Mona - The Character With The Most Wasted Potential | Genshin Impact 

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Not even Mona could predict what would happen to her place in the meta

To think, we were worrying if Furina would powercreep Xingqui's application and dmg or Kokomi's healing and survivability just for her to absolutely gut Mona's buffing and exploration.

Honestly with Furina, who actually has off-field DPS plus can buff way more than mona with a longer duration that affects all characters and better, 100% uptime hydro-app, her buff isn't that unique anymore. She's still good but in basically all teams Furina is better. Even her sprint got outclassed because furina can just straight up walk on water permanently without worrying about stamina

Still, thanks to Mona and her Normal atk, E and dodge, those Abyss Lectors with the pyro shield was a breeze in the Abyss F12.

As a Mona main since Version 1... it is such an honor to see her getting compared to Hydro Archon. I know she would lose in terms of both gameplay & popularity, but my girl has come a long way🥹

I think Vars once again either forgot or underestimated the impact of Shenhe's release and how she changed the scales in Mona vs Kokomi in Morgana-like teams Kokomi's popularity skyrocketed while Mona have lost the last bastion - her niche.

i wish i was yomiyas bandages

She fell off because she decided to open a bakery cause HOLY SHI-

She was my second hydro with my hu Tao and I was hitting 100k charged attacks but now Furina just makes every team (my hu Tao team included) so much better, I can’t justify using Mona anymore 💀

I find it funny that I finally pulled for Mona the day this video was released and what made it even more coincidental is that I finally did Archon Quest: Act 5 of Fontaine and I had no idea she would even appear during the Archon Quest, it's almost as if it was fate that this would happen.

The competition is tough among hydro supports, I noticed that in the long term it's not about dealing the most damage that make you pick a unit over another. When choosing two teams for abyss, I think most people (including me) just go with the team that will get them the easiest clear rather than the fastest. It can be seen in most tier list or usage rate data where Sucrose who is technically better than Kazuha in some teams is at the bottom because everyone and their mother prefer Kazuha because it's easy to play. Why do people play Kokomi in Ayaka premium while Mona with prototype amber can also do the job? Why is Zhongli always on top despite being a DPS loss? Comfort is probably one of the biggest factor and Mona is so impractical to use that I am not surprised to see. She is good, but losing a few seconds in abyss can get you way easier runs and less resets with the right units.

Mona was always best as the screenshot meme character or the alternative support for those that had her and not the optimal limited version and I think she's still that tbh and that's fine. More options are available now though and so, she's kinda inevitably just getting powercrept out of play and at this stage, that's okay.

Your expectation vs. reality joke at 5:38 pierces me so personally- I tried to roll for Furina but instead only managed to get my first Mona

“Crypto and geo, the only elements dendro has no reaction with” my favorite swirl is definitely dendroswirl

IMO, only thing is missing with her is a good off-field application, no matter how much she buffs, good application is a top priority in the hydro roster, she herself struggles this yet alone being a support, and I don't think her Burst doesn't compensate enough for its short duration in long fights. Overall, she's not consistent, do hope that they tweak her constellations to more support oriented rather than CA dps.

With the release of mika and freminet specializing in shatter and physical dmg, I think they’re getting the thoma/kuki treatment where their real strengths may come at a later update (potential freeze/shatter rework?). My point here is that mona seems like a really good shatter candidate with her Nuke play style and shatter’s unique application. Or I’m just copium…

When I first got Mona back in version 1.4, I understood her Burst mechanics easily. I loved the technical nuance behind them and it always felt so satisfying to get those huge Vaporize nuke numbers. It’s really sad to see such a mentally stimulating kit made moot thanks to a certain Archon. Still, she was my first 5 star, so, I’ll always find a use for her. She and Furina have been surprisingly fun to use together with Kokomi. 😊

Tbh mona herself is a decent character, she has serviceable hydro application and amazing set up for burst dmg but got overshadowed by units who have does better or have more roles than her 😭😭

Something I’ve noticed is that in the early days of Genshin, many characters were purely burst or normal attack focused leaving their skill to not really matter much outside of energy. Bennet,Xiangling,Mona,Rosaria,and razor are some characters like this. There some exceptions like Childe, but for the most part this was the case. In more recent times, characters’ kits have become more multifaceted and both burst AND skill utility rather than just being one or the other.

