Daily Questions Megathread (January 10, 2026)

are you gonna get anyone else on a rerun?
if not, id rather just recommend Ineffa that you could use with an Aino, if you ever get stopped by shill bosses

Columbina isnt gonna be useless, but we dont know any notable teams yet without at least one other NK character with Bina

For meta now no. Later there will be new characters (Alice, Nicolle, Sandrone - we don't know what they do, they are not "lunar"). Currently lunar has "deal x3 damage to enemy bar/state", just like Natlan dps had x3 to void shields. Most likely next gimmick will be same, so it's safe to skip if you don't like that characters and don't mind having less primos (worth of 1-2 pulls only) from abyss/theater if you struggle to clear that.

You will get a free Aino on the NK AQ, so it will unlock the ascendant gleam buffs. Having Bina automatically unlocks Lunar reactions for every team even if you don't have any other NK characters, which means that you'll be able to clear the NK gimmick.

You've caught up for now. Acts 7 and 8 will release with next week's update.

nope, you need to bypass it the normal way which is finding the right path
dont remember exact puzzle

usually there is a puzzle you have to do to get around the blue wall or removes them

typical hyperbloom, just onfield Columbina, and preferably not second dendro, i think
so you make use of the lunar charge buff too

Columbina, Lauma, Sucrose, Jahoda.

You can almost do whatever you want and the team will work so long as you are generating enough verdant dew for Lauma's hold E and Columbina's charged attacks. Sucrose is a strong contender for EM share to Lauma. Kuki adds some healing while also letting you get occasionall hyperblooms. That's a comp I'd consider but far from the only option.

Basically no; from the number I saw, without Nilou or Ineffa, the team isn't really better than Lauma hyperbloom. 


This said, it does lunar damage and allows you to be in ascendant gleam to deal with corresponding shill in Abyss/SO, and you can pick up Nefer on her rerun. If for some reason you are really against pulling Nefer... then I would go for Ineffa and play the proper Columbina on-field team (which mind you, is still worse than Nefer but reasonably good).

Go watch Zajef's pre-release, or just any of the CE videos that came out yesterday.

SMS works the same on whoever wears it on the team, youd just consider it on Columbina for the extra ER, which she typically needs due to being solo hydro in other teams
but if you have Aino in the same team, she can hold SMS with favonius, and use the new set coming on both Ineffa and Columbina
IF your fourth would be the onfielder

Yes, charge attack with L2 and aim with right stick.

the crit of both characters involved. the second one more

If the #1 contributor crits, the reaction hit as a whole crits. See: https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Damage#Reaction_Lunar-Charged

(Applies to lunar-charged, but it looks like lunar crystallize will work the same way)

your goal is next patch
dont use pulls on something you dont need

Aside from this patch, what other 'plunge content' have you struggled with? When this patch leaves and we get a new Stygian/Abyss rotation, what are the odds that Plunge continues to be a requirement?

If you really want to get Varesa for an overload team, and you like her playstyle from her trial, go for it. She's still a pretty solid option, fun to play and explore with, and you seem to be able to afford it. But if you want Columbina AND Ineffa next patch, I'd be saving for them. There's no need to have a dedicated 'plunge' team 99% of the time, even this Abyss/Stygian there are alternative methods to deal with most of the plunge checks.

Edit: Assuming you CURRENTLY have 300 pulls, adding the \~60 more from next patch first half, you've got a decent chance of getting 3 units. Otherwise, if you get unlucky with several max pitys, you might miss out on one of them next patch by going for Varesa.

Seems a bad reason to pull. It's not like plunge content is a common thing, it mostly shows up only when a plunge-related character features on a banner. And even if it were, the 100 primo's from maybe getting an extra Abyss star every few patches aren't really worth burning up to 28800 primo's for.

If you happen to like Varesa and always wanted a plunge team anyway it might be an option to pull, but for plunge content I'd just ignore it.

Especially when you have 360 pulls of characters coming next patch and, would have to lose your guarantee for that.

1u Cryo > 0.5u Pyro, because it's a reverse reaction. Overload is 1-1, Vape is 1-2, Swirl/Crystallize is 1-0.5, and I'm pretty sure Dendro does nothing at all.

