The Rise Of “Exclusive” Support Characters | Genshin Impact 

~SPONSOR~ This video is brought to you by Outplayed! Download the app free here: www.influencerlink.org/SHFOc Apologies for the loud background music btw. Didn't balance out the volume level well enough. For those who are having trouble hearing me, turn on auto subtitles. It captures about 99% of what I'm saying perfectly accurately.

Hoyoverse could at least update the monthly purchaseable 4-star characters in the Paimon Shop so we can have constellations of newer 4-stars, to make them more competitive. Most newer 4-stars need constellations to decently rival the OG powerful 4-stars.

Correction Vars, Raiden can't get buffs from Yunjin, her NAs while in burst are counted as burst damage, IIRC. Its the same reason Beidou's burst is useless on bursting Ei.

I hope Mika is the physical support we have been waiting for. I mean, it makes perfect sense, he was a part of Eulas team and he is cryo. Mihoyo please make queen Eula good again

Genshin biggest mistakes is Bennett.

Another thing to mention is Genshin’s patterns of reruning character who will be great with new characters before the new characters banner. For example Cyno ragdolls so often that you either need to be great at dodging or have a shielder. However they rerun Zhongli, the best shielder in the game, the patch before Cyno. Same thing happened to Nilou. She works amazingly with Kokomi but Kokomi was rerun the patch before Nilou’s release.

A mix of powercreep and niche characters are inevitable, but that doesn't mean it can't be handled well. As the story progresses, no doubt we will be introduced to stronger opponents, so powercreep is unavoidable in some cases. I think you made a great point when talking about Nilou; Mihoyo didn't have to make her passive as a requirement but as a "bonus". It's what they did for Nahida.

True. Using Bennett can be very boring in the long run. It's like having the same flavor over and over again. So the introduction of Yun Jin, Shenhe, etc. adds new flavor and makes the game more interesting. Though they cost primo, you do get what you spend for.

Since it looks like every element or playstyle is getting their own type of niche support, I fully welcome a dedicated physical support for my queen Eula. Be as niche as needed be. Just make physical team to be an actual team with proper buffer and off field physical damage dealer.

My biggest problem with exclusive supports is that they give them glaring weaknesses/problems that are unnecessary and just work to restrict them. One classic example is just giving a character an 80 cost burst. Just by doing that, you're reducing them to either needing a ton of ER (thus losing effectiveness because you're forced into having to use Favonius weapons) or needing a battery. A new one that they are doing now is giving characters special ICD. Collei and Dori are victims of it. Collei would actually be rather nice if her dendro application was better, since she'd be like a DMC without that many energy issues but can deal more damage. Dori would apply a ton of electro meaning she'd be really useful in Aggravate. Another issue is constellations. You're never going to get many of them, and many are clunky or incomplete at C0. The only supports that i can think of the top of my head are Yunjin and Gorou, who are complete at C0 but scale great with constellations. Meanwhile Candice needs her C1 to even function because her duration is too short. Another problem that may arise is overlap with characters. Candice is basically just a worse Yunjin in every way. There is nothing but her element and that she's actively worse that is different. They even have a counter. Sara is simply speaking a worse Bennett with no other things to difference herself except her C6, she's even outclassed by Lisa unless she has it. Nilou's passive only working with Dendro and Hydro characters is only to make her teams stricter and kind of need both Nahida and Kokomi to work a lot better than with the F2P options. You can't use fridge, you can't use Electro-charged to help you with seeds, you can't use an Anemo to group.

There is a problem of not adding more people in the Permanent pool, it makes more and more characters unaccessible why do you think Blue fates have such low value to us

I agree Shenhe is very underrated She doesn’t have the limiting passive like Nilou or Gorou, and she is incredibly easy to put in any freeze team.

exclusive supports are probably one of the biggest reason mihoyo has kept me playing genshin, team building just feels so much more fun and interesting compared to many other gacha games with powercreep, the fact that pvp doesn't exist yet just makes it even better as you don't have to focus meta and be able to build literally whoever you want

3:34 Tell that to Xinqui having his Hydro application reduced by 60% in version 1.1 ! He used to apply 60 Units of Hydro aura throughout his burst but they reduced that to 24

Dedicated supports are great, they make our mono element teams really fun and viable for a game who's entire combat is based around elemental reactions (save for Geo) but due to them only making dedicated supports, who have weak multipliers or are only to fulfill a certain roll (as compared to earlier characters who could cover way more bases) it feels terrible overall. They should throw in a few strong multipurpose ones in between dedicated supports and that'd prolly help balance the reaction to each character as well as teams for ppl

9:12 I'm a Razor main and i was tired to use the physical build that i decided to try Razor hyperbloom with Nahida and my Razor became so dam strong that i couldn't believe it

Kuki isn’t that niche of a unit though. Yes, her best teams are dendro ones, but she’s perfectly functional in physical teams, some taser teams and as a healer option for triple geo Itto team.

