Why Star Rail Can't Make More Shielders

[@RedFlaim]

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[@bamboozled_again]

they could make a sustainer that buffs hp like aventurine gives shield, would be a nice Blade buff

[@Val.willfindyoutoo]

no,

[@Monsterman10]

RAID SNORE LEGENDS

[@RoyalTfrii]

A preservation character that specializes in the "Quake" mechanic from sim universe would be a nice addition and could be a possible kit for a 4* preservation character

[@IPayForYouTube]

I'd like an ice character that does damage similar to "Dissociation".

[@SeaweedAK]

Waiting for the freeze meta to raise up

[@elainasynranelt]

@@IPayForKZbinoh yeah a true freeze nihility would be awesome. Rn the only DoT which don’t have characters that apply them as part of their kit are entangled and freeze, which is a shame

[@jadecoolness101]

@@SeaweedAK Rememberance path lmao

[@Ruiyang2.0]

that would essentially make the two main preservation blessings obsolete so probably not

[@Mewongus]

They could have at least released some 4* preservation as 4* aren't expected to perform as good as 5* tbh

[@sovyenn]

but it's hard to design a 4* preservation that is not as good as a 5* but at the same time isn't completely useless

[@ronaldverdegaal9078]

Agreed just do a trial and error with 4 stars hoyo

[@boikluber7747]

you got march 7th, the goat

[@ronaldverdegaal9078]

@@boikluber7747 new 4 star

[@NearAir]

Yeah, they just DON’T DESIGN 4 STARS

[@lillyie]

one word: aventurine dude is the definition of overloaded character. -provides teamwide shield -can deal.... chip damage so he isn't just a walking damage sponge unlike fu xuan and gepard -traces and eidolons make sure the shield stays forever there's simply no way to design more shield characters without having to powercreep the shielding monster that is aventurine

[@claudiowiseman8488]

More res eff 😂😂😂

[@Otherface]

Actually, there is, and the idea is simple: make Preservation follow the same situation as Abundance (which is doing more than what they were designed for) Take Zhongli as an example. To this day, he is the absolute best shielder in the game. However, other characters provide similiar values. Xilonen, for example, gives no shield but provides insane buffs, making her one of, if not the best geo character. Or Diona, who has a much weaker shield but provides more speed. Or Layla, who isn't called the 2nd bet shielder in the game for nothing. If Aventurine was (and is) designed to be the best shielder in the game, so be it. However, other Preservation characters could be designed with more in mind. More tunts, extra buffs, Fire MC but better (seriously, he is so fun, but he is lower than mid), and a long etc.

[@ibrahim5463]

Fire mc kit too is super good but the scaling is so bad he fails at being a sustainer

[@BrianLin-ur1gu]

Chip damage( no pun intended 😂

[@servandogomez4849]

I feel you could make a equal unit to Adventurine if like a unit sacrifice their own health to cast a shield. That way theres a higher Risk and reward to that unit that'll balance out. As for the reward for sacrificing health, that's a big question though I was thinking maybe Not to overlap on existing preservation and Harmony units would be to give them a Fei Xiao/Acheron meter to do Nihility style detonation attack for DoTs. Probably would replace Ruan Mei in DoT Teams but it would give the playstyle a shot in the arm. This is just off the cuff food for thought idea than anything really spent pondering but it has merit I think

[@julioramirez8179]

The funniest thing I've seen recently is aventurine droping the entire IPC bank account on hoolay, since he attacks soo much aven does his follow up a fuck ton

[@branastasia8013]

Frfr, hoolay is just a chance for Aventurine to flex his money

[@natsudragneel-ir7sr]

literal manifestation of pay to win

[@RenAkakaze]

Hoolay: My kin shall bathe the stars in blood as we freely hunt across the cosmos for eternity A Crazed Gambler: ALL IN! WATCH YOUR HEAD! ALL IN! WATCH YOUR HEAD! ALL IN! WATCH YOUR HEAD! ALL IN-

[@Veenado]

Is not money, is chips actually

[@szarwi]

I got thrown into the story fight with wrong characters and his chips carried hard, took a long time but no one died lmaoo

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

*Shield designs? Well:* • Barrier stacking mechanic like Argenti's barrier but stackable • Summon Shielder like Lingsha but shield • 4 stars Aventurine with no FuA refresh of course • Shared shield, like HP link in SimUni but shield

[@feeshslayer9525]

I cooked up a dot team shielder idea whose main mechanic is having an enhanced auto that can be accessed whenever a teammate has a shield and inflicts extra damage and bleed stacks, basically helping the archetype by applying more sources of dot and damage

[@abubakarboyi9766]

​@@feeshslayer9525 A Physical Shielder sounds neat, with some DoT application.

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

@@feeshslayer9525 Ohh and I might add: "whenever enemy attack a character with shield while X is in the field, detonates their DoT by ..%"

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

@@guystridsigne2691 Keep cooking my man

[@Hussinali121]

i could see shared shield working in a 4* kit

[@epicazeroth]

I just wish they'd release a Lynx or Gallagher equivalent for Preservation.

[@chrissolace]

Honestly that’s Gepard at this point

[@JyyceKrato]

@@chrissolace its really sad fire trailblazer is literally better then him

[@naw613]

@@JyyceKratoare you on crack?

[@nicolas._.2294]

​@JyyceKrato and that's why I still use him, sometimes, on specific stages

[@227someguy]

@@JyyceKratonah, his shields are too weak. Gepard is much better at halting damage altogether.

[@MeneTekelFares]

Strongly disagree, there are endless kit options for shielders right now, Hoyo just need to want to make them. Just to name a few: a character who can generate a pool-shield, like the one we get during Sunday boss fight// A character who gives every teammate smaller personal shields that buff or heal their targets when broken or expired// A character with a more persistant Taunt + a shield generating summon // A Fu Xuan-like character that sacrifices own health to provide shields for the team and then heals by leeching health from enemies // A Quake-enabler that can let allies turn shields into damage and enable teams with multiple Preservations, etc. The possibilities are quite literally infinite, just like in all of the other paths, Hoyo just need to stop pigeonholing themselves into stale metas by focusing on very few mechanics/playstyles at a time.

[@thefrozenjester9425]

I like your idea about sacrificing your own health and taking it from the enemies, I can see Obsidian being that kind of preservation unit since she is somewhat vampire-like and life steal is perfect for vampire characters.

[@BigBoyAndrew05]

Nah fr, I'm so tired of people saying Aventurine is the pinnacle of preservation units and there's no way to make a better/different preservation character

[@amp-le4699]

Quake enabler could be Diamond's kit, thatd be cool

[@topand.s7220]

I like that

[@oi_bruv]

Shield that applies effect to shielder/shielded based on teammate paths

[@ChikyuuKun]

Aventurine is the Zhongli of HSR.

[@Legithiro]

Yes, but Aventurine is actually fun to play

[@NotActiveAcc01]

But he's rich

[@ミザリ一さん]

​@@LegithiroZhongli is actually more fun to play. I play physical zhongli 💀

[@Legithiro]

@@ミザリ一さん I’d strongly disagree. The whole point of Zhongli is to provide a shield that make you invulnerable to most damage, which you can already do by dodging with then dash button. Not caring about damage makes most fights feel more or less the same, just waiting for them to stop moving so you can attack. That’s not even mention that he’s peak gameplay is just hitting the skill button once every now and then with no real strategy

[@ミザリ一さん]

@Legithiro The thing is you get more choices when playing zhongli than aventurine, all you can do playing aventurine is skill or basic attack and ult if you have that, and his fua are it launches when condition is right. With zhongli, I can choose to just place a tower or get a shield as well, petrify enemies, charge attack to cover distance, generate energy for my other geo characters, etc.

