I feel like dendro chars have the exact opposite problem that geo chars have geo is kinda useless reaction wise leaving its characters to have to be viable purely based on their own abilities while dendro is probably one of the most useful reactions now leaving its characters to not be able to do much more than apply their element without being too overpowerd
@@RKNancy Not really a problem but just 2 very different playstyles. What OP means is relying purely on reactions to do damage means a character's personal raw damage often suffers a bit. And there are a lot of switching back and forth even in openworld to cause reactions. Some people might prefer one way or another. For example, I personally don't use Nahida that much in open world because it takes a while to get her damage out since I need to set up reactions, take a screen shot with her E and switch characters afterwards. In that amount of time I would've already finished the fight from a mile away with Ganyu's charge shot, or I would've already got in and got out with Yelan. Raw damage is just convenient.
I don't think that's really the case. Yes, a good chunk of current dendro effectiveness comes through reactions, but is that any different than pyro with vaporize, melt-Ganyu, or electro with supercharged or aggravate? And, sure, you do have certain "mono" teams, most of which aren't mono, but those are for elements that have element specific supports and/or Kazuha, plus a lot more characters to pick from. Meanwhile, of the four dendro characters we have, three are supports. Yes, Nahida can do DPS, but it is in the same way the likes of Xingqiu or Xiangling do DPS. To actually be impressive, it needs to be part of a team designed to interact with that character. Contrast that with a DPS five-star character like Yelan, Albedo, Hu Tao, Xiao, Yoimiya, Eula, Raiden, or Ganyu, to name a few, that, quite frankly, don't really care who you put them with for almost all content. The damage output won't be as insane as if you tailor a group to their wants, but they'll still do better numbers than most characters will do with some support. Nahida doesn't fall into that category. With a team designed to work with her, she's great, but, for something like co-op, she's just okay. Overall, I think there is room for DPS dendro, much like how anemo has a pair of DPS characters, with a third on the way. But odds are, a dendro DPS will work like those anemo ones, and like Tiggy for that matter, by being on-field, having a very limited ability to apply dendro while off-field. So, overall, I'd say anemo, not geo, is the better comparison for dendro.
One thing about Collei and Traveler is that Collei is MUCH better in exploration due to all the ranched things you need hit with dendro. I think she was made for exploration (similar to Amber) while Traveler was meant to be the real introduction to the element (explaining their slight support buffs and better application)
@@syn010110 While I somewhat agree, I think there are enough subtle differences between the two of them for it to not be a big issue. As Szczurzysława mentioned, Collei works with Venti while DMC does not. Additionally, I think it's fine for units to have almost the same kit. Kaeya and Rosaria have the exact same skill and burst, but there's enough difference (Kaeya makes more particles, Rosaria has a double-hit skill and her crit share, Kaeya's burst is mobile while Rosaria's isn't) to make each good. Xingqiu and Yelan too, same skill and burst but it's specifically because they're so similar that they work well together. And with XQ and Yelan there are also enough other differences like the amount of hydro they apply and XQ's defensive stuff vs Yelan's damage bonus buff.
I'm just happy to finally not just run Bennett and Xiangling in the abyss. We got more options, and finally got to see more purple and greens than orange and blues.
Too many greens for me but it still gives my brain a spike in dopamine whenever I see it so it's good. But Hoyo really have to decrease the brightness of dendro effects. Contrary to Nahida's skill voice line, I can't see anything. I hope they tweak it a bit the same way they did with the Shogun's resolve ring.
Dendro just needs more time and characters to fill out its roster, thats when these subclasses will start to develop as more character variety gets introduced
It would make sense to wait for a patch or two to diversify the roster, but when you realize we’ll wait like 6 MONTHS to get our first Dendro healer, it is just not excusable at all. And no buffers/shielders in sight at all.
@@jeremiahsmith916 To be fair, they'll be useful for every comp. Will the playerbase that relies on meta even bother with a dendro character that isnt a shielder or healer once we get them?
@@jeremiahsmith916 we just got an electro healer with Kuki and dori. It makes sense that the first few ones focus on applying the element since dendro reactions are so new. With Alhaitham, Kaveh, YaoYao, and Baizhu coming up, there will definitely be more variation in the characters and roles.
12:07 Collei was made for new players, that don't have access to sumeru yet. Thats why her kit overlaps with the travelers. They where made for the same purpose, but with different player groups in mind
Then you realise that your Collei will forever be stuck at lvl.20 because all the materials she needs are in Sumeru and by the time you get there you're better off with DMC who gets their Ascension materials and constellations pretty much for free while you play the game. It's a solution to a problem that is still ongoing regarding new characters.
Sumeru is accessible as soon as you finish the first 3 quest domains wiht Kaeya / Amber / Lisa. Sure, it's quite the walk and game design would lead you to complete Mondstadt's quests first. But you can technically go to Sumeru when you hit AR 6 or something.
Btw quicken and it's sub reactions are additive reaction and these reactions can crit. So, it's doesn't count as transformative reaction. Also, those reaction have separate multipliers like similar to Shenhe's icy quill buff but it's based on character level and elemental mastery.
Transformative reaction is a reaction that is scaled off of reaction base dmg. Amplification reactions are those which multiply your attack dmg (only melt and vape)
@Liquid_cheese True but quicken and it's sub-reactions like aggravate and spread are not transformative. It's additive reaction. check Zajef77 video on dendro you will get the idea
I think Dendro definitely helped with balance. They gave Pyro characters that don't work very well with vaporize another reaction they can capitalize on. And this was very much needed because Pyro pre dendro wasn't all that good, it was pretty much just Hu Tao, Xiangling and Bennett. Same with Electro characters. Giving good reactions to characters like Razor, Lisa, Keqing and Kuki. Dendro boosted Hydro's overall value as a support element. Cryo is now more balanced out with other elements and isn't as op anymore. The only element that is currently left in the dust is Geo.
The geo unit that only works well with dendro is Zhongli with his Elemental shred you could argue that albedo works but Its optional ya know if u have em u have em
You know this script was written before Nahida release when Vars says "Nahida only applies Dendro and nothing more", when in game you can chain up to 8 enemies and deal passive 30-50k damage every 2-3 seconds... Sure, 200k damage from single E is not much for off-field support Baiju and Yaoyao (other support roles) will be later, right now we needed application
Also calling on field dps like tighnari, when most of my usage from her is off field. I don't always need to m1 with her, when her E is enough and is full power off field and her burst just buffs that mostly Dendro's sub reactions have made it the most dynamic element for me, giving me the most freedom to theory craft and try out my own teams and combos because of how versatile it is and how well Nahida can support almost any team
i mean, HYV has always had a very clear vision of what dendro is going to be. for example, shenhe and yun jin were the first form of flat damage increase we saw in the game (edit: that buffs teammates instead of just personal damage). spread and aggravate are the exact same thing. so shenhe and yun jin must have been test units for these reactions. then we got yae miko with EM scaling, Ayato with additional HP scaling (which helps with on field bloom teams + why nilou scales off of HP as well), yelan with even more HP scaling, and then shinobu who's entire utility revolves around hyperbloom and, less commonly, aggravate. all these characters have aspects of their kit, and sometimes their entire kit, revolve around dendro reactions. they even designed cyno with aggravate in mind, giving his weapon EM scaling. thats also why raw damage cyno will never be able to compete with raw damage xiao, itto or eula. (edit: there's also candace who scales off of HP and has high normal attack multipliers, making her a good candidate for on-field bloom/burgeon shenanigans) dendro as an element revolves around reactions, just like anemo, except this time it has much more variety, instead of just the common swirl. as for collei and traveler's kit being similar, i'll admit that does seem like lazy design. i think collei's only purpose is to allow everyone to explore sumeru with ease, because having the role consolidation of dendro and archer into one unit is quite valuable. we should always keep in mind that characters arent always designed with just combat in mind. there is much more to genshin than just that
That's incorrect on the flat damage bonus though because Zhongli and Kokomi have had it before Shenhe and Yun Jin ever launched, they're simply the first to be able to grant it as a buff to their allies.
@@sweetillusions5495 I think what mako is trying to say is that the rise in having flat damage increase embedded into character kits has become more popularized for Mihoyo to do. It's not to say they didn't do it at all; it just wasn't their priority when they thought of how powerful characters can be. Pre-buff Zhongli didn't have the same passives back then and most of the roster during pre-2.0 relied on atk and crit for big damage, which is why Bennett was at the top. For the community, Kokomi's role in the meta wasn't realized until much later on.
@@barrywest-allen3261 "for example, shenhe and yun jin were the first form of flat damage increase we saw in the game" Zhongli's A4 talent and Kokomi burst have always had this embedded into their kits even before Zhongli got buffed and it was just exclusively applied to his burst before being added onto his other damaging attacks. It's not a new mechanic.
@@sweetillusions5495 I don't think you read my comment correctly. I saying kits that weren't atk or crit focused were not very common in the roster pre-2.0. That's not to say there weren't any HP/Def scaling characters.
I just do not agree with HYV releasing anything as "tests" or "test units". It just makes no sense. If they wanted to test, they would just do that on their own time.