TLDR; Hydro or Electro or suffer. And probably NOT a Lunar-Charged team since you can't put a Hydro aura on the shield, your EC/LC team will be on the Fatui anyway.

not 75%, after next loss and the guaranteed 5 star after that, youd have 100% CR trigger next

from what we know, there is a counter, you gain one if you lose a 50/50, lose if you win a 50/50
guaranteed CR is at 3
that CR triggering supposedly puts counter back to 1? or so they say

This is the best understanding to date: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/1hd1sqa/understanding_genshin_impacts_capturing_radiance/

Columbina + Ineffa would be really good, coming in 4 days or so. just those 2 in a team + any 2 I think would work well

You can try checking the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WIO9c7fwyYq9WO9GqmrnE5xMNGX5y5C0VF_QWVI8YeA

It’s not hard at all, you’re basically just following guides.

https://keqingmains.com/q/varesa-quickguide/#Playstyles

At C0 you should never use her regular burst. Just mini-burst every time it's available which at C0 should be after you do two of her skill - > dash - > plunge combo.

Yes. Ineffa is nore important to Flins than Columbina is.

Just fyi you didn't comment on whoever you meant to reply to.

No. The new set is good on Ineffa because she does a ton of personal damage and therefore makes a good buff target. Lauma's personal damage is nowhere close.

No. Nefer team is way easier to gear; Lauma goes on 2pc 2pc 80EM (you really want to max her EM while having enough ER, other stats are not that important), then you put SMS on Columbina and Deepwood on Nahida/Shinobu. Hence, you don't need to farm new artis.

Yes, as long as it was on the limited banner. You can check your wish history to confirm it, if the last 5 star character you got was a standard character you have guarantee.

Ineffa comes first. Then get Columbina if you can afford it.

Next patch I believe they said you will be able to craft two pieces per set.

You can make 2 artifacts for each set per patch. It used to be one and got increased to two in the current patch.

Yes you will be able to transmute the new set.

As others have stated- you can currently make 2 per set, per patch. (although only 1 of each type, like Goblet, Circlet, etc. within each set)

This will include all available sets with 5-star options, so you don’t have to wait. (Unlike the Strongbox)

You don't have much characters especially good DPS, unless you've really invested in artifacts you'll have a hard time unfortunately. Have you tried:

First half - Wanderer/Faruzan/Durin/Fischl

Second half - Gaming/Diona/Rosaria/Bennett?

Just get how many stars you can achieve.

Yes, her C1 reduces fuel consumption for run mode.

By doing the Mondstadt commissions. The quests are hidden behind them. Equivalent Exchange ie requires you to do Tzarevich's (?) all 3 commissions perfectly. 


/edit: just looked up the 2nd quest and it requires Venti's Story quest.

Yes she can convert reactions to their lunar counterparts.

Not much. She can convert 3 reactions to lunar types, but they won't do much damage, and other than hydro application, she does not really do anything else with non NK characters.

She does good offield dmg, and converts reactions to lunar reactions, which is great if you dont want to pull for NK chars AND want to do endgame confortably.

Nope

From yshelper's Wrio users in the last few cycles, usually 70%+ of them are C6, and it includes Wrio in a full team. Pre-C6 may not have enough number to be able to solo. R5 is much rarer than C6 and I don't think it is necessary.

The song is called Grief Spreading Like Haze and it [looks like](https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Radiant_Spincrystal) there's no Radiant Spincrystal of it unfortunately

Iansan is pretty decent as a support for Gaming as well. You can also run Sucrose as well. Looking through a few sims, it might have some trouble hitting the 70k mark mostly from the amount of energy that he needs to burst every rotation and if you don't need that energy then it can change the amount of offensive stats you can run. I would still expect that you could hit it with Iansan (currently not implemented in gcsim), but will grow stronger with time.

Non-C6 Gaming won't do the job. Just plan for some other carry, there are many more.

If it's for fun you can build and play him for overworld and stuff, you'll eventually get C6.

https://youtu.be/Xpr8l2pmCxw?si=PAgb6OJmRiLcy0fT&t=397

It seems that with Chev burst included, you have almost exactly the amount of shield break with setting up the team in order to get through the first shield. So you can start your rotation as normal.

Chinese if you care about perfect lip sync. japanese if you watch subbed anime.