I actually like nilou's kit cuz the concept of "if your party fulfills x requirement you'll receive special buffs" is really good for reactions that are kinda cope. like bloom by itself without nilou is pretty bad, you'd much rather use hyperbloom or burgeon. but with nilou bloom becomes viable, and is situationally very, very strong. now imagine a support that would shred enemy def or smth if the party was composed of cryo and electro characters. that could make physical dmg dealers way more viable. imagine a character who modified crystalize to deal dmg with 2 geo and 2 same-element characters. this kind of mechanic can create new and interesting team comps, which would be great imo

I don't understand why they don't make Klee a support. As in her burst becomes a pyro attack applicator like xinqiu. Edit: I know there is Thoma and xiangli but: 1) Klee is a 5star with 5star damage. 2) It takes almost no effort to make that change. They wouldn't need to rework her. 3) Klee would be relevant again. Her biggest flaw is her stamina and low range, so since she is short she runs more and being a mage her stamina disappears in an instant. Klee support would still be a strong DPS, but her flaws are not that bad since you can use her burst with another dps. 4) We already have burgeon, so I don't think she would be that op.

I just love the recent release of elemental skill centric characters. Starting from Kuki, and with the exception of 3.1, all new characters have most of their power in their skills. This makes exploring with them much easier because I'm not worried about not being effective; especially since I keep my characters at 70-80/80 in WL 8, allowing me to sometimes encounter an actual hard fight where my burst will be needed.

I don’t think Nilou suffers the same problem that Shenhe does. If you really want to play Nilou in the abyss, you don’t necessarily need any other 5 stars. Heck, even gacha 4 stars are not necessary: just bring DMC, Barbara and Collei with her and she’ll 36* the abyss. Yes, this team might struggle in single target and is not the most comfortable/efficient in general compared to nahida/yelan/kokomi variant, but it’s still enough to 36* even this abyss and to be a fun team, I’ve tested it myself. Her f2p team does wonders in AoE and abyss usually has 1 side boss-free, not to mention how easy it is to build a Nilou team from scratch. But I’ve seen people clear both sides of this abyss without 5 star weapons or constellations and without Nahida/Yelan, so she’ll do fine even is single target situations, she might not be the best pick there, obviously, but who cares if you still get the same 36*. So yeah, if you want to play Nilou, you just need to pull her, no prerequisites

Hot take, but I would rather for these niche characters to only be 4 stars then 5 stars, since I don't want to pull for a 5 star that will only work in one specific team, that just feels like a waste of a 5 star character. Edit: And no Hu Tao, Itto, Yoimiya, Ayaka or some other characters like them are *not* niche characters, since you can put them on different team comps and they will most likely work.

I can still see room for more niche playstyles. -EM scaling dendro shielder -Physical damage buffer -Off field pyro applicator with good range (like xingqui) -Burning dps (maybe Dehya) -Shatter dps (maybe the first hydro claymore user) Etc It'll be interesting to see where genshin goes from here.

was rooting for kokomi since day 1, proud of my girl and shenhe is absolutely crazy! I had friends that used to hate on her but are now waiting for her rerun as we speak

11:20 raidens attack doesn't count as normal attack damage, it counts as burst attack damage Also yunjin works with Noelle

Hoping for a future exclusive geo support that creates a different geo reaction, it would be so cool if they could go the avatar way of creating a char that can produce metal.

I think it's really smart. It promotes trying new playstyles, and I really appreciate that; it keeps combat feeling fresh, and you can say "but the original characters are stronger," and while you might be right, _are you not bored of doing the same thing over and over again?_

As Shenhe wanter I relate to this I don’t know when she’s returning and best case I can only prepare for C0 unless I’m willing the high money risk.

I am a relatively new player. It's really frustrating just how little resin we get. I have all these characters that I just cannot use because it would cost too much to invest in them.

