I feel like my HSR account has officially graduated

[tanithryudo]

Finally able to complete the endgame: Forgotten Hall level 12 and Pure Fiction 4. Haven't done Apocalyptic Shadow 4 yet since the time limit for that will roll over to the next monthly battlepass track, and I am considering saving it for then, but I don't forsee any issues with passing that either, since the current AP bosses are fairly easy/straightforward according to all sources.

With Forgotten Hall, I initially tried Himeko + Topaz on team 1. But it seems like the superbreak pair of Ruan Mei and Harmony MC is better used together with the break-weak boss on this level. And that leaves only 1 DPS slot, in which case, Himeko is weaker than Jing Yuan (didn't consider Topaz as she's more sub-DPS and also non-AoE). Also, their follow up attacks trigger about the same amount of times in the fight, and thus trigger about the same amount of dungeon bonus.

With team 2, Clara + Bronya make for a great duo on my account, since I have Clara built for all damage and no speed, whereas Bronya has decent speed (currently 152 and still trying for 160) and can pull Clara along. Topaz is there as SP-positive subDPS to focus on the main boss, and help trigger the dungeon bonus. Luocha as it turns out can sustain the team just fine (as long as no one gets one-shot) and half the load for debuff clearing is picked up by Bronya anyways, who's keeping Clara in the clear.



For Pure Fiction, I actually got really close to the pass threshold with the same team, but slightly less built Hanya. Turns out I just needed to raise her to to level 80, fill in her last trait with +8% ATK, and swap her lightcone for Bronya's. Not too much which of these made the main difference... the added traits, or the change in LC, since the better LC also allowed her to generate more SP, which could be critical for a team with a SP-hungry DPS such as DHIL.

Anyway, having Hanya working so well makes me less inclined to pull for the Sparkle rerun banner coming up next with Jiaoqiu. Even if she's touted as DHIL's best support due to providing SP and speed. I mean, she's essentially a Hanya-plus. But if Hanya works ok for endgame content, and I don't have a non-gameplay preference for Sparkle's character, I don't feel there's a need to pull.



Speaking of pulls, the current rumors for the 2.5 patch (the one with the story update after Jiaoqiu's banner coming up next) is that the first half will be Feixiao plus a trio 5* rerun of Robin + Kafka + Black Swan. Then second half will be Lingsha + Dr Ratio.

My current plans are to get Feixiao + her LC (because most Hunt LC I have suck). Then Dr. Ratio's LC for the pretty. Also considering on getting Robin and maybe her E1 (but not LC because there's lots of great free Harmony LCs), because she's the best/most hyped support right now. Will see how my luck goes with pulls, and whether we get news of when Aventurine rerun occurs.

Addendum: Newest rumors say that Lingsha's banner will rerun with Topaz instead of Dr. Ratio. Not sure how reliable this is, since Topaz just had a first rerun recently, and it seems weird she'd be the first character to rerun twice ahead of so many others. On the other hand, she's touted as best support DPS for Feixiao, so they might be trying to boost sales by bringing her up again. On the third hand, testers have also claimed that the Hunt-March and the new 4 star Moze on the Feixiao banner are also great supports for her, so it's not like Topaz is a must have on her team. On the fourth hand, if Ratio is kept back, then he'll likely show up along with Aventurine's rerun, which is a cute arrangement if so. Anyways... I guess we'll wait and see. All is fine as long as they're not rerunning Aventurine immediately, cuz that would really be a crunch on my jades.

Comments

[cashew]

Of course the better design (and business) decision is to have different best-in-slot supports for different popular DPS.

I'd argue that's a great way to get people to stop spending as soon as they got their BiS support. Why get the new unit that doesn't benefit their favorite? The only way to induce more spending is power creep and force a new favorite onto the fanbase. And ppl who prefer less popular DPS units will simply leave or stop spending since they're getting nothing worthwhile from the new pulls.

Given there are much fewer support units compared to DPS, it would make much more sense for support to benefit more DPS units so ppl with different DPS builds will all want to pull on the new unit. I never said the new unit should somehow obsolete the old units, as BiS for support would, presumably like other unit types, be dependant on the needs of the dungeon. Just like shield & heal units appeal to different types of strategies, support should also presumably appeal to different strategies. Hinging a support unit on the availability of a limited time DPS unit is pretty much a sure fire way to guarantee lack of popularity, even if that DPS is popular. Gamers aren't stupid, they know their DPS is going to get power crept at a later date. There's no reason to invest in a support unit that has low compatibility with future DPS release.

Since you said non-acheron DPS get the same out of Jiaoqiu as a healer, then what would be the appeal of pulling him? Even if Acheron mains pulled him, they'll have to abandon Acheron when power creep comes in, and consequently have wasted resources on Jiaoqiu who won't be worth taking on a non-acheron team.

[tanithryudo]

The way Star Rail design process works is that you have characters/teams centered around a particular mechanic. There's usually 1-2 DPS, 1-2 supports, 1-2 sustains forming the core of the mechanic. And the characters are spread out and sold over time until you build up that best in slot team (that is, assuming you're a hardcore gamer pursuing the meta).

Then the weekly/monthly "dungeons" are balanced around the current banner character and/or the current mechanic.

So yeah, pure numbers wise, old DPS like DHIL and Jingliu can do as much damage as current DPS on paper. But the current endgame doesn't cater to their strengths and mechanics, so they don't perform as easily as the current "meta" teams. Hence people who pursue the current best "meta" are always going to be pulling for the latest "core" DPS/support/sustains. When the next mechanic rolls around (probably with 3.0 patch), people who pursue the meta will shell out for those characters.

> Since you said non-acheron DPS get the same out of Jiaoqiu as a healer, then what would be the appeal of pulling him?

