Here is the original theory post I made a few days ago predicting this exact thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin\_Impact/s/MetESyaS6M

With these leaks Vesna, if she's a DPS, is pretty much guaranteed to be a plunger, since SSwirl explicitly enables plunges, and as a result Xianyun is all but confirmed to get buffed and be her Lauma. You can read my original article as to my full and detailed reasoning behind this, and I believe the recent leak is the perfect proof and confirmation that this will, indeed, happen

Leak about SSwirl was taken from r/GenshinImpactLeaks

Seeing Odette and Alyosha leaks, will Odette Alyosha Qiqi/Xilo/some other guy, be better than Yae Odette Alyosha? Or like at least competitive?

Introduction

If you have been keeping track of the leaks, you know by now that Sandrone is coming, and old characters are getting buffs of ranging quality. Among them is Yae Miko, who got insanely buffed and is now, at least for Stellarconduct, the best buffed character by far far. So good are her buffs, in fact, that she has become Sandrone's equivalent of Ineffa to Flins, by single-handedly giving her a 40k team DPS increase over the next-best option, C6 Beidou (who is also buffed, giving 15 cryo and electro shred and 200 em at C6). So unless you have Yae already and you want to play Sandrone, you have literally no choice but to pull for both of them, if you care about meta of course.

Stellar Swirl

Now, we also know that there will be at least one more Stellar reaction in the land of vodka - Stellar Swirl (from now on - SSwirl), the cryo + anemo reaction that was literally teased in the 6.7 livestream trailer, so there is no doubt that its coming. And so, it follows that there shall be a new Main DPS coming soon, probably 7.1 like Nefer did in 6.1, that will use this new reaction as the base of their kit. We as of right now dont really know what that reaction does for now, although it appears to be some kind of star that follows you around and does coordinated hits at intervals.

But that doesnt matter for now. What does is the fact that Hoyo will, very likely, do another round of character buffs for SSwirl. I can easily see C6 Sayu, Wanderer, Mizuki, and maybe Faruzan, Heizou and even Xiao (SSwirl Xiao = new SSwirl set = Long Nights Oath powercrept (maybe?) = wasted 1.5 years = very angry Zyox >:3) getting SSwirl buffs to make them more relevant. But that begs the question: who will be the Giga OP Buffed character that will be the BiS support for the new SSwirl DPS (whoever they may be)? One character, more than any other, stands out to take this role - the adoptive mom of Ganyu and Shenhe, the genius crane mechanic of the Adepti - Xianyun. And, at least to me, she's guaranteed, even already and now, to be this OP BiS support. Here's why.

Xianyun vs Yae

Yae - old character, Electro, off-field damage dealer, not relevant in the meta because of her low damage and long field time, was sidelined and forgotten for years, so bad she got added to the free 5* selector - gets OMEGAbuffed in 6.7 to become the undisputed (as of now) BiS support for new *Electro-*related reaction (Stellarconduct) and becomes Stellar Ineffa.

Xianyun - old character, Anemo, off-field buffer and plunge enabler, not relevant in the meta because plunge characters were not meta (though quite good for Varesa, but Overload was and still is noticeably better, so she wasnt a proper BiS for her), was sidelined and forgotten for years, not on the standard selector yet but could easily be added in 7.0 since her c1 sucks - new confirmed reaction SSwirl requires Anemo (obviously), Hoyo buffing old characters, AND MOST CRUCIALLY - kit provides crit rate, VV shred and flat dmg bonus ("quills") to plunge attacks... just like Lauma to Lunar Bloom...

OH HOW CONVINIENT IT WOULD BE if the new SSwirl DPS was a plunger, and Xianyun, an explicit dedicated plunge support and enabler, were to receive a buff that gave SSwirl damage insanely OP quills, plus like 10 cr and 30 cd to all all SSwirl damage, SO she would be a 40-50+K dps increase over all other alternatives, making her the undisputed BiS for that SSwirl DPS! HOW. CONVINIENT.

Why its pretty much guaranteed to be Xianyun

If you look at the entire cast of Anemo characters in Genshin as of right now and were asked to choose a character to buff to become the BiS support of the upcoming SSwirl DPS, and make a profit out of it, this would be the approximate thought process:

Main DPS' like Wanderer or Xiao - wont work, they're carries they cant just buff people.

4*s - wont work, many people have them C6 and so nobody would pull for them.

Venti - got buffed already with Hex, no point in buffing him again, hell nah.

