Is Honkai: Star Rail Power Creeping Too Much?

[@VarsII]

Lot of comments mentioning HSR being a "Honkai" game so of course it has more power creep. Is HI3 really that nasty with power creep? LOL

[@senpai_sqrt2]

Yeah, it really is THAT bad, maybe not on the level of replacing meta units every few weeks, but every couple of months for sure

[@Ayanelixer8518]

I just started Hi3 Mostly everyone released before 2021 is basically useless. A few exceptions

[@nezarbgr6551]

boy YES and I love it more powercreep means you'll never feel bad about missing out on a character. just to give you an idea 3 days ago Honkai impact part 2 released with 3 new characters and they legit powercreeped almost every team in the game

[@Desticy]

Usually a valk lasts a few months 5-6 and then gets replaced entirely and the patch always gives buffs supporting the freshly released valk and usually 1 boss jut made for her which means 60 diff bosses and we only see a few of them which means old valks with their old bosses are usually never seen again and since the game is actually competitive yea its rly bad if you dont have the upgraded valk versions

[@riven4121]

HI3 has a PVP system in the Abyss where you compete for clear time against other people so to score higher you need the meta Valkyries and their stigma.

[@Zyrix]

I can also see a world where Acheron makes Welt relevant again (albeit temporarily since Welt still suffers from being a jack of all trades master of none)

[@wongo6828]

Da Wei ain't gonna do his self-insert dirty like that. Welt FTW!!

[@dedpal]

wdym welt is a sustain unit not a dps anyway

[@erebuskaslana1583]

Welt inflicts 2 debuffs 3 if you give him the sweat LC Take that as you will

[@WaelLeh]

@@erebuskaslana1583 actually 3 imprisonment slow and vulnerability, also with acheron what matters is the frequency of debuff application not the amount of debuffs

[@hustlazchris6972]

The Problem with Welt is that Honkai Star Rail is based on how fast you clear content there is no use for a character that slows down

[@12mulesandy]

The power creep is too much considering how generous they are with me losing my 50/50s.

[@FastFierce]

I've never lost a 50/50 and never get to pity 🥵🥵🥵

[@sumbunniii8721]

@@FastFiercelol ok sure and let me guess u just joined or pulled on 2 banners 😂

[@FastFierce]

@@sumbunniii8721 started when jingyuan was released and pulled in every banner 🥵🥵🥵

[@danielef102]

@@FastFiercekind of cringe but okay

[@MrEnKaye]

​@@FastFierceayyyy that's dope! Best of luck on future pulls m8 💪🏾

[@VarsII]

For those asking: Yes I made this video before I saw Acheron. 💀

[@iceagepenguinrace9788]

You saw the leaks too?

[@strakyman]

Suske

[@potatoking5602]

Obiously

[@Ayanelixer8518]

Acheron isn't better than Jing lui and DHIL Her nihility restriction and raw numbers are lower Tho she can powercreep erudition characters

[@ze_bleh]

oooowww boy she be powercreeping everything

[@angpham941]

IL got his d*gwater era when MoC effects go against him and Himeko had her time to shine in Fire weakness PF. Hoyo decides the meta, even if it goes against a busted unit, or elevate a bad unit

[@ansmp4storage358]

this. a notable example of this is jingliu. her mechanics is one of the strongest in the game, but hoyoverse can just simply throw a bunch of high ice res boss in moc and call it a day, make her unusable in moc.

[@KiwiiLoka]

So real, it was so ironic seeing My IL struggling more than jing yuan in this current PF, none of them having any type of buff at all if it's just dot I don't have himeko so i had to bring herta and fire mc, still struggling Even with sparkle loll 💀💀💀

[@N01R84]

⁠@@KiwiiLoka in dhil case it is more because he is mid at best in PF, no matter how hard he hits if he keeps hitting only 3 things at a time he wont be top tier. Himeko and Herta still destroy PF with DoT buff for example.

[@invertbrid]

​@@KiwiiLokayea IL and JL are bad in PF lmao, unless u pair JL with blade or something. Which is good so IL and JL wont be dominating in every game content lol

[@AzureDrag0n1]

@@ansmp4storage358Jingliu can go from S tier to losing against D tier characters by simply throwing some Ice out of Space and Frigid Prowlers at you.

[@iroku_1]

my favorite Star Rail moment is when Sparkle said "Its Sparkling time" and Sparkled all over the meta

[@chipsalancienne3080]

🔥🔥🔥

[@saikarthik1383]

True

[@vanitas9837]

Seeing this morbius meme used is like seeing your younger sibling do a Fortnite dance It just hurts your soul.

[@themusicheart167]

My favorite part is when kagurabachi banner drops

[@BLACKxZOckEr]

Why does "sparkles all over the meta" sound so lewd

[@StranglerSix]

The simple fact that my first reaction when I see HSR leaks is "WTF that's broken" is a testament to how insane the powercreep currently is. I've never had this feeling of awe in Genshin. The closest I had the same reaction was with Neuvillette, and that's just far and few from the characters that have already been released. Powercreep is fine, but HSR's progression is clearly drastic. I expected some units to maybe one-up old units bit by bit, but every new unit is just miles stronger than the recent one.

[@krabling]

Powercreep is when you get Qingque's late eidolons and pull Sparkle. Win big, keep quiet.

[@ryoujiarisato7308]

borderline impossible to make a turn based gacha without so much power creep, i expected this from launch

[@FilmFlam-8008]

Eh. I can still beat MoC with Herta. Power creep only matters so far as it is necessary to beat the game. And it isn’t here

[@muhammetemiraydin1459]

And the game doesnt even have pvp so it is not important brcayse you can beat everything with your characters

[@dumbitchstella]

​@@FilmFlam-8008 Its not necessary for now, there are already leaks of a 20% HP buff for enemies in MoC and score reduction for kills in PF, of course these are not confirmed yet but the fact that they are thinking of buffing MoC again just after releasing floor 12 shows how the power level of units is getting out of control. Edit: The new 2.1 MoC 12 boss has 2.1 million HP, whoever says this game doesn't have power creep is fucking delusional.

[@McNugge.]

​@rebchizelbeak5392 It absolutely is . GL trying to get full stars if you don't keep up witht the powercreep. My fully build min maxed Seele can handle earlygame bosses.....But anything after that is nigh on impossible for her and gets out dps'd by every new dps after her, which is absurd🤡

[@Sonvalen]

It's not maximized enough I passed moc 12 36stars with selee and dr ratio (the first and the free dps) and only need to restart dr ratio cause 90% crit means no crit xD@@McNugge.

[@why-so-toxic_1413]

In my opinion old characters will still be viable and we have seen some characters will get better like Kafka with black swan they both got bumped up to a higher tier and topaz because she can buff follow up attacks so older characters like jing yuan and ratio can be bumped up and the end game content which can make old and new characters viable

[@f.b.iagent3971]

But that is an issue imo, the fact that you have to keep pulling for niche new op units just to keep units you only got a couple of months ago at most in the meta is wild This game’s powercreep is absurdly fast, much faster than any other game I’ve personally seen

[@oscara8454]

​​@@f.b.iagent3971oh you sweet summer child.

[@ADoomain]

Old dps units will still be viable* (not supports) Supports are being powercrept like crazy and since they have a much more universal impact, the fomo you get from missing them is all the more colossal compared to a dps unit. Not to mention the fact you need 3x the amount of supports compared to dps units

[@xenoemblem7]

@@ADoomainAs long as the 4-star supports are supporting then it's not that big of a problem. Unless a gamemode is unbeatable without a Ruan Mei or Sparkle, then they screwed up.

[@goldshot754]

@@f.b.iagent3971what 5 star support has been power crept? SW is still what make mono quantum a thing, Bronya is still better then sparkle on hyper carry, Kafka has BS now so she is better, Topaz is getting more and more FUA to work with.

[@Superflaming85]

While you did touch on it with Blade, I want to note that he wasn't the only older character who gained a huge boost from Sparkle. In fact, at least two, if not three 1.0 5* units got huge boosts from her specifically. (As in, beyond just "Sparkle good", they get something unique from her that they really wanted) And they are Jing Yuan, Seele, and arguably even Clara. Jing Yuan has long been one of the worst units to pair with Bronya, for good reason; His biggest source of damage can't take advantage of Bronya's skill. However, Sparkle's skill buff lasts until the start of the unit's NEXT turn, allowing her entire kit to buff Lightning Lord. This is massive, and everything else Sparkle provides is the icing on the cake, especially since you can drop his Speed boots for attack for even more damage. And from what I've heard, the same applies to Clara. Similarly to Jing Yuan, Bronya's buff didn't last through Clara's counters, while Sparkle's does. While I haven't tried it out myself, I've heard good things about the combo. And, of course, there's Seele. She's the only Quantum 5* DPS, and Sparkle is tailored to support Mono-Quantum quite well, alongside being the final missing piece for the full 4-girl team. Combine that with her being one of the more SP hungry DPS who really appreciates Sparkle's Ult and technique, and the Mono-Quantum team has had the resurgence it deserves. (Most of the above also applies to QQ) Overall, while it's definite that Sparkle is almost certainly more powerful than Bronya, she's such a huge improvement to older units that it feels like she powercreeps less than she prevents.

[@jaredfischer6040]

I disagree with the idea that she "prevents" powercreep. Making everyone else better is the purpose of a support. If a support buffs some characters disproportionately more than others, that power is in the hands of the support, not the characters they are supporting. If you don't get Sparkle for whatever reason, you don't get these benefits and those old characters remain at the level power they started. The fact that she buffs those characters so well doesn't mean she "prevents" power creep, it makes her personal power creep as a support character worse.

[@komgoo4974]

Fiy Blade became better after Sparkle release not for her individually but because he makes good work of having both sparkle and Bronya in 1 team.