[@Grayewicked]

I mean... they kinda shot themselves in the foot when designing Aventurine, considering how overloaded he is for a Shielder...

[@cartoonvideos5]

He is absolutely braindead op, just like Zhongli.

[@Grayewicked]

@@cartoonvideos5 yup, and he does a lot more than he needs to.

[@sanguinetales]

@Grayewicked I think a Zhongli expy would be even more insane. Imaginary Preservation with a summon that resonates with DoT procs to deal quake damage, every time a DoT pops the shield gets 1-5% stronger(max level) Skill puts a Totem up that generates a shield Ultimate summons a meteor dealing quake damage based on the Total shield value of every member

[@TheTruth-dg5rx]

@@sanguinetaleswelt is basically Zhong dong exp

[@sanguinetales]

@@TheTruth-dg5rx Welt is Welt. He isn't an Expy of anyone he is himself. He came from Honkai Impact.

[@Fakejordans...]

It’s really hard to balance a shielder in a turn based game where their shields can be accessed basically forever.

[@DobinSergei]

Not too hard actually. If you properly define what you need, and what you have, it's only a matter of math to calculate exact values.

[@reinkameryu9836]

just add an enemy that pierces shields and bye bye aventurine

[@Fakejordans...]

@@reinkameryu9836 I don’t think they want to go down that same route like they did in Genshin

[@silverhawkscape2677]

Simple. Because for a Shielder to be viable they have to do their job and with Adventurine they now need to help with some protection from Crowd Control. Because of that. Once you have a Viable Shielder. There isnt anything else you can do other than make the Numbers go up. Heck. Even Gepard is a Possible replacement if the enemy doesnt throw too many CC.

[@BunPrince]

Gepard is nowhere near aven's level

[@adityakharde4265]

​@@BunPrincehe becomes good when you start to get his eidolons hell my e4 gepard makes my character lea susceptible to cc now very rarely they get ccd even when I use a gepard yeah he is not good as Ave but what do you expect he is in game as standard from start

[@wingofshu]

​@@BunPrince I appreciate gepards freeze actually

[@EyesDontCry]

This is just wrong. Healers heal and cleanse, they have the exact same base requirements. The way a healer competes is just doing other stuff. Huo huo regens energy. Lingsha/gallagher break. Even lynx directs aggro. Aventurines unique mechanic is not that he gives shields or resists debuffs. That's the baseline for a good preservation character. Neither gepard or bailu have cc cleanse/resist. Fu xuan does and simply replaces shields with her own HP, but still mitigates damage. Aventurines unique mechanic is his follow ups. That's what sets him apart, he is not nearly as useful without it. All they need to do is exactly what they've been doing for healers but with preservation. Add more unique mechanics and give new characters something else that sets them apart more than just keeping the team alive and dealing with CC.

[@spyrothetimelord]

@@EyesDontCrythank you omg. I feel like a lot of people have videos and comments talking about the subject here but are missing the point. Future units need a little bit of novelty yes, but mainly will need interesting gimmicks and bonus abilities to warrant wanting them on your teams. So many people don't see that. Like yes the current sustains we have are amazing, but at some point hyv will create one that works even better with a newer dps and that will also add to the incentive. They will still need to do something to make them worth it besides that synergy though, because the sustains we have now are still great despite possibly not being the *best* to pair with future units

[@darksplash873]

I honestly prefer shielders because they stop you from being one tap-combo'd by unlucky enemy targetting rng. Your character might be lower on hp and closer to death now, but they are still alive thanks to the shield, you can just put a new one on them, and surely they won't get targetted by everyone twice in a row... right? My solution to this would be to have some more path overlap, allowing for a double sustain comp to be meta. Have a preservation unit give you damage resist or small shields like FMC, but also make them give decent buffs or debuffs, more effective than what we have right now. Introduce a abundance character alongside them who would also heal in smaller amounts than current meta sustains, but in return maybe gives more energy compared to huohuo and/or action delay on enemies, or other things that make them worth using. You could still run these characters solo in higher risk but also higher reward teamcomps, like in break where enemies already attack infrequently, but they'd make a powerful but more stable double-sustain line. I also like sustains that are based on a condition, like aventurine giving more shields in fua teams or gallagher's ult requiring you to attack the debuffed enemies to heal. So maybe breaking an enemy could give you additional dmg resist but increase your chance to be attacked. Another way they could imitate what Fu Xuan does is making an aggro based preservation unit who also slightly heals but is tanky AF, putting dmg resist on themselves and instead of tanking teammate damage, putting a high amount of aggro on themselves or straight up taunting like FMC. There are a lot of creative ways they could experiment with Preservation and I especially like what they did with Fu Xuan, but your points are still valid. The current design-philosophy of shielders is quite limited, but that doesn't mean they can’t break away from that. It just means they have to be more experimental. I wouldn't like seeing aventurine 2.0 in the future and there definitely are a lot of ways to make shields work, borrowing from FMC and Fu Xuan. Maybe an extreme March 7th, applying a taunt to a teammate while giving them a massive single target shield? Or maybe not a taunt, but significantly more aggro than march gives, while giving other teammates a smaller shield. Maybe having a special type of shield that heals a portion of damage that went beyond it once it breaks, or that heals if it expires but not when it breaks. We don't need to limit heals to abundance and shields to only preservation, as showcased by Fu Xuan, it's more about the general idea of the character as you've said - mitigating damage proactively, or reversing the damage dealt by attack after the fact. edit: also, glad to see you upload this frequently again :D

[@speedcheetah1630]

Very perceptive of you. This is a great example of what could work. Just like how March's shield will heal allies in it on their turn due to one of her Eidolons. If they made an Aventurine type shield that healed when attacked they could lower the strength of the shield while also mitigating damage. This would allow for cross-path team building since you currently can't use Jingliu, Blade, or Arlan in a shield composition without a crazy strong shield as their shield becomes their HP.

[@emanyzal9813]

Best way to avoid getting one tap-combo'd is to one tap-combo your enemy before they get a turn

[@mk_gamíng0609]

I like your idea but I think it would just make pure abundance characters even worse

[@Jade.051]

@@mk_gamíng0609My Luocha still waiting for the dps that gets damage from overhealing😔

[@sabsain2399]

Bro doesn't have Loucha

[@K-dis_Boher]

as someone who skipped Aventurine and now wants to get him, I will gladly take more shielders; it's been a pain fighting the robo monkeys from Penacony without being able to properly use the shield mechanic when my best preservation option is Fu Xuan who doesn't have a shield apart from Texture of Memories LC, but that only shields herself and is otherwise unreliable as a shield

[@celestialarden]

I feel you bruh, I was waiting for aven to be released in 2.1 becuz of those robo soda monkeys where the damage could be sent back to that thing, the entire game got so much easier with him here

[@frostfire6347]

Fun fact for newer players, till version 2.0, there was only 2, 5 star harmony units, being bronya and ruan mei, even in that case ruan mei coming at last version before 2.0, making harmony being the rarest The reason being bronya was just that good💀

[@magicalduckye2356]

A slight rework that would take a bit in the coding side of things that would fix Gepard, March and such would simply be just have shields only have their turn count tick down when the applicant takes a turn. Thus quick speed characters like Stele could have 7-8 turns while if Gepard only takes 2 turns in that time, both would still have his shield (assuming it didn't break) with only one turn left.

