u/AdamB_901

So after a while of trying to optimize my Varka's team, using combos I feel comfortable doing and trying out different rotations, I ended up here:

for context -

Varka C0R0 (Serpent Spine R5) Winds (Attack goblet), Prune C6 Atlas VV, Durin C0R1 Noblesse, Nicole C2R1 Celestial Gift.

Rotation - Nicole E > Durin EQE > Prune Q > Varka E 2N4E N4/2N1C

Durin -

I tested both Durin on Noblesse and on Winds, the difference wasn't big, but it was consistently noticeable.
Durin's personal damage got lower by a small and barely noticeable margin, but the gains were noticeable on the rest of the team.

1. Noblesse allows me to sacrifice attack on Prune for more ER (on her feather and flower), hitting that breakpoint where using her skill makes no difference and shortens my rotation (that breakpoint is flimsy and inconsistent, but when it happens it's quite great).
2. Noblesse buffs Nicole's C1 Procs since it scales directly from Nicole's attack.
3. Using EQE on Durin and not EEQ / QEE - Now, this is mostly reliable in the milliastra test dummy or Abyss when you start with full energy.. In those cases and in the cases where you can burst before the energy refund on his elemental skill, using EQE makes the biggest difference in team DPS in the long run. It shortens the rotation by afew frames, and that adds up.

Nicole -

Turns out, her burst is not a DPS increase (at least at lv.8 talent). From my testing, the DPS of the team went down by a small margin (~5k) when using her burst.
I assume this will of course get smaller once I crown it, but if it doesn't completely close the gap and surpass it, at C1 and above, building any ER in exchange for ATK% or flat ATK is a net dps loss unfortunately.
I also use Nicole first in the rotation, so I ended up "wasting" 1 of her Burst Projections on Durin, and at occasions (when using skill on Prune) even 2 (1 on Durin and 1 on Prune), and that's also a DPS loss when those procs aren't used on Varka.

Prune -

At first, I tried to maximize her attack, but turns out, after 4k attack she really doesn't gain much from it and investing the rest of the rolls into ER could lend you into skipping her elemental skill and shortening the rotation, which would increase the team DPS abelit not by alot since using EQ is quite fast. And always skipping the second E is basically a must.
(I'm still tweaking with her ER needs, as it's also abit inconsistent even at C2+ with 194% ER)

I tried testing her with TTDS, it was worse by quite alot.
With TTDS, I was getting to 3.1k attack. (~27.5% dmg bonus)
This means Varka's personal damage increases when the rotation lines up perfectly (which is sometimes doesn't -- Rotations hover around 20s, when it's smaller than 20, TTDS buff can be missed which is a massive DPS loss)
But Durin's damage gets lower (17.5% less dmg bonus) and with shorter rotations (sub 20s) TTDS becomes very inconsistent.
Albeit my Prune is lv.80 and I don't intend to invest into ascending her for the additional attack, but leveling her should close the gap on TTDS vs Atlas in rotations longer than 20s (If those are needed, for example, when using EEQ on Durin for the energy, or in real combat scenarios where rotations aren't perfect)

Varka -

1. For the testing I prestacked Serpent Spine.
2. If I had a comparable anemo goblet I would've tested it too (because of Nicole's C1's procs on Varka). but since the Anemo dmg distribution is considerably lower it would probably be worse than attack or pyro, but that's an assumption I'm making.
3. I do have a Pyro dmg goblet but the differences were negligible and my attack goblet just has better substats.
4. Combos.
5. Now, that's the biggest difference in the team's DPS
6. I tried afew combos, primarily the N5 combo and N1C combos. but without the attack speed from his Sig, N5 Felt really underwhelming and just "heavy" and not in a good way, and using N1C was absolutely boring and annoying for me personally.
7. I ended up enjoying E N1C 2N4E N4/2N1C and since I was consistent with that rotation and it lined up perfectly with my cooldowns and energy on Durin and Prune, this was the best combo I found for myself.

Just for some more information, once I pulled Nicole and Prune leveled them up, her weapon and Durin's weapon.
At first I was hitting ~220k DPS, and tweaking all of those stuff (ER needs, Rotation, Artifact sets and Combos), gaining ~10% DPS increase to 245k+ consistently is incredibly satisfying.
Last thing would be to pull for Varka's weapon..

The Tulpa really was the hardest part for me, had to learn Mavuika's combos finally (I've been delaying it as long as I could) and still it took alot of time to both master the combos and the bosses mechanic, and eventually clearing it.

Using Arlecchino was honestly the best option for me since Yanfei was unleveled and also had only one leveled favinous codex (which was on Nahida) and multiple lances, so naturally, she was the chosen one.

My first real dire clear (if we don't include the season with Jean/Amber/Zhongli). Very excited I've accomplished that.. some would say I'm Exalted :)