Theorycrafting, Waifu Over Meta & Can META Be Fun? | Genshin Podcast ft. Theorycrafter

The thing about 36 stars in abyss its not about getting 50 more primogems its about being able to do the only challenging task genshin provides. If i would not be able to 36 star abyss i would feel so fking pathetic

I try to focus on both (except I am a husbando player and not waifu lol) but I prefer to play and build characters that I like, pulling for meta units that I don't like is personally kind of a one way ticket to burn out for me. I also try to get cons for the good 4* units who I think can really help with my team building options with my favorite characters.

Kokomi is a good example of people assuming the character is awful and now she has a huge pick rate for abyss.

I hope tc community adapts more the "optimizing a character to the fullest" rather than the what's most meta out of all these. Agree w/ what Migo said, from patch 1.0, meta never changed. National Team + Tazer/Freeze, that's the meta, case closed.

My favorite thing is when you learn the hidden mechanics in certain characters by just playing them. Yae Miko for instance, if you want to play with her charged attacks you can actually cancel part of her startup lag, and move that into her turrets, a dodge, or her burst! Same goes for the endlag on all of her moves! A whole new world of fun opened for me when I learned her extra mechanics!

I think there is a fine difference between what I call "micro-meta" vs "macro-meta." With micro, you're focused on building a character in a meta way but you are otherwise just using that character because waifu or some other reason BESIDES meta.

Meanwhile, my issue with meta comes from the "macro-level;" that is to say, you inherently are picking all your characters and optimizations from the ground up based on whatever is meta. I have an issue with the latter because it says a lot more about why you are playing. I understand it can come off as a strawman fallacy in the right circumstances but when I hear when someone is building characters only because they're meta, what that tells me is that they're only focused on winning. That isn't at all bad in Genshin but when you look at other, more competitive games, it suddenly becomes only about winning with putting no effort into analyzing the meta and making tactical decisions.

Does the meta matter?
Me(f2p): * only has ayaka and yae miko as dps and forces to finish the abyss only with them*

as a hu tao main, the phrase "is 4pc shim good" triggers war flashbacks LOL.

Keep doing your thing Sevy, your approach to content and helping is one of my favorite things in the community

Meta should not be seen as mutually exclusive nor complementary to fun. Some people like just collecting, others like destroying content efficiently. Neither approach is better or worse.

Loved listening to this podcast style video!

played Genshin for the husbandos and it just so happened that my main husbando is Childe whose main kit requires a lot of understanding of the game mechanics that you naturally step into the Meta territory to get him to his max potential.
We all want to see our fave do big PP numbers right?

But at the end of the day, it is stil husbando before meta for me.

For me waifu always over meta makes the game better for me but I will play metal teams if the need calls for has for gen shin 90% of my waifu's are meta 😎

I embrace meta FOR my waifu.
Any game I play, I use meta to make the character I like the best they can be. Power is love, and love is power.

Hi Sevy and Migo. I really enjoyed the Podcast. Looking forward for the next one.

For the next topic, perhaps you could talk about player mentalities in the Genshin community. I mean there is so much more than just team waifu vs team meta. Like, what makes certain people think building 5* is more worth it than 4*. You do account reviews, you must have encountered a lot of player types.

I'm a husbando player. I have tried to build "meta" characters like Xiangling, but she is So Boring to play (for me). It's just put Gouba down, put ult down and leave, that's it.
I'll never regret building Thoma as a shielder, now I have him on one team and Zhongli on another, and I'm just fine. I also love a freezing team with KaeyaxChilde, where Kaeya's ult spins around Childe and you just have a movable freezing tornado.

I can't clear abyss with 36 stars yet, I only get between 33-35 each patch. But that's fine. I'd rather have 15 so-so built characters than 8 ultra invested ones that I will have to use over and over

Going to have to disagree with Migo's thoughts on Shimenawa's. The reason being this: a lot of characters use Emblem, and since 2 piece Shimenawa is handy for a lot more, it is a natural choice for people to farm. Furthermore, what we get from ascension bosses, weekly bosses, and the Abyss also offers that same two piece bonus. So basically, you should wind up with a lot of 18% atk two piece bonus options without denying the four piece Shimenawa's to Yoimiya. Which isn't to say that I think Shimenawa's is the set for Yoi. Just that one of the main perks of Yoimiya is that she does make good use of a set you'll likely get a good 4 piece of while you're farming the other set in the domain.