[@Hybrid_Guy23]

Preservation characters need some sort of gimmick for them to operate. Fu xuan redirects damage to her then Undoes the damage with her talent, aventurine frequently refreshes his shield through proactive gameplay. Gepard….. Ults…. What I mean is that “Good” preservation needs some kind of gimmick to operate effectively. We need something that can also work with certain team comps, like aventurine with follow ups. Some ideas could be that they apply debuffs and be granted a shield, generate skill points, somehow advance Enemies forward to proc dots, have a Forced taunt on a hyper carry so they get more energy from hits. Sim universe is full of ideas, remove health and be granted a shield and damage buff in proportion to how much was consumed(could pair well with abundance characters to stack the buffs) and of course quake hasn’t been used yet. We could use a Good preservation with a counter

[@nicolbolas1092]

What about a Preservation DPS? Scaling with DEF and turning shields into damage - Quake from SU comes into mind or simply straight up consuming shields and turning them into nuke dmg.

[@GiveLamp]

Or one that gives the team/a teammate a shield based on how much damage the shielder does to an enemy

[@nicolbolas1092]

@@GiveLamp great idea!

[@PanRobak.]

Still waiting for a DoT Preservation unit, like their skill could increase the chance of being targeted while also applying a DoT effect every time they get hit. But I'd frankly take any DoT sustain with open arms

[@nicolbolas1092]

@@PanRobak. we need more DoT-love anyway!

[@mauriciorosademoraes9209]

Yunli original path. But they made she destruction, WHY!? Skipped.

[@Rhetoricull]

when i first read his kit it was just "you had me at team shield on skill". Gepard is really cool in concept too being a support sustain focused on freeze and shields however his shield just doesn't last long enough to be consistent with the timing

[@RinTohsaka-vm9cq]

Gepard-almost as good as limited abundance 5*'s Fu Xuan-amazing unit both as a shielder and crit support, especially at E1 with her effect res amazingly useful too Ave-an absolute beast. Crit res down on his ult, a stacking shield from his FUA and skill, effect res and some minor dmg E1-makes him pretty much fully SP positive AND gives him a party wide crit up E2-he becomes a GOD. Amazing for Feixiao, amazing for Acheron. Works with most other DPS too

[@mauriciorosademoraes9209]

True. Gepard is just goated at 134 spd. But it's hard to put him at this speed sadly.

[@coraW]

fu xuan doesn't shield, she tanks a LOT. the enemies only ever hit her for the most part, and she heals herself to high hp (also heals allies by 5% after her ult but that's negligible lol)

[@RinTohsaka-vm9cq]

@@coraW True, was sleepy while writing the comment

[@sirensong1794]

i feel like they should definitely release at least a 4 star preservation that's solid but i dont expect preservation 5 stars to become any more prevalent. rn its like, one per year (not including the standard banner gepard)

[@Poke_Leaf]

Didn’t even think about the fact that shields are considered a buff and are on a turn limit. Not sure if it’d be balanced, but I wonder how preservation characters would compare to abundance units if shields were permanent.

[@Poke_Leaf]

Also I wouldn’t be shocked to see a 5-star Preservation unit early into the 3.X updates, so it’ll be interesting to see how they compare.

[@marfit77]

maybe perma by virtue of shared shields since all characters are using it.

[@ЕкатеринаСеренкова]

That's very visible on Marches shields, because she give out one and large one

[@fordlyemerald-ke3iz]

I have a couple of ideas for preservation characyers 1: a character that consumes a portion of you allies HP to remove 1 devbuff and gives sheild 2:a character that has a weak sheild but will make you avoid an attack once, before their sheild is gone. 3: a character that breaks an enemy's toughness even if it isn't their element. After their sheild is hit multiple times. 4: a character that increases agro to certain characters, like the path of destruction. And preservation. 5: a character that debuffs enemies after their sheild is casted, it can be random. 6: a character with high sheild ratio, but the more you use his skill, the weaker the Sheild to HP ratio is, and after 3 times you cast your sheild, it's jsut a abse sheild, and has no longer the effect of HP percentage counted to it. 7: a character that gives crit chance for every 5k of HP a character has. 8: a character that doesn't have HP percentage to his own health to boost their sheild, but to its allies, so depending on how much HP they have, the sheild they'll get is a percent of that. 9: a character that stacks SPD up to 5 times everytime They're hit themselves. And when casting their ult, does stacks is given to your allies. 10: a character that consumes their own HP to sheild their allies, while also giving a buff to their base ATK 11:a character that converts lost HP that they took, and turns it into their sheild. 12: a character that sheilds themselves, and a picked character, while cleansing the remaining allies that aren't picked from one or two debuffs.

[@talukita1915]

Sustain banners have been consistently performed worse than others, and there's also little reason to vertical invest into them outside of playing favorites. E2 Acheron / Feixiao / FF can roll over contents but E2 sustains basically to provide a bit more utilities. And for whales you don't even need to bring sustain because things just explode before they can even touch you / sth sth 0 cycle. The reason they still make healer over shielder is because the latter is inherently much harder to balance for both spectrums. If they make the shields not strong enough (like Pres MC) it will create gaps between for enemies to punch through / your team will die eventually, but if they make the shields too strong and consistent like Aventurine then the team will be borderline on the verge of immortal assume well built. Basically just lose lose situation.

[@Max-mf3kn]

I think a shielder designed to go on DoT teams could actually work excellently for reasons similar to why Aventurine works so well. DoT is another archetype that does damage outside of turns, and that can be utilized for a DoT team shielder to apply shields to allies and debuff enemies. There might be some overlap with how Aventurine works (stackable shields, shields applied out of turn), while relying on team DoTs and their own DoTs for shield uptime; even moreso if shields apply when team DoTs tick, making them an amazing sustainer particularly for Kafka teams since Kafka is going to be on any respectable DoT team. But such a preservation character wouldn't powercreep Aventurine or be redundant because of their niche as a DoT-focused sustain. They'd have their own niche. Another archetype where a shielder could fit in reasonably well is the HP destruction type, where the shielder eats ally health to provide shields to the party, providing buffs and stacks to units like Blade and any other future units that might fit into that meta, which also allows those units to have a shielder and be slightly less risky all the same. Jade/Blade/HP-stealing shielder could really make a character like Blade, who needs a boost in the current meta anyway, really shine while making him also untouchable and still able to achieve his stacks. Even better if damage on that unit's shield counts as damage to the unit. This shielder might need a slight heal in their kit (similar to how Fu Xuan has a heal) to keep the health from going too low in their teams, but it's more than workable. But we already see this mechanic in SimU/DivU so it's not a far cry to see it make its way into a unit's mechanics.

