#rapifessor rambles

[rapifessor]

Varesa and Genshin Impact's Identity Crisis

I'd heard things about Varesa's animations, but now that I've seen the leaks myself, it's even more ridiculous than I could have imagined.

Look, I have a pretty high tolerance for this kind of thing. My attitude towards sex and sexuality is more liberal than most. I think censorship is bullshit and I hate how much Puritanism is ingrained in our culture, especially American culture. But even I think HoYo might have gone too far with this one.

I say that somewhat jokingly, because I still like Varesa a lot in spite of what I've seen. It's just that I'm finally starting to feel the complete tonal whiplash of Genshin Impact over the past year. How did we go from characters like Navia, Furina, Arlecchino, and Chiori to... a girl in a crop top and miniskirt clumsily running about, smashing enemies with her ass?

I'd just like to point out as well that this is what Iansan meant when she said the situation at the Collective of Plenty was under control during the Abyss invasion... dear god.

The most charitable way you could interpret Varesa is as a "crouching moron, hidden badass" type of character; someone who deliberately acts stupid and clumsy but is actually really strong. That's not all bad. But previous characters were mostly cool and badass with silly/cute quirks here and there, or they had really interesting/compelling stories that got you to empathize with them and like them even more. Even Mualani is a really cool person in spite of how goofy she can be. She's a combat veteran and an "older sister" to a lot of people, with a bit of a mischievous streak.

Varesa on the other hand is 100% meme. There's always a chance that could change with the Tribal Chronicle or if she has a role in an upcoming Archon Quest. But in this case I'm not at all confident that will happen. She seems very much like a one-off gag character designed to sell exclusively on sex appeal. She's not just gooner bait, she's straight up coomer bait.

Natlan now very much seems like it's being used as an excuse for HoYoverse to try out a bunch of experimental character designs that didn't fit anywhere else, which I don't explicitly hate, but it's clear that they're pushing the boat out as far as they can with Varesa here. It kinda feels like they just wanted to design characters that don't fit in with Genshin's usual style, but still with Genshin gameplay.

As long as this kind of thing stays in Natlan, it's probably fine in the long run. Snezhnaya needs to be a return to form, though, because Genshin sometimes doesn't feel like Genshin anymore when it comes to Natlan. Especially since we've been building up to it for nearly five years. If the conclusion to the Fatui arc and the reveal of why the Tsaritsa needs the seven Gnoses is anything short of spectacular, this game is cooked.

I'm still probably going for Varesa, because honestly she looks fun as hell and like I said, I have a high tolerance for this kind of thing. I still think it's super funny how blatant they were with this character, it just feels like she belongs in a Senran Kagura game or some shit. And to HoYo's credit, they did make her considerably bigger than other characters of her model type, although her hip-to-waist ratio is still outrageous.

[rapifessor]

Holy shit...

HoYo, please. You can't keep doing this to me.

Y'all have no idea how much I've wanted to talk about this character since I first saw her. I said the exact same thing about Jahoda, but Linnea here made an even stronger and more immediate impression on me. She's heart-meltingly adorable. She has tiny wings on her head, how do you even top that!?

This is also one of the better character designs to come out of Genshin Impact in a while. HoYo has a bit of a reputation for designing completely nonsensical outfits that are either overly asymmetrical or have silly-looking holes in them in an attempt to increase the sex appeal of the character. As much as I like Jahoda, her fit is kinda goofy, and not what I consider to be peak design. Linnea hits much closer to that, because her outfit has a very coherent and gorgeous theme and makes a lot more sense. It's still very elaborate and detailed, but it looks both cute and practical, and like something you could actually wear without it falling apart (not that I would know, I'm not a cosplayer). I think at this point in time I'd still rate Chiori's fit higher than Linnea's, but the two are very close and I like both a lot.

My obsession with this character doesn't stop at her design, though. From what I've seen of her kit, Linnea is very compelling from a gameplay standpoint as well. Her skill has two different modes that let you choose between sustained DPS throughout your rotation or a massive nuke upfront with lower sustained DPS afterwards. It doesn't seem like either mode is clearly better than the other, so which one you use is largely up to personal preference, and having options is always nice. Linnea's burst instantly heals your whole party for a bunch and your on-field character for some more over time, but it also resets the cooldown of her skill. This means that if you don't need the healing, and you want to shorten your rotation (since Linnea's skill has a fairly lengthy 18 second cooldown), you can alternate between skill and burst each rotation and forget about having to build Energy Recharge on Linnea. And of course the option of building ER and bursting every rotation is still there, if you want to play her with Furina for example.