Getting shenhe without ayaka, ganyu or eula is completely valid since characters like chongyun exist who can turn pretty much any dps into a cryo dps

Yunjin and Shenhe are two examples of niche supports done right, they excel at one thing by making more appeasing and fun. Nilou is how it’s done wrong, bloom is fun, but having access to Hyperbloom and Burgeon is nice too

I think one puzzle piece that is gonna appear is a “whirlpool”(gather) hydro character to come support nilou

I feel like ES units just promote more fun/suboptimal build ideas, like how Kuki and QiQi’s Skills can apply off field superconduct for DPS Xinyan, or how Sucrose’s EM buff can bolster Chongyun Shatter, to me its more about having multiple artifact sets for one character to make the most of what characters you DO have, cuz when you’re F2P/a light spender you wont even have all the 4*s much less 5, especially if you take a break from the game longer than one patch

I want to add something that I don't know if anyone has already said but I just paused the video at 12:10 when you mentioned Shenhe. I am actually one of those people who love her to the point of believing she's my favourite but I don't have Ganyu, Ayaka or Eula. Not because I wasn't there for them tho, but because I don't like those characters. Getting Shenhe and wanting to use her so badly actually encouraged me to find other ways and I'm now a proud Kaeya freeze team owner. It's true it's not the ideal, most powerful team; but you've said many times this game isn't difficult enough to require that. So I think that ES can also encourage people who love them to try characters they would never have, if only to make them work.

Me who strickly uses Chongyun and Xinqui together for... Syngergy reasons: "Interesting..." (it is kinda fun though to pull a lot of enemies in with Kazuha and then keep freeze breaking the enetire group mid air) Also, my brain just realized how Gorou and Yun Jin are supports perfectly crafted for Noelle...

This was a really helpful video ! Been really needing updated support comparison videos so loved this. Subbing for more! 🙂

I'd love for there to be a physical support next year! Eula carried me since I started playing in 2.1, she was my 2nd 5-star! Though she does still destroy almost everything with a Miko - Yun Jin - Zhongli team 😆

Honestly building ES units slightly outside their niche is pretty fun and can make fun interesting comps because their scaling had to be over tuned in some aspect.

i like 5* ES, because if i like them, it means i can build a team around them without sacrificing dmg. I pulled shenhe, best decision i've ever made for my freeze team. I pulled nilou, i was a bit worried at first bc i didnt really feel like building dendro characters since i never use electro but my nilou/nahida team is my favourite to play rn. it's rlly satisfying, but for ES 4* ... excepy for gorou and yunjin, idrk about that. i raised candace to 90 with 9/9/9 talents and idk where to slot her without losing dmg. same for layla, i'd like to use her in freeze but idk how to do it without sacrificing a huge part of my dmg (shenhe) or CC (venti/kokomi). when shenhe got released and i had to replace diona in my freeze team, i didnt think about it twice, but it would be unthinkable to replace shenhe rn. as i've said many times before, i still clear and 36* without bennett kazuha raiden or zhongli, but i still dont know where to slot all those new 4* supports what im getting at is, i get f2p problems or wtv but i still prefer 5* ES because it feels better replacing a 4* for a 5*/creating a team around a 5* that will probably perform better than having 9 billion 4*s to end up not knowing where to put them & with 80% of them unbuilt but anyways, it's very clear now that genshin will release more characters that dont scale on atk, and given that the next region is fontaine and hydro started heavily scaling on hp to the point atk doesnt even do anything (unlike hu tao or itto), bennett will also not be considered as all rounded as before. he doesnt even have his place in most dendro team except for burning melt ganyu rn. i just want a hp buffer at this point and i wish c4 yelan wasnt the only person who could do that. candace couldve fit that role and avoid overlaping with yun jin, making her a hp gorou, and she would've been so good

About nilou not being broken, she kinda is, thats why that guy got 36* in 6 days. And about having no cryo units to use shenhe, people always forget about kaeya :(

atp I am 90% sure that Dehya will be a specialize burngeon dps

nilou's isn't as restricted by the presence of other characters in your account as she looks, she can perform very well with just barbara, Dendro mc and collei with ease,and all of them are obtainable without having to pull a single time ,naturally 5stars remplacing these will improve the team's output but right as it is she can definitely get stuff done with just the freebies since the damage is purely reacion based

> There's a lot more emphasis on playing a character because you have a personal attachment to them, not because it gives you the best results. That doesn't mean players don't care about character strength. I couldn't care less about Bennett, Xingqiu and Xiangling, and if I have the chance of not using them at all I would, yet many feel a bit forced to level them up because they see them as their only way to win something. I'm sure there are some people who like those big 3, but I willing to bet that their numbers are few in comparison to those who use them because they're OP.

Your videos are very well thought out, concise, and to the point with no forced interjection or rambling about. Especially your "Why no one/everyone plays" series. I use the videos a lot to inform myself on how to make my personal picks better like heizou or chongyun because i think you understand very well that the appeal of genshin clearly isnt JUST the combat.