Still JP. I think because the VO industry is much more established in Japan? Also Genshin is anime styled, so Japanese generally sounds more natural.

> there is a war in the archon story

>!Yes!<

>you need to be fast and all that

>!You would want to complete it. The more side stuff you do the more people you potentially save!<

> when does that happen

>!I think it was act 3 of the natlan archon quest!<

Yes, there is a great war, and a lot of NPC will die, including some we have met with a name and dialogues. None of playable characters would die anyway.

Yes, though I personally found that many people were exaggerating it. I was so anxious going into it that I wasn’t gonna be able to get a low death count due to all the videos I watched where people got very high death counts, and then it turned out that I got an extremely low death count 😭

for new accounts, you'd want a "flexible" DPS first. Xilonens prime time is already over. For my sense of "optimal for a newer account" would be Ineffa at the moment as next upcoming characters. Her with Aino is already a strong enough duo to easily do all content, including Abyss Floor 11 and the lvl 90 Stygian Onslaught.

Small up- and downside of Ineffa, she has a good shield, so you'll not learn to dodge as well.

You can't answer those questions without knowing the roster. For instance, Universal is just a buzzword, you won't have the universe in your account, you'll have few characters and you'd rather have supports that do well for those than some rando who's "universal".

Xilonen is good if you wanna play Mavuika, already have Citlali, and don't have C2+ Iansan or Sucrose. If you don't have Citlali, you should prioritize her, cause Citlali + those 4 stars is about as good, while Xilonen + No Citlali is not really that good.

She is also good for Neuvillette, but again lower priority than Furina for similar reasons. Neuvillette + Furina + random bs is always better than Neuvillette + Xilonen + randos.

Others have better options most of the times.

She was very good and flexible at the time of her release, and is still effective now, but the game marches steadily onward and characters from a year ago aren't going to remain relevant forever. At this point I would consider most of the Natlan characters luxury picks *unless* you specifically want their exploration abilities (like Xilonen's wall-riding) which newer characters don't have nearly as much of.

Absolutely skip. Xilonen usage rate is high, but she isn't really needed for any top team. Even Mavuika is actually stronger with C6 Iansan (barring some energy/fightning spirit issues in SO).

We are well past the time where you should go for "universal buffers" - supports nowadays are tailored for very specific teams. What you should do is to target one top team of your choice and then pull the 2-3 5\* characters required to make that team. For example, pulling Columbina+Ineffa next patch and then Flins in 6.4 would immediately give you a top team. Since you are a new players, you should have plenty of exploration primos at your disposal.

Without a Nod-Krai Lunar 5 star Columbina is hard to argue for unfortunately

Also, is this under the assumption that you played during Fontaine and Natlan or did you just return? I'm confused

**Anyway**, you should post a screenshot of your roster via imgur or another link site you prefer. People will be able to give you a more informed answer imo

Get Ineffa first then maybe Bina. Or just skip the whole Nod-Krai cast.
Essentially characters come in bundles nowadays.

Wait a couple weeks, don't pull anything, then come back and ask again.

At that point, we will know what Varka does once he is released in 6.4. It is very likely that his best team will include him, Durin, and Venti. Do you have Venti? If you started in 1.0 and then stopped playing in 3.x, I assume yes...

Both won't be in 6.3? Or am I not understanding you?

Not yet

Monday.

Around 0% at C0 level.

I found a gcsim simulation of C0 Skirk Furina Escoffier Shenhe with 4-star weapons (https://gcsim.app/db/CWghGjbztRKj), and the dps at a specific config is 129k. A similar simulation of Mona version (https://gcsim.app/db/nqJBpqKFzjnC) submitted by the same user with same config has 131k, even higher than Shenhe.

you can look up teams here:

[https://gcsim.app/db/nfzfrGgqgGMj](https://gcsim.app/db/nfzfrGgqgGMj)

[https://gcsim.app/db/kQmbhKcwzRcp](https://gcsim.app/db/kQmbhKcwzRcp)

eyeballing it, Thrilling Tales > Shenhe.

People already answered on the Shenhe/Mona part - initially TCers had tried to come up with Shenhe double E rotations, but they just don't work well once better Skirk combos were found. Shenhe with one E per rotation is just not too good. Outside of Mona, other good units are Citlali and Mualani, since they give you TToDS + scroll.