This video could be made in Version 1.0 about electro and it would've been the same since we only had dps/sub dps of that element at the time. 1st of all, the only two characters to have overlapping kits are collei and dendro mc, which is nothing new since the earlier version. Diluc has a really similar kit to hu Tao, kuki to Dori etc... Tighnari is a spread dps and nahida is a dendro sub dps, buffer AND element applier, she's not just the latter. 2nd, we need a bigger roaster of dendro characters to actually give a definite opinion. Ofc archetypes are missing, there are barely any characters to begin with
Yeah. It's not like Pyro in the beginning of the game where we had only Pyro Dps characters and one buffer that can also be a Dps. Then more patches later we keep getting more Pyro Dps units and thats it. The only character that was Pyro and wasn't a Dps that came out was Thoma and that's it.
Vars: yeah dendro did fix a lot of issues with so many characters but they we don't have a dendro tank,dendro baffur dendro healer.... Me: YET...we DON'T have them YET
@@amandaslough125 Kaveh,Al-Haitham,Baizhu and Yao-Yao are marked to be released until 3.7,so we can expect them to double the roster until the end of version 3
I bet Baizhu is going to be a healer and Yao Yao is going to be a buffer. Not sure about Alhaitham but MAYBE a buffer since he says that he likes to plan things and not fight or something like that.
@@hey7492 totally agree, but Yae isnt a healer, despite being the head priestess. (though Shinobu's healing can be partially explained by her background of a miko family)
@@theot2141 Yae is more so the one to give you advice when visiting the shrine. She does partake in some forms of healing through her rituals at times but I wouldn’t particularly say she’s known for healing in lore :)
spread and aggravate aren't transformative reactions like overload, they're actually "catalyse" reactions, which are similar to transformative ones but have their damage added to that of the attack that triggered it, similar to yunjin's normal atk buff or shenhe's cryo dmg buff, this means they actually can benefit from any damage multiplier ; also spread has higher base damage than aggravate so I wouldn't say dendro is strictly to enable other reactions
Imo the first four characters being only focused on applying and dealing dendro is just bc it’s exactly what players need when they’re first trying the element out
I don't think it's an issue that Collei and Dendro MC are very similar, since if they are your only two Dendro units, and you are using DMC in another element for some reason, you at least still have Collei. That way if you are trying to fill out a Gorou team (for example), you can use Geo MC without completely dismantling your Dendro team. Them serving essentially the same function can be a huge plus to that player.
Has dendro supplemented the existing reactions quite well? Definitely. Has dendro fixed the balance between elements? Probably not, especially with the release of Nahida turning bloom and quicken based teams into absolute monsters Edit: ty for heart Vars! I should also add that units will only get more broken in the future, since nahidas release has confirmed that genshin isnt afraid of borrowing mechanics from honkai. Nahida has introduced soul link, sooner or later they will add time fracture, time stop, entry/QTE attack, etc. Genshin's combat has only started to evolve
because of how nahida's e is 1.5 units of dendro, it mostly buffed bloom based teams (and also burning) since you can get more blooms from 1 application, but quicken teams are not thaaaat much better because the 1.5u fucks up the electro aura for swirl and that you don't need that much dendro application to maintain quicken, zajef77 talked a bit about that in his nahida video
Hydro is officially broken rn, but we needn't worry too much since it's main purpose is as a support element (Nation of Hydro, DO NOT JINX THIS COMMENTS PLS, DON'T BREAK THE GAME EVEN MORE WITH MORE HYDRO CHARACTERS)
@@simonditomasso9868 It’s proven that you only need to change the rotation a bit to maintain swirl so it shouldn’t be a problem. The increase amount of dendro actually turns a lot of aggravate teams into aggravate and spread team. Nahida’s best team is definitely bloom base but double dendro and electro is quite interesting too.
Its understandable that the Dendro releases have been focused on reactions. Dendro at its core is focused around reactions (hence the EM resonance, its artifacts and scaling). Dendro has only been out for 2 patches, and it makes sense that Dendro was made to focus on its reaction rather than the roles that other elements could already fulfil. With new characters released designed around dendro's reactions (Tighnari with Spread Cyno with aggravate, Nilou with bloom. I wouldn't be surprised if Dehya was designed for burning), the addition of dendro applicators would make the element more accessible for the new playstyles being introduced. Electro at the start only had damage dealers (with people comparing if Keqing was better than Razor because both filled similar roles). Beidou was the exception of a mini shielder. It wasn't until nearly a year later when Inazuma released when it got more unique characters in the form of Raiden Shogun and Kujou Sara.
The lack in utility in Dendro is being used to get the spotlight on other elements utility characters, like Kuki and Thoma, yes, but also so they can make dendro feel fresh again in the future. DMC and Coley are free characters MiHoYo doesn't want to "waste good utility" on them. Tighnari was clearly more designed as an Onfield DPS from the Standart Banner, and with the likes of Dilucs and Keqinq, not much utility there. And the Archon is designed as the crystalized form of that elements most pure essence, in the case of Dendro, it's EM-Focused dmg amplifying. They are all very similar, but when releasing characters like Alhaitham and Beizou, they will need them to have a niche or fight with the elements archon for the role, which they don't want because they prefer to sell reruns. So they'll probably space it out and milk new Dendro archetypes for 1~2 years, slowly releasing Dendro shielders, then healers, then massive buffers, so that Dendro team comps stay changing throughtout the years
Still don't know why they didn't have Dendro react with Cryo. When some plants get too cold, they are weaken and wilts. Maybe have a reaction like that. Although, the only reactions that I could think of is slow/paralyzing effect and decreasing resistance effect, akin to superconduct.
the fact that cryo doesn't react with Dendro gives it more possibilities though. Fridge and MeltBurn are possible because you don't have a reaction between Cryo and Dendro.
I was thinking about how there's a lack of taunt skills on 4☆ characters when Amber was the only 4☆ with one (every other taunt skill is on a 5☆ lol) and realized the missed opportunity of making Collei at least a bit like Amber by making Cuilein-Anbar a taunt like Baron Bunny while making her boomerang a Burst and have it do something different than what it already does (was thinking Dendronado). idk I think this fits with what you said about Dendro characters currently not having their own identity and a Dendro taunter sounds unique enough.
Dendro is a godsent for F2P and newer players, allowing many powerful teams with very common units on cheap builds. It also brings diversity to older players, without powercreeping the previous meta teams. Good addition tobthe game, pretty well balanced imho.
I don't think the point about dendro not having enough variety is only a matter of time. I do think it's a bit annoying we haven't gotten anything like a shielder/healer etc. but if you think Abt it, it took them over 1,5 years to introduce an electro healer too. And while Nilou is a special restrictive case, I don't think nahida's teams are restrictive in any way. But I feel like that statement was mostly made bc she wasn't out at the time
Yeah same about Nahida. Her passive allows you to either use one of each element or stack them according to what kind of team you want. Far less restrictive than Nilou
new shield character is pointless tbh, knowing mihoyo they prob won't add better shield than zhongli or even require weird enemy requirement or team condition to reach the highest buffs, or last longer than zhongli's one. For healer i would want them to add character that deal element without/less ICD and move along character for dendro.
@@Tanubtanu I mostly brought it up since it was a critique in the video, but I feel like a dendro shielder rly depends on the team and rest of the kit so we'll have to see
@@Tanubtanu i mean, they are adding a 4* who's shield is almost as powerful as Zhongli's, its safe to say that in the future, a Dendro shielder may be added that could rivalize woth him, considering that Dendro is far more efficient than Geo in many team comps
There is just one gripe I've had when you described the catalyse reactions. The fact that you considered them as transformative reactions isn't really accurate to how the reaction works. I think that the catalyse reactions (aggravate, spread, quicken) should be its own category. Transformative reactions have been reactions that deal damage that is separate to the attack that triggers it. The catalyse reactions may be flat damage, but it is flat damage that is factored into the calculation of the attack that triggers it, thus boosting the attack that triggers it much like Yun Jin's ult. Thus these reactions can affected by the stats of the character that trigger it (elemental bonus damage, crit etc).
Also on a separate note, the reason why collei is not used very much is because her ICD (internal cooldown: the rate at which she applies dendro to enemies) is relatively long compared to her burst duration, resulting in her applying dendro 2-3 times to an enemy.
This heavily undersells the unique parts of both Tighnari and Nahida's kits. Tighnari is an on-field DPS but explicitly oriented to a quickswap playstyle; you don't play him at all like a most of the other on-field 'main DPS' units in the game, who are intended to take up the majority of field time in any bit of combat. He often gets compared to Ganyu because they both have powerful charged attacks, but their playstyles are totally different. He's completely unique among ranged characters.
Collei was basically made to do all the Sumeru exploration puzzles. She also swaps out for the traveller if you want the traveller in another role - and as more regions are unlocked, that's bound to be the case. I think the current Dendro characters are fine. I'm sure there's plenty of Dendro variation to come.
Love to see a video looking back on 1 year of Dendro seeing how the roster has evolved with the addition of Alhaithm, Kaveh, Yao Yao and Baizhu if there’s more to say.
I feel like the reason we're that right now we're only seeing Dendro units that focus on application has to do with it's reactions, like Burgeon and Hyperbloom. Bloom is necessary to reach either reaction, and you'd need a stable way to trigger Bloom. Dunno if it's true, just my take.
