So finally caught up with the Lantern Rite quests and yeah, they really went all out for those characters. However, I doubt they'd go to all the trouble to make up those designs for characters that we'll never see in person, much the same with the other four Vigiliant Yaksha.

However, there is one thing that caught my attention in the dialogue, I don't even remember who it was attributed to, but it definitely ties into something greater.

Spoiler: It involves the Chasm

I'm pretty sure Ping says Ghizhong makes reference that even the Adeptus at some point will have to return to where they came from 'down below' which could only mean one thing - the weird time-displacement void where we learn the fate of Bosacus and the Fantastic Compass or whatever it was called, before the fancy escape sequence where LITERAL HELL DEMONS try to pull the crew back into the ground. I'm certain this is not the Abyss, but something much more primal if concepts such as time do not apply.

I wouldn't say it's an impossibility they'll pull some time travel shit in the future and bring back the dead Yaksha or Ghizong, especially if the plan is to make them playable characters with those slick designs, but I think it much more likely we're going to travel back in time 500 years at some point and meet them right before their demise when we get to the bottom of what the actual fuck happened in Kenriah, along with what deal Zhongli made that was worth keeping his mouth shut before shit even went down in the first place as he says at the end of his second story quest.

Also, side note, but in terms of quests with the desert, I did complete the first "golden slumber" questline and unlocked the researcher's quest but I haven't progressed it yet. Now that part 2 of the Golden Slumber questline involving the daughter is in the newer desert area, should I finish the researcher's questline first before tacking that one?

 

Oh my god, when the Alhaitham story quest ends, it doesn't end in the best way.

There's an entire VOICED cutscene that happens if you just walk forward. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with what the story quest was about but it's GLORIOUS.

 

Yes. Try to do all the research/1st golden slumber stuff first. Part 2 has a canonical time-skip even, it's not "the next day/week" after part 1.

I also suspect you may run into some major "this NPC is involved in another quest" issues if you don't.

 

Completed the Aranara world quest yesterday; It's quite an intricate Quest, perhaps the longest World Quest I've played so far, but man I'm having a blast and I actually almost cried near the ending part. I actually felt that I went on a proper adventure with an actual beginning and end, all of the lore introduced in this quest (and the potential implications) is really intriguing and does make me want to know more about Sumeru. Despite the length, the gameplay and puzzles are varied enough that I never felt like I was actually bored playing it which is good (Except for how some of the quest domains halfway through, having a bow character in your party is absolutely mandatory to further progress and the game never gives you any kind of recommendation beforehand)

Speaking of Aranara, I also found this very well-made fanmade video (narrated from Lumine's POV, which pleases me since I choose her as my Traveler) which is also a good summary of the whole Aranara quest - and distills its essence really well.

[Eng sub] Lumine tells the Aranara story in the form of a children's flipbook! (Fan-made by 愚人戏社 group)

Damn, the Genshin CN community was just built differently, aren't they? Even though it’s fanmade, it's very well-produced and does look like something the actual developers can come up with.

 

The Asian fans are definitely a different breed. Definitely keep an eye open during Anniversary and CNY, because they host "Hoyofair" for fanart showcases, and there's a lot of mindblowing amateur productions that get carted out for those. Since you're newer here, here's some especially epic ones you might've missed, unless you've been going back and scouring this thread back from the beginning:

Original fan-song sung by the actual CN VA's (Eng Sub available):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrNUrgaOsCc

 

Yelan and Deyha Steals A Car was the one that REALLY impressed me this year.

 

It's amazing that (much like Enkanomiya) you can easily completely miss/skip the whole Aranara questline. And you're missing out if you do.

Anyways, my faves:

 

Forgot about this one, for all you Paimon lovers out there:

 

NGL, this is... freakin amazing, and it's also with this fanmade MV that makes me kinda realize... Putting aside the developer's bizarre decision to overuse Paimon to deliver expositions and take away your urgency narrative-wise as the actual MC aside (Honestly, half of her in-game voiced dialogues could've been given to the Traveler instead and it won't make much difference, and if anything it could've been an improvement), I never actually hated Paimon that much and the idea behind her.