It would be interesting if there was weapon specific buffers like catalyst or claymore attack speed buff for example.

I want to use Gorou but it’s hard with the geo specific stuff. I use hu tao then xiao then diona and then Bennett. I would have loved to use Gorou because he’s like a puppy badbutt war general! It’s just cute and funny to me.

Some people complained how HyV usually creates the problems and sells the solution with character, yet I kinda like this approach to these issues. We aren't close to it, but there will come a moment where even all niches will have their BiS characters, and every character will have their "elemental variation" and "weapon variation" such as Tighnari with a similar kit to Ganyu or Yelan with a similar kit to Xingqiu and Scaramouche which combines the mobility of Kazuha and Venti with the DPS style of Heizou, although with more range. Even Geo will probably receive a buff if they find a character whom uses crystalize shields for something decent. So there will be a need to create new problems, new "puzzles". Geo is the best example I think. No matter how HyV chooses to buff Geo, there will be more problems which future characters will solve. Say for example there's a new Geo support with different, powerful buffs based on different crystalize shields, kinda like Nahida or Dendro Traveler, finally making these reactions useful again. They will probably be a Yun Jin variant which buffs other types of attack, especially elemental ones, while also reinforcing shields. You won't be using them on mono-geo, but if they don't apply geo often, we will need geo units with them regardless. Now we could have a Itto-style Geo DPS or some Geo Heizou that doesn't need mono-geo teams and there might be a future enemy that has powerful, Fatui-like shields but also a Geo armor so they need Geo and other elemental units to work, and we require either Pyro, Cryo, Electro or Hydro characters on team, since only they give crystallize. We could also have characters that buff "non-existent" reactions. For example, a Fridge Support. Cryo and Dendro don't react, but Hydro reacts with both, freezing and creating bloom cores, and freezing helps with the CC that Bloom sometimes need. When I played Ayaka Freeze, I had this timing conundrum in applying Dendro and Cryo at the same time, then applying Hydro fast enough. Nahida helps in that regard since her E can be triggered by Cryo reactions, not just Dendro ones, but I think a Fridge Support needs to be either Anemo to swirl cryo and hydro, maybe with a delay on hydro. In a way she buffed Fridge, and buffed Burning+Melt. Taking this Idea further, we could have Overvape supports, supports that buff both Anemo and Dendro since the former, while not reacting with the latter, can swirl the other elements that react with Dendro, while giving the CC which helps with Bloom. They too would create new problems for future characters to solve. AS for a Xinyan support, if they just changed her C6 to give her Full DEF scale instead of just 50%, which I probably think they feared doing it back in 1.1, she wouldn't be as useless. However, a Phys Support would be best if they were a cryo character, to apply superconduct. I think a Phys support would be more a Superconduct/Shatter support, so a Cryo character would be best for this support in particular. Once again, said character creates new problems, as anyone who's not Electro like Razor can't trigger Superconduct so this character might need an electro applicator, and for Shatter there would be a need for a Hydro applicator and a Claymore user(Xinyan is, so she gets the support, and her Pyro application isn't that constant to mess with reactions), or both( Hydro Archon maybe?). This Superconduct/Shatter support character could even be our first Cryo Catalyst in the game.

Ever since players developed the concept of DPS Barbara back in 1.0, I’ve come to believe that any unit can be DPS if you try hard enough

I love having the possibility to diversify the play-style of my comps. I’m currently building Nilou Bloom, Mono Geo Itto, and Raiden HC, and it’s like breathing some fresh air in Teyvat (I play since 1.1, so I got pretty used to the repetitive play styles I had before).

"Or Kazuha who's elemental DMG boost works with everyone that is not Eula" Or Xiao, or Heizou, or Ningguang, or Itto, or Razor, or Noelle, or Tighnari, or Nahida, or every Anemo/Geo/Dendro unit.

I'm just sad Gorou is useless outside of Mono-Geo/mostly Geo cuz he's the only Geo unit I actually have somewhat built; and that's purely because I actually like his character. I wanted him to pair well with Kokomi as that would just Make Sense in my mind. He's her General, so the fact that they don't have any sort of real resonance together when on the same team is kind of a bummer imo! 😕 I still have him ascended to 70-80 in case I ever get a 5* Geo and need him; and just to have on my team for fun. But he's honestly built more like a Sub-DPS than a support because he can't actually offer any buffs other than Shields gained from crystallize. So basically the only way I can utilize Gorou on my account is if I just ignore his design entirely outside of scaling his talents properly. Which is sad cuz again, I actually love his character; but there's no actual utility in using him as he was designed unless I spend all my resin and resources building maybe Ninnguang, Noelle and YunJin. But since Geo isn't really viable for my account (all my parties are elemental reaction based) I don't have any of them built. 🙃 Poor Gorou is just kinda in the party with Kokomi and Yae doing his best, but he will likely never see a true boss fight or abyss floor on my account.