For the people who don't care about the meta, they're usually pulling by the looks or the lore or the character design, so they don't really pertain to this discussion at all.

[cashew]

Hence people who pursue the current best "meta" are always going to be pulling for the latest "core" DPS/support/sustains.

...So what would be the logic of releasing a support that can't out perform previous supports in the latest meta? I mean, you're saying:

1. the only motivation for these hard core players is to chase the current meta

2. Jiaoqiu is the most recent support released but doesn't fit into the core meta build

So...how would Jiaoqiu be sold to these guys? These hard cores are going to be the main whales in a gacha game. They're the ones you can count on to spend constantly and consistently, swapping out their entire team for the newest meta combo. As you said, those who are pulling for looks and don't give a toss about meta aren't even going to bother to look at new units when they've already pulled their ideal pretties. And if they do pull, it's not reliable and they're unlikely to become whales.

Not to mention I find it highly unlikely Jiaoqiu is a XP only type of unit, given how little the story has helped to sell his character (unlike Jing Yuan who seem to be sold purely on characterization and has a huge chunk of story focus dedicated to him).

[tanithryudo]

Acheron is a meta DPS (along with Firefly having the highest rate of player pulls for recent DPS), so in that respect, people who want the best support for Acheron pulling for Jiaoqiu is pursuing the meta...

And then there's the people who buy E6 for all characters anyway (mostly to show off how rich they are I guess?), but it doesn't matter if the character is meta in that case.

[cashew]

Acheron is a meta DPS (along with Firefly having the highest rate of player pulls for recent DPS)

I mean it really sounds like, from what you're describing, newer units are making older units obsolete. Hence my comment about I really don't think they should be designing such that there's obvious advantage like this. I'm getting from the other comment thread that you're saying this is the result of dungeon design, but it's effectively achieving the same effect: only have one meta DPS at a time. That's bad game design because...again, why bother investing when in another 4-5 months, new DPS is gonna take over as the new meta.

I mean, there's no chance of any older units ever returning back to the meta cycle based on what you're describing, so anyone who ever invests in any character is purely doing it for pretty and not gameplay unless they try to whale. That's pretty much the fastest way to generate churn. And most service games want to minimize churn.

[tanithryudo]

> newer units are making older units obsolete

Depends on where you set the goalpost for obsolete. Old DPS are still functional and they'll do the job, just not as easily or as fast. The current meta DPS will feel much easier and faster to play in the current meta suited for them, but if you just look at objective numbers, they don't generally get you more rewards or anything.

> only have one meta DPS at a time

And there's generally 2-3 mechanics/teams that are "currently meta" at any time, because the endgame all require 2 simultaneous teams, and because a full team takes time to build up (sell) and it's not like they're generally all released back to back. The staggered release means as the new "meta" is in the process of building up to their full potential, the previous meta teams would still remain relevant in pure numbers, if not in mechanics.

Currently, meta is the Acheron team and the Firefly team, with Yunli team a bit behind them. Before them, the meta teams were headed by Seele, DHIL, Jingliu, Kafka (DoT). Currently, DHIL and Kafka teams are still valid and played by people who either didn't spend/pull/play the 2.x DPS, just from raw damage (Jiaoqiu can also potentially stand-in as a slight downgrade of Black Swan in Kafka teams for those who didn't pull her since he does do some DoT). Seele can often do well in some scenarios too, because all her mechanic requires is that there are side fodder-mobs to feed on; she's just more fiddly to play, but day-1 players who have her should presumably be used to it.

Jingliu is the only one who's kinda faded out from usage except for the rarer occasions when a boss will have ice vulnerability. Though her case is different as it's less she's been powercreeped as more like the devs just don't like the ice element or something... Presumably once we ever get an ice DPS in the future, and dungeons start having a lot more ice weak enemies, Jingliu will become relevant again for people who don't want to pull the new DPS.

The next change in mechanics is rumored to be coming in the 3.0 update. But that won't start until next year. So the 2.x meta teams still have plenty of time to shine before they get "replaced". Similarly, the 1.x meta teams had plenty of time to shine too, because while Acheron came in the 2.0 patch, Firefly didn't come around until 2.2 or 2.3 IIRC, which was near mid-year.

> there's no chance of any older units ever returning back to the meta cycle

There's some exceptions, such as when there's overlap between mechanics. For example, Yunli is an explicit upgrade of Clara (standard banner character, so you can't pay to specifically pull her, and thus ok to replace with a limited 5 star). This means that situations suited for Yunli will also be 70-80% suited for Clara (more if you just pull Yunli's lightcone and give it to Clara).

But in general, yeah, older units aren't expected to become meta. But that doesn't mean they're not usable or anything. Having older DPS with the right element works fine for completing the endgame.

Case in point, I don't have any of the currently meta DPS: Acheron, Firefly, or Yunli, or even a lot of the meta-supports like Sparkle, Robin, Huohuo, Aventurine (my healer Luocha is considered "obsolete" by meta-chasers). But this initial post is me completing the endgame anyways. And the 5 stars I used were "never-been-meta" Jing Yuan, "replaced-by-Yunli" Clara, "replaced-by-Sparkle" standard banner Bronya, standard banner Himeko. The only "meta" characters I have are HarmonyMC (free), Ruan Mei, and Topaz.

> so anyone who ever invests in any character is purely doing it for pretty and not gameplay

That's the best way to play this game, IMO. I don't know how much of a percentage that hardcore players who always chase the meta make up in this game. But from my experience in the EN reddit community, at least most of the people there don't seem to be chasing raw numbers.

At most, they'll consider if they need a DPS of a particular element, but rarely more than that. Or, on reruns, if a particular characters has had overwhelmingly positive reviews by people who pulled them the first round, people might be inclined to get them the second round.