Most of the time I just go with pyro electro hydro and dendro. So either use Kuki or kokomi, and ayato or yae. Mix it up with either tighnari or nahida. While pyro thoma. Though it is funny to have Xingqui, kuki, thoma bursts or skill and nahida on field watching her throw all 4 elements at them at once is amusing, and things die quickly
3:15 I disagree. Collei purpose isn't to introduce dendro to the combat, but to provide a bow dendro character so everyone can participate in any type of dendro puzzles, just like by making Amber free to everyone at the start they were able to make ranged pyro puzzle and be 100% sure that every player had the necessary tool to explore everything.
DMC and Collei are similar, yes, much in the way Kaeya and Rosaria are similar. But like those two, they do have quite a few differences. Collei is a bow user, which opens up the use of weapons like the Viridescent Hunt, plus great for triggering ranged things. Her burst doesn't go implode on pyro application. There's the 15s versus 20s thing. Collei's boomerang lets you move to apply Dendro to enemies that DMC can't hit with a single E use. She also has the lingering aura, which again, facilitates the application of dendro to spread out enemies. And on DMC's side of things, well, their E doesn't suffer from the targeting/bad-flight-path issues Collei can have with her boomerang, and the DMC's burst covers a much wider area than Collei's tiny thing. It does make sense for the two to fill the same base role, though. For all of us playing now, using Traveler for dendro was a pretty simple choice (or, in my case, using Collei over DMC was). We have a ton of other characters for various elements, and, well, Traveler's other three sets all self-sabotage in some way, from the annoying blockages caused by the geo constructs, the moving burst of anemo, and electro's kit being garbage. Though I guess that sort of applies to DMC as well, with the pyro + burst thing... that'll suck for those newer players that want to use Xiangling or Diluc as DPS. And then there are situations where they are using DMC in another role to do things like geo or anemo puzzles. So another character to handle the basics is needed. Overall, I'm relatively happy with dendro. The one exception is the lack of interaction(s) with geo. Geo could really use both a direct interaction and a bloom trigger one (because water + plant interacting with dirt makes way more sense than fire and electricity). Geo needs a little something besides Zhongli+resonance and/or mono-geo using Gorou, and Dendro could have provided that. And not something defensive either, nor something that would mostly be counter-productive like a movement slow. No, it needs something that brings the pain. Something that makes it worthwhile to add a sole geo to a team... ideally something that doesn't favor said geo being Zhongli. Like, say, by having a dendro crystalize shield giving -resists... and that not stacking with Zhongli's shield's resist debuff.
11:08 Not true To fully get the buff you would need 2 characters of each of those elements. Nahida was not made with the purpose of having a dendro, hydro, pyro and electro on a team. Actually quite the opposite as she was made to fit with basically every reaction based team even anemo (her a1 passive). Also spread increases dendro dmg so I don't fully agree with the idea that dendros only purpose is to apply the element.
Dendro really stuck the landing in making old units relevant, re-balancing Electro and EM, and adding fun new gameplay styles. I agree with you, there are some major holes in the Dendro roster, but hey, they gotta make want to us pull for future Dendro units somehow, right? They’ve played the whole thing very smartly.
@@bobjones1934 except its really not though. Yae. Razor, Kuki, Cyno??? They're all good in their roles now (razor getting another role now, as an elemental dps instead of just physical, he can do both now)
@@hey7492 lol and they’re all mid. Btw I like how you didn’t mention Keqing, and for the right reasons. She’s still the ugly and worthless cow that she was since 1.0. All these morons keep thinking that dendro saved her when dendro didn’t do anything for her lol.
It is true that the element lacks variety at the moment. But there´s a high chance that will change with time. Still, the way Dendro is designed, it will almost always be desired for the elemental application. The element by itself is that good, so unless they release a Dendro character that sucks at applying Dendro and has almost no utility/damage... then I can´t see any Dendro character being bad.
Maybe hoyverse is trying to avoid having the most complete kits on the first batch, like how it is with beidou, xingqiu, fischl and surcrose. Yeah, you will pull for Yelan and Kazuha, but always measuring them against Xingqiu and Surcrose. Now they can release the dendro gameplay specialists, and Nahida will be the top tier well rounded dendro. IMHO
Dendro(more to nahida tbh) def buffed 4 of the element (aside from geo and anemo) in the game, the main issue i notice with dendro is Nahida. She's unreplaceable and some reaction(burning, and quicken) feels like incomplete without nahida. Burning without nahida is nearly pointless, doesn't deal much damage and only tick for short amount of time and the only available dendro character all had noticeable downside when using along (for example DMC with long CD and energy and Collei with really short burst range) you need to bring both of them to maximize cycle. The only fix with dendro is another off-field long lasting support that provide dendro with elemental skill or burst with less energy requirement (basically dendro fischl/beidou/Xingqiu/Yelan/others) this would allow character with long burst to keep gaining the buffs for example cyno or allow perma burn team with thoma and the character for example.
Aggravate team sometimes prioritize Dendro MC over Nahida tho. She applies so much Dendro that it consume all the Electro aura which makes it hard to reliably Swirl Electro without adjusting rotation. And sometimes it can feel really awkward.
I feel this was somewhat premature, but a necessary video. I feel like dendro at the moment is rightfully about the application, given that the element is in its introduction phase, and I’m pretty sure Hoyo is aware of that. Right now, player concern is about how dendro will essentially fit in with the other elements, given that it hasn’t been in the game for two years. I think dendro opens up more playstyles for the future, and i’m looking forward to it!
they now have a lot of room to grow with dendro atm. lots to explore with mixing story, playstyle, and the like with the new characters. i, for one, am excited to see what they come up with.
I'm hopeful that most if not all the problems you mentioned (monotony, no damage outside reactions etc) will be addressed with future Dendro characters, particularly Alhaitham.
I think dendro definitely missed an opporunity to raise the geo element in some way/reintegrate it into the elemental system again, which is unfortunate, geo really needed SOMETHING to come out of this, but itll remain solitary and the objective worst element. It sucks even more due to the fact that geo/rock/earth and dendro/plants would have made a lot of sense to have reactions together, maybe a reation between the two would create some sort of plant growth/dendro construct that could affected by the other elements that interact with dendro (kind of like the mushrooms you can bounce on in sumeru, in a way). Hydro could water the plant and make it grow and that would cause something to happen, electro could hypercharge it and that would do something, pyro could could cause it to burn and hurt enemies near it, or die and something else happend because of that, etc. It just wouldve been nice to have dendro be geo's much needed gateway back into the mix of elemental reactions
@Fuyuki Ryujin imo, that doesnt really mean it SHOULDVE been. The geo element, like it was stated, only works as well as it does because of the characters attached to it, which is unfortunate because it has plenty of rock/earth related concepts that couldve been made into just as interesting reactions. Aside from that, i 100% believe we are sorely lacking in geo representation
Tignhari is a quickswap spread DPS, DMC and Collei are off feild dendro applicators (collei is more bursty whereas DMC is more sustained) that boost em a bit and Nahida is mostly an off field damage dealer / dendro applicator / support that can be played on field. I don't see the problem.. especially since they all have a reaction that they are stronger at (nahida for burning bloom, dmc collei for quicken and ok for bloom, tignari for quicken)
@@mysteriousastrolabe True lmao, this is such an non issue, especially since dendro is designed around reactions / EM and for reactions you need elemental application
@@simonditomasso9868 Atp I watch his and most non-TC vids for entertainment rather than the info; I got no issues with abyss and there are no endgame plans, so why even bother optimizing/worrying about everything to deal 1% more DPS?💀
I actually enjoy Tighnari with Raiden cuz his own damage along with off field electro application from Raiden plus the two nukes they have on top of Tighnari's ultimate is so easy to maintain, it's just so good of a rotation so much that even if I lost 50/50 to him I'll still take it
Ironically, I had assume the first Dendro units would’ve been the kinds to overlap and conflict with other supportive elements like Geo’s defence and Hydros healing but instead it’s all just about damage. And for Ranged units no less discounting Dendro Traveller. Non of them seem like you’d assume they’d be the Sub DPS type. It I guess subversion if expectations happened. And soon, we’ll have the Melee units like AlHaitham and Kaveh, will they be the inverse and bring that missing utility or will they continue being DPS focused. All very curious.
I can wait for interesting characters... Dendro support that has off field talent that turns dendro bloom explosions into team heals than damage. Dendro burdgeon booster that makes burdgeon cores apply pyro and dendro on explosion Dendro tank that as long as the enemy is applied with dendro or has been reacted with dendro in the last 4 seconds, takes 40% reduced damage and can recharge energy.
@natsumei bro just you're the side of Genshin that we hate. Accepting shitty business practice and blindly licking their ball sacks. Even there is no endgame the guy still want to see Vars Video.
I think that Dendro has balanced out the elements quite well! Its branching subreactions as well as similar resistance shredding like Anemo allow for it to thrive in niche, yet rewarding playstyles. Pyro, Hydro, and Electro, have all been balanced out. Burning isn't that great, so Pyro doesn't become too overbearing. Bloom allowed for simple playstyle with fruitful (pun intended) damage, while also making Barbara super good for it. And Aggravate was the perfect counterweight to all the detrimental parts of Electro reactions. It can coexist with Cryo, providing some insane Burning/Melt and Fridge teams. The only elements that didn't benefit were Anemo and Geo, which understandably are the "support" elements. Dendro slots nicely as the third support while giving powerful teams that leveled the playing field.
