Are Version 2 Characters Still Good? | Genshin Impact

So regarding my Yun Jin evaluation I zeroed in on her attack speed boosting aspect without giving enough credit to her attack damage boost via her ultimate and I should've at least mentioned that part too. But I stand by the opinion that at the present moment she's just outclassed by a number of other damage augmenting supports with better universal application that even within her own niche there are plenty of other choices you would want to pick before you arrive at her. She definitely has potential to return to form if we have other hp/def scaling normal attackers like @yeguang7095 said but compared to where she was when she first came out to where she is now, like I said in the video: instead of enhancing normal attack damage/speed there are supports who can either just boost total damage (not just for one person but for the entire party) or they themselves can bring the damage.

Technically speaking Yun Jin is niche, but pragmatically speaking her niche is extremely overrideable. She would need to provide offensive bonuses on the level of Shenhe to make players want to consider fielding her when they can field more damage, as opposed to Shenhe where her cryo enhancement is SO big and all encompassing (covers attacks, skills, bursts, etc.) that there's veritable reason to use her over Bennett/Xingqiu/Kazuha/Yelan/Shogun/etc. in regards to supporting. For teams where you could field Yun Jin such as boosting Yoimiya or Ayato damage, you could replace her with anyone else. Point being she does have a niche but doesn't do it good enough, which is why I consider her benched.

I am so glad to see someone give Kokomi an honest review. I love her design and kit due to me being obsessed with catalysts and healers so she was an easy choice for me, but I've seen so many people trash anyone not using Yelan or Xingqiu

I am testing a summary bot. @me if you want some summary.
Here are the summaries for this video:
- The video is a follow-up to the Version 1 characters video, discussing the current standing of Version 2 characters.
- The video covers Ayaka, Shogun, Itto, Yoimiya, Ayato, etc.
- The video includes an additional tier "Okay" to cover characters that are not quite good but not quite niche.
- Ayaka is still good but not as high in demand as she used to be.
- Yoimiya is okay but suffers from inconsistency due to her attack pattern being affected by movement.
- Shogun is in God carry due to her versatility and usability in many teams.
- Kokomi is also in God carry for the same reason as Shogun.
- Toma is not as niche as previously thought, he can provide defensive support and utility.

Please, just stop making videos, i beg you.

He forgot that YunJin main purpose is ATK buff and the speed increase is C6 only. 😅 You said you will still change her place...sure your opinion but I would change it.

:Ayapout: don't listen to him, frosty princess, we all know you are the one and only!
With those visuals and Saori Hayami as your VA it will be hard for anyone to powercreep you as a S tier waifu /pat

Man. Geo and physical just feel so bad these days. And forbidden future knowlegde doesn't really show any signs of these elements feeling any better. Anytime soon.

Agree on Sayu but in an overworld and exploration tier list she's up there in S tier with Kazuha and Yelan

If you told me that Yelan is the Hydro Archon, I would believe you. She's just incredible.

It's totally fair that this tierlist focuses on combat power level, but I do think that when evaluating how good a character is, exploration SHOULD be considered a niche. Sayu has insane role consolidation for exploration: she's one piece of anemo resonance, a healer, a claymore, has great mobility and a passive that makes crystalflies easier to farm. All of those are things that annoy me to death when I don't have them on an exploration team. Lately Lynette has been giving me that same vibe: she's anemo, has good mobility and is Ousia for Fontaine puzzles. She's very obviously an exploration unit that hoyo is giving us for Fontaine, and yet a lot of people write her off as bad because she's not as useful as other anemo units in combat.

Raiden is permanently a Hyperbloom trigger character for me. She's just the best generally imo

Raiden should level down. It's true that he can activate hyperbloom, but this kuki does a better job and brings a lot more to the team. That the tierlists justify Raiden in C2 as a hypercarry seems ridiculous to me, just so as not to anger the Raiden fandom. Today we have a much better carry.

I somewhat agree with Heizou's part although I think he is supposed to function as a damage dealer. But the main problem is that it takes a while to set him up due to the swirl mechanic that enables his nuke skill, he relies too much on a damage per screenshot playstyle which is the most anti-meta thing there is. And why would you wanna use Heizou as an Anemo dmg dealer when you have Wanderer? To put salt to injury it doesn't help that Wriothesley also made Heizou even more obsolete. To me, Heizou is just a very fun pick when I wanna just Saitama some elite mobs in the overworld, but now that shit is over now that I have Wriothesley.

heizou is niche he is good when you sucrose is on the other team

I would disagree with ayato position he should be in still good since his dendro teams specially with TF is good and he has alot of flexibility in teams exact opposite of yoimiya and thoma

I actually agree with the tier list except I would put raiden and kkm down 1 tier.

Ayaka is S tier boyyyyyyyyyy fawkumean!





Lol

My wife Miko is pretty good, I am pleased.

Two more weeks till I crowbar her into a Furina team

Tbh I don't play genshin lately and I don't use dendro on my teams because it's too confusing to me.