Congrats with 100k!!!🎉🎉🎉

Honkai tends to release several ES units as "SP" Battlesuits, which are easy to obtain through an alternate currency shop. (At least for their 4*-equivalent ones.) This makes acquiring those niche units very painless, allowing for a wider range of compositional decisions due to their availability.

I'm fine with exclusive supports, I just think they shouldn't be 5 stars like Nilou and Shenhe.

Dedicated support are great. Wants to introduce new play-style around a reaction? Dedicated support for said reaction. Wants to buff an old characters? Dedicated support that make their niche shine. Wants to make another buffer like Bennet but don’t want everythings to be a Bennet clone? Dedicated support with some niche to promote new team comps other than Bennet + an anemo with VV. So no, 1 Bennet is enough, maybe a 5* version much later in the game runtime is fine but anyone knows what they’re saying won’t ask for any “universal” character anytime soon.

Oh wow, didn't expect you to put on sick Tellius music in the background

i liked the fact mihoyo was making es units to encourage different playstyles up until nilou was released for other es units u could try and make some use out of them if you didn't have the exact characters senhe could be paired with chongyun and let you use the character of other elements in your party gorou and yunjin still provide buffs even if they aren't the best but nilou is very restrictive with her needing a party of only hydro and dendro characters if her passive gave at least have the effect when there is dendro unit in a party it would allow her to still function but not at her best

I am enjoying the niche-type gameplay characters like Nilou and the elemental exclusive supports despite the issues that can come with them. They make many interesting team compositions possible and with the lack of endgame, I believe that is exactly what we need to keep busy in this game. Abyss is usually a good test of how good weird teams can be and it gives a purpose to having a large roster of characters.

In the end, all of this doesnt matter if enemies just die in 1 shot, no matter what character you use

I built nulou as a vaporize dps, she does about 60k constantly with burst and 20-30k with infusion on her skill

Looking forward to see how Mika fits and contributes as an ES character for the likes of Eula.

Lol poor Xinyan. One day we will rise!! ................ ... one .... day

Yelan is not a "Tier 0" or S Tier character, she's is just a sidegrade to Xingqiu but as a 5* and therefore a lower tier than he is (still easily high A tier). Also are we just going to ignore the obviously overpowered Nahida? Yes it was necessary to restrict Nilou to a Hydro/Dendro team. Nilou/Nahida is one of the strongest teams in the game at the moment, if they could use someone like Kazuha on top of that to better group enemies they would be even more busted. *Says she doesn't do billions of damage *Shows clip of her doing billions of damage (which isn't even using Nahida)

Honestly, I run Nilou with Nahida, Kokomi amd Xingqiu and its such a game changer, her bountiful cores are absolute monsters and wipes entire floors without doing too much work, but realistically, this is a expensive thing to accomplish, getting all the five stars is complicated and pricey

congrats on 100k subs!!!

Getting the 4 star you want is rare, I recently collected 4 cons for my Xiao and only got 3 Yaoyao's. At least you know you'll get the 5 star.

Aww should've waited for faruzan for this vid

I also want to talk abt bosses that require specific elements or weapon times and how they’ve increased with the new dendro cube and the big desert machine. I’ve felt powercreep in this abyss for the first time. Usually i can easily 36 star with my few well built characters and their supports but none of my characters are super meta. such as xiao, yoi and eula which are my 3 mains. But i had a tough time this abyss and couldn’t 36 star with 2 teams i had to change teams for chamber 3. I think my strategy of hyper investing in a specific character will be hard soon 🔜

I greatly enjoy exclusive supports cause they make it easier for me to choose which characters I spend my primos on. For example, when 3.1 came out, I was torn between Cyno and Nilou, but when I learned that Cyno was meant for aggravate and Nilou was for bloom, it was easy for me to choose Nilou simply because I have a lot of hydro characters. Moving forward, I was easily able to decide pulling for Nahida rather than wait for Scaramouche because Nahida fits my Nilou team and Scaramouche doesn't. Simply put, ES units allow me to spend my primos wisely. Also, I always have the urge to raise all the characters I have but I know that's not possible. ES units give me a clearer plan on who to raise rather than a vague "maybe I'll use this character" mentality.