Anemo got a bit of a buff as some anemo characters can buff elementsl mastery and anemo helps with hydro and elctro application and crowd control which works for bloom
It balanced Pyro and Electro for sure, but at the same time because of Dendro, Hydro is now broken. To make it worse, it's still not on it's full potential yet due to it being the only element until 3.3 to not have their own element buffer (Dendro has 4 piece Dendro debuff set), not have an HP buffer, AND the Hydro Archon.
Anemo benefited in that the element can still trigger dendro reactions via swirl and infusions. That's why I like to say that Kazuha's element is whatever element you want and then some
About Tighnari and the Aggravate/Spread reactions. They may add a flat bonus instead of a multiplier like vape and melt, however the way electro and dendro (that we've seen so far) characters typically have lower scaling attacks that deal damage and apply aura rapidly. Unlike pyro and hydro characters that usually have 1 big attack scaling thats further amplified by vape/melt and wont proc the reaction as quickly as a dendro/electro chaarcter would because of ICD and whatnot (ofc there's outliers like Ayato and childe who dont really use vape in their best teams to my knowledge.). Not to mention the aggravate and spread reactions gain much more benefit from elemental mastery than vape/melt. Though i respect your statement from the beginning about it being too early to judge, we've only got 1 dendro artifact set so far aswell as only 1 artifact set that benefits aggravate. Remember when geo was considered mediocre back when the game first came out? That all changed with the emergence of new weapons, characters and artifact sets, aswell as the changing of how the element works? Edit: I know that the video wasn't just a bash on dendro and its reactions but rather the differentiation between dendro characters and why you would use one over the other, but would you really use Collei or DMC over Tighnari if you're looking for sheer dendro damage? And would you use Tighnari over Kusanali if you were looking for Sheer dendro application?
I watched this after 2 more Dendro characters, Alhaitham and Yaoyao, are released. Yaoyao answered your wish for a Dendro healer (which should make her important in Nilou comps), and Alhaitham covers whatever niche Keqing covers, since he's basically Dendro Keqing. We still have room for more Dendro characters, so let's see what happens in the future.
I think the problems that are being raised in this video are simply due to how recent Dendro is. Yes we had for example varied hydro units in the early game, but it was different back then. We had less characters overall so units that covered multiple functions were a must. Now with the arrival of dendro, the main need that we as a playerbase face is the necessity for good dendro application, and that what hoyo is providing us. Other functions can easily be filled with other elements, as said in the video. Besides, hoyo is also providing that, exploring the niches of dendro already, with cyno and nilou, and also having already provided characters with good sinergy, like thoma and kuki. So what if theyre from other elements? It isnt that much of a problem if dendro doesnt cover multiple functions if characters from other elements (that have been around for a while, mind you) can fill that gap. As we settle into the main logistics of this new element, we might see some more varied units in the future. A "backwards implementation", as said. And I dont see it as a problem. We still have so many dendro characters to come, some of them we even know the name, like YaoYao, Baizhu, Alhaitham, Kaveh. My advice for everyone reading is to have patience and enjoy the good things that the element has brought already. Let´s nitpick problems about the element in the future. We'll have more characters of the element, then at least it'll be possible to raise these issues with property
Even though I am fairly new to the game (end of august start) I am very satisfied with Dendro, and I'm pretty sure there will be a Cryo overhaul when Fontaine launches. Geo had it's screen time but we can't discard they will implement some new fascinating mechanics later implemented. Guess we will have to wait and see.
dendro being a "taunt" element could be a really cool idea. it could be a unique variation of increased resistance to interuption and crowd control. a character that specializes in taunts and renders characters "invisible" has a lot of potential
Dendro would be a better balancing element if it helped geo, they had a pretty good opportunity with geo to create a reaction that reduces enemy speed, attack speed and movement speed Also burning on characters specifically needs to be fixed, nahida can cause you to burn over 1k which will absolutely destroy anyone without a shield or lots of hp
@@andreuschulzmestre2049 it doesn't have to operate exactly like Freeze, like this lasts longer or also affects bosses, does more shield dmg to fatui healer/hydro abyss lector etc
They should’ve just turned Geo into a physical focused/support element like how anemo is for elemental damage. And replace crystallizes effect with superconduct.
Geo doesn't have many reactions because it's supposed to be the raw damage/tank element i think (many characters like itto ningguang noelle do high raw damage, many of them scale off defense and have shields, crystallize create shields, so it seems like a tank role)
Interesting to note that the elements that don't interact with dendro have their own supports dedicated to their element - Shenhe for Cryo, Gorou for Geo.. and anemo.. well, if you know, you know.
I have come to believe that Dendro is the "reaction" element. I know that every element (save geo) relies and is defined by their reactions but I think (can't prove) that the theme or concept behind Dendro is that they are supposed to be the element of change and reactions compared to Anemo's more crowd control and spread focus (no real "main" stat associated with it), Geo's defense and solitude focus (Most Geo units have some form of Defense or HP scaling), Electro's battery and sustained damage focus (ER is heavily associated with the stat thanks to Raiden and their high burst costs in Inazuma), Pyro's burst damage and lets say 'aggressive' supports (personal guess but I suspect that Attack is going to be very important to the Pyro Archon in some way), Hydro's new focus on health and old focus on healing (the change to the hydro resonance and the number of health scaling hydro units coming out recently points to potentially HP being associated with Hydro more going forward), and finally Cryo's focus on stasis and crits (I would argue Crit damage [or Crit more broadly] is Cryo's main stat mostly because of the blizzard strayer set and its absurd crit bonus when paired with the Freeze reaction). EM has been the new "power' stat since 3.0 because of the updates to transformative reactions and Dendro's multipart/complex reactions encourage a mix of elements in a team (despite Nihlou's more restrictive requirements, I would argue Nahida's bonus and far more forgiving and because they tier up when two of the other element are present I think they are meant to encourage 3+ element teams in order to maximize the buff you want not to punish the player for not taking 4 element teams). With that said, I think that Dendro units in general going forward are going to prioritize Dendro application regardless of their role (Healer, Tank, CC, Support). As for the four characters that have been released for Dendro at this time I would point to Geo as another example of an element that was rather ill defined or one-note until it got some expansion (and poor Ningguang was left behind in the process).
I feel like Tighnari really got overlooked by content creators as he's DPS and his Dendro application isn't a main focus... Also that he was placed onto the Standard Banner. That being said, I've been running him and Collei together (She's using Deepwood Memories) and was kind of disappointed in Nahida being more of the Dendro enabler in a team that wants to run a spectrum of elements for the reactions and her Burst's bonus. Tighnari will have his day!
Frankly this video was a bit too early and didn’t focus on what they could synergize with. Dendro is best used with off field characters like yae, fischl, xingqui, and even bennet to some degree. Working best with cataylst and bow users, they so far focus on having some level of elemental mastery buff to boost core reaction damage, while wanting fast element application like childe.
I think that for the first few dendro units they just wanted to play it safe and ensure all of them could achieve the reactions. I believe this is because they aren't expecting most players to use more than one dendro unit in a team when there are only 4 available (I don't think they expect their super casual players to use both their free DMC as well as their free Collei). If anemo was new, and there were only 4 units thus far, the variety (in regards to a character's purpose) would result in characters (e.g. Jean) not being received well because they can't achieve quite as much as Kazuha in regards to swirl efficiency, even if the variety is appreciated.
I went into the video skeptical, but you actually put the finger exactly on what feels so frustrating about release order of Dendro chars to me. Save for Tighnari, they literally are all 100% interchangeable. As a result, I, having my Traveler already lv 84 and built, have zero reason or excitement to use any other current Dendro. Why would I use resources on them, if it’s just a reskin of the same kit? It is ridiculous that we have to wait till Alhaitham and Baizhu to get our FIRST proper DPS and healer for an element which released 3 months ago. It is frustratingly limiting for using the element as a whole, and hype-killing because waiting half a year is not “anticipation”, it’s just pain. I genuinely enjoy Dendro reactions more than other elements but oh boy do I wish we had at least a crumb of variety.
I am deeply glad Collei's role overlaps with DMC, because I prefer to stick to EMC due to battery and coordinated auto attacs (which makes my Yoimiya more fun to play)
Dendro feels like something you don't need (maybe lot dps you already have through playing game for 2 years) but turn out appreciate it when you have them on party, I've been ignorant when I got tighnari, use him just for exploration. But I was wrong, all this dude kit is based on Speed, his quick swap play style just satisfying.
Correction, Nahida is an off-field DPS. With Tighnari being main DPS and Traveller and Collei being there to provide the elemental reaction, 3 types of roles for 4 characters isn't that bad. We'll get the healer eventually I'm sure.
I'd even argue that collei has her own category as as m introduction to sumeru/exploration. In 3.0 most exploration required a dendro chr and ideally an archer collei looking like a chr that was made to help with exactly that imo.
Pre-video viewpoint: 1. Dendro reinforced the ludicrous firepower of anemo by allowing them to proc bloom/hyperbloom/burgeon and catalyze/aggrvate, and also allowing them to corral the blooms into a tiny area. 2. It finally allows electro's quick elemental applications to finally shine, instead of being stuck in one-shot meta due to having limited elemental gauges to react with 3. It gave new niches to old characters (Thoma, Kuki, Miko, to name a few) that allow them to be more meta 4. Geo's still ot-so-balanced. 5. Nahida's busted, no questions asked. Still deciding if I should pulll on her though... saving for Raiden and Eula.
