ATK buffing and emergency healing would be a decent option).

Otherwise if you want to go for just keeping enemies inflicted with Cryo (using the Cryo Artifact set to increase CRIT Rate against enemies inflicted with it), then Ganyu/Diona/Mona/Venti would probably be the best team comp. Pop Venti's Burst, use Mona to infuse the tornado with Hydro, then use Ganyu's burst + charged shots to keep enemies frozen for the duration of Venti's burst and get the 40% additional crit rate from the 4-piece from the artifact set. Mona could be replaced by another Hydro user, but she's going to give the most reliable Hydro application to make this set-up work. Sucrose could be used in place of Venti as well, but her crowd control is a lot less effective than Venti's, so it wouldn't be as effective.

But the first step is just deciding on what you want to do with Ganyu: Reverse Melt or Freeze?

[Mr EliteL]

I can go either really. I've been focusing on Barbara for healer and haven't used anyone else, but have now started on building Bennett. He's only at Lv 52 though and I've run out of Hero's Wit after levelling him and most of my 70/75's up to 79 plus my Ganyu is 80 and now Ascended too. I'm not fussed which way I go, I'm trialling Melt, Freeze and even Superconduct teams as I'm grinding Regisvines and Blossom of Revelations with my Original Resin. Maybe my other characters aren't strong enough but I'm finding Electro helps in my team at times too, as I've come across people saying how Electro isn't great. At the moment I'm leaning towards Melt, I did notice I defeated the Pyro Regisvine a bit quicker than I usually do running Ganyu/Barbara/Xiangling/Kaeya (usually have Fischl or Keqing in place of Xiangling). Gotta wait for Diona and/or Mona to join my roster, I'll definitely try them when they do. My 40 Resin is gonna run out quick.

In Spiral Abyss I've been using Klee/Xiangling/Sucrose/Fischl and Barbara/Ganyu/Kaeya/Keqing.

[Dragon Lord]

Superconduct is a bad reaction that you don't want to be using. Electro in general is weak because the reactions are so bad compared to the likes of Vaporize, Melt and Swirl. Superconduct might be decent for Eula when she releases, because her whole gimmick is going to be pure physical DPS, and Superconduct decreasing the defense of enemies will actually be good. Eula/Fischl will probably become a very powerful pairing.

Building Bennett is a very smart move. Not only does he do insane healing with his Burst, but his ATK buff will get your damage to go by a lot. Get him to C1 if you're able to at any point so you can remove the HP restriction on his Burst (prior to C1, his Burst will only give ATK buff to a character that is over 70% HP, otherwise a character under 70% will be healed instead). He's pretty much a staple to every team. The only DPS that doesn't benefit from having him is Hu Tao, who wants to stay at low HP to get all of her multipliers going into effect (which is why Zhongli is by far the best support to pair with her).

Since you use Klee, you'll see a huge increase from pairing her and Bennett together. Not only will standing in Bennett's Burst keep her healed and give her ATK% increase, since they are both Pyro units, you get +25% ATK from their resonance.

If you have Xinqui, you should build him ASAP as well. He's by far the best Hydro applier in the game right now, and he's the only character that can apply his element fast enough to keep up with Klee's attacks. Klee/Bennett/Xinqui/Sucrose will be a great team to run for you, I believe. Sucrose can suck up Klee's mines and group enemies together, allowing you to switch to Bennet, use Burst, switch to Xinqui, use R2 and Burst, and then switch to Klee, use Burst and then let destruction rain, and Hydro from Xinqui's burst SHOULD apply before Klee's attacks hit, allowing Klee to proc Vaporize left and right, dealing even more massive damage.