Spoiler

Man, you never really realize just how important Paimon probably is to the mental well-being of the Traveler.

Like, just imagine it from Lumine's perspective. You are an extra-terrestrial entity capable of traveling across dimensions, who was running away from your home world being destroyed. And just when you think you managed to find a new world to settle down in.... that same world is on fire... like really on fire. Your twin brother wakes you up and urges you to escape. You and your brother almost manage to escape but get caught by a God out of nowhere, who steals your brother by trapping him in Cubes, then seals you in a time-prison of also-cubes and throws you to the surface of the world to god-knows-where.

You wake up... and 500 years have already passed. You're now in another world of which you know nothing about with your brother nowhere to be seen, probably dead. Your awesome dimension-hopping powers are gone, and your only weapon is a rusty dull sword.

It's not heavily elaborated on, but isn't that kind of a fucked up way to exist? Thinking everything you know and love is gone, your power stripped away and now you're been abandoned in an alien world where you don't even know if you'll explode or disintegrate at a moment's notice?

And to make things even worse, by the time when Lumine finally saw her twin brother again in person, he is now the very leader of her deadliest enemies from the Abyss, and she now had no other choice other than to embark on an adventure to find and stop her brother from continuing causing chaos all over Teyvat.

But throughout all of this... Paimon is there, and even if she's stupid sometimes, she still cares doesn't she? She does her job in guiding you, she's a beacon of (brainless) positivity, and she always has your back no matter where you want to go. She certainly knows a lot about Teyvat (at least, know more than you anyway), which definitely helps the "fear of spontaneous combustion". She can be blunt, and rude, and bites more than she can chew sometimes, but it's good to have a friend like Paimon, especially when you're in such a journey.

 

One thing the game doesn't elaborate on but is the gist of why the Traveler doesn't talk much is that they have trouble grasping the native language of Teyvat - though this also means Paimon is the one that taught the Traveler the native language in the first place in only two months between us waking up and when the game starts the narrative.

There also is the part where Paimon is pretty blatantly something that exists outside of the laws governing Teyvat, definitely tied to Celestia since she's literally covered in the iconography seen in the domains, the fancy three point shape seen all over every ruin in the game, and her very name (most of the godlike entities in the game, their true names, are from the Ars Groieta, I.E. Barbatos is the name of the eighth demon...Paimon is the name of the ninth). Mona also has a voice line stating that her hydromancy fails when she tries to read Paimon's constellation. Given that Mona can determine Venti has a constellation (even though he's literally a god and he interferes to distract her as to not reveal his secret identity), and she can see the constellation of the Traveler even though the Traveler isn't even native to Teyvat (she outright states she already knows this at the beginning of her story quest), the fact Paimon is the lone exception raises many questions.

 

Nope, not me tearing up a little every time I see the image of Paimon with her little baby hand wrapped around Lumine's pinky. Nope. Just one of those rogue onion-cutting ninja invasions. You know the ones. The ones that might alternately come with a chance of rain.

This might also be a good place to remind/alert everyone to the flavour text of Paimon's Genius Invocation card:

""You might be only one of countless stars, but you're Paimon's whole world!"

 

I'm really starting to lose my cool when it comes to the stupid card game.

It's becoming less about actually having a good deck and more about raw RNG about those dice rolls, pure and simple, such that the game is literally cheating in order for the computer to never get ANY bad rolls, ever. Pretty bad game design when having to continuously reset is better at having a chance as opposed to building a deck that can handle situations. Because no deck can really handle getting shit rolls back to back where you literally can't even pull off a single attack. Meanwhile, fucking Razor MAGICALLY gets five electro and three cyro and only needs to play the card that gives him the extra electro die - FIRST TURN.