And every anemo character is judged on VV, grouping, buffing, and swirl ability. Doesn't stop Jean, Xiao, and Heizou from being decent characters, though.
@@Axterix13 but mihoyo hasn't gotten to that point with dendro dendro's role can't be fully established if it's own characters don't have different specialities despite the element they share
@@UncannyCreative8128 Jean predates Venti, and Xiao predates Kazuha, who pretty much defines what anemo is now. It also took almost a year to get a four star anemo healer, almost two years for an electro healer of any rarity, and we still lack a hydro claymore and cryo catalyst user. So, yeah, they can definitely do that. I mean, if it was me, I wouldn't have bothered with Dori so soon after Kuki, nor with Candace at all as she currently plays, nor with Nilou when there are still so few dendros to pair her with, but, well, they released those as well. Besides, dendro has the support aspect pretty well covered already. The only big thing that'd be nice to have is a healer/dendro applicator, for role compression and how that would open up some team building options. But we could equally use a good on-field dendro DPS for spread builds (a dendro equiv to Cyno/Keqing) or perhaps one that specializes in amping up burn damage (though, personally, I'm against overly niche characters like Sara, Gorou, Shenhe, and Nilou). Given how burn wants lots of dendro application to keep the fire going, an on-field dendro DPS specializing in this makes more sense than a pyro character. Or, in other words, on-field DPS is a specialty that would differentiate a potentially new dendro from most of the others. Also, I think, in general, characters are judged on elemental application, except for geo. ICDs matter for reactions, and reactions matter for damage. Dendro is no different than anything else, there.
5:22 Spread can crit and is amplifyed by dmg bonus, so the only thing Spread doesn't scale off is Atk. And btw yes, Nahida DMC and Collei all do the same thing, but Tighnari is quite a bit different. Tighnari focuses on damage via Spread, with relatively weak application.
For me Dendro has so much qualities and just some problems, but still those problems are veeery heavy. Dendro helped peaople forget about pyro being the best element cause it kinda nerfed it, and to be sincere pyro deserved it, because electro needed a boost and we needed a better variety of comps that don't include pyro in every team. But unfortunately, dendro boosted hydro TOO much, hydro really didnt need a buff this big now it literally turned into the best element of the game, cause all of its reactions are too op, also, geo and physical were nerfed a lot and forgotten because of dendro, so it basically buffed and nerfed a lot what it didnt need to be.
I think you were a little off about Tighnari. He's not just an enabler like the others because he doesn't have consistent dendro, only quick splurges. Which is not what you want for bloom nor aggravate. Also, while not the best use of her, we now know Nahida can enable passable melt teams and does enough personal damage for fridge teams. She's the first dendro unit to actually have usability with cryo. Overall agree with scope of the video though. Hopefully we see dendro units with more nuanced roles soon.
My main complaint with Dendro is the fact that neither the element nor its cores can interact with Anemo, Geo or Cryo in any way. When I found out that Dendro can’t be swirled or crystallized I assumed that would be because interactions with the cores were in the works, but since then I’ve learned that Mihoyo has no plans to add additional interactions for Dendro, and that feels wrong to me.
It might not have reactions with it but Anemo and cryo are actually pretty good with Dendro. I am too stupid to explain the usefulness of cryo but Anemo is still useful in Dendro since anemo can absorb other elements and I've been triggering hyperblooms using Kazuha also anemo can cc the seeds from bloom reaction. That's why even you don't have dendro in the party you can still defeat the dendro hypostasis with only electro, hydro and anemo.
@@euqisnow1047 you’re right, there still are a fair number of teams featuring Dendro and either Cryo or Anemo, such as Burnmelt, Salad, Kazuha Burgeon, Fridge and Hyperfridge - and many of these teams are solid or even good options. My issue is that design wise it makes Dendro feel incomplete, and I probably wouldn’t be complaining as much if we didn’t know that Mihoyo doesn’t plan on adding these reactions in the future either. Out of the 3 elements that don’t interact with Dendro at all, Geo is definitely the saddest case, since their only real options are either mono Geo or slapping Zhongli into an already existing core, and giving Geo a specific interaction with Dendro cores could be very interesting.
I believe that this video was still way too early. We have 4 Dendro characters so the argument of every character being similar while true is not very meaningful since they'll obviously expand on them moving forward. Tighnari is a main DPS Dendro character so he's unique on his own. Collei and Traveller are incredibly similar though I feel like they did that on purpose since they didn't want Collei to be that good and just there for exploration and as usual the Traveller is a worse version of the archon albeit this one can hold their own. Nahida is a great representation of the element and she successfully executes on that, I can also assume this was made before Nahida was released because calling her an on-field Main DPS is incredibly incorrect. I don't see the problem here other than there aren't enough Dendro characters and while the current characters rely on their element a lot, that is still just an assumption of the element as whole considering that again, there are only 4 characters.
I feel like this video came out too early. We know we are getting Alhethiem, Beihzou, and other not yet officially shown Dendro characters. So to critics Dendro for not being fleshed out in roles when it has not even been 6 months is weird. It took two years to get an electro healer and we had one pyro healer forever. Also Nahida is a good off field Dps as she is one field. Arguably she is better as a sub dos rather than a carry. She can pass on Elemental Mastery, like Sucrose, to the on field unit. That way the on field unit can focus on other damage stats and still do great reaction damage. Nahida can do solid damage from off field with her skill. We have 4 Dendro units. Tighnari being a Dendro carry, Nahida is a carry/sub dps/ buffer, and Traveler and Collie...who are pure supports. I don't believe that there are enough characters to represent Dendro as a whole.
I don't really agree that tighnari is similar to Collei and Traveler. Collei and Traveler have the same purpose with some slight variations (apply dendro), i agree with that. But Tighnari is meant as spread dps, not for applying dendro.
I think a dendro has variety and is strong. Dendro team archetypes are: 1) Hyperbloom 2) Hypesrpread (variation of hyperbloom where you keep dendro aura to sustain aggrivate uptime) 3) Bloom (particularly effective with niloou) 4) Quicken + Spread (or just quicken) 5) Burgeon 6) Burn + melt (new way to sustain melt)
Definitely, dendro basically fixed electro completely, buffed hydro to a certain degree, made a unique case for pyro which was already strong, anemo gets buffed no matter what so lets not talk about it, cryo also got a lot of benefits (freeze blooms). The only element that's left is geo. The only way to fix it would be to introduce new characters with kits that utilize geo (an anemo could cause sandstorms, hydro as mud that slows opponents, pyro as lava etc), kind of how nilou utilizes dendro in a unique way.
I think this is indeed a bit early, the roster is currently 2 free characters, the standard 5*, and the archon. Those are staples of the element, not so much characters that would stand out for individuality. Nahida does give an EM buff, which is something!
one thing that would make Colei more fun is if one of her cons (ideally C4) added some 200% EM to 300% EM healing to her burst, ant that to be based off of her bursts tick speed, and maybe adding the taunt to the burst (either as part of the standard kit or a con) to reference Amber, while also giving her standard ICD (last one is optional) and if that utility is too great, then just reduce her personal damage yes it would render Dendro Traveler inferior to her when you don't need range, but it would also keep with the pattern of the traveler being mid at best from the start
I'm gunna have the temporal tower theme stuck in my head for the next week bc of this video... I think dendro is really fun so far! But I'm really looking forward to the roster being expanded, dendro healers, shielders, or more on-field options would be greatly appreciated. I do understand wanting to start with *just* the dendro applicators before branching out- it feels similar to the launch characters being more general, and then future characters being more niche since those general roles have been filled
the current thing with dendro is that it's too new, there aren't enough dendro characters, and the element (and even electro after aggravate happened) is so incredibly reliant on em and level that the only thing that matters for dendro and electro is just how much of it you can get, a character with 1/1/1 talents and a level 1 weapon won't have a big damage drop, atleast compared to vape and melt
The one mistake I want to point out is that Quicken sub-reactions does amplify damage, in the sense that they scale with the character's % DMG and crit multipliers. It's basically flat damage that's added to the ATK*Talent damage just like Yun Jin or Shenhe buffs. As a result, Tighnari is a demi-quickswap character that's designed around Quicken - he basically applies dendro for quicken, fires off burst and his 3 attacks, and then gets out for your electro characters. You build him with damage stats as usual, and rely on some incidental EM subs and EM sharing to boost the quick damage. He also has pretty good dendro application during this on-field time to ensure he procs enough spread to be decently competitive in damage, even if it's not entirely "meta". This is what makes quicken so good. You just build the trigger characters normally, and when you have Nahida or Sucrose EM sharing, that reaction damage gets boosted by the character's damage stats to propel the reaction damage way higher than usual.
Also, I think there's a lot of design space left for future dendro characters, especially with the bombshell that Nilou gave us - that characters can now just mess with the properties of reactions. So, what if a dendro character made bloom cores react with cryo instead? A dendro character that makes quicken work with Geo/Dendro instead of Electro/Dendro? A dendro DPS that turns aggrevate into a stackable self-buff instead? Heck, go crazy and have a character turn dendro cores into bonafide summons. Once reaction changing gets considered, the design space for dendro characters become infinitely vast.
After Nahida, it is difficult to justify pulling for Dendro characters, so Hoyo must provide us alternatives to Dendro application in order for Dendro to survive its initial hype
In my opinion Dendro is superior to the other elements when it comes to reactions. While with other elements you need to balance between attack and CRIT RATIO with dendro you just need to stack a lot of EM and level up your characters. I wouldn't say broken though.
