I think Hsin is one of those units where there are a lot of small things to talk about. The gist of it is "Hsin is a strong DPS". If you are worried about her strength or something, don't be.

Outside of her strength...I feel a bit responsible for providing additional context for the other things going on with her kit and teammates. I will separate the post into General, Electro Flare, and Unison. Since this is going to be a long one, feel free to skip portions of the post and look at the highlighted segments you are curious about.

1. General

Did Kuro nerf Hsin's quickswap?

It's not an uncommon occurrence that beta changes lead to people misunderstanding changes. Especially noticed how a lot of AI summaries cannot actually tell the nuance of what has been changed.

No, Hsin's quickswap has not been nerfed.

https://preview.redd.it/3cmaatxs7yqh1.png?width=735&format=png&auto=webp&s=500e56dc0103631943021032d4afacd51dbf71e9

In this example, Heavy Attack - Answering Form: Reign at Ease got the added desc of "Switching to another Resonator ends the skill action immediately, " which many, including the AI summaries, picked up as a quickswap nerf but...it was already the case from V0.

Moreover, a held attack like this was never quickswappable in the game outside of Camellya's held attack.

So was Hsin nerfed at all?

No, but yes. They removed some of the dodge/break cancels that players used in private servers to do 5 Lib2 rotations easier. BUT

- 5 Lib2 is still possible.

- If you don't care about tryharding in this game, it doesn't affect you.

While it is unfortunate that those cancels were taken out, this happens in beta all the time, and people find more cancels anyway. Sometimes they are awarded more cancels (like Hiyuki gaining her UBA3 cancel)

So how good is Hsin's quickswap capability really?

Average? "Kinda annoying" is the best way to describe it. Hsin and Suoming have a new qs restriction of not generating forte when an inactive character. There are ways to play around it, eg swap back before big hits of an attack. Unison also loses inherent buffs on swap, so generally I would not go a high swap route with Unison.

Flare has a bunch of issues, but she is a bit less restricted in swaps.

Are her sequences weak?

No it's just alright. I guess being the first playable Sentinel Resonator made her have high expectations. But she doesn't break any mold. HOWEVER, it's important to note it's not weak either.

What are Hsin's two modes for?

Before trying to figure it out, let's start with Aemeath. According to Kuro

https://preview.redd.it/6m8fuw1giyqh1.png?width=1518&format=png&auto=webp&s=ec2777b832daf1a44bea54c95be38f3f07fdf655

There is a clear separation of intended roles. And for the most part, Aemeath follows this. I would generally suggest Aemeath's rupture mode over FB in ST, and I would most definitely suggest her FB mode over rupture in Whiwa.

Hsin does not have this separation.

https://preview.redd.it/x3u1oakdiyqh1.png?width=1480&format=png&auto=webp&s=928d46edeab493356705bb95dbc6a9e8d9942c63

There is no actual clue as to what Kuro intended these two modes to be. Unison mode's damage is split between Hsin and Suoming, and as such it should be helpful in Whiwa as opposed to having all her damage in one hit.

So while you can say Unison is the Whiwa mode, it's not spelled out for us that "This mode is for whiwa, this mode is for ST"

Future Electro Flare sub DPS, if they exist, might even make Flare be better in whiwa depending on how Kuro designs them.

Some people said Electro Flare is her "F2P friendly" mode, but.....that's also a weird notion because something like Hsin Suoming Buling will "cost" the same as Hsin ERover Suisui/Chisa while being similar or better even.

So which mode is good for you?

Simple really.

Go for Unison if...

- If you like Suoming

- If you want Hsin to do as much damage as possible without banking on if and when an electro flare sub DPS might arise.

- Find ERover, Suisui, or Chisa clunky.

- Want a new team for Jinhsi

Go for Flare if...

- You don't like Suoming

- You have a team slot left for Suisui in matrix (with an asterisk, more on that later)

- You like ERover

Is Hsin reliant on her signature?

Yes. I would reconsider pulling Hsin without her signature if you care about endgame performance.

Phrolova's signature is a decent 2nd option, but even that is already taking signature away from an already sig-reliant unit. Moreover, it's not *that* good for Hsin either.

Signature is almost a \"2nd sub DPS\" for her, if you are using Cosmic Ripples

Does coordinated attack (coords) do anything for Hsin?

No, it's purely there to throw Jinhsi a bone. You can run Empyrean Anthem for Hsin, but generally speaking it's a waste.

2. Electro Flare

Is Electro Flare mode weak?

It's....fine. I mentioned earlier how there isn't a clear separation of modes. It's hard to say what Kuro is planning to do with Flare. One silver lining is ERover Buling is a very competent team and uses 2 less-used units (unless Rover is on Carte or Zani duty)

Chisa vs Suisui (+problems with Suisui Rover, long segment)

On paper, Chisa and Suisui are 4% of each other. With very similar field time, played casually.

Within 4% of each other which I would call below a noticeable threshold.

In practice, however, Rover and Suisui have...problems. To a point, I would lowkey call it antisynergistic. This is due to how Suisui was designed (spoiler alert: very poorly) and decisions in Rover's kit that make it worse. I can make a whole post about Suisui and her problems but I'll try my best to keep it short

This is what I have in my calcs as \"simple explanation of Suisui outro

Visualise this outro as a baton pass. Suisui after her outro, essentially dances. 6s after dancing, she gives a "baton" to your active character (usually the sub DPS). Now this sub DPS passes this baton to the main DPS after its outro. This baton then activates when the MDPS consumes a negative status.

Notice how I said 6s after doing the dance instead of 6s after the outro. This is a very important distinction. If something interrupts (or pauses) the dance, let's say, a swap in. Then Suisui the 6s is extended.