[@pralenkaman8105]

My theory is that the next preservation unit will have a thorns effect like the quake damage from SU Also aventurine is very geared towards FUA, so making a shielder that's as good or slightly worse than aventurine but plays into another meta like break, DOT, hypercarry, etc. then they could still be very valuable Also there's ways to make single target shields to work, preservation march boosts the chances of a unit getting hitwith her shield Make a shielder that when they shield an ally, that ally has 100% chance to be attacked and the shield gives a defense buff to help sustain more damage Put a trends of the universal market on that character and boom, top tier sustainer for acheron Has a bit weakness against enemies with aoe, has a bit strong suit in giving one ally a huge shield and a defense buff, which could help certain team comps, maybe there could also be a very small amount of aoe healing to help with aoe attacks But yeah, that's a character idea that can work for acheron or a destruction team, where they genrrally like or just don't mind getting hit, and it's an idea my sleep deprived brain managed to come up with at 5am, so think what hoyo could come up with

[@kr555wizard]

Well they can build a preservation who is built to help a break team, where they break enemies when their shield is hit, they can make a 4 star whose case is that they create shields as good as 5 stars but with somekinda draw back like them draining their hp by a fix amount, making them not be as usable for longer fights, but are able to keep up short term etc

[@JustAlex2000]

A possible 5 star preservation shielder that doesn't have to be as overtuned as Aventurine could be someone who dabbles in roles of both preservation and harmony. A shielder who doesn't have super powerful shields nor overtuned follow ups/damage, but can give allies buffs if they have a shield on or something similar. That way you could in theory run both a shielder and a healer on the team, if the shielder gives sufficient buffs. Obviously this doesn't beat out running a healer and a fully dedicated buffer, but having a unit like that could spice up the meta. Depending what the buffs are I can see such a character even being run in a double buffer and healer comp for a hyper carry.

[@StriderHoang]

I think there’s still room for creative expression for shielders simply because other paths and roles continue to evolve, and preservation doesn’t have anything to lose in experimenting. We have several harmony supports who buff via a field that ticks on their turn, what’s to stop an experiment of a shielder whose shield buff is field based rather than turn-based? Moze released last patch and introduced complete removal from the field. That’s a brand new mechanic we couldn’t have conceived of happening before. It may just be an issue of waiting and seeing what the battle devs can think up.

[@triopsate3]

I mean they literally have the shared shield mechanic from the Sunday fight ready for a new ahielder if they want. Instead of aventurine generating reasonably sized shields for everyone regularly, they could have someone generate a massive shield that the team shares in. Would work better than aventurine against enemies that deal high single target damage. If they felt like it, they could make mobs that ignore normal taunt values and focus on squishy characters and deal a single massive burst of damage which would make aventurine much worse since his shield can be broken for single targets with enough damage and won't gain stacks when someone with no shields are attacked.

[@SkyPopePhoenix]

Easy ideas to implement: 1. Interception, where the character jumps in front of teammates for their ult 2. A total shield like the one in the sunday fight 3. Invincibility, where they block 1 hit of any amount of dmg like that one relic 4. Quake 5. A summoned version of any of these 6. Captain america(bounce shields, where attacks ricochet off them) Etc, etc

[@winteriris13]

i really hope we get more unique shielder characters, as a gepard and aventurine main I will defend the preservation to my grave. it's really unfortunate that support characters don't sell as well as the big damage dealers but I hope the aventurine rerun will be enough to turn the tides 🙏

[@Sang_Akrobatis]

I am imagining that Preservation could punish enemies: Aventurine is an example of punishing opponents who attack allies. But then, I can propose this concept: A Break Effect Preservation character creates shield to entire party and a limited time area effect just like Ruan Mei or Huohuo but this area effect punishes the opponent who is attacking. If enemies attack characters with shield, their toughness is somehow reduced and if they get broken by this effect, apply break DMG and break effect according to the character's element and opponent being broken by this effect would have their recovery delayed once before they can truly recover. Another idea is to taunt opponents, then each times the preservation character gets hit, it will increase it's stats. It's ultimate makes it unable to lose health until some time. Every after three moves the character heals itself. Or a preservation-harmony who is always considered to have both paths. They boost Atk, DMG, Defense, and reduce DMG taken (up to 80% DMG reduction). Therefore, your characters will survive despite getting DMG numerous times.

[@benjamintay9619]

I was thinking the same thing when you mentioned a break effect preservation character

[@cyrusoliver]

For the Break Effect Preservation character, you could even have a Himeko-style counter for refreshing their shield whenever enemies become weakness-broken. Kind of making them like a budget Aventurine that can be more useful in some instances. You could also tie it into "Quake" by having that be what reduces enemy toughness. It might not do as much damage as a SU Quake, but it's not meant to.

[@the5002ndpanda]

Honestly, I'm shocked we've gone through an entire Break meta and still don't have a Preservation that interacts with the mechanic in any meaningful way. We have TWO Break healers, man.

[@Sonotsuki]

Oh dear I can't wait for them to add shield-piercing enemies

[@DobinSergei]

DoT? 🤔

[@snorlaxdayo]

Yeah like bleed in genshin, ignore shields. Then he’s not so busted anymore

[@Sarrr1]

@@DobinSergeiIn all honesty they should’ve made dot bypass shields.

[@PanRobak.]

I can't wait for them to add health-piercing enemies

[@cowgba]

This feels inevitable, or if they really want to be nasty make enemies with shield-canceling attacks. I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of anti-shield enemies in 3.x since they'll probably want to soft-nerf Aventurine to make room for new sustain metas.

[@Shay_D_Mann]

Let's be real. HSR doesn't release too many sustains simply because sustain banners don't sell well relative to other types of characters.

[@liongson9431]

Wutt???? Woah

[@_Yuputka_]

Yeah, they are adding specific ones slowly. People started by thinking they needed 2 limited sustains. Now that archetypes are fleshed out, they can add sustains which buff specific archetypes

[@Otherface]

That's not the problem. The true problem is that Hsr does not reward survivability. The closest thing to it would be Simulated Universe, but that only works with very specific blessings. Everything else is a dps race, which harms you if you sacrifice too much damage for greater survivability. The only way this can be fixed is by either giving more gamemodes that don't necessarily rewards you for killing everything fast, or more characters that rewards you for survivability (ex: Furina from Hsr).

[@Shay_D_Mann]

@@Otherface Respectfully, you couldn't be more wrong, Caine. Survivability IS rewarded. You talk as if our characters are "entitled" to survive the onslaught of debuffs, ccs, and attacks they get in endgame content. Huohuo's cleanse nullifies non-delay CC's, Fu Xuan blocks non-delay CCs one-time with her skill, etc, etc. (Aventurine's 50% Eff Res on teammates is honestly USELESS on any teammate without a 50% Eff Res.) Having a sustain keeps our teams alive and counters debuffs. Having living teammates lets them do their job. I know this doesn't sound much at first, but remember Kafka's CC's, Svarog's CC's, slow debuffs that throw a wrench to our rotations, Argenti's strong ass attacks, etc. Having sustains IS rewarding because they counter everything I've listed above. It's just that addressing those problems isn't exactly as entertaining or tantalizing as 7 digit damage numbers. Which is why the main problem IS that people simply don't want to pull sustains as much as they do with DPS characters.

[@AndikaPratama-nl4uc]

That's why so many people skip aventurine on his first run, and they regret it a lot.😂

[@vvgirl6173]

With my e6 Aventurine I practically stopped using my Gepard that was my first 5 star who carried me through a lot.

[@mk_gamíng0609]

I bet you also stopped having to play the game since Aventurine allows you to auto everything

[@KodezoftheYos]

I mean with e6 5 star would you really use a character that is just worse even without edoileons

[@vvgirl6173]

@mk_gamíng0609 i still play when i have the time to or if I'm going through story quests. But yeah, don't have to worry much because not only is he able to keep everyone at max health but he can also deal a lot of damage himself. 30k damage with his basic alone. Just the other day his fua dealt 100k. The boss fight against feixiao was. Surprise because I was manually playing but I wasn't paying attention to the state of his sheilds and before I knew it my Boothill was dead. It really took me by surprise.

[@vvgirl6173]

@KodezoftheYos the only times I use Gepard is if I'm doing moc and the other team already has Aventurine or if I need a ice element because I don't have Jingliu. I still appreciate Gepard for all he has one because he was the last man standing once against Svarog and was abe to defeat him all by himself.