Linnea's Passive Talents provide the team with a handful of buffs. The first reduces enemy Geo RES by 15% while her skill is active, and this is doubled if you have Ascendant Gleam. The second increases Elemental Mastery for the on-field character if they are a "Moonsign" character, and if they aren't, Linnea gets the EM instead. Finally, she has the same passive as all 5-Star Moonsign characters, wherein she enables a Lunar reaction (Lunar-Crystallize, in her case) and increases the damage of said reaction based on one of her stats (DEF). Because of the RES shred, healing, and off-field damage she provides, people have likened Linnea to a Geo Escoffier. An understandable comparison, but I think Linnea is a much better designed unit than Escoffier for a few reasons. For starters, the RES shred she provides is a bit more reasonable than Escoffier's maximum of 55%, and it only affects one element as opposed to two. Linnea also doesn't force you to play only two elements in your team to get that shred. In other words, Linnea is Escoffier as she should have been.

There is one final aspect to Linnea's kit, the cherry on top that shows how much the design team cooked with this character: her Exploration Passive. Linnea gets a completely unique Exploration Passive that allows her to fire an Aimed Shot with drastically reduced charge time, called the "Ultra Convenient Quick Arrow." This attack deals fuck all in terms of damage, and instead will capture animals and automatically harvest ore deposits that it hits. You can literally snipe ores from afar to collect them instantaneously. If that doesn't sound like the coolest most useful thing ever, I don't know what to tell you.

In short, Linnea seems like an incredibly flexible character with a handful of different ways you can play her. You aren't even forced to play her in Ascendant Gleam; you're encouraged to, but the only thing you lose if you don't is 15% Geo RES shred, which isn't even that much considering she already gives you 15% by and Geo Resonance also gives you 15%. Linnea's kit is still fully functional if you don't have Ascendant Gleam (unlike a certain someone for whom that restriction is really irritating). But also, the opportunity cost to get Ascendant Gleam is basically nonexistent because of how good Columbina is. I'm honestly a bit shocked to see a Genshin character kit designed this well and with so few restrictions in 2026. Whether Linnea is simply an outlier or a sign of things to come is anyone's guess, but for now she's defying the trend and I love that for her.

Yeah, in case you couldn't tell, Linnea is shaping up to be another one of my favorite characters. I'm in love with her design and she has a functional and interesting kit. The only aspect of the Perfect Character trifecta she doesn't have on lockdown is her personality, so for the sake of all that is good in this world I hope I don't hate her voice or characterization. Chiori had the benefit of exposure prior to being introduced as a playable character, so I could be certain I adored her beforehand. Linnea's future, meanwhile, is uncertain as I'm pretty sure she has absolutely zero presence in the game right now beyond what other characters have said about her. There is potential information to be gleaned there, for what it's worth, as I have not read any character's "About Linnea" as of yet. The accompanying description that came with her drip marketing is also decidedly cryptic, as always. I suppose I'll attempt to decipher all that while I wait for Linnea to make her debut, and I'll make another post about it if I turn up anything interesting.

[rapifessor]

This is... wild. I don't know what the hell is going on anymore.

So, um... crisis averted, I guess?

Considering how quickly the change was reverted, it may have been a genuine mistake or a bug of some kind. I highly doubt that whatever backlash may have happened was so swift and vicious that it could cause HoYo to reconsider so quickly. It also seems unlikely that the initial leak would have been fake, since the language used here implies that Linnea's mining ability was indeed changed, if only briefly.

Either way, I'm relieved that I won't have to try and fight (and almost certainly lose, since that's what happened with Dehya) for Linnea's ability to do cool shit. It's kinda surreal that things unfolded this way. Almost made me do a double take and wonder if the change even happened in the first place, like I hallucinated it as part of some crazy dream.