As far 36 starring the Abyss goes, I fully agree on it not really being something to worry about. But I think a lot of people do make getting 36 stars harder for themselves than it actually is. This is because I think a lot of people are of a mindset that they need to 9 star the entire floor, instead of just needing to 3 star each stage of a floor. Meaning you don't have to struggle over and over trying to make two teams work for all three stages. If you get 8 stars on floor 12, well, just make teams that are made to beat that one you got 2 on, and for the rest, as long as they can make it to that stage, it doesn't matter how long it takes them.

podcast yes, me like, TYY

The way I look at Shimenawa is that the 4pc set will be worth it if the 50% NA/CA bonus is enough to make up for skipping your burst entirely in the rotation.
I haven done the math on this but from my experience Yoimiya when paired with Bennet should not use 4pc Shimenawa since Bennet's buff Improves her burst as well.
However when paired with Yun Jin Instead it appears to be worth it as her 5th NA hit alone does about as much damage as the entire burst string already, and she gets to land 3 N5s per E cast.

Hey Sevy! I'm a new player around 42-44 AR by now. Started playing 2 months ago but I really am hitting a wall. I feel none of my free 4 starts are worth leveling up due to lack of Cs. I got the Jean as "starting reason" - rerolled a few times. By now she is 70. As well as c2 Xiangling and c1 Heizou. Razor c0 got fed to 60 till I drew Heizou. Also leveled my only hydro Goddess: Barbara to 50. Had her sister for heals... but no hydro. Also got Toma c3 during the Heizou rolls, chilling at lvl1. And some others, all on c0. But nothing really worthy to invest. I can do nothing without finding mmo group, 60% success. Very annoying. What I am looking for is a guide for long term investment: like "Level Kaeya, buy his Cs all 6 months as F2P and you are set." Bennet is up, I've got none of him, but a whole lot of pyro chars - ending up with guitar lady would by a waste so much that even the 5 star would not equal it out. Next chapter is Dendro? FFS? I am so lost in this game and just wish to do something stable with all the true C0 F2P I got. I hope you do some "mid life crises"-takes for F2P dudes like me.

Please do more of these. These are lovely to listen to full stop period.

Hmm,
I do like using my Shimenawa Miko
But i guess it does make sense for Miko to not use 4pc Shimenawa
Miko's focus is her skill and charged attack but her charged attack does come out really slow, infrequently and renders Miko vulnerable ( i don't have a built shielder except Thoma but that locks her into an overload team and sometimes i don't want/need/can do that)
It now makes sense to me that i should probably focus on her totems more

Ngl though
Shimenawa looks so good on her

I lost my 50/50 :'c
Yoimiya come home!!!

Well, I use Kazuha with my Shogun team so I guess I can use Fsworn that got me max epitomized pity. (Cope) Or my Bennett can use it for the extra buffs, he already has enough ER anyway even with Aquila (Cope)

Building for the sake of building described my life. It`s not like theres much to do in the game other than that after a certain ar

Just glad that I played early enough to never need to force myself into playing a team I dislike playing.

Eventually everyone will get to a point where they can play whatever teams/chars they want.

As a person who 36* abyss the first time using Lisa as a TTDS NO support, I say waifu AND meta

i agree that the game is more fun when you have (meta) characters that are strong

Even of I do have better characters, but I still want to proving Keqing more. All because of those backlashes from many peoples won't make me stop to proving her. I still can't find latest guides for Keqing (In 2.8 Specifically) before the Sumeru will come. Waifu only won't be enough if without power.

100% agree about meta its about when.
I am f2p and clear abyss 2.7 both half with only 2 char each side
When u reach good investment on a char meta didnt really matter

lol i pulled shenhe back then when i literally have no cryo dps (not even kaeya and rosaria). But now? damn my ayaka with her signature + kazuha AND my shenhe literally the most satisfying and strong team that i have. Now what i only need is the fish girl bcs she's cute

I have zero interest in waifus, if you're boring to play I'm not summoning ( looking at you Ganyu) the only female limited five star I've actually pulled for is Raiden and I'm waiting to c2 her then maybe I'll get Eula, idk

Meta is there if you dont like fighting boss for materials daily in 5-10 mins everytime you wanna fight them.