Now for your plan: I am not sure this is going to work. We have no idea what Nicole does. Escoffier will likely rerun in 6.4, and I think Nicole is now predicted to be released 6.6. Therefore, you would have to pull either Varka or Escoffier without knowing whether / how much Nicole boosts Varka's team.

Depends is she onfield or off?

Because the onfield set adds 30% CR.

66% from artifacts and weapon. She ascends with crit rate (19.2% at lv.90) + another 15% from her A1 passive.

Columbina: Skill activation: 1U; moonwheel: 1U every 2 seconds (same as Kokomi); burst activation: 2U.

Furina: skill activation: 1U; crab: 1U every 4.8 seconds; seahorse: 1U every 2 hits, and the seahorse can attack every 1.19s; octopus: 1U every 2 hits, and the octopus can attack every 2.9s; burst activation: 1U.

C6 Candace: 1U every 2.3 seconds, require NA

Nilou: tranquility aura: a special 1.9s/4hits ICD, technically 1U every 2 seconds; skill activation and dance step: follow standard 2.5s/3hit ICD. Burst: 2 hits, both 1U no ICD.

Kokomi's jellyfish is also 1U every 2s.

[https://keqingmains.com/q/jahoda-quickguide/](https://keqingmains.com/q/jahoda-quickguide/)

Jahoda as a much worse Sucrose I guess..

Do you have a spare Sucrose?

Xilonen, since you get ascendant gleam bonuses from having a non Nod Krai unit.

But why not Sucrose?

Not really, but if you want to make the reaction stronger, you need ascendant gleam so a second nk character is necessary.

First off, they do still send rewards when they win prizes, but they have never sent rewards for anything that was a player's voice vote. Even then, it was never that much.

They very rarely have huge character bugs that need fixing now as that mostly gets ironed out in betas these days.

The amount of primogems the players receive has actually been pretty consistent over time. Just because you get them from other sources now does not mean that they don't exist. On top of that, they've started giving us free 5 star constellations as well.

Overall, it's about the same as we always got. Some patches it's a bit more or less, but it's generally level. Then we get extra stuff beyond that.

hoyo has almost unlimited manpower for the majority of testing and the like, I'm told that can't be compared to.. other game studios. the effect it seems, near 0 errors or even bugs. real bugs, not stuff like graphical issues.

I'd bet hardware issue then, as there's no special trick to make genshin work on PS5s

if there's a lore reason for them to canonically change outfits after next patch's AQ then it *might* be in the succeeding AQs. no way to know atm tho.

Yesn't. Her raw healing is plenty to keep a team like that alive but she can't heal on demand since it's tied to triggering reactions, my experience has been it's fine for sustaining in combat but if you need sudden burst healing (like you messed up and ate a big hit, or need to top up during an invul phase) you'll need another healer.

She needed the name to anchor her to reality. She was literally dying before she got the chance to go to the moon. She has always wanted to go to the moon.

To add to the other comment, we also learned in Simulanka that names are closely related to a person's fate in Teyvat. So since she has no real name, the world has no place for her

Just wanted to add to Rogue's comment that I think the name being related to a person's fate has been foreshadowed since the first archon quest of the game. When people start calling Dvalin 'Stormterror' and it was Amber said something like: 'The people of Mondstadt have since forgotten Dvalin's name'.

The one within the city and the one near springvale are from [Kaeya's story quest](https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Mystery_of_the_Arcadian_Ruins#Quest_Notes). I'm not sure about the one near whispering woods, but it's probably for some other quest.

>!I was considering the rooftop above the town from where we left off in the AQ!<

Lucky boulder in a friend's teapot as always.

The Rock provides.

Wherever I happen to have logged out before the patch. Likely in front of Katheryne, or the artifact domain.

In terms of what it does better, the first thing that comes to mind would be the dialogue. The dialogue in Star Rail, especially with the newer story arcs, tends to run into an issue where it's hard to understand what's going on because characters feel the need to wax philosophy with every other line of dialogue that comes out of their mouth. Genshin typically doesn't run into this issue, at least no where near as often.

