My opinion on the Nod Krai Meta as a meta player who haven't pulled for any Nod Krai 5 stars
I mainly play genshin for the combat and team building first, everything else second. As for my credentials, I started playing when furina came out. I buy occasional welkins, the last time I bought a gem pack was for furina c2 in Fontaine. I've 36 star every abyss since I've started playing. Averaged 7.94 stars in every season of imaginarium theartre(4 seasons with 10 starts). And beat menacing in most stygian onslaught with 1 season where I cleared fearless.
All of this to say that I take endgame content very seriously. Ever since the start of the Nod Krai cast, I skipped ineffa to pull citlali, lost my 50/50 with lauma. And simply lack funds for anything else. Playing end game recently feels increasingly frustrating. Since I don't have lauma, any dendro shill boss is just a pain to brute force even with kinich. The lighthouse boss is also just a massive HP dump for those without ascendence gleam. And the fact they gatekepted lunar charged in Nod Krai 5 stars is also very annoying! atleast make it so that nodkrai units can have ascendence gleam buff, but nodkrai 4 stars can trigger lunar reactions. Overall the experience just feels like you're being extorted to pull for new units.
On the bright side, thanks to having invested in many premium 5 star teams with only cons on the dps and no 5 star weapons, I'm still able to brute force everything if I try enough(shout out to Mavuika and Arlechinno). I also actually really like imaginarium theatre. Most players already have a bunch of unused 4 stars, so you just need to build them over time. I find on average you really just need 3 well built dps in the allowed elements(you can borrow one from your friend) and a few niche supports for each. Just throw in fodder characters to fill the slot. Any invested gen 4 plus dps should be able to hard carry 2 chambers. If you invest well and right, f2ps should easily be able to get 8 stars.
In conclusion, I may not be a good representation for a large part of players, but this is just my opinion on what is it like to not own any nod krai 5 stars. As for what I'm doing going forward, I have 80 pulls and a 50/50 to win to hopefully own columbina. And I will target nefer and lauma on their reruns.
Thanks for listening to my opinion piece.
All of this to say that I take endgame content very seriously. Ever since the start of the Nod Krai cast, I skipped ineffa to pull citlali, lost my 50/50 with lauma. And simply lack funds for anything else. Playing end game recently feels increasingly frustrating. Since I don't have lauma, any dendro shill boss is just a pain to brute force even with kinich. The lighthouse boss is also just a massive HP dump for those without ascendence gleam. And the fact they gatekepted lunar charged in Nod Krai 5 stars is also very annoying! atleast make it so that nodkrai units can have ascendence gleam buff, but nodkrai 4 stars can trigger lunar reactions. Overall the experience just feels like you're being extorted to pull for new units.
On the bright side, thanks to having invested in many premium 5 star teams with only cons on the dps and no 5 star weapons, I'm still able to brute force everything if I try enough(shout out to Mavuika and Arlechinno). I also actually really like imaginarium theatre. Most players already have a bunch of unused 4 stars, so you just need to build them over time. I find on average you really just need 3 well built dps in the allowed elements(you can borrow one from your friend) and a few niche supports for each. Just throw in fodder characters to fill the slot. Any invested gen 4 plus dps should be able to hard carry 2 chambers. If you invest well and right, f2ps should easily be able to get 8 stars.
In conclusion, I may not be a good representation for a large part of players, but this is just my opinion on what is it like to not own any nod krai 5 stars. As for what I'm doing going forward, I have 80 pulls and a 50/50 to win to hopefully own columbina. And I will target nefer and lauma on their reruns.
Thanks for listening to my opinion piece.
Commentaires
Also the recent dendro shill boss is supposed to be done with bloom teams so kinich is really bad for them, you'd be better off running hyperbloom for the turtle.
Like, if we assume all players get 8-10 5* pulls per year F2P, you should have the option to pull the new meta at C0 and keep up, OR pull cons for your old favourites and keep up that way. Plus, outside of primogems, resin investment is similar, keep farming old sets for a top 1% build OR farm new sets for worse builds on better sets. Someone like you who has chosen the latter path can still clear, it's just not easy, and I think that shows it's somewhat balanced. Your investments aren't entirely invalidated, but also it's clear that pulling for the new stuff would be much more comfortable and easier for the current meta, so Hoyo is able to sell both to you.
The problem is that pre-Fontaine units can't really do that. They have significantly lower damage at a base, plus their cons really aren't major increases to their power level. Even a C6R5 Hu Tao won't hit numbers like a 2-cost Mavuika team. Like many people said for the past year, most DPS units are closer to 0 DPS than Mavuika's 150k DPS. And now it seems like Columbina is bringing the Lunar meta up to that same level, so with multiple teams at that level, endgame is going to be balanced around it. And I think Hoyo knows this, with the ~~Retirement~~ Chronicled Wish banners for all pre-Fontaine units, and TTT free cons.
And the other problem is returning players, who haven't been getting those 5* pulls and resin investment in the meantime. They take a break with 'good' units for the time, and come back unable to beat endgame with them. And obviously one could say "Tough luck", and that's a part of Hoyo's business strategy to keep players playing, or that's typical of every gacha, you shouldn't expect to keep up in a race if you take a break. But it still sucks to experience.
