Genshin Impact

[Klashikari]

Xingqiu doesn't exactly need constellations, but he gets a huge power spike with C2. The rest is just some higher numbers and he gets a much better regen with C6 if your carry has a good attack speed. I would say he is better than Ningguang outside of the box because of his synergy in general, whereas Ningguang still needs another Geo char to truly shine and not having C2 is bothersome for her energy regen although not mandatory.
Either way, you should simply wait for the march reset of the glittershop since Ningguang and Xingqiu didn't appear there yet (although Diona, Xinyan, Sucrose and Chonyun didn't either).

[AnimeFangirl]

Gotcha. I'll wait till March and decide. Maybe pull once or twice on Keqing banner and see if Ningguang comes home anyway.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by GDB

For particles though... yeah, that's an issue. You need either Venti or Jean to keep it consistent. If you don't have them, you can maybe get by with Sucrose. Haven't seen anyone able to do it decently with Anemo Traveler. So honestly, if you're on the fence, if you don't have Venti or Jean I'd say skip.

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

I do have both Venti and Jean at C0, but I'm not really sure how good Venti is at generating particles without his Burst considering his active skill is only one hit.

If Sucrose has her C1, she is the best anemo battery for Xiao because she can frontload 2 skill charges, which generate 8 anemo particles in total (so a total of 24 energy if Xiao manages to get them while on field, 14.4 otherwise). If not, Venti is the best with 3-4 while Jean is right next to him with 3. MC is dead last with 2 particles. You can't really beat Venti and Jean because of the particle amount coupled with their low CD, except Bennett within his Burst field.

By the way, the number of hits doesn't matter for particle generation. Each skill has their set number of particles and it isn't increased if you hit more than 1 target.

[Shadow5YA]

I guess I could potentially make Xiao work, but I'll hold off anyway for Hu Tao considering my primary concern is something to kill the Wolf when I can't use Ganyu.

[Klashikari]

I'm not sure why you absolutely need a new character just to deal with Andrius. He is quite trivial as long you have a properly geared carry that isn't anemo or cryo. Since you have Venti, you should already have Xiangling and Fischl. Both of them are plenty enough to deal with that boss.
But really, I don't see the need of deliberately pulling characters specifically for the open world content.

[AnimeFangirl]

I used the free 10x Intertwined Fates and got Ningguang, so guess I'm getting Xingqiu tomorrow.

[Marina2]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

I guess I could potentially make Xiao work, but I'll hold off anyway for Hu Tao considering my primary concern is something to kill the Wolf when I can't use Ganyu.

Wolf? You don't really need anyone specific. As long as you don't use Ameno and Cyro, any characters that can create shield will make that fight trivial.

Someone like Noelle can face-tank solo that boss, really.

[Diluc]

The festival went downhill faster before it end all because Mihoyo betrayed fandom once again.

-No player characters in festival as far as we seen except Xiao ( and he barely exist in his own quest either)

- Festival dominated by NPC that no ones give damn.

- boring fetch quest


The only good things from festival are the rewards and tower game content

Seriously Mihoyo?

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Marina2

Wolf? You don't really need anyone specific. As long as you don't use Ameno and Cyro, any characters that can create shield will make that fight trivial.

Someone like Noelle can face-tank solo that boss, really.

Clearing it isn't the issue, I just want it to be faster than it is right now. There's a clear difference between the fights where I can use Ganyu and the ones I can't.

[AnimeFangirl]

Yeah, as a Xiao ximp, I was disappointed by the lack of Xiao in a festival all about him and his fellow adepti. At least I thought I would see Zhongli, the Qixing, Cloud Snatcher and Mountain Shaper, etc. And all the things in the trailer that didn't make into the actual festival...

Incorporating characters into main and side stories is one of the simplest things writers can do to make players immersed in the story. Even if it's just cameos.

[TJP1600]

Beat the 50-50 and I got Keqing in 65 rolls. My streak of never hitting soft pity for the character banner is crazy (Klee 50s, Qiqi 40s, Albedo 30s, Ganyu 2, Keqing 65). I’m left with 120 wishes or so for HuTao. If I beat the 50-50, do I go for Homa or her C1 or save for the Venti rerun? Leaning towards venti just to make Abyss easier. Lack CC right now

[Klashikari]

If I were you, I'd honestly wait for actual spreadsheets comparing Hu Tao performance based on the spears available.
Weapon banner is extremely risky because your initial chances are barely better than 1/3 and they never get any better than 50%. Deathmatch or Lithic spear might be enough for her, assuming the DPS gap isn't absurdely huge compared to Homa/Jade.

On the flipside, I'd say Venti is probably the best investment possible. He hit like a truck with his elemental skill and burst, both of which with a ridiculously low CD, and then you have access to VV set effect, energy battery and CC.

[AnimeFangirl]

Everyone says Venti is amazing. There's no evidence besides persistent rumors that he's coming any time soon, but it wouldn't hurt to save for him just in case.

[dragon1412]

weapons is a bit of an iffy issues, I mean, many times on the paper sound good, but actual gameplay indicted otherwise, So i'd agree that waiting for review.

I want Venti though, but considering my fund for Hutao is just barely enough for a single 50-50 chance, I don't count much on my chance even if he get a rerun

[GDB]

Originally Posted by AnimeFangirl

Everyone says Venti is amazing. There's no evidence besides persistent rumors that he's coming any time soon, but it wouldn't hurt to save for him just in case.

Yeah, I don't believe a single rumor or "leak" about it because there's no actual verifiable information or reliable source behind them.

That said, everything that we know does SCREAM Venti rerun (and probably another normal unit like Jean).

• The leaks we've seen for 1.4 has a weapon that seems custom made for Venti, which seems to be their MO recently.
• The only unit currently being tested is Rosaria, a 4-star.