Kazuha - was meta for years and is still one of the best universal supports in the game, still has plenty of use without any buffs, plus he's popular so many people have him and wont pull for him again for his buffs.

Jean and Mizuki - standard characters, free from the anniversary selector, free cons from the con selector, nobody is pulling for them ever.

And what do you know - only Xianyun is left. She ticks all the boxes for qualifying to become a buffed character to sell on a banner: has low ownership rates since she's not very popular and meta, and at her base provides quill-like Lauma-like buffing to plunge attacks, just like Yae provided off-field Ineffa-like Electro damage. She's... almost too good, too perfect, and at least to me, its SO OBVIOUS its gonna be her getting buffed.

There is the potential argument that Shenhe will be the one to give SSwirl buffs and not Xianyun, however to that I say that Shenhe was a lot more relevant in the meta than Xianyun, being a part of Ayaka's and now Skirk's best teams, and while her getting SSwirl synergy isnt impossible, she's already quite good in a good and relevant team (Skirk) and doesnt really need buffs, and so I believe her to be a far less likely candidate for receiving buffs. And when you look at the other Cryo characters, there are, again, no other viable candidates, as the existing Cryo characters are either 4*s, DPSs, or relatively new and powerful supports that are doing perfectly fine in their niche and dont need buffs to be good in the meta.

Conclusion

You could say that Xianyun getting buffed in like 7.1 or 7.2 and being the SSwirl Lauma is a very big piece of speculation, given that we havent even seen the Snezhnaya trailer yet. And to a degree, you are right - it is speculation, and things could turn out differently than what I 've said them to be. However, with all the clues and data that is available to us right now, I personally am 90% certain that this is EXACTLY what is going to happen, as there are... well, no alternatives to Xianyun, they simply do not exist. The only possible alternative is that the BiS SSwirl support is a new 5* released in 7.X, which is possible, however since Hoyo has done this buffing once for one reaction, they're bound to do it again for the next reaction.

Now, that isnt to say that the other characters I mentioned on this list wont get buffed and wont be good for SSwirl DPS guy - they will, and likely they will have great synergy with them. But they wont reach the level of power, influence and meta necessity for them as Xianyun will, for all the reasons I outlined above. Therefore, if you are like me and you hate plunge DPS playstyles (Im sure there are plenty of such people), and you play for meta, you may have to consider getting Sandrone and Yae, as they're a lot more mechanically friendly and better to play than plunge.

If you have any complaints, questions or logical objections to this study/theory/thought experiment, comment down below and I will answer them or hear you out. Starry signing out, and I rest my case.

Did this scientific study on Skirk's ability to clear the Nightsoul Boss in 6.7, thought yall would find this useful. Here's the link to my study, on r/SkirkMains, since this sub doesn't allow crossposting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SkirkMains/s/iAVEPncdny

Introduction - why am I doing this

If you have been following r/Genshin_Impact_Leaks, you may have seen the leaks concerning the next Stygian Onslaught boss lineup in 6.7, and if you haven't then at least you most likely have seen people, including on this sub, thinking about whether they'll be able to beat the Superconduct shill boss with Skirk, as it looks to be nearly impossible to beat despite Skirk being one of the few main DPSs outside of Sandrone that has a chance of properly beating it.

However, almost nobody (at least on this sub) is talking about the third boss - the Secret Source Automaton: Configuration Device (from now on: the automaton), a boss that heavily shills Nightsoul with over 25 million hp on dire, and which is, at least in my view, just as hard if not harder for Skirk to clear than the Superconduct boss and deserves more attention and research than it's getting.

So in this study, I will break down my research, estimates and calculations based off of preexisting data, both from the overworld testing of the boss and the data of the stygian boss version from the leaks we received from r/Genshin_Impact_Leaks a week or so ago (see Img. 2)

Important disclaimers

1. The data in this study is NOT perfect as it is for the most part extrapolation and my interpretation of incomplete, vague data from leaks, which aren't fully reliable and can be subject to future change.
2. Unlike the Superconduct boss, there is no video footage of the boss in stygian itself, so some of the attack patterns and duration of certain animations or special stygian-only mechanics can be longer or shorter than stated here.
3. This study is inspired by u/Samayotte's calculations in their comment under the following post about this boss: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact_Leaks/comments/1trse32/67v2_so_secret_source_automaton_configuration/ I express my own take on this boss here and make calculations that I believe to be more credible and accurate than theirs. No offence to them, they did a great job, Im just presenting my own view and adding in more data that was not available at the time of them writing that comment.
4. All the hp numbers are for Dire, however I will also look at Fearless
5. This study is open to use by anyone, however I ask you to link the URL to this post and credit me wherever it is relevant.