As for what Genshin does worse, i'd probably say worldbuilding. Genshin *does* have a very fascinating world, and arguably a more interesting one than Star Rail once you know everything, but for the most part, a lot of the juicer stuff is hidden behind optional content and readables that just don't come into focus with the main story. This is an issue that the devs have addressed and been fixing with the most recent arc, but it still plagues earlier ones.

I agree w/ the other response about the dialogue for sure.

I also think that Genshin's antagonists are clearer. We have the Abyss, Abyss Order, Fatui, and it's simple enough to get what's going on. Abyss = inherent evil, Abyss Order wants to use inherent evil as a tool, Fatui might have goals that are "correct," but go about them in ways that hurt others. This also leads each story arc to be pretty straightforward. Natlan is at war with the Abyss, the Abyss is bad, so the good guys will fight the evil force together.

Compared to HSR where there are a lot more factions, motivations that aren't clear yet, forces at work that aren't clear, stories that include memory manipulation/dreams/unreality/amnesia so that the "facts" might change in the next patch.

I think there are pros and cons to both. I get annoyed when it seems like every two seconds something in HSR can be retconned or waved away because it was a dream or a simulation or a false reality or a different timeline or whatever; if the audience can't trust *anything* then it's unsatisfying to me. However, I like how characters can be more fluid in their morality and alliances. Ruan Mei, Sparkle, the IPC characters, the Stellaron Hunters, Jingliu and Luocha, Sunday, whatever Dan Feng's whole deal was...they are all interesting and aren't just "good" or "bad," and can still be playable.

For me it's getting me to actually care about the characters. I played all the way through the Penacony story and realized I couldn't give two shits about what happens to any of the characters. That's when I decided to put it down and walk away. Haven't picked it up since.

Columbina isn't a compelling pull in the first place if you don't have other Nod Krai 5\*s to run her with. She will do little to nothing for your existing teams. If you want to just pull her for the sake of her character, that is of course up to you.

Ineffa does slot decently into these teams. You could do something like Arle / Ineffa / XQ / Bennett or Neuv / Ineffa / Xilonen / Furina.

The skin reward is permanent, don't worry.

avg businesswoman.

She's basically an unscrupulous merchant that will do anything that gets a profit, except for something that breaks her morals or the law. This includes tricking little kids into playing impossible-to-win games. Her profits, however, do go towards the betterment of people in need. So to her, she's probably taking off the extra money from people that have the luxury of spending it on games and gives it to the people that desperately need it instead. She also, in a way semi-protects Kaveh from unscrupulous money lenders too, by being his own money lender.

The Robin Hood of Merchants that targets little kids as well.

Goblin (affectionate)

There are a few missable chests during the archon quest. Are you sure you didn't miss one of those?

The archon quest ones wouldn't count towards the achievement total, so it should be an overworld chest somewhere. Did you complete the [3 day ghost chef quest](https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/The_Chef%27s_Tale)?

if you plan to use Hexerei teams, Albedo's C1 and Mona's C2/C4 are good

Otherwise, none of the cons are that impactful, pick the character you use most often

albedo has the most value after the buffs, other than that nobody else offers much

We don't know what the odds are at 2 losses in a row. Just that it's a small chance, with it being guaranteed after 3 losses in a row.

Iirc yes you're on 75/25

50/50 for the regular, another 50/50 for the radiance.

1/2 chance to lose the first, 1/2 to lose the second. Multiply to make it consecutive, that's 1/4 chance of losing 50/50. Complement makes your odds 3/4 or 75%.

Depending on your whole 50:50 history, could be 100%. There’s a hidden counter, not just how many losses in a row.

The new set is arguably more an Ineffa set than a Columbina set, and you should indeed be running it on her -- even if silken were providing its full ascendant gleam effect.

Venti and Durin would both be on the new set yes, with Benny on NO and Faru on Tenacity.

They're called shrine of the depths, there are a set number in each region and you'll get enough keys to open all of them so don't worry about it.

Tangentially related, bosses are best source of gems. But usually don’t want to farm a boss more than what you need for the specific boss drop. If REALLY low AR, make sure to buy out sigil store in Mondstat and Liyue. And do the weekly boss fights, even beyond the discounted first 3. If you are AR40, can fight later weekly bosses via handbook. Last, you can buy Dust of Azoth from Paimon Bargain to switch gem element. But make sure you leave 750-1500 currency to buy monthly 10 wishes. And the less you convert the better, but can be helpful in a pinch.