Except Quicken is a reaction where balancing is much more difficult because you need to balance EM (a way rarer stat than atl) and Crit, while also not completely ignoring ATK.
Let's just say this: I can safely use Lisa in Spiral Abyss up to floor 11 with her only being at 30% best in slot, simply because Dendro exists. Fischl + Keqing + DMC has become the next Hu Tao + Xingqiu, and also works in AoE like a boss because Starward Sword's area is huge. The Traveler, of all units, is *still* *really* *good*, even with Nahida out. DMC is an absolute unit of a character right now because of that Lotus Light. Several weapons are coming to the forefront in terms of actual DPS potential like Magic Guide, Lion's Roar, Rainslasher, Iron Sting, etc. They don't compete with 5 star weapons, but they certainly compare now to Deathmatch, Solar Pearl, Catch, Wavebreaker, Stringless, etc. Units like Shinobu & Kokomi went from really kinda meh to holy shit OP, basically overnight. Kokomi can get HP, ER, and ATK stats from subs, doesn't have to worry about crit, works amazingly on any of the EM or HP catalysts, and can still do 30-50k damage per second, from Blooms & EC reactions. Shinobu became the meta pick for Hyperbloom because she provides a stable electro application with solid healing and damage potential from Quicken. The only units who kinda got the shaft are Thoma (because he's still cope), Sara to a tiny extent (She's still actually decent as a Burst DPS and synergizes famously with Raiden & Yae, but her ATK buff is pretty short and hard to apply normally outside C2, so . . . ), any Geo (they stayed pretty much untouched, so Zhongli's still Geo Daddy, Yun Jin's still niche but strong, Gorou's still niche but strong, Itto & Noelle are still beat sticks, and Ningguang is still . . . honestly kinda good because of her DPS output & Screen utilities).
I think the whole theme of Dendro as an Element is to upgrade the teams reactions efficiency, as DMC, Collei and Nahida all have some kind of way to boost the team's EM.
i feel like complaining about the lack of variety when the element just came out doesn't make much sense. though collei and dmc basically do the same thing (providing dendro application), considering they're both f2p and how useful dendro application is for dendro teams i feel like it's justified. they do have their differences (dmc not working well with pyro, different energy costs, application rates, and uptimes on their application) but they both boil down to dendro applicator. yelan and xingqiu also both boil down to hydro applicators (while having their own differences ofc), but there's nothing wrong with it because of how useful hydro application is. tighnari is more of a quickswap dendro spread dps who relies on quicken to deal damage. nahida basically does all of their jobs but better plus buffs the on field character's em and can be used on field as a driver, but she's the archon so it makes sense. as they add more dendro characters, there'll be more that fulfil different roles like healing, shielding, hypercarrying, buffing, etc, but we can't really expect them to bombard us with nothing but dendro characters every patch just so dendro characters can have as much variety as the other elements as soon as possible.
plus in general the traveler's kits have always been pretty replaceable. i feel like it makes sense to always have another character who can fulfil the traveler's role, since you might want to use their other elements for whatever reason.
Off topic, but could you maybe include the titles of the tracks you use in your videos in the description? It frustrates me so much to listen to cool soundtracks and being unable to find them xD
I'd say as someone who has only Traveler and Collei as my Dendro applicators and have tried using em in different reactionary teams, even a bit on their own pure Dendro dmg teams- (though i'm not a master in any of em save for Quicken bc it's pretty easy;) They do have their individualism. It's just incredibly subtle and is made to be a smaller part of a bigger picture so to speak. As a Cyno enjoyer i found Collei's Skill to be more useful for fights with a lot of mobility which helps out a lot just for that tiny Dendro application for his extended Burst up time. This helps in Dendro reaction team comps with no crowd control and relies on the player being able to make quick distance to finish off scattered enemies. Traveler has been working as that fully balanced Dendro unit who can double well as a sub dps for Dendro solely because Spread exists. I can have Traveler and Cyno share in the Quicken reaction dmg boosters and their Burst when affected by Electro makes for really fast kills and short confrontations of otherwise tanky enemies like Fatui or Ruin machines. From what i've tried/seen of Nahida and Tighnari, you could also see their differences. Tighnari obviously being a Spread dps/Applicator of Dendro in a very Ganyu-esk style while Nahida is a huge team support that goes full circle into a possible dps like Raiden would especially in her C2. They all might look the same on the surface but with just those 4 alone we have many styles of how Dendro can be used for the rest of our current roster of characters and they just do it so well without many hiccups that we don't have much to complain about other than lack of more obvious variety, which i definitely think Alhaitham and Kaveh will be. If they don't Baizhu for a while at least. TLDR; I think they are different styles, just more subtly and close knit than the other elements.
I think adding some more expanded reactions sorta in the line of hyperbloom or bludgeon, maybe something like Fissure that would be using a geo move on a frozen enemy creating an aoe effect or whatever dd
I think the one thing Collei has over DMC is *overworld* consistency. Her floral ring ability (esp. at C2) gives consistent application without wasting DMC's 80 cost burst on a small mob. That plus the usefulness of archery in the rainforest (as others have pointed out) makes her a comfort pick in the overworld, even though I'd choose DMC over her in most domains/etc.
We do have at least 3 known currently-unavailable dendro users- Baizhu, Alhaitham and his boyfriend, err… roommate, Kaveh. (Yaoyao is rumored, but I’ve seen nothing official)… hope they will help broaden the element!
Dendro will probably get character specific subclasses. For example, there may be a Geo or Dendro character that comes out that says “when Dendro/Geo cast by user hits a unit with Geo/Dendro, grows thorns around enemy that deals x damage and slows them by x % while in the thorns.
I feel like dendro chars have the exact opposite problem that geo chars have
geo is kinda useless reaction wise leaving its characters to have to be viable purely based on their own abilities
while dendro is probably one of the most useful reactions now
leaving its characters to not be able to do much more than apply their element without being too overpowerd
How is that a problem though? If every character did everything, how are we going to get variations in character kits?
@@RKNancy Not really a problem but just 2 very different playstyles. What OP means is relying purely on reactions to do damage means a character's personal raw damage often suffers a bit. And there are a lot of switching back and forth even in openworld to cause reactions. Some people might prefer one way or another.
For example, I personally don't use Nahida that much in open world because it takes a while to get her damage out since I need to set up reactions, take a screen shot with her E and switch characters afterwards. In that amount of time I would've already finished the fight from a mile away with Ganyu's charge shot, or I would've already got in and got out with Yelan. Raw damage is just convenient.
6:06 NAHIDA IS WHAT A DENDRO SHOULD BE
YOOOO PINNED COMMEMNT
I don't think that's really the case. Yes, a good chunk of current dendro effectiveness comes through reactions, but is that any different than pyro with vaporize, melt-Ganyu, or electro with supercharged or aggravate? And, sure, you do have certain "mono" teams, most of which aren't mono, but those are for elements that have element specific supports and/or Kazuha, plus a lot more characters to pick from.
Meanwhile, of the four dendro characters we have, three are supports. Yes, Nahida can do DPS, but it is in the same way the likes of Xingqiu or Xiangling do DPS. To actually be impressive, it needs to be part of a team designed to interact with that character. Contrast that with a DPS five-star character like Yelan, Albedo, Hu Tao, Xiao, Yoimiya, Eula, Raiden, or Ganyu, to name a few, that, quite frankly, don't really care who you put them with for almost all content. The damage output won't be as insane as if you tailor a group to their wants, but they'll still do better numbers than most characters will do with some support. Nahida doesn't fall into that category. With a team designed to work with her, she's great, but, for something like co-op, she's just okay.
Overall, I think there is room for DPS dendro, much like how anemo has a pair of DPS characters, with a third on the way. But odds are, a dendro DPS will work like those anemo ones, and like Tiggy for that matter, by being on-field, having a very limited ability to apply dendro while off-field. So, overall, I'd say anemo, not geo, is the better comparison for dendro.
One thing about Collei and Traveler is that Collei is MUCH better in exploration due to all the ranched things you need hit with dendro. I think she was made for exploration (similar to Amber) while Traveler was meant to be the real introduction to the element (explaining their slight support buffs and better application)
Collei is the explorer, DMC is the fighter
One more thing Collei has over DMC is that her burst works with Venti burst so there's that (a plus for me, as a Venti haver and enjoyer)
hoyo basically had to give us a free dendro archer but they could have done more to differentiate her skill and burst from dendro traveler.
I agree, I do just use Tignari since I got him on the standard
@@syn010110 While I somewhat agree, I think there are enough subtle differences between the two of them for it to not be a big issue. As Szczurzysława mentioned, Collei works with Venti while DMC does not. Additionally, I think it's fine for units to have almost the same kit. Kaeya and Rosaria have the exact same skill and burst, but there's enough difference (Kaeya makes more particles, Rosaria has a double-hit skill and her crit share, Kaeya's burst is mobile while Rosaria's isn't) to make each good. Xingqiu and Yelan too, same skill and burst but it's specifically because they're so similar that they work well together. And with XQ and Yelan there are also enough other differences like the amount of hydro they apply and XQ's defensive stuff vs Yelan's damage bonus buff.