Boss mechanics (See Img. 2 for shorter version)

The Secret Source Automaton: Configuration Device at the start of the fight will create a shield that has 110% all elemental and physical RES, and start accumulating "Countermeasures", or shield progress. 1% progress will be passively accumulated every 1s, and every time a character enters the Nightsoul Blessing state, the boss will get 2.5% instantly + 1.5% every second that the Nightsoul is maintained. The Nightsouls of off-field characters is also counted.

Once Countermeasures reaches 100%, the shield will break and the boss will take 50% of the shield's damage to itself, and deploy 2 pillars, just like in the overworld. You have to climb the pillars and destroy the mechanisms on the pillars in order to stun the boss, otherwise it'll oneshot you after a certain time. Once stunned, the boss loses 15% of it's Max Hp and be stunned for 15s, where its Res drops to -30%. After that, the boss will recover, but it will no longer gain the 110% Res or have the shield, but still maintain the shield progress for the Nightsoul characters. And the cycle will then repeat.

What do we make of the mechanics?

In short, you will need at LEAST 1 Nightsoul character to beat this boss, otherwise it's practically impossible to beat otherwise. And not just any Nightsoul character, but one who can maintain that state for lengthy periods of time and off-field, and ideally be of at least some buffing use to your carry, or be the carry themselves. Luckily, we have the perfect candidate for Skirk - our drunken Aether-loving bedrotting granny, Citlali. Without her, the chances of clearing this boss are almost zero, regardless of your investment level. Although there is one more character than can kind of work, but more on that later.

In this study we will be focusing on the team Skirk - Furina - Citlali - Escoffier, as that is by far the best team and the only really viable Skirk team that can clear this boss. Citlali is getting a rerun in 6.7, and has very high ownership rates among players according to Spiral Abyss clears, having consistently ranked among the Top 10 most commonly owned characters for months, so many people have her and can use her for this boss, as the other 2 stygian bosses have fairly bad synergy with her.

Simulated battle timeline

Here is an approximate simulation of how the entire fight will go with the aforementioned team, phase by phase:

Stage number	Stage duration, s	Timer interval, s	Details
1	39	0 - 39	The automaton has its shield up, all Res increased to 110%. Escoffier shreds 55% of that Res, , which leads to you dealing ~62% less damage than usual (at 10% res without shred effects). This stage lasts for (100 - 2.5 initial s.p.) / (1 base s.p. + 1.5 for 1 nightsoul s.p.) = 39s. (s.p - shield progress btw)
2	~10	39 - 49	Half of the damage done to the shield in Phase 1 is dealt to the boss, and it deploys the pillars, you use Citlali's special jump to get up and break both mechanisms to stun the boss.
3	15	49 - 64	The boss has taken 15% of its Max HP as damage and is stunned, with its res being -30%, which increases all damage by 1.16x according to my testing on the DPS Dummy.
4	39	64 - 103	The boss has normal 10% res and no shield, because according to Img. 2, quote "Upon the first state switch [the first shieldbreak] the shield and resistance boost effects will be permanently lost". So the boss will just become a regular punching bag to dish out dps for 39s again, as the Nightsoul gauge will still remain.
5	~10	103 - 113	The boss deploys the pillars again, you use Citlali's special jump to get up and break both mechanisms to stun the boss.
6	~7	113 - 120	The boss has taken 15% of its Max HP as damage and is stunned, with its res being -30%, which increases all damage by 1.16x. Here you dont really have much time to get in a full rotation, but a good Skirk burst will still do well here to finish him off.

The DPS Calcs

The way I will show you how much dps is required to beat this boss with the specified team is by counting the amount of "effective seconds" we have to defeat the boss with normal res. The variables are as follows: during the initial shield phase you will only be able to do 38% of the damage you will normally do due to the resistances (tested on the DPS Dummy in Miliastra), and the -30% res during phases 3 and 6 will boost your DPS by exactly 16% (also tested).

So, without further ado, the total effective time you have to beat this boss is as follows:

39 / 2 (half the damage to shield transfers to the boss) * 0.38 (resistances) + 15 * 1.16 (phase 3) + 39 (regular res, no shield) + 7*1.16 = 72s.