[@Satyr42]

Blade also works really well with Jingliu because her HP drain counts as a hit, so Blade will use his follow up attack a lot more often. Add Luocha and Ruan Mei to that team and you will destroy everything.

[@xxartemisxx1982]

​@@Satyr42 Calculations show that it's not as good as hypercarry Jingliu

[@Satyr42]

@@xxartemisxx1982 How much difference does it actually make? And does that difference actually matter? People who zero cycle MOC are a tiny fraction of the total player base. The vast majority couldn't give damn about that.

[@EurrikkeEdward]

@@Satyr42 exactly. Most of these people that scream 0 cycle MOC stats cant even 15 cycle theirs

[@xxartemisxx1982]

@@Satyr42 What are you talking about? Who said anything about MoC or even 0 cycling it? All I said is that adding Blade to a Jingliu comp is sub-optimal so getting Blade just for this is not worth it

[@vermilion6966]

As someone who started recently, i think theyre going too fast. Bosses with millions of hp, character doing 100 000, 200 000, 500 000 and 1 000 000 damage like its nothing in a game that's just a year old is crazy. Thats too much. Whats next? in a year or two they will be hitting for 5 million? I remember when i started genshin doing 50 000 seemed very good. I know its 2 different games but still. Its too much, too fast and its honestly ridiculous. Also its easier to keep up with the numbers when they are smaller when youre trying to calculate how much damage you will deal.

[@theoDSP]

The balance of this game is out of the window for sure. But hey. They need milk the whales.

[@Irelian_Sol]

This is a major issue why Dr Ratio was given for free. The game's element restrictive combat enables players to have a ton of built characters. In Genshin, I can barely have any 5 stars and feel great since elemental reactions drive the game. However in HSR, I can have half the roster and still feel like something is missing

[@curryfishheadenjoyer]

same, I have 3/4 of the roster in hsr and I still feel like I'm missing out on a whole world of gameplay. meanwhile in genshin even at the 1 year mark I didnt feel like I was missing out on anything, most of the time I only ever wanted characters because of their lore, fun playstyle etc

[@suwoh.c1977]

Powercreep will happen when I wont be able to clear PF or MoC or any other endgame mode with older characters. So far we can still do it but they are constantly rising floor so who knows.

[@oliverrainer6107]

blade is the best self sustain dps

[@onyxlegacy8382]

The power creep is blinding fast for my taste. The hybridization of character roles and the growing emphasis on insane hyper specific lightcones is starting to get old. Oddly enough the game feels like it’s growing even more restrictive as more characters release because of the fomo nature of the character banners. With no way to pull for the core of teams or those characters that boost them, you are completely out of luck as they push the floor and the ceiling without even more reruns or deliberate reiterations of existing characters. Those completely necessary reiterations are the more traditional power creep which invalidates past investment, while the new characters force compliance as they make enemy stats increase to match their new dps/sustain power. People said “Genshin could never” but I don’t think they realized that offering a character and all these pulls is more necessary in Star Rail due to how the game is set up. If you can’t build FUN teams you leave. Period. But these are just one woman’s thoughts.

[@BestgirlJordanfish]

I kinda just wish they’d slow down on releasing new characters. The resource and trace / level materials are okay, but relics are exhausting me. The meta feels flipped like every two months. I also wish they would avoid overstepping design space as much, like comparing Sparkle to Bronya. I don’t even think Sparkle *feels* like Sparkle to me. Her personality, powers, and story just doesn’t feel like anything she can do in combat, but this isn’t new in HSR. Like, sure action forward is a cool boost like bronya, but why ALSO crit dmg boost based off her own crit dmg boost, and why ALSO full team damage buff? And monoquantum is already fantastic. Like, why not imagination or fire harmony for her? Why not maybe provide a buff based on crit rate or speed, or EHR to give that “will ruin you” feel? Or maybe in ult, why not pester or ruin one enemy for a little attacking twist feel like Yukong? I feel like they could’ve made her mechanically as distinct and expressive as her personality and dropped the ball on combat design for her

[@fuvdeu]

Unfortunately game doesn't have too much mechanics so they would likely stick to releasing new units with better numbers and additional gimmicks

[@djay00009]

I wonder why you feel like that. And here I have so many materials and relics. I have most character at lvl 80 and very well geared and I have more relics I hardly use. I have decided to try maximizing the rest of my mains to lvl 10 traces and rest I decided to make Yanquin viable. So I am gonna build Yanquin and Bailu. I have a ton of 4 stars at max traces and S or SS gears too. I am an old player. Now 251 days+ playing and I am kinda bored most of the time . I haven’t even played the side quests in penacony and stuff. I have completed nearly everything in the game. I am a light spender not f2p but if you keep playing this and just use your energy every day , you will have too many materials and relics. More than you mostly will need.

[@sushiQwQ]

​@@djay00009 This is why I take a break so often you eventually get too much to know what to do with but when you log back in there's a whole new set and characters have absolutely no need for anything you're already stacked on and you once again go on your repetitive energy spending

[@skyethenerd1054]

I think sparkle makes sense as a quantum thematically bc of her multiple identities/ability to turn into other people thing

[@red3.0xe66]

I've said this before in many videos, yes, powercreeping exists. We cannot avoid it. However, sooooo many people in the community are taking it WAY too seriously as if the unit that was powercrept is no longer good. It's happened with Seele vs IL/Jingliu, and now it's happening with Sparkle vs Bronya. And I HATE that so many people take this so seriously and think that powercrept characters are terrible when they really aren't. We cannot avoid powercreep, but it's not something we should take so seriously to the point those powercrept characters are suddenly bad, because they aren't. The only reason why I think people are afraid of powercreep is because of the meta slaves that will harass you for not playing any of the meta teams. I speak from experience as a former Seele main. I'm now an IL main but I am still a very firm Seele believer. Same thing goes for Bronya. I don't use her as much anymore but I firmly believe she is an amazing unit.

[@wongo6828]

I have Bronya and Ruan Mei and I'm currently pulling for Sparkle (hopefully it's not hard pity for the 6th time...) and yes, I do agree with you that powercreeping shouldn't be taken seriously. The way I see the Bronya vs. Sparkle situation is that even tho Sparkle is just a better version of Bronya, it doesn't downplay how amazing Bronya was and still is as a support, in fact I'd be more than content to have two Bronyas in my account, especially in MoC, the other team can have their own Bronya which is Sparkle.

[@goldshot754]

@@wongo6828honestly bronya is still better. 100% pull up is crazy, and much better for hyper carry. Sparkle just also heavy sp spenders to actually function.

[@jaykhobrekar3619]

Okay this is not related to her but aren't tldr supposed to be shorter than what you originally said or am I missing something?

[@red3.0xe66]

@@jaykhobrekar3619 I think? I probably added some extra stuff so apologies

[@jaykhobrekar3619]

@@red3.0xe66 ehh don't need to apologise. My ace attorney loving ass can't help but point out and ask questions like this

[@gltterati]

New 'mechanics' like Pure Fiction definitely help units shine but sometimes they can get very biased with MoC's weaknesses and that is where it gets so obvious that "you need DHIL or Jingliu" because who else is a decent Imaginary/Ice DPS (before Ratio). I already gave up on the numbers and just collect all of the Nihility ccharacters and FuA ones. I like it when we can get more creative in team-building and even making use of older characters, not making the same DPSs stronger. Sadly except for Bronya and Fu Xuan none of the 5 star supports are characters I wanted to get so I am just chilling with Natasha anyway

[@crystalesian]

that's why you pull the characters that you like, not by meta, but character design, voice, personality.

[@powwowken2760]

I mean yeah definitely, in 3+ years of Genshin I've never once felt punished for not pulling a certain character... Yet I feel that every single day I load into Star Rail From the elemental weaknesses of enemies, to unnecessary gimmicks like Ratio needing debuffers to function, to the entire concept of DoT teams being tied exclusively to Kafka's kit... It's just frustrating that every new character seems to powercreep an old one while also saying, "I hope you have that other character as well, otherwise my kit doesn't work properly!".

[@dazzle810]

Dot teams are fine without kafka, yes she makes them stronger but it's not exclusively tied to her, black swan is first really dot dps and sampo, luka, fire girl are other dot dps with fire girl having some supportive things in her kit, but maybe you just don't enjoy dot teams without kafka, I have her but use black swan and sampo and if built right they're so fun

[@matitello4167]

Black swan works just fine with sampo, it obvioisly work better with kafka because she is a 5 star but she doesnt need her, it is not that DOT teams are tied to kafka, but rather than kafka takes the most advantage out of DOT teams

[@kennethyoung7457]

Theres too many characters introducing whole new mechanics. Black Swan making DOT blast attacks, Kafka being able to setoff any DOT. Sparkle increasing the maximum amount of skill points you can have and giving you double the skill points at the start of the battle. Ruan Mei being able to delay weakness break recovery and increase break efficiency by a whopping 50%. Fu Xuan having guaranteed crowd control resist completely changing how some boss battles work.

[@justinflores3771]

​@@dazzle810copium if you think the DOT team doesn't need the DOT enabler

[@dazzle810]

@justinflores3771 they don't though, as I said of course having kafka makes the dot teams stronger but no the team is fine without her, you can count sampo too as an enabler if you have his e4 ig

[@lampros1112]

Instead of talking about powercreep i think the issue more is it is releasing characters too fast and i can't have them all 😔. Jade income is good but i feel like spending jades much too often.

[@wongo6828]

Can HSR just not release a new character for the time being..? And have Luocha his first rerun? V.2.0-V.2.1 are my F2P nightmare...

[@lenoria]

not just too many characters, too many cool characters 😭i feel like i'm drowning in good choices

[@Ultimate_Hater75]

This is a gacha game. They need to release characters often. Just wait for rerun. Like me I'm waiting for Jingliu to cone back.