[@finalfantasy9450]

@@vvgirl6173 i had a gepard last man standing one fight too when i was early on into the story (i remember i didnt want to level up anyone yet since i was like what if resources are scarce and i raise a bad unit) but i will never forget gepards badassery like legit last man standing using ult when he gets hit 3 turns in a row (i had no speed at that point so i basically got bombarded with attacks that thankfully charged ult) and once every so often i would hit the enemy lol anyways finished the fight and thats when i knew he was the true giga chad. he was my beginner guaranteed 5 star and idk i used to be gepard #1 fan i remember the tier lists when he was top rank

[@leimatzunkyo5586]

Idea: -Shields that apply DoTs that scales off both defense and allies' attack. -Shields that provide speed and acts more of an emergency shock prevention. -Single-target damage migitation. Usage of lost HP to deliver a counter. ( 4 stars. ) -Preservation that gives 75% effect res but instead can't prevent DoT damage, however, at the start of every turn restore HP equal to defense. Etc

[@user89389]

I think there are a ton of ways to design good shielders. Just think of the Harmonies for a second: You have a very solid idea of what's required of a top tier harmony right now; buff the entire team or hyper-buff a singular character, provide a lot of general utility and have a niche. You're not going to be mad at a good team-wide support when they have their own niche just because "we already have Robin/RM!" Same logic applies here. Just keep in mind what's expected of a preservation right now: keep the entire team safe, have a way to prevent CC, provide utility, add chip damage, and have a niche of their own. So long you design a character that hits these points, you have a good preservation unit. And there are many ways to hit each that work. 1. Keep the team alive: No need to reinvent the wheel - you can simply let them shield, or get innovative like Fu Xuan and have an alternate method. You can even implement something like Luocha's emergency heal in the form of an emergency shield - if an attack brings a character to a certain % of HP, have them immediately apply a shield to the out of turn. This alone would make your new shielder not just a good sustain option that helps prevent one-shots, but give them their own shield niche. 2. Resist CC: Aventurine also got the Eff res covered; but you can still go with that or just let your shielder cleanse upon applying a shield, after every few turns, etc. Whatever works best. 3. Provide utility: Aventurine boosts damage. You can add something into the kit, I don't think anyone will be mad about that, and if you want to make it unique then you can also add a specific stat to boost - just imagine a shielder that gives SPD, that would be a universally good option. Or you can get specific, add an EHR% boost and favour any team that uses debuffs to work. With the new summon meta arriving, you can even make shielders that can help protect summons. Etc. There are many ways to boost a team without just copying Aventurine's kit. 4. Niche: Besides the options I already mentioned (emergency shielder, cleanse, SPD/EHR/etc. booster, summon supporter), there are also other ways to make them unique. You can bring shatter into regular team comps. You can reflect a % of damage received. You can have them straight up debuff enemies to decrease their damage dealt (and help sustain this way) or make them slow. You can immobilise them with some status effect, similar to Welt's ult for example, and let them move less. Or you can just make the shielder AA after each turn, sort of like a built in multiplication LC, letting them build SP and energy more easily through having multiple turns. There are a number of options here; so you can make a shielder that's about as strong as Aventurine in terms of sustain and utility, yet still different enough to warrant being their own character. I would personally happily take someone who is about as strong as Aven, but buffs my team's speed and makes enemies slower instead, while keeping them safe with shields, some eff res and an emergency shield. Even though they would hit the same key point Aventurine does, they would still be different enough to feel like a separate character, and I would be compelled to pull. You could just have your pick of shielder - you know, the same way Robin and RM are universally good supports, but they have teams they excel in more than others and you'll pick which one your teams work best with. Same could be true here, you'd have Aventurine who excels the most in FuA, and you'd have this new shielder who might work best with let's say a hypercarry setup. Something like this. Point is, there are a multitude of ways

[@1DMapler18]

a preservation character that lets you generate shields everytime you attack would be cool, basically like how Gallagher is but for shields

[@marfit77]

Preservation Tailblazer though a version that provides stackable shields would be nice

[@darkdude1996ify]

The primary issue I think right now is that teambuilding is basically banking on you using only 1 sustain character. I feel like some Abundance characters like Huohuo and Lingsha are meant to steer people in the direction of double sustain, by making them able to act as a support or dps respectively, but in the end people just don't want that, since most team archetypes already have a core of 2 characters, be it 2 dps (FUA) or 2 supports (Break) or a mix (Topaz or Kafka for example are half dps half buffer/enabler). If we get more character that can fulfill multiple roles, or more enemies that can force this, we might see more dual-sustain comps in the future

[@airtempest8945]

I think part of it is they added healers into a Turn based RPG without a cruicial thing that makes them make sense: A Guard button. Healers in Turn based RPGs are borderline useless except for overworld except in fights for which your opponent is way stronger than you, because you just nuke the mobs on sight and take little to no damage that will ever threaten you. What usually happens in those fights which your opponent is actually strong enough is that you bring character(s) explicitly to get whaled on and beaten up, then heal to dispel the damage. The issue is that in Star Rail, they just threw this onto the path that also gives defense to the rest of your party, including themselves, which just consolidates all the sustain into one character instead of multiple. As a result, literally why would I bother using a healing unit when the healers typically don't heal themselves for as much as the shielders do when you factor in that they can block status effects and potentially more damage. It also makes sense then why Huohuo would circumvent this, because she effectively does the same thing with her auto-cleanse that can cleanse herself. I'm just a fan of more old school Turn based RPGs, so the lack of a guard button in Star Rail never ceases to confuse me.

[@Avidz26]

I just talked about this with my friends and you upload this video, what a perfect timing

[@elysiaplushie]

Aventurine ruined the preservation meta by being way too overloaded. The only thing he's missing is just debuff negation like FX, once they decided to release a unit like Aventurine who can also negate debuff there's not much point in rolling other sustains.

[@mauriciorosademoraes9209]

That's why the new abundances are getting niche

[@ushijimawakatoshi2106]

The funny thing is that they HAVE made different preservation mechanics, they just haven't put them on playable characters -quake in sim uni -barrier in sim uni (argenti and record curio) -taunt on a five star -summon on a preservation character (lightning lord, the trashcan event, div uni equation)

[@colorfulcookie8961]

I once attempt to Design a Preservation kit, but it also have damage to them, then I realize it fall into Destruction more. If anyone want to have a read I will commented it.

[@colorfulcookie8961]

I just read my old ass kit, and I also realize it broken as hell

[@mauriciorosademoraes9209]

Hahaha. I always got upset that they changed Yunli into Destruction and now you just pointed why.

[@Nyx309]

As an E1S1 DPS Aventurine main I can say that I cringe super hard running the other side in any game mode and watching the team hp depleting (even though I have all the sustains except lingsha I just prefer him)

[@hornswaggle4127]

You can hear his soul being sucked out the second he starts the ad read

[@MetaGiga]

What I think is that they’re waiting for the Stonehearts. Diamond’s obviously going to be Preservation and given the IPC faction and how Aventurine is Preservation, he’s not gonna be the only one in the lineup. There’s also a chance for Light Cones or Relics giving temporary shields too

[@Brainfly-]

I'm not sure if I agree with the resource argument. Aventurine basically never needs to use his skill, Fu Xuan only refreshes hers every couple of turns and Gepard's is on his Ultimate, meaning you'll wanna spam his skill, but that skill deals damage and has a high chance to freeze. Fire TB's shield also applies on his skill, on his enhanced basic, AND on his Ultimate. Compare that to Abundance where you have your skill buff refresher (like FX) in Huohuo, your attackers (like Aventurine and Fire TB) in Gall and Luocha, your skill-spamming attacker (like Gepard) in Lingsha... Seems even enough to me 🤷🏻‍♂️ Not saying anything about which path has the better characters (although Preservation has Aventurine which, I mean, come on now), but I don't think they're that different in how their resources are managed.