I neglected Xinqui for a long time just because I didn't like his character, but boy was I missing out. I finally built him for Hu Tao, and I went from criting for 20-25K damage during her R2, to procing 60K+ Vaporize crits (and I've had her Burst do over 100K). I really cannot stress the importance of Vaporize for Pyro DPS units enough. You might say, "Well, doesn't Melt do more damage?" Yes, procing Melt (Cryo > Pyro) has a x2 multiplayer, compared to Hydro > Pyro Vaporize only having a x1.5 multiplayer (Pryo > Hydro Vaporize has x2, while Pyro > Cryo Melt has 1.5), but the thing that I didn't realize for the longest time, is that Hydro stays on the enemy after procing Vaporize, allowing you to proc it I think 3 times before Hydro needs to be re-applied to the enemy. That's a pretty significant damage boost. My Hu Tao can dish out 250K+ damage in those three Vaporize procs.

[Moonface]

Well, I can't really add onto the gameplay stuff you two are having fun with, so instead I'll share this article: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/man-ar...0-6490597/

The short and sweet version is someone managed to infiltrate the MiHoYo building with the intent to assassinate the founders with a knife, due to being upset over recent changes to another game by the same company.

I mean, by all means, go to a HQ and express your dislike outside if you're that passionate about it, but getting inside with the intent to harm people is ridiculous behavior.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, that was an absolute bullshit incident in which the Chinese fanbase was super butthurt that the Global version of Honkai was getting an exclusive event for their 3rd anniversary, and one of the girls who was getting a bunny costume was the character that is supposed to represent a Chinese god or something, and they threw a huge fucking fit over it. Not only did they get MiHoYo to COMPLETELY CANCEL THE 3RD ANNIVERSARY FOR GLOBAL, MiHoYo went and gave the Chinese players 10 free pulls, while giving Global players 500 Gems as compensation (one pull in Honkai is 260 gems from what I read, so not even enough for 2 pulls).

So not only do they get the 3rd anniversary cancelled for Global players, but they get REWARDED MORE for doing it.

And yes, if you wanted clarification, it's not because Global was getting content that they weren't, it's because they were butthurt because "muh waifus would not wear that kind of clothing!"

It's along the same lines of what happened with Zhongli in Genshin. Zhongli is the counterpart to that character in Honkai (he's the god of the country in Genshin that is themed after China), and when he first released, he was considerably weaker than the character in the game who is the god of the country that represents like European areas (UK mainly I believe), so they threw a major bitch fit because "how dare the western god be stronger than the Chinese god!" which led MiHoYo to giving Zhongli major buffs to make him one of, if not the most, broken support units in the game who is also capable of dealing out more damage than he has any right doing.

So yeah, Chinese nationalism is a pretty bad disease that can destroy everything good in the world. I thank the stars above every day that Yostar, the company who publishes Azur Lane and Arknights, doesn't seem to give a shit. The Chinese version of AL has majorly censored character skins, and they recently were forced to remove 18 characters from the game completely, but they give JP and EN the uncensored skins and don't remove those same characters for us.

[Mr EliteL]

What the heck, some fool got so angered by Honkai they went so far as to go out their way to take a knife to the HQ with bad intentions? A pathetic moron. Thank goodness they didn't get to harm anyone and were put in custody. 

I knew people were upset that Zhongli wasn't that strong but didn't know about China complaining and bitching about his playable strength compared to Venti, wtf? Before his buffs I would've been happy receiving him in a Wish, sure I probably may have dropped him or kept him but I wouldn't of cared much. I'm not trying to make the strongest team I can possibly get, just something to get by with.

@Dragon Lord I'm still building Bennett, he has C3 and only Level 60 ascended at the moment. If I get Zhongli in the next bunch of Wishes or someone else I haven't got yet (unless it's Chongyun, I'm not building him) I'd want to build them before Xingqiu. I'll put him on my list though to get up there, but for later. I got him up to Lv 39 at least for a start though. Unless I get unlucky and get no one new, then I'll continue Xingqiu.

Kinda wish the 1.5 patch was today as I'm at home but tomorrow's OK as I get out of work early in the day and I'll have Thursday to myself so a full day there to play. I suppose I got time for that Hilidream Camp which I haven't bothered with, even though it gives a start to the furnishing for the home building feature. Going about using the compass in Mondstadt at the moment.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, that's how the Zhongli buff came to be. I'm not going to complain at this point, because his shield makes everyone near unkillable, and by the time it does break, his skill cooldown is over, and you can just re-apply it immediately.