I like the idea of 4* ES units but not 5* , someone like shenhe is technically an upgrade but not enough imo , the quill stack mechanic is like maybe 5/20 of ayakas burst hits and maybe 2 ganyu charged shots , I don't see that upgrade worth 75-160 wishes and even more so not that much of an upgrade over Rosaria , it also leads you into a tough spot because shenhe replaces your diona slot on freeze so you're basically forced to replace your hydro app for a koko or barb over your mona or xing which leads to less team dmg but gives survivability but the whole thing can be avoided in the first place by just not running shenhe To me to justifying a 5* ES unit it needs to provide a major power boost and not break your team synergy or at least not break it that hard but again this is just for luxury purpose , the content in this game doesn't justify an op ES unit because you can clear content with basic units like an Ayaka freeze with Xing + Diona + Suc can 36* while the only diff with the running Shenhe is maybe a 10-20s and that's being generous Finally ik this is a tradition to do in any gacha but I hate it genshin especially but there's also potential an ES 5* unit can bring garbage units into the meta spotlight but genshin is expensive asf to gamble on with 1 pity costing hundreds of dollars , I can't see how it's fair locking the fix for a 4* char you like to a 5* that costs so much money

The problem is the 50/50 scam, gain primos is frustrating or boring and you cant even think: at least i will pool for the character i like and bam take your qiqi. Azur lane treats the playerbase much better.

9:10 Technically speaking, both received a minor buff with Dendro, moreso Razor than Xinyan. Aggravate or Hyperbloom Razor allowed him to get a wider variety of teammates than with Physical, with Thundering Furry being one of the most hilarious, as he's the only one capable to pull that up in such fashion. Xinyan on the other hand can sort of work on Burgeon with unorthodox teams, but the fact that they work does help her get some recognition as a Pyro user rather than a physical user.

I think this direction is great and better than straight up power creep, Nilou is also Fine because she can have a nice team even with free units (dendro MC barbara and Coilei) so if you get her she will ALWAYS have a team. I hope they release a support who super buffs charge shots (and makes Amber OP on that team) I'm also fine with heavy team restrictions, except for breaking shields in the spiral abyss, Nilou teams suffer too much vs Cryo shield enemies as both hydro and dendro don't do much vs Cryo.

9:09 this aged well

i made this mistake too , but Nilou's name is actually pronounced as "KNEE-loo", even though the spelling makes it seem like you should pronounce it like "KNEE-low". not your fault at all, genshin chose a english localization of نيلو that looked the prettiest ig, even though "niloo" is a technically more accurate localization.

I was playing Epic Seven while watching this and when you used the clip of Lua's ulti I got very confused for a moment as I have her on my current team, so it was showing on both monitors.

i like that genshin is adding variety to supports! since getting kokomi, i rarely use bennett and since getting yelan i barely use xingqiu

if you take genshin as a game abyss-oriented, all this shit is unavoidable but if you use your units more for casual playing, exploration, random fights, or even abyss but lower and/or without caring about time, it's fine they lied in a disgusting way when they said about abyss and endgame, because we all know the truth but at least you can still do other things

Shenhe was the first 5 star character that I got from pulling in an event banner, this was at the time that I've just started really playing Genshin and I was just a noob at the game, have no idea how elemental reactions work, didn't even bother checking guides, and etc. I was just enamored at Shenhe's design that I wanted to have her in my team. In the first few months I made her my main DPS and was thoroughly enjoying her but now she's my cryo buffer and will still hold a place in my heart as my first 5 star ♥️

(you already mentioned the music volume and I have to say that makes me so happy because a lot of people don't really care about audio issues like this T_T a lot of the subtitles were kinda funny tho.) Anyway I'm a big fan of exclusive supports as they can serve both collectors and meta chasers to scratch their itches. I'm more of the former, and one of those "attached to character" players too, so I personally don't really care if they are overtuned/stronger than general supports as long as they work. And despite all the dunking Thoma gets, Genshin is still easy enough that "it works" is good enough to play the game and I personally like using him and his mechanics. I actively like that he's not a One-Button-Press-Panic-Room like Zhongli... And I think in part it's part of the game design, maybe even gameplay loop, to build up more than just two teams (if so inclined ofc). For me it works perfectly, because I care more about the process than the results. It gives me joy to be able to switch to other characters in most situations without having to move artifacts or weapons. Exclusive supports feed into that loop pretty well, since you most likely get a reason to build up another character with them too. I get how it is not everyone's idea of fun in this game though.

i personally love exclusive supports, its nice to know that i have like 6 meta defining teams that use completely different characters, that i dont have to worry when both sides need bennett. this became a bigger problem in the most recent abyss, that broke my teams and made me run bennett with hyperbloom and freeze scara