[@olianims]

They need to add an emanator of preservation who gives the entire team the traffic light ability

[@NotACommunist91]

Hear me out: a character that uses the collective shield mechanic seen in the sunday boss fight

[@TheTruestZero]

Easy answer: Cuz they blew the fook out of Aventurine powerbudget as a shielder. The man is as close to perfection when it comes to his mitigations and percs: Incredible uptime of a rather fat shield on the entire party due to his E and Follow Up Attack mechanics; A bit more than a coin flip to negate any debuffs due to his talent giving up to 55% Effect RES to the party; While single target, he offers a crit damage up debuff; He will constantly pepper damage after damage due to his follow up attack; Can get up to 48% Crit Chance due to a trace so he is free to get a bit more daring on Crit DMG. The last thing needed was a way to guarantee hits flying towards him, which at this point, by either luck or buying the LC from the shop, you already have Gepard's LC.

[@reshmin1760]

I have Gepard's lightcone but not Gepard himself so I'm gonna give it to Aventurine if I get him on his rerun lol

[@leoramirez3356]

The problem of preservation is, well, you cant really do much with it that isnt repetitive, its either shields or damage reduction and thats about it. Sure, hoyo could make a shielder that makes allies DoT damage turn into a shield, but in the end is just a different trigger for damage mitigation. Its easier to make a healer that does something else than a damage mitigator that does something else. A bit of a flaw in design from hoyo during the development.

[@yulfine1688]

its mainly becuase ave is super strong.. you could make one that does well in break teams or dot teams or even hypercarry like ave does with fua teams

[@marfit77]

@@yulfine1688 even shared shields or stackable barriers are a possibilities

[@yulfine1688]

@marfit77 yeah but then every new one would need to so they could be viable to some degree. Itd also need to scale off something be it defense or attack or hp or whatever the case. It'd likely also need to provide good effect res to help with the cc and debuffs or allow a cleanse. You'd then need to tie it in with a team comp such as fua or hyper carry or dot teams or breaks teams. If you want them to take aggro then something would have to be done about all the aoe in some form. People bring up quake damage but it's not even that good in uni activity. Maybe with some changes it could be interesting, or like with nihility teams allow debuffs to happen from the shield being hit or dots applied. There are some things but it would become pretty much the same or very similar very fast be it 4 star or 5 star.

[@marfit77]

​@@yulfine1688 one thing you neglect is that those specific gameplay's aren't set in stone as the only things possible. What about action advance meta where the biggest issue with shielders is that the buffs always run out too fast. how about a shield that works around that (I know Aventurine and Fu Xuan but they both also have their specific niches they specialize in and Aventurine is kinda meant and benifits most from being on a FuA team since that can also proc his passive) like a preservation that shields with an action bar summon that'll take damage for allies (I keep saying this one in other places)

[@yulfine1688]

@@marfit77 i mean thats neat but action advance would just mean whoever that is would be required in most teams that aren't fua or something due to how strong it would be. Action advance characters are extremely highly rated for a reason, so it'd' need to be sp negative or something to balance out and would mean some teams couldn't run it but others might be able to. As for it running out too fast it well theres only so much you can do with it that either makes it op and broken or useless.. they need to rebalance the game itself not just the characters that's the problem We are focused on trying to fit things in the current gameplay. If that gameplay opened up and stopped restricting us then you could allow a larger variety of units to be viable. The biggest issues comes down to the gameplay that exists and the balancing of the enemies.

[@rivaldocasallo237]

I feel like Yunli should’ve been a preservation character, as more of an offensive tank, high aggro, self sustain, but most importantly, for the purpose of making her Ult an AoE instead of Blast which it’s becoming a trend with “recent” destruction units (the only exceptions as far as I know, Clara with AoE Skill, and Blade with AoE Follow up Attack)

[@SagittariusAyy]

In other words, Aventurine was so good that they accidentally had to stop making Preservation characters because Aventurine was too good

[@descencent3538]

Preservation was always better than abundance. I remember when Fu Xuanhad come, everyone was saying she was the BEST sustainer for any comp.

[@priest-qy7cj]

Def scailing bruiser character: - from tallent getting small aoe shields on being hit, do small damage in return, which drains a bit of toughness regardless of element. - can draw aggro by using their skill for a number of attacks (I really liked the idea of Fire Trailblazer), during the skill shield gain is doubled. - Ultimate cast mass cleanse and provide a buff for status resist. He protec, he atac, but most importantly, he breac

[@starrynight5730]

They should make a character like fu xuan again but maybe make them more like dehya was trying to be a tank that takes damage for the team heals themselves and deals big damage they could even scale the damage by how much damage the team has taken

[@teenagesilver6512]

it will kill every other sustain.

[@espranora2191]

I think they did too much on Aventurine that they can't do anything that would be too broken or straight up power creep him. He is just too good, and to endorse someone better would be hard as they pretty much put everything to him.

[@Pharos-j4g]

A shielder that creates a massive barrier that protects all the team would be a good 4 star

[@sergeanthuman]

thats gepard

[@Pharos-j4g]

@@sergeanthuman no gepard ult gives each character their own shield. After one take damage the others shield isnt effected. Think a big bulky 1 shield that protects all the team. Well its worse than giving every character their own shield but you can balance it out by making more shield

[@mptyalln]

that's like saying "Use a different formula" when you literally got the same answer 💀

[@Pharos-j4g]

@@mptyalln if you use that stupid logic you will see that is literally the every dps.

[@thegenerateshehe]

they could make a preservation character that has summon system like topaz/JY/lingsha, but instead of attacking enemy they give your characters shields, and the character skill can inflict debuff like topaz and when ally hit debuffed enemy they will gain shield too

[@redrikari]

They really need to make more preservation characters for those of us who don’t like the current ones 💔

[@closeted-skeleton]

I could see us get a preservation unit that when useing their skill protects 1 aly by redirecting all damage to themselves and makes a sheild an themselves to take the hit, then they counter (or possibly store the damage they take for a set amount of turns then use all the accumulated damage on an enemy) Then their burst simply reflects all damage against your team once per unit.

[@eanng2201]

I guess the concepts later on could be a shield that heals teamate whenever it's expired or the character themselves could consume the shields of the whole team to deal one big nuke damage. Aventurine and Fu Xuan are doing really well right now, but I think starting from 3.0, someone else is going to take the thrones.

[@RaykinaBreaker]

this actually make sense, its hard for them to come up a satisable 4 star preservation at this point.