My rant from earlier almost feels like a complete overreaction now. I think I was justifiably upset at the nerf and how little sense it made, though I obviously formatted my dissatisfaction in a very emotionally-charged manner. I guess the reason the nerf didn't make sense was because it wasn't intentional. I just tend to assume malice when it comes to HoYo, because so many other things that they do appear to be malicious in some capacity. I'm not going to drop any criticism I have of them just because they happened to do something right. But I also believe in giving positive feedback when they do do something right.

So, good on you, HoYo. Whoever it was that recognized the problem and fixed it, I appreciate that they cared enough to do so.

[rapifessor]

So, how is Jahoda looking?

With the 6.2v3 changes having been made, I think now is as good a time as any to talk about Jahoda's place in the meta, my personal impressions of what she's capable of, and how I think she'll age moving forward.

Fortunately, Jahoda seems to be fairly interesting. She does some pretty unique things for an Anemo character, as long as you're able to meet her requirements. Speaking of which, Jahoda really wants to be played with at least one other Nod-Krai character so that the party's Moonsign level is Ascendant Gleam. Without that, she's a lot less compelling. Her Elemental Skill's unique mechanic, wherein she "absorbs" an element applied to an enemy, straight up doesn't work if you don't have Ascendant Gleam.

But assuming you have it, Jahoda can significantly enhance the application of other elements through her skill. What's more, this ability has 100% uptime, as it lasts 20 seconds and Jahoda's skill cooldown is only 15 (reduced from 17 in previous versions). Elemental application is very important, and it's why characters like Xingqiu are so strong. For example, look at Hu Tao. She needs extremely fast Hydro application to be able to trigger Vaporize on all her Charged Attacks, and Xingqiu is the only character with enough Hydro application to do that by himself. Every other Hydro character needs at least some backup.

Jahoda can be that backup while maintaining the ability to hold and trigger the Viridescent Venerer artifact set. Furthermore, the healing from her Elemental Burst is strong enough to enable Furina. So now we just need another Nod-Krai character. Our options are Ineffa, Aino, Lauma, Flins, and Nefer.

Aino is redundant at this point because we don't need more Hydro application, and unfortunately that's about the only thing she does. Jahoda can work with Nefer in her teams, and the results are pretty decent, although not the best team Nefer has access to. Still, if you wanted to play Boss Nef and her loyal employee together in the same team, it's pretty effective. Flins still benefits from Sucrose and Aino a lot more than Jahoda, and he really wants Ineffa, so I wouldn't recommend Jahoda for his teams.

Lauma will probably lend herself well to Quickbloom teams alongside Jahoda with an Electro on-fielder like Razor or Cyno. Unfortunately, this doesn't work nearly as well with Aggravate/Spread, and running Jahoda in Quickbloom with a Dendro on-fielder is impossible due to the restrictions on team size. So what about Ineffa?

Well, Ineffa is probably the best Nod-Krai character to pair with Jahoda and Furina right now. Ineffa is one of the strongest off-field damage dealers in the game, and she already has everything she needs to function in those other two characters. With this trio, you get a pretty powerful wheelchair core that you can run with pretty much any on-field character and clear endgame content. What's extra nice about that is that Jahoda is a 4-Star character, so it's more accessible than other wheelchair teams.

Side note, I find it incredibly funny that you can play Mekaberry (commonly used name for the Ineffa x Jahoda ship) in-game and it's actually a real team that clears content. Even though I'm not a huge fan of that ship, I hope that name catches on and that's just what people call the Jahoda/Ineffa/Furina core. That would be amazing.

Long story short, Jahoda isn't pushing the power level of any existing teams right now, but I think her unique qualities are being underestimated. If all you focus on are Flins and Nefer teams, then it makes sense that you wouldn't be excited for Jahoda. I, on the other hand, think she has a ton of room to grow and she'll only get stronger as time goes on. Columbina is probably coming out in version 6.3, the patch after Jahoda, and there's a good chance she greatly expands Jahoda's options. Maybe Illuga will do something too, who knows. Either way, I'm quite optimistic about Jahoda's potential, and I'm looking forward to when I can finally try her out and see what she can do.

[rapifessor]

Varesa is a character that exists

And oh boy, is she making waves already. For pretty obvious reasons.

In the words of a friend, "What in the fresh fucking vtuber model goonerbait tho?"