I'm just happy to finally not just run Bennett and Xiangling in the abyss. We got more options, and finally got to see more purple and greens than orange and blues.
cries in less white and yellow
Too many greens for me but it still gives my brain a spike in dopamine whenever I see it so it's good. But Hoyo really have to decrease the brightness of dendro effects. Contrary to Nahida's skill voice line, I can't see anything. I hope they tweak it a bit the same way they did with the Shogun's resolve ring.
@@BreadedRedBeard Nahida: "I can't see anything!"
Dendro just needs more time and characters to fill out its roster, thats when these subclasses will start to develop as more character variety gets introduced
It would make sense to wait for a patch or two to diversify the roster, but when you realize we’ll wait like 6 MONTHS to get our first Dendro healer, it is just not excusable at all. And no buffers/shielders in sight at all.
@@jeremiahsmith916 To be fair, they'll be useful for every comp. Will the playerbase that relies on meta even bother with a dendro character that isnt a shielder or healer once we get them?
Praying for the dendro healer/shielder for niliou comp
@@jeremiahsmith916 we just got an electro healer with Kuki and dori. It makes sense that the first few ones focus on applying the element since dendro reactions are so new. With Alhaitham, Kaveh, YaoYao, and Baizhu coming up, there will definitely be more variation in the characters and roles.
@@Oinkly prolly better to just go w kokomi there since nahida makes double dendro unnecessary on nilou bloom
12:07 Collei was made for new players, that don't have access to sumeru yet. Thats why her kit overlaps with the travelers. They where made for the same purpose, but with different player groups in mind
That actually kinda makes sense consider she was made a lower Abyss level reward too.
Then you realise that your Collei will forever be stuck at lvl.20 because all the materials she needs are in Sumeru and by the time you get there you're better off with DMC who gets their Ascension materials and constellations pretty much for free while you play the game.
It's a solution to a problem that is still ongoing regarding new characters.
Sumeru is accessible as soon as you finish the first 3 quest domains wiht Kaeya / Amber / Lisa. Sure, it's quite the walk and game design would lead you to complete Mondstadt's quests first. But you can technically go to Sumeru when you hit AR 6 or something.
That's not quite right, new players can walk straight to Sumeru from Mondstadt. Only Inazuma is story locked.
sumeru isn't story locked like inazuma. you can get there from the beginning by just walking across the map
Btw quicken and it's sub reactions are additive reaction and these reactions can crit. So, it's doesn't count as transformative reaction.
Also, those reaction have separate multipliers like similar to Shenhe's icy quill buff but it's based on character level and elemental mastery.
Transformative reaction is a reaction that is scaled off of reaction base dmg. Amplification reactions are those which multiply your attack dmg (only melt and vape)
@@liquid_cheese9930 And spread and aggravate are amplification reactions. If we look at the Elemental Mastery text in our profiles.
@@hikari9262 melt/vape multiplies. spread/quicken adds.
@Liquid_cheese True but quicken and it's sub-reactions like aggravate and spread are not transformative. It's additive reaction. check Zajef77 video on dendro you will get the idea
I think Dendro definitely helped with balance. They gave Pyro characters that don't work very well with vaporize another reaction they can capitalize on. And this was very much needed because Pyro pre dendro wasn't all that good, it was pretty much just Hu Tao, Xiangling and Bennett. Same with Electro characters. Giving good reactions to characters like Razor, Lisa, Keqing and Kuki. Dendro boosted Hydro's overall value as a support element. Cryo is now more balanced out with other elements and isn't as op anymore.
The only element that is currently left in the dust is Geo.
The geo unit that only works well with dendro is Zhongli with his Elemental shred
you could argue that albedo works but Its optional ya know
if u have em u have em
Geo on Fontaine update - massive rework and will now react with every element
Hydro is officially broken, and with that, the Hydro Archon on 4.2 will officially break the game.
Xinyan definitely got buffed💪
@@San-cb9mj Imagine XD
You know this script was written before Nahida release when Vars says "Nahida only applies Dendro and nothing more", when in game you can chain up to 8 enemies and deal passive 30-50k damage every 2-3 seconds... Sure, 200k damage from single E is not much for off-field support
Baiju and Yaoyao (other support roles) will be later, right now we needed application
Also calling on field dps like tighnari, when most of my usage from her is off field. I don't always need to m1 with her, when her E is enough and is full power off field and her burst just buffs that mostly
Dendro's sub reactions have made it the most dynamic element for me, giving me the most freedom to theory craft and try out my own teams and combos because of how versatile it is and how well Nahida can support almost any team
@@Charmlie.R Thignari is a guy
Nahida, probably: "I'll support the team by killing the enemies for you"
@williamklann8113 Tignari is actually good on field, he has Ganyu Charge Shot™ but with autotarget
I almost spit out my drink when. He called nahida a “on field dps” along tighnari
i mean, HYV has always had a very clear vision of what dendro is going to be.
for example, shenhe and yun jin were the first form of flat damage increase we saw in the game (edit: that buffs teammates instead of just personal damage). spread and aggravate are the exact same thing. so shenhe and yun jin must have been test units for these reactions. then we got yae miko with EM scaling, Ayato with additional HP scaling (which helps with on field bloom teams + why nilou scales off of HP as well), yelan with even more HP scaling, and then shinobu who's entire utility revolves around hyperbloom and, less commonly, aggravate.
all these characters have aspects of their kit, and sometimes their entire kit, revolve around dendro reactions. they even designed cyno with aggravate in mind, giving his weapon EM scaling. thats also why raw damage cyno will never be able to compete with raw damage xiao, itto or eula.
(edit: there's also candace who scales off of HP and has high normal attack multipliers, making her a good candidate for on-field bloom/burgeon shenanigans)
dendro as an element revolves around reactions, just like anemo, except this time it has much more variety, instead of just the common swirl.
as for collei and traveler's kit being similar, i'll admit that does seem like lazy design. i think collei's only purpose is to allow everyone to explore sumeru with ease, because having the role consolidation of dendro and archer into one unit is quite valuable. we should always keep in mind that characters arent always designed with just combat in mind. there is much more to genshin than just that
That's incorrect on the flat damage bonus though because Zhongli and Kokomi have had it before Shenhe and Yun Jin ever launched, they're simply the first to be able to grant it as a buff to their allies.
@@sweetillusions5495 I think what mako is trying to say is that the rise in having flat damage increase embedded into character kits has become more popularized for Mihoyo to do. It's not to say they didn't do it at all; it just wasn't their priority when they thought of how powerful characters can be.
Pre-buff Zhongli didn't have the same passives back then and most of the roster during pre-2.0 relied on atk and crit for big damage, which is why Bennett was at the top. For the community, Kokomi's role in the meta wasn't realized until much later on.
@@barrywest-allen3261 "for example, shenhe and yun jin were the first form of flat damage increase we saw in the game"
Zhongli's A4 talent and Kokomi burst have always had this embedded into their kits even before Zhongli got buffed and it was just exclusively applied to his burst before being added onto his other damaging attacks. It's not a new mechanic.
@@sweetillusions5495 I don't think you read my comment correctly. I saying kits that weren't atk or crit focused were not very common in the roster pre-2.0. That's not to say there weren't any HP/Def scaling characters.
I just do not agree with HYV releasing anything as "tests" or "test units". It just makes no sense. If they wanted to test, they would just do that on their own time.
This video could be made in Version 1.0 about electro and it would've been the same since we only had dps/sub dps of that element at the time. 1st of all, the only two characters to have overlapping kits are collei and dendro mc, which is nothing new since the earlier version. Diluc has a really similar kit to hu Tao, kuki to Dori etc... Tighnari is a spread dps and nahida is a dendro sub dps, buffer AND element applier, she's not just the latter. 2nd, we need a bigger roaster of dendro characters to actually give a definite opinion. Ofc archetypes are missing, there are barely any characters to begin with
Yeah. It's not like Pyro in the beginning of the game where we had only Pyro Dps characters and one buffer that can also be a Dps. Then more patches later we keep getting more Pyro Dps units and thats it. The only character that was Pyro and wasn't a Dps that came out was Thoma and that's it.
@@MultiDragonreaper Thoma, who also became a burgeon enabler 💀
@@kazuhasfakeprofile8001 Oh yeah. I forgot he is good at enabling burgeon lol
Vars: yeah dendro did fix a lot of issues with so many characters but they we don't have a dendro tank,dendro baffur dendro healer....
Me: YET...we DON'T have them YET
Right, it’s not like we have 10 Dendro characters already, too early to judge
@@tjhaihendra5637 We also are only getting about one new character a month. We can't expect to only give out dendro characters for 6 months straight.
@@amandaslough125 Kaveh,Al-Haitham,Baizhu and Yao-Yao are marked to be released until 3.7,so we can expect them to double the roster until the end of version 3
He seems to find problems with everything.
I bet Baizhu is going to be a healer and Yao Yao is going to be a buffer. Not sure about Alhaitham but MAYBE a buffer since he says that he likes to plan things and not fight or something like that.
Hopefully when Baizhu releases he’ll fill in the role of a Dendro healer/support
YaoYao and Baizhu
@@amandaslough125 oh yeah I forgot about little YaoYao. I believe she’s also a herb gatherer like Qiqi except YaoYao was trained by Ganyu :)
If Baizhu, the PHARMACIST doesnt end up being a healer I'll lose my mind. He HAS to be a healer I swear
@@hey7492 totally agree, but Yae isnt a healer, despite being the head priestess.
