u/yusemite

TLDR at the bottom in bold but I don't think this post is THAT long (nvm that aged like milk maybe just go to the bolded section first actually)

Had a previous post where discussion focused on how Yao Guang could reasonably be replaced in Silver Wolf's team, though it was in the context of a hypothetical 0AV clear since it would make things easier. That said, it was still quite vague and never gave any concrete kit suggestions, just indications of what the combination of Nihilux + Pearl would have to do to make the Elation team mono rem-tier at all stages of investment.

The other main idea is to NOT make this kit just a carbon copy of Yao Guang but better, because a.) that's not happening and b.) it's boring.

It is, however, quite hard to make the character not strongly resemble Cyrene, because these are fundamentally assumed for someone acting as an "Elation Cyrene": Character-specific buffs (note that these can only be reasonably tied to ult, just like Cyrene), non-traditional energy. Basically the kit will end up looking a lot like Cyrene because it is modeled after Cyrene, and there's not really any way to change that since the only way to make a character with character-specific buffs is to make Cyrene essentially. I did add "stages" to the buffs though which should differentiate them somewhat.

Ok here is hypothetical Nihilux kit:

Base Stats: idk, SPD scaling though

Ult fake energy: Inspiration - gain 1 inspiration every time ally casts elation skill. 8 Inspiration for an ult

Basic - do damage

Skill - deploy a zone that gives some generic buffs which should probably be weaker than Yao Guang's

Ultimate - I am Cyrene:

(first cast) 100% AA all allies and gives them stage 1 of buff. Consumes 8 Inspiration. (second cast) You may then spend 4 Inspiration to increase the stage of buffs given to allies, up to stage 2. You can also use a buff on a stage 2 ally, but will only gain the final effect (as listed in Ode to Buff Formatting)

Buffs are as follows (just look at the concepts not the numbers please I don't care to balance them). Names should hopefully be obvious:

• Ode to Buff Formatting - Stage 1 Buff / Stage 2 Buff / Each use of buff grants this effect
• Ode to a Silver Wolf - Increases Hidden MMR Cap to 600 / Stage 1 Buff + After using a natural EBA, immediately AA the next EBA by 24% / Grants 60 Hidden MMR
• Ode to Elation - Every time Sparxie generates punchline, has a 50% chance to generate 1 more / has a 100% chance to generate 1 more / gain 2 Thrill
• Ode to the person I replaced - Aha instant now has +10 punchline / +20 punchline / Extends Zone by 1 turn
• Ode to an abundance abomination - Elation Skill now grants 10 additional CB / 20 additional CB / grants 30 CB (it's supposed to be underwhelming)
• Ode to Glory to Space VOC - PearlShield^(TM) now grants subscribers 10% / 20% elation / gives all units X amount of PearlShield^(TM)
• Ode to bro thinks he's on the team - 20% DPS increase for 2 turns (damage%) / 40% DPS increase for 2 turns / no effect
• Ode to a S*gonian - deletes 100% own HP per action / 200% own HP per action / kills Aventurine SP (antisynergy achieved)
• Ode to an enemy who doesn't exist - launches own Elation skill at enemy. This cast of Elation skill does not generate any inspiration.

Talent - After Inspiration reaches 8, can activate Ultimate. (hardcap at 12). Gains 1 Inspiration every time ally uses elation skill

Technique - Immediately begin combat with a 20 Punchline Aha Instant, and deploy the zone

Elation Skill - 6 bounces doing 100%/50%/25%/... of Elation, generates 1 additional inspiration. Extends All Allies Certified Banger by 1 turn

E1: E2 Stepping stone but it's actually decent - zone increases SPD and Elation now by some more too (so Yao Guang E2)

E2: Buy my $300 paintbrush skin - start battle with 3 inspiration, and increase the base punchline for the technique's Aha instant to 40 (from 20), 20% res pen after Nihilux ults

E3: I weep for Yao Guang - boring talent increases

E4: I do damage now - increases the DMG multiplier of Nihilux's elation skill by 100% of its original multiplier

E5: But what if? - boring talent increases

E6: It Will.