I cant wait to try out all my team comps with Nilou! My options:Nahida, Tinghari, Traveler, Collei, Barbara, Kokomi. Me:😐

I will forever be salty of Shenhe being a niche support as a 5*. I have not pulled Ayaka or Ganyu so I have no usecase for her...but I absolutely love her character. I'm considering pulling her on her rerun just for copium that hoyo releases a cryo dps in the future I actually care about and has synergy with Shenhe. Can't even do proper Chongyun combos as he is C0 and I'd really prefer having some constellations on him

'The last thing they wanna do is make another Bennett or Xinqiu, that would do more harm than good for players' What? How? Stronger characters would make the Abyss easier, why wouldn't I want that? This might harm Hoyo, but if characters were very strong I'd actually bother building them, giving me more reasons to grind and play the game, which is what Hoyo wants. Obviously if Benny and Xinqiu get powercreeped then that's bad, but if Benny/Xinqiu are meta, should characters not be balanced to this meta level, instead of too weak to be viable and completely worthless? Another Benny and Xinqiu may hurt Hoyo (but even then this is debatable), but it definitely doesn't harm the players; giving us more easy to build 4 star meta options would be good for us, and would make the game feel less pay-to-win for f2p and new players.

i like niche four stars like yun jin, shinobu, and gorou considering how easy it is to acquire their constellations over a long enough timeline. they're cheap to build so i enjoy using them to experiment more. i tend to skip the banners for 5 star ES units tho.

I have Nilou and Nahida, and can confidently say Nilou would be busted without that passive restriction. If you were able to run her with anemo units, she'd be insane.

Wouldn't it be cool if after a characters 1st rerun, they become part of the 50/50 pool? Losing 50/50 would be valuable to f2p or low spenders.

9:11 i doubt since there are like 3-4 physical unit which one of them is eula i really doubt that we are going to see a new physical buffer unless they make something like a cryo charcter with a passive like when a cryo based elemental reaction is done the character of the same element that made the reaction expect cryo (to cock block eula) will gain a physical% boost based on this cryo character physical%

Im a razor main and I’ll have you know that his versatility is insane. (Warning for an artifact leak in 3.3) There’s gonna be an artifact in 3.3 that increases damage of the three bloom reactions. It just so happens that razor is amazing at doing hyperbloom AND burgeon at the exact same time. because his burst doesn’t stop him from doing physical attacks, if your c6 Bennett is also making him do pyro damage an you have a xinqiu/yelan along with a nahida/dmc you can make the supreme gay rainbow hyperburger god of good boys, death, and destruction. Razor is best boi :3

I don't mind niche 4-stars. Niche 4-stars are whatever. You'll accidentally get a few of them just pulling normally, and their cost is not particularly high. Niche 5-stars on the other hand, I do not like at all. A 5-star has a cost. And it's not a negligible one either. In my eyes, they're just not worth it unless you have nothing else to pull for. Shenhe is one thing. She's very clearly "The Cryo Support." She's slightly niche, but there are still plenty of teams she can buff. Nilou is where I draw the line. While I didn't personally pull for Shenhe, I might in the future. I have a number of units she could be fun with. Nilou has ONE team, with some minor variations, and some super sub-optimal Vape stuff. Nilou having a passive that states in its bloody text "Hydro/Dendro ONLY" is too far. This isn't just being a niche support, it's a RESTRICTION on an expensive character. And I'm not trying to say anything bad about Nilou fans, or people who like the Bountiful Core playstyle. But I will not accede the absolute horsefuckery that is Mihoyo slapping a soft ban on the team composition of a 5-star. That said, I acknowledge that, eventually, Mihoyo will start pumping out more specific 5-stars. But I want more like Shenhe, where yes, she's niche, but her niche is decided by what she's good at and not a passive that says "fuck you." Even Goro and Yun Jin don't have restrictions like that. They're just not useful outside of what they're designed for.

As long as they are cute I'm fine, I'll pull. I didn't pull for Shenhe, Kokomi and Nilou tho~ 👀

11:58 me exactly. I have shenhe leveled and built ok but the only cryo character who might use her is chongyun.

Ah exclusive support I remember at launch Chongyun was deem to be niche and fit with freeze or mono cryo team.