 

Meh, the AI is abusable. For example, if you put Sucrose up to bat, the AI will keep blowing its energy trying to swap back to its "main".

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the AI "fixes" it's die on a scale the player can't always replicate. Though on the flipside the deck I've been running since...day 1 hasn't failed to stomp a human player yet. However the deck is also simple to run and is more energy hungry than it is die hungry. Also, I run 2x Small Paimon and 2x Big Paimon and I always mulligan the whole hand if I don't get one.

I run Ganyu/Fischl/Keqing, and it's basically just kicking up Ganyu's skill/burst along with Fischl's skill. Keqing is mostly there for the Resonance since this deck is energy hungry and the Electro Resonance card is badass. Lin Su and Iron Tongue Tian are amazing. Liben is straight up amazing, and procs well enough where you can potentially end a game on turn 3 or 4. Chang the Ninth is also surprisingly amazing and in some decks it can proc on the same turn you play for two free cards just for doing what the deck does.

But that's just my deck so hard to say. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't Die screwed every now and then but my fave deck runs well enough with the mana fixing I have.

 

I was trying that and the 'serious' AI, at least Razor and Mona, won't take the bait.

I detest PVP because I get too salty so I avoid that mode like the plague. I have enough trouble with the AI, obviously.

But the level to which the dice rolls fuck me over is absurd. The number of times I've done the beginning roll twice and not gotten a SINGLE elemental die OR an Omni die that I can use has got to be higher than the statistical average.

 

Just completed the requirement required for the recent events, and acquired Lisa's alternate Sumeru outfit. At the same time, I also gotten enough Festival Fever points from the current Lantern Rite event and I can get 1 Liyue 4-star unit for free.

Out of the lot, I choose Yanfei just to get her up to C1 (rather than getting characters I don't have) because damn, she is one stamina-hungry DPS unit and getting her up to C1 would at least mitigate her "stamina hunger" for her Charged attacks. Plus, right now I just don't feel like putting resources into building new characters that I might not use that much, instead of building characters that I already had and use frequently. Both Yanfei (at Lv. 70) and Dendro Traveler (at Lv. 74) are my currently most-built characters, with Kaeya, Bennett, Barbara, Xingqiu, Yao Yao and Xiao not too far behind, and that's really more than enough characters to fulfill my usual gameplay for now.

 

Oh
My
God

So I had to get creative with the teams I had for this combat event. Last one I decided to try a Ayato/Raiden/Nahida Hyperbloom comp and holy SHIT.

It's dummy stupid damage. It DESTROYED the Ruin enemies in seconds and the set up is just dumb. Raiden E, Nahida Hold E, tag everyone. If you want, burst. Ayato E and face roll and watch shit explode. Dodge periodically.

I'm in the process of building my Ayato before this event but HOLY FUCK. Holy...FUCK.

Normally I'm just whatever but I haven't been this astounded by how much damage you can put out for just hammering some buttons. My Raiden National team at least requires a good NA rotation on Raiden just to make sure everyone is optimally topped off for their next burst cycle.

 

Any tips for easiest/quickest way to farm Setekh Wenut? Looks like I'll need the mats for Mika. (who I don't intend to REALLY build, but needs to be built enough to not insta-die and unlock ascension passive ---so at least a couple dozen chunks)

My best-built DPS chars are Eula/Ganyu/Raiden if that helps.

 

Well, he's a snake enemy, which automatically makes him a bitch because 'artificial invincibility'. Abuse the ever living hell out of the knockdown opportunity you get to unload a lot of point-blank Burst damage (you may need to prematurely cancel Eula's ult if you can't get the Lightfall sword fully formed in time, since some damage is better than none at all).

I also find Xiangling extremely helpful because you can drop Gouba often and he'll help whittle down the HP during the times the snake emerges from the ground, so maybe capitalize on that with elemental reactions.

 

Hmmn. I like pairing XL with Raiden, and Raiden's burst has decent verticality and range---will try that first.