Hopefully MW adds more 'for fun' combat content that old characters can still enjoy.
But the worry is that now we have a bunch of 150k teams, and most recent units can get over 100k with wheelchair teams, if the actual DPS requirement of endgame keeps climbing to 100k, it's going to shut out even more older units that can't get those numbers without serious primo investment. C6R5 Hu Tao with C0 premium supports is only ~160k DPS for example, and she's on the better end afaik.
I've played since 1.0, and cleared every Abyss with 12 Stars since Inazuma (I kinda didn't play it for most of 1.x), I've fully cleared every Imaginarium Theater, and have knocked out every single Stygian Onslaught on Dire.
I pulled Ineffa because she's cute, and I was *baffled* at how people were skipping her.
I pulled Lauma because I liked her in the story.
I pulled Flins because I like his design.
I skipped Nefer because she's boring.
I'll get Columbina because I like her.
The Meta is just fine.
It's SanicHedghag, a pretty high spender. Take a quick look at their character in their profile. They got C6 Nahida and C2 Mavuika and Mualani.
As someone else who really likes IT im getting worried its going to get pretty unplayable soon with super specific bosses and characters on the rise, such as needing ascendent gleam, or needing 2 hex characters, i use to think gorou and faruzan were hard to slot or even chevy or escofier, now its looking like this effect is gonna start stacking up in a negative manner and im a little worried.
You’re not a meta player if you don’t pull for meta.
>I mainly play genshin for the combat and team building first, everything else second.
Well, you don’t really, or you would be putting together NK teams.
>As for my credentials […] Averaged 7.94 stars in every season of imaginarium theartre(4 seasons with 10 starts). And beat menacing in most stygian onslaught with 1 season where I cleared fearless.
So… you’re just an average player?
>All of this to say that I take endgame content very seriously.
No, not really.
Look, I’m not saying you’re a bad player or anything like that. But you can’t make these statements you made if you don’t clear Fearless and do Lunar IT. You’re not doing much better than one of my friends who plays combat stuff casually and cares more about teapots and music playing than Abyss. It seems you made some choices, and some were bad and have come back to bite you.
I pull characters because I like them, I get constellations for meta. And I do very well.
The average player probably doesn't even touch IT or SO
I think honestly the wild hunt is the worst simply because there really isn't a free option to deal with said mechanic atm, even for fearless papilla I did a PMC + 4 star run for it so you at least had a decent counter at hand being PMC given for free and it's actually quite popularly used for the boss.
I'm perfectly okay with stuff like crab/fatui simply because you can still counter their mechanic with generic EC/hyperbloom teams and some people also come up with creative ways with what they have due to that such as using kazuha no hydro for crab or no electro for fatui via self absorption, In fact I like the fact that people try different things with what they have given the restrictions, but for wild hunt the only thing you can do w/o the mechanic is just to pure rawdps or specific fall dmg which doesn't really promote anything really creative for it
reaction based bosses like lava dragon in SO are what ppl like, where the person still play to the mechanic for the boss with the likes of amber/xiangling/klee/burning/etc and with it comes a large hp loss hence why many low cost teams of even older chars like clorinde/1 cost kinich/etc were possible at dire difficulty.
bosses like sigurd is either, you play NR mechanic or at c0 level you play teams like skirk/mavuika that just has high enough dps to go with the mechanic at dire difficulty. Fearless is however w/e since it's generally never strict enough.
While I love NK's story the character's haven't impressed me enough to vertically invest or pull for many of them yet. Only Lauma has been a must pull for me, and I vertically invested into her as well. I got Flins because he's cool but he's outclassed by my Raiden so on the bench he goes. Nefer and Ineffa are both hard skips.
I have lvl'd every character I've gotten, even the 4* that I'm never using, and have been caught up since mid Sumeru. So IT has always been done on the highest level with all stellas.
Abyss has been 36* since Inazuma
My 1st alt does a bit more horizontal investment primo wise as in c0r1 or just c0 but I pull units I'd never get on my main as well.
I've lvl'd almost every unit I own there as well, so full Visionary and Lunar clears there as well.
While this alt cannot full clear Dire it has never had any issues with fearless.
It has 36* abyss since late Sumeru.
My 3rd alt that I neglected until I figured I'd pick it up casually 2 when I felt like has cleared fearless the last 2 rotations, menacing the previous 2 and hard on its 1st attempt when Onslaught had its debut.
As for IT, sometimes only act 3, sometimes act6 and this time act8. But as for abyss, 36* the last 5 rotations.
I only run c0 characters with no signatures here.
My very cooked 4th alt that I'm trying to fix now has done menacing the last 2 cycles, before that only hard.
It has 36* twice but this rotation it is stuck on 35*.
I've vertically invested a bit into Chasca and Furina (c2 on both, Chasca got her signature as well) due to sheer luck. My 2nd team is Nilou bloom, whom I got Lauma for. I'm patiently saving for Zibai because as much as I love ayato c0 with craftable doesn't work even with a modern support (Xilonen).
IT sometimes does act6 but usually stays on act3.
In general I have a lot of fun trying to build up my bebe accounts and seeing them make progress