Exclusive supports? I've only ever heard it be called dedicated supports. It seems that we are going to get a total of 10 dedicated supports, maybe a slight bit more for other reactions. Gorou - Geo Shenhe - Cryo Sara - Electro Bennett - Pyro (Not dedicated, but his c6 is the pyro version of Sara's c6. Plus pyro is the Atk element) Faruzan - Anemo ? - Hydro ? - Dendro ? (Mika?) - Physical Yun Jin - Normal attacks Nilou - Bloom I highly doubt they will ever add a support for Charged, Plunging, Skill, and Burst attacks. Yun Jin was made for normals because they are inherently weaker than all other multipliers overall. There is a chance of more reaction supports like Nilou, but all the other reactions don't need a buffer, other than maybe shatter.

Nilou is different to other niche supports. Gorou, Sara, shenhe are all to boost your damage, but they are essentially not needed. Nilou while also being niche, she creates an entire different reaction off another reaction. There is no way around it, her bountiful cores can't be made without her unlike the other niche supports which are optional, she physically cannot be replaced by another character. Nilou a different type of niche, if that makes sense.

In hearthstone if you get a niche card but it's op as heck, you must make a deck around it. Make the most out of its broken-ness

MiHiYo could also make primogems more accessible (more events, more chests/worlds, more endgame things, etc.), thus allowing players to obtain them and characters more easily.

I personally wouldn't call nilou an "exclusive support", more like an reaction enabler. As in, she enable a reaction to be good, not enable other characters to utilize a reaction like maybe vaporize. Think about it, why does bloom itself feels so weak and doesn't seem like a very good option for a team to build around with? The answer is rather simple, because from the designer's pov they would much rather lock a reaction behind a character rather than locking a character behind a reaction, that way it's much easier to balance the power level of a character. For example, why does majority of the pyro characters feel so weak? It's because their reactions are too good, they had to design the characters to work around the reaction instead of with it. So what they did is basically intentionally made bloom a half baked reaction, so that they can release a character to enable it. There are a few benefits for doing so: 1. Like I said just now it's much easier to balance characters this way. Because by doing so you don't have to design your future characters around the reaction since the reaction is not complete without the character who enable the reaction. 2. They can make a character more unique in the sense that no one else can do what they do, which not only makes them having no rival in their own team archetype, it also further increases their value because they are the only one who can enable their correlated reaction. 3. On top of that, they can also powercreep older characters without actually powercreeping them. How? For example, a C0R1 nilou is actually capable to outperform a C6R5 xiao. Yeah that's how ridiculous she is. But, why does it not feel like nilou has powercrept xiao at all? It's because of the limit that was put on nilou was a little too much, but it is exactly because she has so much limit put onto her hence why she is allowed to powercreep older characters in terms of numbers. Basically, the powercreep happened in numbers, but not in abilities' mechanics. That's why it didn't feel like a powercreep at all. A few more things to add on those points Point 2: What do I mean by having no rival? For example, any characters who can utilize aggravate will be automatically put into a rivalry against each other. If character A can utilize aggravate better than character B, why would I ever bother to use character B over A in aggravate comp? That is one of the downside of locking a character behind reaction. Essentially, since the reaction is owned by one specific character, that means no one will ever outperform them with the same reaction because the potential of said reaction is literally locked behind that character, hence why they have no rival. Point 3: In genshin, damage number isn't the only thing that matter. The way, the method of outputting damage also matter as well. That is why for a character to be fully powercrept, they have to be powercrept in both mechanics and numbers instead of just one of the two. The way they are powercreeping older characters is by doing only one of the two, hence why despite it happened but we didn't feel like it happened at all, because it's not entirely a powercreep, but rather it's just partly. That's why nilou's existence is not necessary a bad thing, in fact it's actually good that a character like her exist. Because now we can be sure that older characters will not get powercrept entirely like how it does in other games, but at the same time newer characters can still outperform older characters in some way so that we don't have to stick to older characters all the time. We've also witnessed how hoyoverse can improve a reaction and make it better without ruining the balance of power, which means lackluster reaction like crystalize is not entirely beyond salvation now. Which also means it is very much possible for characters with let's say super crystalize, hyper overload, ultra electrocharge, superconduct plus to be released. Because if they can do so with one reaction, what's stopping them from doing the same with other reactions? I actually didn't watch the video so idk what the video is about, but what I've said here isn't to make a counter-argument with the video's title, instead it was hopefully to help people see why nilou isn't exactly an "exclusive support" like how most people think she is. Don't get me wrong, exclusive supports do exist, but she's not one of them. And that is the point I'm trying to make

This viswo tackles my biggest pain on getting nilou, god I feel like I need kokomi or better artifacts on barbara for her to work

i really like playing different playstyles so i guess i like this aprouch... of course its a fact i play this game for a long time and have almost all characters to be able to combo them together, so i guess new players might feel pressured by the amount of possibilities