[@pheone9105]

​@@lenoria Exactly why I like HSR. Star Rail devs not only railing us on great content, but tugs on our indecisiveness as we edge to get all characters cause of how awesome most of them are

[@MrWhere2005]

Pulling too many characters also is detrimental to your account. You simply do not have the necessary material to lvl them up. Especially for low spender like me, I stop pulling for characters and instead focus on vertical investment such as pulling for LC and eidolons.

[@weregretohio7728]

Whereas Genshin makes a small show of trying to stay balanced, you have Star Rail that really rewards pulling the right units and then continuing to pull. It's a different sort of frustrating. It feels impossible to get into alternate playstyles, unless you have a lot of money or luck... and I sure don't have the luck or resources to get units like Kafka or Topaz and build teams around them - and never being sure how soon they might get thrown into the trash. Getting Ratio for free at least helps ease the pressure a bit, but man, some of these units feel like bad choices almost immediately.

[@bigpoof3349]

I don't entirely agree, at least with your example. Although several characters want other 5 stars to really make them amazing, Kafka doesn't really NEED Black Swan (though the combination of the two is amazing). On the other side of the coin someone like Topaz has a handful of characters that enhance her gameplay. It can definitely be frustrating or inconvenient to have to continue building new characters but from my perspective, at least that's something to keep me playing the game

[@jjwang_safari0813]

As a Topaz lover, I totally agree. Even though I love Topaz a lot, I can't really spend my resources on my follow-up attack team because I have to build my Jingliu team and Kafka team. Dr. Ratio helped a lot with my Topaz team, but I would have to invest a lot more to make the team better. However, I do think building a Kafka team is relatively easy - just put her with any 4-star DOT character, one support, and one healer, and it's good to go.

[@xenoemblem7]

​@@imventithebardfinally someone who said it. It's good that they are being generous but there has to be another reason for that generosity.

[@blanc1720]

balanced? what happen when dendro came out?

[@justinflores3771]

What are you on about? If you don't have Kafka but have Swan you are HARD nerfing your black swan (vice versa as well) and same with certain other units like follow up attackers like Jing yuan and topaz. This game has MANY many team's but unless you are lucky and get everyone you can't build certain team's just because they are so much more weaker because one unit is missing​@@bigpoof3349

[@marcoleung311-v7j]

10:05 its pretty unfair to compare those imo. Standard banner LCs can be bought for 30 pulls worth of starlight while limited LC cost around 80 pulls on average (up to around 150 if unlucky). Obviously they’re going to be way more powerful.

[@Butterscotch2319]

And bronyas lc can be just as good as sparkles it just depends on your dps in my experience the only characters that actually get a huge boost from sparkles is FUA units

[@JohnDoe-si4eg]

Super true, regardless standard units are pretty fine to powercreep. Especially at low investment else you’d never pull for other characters.

[@bowenjudd1028]

How 30 pulls?

[@JohnDoe-si4eg]

@@bowenjudd1028 the amount of currency they cost can be exchanged for 30 pulls.

[@bowenjudd1028]

@@JohnDoe-si4eg wdym, isn't it 600 of the starlight which you get 8 of per epic and needing around 80+ epic or better pulls?

[@Gr0s3d]

HSR is having the same model of Hi3, a lot of characters with a lot of powrcreep, this year HSR will have more characters than GI in 4 years with a lot of them are being powercreepered. That is their business model, more characters, more powercreep, more farm, more money.

[@sanjeethmahendrakar]

Honestly my main concern with powercreep is the fact that even though they give us around the same amount of pulls as genshin they release way too many 5 stars every update. Add the fact that every 5 star seems to be better than the last and its actually more annoying than pulling for characters in genshin. Hell the next genshin patch has only one new 5 star who seems to be a sidegrade in terms of meta and three reruns so I personally can comfortably skip without feeling like i missed out on anything huge but thats not the case for HSR.

[@niigolover]

This. Too many 5☆s and not enough time to build them Imo they should slow down a bit

[@mikereyes2269]

This isn’t really true. Genshin on avg gives around 65 to 70 pulls, whereas HSR on avg gives around 80 to 90 pulls per patch. Genshin gives around 80 pulls for the X.0 and X.4 patches, the rest stay at around 50 to 60. And in genshin it’s a pain since you need to search over all the open world for chests, in HSR is a lot easier since the maps are much more smaller.

[@davidamasceno7737]

@@mikereyes2269 you have 65-70 pulls for one new character and 80-90 for two new characters. Pity system is the same.

[@foggyfrog]

I feel like Star Rail's combat is too simple, elements are there to match, you have to break enemies weakness and there are only 3 kinds of attack, normal, ultimate and skill. It feels simpler than other turnbased games and this leads to very restrictive team building because not many possibilities to begin with, and they had to deal with it by adding very specific new mechanics that only works with a few number of characters. Power gap between 4 stars and 5 stars are huge, even light cones are also restrictive and there are 7 paths. Look at Acheron and see how restrictive she is, just because they want to enable more nihility units, not everyone will be able to get that. I feel like many people here feel much more obligated to pull for new characters because of this system and that is why they are more generous, I like the generosity but I still feel a big inadequacy even with their generosity, I feel like it is mostly marketing. This is just my criticism towards the game and I was disliking that each characters only have 2 skills for a turn based game since the beginning.

[@foggyfrog]

I still think that team building in this game can be fun because of the synergy between dps, harmony, sustain, manipulating characters and enemies turns, etc. But to get the fun, first I have to get some specific characters. I have to speed tune which is a problem because it's completely RNG, and not only speed, sometimes your relics give you bad rolls. Building characters feels so slow. Unless if I am insanely lucky with my relics and characters pulls, or if I pay. If not, then your team is just going to be stuck being decent and you lose possibilities trying out more teams and playstyles.

[@db.1304]

I mean tbf genshin release 4 star units are so incredibly op that mihoyo has yet to powercreep them 3 years after lmao. It was for sure a mistake on their part and made genshin players not have to care so much about meta since bennett, xiangling, xingqiu, and sucrose exist.

[@jo0rd73]

Well Sucrose is kinda dead in the meta now (people don’t really bother with taser now either since hyperbloom exists), still usable but definitely not Xiangling Bennett Xinqiu level, since Furina dropped most who have her have replaced Xinqiu with her in comps especially any double hydro comp with Yelan, with Bennett circle impact is absolutely dying with enemies who can one shot you because of the pyro application his burst gives or enemies that just move around a lot or knock you around (consecrated beasts for example), Xiangling is one of the only characters left that isn’t held back by the characteristics of his burst. Now all of these characters are still usable but it’s undeniable that much better options exist for many of them except Xiangling really lol as long as you can vape the enemies she will do good xD. Though in Genshin you have much more control over your characters so the powercreep for the most part hasn’t hurt players, in star rail though its turn based nature means it’s heavily RNG reliant so as they buff enemies you’re gonna feel forced to pull new units that don’t lose out as much with bad RNG, whether that’s better sustains or DPS with more reliable damage.

[@db.1304]

@@jo0rd73 I mean sure, it "only" took them 3 years to somewhat replace them. My point is those 4stars are an exception of longevity and power that no other gacha game has had, mostly because they where a mistake, I would bet everything that Hoyo never planned for them to be as powerful as they where.

[@BananaFlavouredPants]

@@db.1304 Sucrose still works perfectly fine tbh, she's not been replaced. Diluc feels like the only starter that's fallen off the face of the earth but even then he's still usable in Abyss. It's drastically different to Star Rail where one year in all of the 4 Stars and 5 Stars within the first 3 months are useless and you need limited in every role on 2 teams. It's wild that Kafka's the only strong one still given she wasn't too strong on release.

[@fiyibomiolabode]

@@BananaFlavouredPants diluc is still really strong with xianyun

[@super_dude00]

I’m genuinely worried if the game is constantly going to get two 5*s every single patch 😭😭

[@introvertion6460]

From the pattern, it looks like they will release 3 characters every single patch

[@KalleDemos666]

Which is the same as Genshin impact and has not had a negative effect whatsoever 😂😂😂

[@inqyr4707]

@@KalleDemos666Genshin only has 2 new 5 stars in a patch occasionally. Usually after a region first releases

[@Jinni-iras17514]

@@inqyr4707 you're spreading pro Genshin propaganda /s

[@zecendia]

@@KalleDemos666 Genshin is also 1.not turn based 2.the elemental reaction nature of the game helps in keeping old characters usable.

[@mangshu21]

yes the star rail stans in denial and if you try to start a conversation in reddit they attack you.. They also attack you if you so much as mention the fast pace of 5 star character releases

[@NemoRackkz]

They don't even realize the game has to be super generous due to the amount of 5 stars they have released

[@goomby4018]

yeah the video that he showed on stream

[@eren_2290]

I quite disagree with a lot of points made here. Especially calling sparkle better than ruan mei. It'd take too long to discuss this in a comment but what I'm trying to say is: I think hoyo are releasing characters in a way that makes them seem incredibly meta and strong at the time of release, however rather CREEPING them, releasing a unit that is seemingly more flexible than them and makes that unit relegated to 1-3 teams like huohuo being the best sustain + buffer and kicking fu out of MANY of her teams as best sustain unit for that specific team, also putting luocha in highly sp negative teams. Do I think sparkle crept bronya? No I think she kicked her out of teams where her SP negativity was too big a detriment and relegated her to SP positive or neutral non DoT teams like Jingliu and blade.

[@This_Origami]

Great point at 12:43 regarding element restriction, until you realise acheron is coming next patch💀. I firmly believe the creep is going too fast too furious.

[@goldshot754]

It the Mei problem. Ei is broken in Genshin and they are broken her too. It’s a inevitability.