Those are called *shrines of depths*. In every region there are exactly enough keys to open all of them, and these keys aren't missable in any way. Individual shrines also give identical loot.

If you see one and you've got keys, feel free to open it. There's no real reason not to.

You can use any character that apply hydro off field technically. Nilou, furina, kokomi, barbara, xingqiu. But the damage willl be lower with them. And aino burst also has 12 sec cooldown, making her perfect for flins team rotation.

You could use Xingqiu or Furina, but honestly Aino is still better. Especially if you have her at least at C1. She has a burst cooldown which fits in perfectly with Flins' rotations, no need to use NAs to apply hydro or have a healer to compensate for low health and have those characters be available for other teams which suits them better. Don't know how a hex team with Mona and Sucrose would work, but I doubt it's better than Aino.

Only outright better hydro than her would be Columbina who will be released in 3 days.

Columbina is far from being a flexible support if you don't have a Nod Krai 5* character. Ineffa fits that bill more.

In any case, I would get Ineffa first since this is her rerun already. She is also more important to Flins than Columbina is.

Columbina isn't flexible at all. She pairs well with the Nod Krai 5\* cast; any team without at least one of them is pretty cope.

Ineffa is the way to go.

Electro/lunar charge doesn't completely erase element aura on enemy unlike vape or melt. After elector/lunar charge happen the enemy usually still have hydro/electro aura so arle normal attack would react to that aura. That's why the comp is called arle overvape as arle NA attack would result in overload or vape depending on enemy aura.

It's traditional overvape, with Ineffa simply being a very strong off fielder. And it's nothing much to do with the actual lunar charged reaction either. She is with EC/LC as Emilie is with burning; as long as you keep the reaction going consistently, they'll do a ton of plain old talent damage.

With regard to aura specifics: electro & hydro happily coexist. Incoming pyro reacts with the electro aura first and only gets a vape if leftover pyro gets through. But while the electro & hydro auras don't chunk away at each other like other reactions, they do tick each others' GU down at an increased rate (0.4 GU from both with every tick of EC damage, which occur at 1 sec intervals). That means that frequently, if your electro, hydro & pyro applications are all 1 GU, the electro & hydro auras are at *something* less than 1 while the pyro comes in with exactly 1. Since overload is a 1:1 GU reaction, the 1 GU pyro fully wipes the < 1 GU electro, and the remaining < 1 GU pyro depletes very little from the hydro aura because that's a reverse reaction.

Still, depending on application timing (such as with a slower pyro applier like Arle) and if your application GUs are different, you may get fewer vapes than you would without the electro. But not by too much, and Ineffa's personal damage is massively worth this tradeoff (even if you had, say, XQ instead of Columbina).

See also: https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Elemental_Gauge_Theory/Simultaneous_Reaction_Priority#Electro_+_Hydro

E: typo, clarificaton

Columbina / Fischl have no particular synergy. If you can only get one, you want Ineffa. You could run a typical Arle overvape team with her / Ineffa / [hydro, like XQ] / Bennett.

Bennett would be a good last spot

https://old.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/1pclyi8/genshin_impact_update_luna_iii_hub

Yes

limited characters shared between both character banners
limited weapons
chronicled wish
standard banner
have separate pity, and pity carries over. indefinitely
even if history is gone

EM/EM/Crit can generally give u more value because of scarlet sands passive.

just go for atk/atk/crit
and go for as much EM substats as you can manage
Ineffa already has passive turning atk into EM, and separate for increasing lunar charge

very useful
not sure how much they compare as is
but shovel, when refined is gonna be better

slight issue with missive is just swapping back in to keep up the passive, which wont trigger off field
shovel is constant and straight up increases lunar charge

If you feel like it's worth spending the money then go for it. Many of the weapons are great on a variety of characters [often better than most other 4 stars but never better than a 5 star weapon]. Don't know off the top of my head any weapons that'd boost the characters you listed [keqingmains dot com is a better resource for that info], but it isn't a bad idea to grab one for a later character.

You get a ton of resources, pulls, and primos, and you what have the option of saving said resources for a character you want to build rather than using them right now.