Genshin needs a Level 100 and a new passive talent to save some characters.

I play Mona in a freeze comp with Shenhe, Ayaka and Barbara. I like her because her burst is kind of like a hydro Zhongli ult and it locks down smaller units like freeze would so it kind of adds to the perma-stun.

was this in response to my comment about Mona -> Furina power creep? As a Mona main I am not very surprised that she would lose popularity as the game went on. what I think happened is that while everyone was wondering how the hydro archon could power creep Yelan and Xingqiu, hoyoverse remembered the hydro character on the back burner, took everything flawed about her kit, fixed it, and then released her as the hydro archon. Mona's a standard banner character, and as such I kind of knew they would never let her be the best at what she does.

I mean......does a character REALLY fall off when no new difficulty of content is being released....she's still got what it takes to do everything in the game. Characters fall off in games like Final Fantasy Brave Exvius where content comes out and the older character simply cannot survive....so far I haven't seen that in genshin.

I know this is a bit of copium but Mona is perfect for Dehya. Her dmg increase lasts as long as Dehyas burst. Of course its hard to make Dehya viable...but if you got a couple of constellations it can be done. Dehya at c4 + Mona is really fun and viable too.

Mona is this strange unit that cannot seem to find her place in the meta and yet you always have a way to make her work to some degree. I may be a Mona main, but I know fully well that she's a unit that is hard to find a use for and the best thing she's really known for is screenshots. As meta progressed, the units that were released alongside Mona was buffed indirectly. e.g. Keqing and Quicken reaction. And with Furina's release, we got the very first unit that actually have a kit similar to hers. Nonetheless, I'd still consider her as a worth it unit to build since Furina can only be in one team. Building both Mona and Furina means you have two hydro units that boosts damage available to you. Mona is definitely versatile, but she's also replaceable. But I think that's what made me like her so much that I decided to main her. It's fun to think up fun ways to use her. I even mess around with her and Furina in freeze and mono hydro team. And well, since Mona's burst is a debuff while Furina's burst is a buff, it's actually fun to see how they work with each other. As you mentioned though, there are other better hydro units to use. But considering those "better" units are limited characters while Mona is a standard, you may as well just build Mona if you already have her.

So for me rn my highest output team is yelan, mona, furina, and kokomi as the driver. Pure Hydro is doing work rn. I'm clearing random domains that aren't Hydro slimes with such quickness now.

I use Mona in all of my overworld exploration and haven't gone a single abyss without her ever since I got her, to me her gameplay is just too satisfying

Mona is my first 5 star, became my dps early game. Still use her occasionally on my freeze team

I use her with my c1r1 hu tao alongside c2 elegy yelan and zhongli and am able to get up to 200k charge attacks on hutao while maintaining 70% crit rate (85% with c4 mona). Was able to 1 rotation clear all 3 bosses 2nd half in abyss floor 12. Unfortunatly this team only works comfortably with c2 yelan due to hydro application.

Not gonna lie, I did start playing Genshin because one of my favorite artists drew her, so I just downloaded the game on a whim.

I'm a new player who joined for Neuvilette and somehow got a c1 Mona for my efforts. i also pulled Furina, but have opted for Mona as my Neuvi support as Furina is more needed on my second team ( the team keeping me from 36 stars ) and Neuvi is just SO busted, i barely notice the damage down-tick.

(disclaimer i know its not mona related but the downfall of geo and physical were mentioned in the video)Regarding the sad state of physical and geo. I've always though about ways to improve geo reactions through either additive damage or utilitiy (ie, explosions or shockwaves after shields expire or when picked up, or shield stacking or when picked up a shield also gain stats based on the element of the shield picked up. Until honkai star rail came out I almost exclusively abandoned any idea of the hope of physical being improved or saved. But what if we could have a double tiered reaction with physical damage similar to dendro bloom cores. Dendro cores have a base reaction of bloom followed by deviations in burgeon and hyperbloom. Freeze is a base reaction with shatter as its deviation reaction. What if superconduct functioned similarly in fashion to that of the above mentioned reaction and then some with amplifiable aspect from the likes of which of quicken and aggravate. I would like to think in this scenario that superconduct ontop of its physical break applies a physical bleed dot debuff, which could continue to further break physical resistance, that is stackable with subsequent attacks. All targets affected by this debuff take increased physical damage from all sources, including and buffing shatter damage. This debuff would be stackable up until the superconduct debuff wears off or stacks reach a maximum count at which either occurrence happens the afflicted target would receive a abonus hit of damage equal to the total amount of bleed damage. This would allow superconduct to still be its own physical owned reaction situation, make it damage competitive, and still be viable with the rising and evergrowing population of mechs in the game with broken physical resistance. Yeah so those are my thoughts on maybe fixing physical. Make superconduct function like bloom and freeze with a second reaction in bleed and make bleed increase in effectiveness with hits like quicken. Thoughts?