• Allies Merrymake by 20%
• < Ultimate: I am Cyrene >'s first cast now also 100% Action Advances Aha, and adds 100 to the Punchline counter for this Aha instant. All subsequent casts of ultimate action advance all allies (including Aha) by 10% (or some value, 24% is definitely too broken here though)
• Buffs now start at Stage 2 instead of Stage 1 (stage 3 doesn't exist though)

Ode to Dialog Skippers (TLDR):

rest of kit like Yao Guang except:

• energy - 8 "inspiration" to cast first ult, 4 to cast every other one. Gain 1 inspiration per elation skill (Nihilux's grants 2 though)
• ultimate - character specific buffs. stage 1 automatic, stage 2 you select, like w/ Cyrene
• E2 allows for AV0 ult which should in itself maybe be enough to 0AV some Apoc
• E6 should allow AV0 Plight

Some potential tweaks:

• numbers are probably overtuned even for a Cyrene-esque character
• 8 stacks might be a bit low for inspiration required.
• 100% AA can also be moved down to E6
• The Technique Aha instant could in theory be given to Pearl to make Nihilux's kit less overtuned. At E0 Nihilux generates an Aha at AV 0 but at E6 she generates 2.
• Elation skill's CB extension should help Silver Wolf a lot while being Eva antisynergy. But I feel like there's a very good chance that the antisynergy is WAY too harsh. Maybe it could instead be added to all the individual buffs to every character except Eva and maybe Yao Guang

Some things of note:

• The goal of the eidolons especially is to add frontloading, as anything that involves independently generating Aha instances would end up as a superset of Yao Guang's kit. In this circumstance, the intention is that Yao Guang still sees a use in Eva teams alongside Nihilux, but it should also be clear that with the gain in Sparxie's punchline production (which may itself need to be tweaked here) that Yao Guang will be the one leaving the team, not Sparxie.
• Would running Yao Guang here work (in a SW team)? potentially, but functionally there should be enough Aha instances at the start to dilute Yao Guang's significance to the point where Sparxie's damage contribution starts to matter more. This should especially be the case if Pearl's kit (Elation sustain) does something with duplicating Aha instances. If you have two heavy hitters in the case of Sparxie and Silver Wolf, then reason should dictate that the quality of Aha instances beats the quantity of them. The point is not to turn Yao into a brick, but to make her no longer the best option. To crowd her out of her utility in this specific team, in essence.

Do you guys think this is a good idea, or should there be anything tweaked (the numbers are definitely wrong, but I mean the basic ideas)? Really though the kit is pretty much just Cyrene's down to the zone buffs, AV 0 ultimate, 100% full AA at E6, and character-specific buffs, but when creating a Cyrene it's not that easy to add that much without making the kit incredibly overtuned.

Got tired again of Yao hysteria but decided to entertain the possibility again. I've still yet to see a feasible Yao replacement that doesn’t result in Sparxie getting kicked out instead, so i tried making one.

I'm choosing to focus on very high-cost 0AV clears since the team members at high/low cost will stay the same, and there are significantly fewer variables to deal with as well since the entire clear happens in a single AV.

I'll be using these assumptions, which should all be fair:

• Pearl is Elation sustain
• sustain > sustainless
• Nihilux will replace Yao Guang (instead of Sparxie), if someone is being replaced

Note that currently:

• Rem is not untouchable but is very strong even in anti-shill. But even then it is currently barely 0AVing
• Elation Team must do something at AV 0.
• Elation has bad AOE coverage (and it doesn't get fixed with this proposal)

Pearl/Nihilux have unknown kits, so I'll combine them into ???, or basically a role that has to be fulfilled. If Pearl's kit + Yao's kit is enough to complete all that ??? must do, Nihilux may be unnecessary. With that out of the way, a 0AV Elation clear should look something like this:

1. 0AV Aha instant at 40 PL - ??? technique
   1. SW ult fully charges -> SW ult tech -> Aha ends
   2. Sparxie E2 procs -> lootboxes
2. SW E2 now procs, she now has 2 turns at the moment
   1. SW extra turn (E2)
   2. SW natural turn (100% AA)
3. Now ??? activates ult, doing 100% AA for the team & the next Aha instant

Right now, 0AV action order is: ??? > ??? > Sparxie, SW > Aha

one of the ??? is Pearl. so here is where paths diverge.

Scenario 1: Pearl has the 100% AA + Aha AA

1. Pearl basic attack
2. Yao Guang/Nihilux Ult - this MUST create an Aha instant
   1. Go through all elation skills, maybe Nihilux could duplicate Silver Wolf's like EMC does in Currency Wars
   2. Sparxie E2 -> lootboxes
3. SW E2 now procs a second time
4. SW natural turn (from the 100% AA)
5. Sparxie natural turn (from the 100% AA)
6. Aha instant (from the 100% AA) - this should be like 250 punchline
   1. Sparxie E2 -> lootboxes

< 0AV ends here. Boss should be dead >

Damage Summary (Scenario 1):

• 3 Elation skills for {Pearl, Sparxie, ???}
• 2 Elation skills for Silver Wolf (??? might duplicate some)
• 4 SW EBA sequences (2 from E2, 1 from self-AA, 1 from team-AA)
  • potential issue: they're all at somewhat low CB
• 3 Sparxie E2 lootboxes
• 1 Natural Sparxie EBA

