The combat shill mechanics are starting to get out of hand

I can easily clear Fearless with C0R0 characters without even trying - this cycle i did it in like 10 minutes - by using the shill units - Nefer, Varesa (not shilled, but good matchup), Neuv. It's boring as hell and doesn't give any sense of achievement.

In contrast, every single Stygian up until this point, I've been less comfortably clearing Fearless with low cost Ganyu teams - C0 supports, often 4\* weapons, usually multiple bosses. It's a grind to perfect the clears, but it's been possible.

This Stygian is the first time it's been completely impossible, not even close. Not only did they remove the "non-shill" boss that there usually is one of (e.g. Drake, Turtle, Herra), that allows for remotely creative teambuilding, and a chance to use some older units, but the minimum HP for Fearless bosses is now 9m, compared to \~6-8m in the past. Even C0R0 Mavuika struggles to clear FEARLESS difficulty Lunar-dog - this is a character that has powercrept basically every single pre-fontaine C6 unit at C0.

I want to end this by saying, I don't even care about the rewards at this point (even though I can get them all easily). Rewards like primos/feathers lose all value when the game becomes unplayable. What's the point of getting 1000 feathers and getting a perfect build on my favorite character if they are completely incapable of even scratching endgame content?

Same song and dance every year

Same set of posts whenever anything remotedly challenging drops

Same set of people making alternative strategies, or in its default, have Jean nuke the fuck out of it with fall damage

Repeat the cycle every patch endgame

>It is no secret that Hoyo wants you to pull the newest characters,

Almost as if that was the intention since day 1, but of course it "only starts to get out of hand now and never before"

The funny thing is, even with those, there are still cheaper clears out there.

> so mainly since the start of Fontaine they have began adding new combat mechanics outside the seven elements

1.x Slowing water

1.x Sheer cold

2.x Bleeding

2.x Energy absorption(vishaps)

>and certain bosses specifically designed to shill certain characters

1.0 Geo hypostasis: Either have a GS(grand total of 4) or a Geo(grand total of 3 counting traveler)

1.0 Oceanid, either have a long range bow user to shoot down the birds, or an electro catalyst(lisa) with the risk of dying on your own

1.5 Primo geovishap and Azhdaha, Shield "shill"

1.6 Magu Kenki counters long range combat, requires melee, Ayaka coincidentally drops next patch

>to drive up sales of new characters,

If you want the gacha to go EoS you do the opposite

>but recently all these unique combat mechanics are starting to get out of hand, mainly Since Natlan.

Yeah, lets ignore how even Papilla wasnt even a good "Natlan shill"

That might give you an argument in your favor, *might*

>For comparison in Natlan you had all the nightsoul stuff which required you to have at least 1 Character using nightsoul to deal with stuff more effectively, also you had 2 free characters with nightsoul (Kachina and PMC) so even if you didn't pull for any Natlan character you can just use one of these and it will greatly help in those specific scenarios.

With PMC locked behind completing the AQ which only released its finale by 5.3, so anything earlier, specially since 5.2, you had to make do with Kachina only. Which is why Papilla was bad as a nightsoul "shill", it was much weaker to Hydro femboy, than Nightsoul, and that says a lot about so called "powercreep"

>But in Nod-Krai they take that stuff one step further, you have the Ascendant Gleam party effect which requires you to have 2 Characters from Nod-Krai while you only get 1 free Nod-Krai character (Aino) so you have to get another one if you wish to have ascendant gleam. And that's not even mentioning the lunar reaction bullshit which is currently only enabled by 5 Star characters, so for example if you want to kill for example the new boss there is a 99% percent chance that you will have to pull one of the Nod-Krai 5 stars to go above menacing in the new stygian.

For example, the same boss thats extremely weak to grouping its small fries, and big AoE damage, which Mavuika has plenty off(or in its default, Arlecchino, Skirk and many other dps)

Lunar just make it possible to focus on the big guy alone, and clear it just fine

Then again, the only content that matters is hard, and thats Coop-able(and so is menacing btw), so not sure whats there to complain about

>What's next? in 7.X they will add another party effect effect, this time requiring 3 characters from Snezhnaya to activate, and bosses will take quadruple damage from the brand new Cryo-Reactions which will only be activated by the Tsaritsa and the Tsaritsa only.