Funny enough for me, I actually did not use Mona that much until I got Furina. Previously, I was using her in my Nilou team as I did not like Barbara freezing the team and Xingqiu was taken by Hu Tao at the time. Once I got Kokomi, I dropped Mona. I'm currently running her with Furina and Yelan on my Hu Tao team, and it feels quite good. I have tried out the Jean and Bennett variant for the Hu Tao team and they are pretty good as well. My only problem for those 2 comps is having to play circle impact and Mona is able to benefit all 3 of my characters compared to the other 2. (The current abyss is also heavily favoring hydro applicators which is also a win.) On the side note, I wished that Hoyoverse did update her C1 since it benefitted all hydro related reactions that existed during the time of launch.

Mona is the only 5 standard banner character that I've never gotten in ANY account I've used and created. So up until now, I refuse to learn her kit and what she does.

Mona was my first 5* all the way back in 1.0, and this is the only time I've pulled a copy of her 😅 still in the early game her unique dash and interesting play style had her as a main in my team for some time, and her story and entertaining character has made her my favourite of the cast in Genshin. Admittedly these days, the are better teams for abyss that just don't need her, but if I can find an excuse to play Morgana, I will.

That expectation-reality is so relatable just a few days ago

honestly, now i could see a team consisting of Freminet, Charlotte, Mona and Kokomi working now.... due to both Freminet, shatter and cryo application, and CHarlotte's off field cryo application spam, along with Mona and Koko's hydro off field application also I thought Anemo didn't have a reaction with Dendro O_o

I used here with Neuvillette in the current abyss. Worked wonders

You should have mentioned Shenhe as well. Mona-Diona got overshadowed by Shenhe-Kokomi. In my opinion the problem with Mona is that as you mentioned is very hard to play. You can use Pamber Mona with Shenhe but why do that when you can press one button and forget about hydro application.

I consider Mona to still be a decent unit but is is indeed true that as Genshin Impact matured she started to become less popular. I think the two major issues that hurt Mona (and discussed by Vars) was the introduction of of the Dendro element and the introduction of Furina. Probably one of the few characters in Genshin Impact to noticeably be powecrept, although not to the same extent of her fellow 5* units Qiqi and and Diluc. Mona is at least fortunate that it took a while to happen. Both Diluc and Qiqi were powercrept early in the first year of Genshin by Hu Tao and Diona respectively. For Mona, while she started geting lesser usuage when Dendro came out in 3.0, the final blow did not come until last month when Furina debuted. The Astrologist should be fortunate that she was able to stay relevant for the last few years.

ngl i kinda wrote mona off as big nuke and nothing else but now after playing hsr i find myself wanting to play her more cause shes one of the very few debuffers in genshin maybe its just cause i love nihility but i feel genshin needs more debuffers all it has is dmg shields heals and res shred

The only copy of Mona I got was when I went for C2 Furina...I've been pulling in Genshin since day 1. Keqing is C6 and other standard banner are in the middle of consolations. Took pulling for the Hydro archon to get one Mona.

wish i could relate to this but been playing since launch, still have no Mona but c5 qiqi ;w;

I got mona after three years yesterday, and the day after you post the video lol After all the wait, I finally can enjoy the most beautiful gameplay of the game

I gave her the hunter set and made her an on field DPS in mono hydro with Furina and Yelan. Seems to do fine.