Apparently she's a... wrestler? Can't say for sure since HoYo seems incapable of marketing drip on time these days, but it's in her leaked ability descriptions. Seems consistent with how she's presented, at least... well, kinda. She's not exactly what comes to mind when I think "wrestler," but the joke is obviously that she likes to eat (she's eating a goddamn taco in her official artwork for shit's sake) which makes her chubby and therefore good at wrestling. And I mean... sure. She's got the thighs, but she doesn't have the belly fat. Not that I expect HoYoverse to properly model heavier ladies or design them in the first place; this is a gacha game after all, and they're cowards.

That being said, I do like her design. She may be the most obvious gooner bait this side of Booba Sword, but sometimes that's okay. Also... might just be me, but is she in trans flag colors? The "light blue" in her design is really more of an aqua, but... maybe HoYoverse is trying to tell us something here. They'd never say it outright because again: they're cowards, but the color choice is so close that it might just be intentional with plausible deniability. Either way, I'm going to headcanon that Varesa is trans. She is absolutely primed to spark gender envy in any case.

[rapifessor]

Jahoda!

Oh. Man. I have been dying to talk about this character for the past six weeks, and now that she's been confirmed for version 6.2 (Lunar III), there's finally something to talk about. Jahoda was an absolute slam dunk of a character from the moment I laid eyes on her. Peak design, peak personality, she's extremely funny and relatable, and I love that her name is Czech and it means "strawberry." My last name happens to be Czech, so clearly this was destiny.

She quickly became one of my absolute favorite Genshin Impact characters, rivaling Chiori for me. I'm still not sure which one I like more at this point. I spent hours speculating about what Jahoda's kit was going to be like and what I was hoping she would be, and now we finally have concrete leaks about her.

Jahoda is a 4-Star character, as many of us expected, and she appears to be a healer who uses her skill to absorb elements from enemies, deal off-field damage of that type, and restore energy for her. Her elemental burst heals and changes effects based on the most dominant element in your party (PHEC priority order when elements are in equal amounts), and characters above 70% HP that are healed by her burst gain a 100 Elemental Mastery buff.

At C1 her skill gets a 50% chance to hit an additional time. C2 allows her to activate two of the bonus effects from her burst instead of only one. C3 increases her burst level, C5 increases her skill. C4 gives Jahoda additional energy when her burst converts to an element. And finally, C6 grants 5% CRIT Rate and 40% CRIT DMG to all Nod-Krai characters in the party for 20s after Jahoda uses her skill.

I was actually a little bit disappointed at first when I found out that Jahoda was a healer. I never imagined that was even a possibility going by her design and character. After seeing her idle animations though, it kinda made sense. I can't really describe it, but the vibes match up, so I'm not too upset by it. Jahoda being a healer also has several advantages, one of which, of course, is role compression.

Right now the obvious use case for Jahoda is as a replacement for Sucrose in Flins teams, which many suspected would be the case. However, due to the nature of her element and kit, I think she will continue to be relevant going forward, and she has the potential to become a staple in Nod-Krai teams. I really like how her skill seems to work, actually improving elemental application in a reliable way. That's not something that Anemo really has right now, and better yet, it isn't tied to her burst. There also seems to be a lot of nuance to Jahoda's kit, which means we dodged the "boring kit" and "strictly better version of Sucrose for Lunar teams" bullet, and I can't tell you how happy I am about that. Anemo design space is where creativity goes to die; the element had been incredibly stale and self-similar for a long time. Jahoda seems to finally be breaking us out of that curse. She's a real one for that.

But these are all just my first impressions. I absolutely have not done any calculations yet, and the information we have is still very incomplete, so we'll have to wait and see how good her healing is and how effective her buffs and application are. I theorycraft as a side thing and I'm not a big-brain TCer by any means, so the best I can come up with is probably Jahoda's personal damage and weapon/artifact options (not that I expect her to use anything other than Fav and VV, lol). Still, expect a post like that shortly. I'm really looking forward to Jahoda, I love her so fucking much and I'll most likely be making an effort to make her as strong as possible, regardless of the team.

[rapifessor]

Let's talk about Skirk (and Escoffier).

As some of you may know, Skirk is fast-approaching as a playable character in Genshin Impact. She has not been drip-marketed yet, as for whatever reason HoYo has been very slow about that for a while now. But as always, there are leaks.