[@hypemaddox]

@@goldshot754 Problem is if she becomes the base level for what difficult content is built around. If not it doesnt matter, if it does that is a very big problem.

[@goldshot754]

@@hypemaddox no,no. Believe me I don’t like how strong she is, and I hope by the end of 2.1 beta they either increase her charges for ult or remove the weakness shred. All I’m saying is we know this is what would happen no matter what, she would be meta defining.

[@kennethyoung7457]

Now every new dps character going to need to be able to ignore weakness and have aoe ult to compete with her. People saying she weaker at E0S0 but she is pretty much the universal dps at E2S1 which is where the powercreep is going to be at. Why invest in all these different element dps when this one is cheaper relatively. They could make enemy that resist all debuffs but I think that would just screw over nihility in general they'd be crazy to do something like that.

[@goldshot754]

@@kennethyoung7457 yep, Acheron is the only character, even the current leaked kits, that I would consider to absolutely power creep the majority of the cast. Even at E0 she is still getting 2-3 turn Aoe ult and with S1 that lowers to 1-2 turn Aoe ult. And it’s not a argenti situation where her damage comes from ult her skill is still good.

[@megadumbo6]

My boy Arlan has been struggling to keep up 😫 I have him maxed out with BIS C6 and he can’t win 😢

[@So_Viet8032]

Literally the worst character in the whole game 😂

[@MyVanir]

He was struggling to keep up at launch, by the time a couple of patches passed, he was banished to the Shadow Realm.

[@sus6221]

he seems like a perfect dual dps character though, really light on sp maybe against lighting weak enemies with very sp hungry characters

[@annazhang1434]

same with my yq 😢 i have him e1s1 but he cant keep up in moc (dont even talk about pf) 😭

[@MaineOneV1]

hoyoverse always make dark skin characters trash. Why waste time building him?

[@saimfaisal6795]

Definitely. Most notable in DPS- we had seele, then Blade, then Daniel, then jingliu- 4 notable instances in just 1 version. Supports don't suffer from this as much, but it's definitely there- luocha and huohuo getting crept by Rian Mei to an extent. I fear that HSR might not live as long due to this Also, considering the best character on the game. In my opinion, it will always have to be a DPS who's at the very top, but supports will stay near the top for longer. That top spot can easily be congested by a stronger character, so DPS is stronger, but supports last longer

[@RoKu.1147]

I just wait for the rerun banner and I will know which character is powercreep or not. If on the rerun banner, that character can still do a great job on their role, which is not a sign for powercreep and I want that character, then I definitely pull for them

[@SandwichDoggy]

More than just power creep I'm more concerned about niche creeping, cause all the units so far have been taking up new major niches and I wonder how long it will take before they run out and will start making better copies of older units

[@xenoemblem7]

At some point, telling other people to "pull who you like" is a death sentence for you account... and I don't want that.

[@strykeralpha9650]

wdym? every character can complete the content the game has and even 4 star f2p teams can clear moc12

[@Szczurzyslawa]

@@strykeralpha9650 Can they? Not on my account 😭I'm day 1 player, I follow the meta, I know how to build characters, I just don't think it's possible with my faves, which in genshin just wouldn't happen. It's all big numbers game in HSR, if you don't have these numbers, you just cannot win. In genshin there's some skill that can really help you when your character baseline is lacking.

[@strykeralpha9650]

@@Szczurzyslawa genshin and hsr are both dps checks in moc and spiral abyss, genshin has energy Regen while star rail has speed, you need enough of those stats to make sure your characters are consistently and frequently maximizing their potential otherwise you will still not 36 star the abyss even with c6 5 stars, same for moc.

[@warisqawesome7894]

@@strykeralpha9650 Please, 4 star teams cannot clear MOC12, and do not link me to the videos with INSANE builds which barely clear in 10 turns and then show off as 4 star player... an average player cannot invest nearly that much

[@strykeralpha9650]

@@Szczurzyslawa literally any dps +1/2 supports and a sustain, as long as they can break weakness, can clear moc, you just need to invest time into them

[@TaterVG]

doing the recent penacony quest and I can say that the power creep is real and is too much for casual players like me.

[@Force-Multiplier]

after Acheron i can confidently say YES YES IT IS!

[@overlordshiina]

To know if a game has powercreep all you need to do is look at the win conditions. If the win condition is dealing 100K damage in 5min at the beginning and a few month later its 1M damage in 5min yeah games got powercreep 100%

[@CJ-up7pn]

definitely powercrept, old MOC i was able to 3 star no problem MOC 10, now I cant reach 3 stars on the new MOC 12

[@xenoemblem7]

@@CJ-up7pnMaybe it depends on the buffs the MoC gives.

[@CJ-up7pn]

@@xenoemblem7 no the dps check for the last stage of MOC definitely increased, its more obvious if u use crit heavy characters since u can notice going from being able to one shot an elite to less than half its health, its real powercreep

[@heilamwether8911]

Tbh, the comparison between bronya and sparkle is very intresting: I have both, and from using sparkle for a bit, I can say this: *sparkle is very relic heavy.* without spd, or a Eng rope, it’s harder for her kit to shine compared to bronya, and due to this, isn’t as viable, with half a set then when fully maxed, which is not the same for bronya, which even after I half-gutted her, causing her to lose a good deal of stats, she was still really viable, and better to use then my sparkle, which as you probably can guess, took the gutted relics from my bronya. I’ve said it in other videos about power creep, and I’m going to say it again: their both in the same field, but for more or less different use-cases. Bronya, can be compared to a knife: fast, portable, and good in most situations, but also weaker then other blades. Sparkle, is a fucking sword: strong, heavy, and able to do just about everything else a knife can, but harder to move with, dependent on the add-ons, being harder to carry around than a knife. While sparkle might be better in dps, her forwarding abilities arn’t as good as bronya’s, which also means that she needs high speed to counteract that debuff, and while she can do some duel dps, it’s just not as good as bronya, with her ult being team-wide, and her skill not being limited to just dps, and with stronger buffers coming out, Bronya’s jack-of-all-trades ability can be used better, instead of us just focusing on only dps. Personally, imma use both, but currently, most characters have a use in the meta, (besides arlan, due to being to self-inflicting… poor Arlan ;-;) and bronya and sparkle are the same. Even if bronya loses out in the dps department, she still has a cleanse, and 100% advance, making her almost future-proof as long as their isn’t anyone else who can do that, combined with constant standard pulls, which will slowly start to unlock all her eidolons. sparkle is also future proof due to her sp regen, and overall synergy with quantum and sp hungry units, meaning that as long as their are good quantum characters, she’s still viable. Really, while bronya isn’t the best, and her dmg is less then sparkle’s, her real potential is shown, because she really a wasn’t a buffer, her kit doesn’t really support that, she is a situational support hook, which was meta during early game due to the limited number to buffers. But however you might see it, this opens a lot of pathways for new teams comps, and tbh, I’m looking forward to it.)

[@heilamwether8911]

@@K-Sha1 yeah, but that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes. (Also, wym it’s game if it’s DOT? You know that normal hyper-teams still work with PF right? All you have to do is slightly adjust your dmg dealers to be more of a dual dps, but yeah, you can still use advance forward units in DOT situations. (I used a Clara Himeko for PF 3.) it’s not like they become obsolete, their good in just about all content types.) Edit: I realized I didn’t fully address the DOT team. Tbh, you can use sparkle and bronya for a DOT, but it’s harder since their generally more dual DPs heavy, which is Ruan Mei’s domain. but tbh, if you don’t have black swan + Kafka, then DOT isn’t more viable then any other team comp. (Also, like I said before, PF can be heated with classics hypercarries, they just have to be slightly adjusted.)

[@heilamwether8911]

@@K-Sha1 also, aventurine is looking cool, but currently, he feels like a mix between topaz, Gepard, and Clara: if you want a dmging shield, then Aventurine is your go-to, but tbh, idk how good he will be at defending. His kit seems to be mostly focusing on shielding through taunt, and when his stacks get full, it releases a counter. Personally, I think he’s going to be a better gepard that can output more dmg, but that’s about it. Like gepard He can’t solo sustain like Fu xuan, or other abundance, which will whittle your health down eventually, especially on high disaster lvls of SU. With this, his kit mostly focuses around buffing himself, and outputting dmg, with all to most of his traces being centered around his follow-up, so if your going for a mainly-sustain-heavy support, it isn’t going to be as good of a choice. (Tbh, if you want a solo sustain, Huo Huo is a better sustainer, mostly because her stacks gives cleanse and procs every time a ally either 1. Takes a turn, or 2. Activates their ult. Also, she gives a 40% dmg boost when ult procing, and you only need to skill every 2 turns, assuming the dmg done isn’t 50% or lower, or it’s Sam… but yeah, Huo Huo would be better for solo sustain then aventurine, since he is a dmging hybrid, similar to gallagar, so if you want something that doesn’t sustain well but can, aventurine is probably the choice, but if u want a sustainer, either wait for next abundance, or just get Huo Huo on rerun banner.)

[@heilamwether8911]

@@K-Sha1 ah, thanks for the clarification 🙏

[@tehpyono2203]

@@K-Sha1 I think Sparkle definitely powercreeps Bronya. I think the best way to compare is just look at both of them before selecting one for your team, who would you pick? I would definitely use sparkle over bronya unless, I'm using blade or if the enemies applies debuff and I do not have someone to remove it. That aside, I think two teams is also not a solid argument since there are so many supports in the game, you could be using them for other teams instead of Bronya. I use Ruan Mei in Ratio/Guinaifen team, but I think it mostly depends on your damage dealers. Also, people are comparing Sparkle directly to Bronya, it's not about whether you will still use her elsewhere. I will still be using both though since I have blade, I will be trying for a sparkle+bronya blade team.