Scenario 2: Nihilux has the 100% AA + Aha AA

1. Pearl basic -> ult (duplicate next aha?)
   • I don’t see how Pearls ult can be anything other than duplicating either the previous or next Aha instant, since otherwise the team is just a full Aha instant behind the YG variation, and Nihilux would need an absurdly cracked kit to make up for that, and even then that still counts as antisynergy.
   • I'll then assume that it applies some property to the next Aha in the action queue that duplicates itself, since spawning it instantly is pretty much just a YG ult and not original enough.
2. Nihilux basic (like Cyrene basic, does nothing)
3. SW natural turn (from 100% AA)
4. Sparxie natural turn (from 100% AA)
5. Aha instant (from the 100% AA) - should also be like 250 punchline
   1. Sparxie E2 -> lootboxes
6. SW second E2 procs for 240 MMR
7. Aha instant (from Pearl ult duplication)
   1. Sparxie E2 -> lootboxes

< 0AV ends here. Boss should be dead >

Damage Summary (Scenario 2):

• 3 Elation skills for {Pearl, Sparxie, Nihilux}
• 2 Elation skills for Silver Wolf (Nihilux might duplicate some)
• 4 SW EBA sequences (2 from E2, 1 from self-AA, 1 from team-AA)
  • depending on Aha instant timing, these might still be low CB
• 3 Sparxie E2 lootboxes
• 1 Natural Sparxie EBA

In this case, damage-wise, scenario 2 is the same as scenario 1 by essentially all metrics.

Reasoning & remaining issues:

• under this model, base SPD Sparxie now works just fine, so her semi-dual scaling is fixed
• SW really wants CB for her EBAs and this doesn't seem to give a lot of it
• AOE coverage was and still is bad unless Pearl/Nihilux's Elation Skills is a huge AOE nuke

In scenario 1 Nihilux feels a bit too much like a superset of Yao Guang's kit, meaning that if 100% AA is given to Pearl either in her base kit or her E6, Yao Guang is likely not going anywhere.

In scenario 2, however, Pearl has a unique kit that fits with her lore and isn't absurdly broken. Since the 100% AA is mandatory and is provided by Nihilux, Yao Guang cannot slot in this team here. With cyrene-level buffs, it's also possible for Nihilux to be stronger for SW as the fight drags on (maybe she could remove SW's MMR cap or at least double it to 600?)

But under this model, it should be possible to do this in a way that restricts Yao to Eva teams without rendering her obsolete in both. The character-specific buffs could be tailored such that Eva still wants Yao Guang in her team.

The strongest argument for Yao's replacement currently, as someone who doesn't think she's getting replaced, is that Elation desperately wants a 0AV Aha instant, and this will very likely be tied to a characters technique, and yet Pearl having this feels wrong somehow. The second strongest to me is that Nihilux is main push, and her being another Main Push Elation MainDPS feels wrong, and her being an Eva support, although it could make sense, could make a legitimate case for Eva becoming stronger than SW depending on how much they push Nihilux.

Still:

• Will Yao be replaced? Probably not unless Pearl is very weak. If Pearl doesn't have a 0AV Aha or a 100% AA anywhere in her kit though, I'd be inclined to say there's a legitimate chance.
• Should you pull or skip Yao Guang? Well, do you want to have a usable team for the next 4 patches, or carry around a high-cost glorified paperweight for 4 patches just to have a chance at saving a single cost during your team's limited lifespan?

I don't think this replacement idea is too good, but it's something at least. The discourse surrounding whether she's replaced is so annoying, but I think the discussion of what a replacement would look like is interesting enough to warrant discussion. what do you guys think? Should Yaoi Guang be replaced? and if so, what would the kit look like, given that she must stay relevant in Eva teams?

TL;DR Elation rn is missing {100% teamwide AA (including Aha), 0AV Aha Instant, Character Specific Buffs (optional)}. YG's chance of being replaced is inversely proportional to how many of these buffs Pearl has in her kit. Pull her anyway though.

I'd have to make another post with a hypothetical kit in order to not make Nihilux just Yao Guang pro max, but in this specific circumstance I think it's actually possible to do.

Wanted to flex my build before the discussion since I got quite lucky with crafting an orb today. Anyway, onto the main point of the post:

Since many of us are trying to build the best possible pieces for our SW, and many of us are also spending resin to achieve this, I wanted to look into whether it was worth it to spend resin on planars instead of just on chest/boots.

I assumed the answer was no, but I wanted to prove it, so I did some napkin math on desmos. Here's the link to the equations and (hopefully) a neat summary of the findings too. TLDR: absolutely not, never use resin on planars for SW it's a scam and you're better off using relic remains unless my math is VERY flawed somewhere: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/ratxktvypk

If you have any issues with the math, please let me know. I originally made it for myself but thought I'd post it both to get feedback and also to make sure the community here knows how to wisely spend their limited resin. Hopefully the 168% AEON build is enough to draw some people in lol.