Meta is there so you dont take half a year to make a single team to clear abyss 8 and dont take 20 mins killing azdaha.

Meta is there so youre not stuck at world level 5 when youre AR 59.

Meta is there because the game has limited resources.

Meta is subjective depending on your goals.
1.) Abyss different meta, its a themed timed combat
2.) Exploration team for collecting world resources, solving puzzles etc.
3.) Dailies for basic combat and some basic random friendship/companionship quests.

you can sum all of those goals up and look at the available roster and you can see which characters on these 3 requirements can do all these things.
Kazuha
1.) stamina reduction and double jump for exploration.
2.) Easy grouping and loot collecting on dailies.
3.) One of the best character supports in the abyss.

The point of meta is using the least amount of resources to get the acquired goal quicker.

Either its for limited play time, end game and being able to make the chores much quicker so you dont die of repetitive reruns of the same things.

Ive also seen slander that meta people reinforce and say to use this and use that, but tcs and meta ccs do state disclaimers for their opinions and state pull values of these characters if theyre worth the primogem and MONEY. What I see are the actual toxic ones enforcing pull for who you like on a META ANALYSIS VIDEO. They keep saying the game is easy but cant even 36 star the abyss. Pulling for who you like also has alot of downsides because everyone likes the next character, so you are always in conflict with yourself which makes you spend or if its worth pulling at all. You need to justify why I should pull for this waifu and not this waifu. People kept saying Yoimiya is very fun BUT SPAMMING LEFT CLICK IS NOT FUN, if thats your idea of fun, then I guess I can recommend you minesweeper. A lot of leftclicks in there.

I used Yoimiya in the trial event and she did 28-30k charged without being built for charged and was extremely AOe, it’s just that her burst prioritized only 2 enemies and at worst only 1

Awesome discussion. Thanks guys. 🎇🏹🎆

My take on meta:
- if you're not strong enough to clear content with your fav characters, use meta
- if you're clowning on the content with your fav characters, meta is irrelevant

META is important yet not so important for my own experience.

As in, I'm mainly a open-world player, what others call "casual"(though nothing casual about it when I spend hours each day playing), but do want my units to be strong enough to clear domains and bosses.

I try to get decent to good enough artifacts to make that experience easier. Cause when I want to farm boss materials or talent materials, I desire for it to be fast. And theorycraft guides help. Even with non-meta units to be their strongest versions.

But I don't try to get the best of the best artifacts or team builds. For example, with Yelan, I can clear a lot of the domains and most bosses with no buffs. As long as I can kill them fast enough to not make it a chore, I am happy.

I just got yoimiya and first of all, cried a little, second of all, cringed because of shim, and was wondering if you had any opinions or maths done yet for Echoes of an Offering as a potential meta build for yoimiya? I had heard from a friend that it was a potential BiS for her.

Honestly the genshin community is just toxic at this point, the number of "pulling x is a mistake" or "why you should skip" is so sad.

Hoyoverse is mostly to blame as well due to the limited banners and everyone constantly speculating "you shouldnt pull because X may rerun soon"

I think the "fear of missing out" is something real in geshin impact. I follow a lot of genshin impact channels and I always feels that I should pull for a character or weapon because this character is a must pull. I felt that with Yelan, Itto, Raiden, Ayaka, Hutao and off course I felt the same way with their respective weapons like Homa, Mistsplitter, etc. So hearing someone talking about meta and how it doesn't matter that much really takes a lot of that "pressure" off. Thank you for the good content <3

Idk abt yall but meta is fun af

Thanks! I'm still new to genshin and your vid help me a lot on building up my team. Keep it up!

Am I the only one annoyed at the vtuber avatar? Its animations need to slow down a bit so that its not changing back to the still animation during the pauses in your speech. I feel like i'll have a seizure watching it flicker back and forth every nano-second.

yea.. for me.. i'd use Meta to get anything important first so i can sit back and relax later and get all the waif i wanted..
and with the Meta, i get to know what is Rotation, what is Artefacts substat values on certain characters, and how to deal with certain chambers..