I have him at 33K HP (Shield strength scales off of his max HP), and his shield is already strong enough to withstand anything. I face-tanked the Childe weekly with Hu Tao without taking a single point of damage. It was glorious.

1.5 added a bunch of new trophies to the game, and every single one except one popped for me upon starting up the game after the update, haha. Easy trophies, easy life. Just need to get the one for beating Floor 12 of the Abyss, which I've always been too lazy to do, but now I have incentive to do it: Get my 100% trophy completion back.

[queenzelda]

I actually started playing on this MONTH's ago & I liked it. A LOT, the only problem I have with this game is that I have to pay for pulls & that ain't happening so I stopped playing some time ago. *shrug* I do like this game, I just don't want to have to pay for so many microtransactions just to get anywhere. It'd be nice if I could earn pulls for new friends/characters.. But NOPE. Oh well, t'was nice while it lasted.

[Mr EliteL]

@queenzelda : That's understandable, it does take a while to build up lots of Primos and the two Fates item to get Wishes. How far did you get and did you use what you had earned at least?

@Dragon Lord I was looking at my phone on the PS app at work and noticed the trophies, about time they put some more in towards a...will there even be a Platinum? I know we've got a very very long way to go till one pops up. Gee I'm only at 65% of what's there, about to get at least three soon. Finding the Agates for Dragonspine have been a pain.

New update's cool. Going through Zhongli's Chapter 2 and started my Serenitea realm, I didn't do the Hilidream thing in the end so barely have anything. Was still doing treasure hunting both in Mondstadt and Liyue and have more to find still, would've done a bit more otherwise.

I made a total of 88 pulls on the Character banner, new characters I got were Yanfei (to C4), Mona, Diona and eventually Zhongli at the end. I was trying to force possibly multiple luck in a way for the soft pity at 75, was at 66 and pulled my first 5 Intertwined I already had to 71 then Mona came earlier than I wanted at 72, also failing the 50/50 for Zhongli. Then I spammed 8 10's (not all at once) and eventually he showed up. I am happy with Mona still of course, also for Diona as I can get her to C1 with the event that gets her for free and for her shield. My Yanfei already up to C4 is great too. Still have 3k Genesis and 2.5k Primos left over, Stardust that I will reserve only for the Fates, then get Welkin Blessing in May for more, plus event Primos will all hopefully build up for Eula banner. Not trying to get more Zhongli since that'll kill what I'm saving, even though I am at 0 Pity. I know Constellations will be good but ahh, maybe I'll change my mind later or not.

[Dragon Lord]

I ended up having to dip into the ol' bank to get my Zhong, but of course like always, it was the 10-pull immediately after I spend money that I get Zhong. My first 5 was Diluc, which puts him at C4 for me, which is actually a really good constellation for him, but I have no intentions of ever using him again when I already have Hu Tao, who is by far the best Pyro DPS in the game, and Klee, who is also an insanely good Pyro DPS.

I ended up getting.... C3 or C4 Yanfei, though she's absolutely worthless to me. Again, Hu Tao and Klee make her pointless, and Yanfei has absolutely NO supporting ability. She can't even be a Pyro enabler for anyone. She's pure selfish DPS, but gets so outclassed by Hu and Klee. She's cute though, so there's that. Might run around as her on the overworld sometimes just to enjoy her cuteness.

The game at least cooperated with me on one area. I wanted this banner to finally get me C6 Diona, and the game threw Diona at me like candy. At one point (after already drawing the 5 Diona copies I needed for C6), the game gave me back-to-back pulls that each gave me 2 Diona. I was like, okay game, thanks for C10 Diona, you can stop now and give me Yanfei dupes or something, haha.

In the end, super happy with Zhong. His shield is as OP as advertised and I can now just laugh off everything while causing absolute chaos and carnage with Hu Tao and Xinqui.

I am disappointed by the Cryo Hypostatis though. My Hu Tao 2-shots it.