If only her bubble works like an elemental shield, where if you apply the same element it won't break, she'll be so amazing in mono hydro😂

I never got around to building her (finding those mushrooms was annoying), so by the time i could, i already had Yelan, Ayato, Childe, and leveled up Xingqiu to buff Alhaitham. Her hydro application was atrocious for my teams so i deopped her. Plus i recently got Furina so i have no reason to build her anymore 😅

Kinda wanna see someone use neuvillte mona(both with PTA r5) and neuvillte being at c1 and kazuha and see the dmg comparison to a normal team

I see mona vs furina like how we see xinqiu vs yelan. As we know, xq is better hydro application and more defense oriented while yelan is more offensive. On the other hand, mona is great at nuking (as we can freely use kazuha with her unlike furina) while furina is overall better (but still needing a healer).

I got Mona back on the first venti banner and personally always found her kit clunky

If anything Mona is BACK to meta as just about every C6 Furina is making use of her (which there are many me inlcuded) and on bosses like second half of abyss Furina + Mona is enough hydro app for my Hu Tao with crazy 150k+ per charged or even 200k with a proper rotation with Kazuha or Sucrose.

I'm actually currently enjoying my Mona-Furina-Fischl-Jean team with Mona being my on-field. It's a great rotation that could 1-cycle most bosses and domains. With enough ER, their bursts are ready for another round immediately after cooldowns. My only gripe with Mona is how clunky her animations are for her skill and when she stops sprinting and how easy she is to get staggered due to those animations.

The bayo music, we have to stan!

Got Mona on Noel's banner and she was a fun character to use, made exploration easier and could easily distract enemies with her elemental skill until it exploded. She's quite an old character but a fun one

I think Mona was meant to be a hydro dps/driver, based on her constalations buffing her damage, giving her free charge attacks within her combo etcetc, but Hoyoverse saw how broken Xiangling was and refused to make another "off field" Pyro dps that someone like Mona would love. Imagine if Klee's burst worked off field? Mona would have an insane team due to being a catalyst user her hydro application onfield is amazing, and with how her burst works she was meant to do a big vape hit.

You should do one for Xiao since it's been a long while since that shorty was relevant.

Videos like this make me think everyone only builds and plays 2 teams. I built all 10 team slots to be unique, have good DPS and survivability. My Kuki, Nahida, Mona, Cyno team is one of my highest DPS. Granted the other top tier chars in that team. Mona contributes a lot and is fluid to use there. All my other hydro are used in teams already except barbara who isnt fluid at all 😅

I still like her in my freeze teams. Otherwise I like to use her the main damage dealer sometimes with the Bennett Xiangling ups

Your videos butter My biscuits thank you

Great video! I like your content a lot, but I'd ask that you try to enunciate a bit more. It would make this video in particular much easier to understand. Around 4:30 there are a lot of fricatives in your dialog and it gets jumbled very easily. Keep up the good work!

You know, it got me to thinking. Since burst damage has fallen off overtime, while sustained damage creeps up, has Genshins easy accessibility to newer or veteran players become its downfall?

I remember playing maiden's proto amber mona in ayaka freeze team, before I got kkomi and rarely used Mona ever again....

3:19 Hahah i have a max level mona that i bust out for my double hydro and even i have no idea how her ult really works

guys Mona is no longer broke. She now is very wealthy and cant stop spending money on random gadgets, she even picked up a nice boy. She works on a space station and has dyed her hair pink (She's also a kid with a gang?)

"eye catching design" well played vars, well played

me wanting mona since release but then just recently got her 2 weeks before furina came out ಠ_ಠ

wait can fridge (freeze+bloom) comps work with the not popping Mona's bubble thing? wondering

After more than 3 years playing i just got mona with furina. Im having honeymoon phase with her now wanting her so much for 3 years. So far im having fun with her.

I started playing in 1.2, and it took until Cyno's first banner before I finally pulled Mona.

furina n mona together pretty good i m using it now

I deadass got her 2 pity at ar 12 and I didn’t know she’s rare cuz ( i got aqua simulacra 1 pity so I thought gold was common) and also cuz I pulled her on noelle banner so she’s been benched but later my friends saw my characters and told me truth😂😂

Furina now does everything better that Mona could do 1) 75% vs 60% bonus 2) Burst lasts a 3 times longer 3) Hydro application from E skill lasts many many times more 4) Can walk on water compared to Mona-Dash Only thing is that Mona's buff is unconditional, direct buff, while Furina's requires to fill a fanfare to get the bonus, thus mostly requiring a healer But still, Eventhough she has probably the most confusing burst mechanics among all characters, she's probably one of the those characters to have an easiest access to hit 1 million dmg with proper setup ( She was my first ever 5 star I got, now C2, and holds record for me, for highest single strike dmg, 500k with lvl 8 burst! ) ( I used her with my first teams, with Nahida ( my first banner character in 3.2 ), Raiden, Ayaka almost always used Mona, and most importantly, every screenshot dmg I did was with Bennett - Mona - Sucrose/Kazuha )

I wish Mona got a weapon or artifact set that converts her damage boost to something like res shred/ignore for the entire team, then I think a lot more people would use her.