[@tehpyono2203]

​@@heilamwether8911 I am gonna assume you have not looked at leaks on his kit fully yet. If you did, you wouldn't be saying he can't solo sustain. Spoiler below: . 2 stacks of adventurine shields (using his skill) is like a gepard ult and they also have 3 turn uptime. His followup also gives shield to the entire team though it is a smaller amount but his shields stacks. He also works similarly to March where as long as a shielded ally is hit, he will gain stacks, which also means aoe attacks will let him regenerate shield for his team through the stacks. Like you said, the only issue here is the lack of cleanse and presevation characters lack of healing which mean if you use them too much they will eventually run out of health, but adventurine grants the team a shield when entering combat anyways so it's unlikely you would need to heal unless against difficult content and the shields he grant gives a 50% effect res to allies with the shield... There's also Fu Xuan Crowd Control resist which works once every 2 turns so debuffs are hard to work against teams with him. With these knowledge, there's no way you would think he is unable to solo sustain in anyway. The only situation I can see where he suffers, is high damage single target, which would force you to use his skill to shield the team.

[@valt4462]

You guys are fighting about power creep meanwhile ever since jing yuan release he keeps getting indirect buff every patch

[@cyanix0]

I don't have a problem with the meta inviting powercreep so much as just the fact that the recent endgame content seems and is so catered towards the new units. I think that aspect is a lot more pronounced here than in genshin, and eventually it might get bad enough that I straight up don't want to complete moc anymore, let alone pure fiction.

[@augustusnyx9872]

What you said is reason why I am never overly ecstatic with HSR's "generosity". There's always 2 new characters every patch, one for each phase. With how fast they release 5 stars, that generosity is far from something to be overly excited about. It's nice I guess to some extent but I wouldn't say the game is giving "more" cause relatively speaking, if we consider genshin's and hsr's trends when it comes to releasing newer characters (5 stars), HSR feels more suffocating.

[@nikonFB1988]

@@augustusnyx9872 it IS giving more tho. You may feel inclined to pull more often, but they are, in fact, more generous. It's up to you to make smart decisions with your account if you're a light spender/F2P. If you wanna go FUA route like me, you need to stay committed to that path and then pick another path for the second team. It's really not that hard. Too many ppl just get baited by their marketing and want every character when that's not realistic. Just gotta be somewhat intelligent with how you pull

[@augustusnyx9872]

@@nikonFB1988 I guess it is a personal preference. I have no problems clearing contents which is why the main thing I do in both games are collecting all the characters or at least try to. I'm more of a Horizontal Investment player. Since I am already able to clear the current hardest contents in the game, sticking to limited play styles ain't really enjoyable for me which is why having more characters is my preference and it's harder to do that in HSR compared to Genshin. Also, my bad for the way I worded it. Yes, HSR gives more but relative to how fast they release new characters, it's not something to be "overly" excited about, at least for me. I spend pass and welkin on both games consistently. 6 patches in Genshin, I didn't have a problem missing out on any 5 star new character (7 in total). Can't really say the same nor do the same for HSR which already has 4 new 5 star characters 2 patches in unless I get really lucky and get everyone in less than 40 pulls or something. But yeah, this comparison is based on my own experience playing both game, so I don't speak for everyone so I guess that's just my two cents.

[@NorthInium]

If you cant beat current MOC then your units are just bad. I dont own Jingliue, Lunae, Ruan Mei, Silver Wolf, Seele, Sparkle and still beat MOC thats just coping at this point or rather blaming it on power creep.

[@Mew2222]

​@@NorthInium I would not call this coping. Either you are lucky on your relics rolls or spend insane hours and money on grinding those relics (which I do not because I have other things to do in my life) or you can just pull Jingliu + Ruan Mei + Fu Xuan or something simmilar and can beat MOC with mid relics. At this point in the game, I hope most players know how to build characters, so having a bad character is just bad luck for artifacts or using the character in a wrong way. The only uncharted teritory nowadays for most players would be speed tuning, I would say.

[@marcoskangele9389]

6:49 I completely disagree, the advantages of having the ability to go twice are sometimes more than just more damage, characters like Jingliu and Blade specifically benefit from going multiple times to front load damage in their unique way. So a half advance and a full advance are not the same. In some situations they might be, but there's multiple situations where they're not and those situations matter

[@DCminh-pe9wf]

It isn't just double the damage, it's double the energy, double whatever stacking mechanic that character have which is ALOT of character, seriously, Blade, Arlan, Misha, Jingliu, DoT unit, wind Dan Heng, etc On seele one extra turn could be 60 energy and a 100% damage 20% res on an ability due to resurgence There's a lot of unit that scale like a fucking mountain with turn You could also argue backward, since more turn means buff/shield ran out faster, etc There's alot of nuance to Bronya kit that I feel like people just ignore for whatever reason

[@MrWhere2005]

​@ArthurOliveira-mr2um you are wrong actually. Sparkle passives and ultimate works as long ANY ally use skill points including herself. You can test this yourself. She already use skills every turn and you only need one of your party member to use skills once every 2 turns, for example huo huo in current turn and ting yun the next turn. In practice you will never run out of sparkle passive. Having said that, Bronya dmg is still higher than Sparkle in Blade or JL 134/135 speed strat at the cost of skill points. Sparkle give less dmg but provide more skill points for your other support like Huo huo/Tingyun skill spam which in turn provide more energy and faster ult rotation.

[@apachers2807]

Nah, I think that's incorrect actually. 50% and 100% are similar. It's not like Sparkle's skill is half as good as Bronya's. 50% Action Forward affects the action value. Picture every character on a race track, Sparkle and DPS start at the same time, but because Sparkle is always faster (you should be running 160+) she will reach the end of the track first and get a turn. Your DPS started at the same time as Sparkle, so by the time Sparkle is getting a turn, the DPS should be 50% of the way there. Her skill lets the DPS skip the remaining 50%. In essence, Fast Sparkle and Bronya's skills are similar because they both will always bump up your DPS to take an action right after them. As long as Sparkle isn't 2x faster or you aren't using -1 speed Sparkle her skill will work the same as Bronya's. Not to say Sparkle > Bronya though. Bronya's value is from her strong DMG% buffs imo. For characters like Jingliu and Blade, they prefer that over Sparkle's buffs.

[@vashthestampede3459]

Had to come back to this video after Robin dropped in the new update. Yup, it's just constant power creep every single patch. No wonder this game makes so much money. Whales will spend to get the latest strongest unit due to FOMO. Die hard Hoyo fans will deny this of course.

[@scylla1772]

I have an alt account with only Sparkle and Jingliu, who i couldn't get on my main. Despite having tons of good units on my main... my alt is feels nonsensically powerful, despite being a bunch of level 60s

[@pankace3296]

I quit star rail due to powercreep. I spent a lot of money in early versions but quickly realized that the same amount of money in Genshin got me units I still use several years later, while Star Rail’s ceiling shifts up every patch and keeping up with optimal teams without spending consistently is truly impossible. I was sad, because I like the game, but having to watch as my favorite characters either get every member of their optimal teams replaced or get overshadowed completely is not fun for me.

[@wisamkarim6032]

its rly frustrating. i quit for the same reason today. the gameplay and visuals are nice but i feel like a pressure that my chars are not good enough soon and will be replaced by new shiny characters. also another issues are the relic system. u dont have an offpiece like genshin and they add way too many relic sets. in genshin u can just farm the main domains like emblem , deepwood, golden troupe and equip like most of ur charactes efficiently

[@penguindrummer252]

Being hyperfixated on teams that clear content 10% faster but not at all reliably is squarely a you problem.

[@pankace3296]

@@penguindrummer252 you definitely missed the point of what I was saying

[@foxyelpirata6698]

1:49 a yes the Cocolia first try difficulty 5. I still remember the absolute panic in Vars voice. Good to see you chose very good clips to show your skill

[@mikonyx7712]

It's happening... (Looks at Yunli 💀)

[@Shay_D_Mann]

Insinuating that Seele got powercrept when I literally just 2-cycled the Meme Dragon in MoC 12 with a Seele mono quantum team all at E0 S1 (except for Lynx @E6) without any effort is beyond me. Seele scales really well with relics and she still nukes bosses and elites. While I do agree that Bronya got severely powercrept by Sparkle, the rest of this vid is just full of questionable hot takes.

[@27Ganon]

I cleared the 12-2 True Sting a couple months ago faster with Seele than with Jingliu. Frankly, most of Vars' HSR takes are pretty bad, to the point where it feels like we're playing different games sometimes.

[@foxwithscarf3689]

She 100% got powercrept, just because you can achieve that with her doesn’t add or subtract anything to the overall conversation, objectively she as a unit has been far surpassed in terms of capability. In terms of dps she was already fighting qq for quantum dps and she finally lost when sparkle released and a xueyi at the same investment as a seele can output the same amount of damage while being more flexible. She already loses out on aoe dps so single target is all she has left and there are several units who can fill that role better and easier. I mean you say it yourself, mono quantum e0s1, and im confident enough to wager that you have fu xuan in there (the best preservation unit in the game) And sw or sparkle who all garnered their own discussion on how “op” “turbo broken” and “meta changing” they are You 2 cycling the boss says more about you as a player than it does about seele being strong, and half your strategy was only possible because of 2 units who could enable her in the first place

[@27Ganon]

@@foxwithscarf3689 I was clearing faster with an 80/190 Seele than with a 40/240 Jingliu a couple months back. She's only "powercrept" in the sense that boss/elite only stages can drop her DPS by over 50% sometimes, she needs a mix of mobs and elites to really pop off

[@Shay_D_Mann]

@@foxwithscarf3689 I did say I had Lynx not Fu Xuan. Seele puts out massive damage with the right set up. She pivots to other elites using her Resurgence and wipes out minor enemies with the same talent. Her talent literally makes her a Pseudo Erudition character. Seele with the same supports like SW and Sparkle puts out way more damage than Xueyi (which if you know what you’re talking about then you’d know Xueyi’s an investment black hole because she needs so much stat investment in too many places to be even considered decent), and QQ is good but is too RNG dependent. Sparkle is great with QQ but that’s the case with any DPS in the game. SP consumption is still an issue with QQ even with Sparkle because despite what people think about her SP generation being good, she only generates 1 SP every 3 turns which is good in general but isn’t much considering QQ can use a lot of SP. Hanya produces 3 SP every 3 turns in comparison. Like you said, 2 cycling a boss says a lot about me as a player because I do my due diligence before pulling and investing in a character. I’ve used Seele and other 5 star DPS’ and quite frankly, she competes with them really well. In my experience using Seele, she hits hard and pivots well to other elites. I knew before pulling her a few months ago that she scales really well with relics and Resurgence and her Res Pen (which works well with SW’s skill and RM’s ult) makes her hit like a truck and pivot to another target for another turn to deal damage or outright kill elites. Until another Quantum DPS comes out with innately faster speed, a better Resurgence and Res Pen, and a busted sig LC, then she is not powercrept.