Personally I am not f2p and do buy the battle pass, but I didn't make that decision until I was a bit farther into the game, understood mechanics better, and was genuinely having a great time. I do think it's worth it for me, but it's not like I'd be screwed without it.

the extra pulls, the extra mats(saves a lot of time) and the extra resin are honestly a bigger deal than the weapon. its mostly the total that makes it worth it. if you just wanted pulls, sub is better over time

Wolf fang is good on Keqing and Durin and a few others. Black sword is for Clorinde and Skirk i guess.
Serpent Spine is good on any claymore character. ignore the other one
you got Lost Prayer, catalysts are not worth it. ignore the bows,
both polearms would be good if you actually had any characters to use it(maybe a Flins rerun). if you raise up Xiangling, go fish for The Catch

seriously using too many unnecessary favonius. try crafting something
add Dendro to a Keqing Fischl team

To start, either option is totally viable, so you don't have a bad choice. I would pick the one you like more since Lunar and Mav are both great. But telling you something you already know isn't what you're here for, so let me yap a bit to hopefully give you more info to use.

Aside from pure dps, team variety and flexibility are big considerations if you want to clear Stygian with minimal character pulls and try to future-proof your charas so they don't become redundant.

We don't have full details on Varka yet, but the assumption right now is that he'll want to pair with Durin as the newest Hex character. Depending on how his kit works in regards to infusion/swirl, it's possible that the team ends up doing as much, or more, pyro damage compared to anemo damage. I don't want to speculate too much since we don't have solid info, but it's possible that Varka's best team ends up dealing so much pyro damage that he wants to be used in the same content as Mavuika. Not 100%, of course, since we could get anemo immune enemies (after they're done shilling Varka of course) that Mav would be better for, etc.

It's also possible that Varka ends up being very flexible by pairing with Venti + 2 other element combos to be useful in most element-shilled content.

All that is to say - Mavuika is very strong, especially with Citlali, but personally if I had both Durin and Varka, I would consider investing in another element at that point. Even if Varka himself can't handle certain content, DPS Durin is solid as well with C6 Benny.

Additionally, it's hard to gauge when Citlali will next rerun. Though I'd expect Hoyo to keep her close-ish with Mavuika, we never know for sure. Mavuika + Ineffa in overload is a little bit cope but it would work while waiting for Citlali if you go that route.

Also, while talking about Mavuika, it's inevitable to also talk combos. Her wheel spin is fun, but if you want to squeeze out her max DPS her combos get kind of cringe. Ex: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEliNlC_Nh0&t=156s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEliNlC_Nh0&t=156s)

Columbina, although not as strong as Ineffa or Lauma as solo Lunar support, is a really appealing option imo because she does a lot of things. She has long-lasting, broad hydro application that a lot of characters appreciate. She enables all Lunar reactions while the content is being shilled, albeit at 7% instead of 14%, plus the rest of the kit.

With Ineffa in particular, Columbina + Ineffa is going to be one of the strongest wheelchair cores we've ever had. On-fielding Sucrose is not going to be that much worse than Flins. Might not be what you want since you mentioned not loving Ineffa, but from a pure gameplay perspective Flins is behind Columbina+Ineffa in his own team.

The same applies for Nefer to an even greater degree. Lauma is broken, and it's only with her that I think on-field Columbina becomes a strong option.

If I were starting a new account right now, investing into Lauma, Columbina, and Ineffa (in that order) would be my personal priorities because of the team variety and power the three of them offer.

That said, if you like Flins, it's not impossible to skip Ineffa and instead choose Columbina. Yes, Flins + Columbina is a weaker core than Flins + Ineffa if we're talking about 2-unit cores, but Columbina is so flexible. I value that more than a ~5-10K dps increase. This also allows you to pull for Lauma or Zibai in the future if you like either of them, who both pair extremely well with Columbina.

7.X characters will inevitably have a new gimmick, but I wouldn't expect the current run of characters to be power crept *that* quickly, so whichever route you go I think you'll be safe for a long time to come.

EM buffing through her a1 and a4 passives.

Depends on what characters you have. But I feel Xilonen will help as she can fit with a lot of teams. But again, the decision is yours. If you don't have a strong DPS, prob go for Varessa.