Furina just powercrept her in every way

This gave me an interesting idea : What about using Yelan, Mona and Furina on the same team? Yelan as the onfielder, so her hits gain the DMG buff from her own passive in addition to the other 2 buffs. Last slot goes to a Cryo healer of your choice to maintain bubble uptime and healing.

You should make a what happened to deyha! : )

Its been 2+ years and i have yet to get a mona for my ayaka team, I've somehow managed to get the newer standard 5-stars but mona just refuses to show up on my acc

I pulled her by complete random on the standard banner and have no idea what to do with her lol

I find her very nice in my Dehya team with Furina and Jean; Mona's and Furina's skills together are enough hydro application for Dehya during her burst, and with both of their burst buffs active, Dehya deals great DPS; and with the nature of how Dehya's burst is, she can take advantage of the full omen duration without needing it to be longer unlike most other characters it is sad to see how she's been powercrept over time, but she will always have her place

Okay so hear me out: Mona and Yaoyao team comp with Yanfei or any pyro character. They're really efficient at Burgeon. Mona groups up enemies with taunt, Yuegui triggers the bloom cores to appear, and Yanfei just explodes them. Pretty fun and easy tbh

I really like Mona. Have her c2 and built but i cant really justify using her over Furina now 😢 I have Furina also c2 and Furina is just insane

Is ur background music from Bayonetta 2 cus I SWEAR it sounds so familiar 😭

there there mona there isnt any shame in being beat by 4 patches later and by an archon no less! You had a very good run all things considered :)

the joke at 6:10 felt a little weird, personally feel like it would've been fine just to say "people found her design attractive" - it's not that big a deal but i could definitely go without it in the future lol. otherwise great analysis as always vars !!!

the Mona art at 6:11 is sauced to a Kilalesi

Mona vaporize with Bennett was the first time on my account I broke 100K damage I don't think I will forget that

-shes good for characters who want to have one big instance of damage which werent released since eula, and even then shes outdone by furina Acording to leaks Navia seem to be a quickswap with big E damage. Not a oneshot I suppose but still big E damage. I skipped furina to gurantee Navia and I do have mona, would you recomend running them together then?

I just got mona after wanting her for more than 2 years!... just when she was powercrept and the team I wanted her for isn't really good anymore

No matter what happens to the meta, at the very least Mona will always be on top of the Genshin female nsfw fanart stats

5:38 i lost 50/50 on furina to c1 mona... that segment hurt too much...

mona was my first character, even before noell. she’s always going to have a place on my team 😭

Even is kind waste her kit, Mona have a nice spot in Nilou boom team. Just load her up with EM and let it go boom!

Mona has been the reason i started playing back in 2020, have been maining her ever since and now that i finally got her c6 (no whaling, just lucky) ill go against the current and make her a main dps🥴

I started Genshin in Sumeru and was a Mona main for a long time! My standard 5* went Mona, Mona c1 , and Mona c2 before I got literally any other standard 5*. I love her character. Edit: I came here again after losing 50/50 going for Chiori. I now have Mona c3.

Mona was my first 5 star, i still use her in my party from time to time, particularly in Spiral Abyss. She's currently C2.

Omen buff all damage tho. Slap proto amber r5 and 4 noblese, mona fit in any team including geo and anemo. C1 increase on reaction c4 best as her support role too.

Mona's elemental skill doesn't generate particles upon casting, it generates upon the explosion. That is awful given the enemies might be dead or moved away by the time the move ends. That's why I stopped using Mona.

Got her c2 recently. I'll try to meme her into onfield dps.

Don't underestimate screen nukes, eventually wenut or robo-snake is gonna come back to abyss and everyone is gonna be dusting off their screen nukers to try and dust the boss in it's tiny damage windows.