[@Shay_D_Mann]

@@27Ganon As long as you have a really good def shredder and a really good buffer, a well invested Seele like yours can still one shot most elites in MOC 12 with her ult and flip on the next elite to deal around half of it’s HP worth of damage. In the light of reignition, I zero cycled the first half of the MoC 12 with Sparkle and SW.

[@Ebb_And_Flow_]

8:36 I would not consider Qingque to be a “last option” character. The general consensus is that, if you have her E4 or higher, she becomes strong enough to contend with the likes of Dr. Ratio, and even more so if you have her E6. She seems bad on the surface due to the amount of investment her traces and eidolons need (not to mention her inconsistency with tiles), but once you invest she becomes ridiculously good and really consistent. Do note that this is not coming from a place of bias or favoritism. I do not main her, despite having her fully built, but I do use her from time to time (including in MOC) and recognize how strong she is when actually built. TLDR: Qingque is actually very strong, you just need to build her.

[@Sarojthao]

I can imagine what robin will bring to the meta, as far as i heard, she will not powercreep any present harmony unit but will bring something new to the table. I am waiting for drip marketing in a few days.

[@RealWer4332]

Personal take, at the current level of the characters they can 0 cycle end game content (MOC) So when a new meta unit drops, it’s would be WAY better then the current units, but since it can already beat the hardest content in the game, there isn’t a need for a better unit then that, Like what you going to get a 0 cycle but faster? Is that really necessary? Me personally, I think pulling for a stronger character at that point is very optional.

[@radiatingsunray]

the powercreep is definitely there and its very annoying not having ruan mei in the current meta but ive seen MUCH worse. crash fever am i right

[@f4llenleaves]

Ruan Mei is honestly a godsend. My problem however is that I used not to have any of the limited 5* sustains besides Bailu and Gepard. They're alright but it sucks to be cc-ed by the enemy every turn with no option for cleanse 😭 On the other hand, I always felt my low eidolon Lynx's healing isn't enough for me + she doesn't have Bailu's dmg reduction/one-shot saver capabilities which I got used to. At least now I have Luocha (whom I heard I got too late cos he's powercrept by Huohuo and is sometimes worse than Lynx) and Aventurine

[@MaxllmuS]

If team with QQ as main DD can close Memory of Chaos for me its a sign that everything ok

[@viviblue7277]

I…disagree. Sparkle is an SP battery. THE Sp battery even. Bronya is one of the big SP spenders. The go together on hyperdrag. Sparkle is Bronya support plain and simple. Enemies are vastly different. Different enemies require noticeably different approaches to clear optimally. And Star Rail actually has enough endgame for that to come up pretty often.

[@a-passerby]

I have a question, let's say I have Sparkle in my account, and i am super close to choosing the standard banner character at 300 wishes..... Should i now go for Bronya, or is she a skip now?

[@lukefouche8724]

Bronya is still a great unit tbh, you can use her together with sparkle or in another team

[@shinidragon7775]

Bronya is still the best 300 pick if you don't already have her and it'll probably stay that way

[@BeatrixBeatrixEverywhere]

Bronya

[@lukefouche8724]

@@shinidragon7775 Yep, even her eidolon one is great. Though if OP isn't into doing Meta eidolon stuff Geppie, Clara, Himeko and Welt can be alright picks.

[@a-passerby]

​@@shinidragon7775 Thank u!! It was either her or Himeko.... I wanted Bronya for soo long, she never came home and now I'm almost at 300 pulls and Sparkle is there too ...

[@sonnguyen-iv7gv]

You need to address another big problem that always come with powercreep, the FOMO. Do you remember how bad Loucha skipper feel when they struggle in MoC? Do you remember how many players curse Hoyo for putting ice weakness in every MoC rotation when the one and only good ice dps is Jingliu? Sparkle is currently sparking the same issue (no pun intended), everyone is afraid of newer character will consume so much SP that a Sparkle team vs non-Sparkle will have more than 20% damage different. To me this is the much bigger issue than the powercreep of each character, the "team comp" powercreep. i have to fight myself over saving for Firefly or dump everything i have in Sparkle banner just because Sparkle is too OP

[@Tanubtanu]

Yeah, weakness seems to be the main issue. Your damage got halved without breaking the weakness and the boss probably gonna wake up the moment you break the weakness. The other thing is favoritism toward the weakness, we have ICE for the whole 1.0 patch and now Penacony barely got any ice weakness.

[@niio1133]

I didnt played when Luocha was released. When I played the new story and tested him he was my favourite char in the game and now im waiting for his rerun 🥲

[@shutup1037]

I dont have Luocha and still fine

[@HazZzel-]

As a Loucha haver I genuinely don't know what I'd do without him. He's a crutch in my every team

[@niio1133]

@@HazZzel- my problem is, I dont have a sustain 5 star at all, my first team has natasha and my second Lynx.

[@Truck-kun11]

I'd say they shot themselves in the foot by limiting gameplay to just 2 buttons and an Ultimate since it's inevitable that characters will start to overlap and obviously new characters will always be more broken than old ones.

[@kennethyoung7457]

They helped themselves honestly without stuff like items and being able to guard to reduce dmg they can market their new characters as game mechanics in addition to being easy on the eyes. Its bad for the players feeling the fomo but Hoyo absolutely got a big win out of this one. They can keep characters very simplistic and still make a ton of money.

[@MikaAugust]

Tbh I think the Powercreep hasnt reached a crazy point yet, Seele still slaps, Blade can still output and a lot of the 4 stars and even the MC have viability. The 4 banners a patch so quickly is definitely not comfortable but i think this next year will decide if the power creep is too much

[@Craftwork55]

How come everyone keeps forgetting that Bronya has a cleanse? If you are going to mention Sparkle's utility besides the damage buff you should also do so for Bronya. Similarly Bronya is a regular warp character vs Ruan Mei and Sparkle being event warp characters. When Hu Tao came out 3 patches after Diluc, he became completely irrelevant but somehow "Star Rail's power creep is undeniably faster than Genshin's"?

[@Boyahda]

Even if Sparkle is just a better Bronya (which may or may not be true) it's not like you're going to just stop using Bronya forever if you have Sparkle. You're gonna use them both.

[@noahblackwood6288]

I understand the overall point of the video, but I think the examples of each new unit being better than the last of that type in the beginning are somewhat of a reach. Ye it definitely works for some units, like destruction being progressively stronger, but also Argenti is hardly definitely stronger than Jing Yuan, especially since this video is coming out After every guide video talked about how buffed JY for with Sparkle, not to mention new relics, game modes, etc. And HuoHuo is hardly definitely a better healer than Luocha. He's a far more comfy option for sustain, while she's slightly more offensive. Like I said I understand the point of the video and HSR is definitely subject to power creep, the the examples are definitely reaching for a consistent point more than they need to

[@27Ganon]

Vars' takes here are just completely wrong. JY is outright better than Argenti outside of PF. Seele is far from being powercrept and was the best DPS until DHIL's release (and even after, there were some situations where an invested Seele could clear as fast or faster than even Jingliu). Some of the takes here and in some of his other videos are bordering on blatant misinformation. He uses facts that are questionable at best or sometimes outright wrong and uses them as the basis for his takes, and people end up agreeing with him en masse since they don't have much experience with the game either.

[@HYPERPEACE]

I came back to the game in 1.6 after quitting in 1.1. To find out there had been so much power creep with the previous units was just frustrating. Because I'm so far behind on building and farming for characters, I have no way to beat the endgame content at the pace of a day 1 player who hadn't quit the game.

[@Raikiri-dono]

As long as I am able to clear MOC and most other end game with my Jing Yuan then atleast to me the power creep is really far from close. As for Sparkle being more powerfull than Bronya I agree to that fact to a certain degree. Because I get more damage and Turns with Bronya if I make a good skill friendly team which is not rare. IL Dan had many teams even before sparkle which are still quite good. Sparkle just made him more easy to use. I know power creep is happening but not to the point were I need a new character just to clear something the game threw at me. Please don't over hype Sparkle. She is really good and opens up a lot more to player but she dosen't make other character's irrelevant. As for the LC yes those things are really power creeping.

[@joshsolders5543]

I would say that Sparkle isn't a direct upgrade to Bronya. Keep in mind that Bronya gives a 50% higher action order increase and while the ults can be higher or lower damage based on the units being boosted, Bronya also offers a cleanse. A lot of bosses more recently have incapacitation debuffs. Bronya can clear those on the dps and then give them the turn instantly. Also keep in mind this, while Sparkle provides an insane amount of SP, keep in mind that's only useful if you can use them. Sure having positive characters is important, but if you were going to have a neutral team comp with Bronya, then Sparkle's SP generation doesn't necessarily bring anything. Basically, some teams will value Sparkle more, and some will value Bronya more. It's just a matter of what is needed. And arguments can be made similarly for other strong supports. I won't pretend that power creep isn't happening or that characters are strong, but we aren't so far ahead that older characters are useless yes, we just have more variety and more units to make more optimized teams.