You had an *attempt* at a "point" before

Unnecesary hyperbole just discreditted any possible seriousness you could have

What else is there for "cryo" to react besides Rimegrass?

Like it doesnt take much thinking prowess to realize how stupid you sound

>This is getting worrying, especially as an F2P. the shill is becoming increasingly more annoying to deal with, to the point where you are forced more and more to pull for the latest banners. not because you like the characters but because you want to clear Stygian/Abyss consistently,

As a "f2p", first you either do not care about meta

Or care about meta and plan your pulls accordingly

You cant be "f2p", not care about meta, and then have the only piece of content avaliable for those who pay, be adapted exclusively to your whiny needs

For once there is a piece of endgame where people can show off hard with their C6R5 charactersor clear up to the second to last level with C0R0 collection they have, and now you somehow want that to go away because you arent even pulling remotedly properly, or been smarter with your team setups, whichever works best, to "consistently" clear endgame

>In the first years of genshin mainly up until Natlan you could mostly ignore the meta

>mostly ignore the meta

>mostly

There is your fallacy in action

With that so called "mostly" you either had Venti to make Abyss a breeze in one side, and a competent dps on the other, or you couldnt clear Abyss, and considering it was the only source of refreshing primos besides events, you were basically doomed out of pulls, twice per month(which mind you it resetted more often in the past btw)

>and only build your favorite characters and their teams to clear End-Game content,

Interesting thing is I could probably bring Zhongli in 10~ days to Stygian and get a faster fearless clear than using "meta"

And yet he is not anywhere near meta

>but the meta is getting harder and harder to ignore.

>but the meta is getting harder and harder to ignore for myself

FTFY

You can ignore the meta, do whatever you can afford to do and skip primos, on the long run you are losing like 3 pulls a month at best

But since you are hellbent on getting every single primo, maybe reconsider your pull plans, and act accordingly

Or stop to think for 2 seconds before whining to reddit about endgame been any harder than it was before

>Older characters struggle to deal with the new mechanics

I mean, most clears still have someone like Childe been key for a "meta team" to get a clear in

So him "struggling" to deal with the new mechanics, is an overstatement

Hell, one of the stygian sides can be cheesed with Jean, the other just wants hydro, and as much as possible, which anyone as old as Hydro Femboy or Hydro , and the third one is weak to grouping and aoe damage. So where exactly are people struggling? When their cookie cutter teams cannot clear everything first try

>more and more and newer characters make combat increasingly more trivial, this is really starting to ruin the combat experience of end game content.

And then those characters would be "less useful" and some new ones "will replace them", and so on

Such is the nature of live service, gotta keep up people engaging with the game and not focus solely on 10 year old characters

And then there is the usual curveball of been able to run Xiao on one stygian side and have him hypercarry it on his own

Congrats on finally figuring out that Genshin is, in the end, still a gacha game, with all the BS gacha games come with.

they're not punishing you for not pulling the latest unit. They're punishing you for pulling the wrong units.

Durin is a newer character than Nefer or Flins. I have Durin. But he doesn't get shilled like the other two. They really can't shill him since he does nothing unique. If they shilled Durin, they will also shill Mavuika, so they really can't do anything to tempt you into pulling him.

As a rule of thumb, if they do something new, even if that just means renaming a reaction into something else and then shilling that new reaction, it will get more shilling than if they just had a standard kit.

The dog boss is a giant FU to anyone who skipped Nefer or Flins in favor of other 6.x characters, such as myself. It's not that I didn't pull NK characters. I just pulled the wrong ones. In previous years they didn't care, as long as you pulled someone.

I do not think Alice, Nicole, Varka (all of whom I'm interested in) will get shilling or be considered indispensable during 6.x unless they have some lunar mechanics. There might be some dmg% bonus for their element or damage type, but these bonuses will apply to other characters too so they are totally skippable.

TLDR: If there's a new mechanic, pull someone who has it because it will get artificially shilled hard. If it's just a traditional DPS who does bigger numbers, you can safely skip.

Can we just take lunar crystallize out and refund the rest of NK? Thank you. Heading to Sneezehnaya next.