And it's those leaks that I want to talk about, because I have growing concerns with the way Genshin Impact's balance is headed. Skirk looks like she's going to be very strong, but that strength is somewhat dependent on another character that was recently released. That being Escoffier, of course.

The general consensus among theorycrafters is that Escoffier is perhaps the most unbalanced character that's ever been released, aside from maybe Bennett. Mavuika and Neuvillette are baby shit compared to her. And looking at the leaks for Skirk, it's abundantly clear that Escoffier was made to support her.

This results in Escoffier being the de facto best support for Skirk, and an essential part of her best teams. No other Cryo support comes even remotely close to what Escoffier provides. And this seems to be HoYo's new money-making strategy: instead of releasing dedicated 4-Star supports for new DPS characters, make them 5-Stars instead.

Skirk is probably going to be very popular, so they're cashing in on that by pushing people to build a super premium team for her. I don't know how strong the Skirk/Escoffier/Yelan/Furina team will be exactly, but if it's stronger than Mavuika teams (which isn't out of the question), the game balance is looking pretty fucked. Coupled with the fact that the Abyssal Spire has been getting a lot more difficult lately and you can probably see why I'm so concerned about this.

The barrier to entry for newer players to start participating in Genshin's endgame is higher than it's ever been, and I fear it will become higher still. In some ways I think Escoffier is a good thing for the game, because her sheer power can wheelchair some older Cryo and Hydro characters that are less competitive. It's Skirk's synergy with and semi-reliance on her that bothers me.

I've secured my ability to run Skirk's strongest team thanks to a 50/50 win on Escoffier, but other players might not be so lucky or have the same amount of resources. It's especially difficult for aspiring Skirk mains, who've been saving for their favorite character and might not have enough to justify getting what it takes to make her the best.

[rapifessor]

Flins, Aino, and Lauma

So, these three are our starting lineup for version 6.0 characters, are they? Let's have a closer look.

Flins appears to be a fan favorite among the eleven characters that were teased for Nod-Krai not too long ago, and I completely understand why. He takes the standard concept of a badass anime dude and amps it up with a grim grave keeper aesthetic. I'm a fan as well.

However, current leaks paint him in a somewhat different light. He's a 5-Star character, but he seemingly borrows a lot of his kit design from Varesa. He even calcs similarly to Varesa, but unlike Varesa he's much more reliant on having his "premium" team in order to reach those numbers. At least he'll be relatively competitive, so those looking to main him will probably have a good time.

I don't have much to say about Aino. Her design is fine. It's cute and all that. Honestly the most interesting thing about her is that, after five years, we finally have our mythical Hydro Claymore user. Better late than never I guess.

Unfortunately, being a 4-Star character, her performance leaves something to be desired. Her kit is full of increases to her personal damage, which is nonexistent. Sounds like something we've seen before. Great kit design there, well done HoYo. Similarly, in true HoYo fashion, her C6 makes her an actually usable character, boosting the damage of non-Vaporize Hydro reactions.

Now, Lauma. I'm just gonna say it: I'm not a huge fan of this one.

There are elements of her design that I like. She has the whole crescent moon thing going on, and the antlers are kinda neat. But other than that, she's just a big tiddy anime elf lady to me (who's also half-naked, because of course). And that's fine; I have nothing against big tiddy anime elf women. I'm just not impressed by them. She could not have been more obviously made for gooners, though I'm sure she will have her less horny fanbase as well.

Leaks-wise, Lauma looks quite good. She significantly buffs Bloom and Hyperbloom teams, which have been falling off lately, and her teams calc somewhere around 100k DPS. Not Mavuika level, but still very solid. HoYo is likely assuming (correctly) that she'll be quite popular, and may be seeking to capitalize on that popularity with the way she's balanced. It's still early in beta though, so we'll see how things shape up over time.

Overall, these three aren't my favorites from Nod-Krai. I'd say my favorite character from the teaser is Jahoda, who unfortunately seems to rank somewhat low in popularity among fans (y'all have no taste, seriously). I'm also interested to see what they do with Durin, so here's hoping those two show up fairly soon and are good characters. It's fine if they're 4-Stars, but please for the love of Celestia make them good, HoYo.