[@aidengisi769]

As an ftp who played at launch and is only starting to play again now, yeah the power creep definitely stresses me out more than it does in genshin. Bc while i know theres definitely no chance of me being able to beat all the end game stuff with being ftp, it very much feels like (community wise) that i SHOULD be doing those things, regardless of the fact that all of my favourite characters and all the ones i have are completely outside of the meta at this point

[@fred_redstone]

About the version 1 units : They are still good, (Himeko and Herta in Pure Fiction being God Tier), but I agree that units that came out later are indeed more ease to clear with than them. Still, my Jing Yuan has no problems clearing MOC 12.

[@qwayzer_blazar]

I’m surprised Acheron is being mentioned in the powercreep conversation. People are going to be sorely disappointed by her e0s0 performance, and come back to the other hypercarries.

[@turtler9909]

yall say this to every upcoming character and then disappear lolll literally only 10 days ago ppl were saying that sparkle buffs less than bronya and should be skipped

[@Name-gg1li]

To think you are gonna be incredibly wrong. Most people have proven e0s0 Acheron is actually good.

[@matthewbailey1179]

Yeah this take turned out to be so ass, the linear progression of time is truly our worst enemy

[@codesterz3399]

Am I the only one that has Seele(E0) and QQ(E6), runs mono quantum in MoC and prefers QQ? She does more damage and clears it faster the majority of the time and if you have bad RNG you can easily restart the fight.

[@andrewmattar4178]

I think hoyoverse learned how to keep older characters relevant while pushing for powercreep. Most of Fontaine characters breathed new life into older characters and overlooked reactions while being one of the most broken characters ever. Star rail is doing a good job with this earlier on. The only question is, how much can they hold on.

[@SubtleVibess]

By keeping them relevant you mean throwing them into a lesser banner than yeah good job hoyo

[@andrewmattar4178]

@@SubtleVibess No... I mean that with the introduction of Dendro, a lot of electro characters became better overnight like Keqing, who was considered one of the worst characters in the game even earlier on. Furina made healers meta, Jean, Noelle, even Mika have had huge boosts in usage because of her. Xianyun boosted Xiao, plunge Diluc etc... And, Chevreuse and Navia made overload and crystallize a bit better. That's what I mean.

[@lucasemmanoel3761]

Honestly people put too much emphasis on powercreep even though the endgame is easy to a point where multiple f2p or even warpless accounts can get full rewards using multiple 4* units. There are even 0-cycle clears with characters like Yanqing who's universally known as one the worst characters in the game (worse than a lot of 4-stars). Remember you need a team to clear in 4-6 cycles on average to get full rewards and also you can just not get the full rewards as they are not gonna make a difference on your pull income anyway. You can also vertically invest in the characters much easier than in Genshin Impact since the Light Cone banner rates are way better and pull income per patch is superior. The truth is that people like to blame lack of game knowledge and poor account planning on things like powercreep even though people in 3-4 years people are still going to be clearing MOC 12 and Pure Fiction with characters like Jing Yuan and Seele comfortably. If you fear you favorite character being "powercrept" instead of pulling for the new character try to invest more in your character with things like Eidolons and Light Cones and also try to learn more about what your character does and what they want from a team so you can start playing more optimal teams that make your characters shine more. Supports in this game are ridiculously broken and can carry any DPS even 4 stars can shine with them. Also Hoyoverse likes to add supports that contribute more to older units than newer units and Sparkle is the biggest example of that. Also Sparkle is far from "powercreeping" Bronya let alone Ruan Mei. Bronya is still BiS for some characters especially if you invested on her with things like E1 or S1 and Ruan Mei is miles ahead of Sparkle and I'm not the only one saying that.

[@Ash-qd2ke]

Star Rail having the “Honkai” name is already indicative of the future of the game’s Meta

[@cringyusernamesbsvqq1909]

TBH the power creep for me feels less like purposeful power creep and more of mad science experimentation for some

[@edshemp]

I think releasing the units that help with power creep still sketchy if those units are power creeping others themselves, also released on a back to back, like the first 4 units of 2.x. But my biggest worry is how stupidly overpowered Harmony has been since the beginning of the game. Hopefully Acheron helps alleviate that at least a little.

[@angeldiaz762]

Yea I've been thinking in particular about Arlan and Herta lately, I think I have 5 or 6 of Herta's eidolons thank god because you really need them to make her damage increase, and with Arlan, I basically need him I realized because there's no other Lightning Destruction character (for now...) Both units have been at the bottom of the tier list for quite some time, they were the only "C's" until they demoted a few more 1.0 units. Herta's basically a Pure Fiction/aoe helper for the most part. Watching that hammer spin attack chip at a big boss with no other enemies is excruciating. Combine that with the fact that I could basically run Jingliu and one Hunt character, with Jingliu's skill and Ultimate being able to take three enemies at a time, I wouldn't be able to slot her in. Mono-ice team would be Jingliu, Yanquing, Pela/Ruan Mei and healer/tank. I guess if you use Elation Blessings in the Simulated Universe that increase followup attack damage, she'd be more strong there too, but if I want to boost someone with those, Dr. Ratio and Himeko/Serval (or Jing Yuan, which i don't have...) would be just fine. My biggest hangup with Arlan has to be that the Arlan-March 7th strat doesn't work with auto-battle, which, I like using auto a lot for calyxes and other content. And given that all bosses have three weaknesses, it's been hard to justify him when I have already-levelled units ready for the others. Plus, we're inevitably going to get a new Hunt and a new Destruction for Lightning that's going to make that even harder

[@fastedwarrior7353]

Honkai: Star Rail has lots of powercreep since its a Honkai game.

[@xenoemblem7]

Not enough pulls to pull them all...

[@Cryo7914]

True. Pulling for a rerun in honkai impact third is generally not recommendable in most cases unless you really want them...

[@invertbrid]

Still to lesser extent as for now, as u can see even selee and JY as 1.0 character clearing latest MoC without much problem. Tho they are using newer supports to keep up lol. But yea HSR does have powercreep and its way more apparent than genshin. So far still fine as they let older characters to still shine. Not sure for how much longer tho.

[@zeer7676]

@@xenoemblem7 yep, doesn't help that acheron is in the same phase as fu xuan. that's some bs, lol.

[@penguindrummer252]

That's just a lovely non-sequitur.

[@larimilaralu-bp3fn]

As long as there is no harmony man or quantum man that path and element will continue to be trash

[@DJPonko]

Sparkle will be meta forever cus of those legs. She's the first hoyo char i spend so much money on since i started genshin years ago cus she looks way too good. (yae being the 2nd highest i have, for obvious reasons)

[@kennethyoung7457]

Sparkle is why I started the game honestly I don't think they going to top her just like Ayaka is still my favorite in Genshin both coincidentally coming out on the 2.0 update.

[@SirePuns]

Honestly, I don't care about powercreep in HSR. As long as every unit is viable for endgame then they can do whatever they want.

[@Thorgue1910]

I don’t think Honkai is power creeping, the opposite, in fact. Bronya is still stupidly strong, Seele and Jing Yuan just became top tier again with Sparkle, Herta and Himeko got back into the spotlight with pure fiction, Tingyun is still essential to many builds. Starrail keeps introducing ways for older units to shine.

[@ADoomain]

The dps are holding on BECAUSE of the powercreeped supports. Jy was nothing until huohuo+fu xuan power creeped all sustains, and ruan mei+sparkle powercreeped all other harmony units. Its not the dps that have to worry about powercreep anymore, it used to be when we had stuff like seele into blade, dhil and jinglui all powercreeping each other. But now its the supports. Apart from tingyun most other supports are powercrept to hell and back

[@xenoemblem7]

@@ADoomainNah, every 4-star harmony is good except maybe Yukong at less than E6.

[@ADoomain]

@@xenoemblem7 good, sure. But seeing my jy damage double because i replaced my asta with someones ruan mei makes the fomo i got from missing the banner so much shittier

[@xenoemblem7]

@@ADoomainfomo is one hell of a drug. tbf no one is forcing you to do the endgame content

[@Thorgue1910]

@@ADoomain Bronya is still if not the best, competing for the second spot in support. Yukong despite the wonk rotation without E6 still has the best base Crit DMG boost in the game, Asta can still boost speed for Atk boots teams. It’s not about them being the best, it’s about being viable and having a niche. Herta, Serval and Himeko didn’t got boosted by any support (despite benefitting from them too), they got a new niche in the form of pure fiction. HSR has been pretty active about releasing new endgame content and modes, we don’t know who might get the spotlight next

[@izayoi2006]

Blade is honestly my favorite Erudition character too. Glad Soarkle is making him better.

[@Seler213]

Powercreep is a nice clickbait and all but you could have waited till 2.1. since we're actually getting a 3rd lightning dps. But if she's not that stronger than JY or Kafka I guess it wouldn't be as clickbaity. Are we really going to act like standard banner characters are weaker than limited characters is surprising? Genshin had a better limited alternative to all their standard characters somewhere in 2.X and HSR will probably have the same. So far HSR barely has any power creep within limited characters. Jing Yuan has second highest damage ceiling second only to DHIL but instead he performs better in PF. High investment DHIL puts out more damage than JL. Argenti is better than JY but only in PF. In MoC his damage is even more backloaded than JY. Huo Huo is better for teams that need energy regen while Luocha is still the most sp positive unit in the game with debuff removal. Ruan Mei is a side-grade to Bronya and Sparkle for DoT and dual dps teams, and even Bronya has characters she's better for than Sparkle. Kafka's literally unable to be powercreep'd and if we get Kafka 2 electric bogaloo you'll just run 2 of them in the same team. Silverwolf didn't get powercrept yet and she probably will as soon as aoe version of her comes out. There's barely any power-creep and if you expected your standard banner character to remain as the best option till 3.0+ I'm sorry but that's just not realistic

[@hallyuniverse]

They're somewhat power creeping, but they're also reverse powercreeping units at the same time. Like Topaz, Himeko, Welt, Herta, Guinaifen/Luka, Blade and Seele are all seeing a huge boost because of new 5 stars and new content. Kafka, Bronya, and Silver Wolf are all nearly impossible to powercreep. The only characters that are really at risk for real powercreep are hypercarry DPS, and so far there's no content in the game where powercreeping would even matter for that type of character.