[@marvelinofirmansyah1452]

simple preservation hard to balance fire mc < gepard < fuxuan < adven basicly preservation is easyly get powercreep

[@kidsIIIII009]

I would love to see a Shielder that can give debuffs only when any debuffers inflict a debuff to the enemy it’s like Acheron but instead of gaining stacks it gains shield to all allis

[@maca9095]

yes they can, for example a physical preservation that aplies bleed when enemies attack shielded allies and when using the ultimate, for example 1% max hp from attacking allies then 1.5% from ult, consider then the buffs from traces for example ascencion traces that increases that unit's dmg and effect hit rate scaling on his def, increase the DoT dmg that enemies recieve or something like that, considering that hsr has plans to give characters new paths, I think a preservation argenti could suit this kit pretty nice since he can summon those things that provides shield for himself but now for allies

[@Siriseviltwin]

I mean, Aventurine is the most busted preservation unit. The only way to make a shielder stronger than that is to make them give shields with just a basic attack or smth 😭

[@masterplusmargarita]

The direction to take is pretty obvious to me: niche utility like they've done with Abundance. As an absolute spitball, it seems like there's a summon meta a-brewing at some point in the future what with the Banana relics. We can have a Presevation character who shields the whole team with his skill, and whose shields gets X more HP every time a friendly summon attacks. If that's weak or boring by itself, the character can build "summon points", say any time an ally or allied summon attacks an enemy. When you get X summon points, you activate an enhanced basic that summons a guy who casts buffs on allies when it acts based on how much shield they have - say, x% crit damage for every y shield HP. Not 100% sure how summons work with buffs since I don't have any summon-users myself, but if it makes sense the buff can uniquely hit allied summons too. I just spitballed that as I wrote it, pretty much. It's not super great, but a bit of sanding the edges and you've got a workable 5-star there. The more I think about it, the more I think I disagree with the video, which is rare on this channel. It's just a question of giving the shielder a strong enough shield on their skill to be viable, and then orienting the rest of their kit around the archetype they're meant to belong in - I don't think it's that much of a difference to how any other type of unit would be designed.

[@silver.shoelaces]

I think at this point the only people running double sustain are doing Simulated Universe, not endgame content. I just did a round of hard mode Divergent Universe yesterday (I don’t remember whether it was v3 or v4) and couldn’t get through the final boss fight because Lingsha kept getting one shot, so I reworked the team to have Aventurine be my sustain, kept Ruan Mei and Trailblazer as offensive support, and Lingsha became the new DPS. Lingsha and Avenurine actually have pretty good synergy with enough Elation buffs! I’ll be honest, I completely forgot that Trailblazer had a preservation form. I want to get the achievement for using four preservation characters in a team, so I might put him and March back for a while so I can pick that achievement up.

[@hvcskmagyar]

last time i checked there is the MC preservation path that has taunt, they can make something like that, like the character gives shield to 1 character and makes them taunted so they will get all dmg, or just straight up gives taunt and some dmg reduction so it makes even blade good, or gives bonus hp and taunt and heals on based amount of dmg taken like bailus talent (yes i am trying to give blade a sustain character that buffs his dmg by giving him tons of max hp)

[@Ouroboros619]

Hoyo: We realize Aventurine is a bit strong, so we'll add a little something. "Oh yeah?" Hoyo: You know Rifthounds from Genshin? "... Yeah?" Hoyo: Here's a new enemy that will deal True Damage based on the amount of shield you have. No damage mitigation. "... But..." Hoyo: Now, it's risky to take Aventurine.

[@steve_bisset]

Would love to see a summon shielder. Basically a bunch of summoned creatures with a 'cover' mechanic to take single target damage instead of the character. Would fit well with the new summon meta too. Maybe the summons could explode and hurt the enemy if their HP isn't completely used up.

[@Geese3]

They still have many presentation characters too make in theory: 1st, an absorbing character, one who soaks a portion of damage and either turns that into healing/shields or deals at as damage. 2nd, an aggro tank, skill applies a debuff that applies taunt and they only worry about themself, so they just sit there and tank all the hits, and they can also have a CC effect of some kinda. 3rd, the displacer, a character who provides defensive support by just stunning enemies, they would still have some form of shield generation, but its mainly just gepard 2 or quantum/imaginary gepard. This is only 3 of the potential 10 options hoyo could make, but honestly they may not be able too pass adventurine at all without crazy numbers, the only one who potentially could is an absorbing tank who would be the best support for most teams ad they just soak damage and uses the enemies damage as a resource, with maybe they heal but one of their traces turns excess healing into shields, i have no clue on what an ultimate for that would look like but it is an option.

[@Dekarowski25]

It's hard to make better character than our perfect friend.

[@doom1153]

I could see them making more like path specific shielders, like say giving shields based on debuffs or dot damage or when breaking enemies or something, but of course you will still need a way to gain shield with a skill/basic, but it could work as a kind of out of turn shield refresh.

[@petachad8463]

Aventurine is the Zhongli of HSR, just shield and you don't ever take dmg 💀

[@rubyknights5885]

5:03 kind of funny because a lot of people consider that character meta-like way before

[@CaseIntheVase]

That was before Fu Xuan released and became basically an upgrade of FMC

[@dontworryaboutit3471]

Honestly I think if they wanted to make a shielder that would be decent in a post aventurine world, a dot shielder would be a good place to start. If we classify him as a fua shielder, and dot shielder would be a good addition

[@fats2010]

as good as aventurine is, i do think there are cool directions they can go with preservation still. I think they need to completely forego the idea of EVER having a shielder as consistent as him and instead focus on characters with less consistent sustain that can still perform well in other areas. I'd love a preservation character that actually allows for dual sustain comps to work well, maybe one that tallies overflowed healing and allows the team's max hp to overcap based off of that (which would also be a buff to my boy blade!). As long as a character like that had decent offensive utility they wouldn't be too bad, and could also allow people to create comfier comps to clear certain pieces of content (like SU or more recently the feixiao weekly.. seriously, she's harder than MOC12 at max difficulty and it's not even close). i think the main thing they need to do is stop tunnel visioning all their ideas for offensive utility onto their harmony (and also nihility ig) characters, there are plenty of ways to incorporate unique mechanics that'll make players want to pull for a new sustain character even if they already have two good ones

[@Ui_Raizen]

Like they really fucked up releasing someone like aventurine and I believe they just got tired of making them so they just decided to release him and they don’t have to do them anymore

[@maddyh6876]

I think it could be cool to have a preservation 4* that's more focused on partial damage mitigation. They could steal part of how much damage their allies and themself should have taken over a certain period of time, and then throw it back at the enemies, like it's revenge damage almost. This would make it actively beneficial to have them slower possibly, making an actual use for something like sprightly vonwacq that isn't insanely niche, turning them into a time bomb, and make running both a shielder and healer amazing instead of redundant. With buffs to their own revenge damage at higher E's it could be a really fun kit that I think could be nicely tweaked to also fit a 5*. Maybe the 5* can store the enemy's elemental attack type and apply fitting debuffs when the 5* deals revenge damage or something like that. Just... Imagine how good a character like that would be with even just Lynx and Clara, much less newer combos like Acheron and Lingsha. Even better with glass cannon characters like DHIL.