I think that Anemo "Okay" character bar was raised waay too high

I 10p percent agree Yelan is broken, and I stand by that.
Love her to death...also so close to C6 here T.T

Me who has played since December 2021 and still hasn't pulled sucrose ...

Granted she's the only ver 1 unit I don't have but still

This man just hates geo with a passion

BASED

You might have a point with Heizou but his playstyle is definitely an s-tier. His playstyle was never boring and he's really fun to play in the overworld. The thing about other off-field 4* are yep there are plenty strong characters among them but they're just plain boring to me.

without Gorou, mono Geo teams can't even function. I am fine and understandable that mono Geo can be placed at benched but Gorou should be in the tier above. Although Itto is the geo hypercarry, you can always switch to Noelle. But in either case, both of them still needs Gorou

You forgot Aloy and Electro Traveler.

this is a hot take but i've been thinking about sara a lot recently and i think she's criminally underexplored. the vast majority of players dont even have c6, and with the exception of her c6 there isnt a single thing in her kit that makes her exclusive to buffing electro dmg. she provides the same attack buff as c0 bennet, can do so with skill or burst, and especially with the con that removes her charge shot requirement she's a good fit in quickswap teams that want electro app. something i've wanted to try is ironically a heizou team, which would be heizou, yelan, sara and a flex slot maybe xingqiu for double hydro. the idea is for yelan and sara to boost heizou's damage like crazy which he takes advantage of with his high motion values, then heizou's vv shred boosts yelan, and sara applies enough electro to get solid electro-charged uptime. its a taser team which sacrifices sucrose's EM and grouping for really high talent damage, and for non f2p players wanderer would be crazy like this.

Sucrose, Venti and Kazuha are supports though. Heizou's role is dps/sub dps. His purpose isn't swirling or debuffing it's just doing damage. It's more appropriate to compare him to wanderer than those 3

This tear list for abyss (most likely) or open world 🤔

YYYyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! Kokomi Rules!!!! I'm so glad I got her on her first banner ^^

Asking if inazuma characters are still good, is like asking if batman can solo a child. He can btw.

Yoimiya being compared to lyney is a bit annoying. I never have problems with consistent dmg with her, i can easily get 1.3 million dmg in one rotation. Im not very good at using lyney to be fair tho.

mid tier

moment when I've been playing for 2 years and still don't have sucrose- I do all my dailies too- 💀




It's ok tho cause I have c2 Kazuha XD

Just because Heizou has to “compete” with stronger anemo characters doesn’t diminish how good he is, it’s just that there are a lot of strong anemo. Plus, he is a bit in his own category since he is a quick swap and not exactly competing with either on field or off field. I’m just okay at the game and he helped me get my first 36 star clear, he’s actually quite good!

Bro forgot Electro Traveler

I thought it said "Are this aunties still goof?" In the thumbnail 😭😭

"are these units stil—" yes. yes theyre still good you just dont know how to build them/play their kits or the kits just simply dont fit your own specific playstyle.

man. your analysis videos used to be good but now they are just... so full of "i have skill issues but will pretend i do not".

Despite Sayu not being good by any means, that very gimmick makes her such a lifesaver for exploring the desert. Genuinely would be nearly unplayable without her in certain parts, especially with how often I get lost

Heizou works so well for quick swap teams. He needs 3 seconds for 100k and because of his low energy cost he can do this easily every rotation

The only real issues here imo is itto/gorou and koko. Still think koko is being overrated a lot lately idk why she’s always just “fine” I think she has like 2 real teams being on ayaka and nilou teams where shes best in slot and even in ayaka where I’d argue is her best team, in the abyss has fallen off quite a bit with introduction to bosses in floor 12 more often. Nilou teams also have a lot of options such as Barbara, baizu, Yao Yao and those don’t really get outpaced by having koko in that slot. She’s just fine solid choice but very replaceable for better options. I’d really call her the jack of all trades but master of none at least imo.

Itto and gorou are very solid in terms they don’t use characters that other teams would want to use. The core 3 of itto teams being itto, gorou, and albedo has those characters not being use anywhere else. I think gorou is especially essential cause not only does he buff but provides a little bit of healing to help chip dmg so he is also ur defensive support to essentially. Then the 4th can be very flexible such as bennett, fischl, really anyone you need can fit in here and the team is very good. Yes takes some investing but imo it’s worth it and is fine. Let’s pray for that Geo buff coping.

Ayato's placement was very unfair, his aoe is still monstrous and his burst is 18s of off field hydro application, you can basically fit him anywhere in the meta, only thing he doesn't do is like give general buffs but even then he has normal attack buffs. He's basically THE on fielder for most dendro teams, and off Fielder in a lot of others.

Yomiya is niche.

Now now now, I want to make a "small" argument for bumping Gorou to Niche at least (since he is) and not just benching him.
This will involve talking about Itto, but that's a given.
This also has to do with the fact that Furina is coming out.