[@Mica-vc8zc]

The problem now is not the unit strength, the problem is everyone just get released very quick and im out of jades

[@pastelantlers7479]

I think for HSR this topic is a little harder as all there new units so far have been helping with past niches you had Topaz who greatly helped follow up teams and we now have Ruan Mei who in intense purposes is a general harmony character but her best in slot teams are DOT. With Acheron around the corner for her you need debuffers to help her build her ultimate like Welt, Pela, and even Serval. My point is that the HSR devs have also some kind of "reverse power creep". Making new ults that help with older ones. And for that I think that is really healthy for the game.

[@TheSir1992]

Powercreep in HSR is zero due to harmony meta: if you have bronya e1s1, ruan mei e0s0, sparkle e0s1 you can make whatever character a dps 😂 In second team you still have pela, tingyun hanya/asta wich are all insane 4*

[@BachT1]

Yes and if you go even further to have E1 Ruan Mei, E2 Sparkle, there will be no challenge left for you in the game :/

[@nikonFB1988]

Yep. And this is the case with Genshin too, I've seen all these ppl have 10+ DPS but like 1 or 2 supports built/pulled for and then they wonder why they can't clear abyss. Supports are forever, DPS come and go. Bronya didn't get powercrept, she's just as good and now you have one for both sides OR her and Sparkle on the same team for Ultrahyper comp lol.

[@dumbitchstella]

So what if I don't like Sparkle and Ruan Mei, do I just get f*cked? The game shouldn't need you to roll ANY specific units, as a good gacha always keeps power level balanced enough to make you not need a limited 5*.

[@nikonFB1988]

@@dumbitchstella you don't need any characters, go for who you want, but I would recommend to have good type coverage and go for 5* sustain for comfort. But everything in the game can be beat with 4* it's just much harder.

[@dumbitchstella]

@@nikonFB1988 HSR is running a fine line where technically you can be F2P and only roll for who you want, but the game is gonna make you suffer for doing so which is just bad game design imo. A good example is the amount of enemies that spam debuffs that have been released lately, technically you can just use a 4* sustain but if them or your DPS gets stunned you're better off just resetting, and this is an issue that you wouldn't have if you just had a limited 5* sustain.

[@tenkaiyayes8495]

I still use lots of old units today. Sure, new characters will always be stronger in a way to boost up sales, but the dev keep arranging the meta and mechanics so old characters will always be viable in the long run. Also worth noting that most players only have these 5 stars characters on E0 without their personal LC, so it's still quite balanced.

[@Aibadenshi]

Suffering from success wave it hand and say "Hello".

[@GenjiGencyandOverwatch]

I have Blade from the moment he was avaible to pull. I also have his LC, spend a lot of time to build him focusing only on HP. Currently my 9k HP Blade on E0S1 is my strongest DPS and I'm not going to stop using him. I will pull for Acheron in 2.1 and Firefly in 2.2 but I won't stop using Bladie just because there will be a stronger DPS.

[@GermanMermaidArt]

I also don’t really think he’s been powercreeped at all. Yeah he doesn’t deal as much damage as DHIL, but his self sustain isn’t something that should be ignored and balances out the difference in damage for me at least.

[@GenjiGencyandOverwatch]

@@GermanMermaidArt Yep, the reason Blade isn't really powercreeped is the fact that he scales so much with HP which combined with self sustain makes him a great Bruiser for a team. Like a Tank without shield. The only thing that would make him stronger in that aspect would be a taunt.

[@Giovansbilly]

You mentioning Firefly is funny, since her kit has been leaked to have HP sacrifice like Blade

[@GenjiGencyandOverwatch]

@@Giovansbilly I don't like leaks and don't look at them. But it was hard to avoid things like "Firefly is Sam, here's why" even thoe I didn't saw the videos only titles. So if Firefly is really Sam then the fact in his Boss fight, he was dealing damage to himself to increase his damage and make using SP hurtful for players, it was obvious that as a Playable Character he would have a HP sacrifice mechanic.

[@zy2239]

The truth is that Meta doesn’t matter unless you wanna automate your teams . Otherwise fully invested 4 stars and a couple of invested 5 star e0 you can clear 90% of the content manually

[@breadchick2022]

Unfortunately, not all 4* worth to invest for (except Tinyun, Pella, Hanya, QQ and Linx).

[@fuvdeu]

True but most 4 stars still require their eidolons for better perfomance. And you can't reliably get needed amount of eidolons unless you go all out in pulls

[@zy2239]

@@fuvdeu Yes. I correct myself you need the 4 stars to be FULLY INVESTED with all their eidolons and if possible their respective 4 Star Lightcone at Superimposition 5

[@zy2239]

@@breadchick2022 There are some more useful than other but everyone , even Lynx has their niche uses

[@breadchick2022]

@@zy2239 hmm my e1 s1 Pella is decent enough btw.

[@IdeasAreBulletproof]

I say as long as older Units still get stronger or reverse Powercreep happens. Powercreep won't get to a problem to where max OP 54 score relics or even S--SS tier relics around 30 score won't allow your Seele and Jing Yuan access to MOC 10 let alone MOC 12. Until maybe a lot longer into the Game

[@thaitoan4760]

If you considered as a powercreep already then you haven’t experienced true powercreep yet. At this point, all characters is viable. Even 4 stars.

[@Erox006]

especially arlan , i know go back to nikke kid

[@1Henrink]

This level of powercreep really makes not wanna play until years later. I don't need a lot of characters if the ones I get are so much stronger than what the games offered years ago.

[@penguindrummer252]

It is beyond me how anyone arrives at this conclusion and notes it down as a weakness rather than a strength.

[@1Henrink]

@@penguindrummer252 didn't say it was a weakness to be fair. I only said I don't want to play it with this.

[@Jinni-iras17514]

Don't let the Honkai players find out Genshin was the favorite child all along 🤦

[@FurryBoykissser]

Genshin is not the fav child lmao. Hoyo even admitted honkai impact is their favorite cause it was the one who brought them to where they are now

[@Jinni-iras17514]

@@FurryBoykissser I'll believe it when they get a full action anime. Actually idk if you heard but they received money to develop Genshin/Honkai movies.

[@Sorcerymon467]

A thing I was surprised you didn't bring up when you discussed stealth-buffs/inclusivity was Relic Sets. The issue I always had in Genshin was that the majority of new artifact domains were heavily geared towards 2-5 characters, and if you didn't have any of those characters, there was never any reason to touch any new domains when you could spend all of your free resin on Emblem/Shimenawa or Gilded Dreams/Deepwood. Whereas in HSR, I've found that they've gotten much better at designing relic sets at a much faster pace, and a lot of these new relic sets give older characters a new lease on life. If we just go down the list of relics that were introduced from 10.0 to now: having a dedicated HP% 2 Piece for HP scaling healers like Bailu, the Hackerspace set was a godsend to most buffers, and its 2 piece effect is very plug-and-play. Prisoner/Grand Duke domain was obviously intended for Kafka and Topaz, but was a gold mine for characters who didn't have a good set previously, like Himeko, Sampo, Jing Yuan and even characters you might not expect like Herta and Serval. In 2.0, we've Pioneer, which has one of the most slottable 2 piece effects in the entire game (12% damage is the highest 2 piece buff in the game, and debuffs are bountiful in the current cast), and the 4 piece effect unlocks potential crit damage builds for characters who really had been left behind by previous relics, Pela especially. Even the Watchmaker set, while not incredibly useful on its own, does make room for double buffer compositions, as the Hackerspace buff doesn't stack with itself, which means you can have one buffer give the whole team speed, and the other give break effect.

[@koroxo1152]

I'm curious about opinions that Sparkle is keeping the idea of hypercarry teams alive, or that the game itself is challenging that general notion. The almost universal and general idea of the ideal team is a defensive/healer 2 supports and a dps but that was being challenged on the existence of dual dps, dots team, follow ups, etc. Acheron is a month away and his kit is restrictive if your idea of an ideal team is hypercarry like wise. Blade for example didn't shine as much as a hypercarry but when Jingliu came out it became a fantastic pair in the idea of dual dps team, that team lacked supports and then boom Ruan Mei. Topaz was underwelming if you looked for a hypercarry like IL but she is a monster for dual dps with follow ups attack There is a power creep but personally I am also feeling that different styles are being added in teambuilding outside of the traditional hypercarry that we know. It makes me wonder if the top damage should follow the notion of hypercarry with examples of IL or if it would be an example of powercreep that Acheron does more damage considering that it forces you to use 2/1 Nihility to reach that ideal

[@animusdemifiend2307]

As long as they dont shut down role system or stray from the friendliness of bonuses for endgame I think we are fine. Unlike GI, only difference is GI content is babysitting level

[@Huseyin_Gazi]

After watching this video and reviewing my current characters, I have to agree... You did mention about black swan + kafka combo... I literally do that combined by having those DoTs member supported by E2 Ruan Mei and E2 HuoHuo. The damage especially from DoTs blows my mind >_