Since the boss loses 15% of Max hp twice, 30% Max hp in total, that makes its actual hp be 25,500,000 * 0.7 = 17,850,000, making the final total DPS required to beat it be:

17,850,000 / 72 = 248K DPS, for Dire

Now, this is NOT realistically achievable with C0R1 Skirk and C0R0 teammates, and will require additional cost upgrades. If you have at least 2 of the following:

• C1 Escoffier
• R1 Escoffier
• C1 Furina
• C2 Furina
• C1 Skirk

or C2 Skirk with C0R0 everyone else, then Dire should, in theory, be clearable with top 3% or higher Akasha builds and the 2 extra costs from the list above, although it definitely will not be easy and may require even 3 or 4 extra costs to be clearable without extreme techs and tryharding for hours. C2R1 Skirk with C0R0 teammates will be able to clear the easiest if we're talking about a 7 cost team. In retrospect, in terms of Dire bruteforcing this isnt that much different from the other times Skirk has bruteforced tough bosses not designed for her, like the Gecko and Knuckle Duckle, as both required C2R1 with often 2 or 3 extra costs to clear without too much tryharding. So really this isn't anything new, and in reality seems even easier than the other two aforementioned bosses, though it remains to be seen.

What about Fearless?

For Fearless, the boss has 11,200,000 Hp, less than half of Dire. The mechanics are exactly the same, and the damage window, phases and math are the exact same as well. So, with fearless in mind, the final DPS required to beat it is:

(11,200,000 * 0.7) / 72 = 109K DPS, for Fearless

This is easily achievable by C0R0 teams with even mid builds, and probably even Escoffier-less teams will be able to clear. So almost any Skirk player with Citlali and some decent teammates should have no issues beating Fearless.

What about without Citlali?

If you don't have Citlali and don't have either the desire or the primos to get her on her rerun, then there is only one even remotely viable alternative - TTDS Scroll Mualani. Now, Mualani's Nightsoul is NOT continous like Citlali's and has a 6s downtime, which extends the shieldbreaking time by 9s and you won't be able to climb the pillars as easily, although it isnt impossible as there do exist ways how to climb the pillars without Natlan characters that can climb. However, those 9 extra seconds of shieldbreak really hurt you, as you will also not be able to do any damage during the shield phase because Mualani needs to be onfield almost all the time to break the shield. I will not bore you with the details for the Mualani calcs, but the DPS required is closer to 300+K DPS Dire with Mualani instead of Citlali, and around 140-150K Fearless, a number pretty much impossible without C2R1 Skirk and at least 2-3 more costs spread across the team for Dire. So, if you dont have either Citlali or Mualani, then you're... screwed, pretty much.

Conclusion

This boss is for sure hard, and impossible without Citlali or Mualani, and really REALLY hard with the latter. However, with the right cost investments, very good builds and... Citlali, the boss is possible to beat in Dire, at least very likely possible, for all the aforementioned reasons and calculations. Remember that there is a significant amount of speculation and some generous, optimistic assumptions in this study, so the actual results may vary. However it is my belief that almost everyone who managed to get bruteforce Dire Skirk clears in the recent past will be able to get a Dire clear for this boss as well. If you have any additional questions, objections or complaints, feel free to comment down below, I'll do my best to answer them. Good luck to everyone and happy Skirking!

Thanks for u/Samayotte for inspiring me to make this study!

Now I can finally claim my place among the Chosen Ones as a true rightful Skirk main...

This guy has a hacked Kaveh that can hit other coop players and one shot you, and they camp your respawn so you can't tp away. They also cannot be kicked from your world.

If you join their world leave immediately. If they join yours Alt F4 instantly and wait for about 5 minutes for the server connection to terminate. Report them please, everyone, to get them banned

Team investment list:

- C0R1 Nefer / C0R1 Lauma / C0R0 Bina / C0R0 Nahihi

- C2R1 Skork / C2R0 Furina / C3 Mona / C1R0 Nescafe

- C3R1 Arlecchino / C0 TTDS Citlali / C6 Aquila Benny / C0 1k em Kazu

All builds that matter are top 1% or close to it

Investments of some of my best standby characters:

C2 Aqua Chasca / C1R1 Neuvi / C0R1 Mualani and Clorinde / C6 Chevrolet

All this considered, can I beat dire in 6.6?