Itto cannot really use Furina.
Furina will require a team healer to keep up her DPS as well as to generate stacks of Fanfare for her buff.
Itto needs Gorou and a shielder (generally Zhongli). Meaning that the 4th spot (normally Albedo since he synergizes well with them all) would be the only spot for Furina.
Gorou's c4 isn't enough healing to keep up with Furina's drain (bringing everyone down to half HP in less than 20s). He's a sub-healer at best when he gets it (still nice to have).
I've seen some wonder about dropping the 3rd Geo, just using Itto and Gorou, Furina and a team healer, but that means Gorou's missing out on 15% Geo and 20% Geo Crit DMG.
It's just not ideal.

NOELLE on the other hand has a much easier team to use.
Noelle fully uses Gorou and can just slot in Albedo and be done with it. Albedo just for the 3rd Geo needed for Gorou and all the synergy.
Noelle providing her own sheild and TEAM HEALING, which Furina can use.
Right now, the 4th party slot in Noelle teams is a Flex spot that anyone can be used in. Preferably a different element other than Geo (unlike Itto's 4p Geo ideal team).
Currently (as rated in this video), the God Carry rated Raiden Shogun is the best for this flex spot. Being a super battery as well as able to delete Geo Immune enemies. Something that a 4p Geo team cannot handle on their own.....

Given that we have the flex spot in the Noelle team.
With Noelle, we're already getting full team heals easily (on top of extra healing if c4 Gorou).
Furina can easily slot in.
Providing her really good off field DPS, which wouldn't interfere with Noelle being on field.
On top of, of course, her really high 75%/100%/124% universal DMG buff (at c0/c1/c3).

c6 Noelle compared to c0 Itto (as 4-stars to 5-stars are normally compared) is only a 5% DPS difference (in Itto's favor) if no other party members are involved.
If identical teams (Noelle/Gorou/Albedo/Zhongli vs Itto/Gorou/Albedo/Zhongli), it does increase to a 10% DPS difference (again in Itto's favor).
Personally I don't think that is that large..... (of course, any cons for Itto, buff his personal damage by 12% each con, with a bigger buff at c6, totaling 86% or so increase... then he's much more powerful than Noelle, but you have to whale for those results and really like playing as him......).

With Furina now coming out soon and Noelle able to capitalize on that huge DMG buff,
instead of using Zhongli (as it isn't ideal to have a second shield anyway, hence my suggestion of using Raiden or anyone else...), will the c6 Noelle team actually beat out the c0 Itto team?
I really think it will.....

This also makes use of both old characters as well as the newest.

you sound stupid comparing Heizou to supports when he's clearly a dps, let's compare sucrose/venti/kazuha to heizou's dps then. he should be compared to wanderer

The Itto Mono-Geo take is just wildly inaccurate. At the end of 2.8, itto's Mono team comp wasn't "barely B+" but still firmly in high tier with good clear times. It was comparable to Hutao Double-Hydro at times (especially when the Pyro Lecture was prominent in floors 11 and 12). Even through 3.0 there were plenty of Mono-Geo friendly abyss floor 12 sides where Itto was as viable as any other hyper carry option. 4.X is still pretty new but aside from Coppelius' shield pretty soundly needing Pyro to break in any timely fashion, Itto-Geo is still a comfortable pick.

If "having better options" is what should get you benched on these lists, then Zhongli, Raiden, and Kokomi NEED to get benched as well (which would be an insane move) as they are ALWAYS a comfort option these days. Hell, even Ayaka should get thrown into the benched list by these standards, since Freeze has fallen off with the numerous boss floors clogging the later floors making it a much less viable team.

I usually like your takes but this was an L.

Heizou performs almost as well as wanderer and xiao and he's a 4* (and more versatile, and more comfy in overworld). He also has that one big hit that doesn't require energy for when you want to dispose of an enemy who has annoying attacks. He's also the best 4* option for national if you don't have sucrose.

Itto team with minimal investment can clear one side of abyss in under a minute for each floor. It literally works on EVERYTHING (and yes, I've cleared abyss lecters etc, it's really not that difficult. Just have enough ER.) and allows you to pick from your entire roster for the other side.
It has kept the same 4 units since it began (every other old-school team has changed in terms of optimal units since they became a thing) and one of them (Gorou) is a 4* that you'll probably get C6 of just from getting Itto (especially if you get Cons on itto). None of them need 5* weapons and only 2 of them get a significant damage upgrade from 5* weapons (Itto and Zhongli...and Zhongli's damage doesn't matter much anyway). Gorou just uses fav, Albedo has 3 options, 2 of which are free event weapons and the other is harbinger lol. Itto's best 4* is craftable.

The Itto disrespect is real. He allows you to ignore elemental reactions, team comps and rotation mechanics altogether and just smash with big stick.

TLDR, Yes. And if an Electro was bad, if you have Dendro they good now. Dehya still trash tho