These two combined make me believe the two (or first two, at least) banners for 1.4 will be (in exchangeable order) Venti, and Jean + Rosaria. Who the (other) 4-stars will be, who knows.

I'm honestly not sure if I care about Venti to be honest. So many people go on about him being OP or broken, but their only reason seems to be... that he gathers enemies? Okay? That only matters in Abyss, and even then it's not a HUGE deal.

Like, not going to drop tens of thousands of primos to roll for a unit just to get... maybe an extra 50-100 primos per Abyss cycle.

[AnimeFangirl]

Originally Posted by GDB

I'm honestly not sure if I care about Venti to be honest. So many people go on about him being OP or broken, but their only reason seems to be... that he gathers enemies? Okay? That only matters in Abyss, and even then it's not a HUGE deal.

I find him pretty useful in domains that have a lot of small/unshielded enemies scattered around. He gathers them all together and largely immobilizes them so others can finish them off. I'm not 100% sure I'll get him myself, but having more Ventis in co-op will be a good thing.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by GDB

I'm honestly not sure if I care about Venti to be honest. So many people go on about him being OP or broken, but their only reason seems to be... that he gathers enemies? Okay? That only matters in Abyss, and even then it's not a HUGE deal.

Venti is broken when it comes to what he can do alone compared to every other character in the game and it becomes even more obvious when his kit is combined with other meta characters. It doesn't mean that Venti is mandatory, and the game is perfectly doable even with just the starter characters (although being able to score 36 stars in abyss every time with just that roster is a complete different story).

That said, it is very easy to tell his true worth when you compare your team who had Venti in its lineup with the team that didn't.
-Gathering enemy has 3 major benefits. 1) You usually don't take any damage since they cannot attack you (except larger enemies) 2) they are all gathered in a single spot which enables much larger damage spike for certain characters such as Diluc and Ganyu 3) you reset the enemy animations which prevent them to do things that could be extremely obnoxious (Cicin mage summoning the cicin)
-By virtue of the above point and his element, Venti increases your team overall DPS by a large margin because of VV set (and his constallation if you unlocked it). This isn't exclusive to Venti but he is the only character who can actually apply VV on a very large number of targets with ease due to the sucking effect and large size of the vacuum. Even with C1, Sucrose simply can't do that because it doesn't exactly linger that much, her skill has a long CD and her burst has a very high cost, while Jean has a very limite range for that.
-A lot of people seem to forget that Venti's burst deals a truckload of damage by itself. His burst deals Anemo damage 20 times. At lvl10, that's 1354% skill damage max to every single enemy caught in the vacuum. That's not even including the absorbed damage, which is basically an additional 574.6% skill damage per element absorbed. Even at its worst, that's basically around 1900% skill damage with a single absorbed element (I'm not even including the swirl damage either). For comparison sake, Klee's burst at lvl10 deals a total of 1536% skill damage, but her funnels don't deal any AOE damage and they can be baited by irrelevant stuff like torches and pots.
-Venti's burst regenerates 15 energy for himself and any character who shares their element with any element absorbed by the vacuum. This means that not only Venti's burst is more like a 45 cost burst, but you effectivelly cut your team burst cost by like 17~25% in general. Combination like Venti + Jean is basically a 100% burst uptime if build properly and it is the very reason why a quick swap team like Venti / Jean / Fischl / Xiangling is extremely effective and popular.
-Venti's skill is one of the highest particle generating skill in the entire game, hits for 497% without any constellation and applies a long CC on any non heavy target.

Honestly, Venti's vacuum suck effect is just the tip of the iceberg. He basically hits extremely hard while facilitating your team for more damage with far less risk in general. It is arguably not necessary in the overworld, but in Abyss, that's a major difference. Rooms like 11-2 becomes much easier to handle without worrying too much about the monolith being hit too much since you basically deny any attack from the enemy caught there except for the mitachurls.
Also, while his gliding talent isn't really necessary as Amber has it, that talent coupled with Anemo element means you can easily have a more exploration friendly team with that talent. Additionally, Venti's hold skill trivialize a lot of puzzles and exploration by itself.
So Venti is pretty much the most versatile character in the game since he serves as sub dps, debuffer, CC and battery in combat, while providing archery and wind current for exploration. The only character who would fare better without Venti in the same team is Xiao because the vacuum disrupt his plunge DPS. Some people will argue Bennett is more versatile since he can fill Carry/Sub/healer/buffer slots but he doesn't have any direct impact on the enemies as he is mostly either doing damage or using his burst for buff and heal, and might have less synergy for some characters if they continue some trends like Hu Tao.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by GDB

I'm honestly not sure if I care about Venti to be honest. So many people go on about him being OP or broken, but their only reason seems to be... that he gathers enemies? Okay? That only matters in Abyss, and even then it's not a HUGE deal.

Like, not going to drop tens of thousands of primos to roll for a unit just to get... maybe an extra 50-100 primos per Abyss cycle.

If your main focus is single target boss killing, then sure, you don't really need Venti, but the suction and his E skill is useful everywhere else, from world exploration/collection to shrines and domains.
He's undeniably not a main DPS carry unless you have him hard-boosted to C6 or something, but he definitely has a lot of utility even outside of Abyss.

[Shadow5YA]

Is Skyward Spine any good, or should I just stick to the 4* spears for DPS?

[Klashikari]

Spine isn't as effective as Jade and Homa, but its raw atk and passive do work for DPS. ER isn't totally wasted either for Burst uptime. It is perfectly serviceable as DPS weapon and is better than basically all current 4* spears.

In general, 5* weapons stats make up for this. There are very rare instances where 4* weapons are better for certain characters (e.g. Serpent Spine and White Blind compared to Wolf Gravestone for Noelle).