[@Ku2an4l1]

I feel like preservation could do with another "counter" shielder like fire mc, its certainly a good idea and would probably make for one of the most broken shielders since aventurine if they end up a 5 star

[@oniceguard9205]

There are still things to do, I would name some that are in other games, a nuker shielder (aries Mu in SSAKTOZ) the role is absorb every damage deal to his own shields and then Nuke the enemy dealing true damage scaling with the damage taken by the shields. (this is one of the "original standard characters in the game") AFK arena deimon kit, A tank that do it via stealing his enemy life and redirecting the damage to himself while healing his allies a lil bit or giving shield after 1 or 2 turns the life would be returned to the target. Persefone (also SSAKOTZ) this is quite literally fu xuan but better giving her a way to mark enemy characters and store all damage dealt to that target to then trigger it as true damage (that character is quite broken cuz it has other things like passive life steal to increase her max HP but that would be too much) Athena exclamation also form SSAKOTZ, a single target shield that heal in area whenever is damaged while also giving Effect resistance to the target. (i would not enter in the other parts of the kit because the character is a mixture between a single target nuker, a debuffer and a defensive support with one AOE nuke skill) you have the whole damage Reflect Archetype to explore that can be mixed with redirect (self or targeted), shields and or heal. Hell we can even get characters that buff the enemy speed or give them extra turns to damage themself (all of these are in SSAKOTZ) or we could get shields that are not HP based but rather need to be attacked x amount of times to get rid off so its pretty much imposible to get damaged unless you are against a high rate of hit enemy

[@hisayaren8324]

Ideas: - Global shield (like Sunday boss) - On-character turn shield (like Ruan Mei or HTB buff mechanic) - Heal-on-shatter shield - Fu Xuan powercreep (the option's always there) - Burst-to-DoT converter (instead of one instance of big dmg, converts dmg received into several instances while also doing heal every turn the shield is up) - Shield counter (March 7th mechanic but on crack, this is for offensive purpose)

[@bowenjudd1028]

What about a "giftbox character?" The character would provide a damage tanking giftbox to all teammate that lasts until broken. The damage the giftbox takes either will directly correlate to damage the opponent takes when attacking. You could also add the bonus that a portion of the giftbox health will be given to the character if refreshed early

[@marfit77]

oooh and then add that the giftbox is a summon that will "explode" once it is its turn or it takes enough damage to break and deals damage based on how much damage it took.

[@bowenjudd1028]

@@marfit77 that's also a cool idea

[@TheCardq]

I think we should have a blast shield that has a buff something like "If this character has the shield with the highest total value, greatly increases the likely hood of being attacked"

[@mubrek236]

"Mmm.Do you have protection babe?~" *leans closer* "Aventurine rerun is next patch sorry."

[@mubrek236]

Too long,didn't listen: Preservation:"Hold on lemme refresh" Abundance:"You good?Aight."

[@FaeriichanII]

6:00 - "because of how often he's able to refresh it with his follow-up, which is stacked by taking hits, using his ultimate, or teammates launching follow-ups" You're not wrong, but it's worth noting that only e1 Aventurine is able to refresh the shield by using his ultimate lol

[@Maethendias]

3:00 there is also the fact of combat gimmicks INHERENTLY favouring healing over shielders the perfect example of this is the death meme with its grab

[@callmeandoru2627]

I think character with counter attack mechanics should be counted as preservation character. Like sure they deals damage but you could think of them as combat oriented tank rather than pure defensive tank. They still fulfill the role of damage mitigation by directly forcing the enemy to attack them instead of the team. And if you think about it, march 7th is an example of a counter attack preservation character.

[@forlone_li]

Ive been bashing on this before Aventurines release no joke. More the need of a 4 star preservation but NOW we need it. I love March and im working on building Crit ATK/DEF Shielder/FUA March but its hella hard because my Hunt is much better built. (Mostly because her stuff im using on is with sets i use on other characters.) I very much prefer Hunt March 7th, although i love her either way. I just want a 4 star presevation that does not have a second form. The worst thing is that there is only three permanent like you mentioned, all three are five stars, two are LIMITED and the other requires shit luck on 50/50, Beginner banner or a 1/14 chance on the Standard.

[@Zeka_GGWP]

My idea for a 4* preservation is a preservation dps that converts the damage they deal into a shield value for all allies, or into a cumulative shield like the one in the sunday boss fight. Of course the numbers and specifics would need to be tested and tuned, but thats my concept idea

[@silverhawkscape2677]

There isnt as many things you can do with Damage Mitigation. Compared how many ways you can deal damage to an enemy.

[@DobinSergei]

There is, but this game is DD oriented and fast cleaning.

[@gregnog8119]

Preservation character that shares damage between teammates similar to the DU destruction blessing, and then buffs teammates ATK and SPD based on missing health up to a certain point, heals teammates a small amount if they they start their turn below 30% health It's actually really freaking easy, just throw damage reduction or shielding in there and some form of benefit for the protection provided, the aventurine formula in a nutshell Edit: this kinda sounds like an Arlan playstyle buff?

[@Khann_2102]

​@@gregnog8119 Yes

[@silverseedva]

I’ve always had a 4 star Preservation idea that’s basically just Bailu + Clara. Instead of shields, the character gives stacks of damage mitigation similar to Bailu’s Invigoration effect. When an ally runs out of these damage mitigation stacks (whether through the duration ending or by consuming them from taking enemy hits), a Bounce FUA takes place that will only ever target enemies that have attacked the ally. It’s kinda like Aventurine except with less uptime but a similar capacity to deal damage, hence the 4 star rarity. I don’t know what the damage mitigation stacks would scale off of, but I feel like they should be strong enough to fully block hits from regular elites or at the very least reduce those bigger hits from Echoes of War bosses to a minuscule amount. Like March and Preservation Trailblazer, this character probably wouldn’t be the best for solo sustain, but honestly I’m fine if this character sucks because at least we finally get a new 4 star Preservation character. Go Team Qlipoth!

[@vvgirl6173]

I think it would be cool if a character could benefit from shields. Like, what if for them to deal a massive amount of damage they need to not be interrupted as they prepare their attack. The longer they don't lose any health/attacked, the bigger the damage. It would be something only a Preservation character can do.

[@trainnubb]

Personally I’ve had an idea for a preservation gimmick for a long time now. A character that could enable characters to DODGE could be fun and interesting. The dodge would obviously be chance based but the chance can increase based on either your build or trace level. If you don’t trigger a dodge, then the character(s) being hit will take reduced dmg. Obviously you wont be invincible but it could be a fun gimmick where you can just nullify a bosses attacks

[@kodiibearv]

if they added dodge mechanics in hsr i'd rage quit atp 😭 bc that means the enemies would also have to dodge. i play echocalypse where "hit rate" and "dodge rate" is a huge thing, otherwise the enemies just dodge all your attacks and perfectly hit you every time. so it'd bring a while new mechanic of "miss rate" or "hit rate."

[@marfit77]

Ok here is an idea for a summoner type shielder remember the puppet girl from the annihilation gang imagine she summons a puppet for her skill that will enter the action bar as a summon this puppet will have it's own health bar and will take damage for the whole team Once the puppet's health bar runs out or its turn is reached then it will "detonate" dealing damage proportionate to how much damage it took. The caster can also have multiple puppets on the action bar with the oldest one taking the damage passing excess to the next puppet (or the attacked character if there are no other puppets).

[@marfit77]

of course to make it fair each puppet only half of the character's health (or 100% of her defense). Also lets scratch the stackable puppets part. If there is a puppet on the field already it will immediately detonate before the new puppet appears.

[@marfit77]

oh also her ult summons a super puppet that does the same thing with twice the healthbar. edit: if you consider my other reply this puppet will be considered a seperate summon from the skill version of the puppet. edit 2: it'll also be much slower than the original puppet

[@tTaseric]

I'm quite fond of Preservation Trailblazer cus they're pretty decent at building Acheron stacks

[@madokanamee]

The way I can see them making more preservation characters is probably: Dmg mitigation 4 star (Basically a slighty worse Fu Xuan.) Using the shared shield mechanic of the Sunday boss/Divergent Universe (Could probably work really well on both 4 stars and 5 stars) Quake character (They're prob saving this for Diamond if I could guess) Slightly stronger Preservation Trailblazer (Just exchange all of the bonus the character has for a slighly more powerfull team-wide shield) DOT Shielder (Hp taken from enemy to ally shield) Other than those I am not really sure. Could probably do more, but I am focusing mostly on the sustain aspect of the path.