Now what can pause the dance but not the timer? We call it a motion stop as opposed to time stop. Notice when you do intros, your teammates pause their actions. Yes, this will also pause Suisui's dance and consequently push the time when she gives this "baton" to the sub DPS

But intro isn't the only thing that pauses, introducing Rover. Whose forte skill has a motion stop.

Video demonstrating that even if you don't fancy swaps you can miss the \"Baton Pass\" of Suisui

Rover outro but Suisui has all 3 bars.

All this culminates in cases where sometimes you don't even get Suisui's buff on Hsin if you play Suisui ERover Hsin 123 "perfectly," and you have to wait on Rover before outroing.

TL;DR: If you have Chisa free and are willing to learn swaps, I might just use Chisa over Suisui to avoid the annoyance with the buff

With some swaps, Chisa Rover is most definitely better than Suisui without all the downsides of Suisui

Does this mean you should pull Chisa for Hsin and ignore Suisui?

Well, this is a tricky thing to answer. Because ERover might not be her final teammate. And the other teammate might be tailor-made for Suisui. Kuro can definitely push it a step further and have an indirect "if Suisui is on the team, get X" buff. Like they did with Denia (Strain) and Mornye.

On the other hand, it could simply be like Chisa vs Suisui for Hiyuki, where the difference is so small that it doesn't matter.

I would say, right now, there are no right or wrong answers. I simply prefer Chisa over Suisui. However, on the same note, Kuro has all the cards, and how well Chisa will age for the Hsin team is entirely up to them.

Does Buling have the same motion stop problem as ERover + Suisui?

Thankfully no, but Buling's 2nd slot kinda lowers a lot of her power budget. Especially if S6. But a lot of you don't have S6, and in that case, Buling is a "fine" 2nd slot.

Buling ERover is comparable to Buling Suisui

How good is ERover generally? (Personal Opinion Heavy)

He is... decent. But given his kit was tailor-made for Hsin, it definitely feels a bit disappointing to me personally. I don't think he needs a signature or anything, given Kuro has shown they can simply just...add Rover-specific buffs in Hsin's kit.

But his multi-colored attacks being useless and him generally having problems with Suisui definitely soured the excitement I initially had.

Will ERover perform better with his S6?

No. His S5 and S6 don't do anything for sub DPS rotation, and his S3 and S4 are not great increases. Around +50k DPR.

How good is Buling generally?

She is almost as good as or slightly better than ERover for Hsin's personal damage (using Chisa for both). However, she brings in no personal damage of her own. That being said. Realistically, most are not building ERover as well as their Hsin, so in practice the difference between Buling and ERover might even be lower comparatively.

It's just...Suisui strictly forces Buling into a 2nd slot role, which is the bigger downside.

3. Unison

What is Unison?

Unison is a repurposed mechanic from Jinhsi. It essentially lets you outro twice. While not a "feature" of Unison units, it also prefers that you intro twice onto them.

What are Unison Boon and Unison Response?

Unison Boon and Unison Response are new things attached to the old Unison mechanic. Unison Boon is essentially a stack that is awarded to the team when a unit with Unison outros onto a unit who can Respond to Unison.

That narrows it down pretty much to Hsin, Suoming, and Jinhsi having Unison and the recipient of the subsequent outro being Hsin or Suoming. Note: Jinhsi cannot respond to Unison, so Hsin having Unison and outroing to Jinhsi shouldn't give you a boon.

How valuable is Unison Boon?

By itself? Nothing much really. The English translation calls it "Total DMG," but it's actually an amp.

And when you have 100%+ amp on so many units, 6-9% amp is not as good. I suspect in the future we will have buffs scaling with the stacks of Unison Boon. And we already see something similar with Suoming outro and Hsin sequences

Hsin Sequence Unison Boon Scaling

Part of Suoming's needs Unison Boon to function

Do note, unlike strain, this stack is not lost when the enemy dies.

Does Unison Boon help Jinhsi?

No, Jinhsi Hsin can generate the boon, but you still need to be able to react to it to get its benefits.

Do I pick up Jinhsi as an alternative to Suoming (alternatively, can I skip Suoming if I have Jinhsi)?

Yes and no. First of all, if you don't have Jinhsi, who knows when she is going to come back again due to the iffy rerun schedules.

Secondly, Jinhsi's Hsin team is great. Especially with the inherent matrix buff for older characters, it's like 2.2-2.3M DPR, which is....quite good looking at the state of older characters. However...it is sacrificing Hsin's damage to be a coord provider weakens her personal damage. Which is especially noticeable if you are pulling Hsin dupes.

So all in all, for S0R1, Jinhsi is an acceptable downgrade for Hsin, but it's also a very noticeable downgrade.

On the flip side, if you were running Jinhsi without a sub DPS. Hsin is the best partner she could ask for, so there is that.

Is Suoming's or <3rd Slot> weapon important?

No.

Shorekeeper vs Mornye vs Suisui? (+Buling)

For non-tune and non-negative status teams, both Mornye and Suisui are fairly close to SK, so pick whoever you like. But for whiwa and, to a lesser degree, matrix, I strongly value units with 100% CR.

Buling Suoming is also one of her stronger options. Which is great because this kinda makes both her modes equally "Free-to-play"

What is the rotation order for Hsin's Unison team?

Healer -> Suoming -> Hsin -> Suoming -> Hsin (loop end) -> Healer

Lastly, who am I?

I'm just a random TC for Wuwa who occasionally speedruns. But make no mistake. None of this is fully my effort. There are a lot of other TCs like AntoCrasher, Riley, GG, Justice, Sbin, Yolitme0, Mane, Wind, and Rezagard who help me out and cross-check a lot of these numbers.

The Suisui Rover and Chisa Rover videos were recorded by Wind right before posting this when we found out about the annoyance with Rover's motion stop. So special thanks to him.