(though Shinobu's healing can be partially explained by her background of a miko family)
@@theot2141 Yae is more so the one to give you advice when visiting the shrine. She does partake in some forms of healing through her rituals at times but I wouldn’t particularly say she’s known for healing in lore :)
spread and aggravate aren't transformative reactions like overload, they're actually "catalyse" reactions, which are similar to transformative ones but have their damage added to that of the attack that triggered it, similar to yunjin's normal atk buff or shenhe's cryo dmg buff, this means they actually can benefit from any damage multiplier ; also spread has higher base damage than aggravate so I wouldn't say dendro is strictly to enable other reactions
Imo the first four characters being only focused on applying and dealing dendro is just bc it’s exactly what players need when they’re first trying the element out
I don't think it's an issue that Collei and Dendro MC are very similar, since if they are your only two Dendro units, and you are using DMC in another element for some reason, you at least still have Collei. That way if you are trying to fill out a Gorou team (for example), you can use Geo MC without completely dismantling your Dendro team. Them serving essentially the same function can be a huge plus to that player.
Has dendro supplemented the existing reactions quite well? Definitely.
Has dendro fixed the balance between elements? Probably not, especially with the release of Nahida turning bloom and quicken based teams into absolute monsters
Edit: ty for heart Vars!
I should also add that units will only get more broken in the future, since nahidas release has confirmed that genshin isnt afraid of borrowing mechanics from honkai. Nahida has introduced soul link, sooner or later they will add time fracture, time stop, entry/QTE attack, etc.
Genshin's combat has only started to evolve
Electro and Hydro thriving right now
because of how nahida's e is 1.5 units of dendro, it mostly buffed bloom based teams (and also burning) since you can get more blooms from 1 application, but quicken teams are not thaaaat much better because the 1.5u fucks up the electro aura for swirl and that you don't need that much dendro application to maintain quicken, zajef77 talked a bit about that in his nahida video
Hydro is officially broken rn, but we needn't worry too much since it's main purpose is as a support element (Nation of Hydro, DO NOT JINX THIS COMMENTS PLS, DON'T BREAK THE GAME EVEN MORE WITH MORE HYDRO CHARACTERS)
@@itsdomd0misticn00b7 oh no no no hydro archon 😂
@@simonditomasso9868 It’s proven that you only need to change the rotation a bit to maintain swirl so it shouldn’t be a problem.
The increase amount of dendro actually turns a lot of aggravate teams into aggravate and spread team.
Nahida’s best team is definitely bloom base but double dendro and electro is quite interesting too.
Its understandable that the Dendro releases have been focused on reactions. Dendro at its core is focused around reactions (hence the EM resonance, its artifacts and scaling). Dendro has only been out for 2 patches, and it makes sense that Dendro was made to focus on its reaction rather than the roles that other elements could already fulfil. With new characters released designed around dendro's reactions (Tighnari with Spread Cyno with aggravate, Nilou with bloom. I wouldn't be surprised if Dehya was designed for burning), the addition of dendro applicators would make the element more accessible for the new playstyles being introduced. Electro at the start only had damage dealers (with people comparing if Keqing was better than Razor because both filled similar roles). Beidou was the exception of a mini shielder. It wasn't until nearly a year later when Inazuma released when it got more unique characters in the form of Raiden Shogun and Kujou Sara.
Tighnari and Nahida are different one can buff your reactions of any dendro kind while the other is a set on Dps for dendro/electro
The lack in utility in Dendro is being used to get the spotlight on other elements utility characters, like Kuki and Thoma, yes, but also so they can make dendro feel fresh again in the future.
DMC and Coley are free characters MiHoYo doesn't want to "waste good utility" on them.
Tighnari was clearly more designed as an Onfield DPS from the Standart Banner, and with the likes of Dilucs and Keqinq, not much utility there.
And the Archon is designed as the crystalized form of that elements most pure essence, in the case of Dendro, it's EM-Focused dmg amplifying.
They are all very similar, but when releasing characters like Alhaitham and Beizou, they will need them to have a niche or fight with the elements archon for the role, which they don't want because they prefer to sell reruns. So they'll probably space it out and milk new Dendro archetypes for 1~2 years, slowly releasing Dendro shielders, then healers, then massive buffers, so that Dendro team comps stay changing throughtout the years
Still don't know why they didn't have Dendro react with Cryo. When some plants get too cold, they are weaken and wilts. Maybe have a reaction like that. Although, the only reactions that I could think of is slow/paralyzing effect and decreasing resistance effect, akin to superconduct.
the fact that cryo doesn't react with Dendro gives it more possibilities though. Fridge and MeltBurn are possible because you don't have a reaction between Cryo and Dendro.
Because dendro was meant to balance the game. Hence why electro got most buffed, and cryo got nothing. It didn't need a buff.
@@leojustice3367 as someone who mains Ayaka and wants to keep her for YEARS because shes fun, I was so happy with fridge lol
I was thinking about how there's a lack of taunt skills on 4☆ characters when Amber was the only 4☆ with one (every other taunt skill is on a 5☆ lol) and realized the missed opportunity of making Collei at least a bit like Amber by making Cuilein-Anbar a taunt like Baron Bunny while making her boomerang a Burst and have it do something different than what it already does (was thinking Dendronado). idk I think this fits with what you said about Dendro characters currently not having their own identity and a Dendro taunter sounds unique enough.
So basically.. Amber + Xiangling? What identity?
Dendro is a godsent for F2P and newer players, allowing many powerful teams with very common units on cheap builds.
It also brings diversity to older players, without powercreeping the previous meta teams. Good addition tobthe game, pretty well balanced imho.
I don't think the point about dendro not having enough variety is only a matter of time. I do think it's a bit annoying we haven't gotten anything like a shielder/healer etc. but if you think Abt it, it took them over 1,5 years to introduce an electro healer too. And while Nilou is a special restrictive case, I don't think nahida's teams are restrictive in any way. But I feel like that statement was mostly made bc she wasn't out at the time
Yeah same about Nahida. Her passive allows you to either use one of each element or stack them according to what kind of team you want. Far less restrictive than Nilou
new shield character is pointless tbh, knowing mihoyo they prob won't add better shield than zhongli or even require weird enemy requirement or team condition to reach the highest buffs, or last longer than zhongli's one. For healer i would want them to add character that deal element without/less ICD and move along character for dendro.
@@Tanubtanu I mostly brought it up since it was a critique in the video, but I feel like a dendro shielder rly depends on the team and rest of the kit so we'll have to see
@@Tanubtanu i mean, they are adding a 4* who's shield is almost as powerful as Zhongli's, its safe to say that in the future, a Dendro shielder may be added that could rivalize woth him, considering that Dendro is far more efficient than Geo in many team comps
There is just one gripe I've had when you described the catalyse reactions. The fact that you considered them as transformative reactions isn't really accurate to how the reaction works. I think that the catalyse reactions (aggravate, spread, quicken) should be its own category. Transformative reactions have been reactions that deal damage that is separate to the attack that triggers it. The catalyse reactions may be flat damage, but it is flat damage that is factored into the calculation of the attack that triggers it, thus boosting the attack that triggers it much like Yun Jin's ult. Thus these reactions can affected by the stats of the character that trigger it (elemental bonus damage, crit etc).
Also on a separate note, the reason why collei is not used very much is because her ICD (internal cooldown: the rate at which she applies dendro to enemies) is relatively long compared to her burst duration, resulting in her applying dendro 2-3 times to an enemy.
This heavily undersells the unique parts of both Tighnari and Nahida's kits. Tighnari is an on-field DPS but explicitly oriented to a quickswap playstyle; you don't play him at all like a most of the other on-field 'main DPS' units in the game, who are intended to take up the majority of field time in any bit of combat. He often gets compared to Ganyu because they both have powerful charged attacks, but their playstyles are totally different. He's completely unique among ranged characters.
Collei was basically made to do all the Sumeru exploration puzzles. She also swaps out for the traveller if you want the traveller in another role - and as more regions are unlocked, that's bound to be the case.
I think the current Dendro characters are fine. I'm sure there's plenty of Dendro variation to come.
Love to see a video looking back on 1 year of Dendro seeing how the roster has evolved with the addition of Alhaithm, Kaveh, Yao Yao and Baizhu if there’s more to say.
Nahida has quite a big buff on her passive.
She's not exclusive to main damage dealer as you said
I feel like the reason we're that right now we're only seeing Dendro units that focus on application has to do with it's reactions, like Burgeon and Hyperbloom. Bloom is necessary to reach either reaction, and you'd need a stable way to trigger Bloom. Dunno if it's true, just my take.
Most of the time I just go with pyro electro hydro and dendro. So either use Kuki or kokomi, and ayato or yae. Mix it up with either tighnari or nahida. While pyro thoma.
Though it is funny to have
Xingqui, kuki, thoma bursts or skill and nahida on field watching her throw all 4 elements at them at once is amusing, and things die quickly
3:15 I disagree. Collei purpose isn't to introduce dendro to the combat, but to provide a bow dendro character so everyone can participate in any type of dendro puzzles, just like by making Amber free to everyone at the start they were able to make ranged pyro puzzle and be 100% sure that every player had the necessary tool to explore everything.
DMC and Collei are similar, yes, much in the way Kaeya and Rosaria are similar. But like those two, they do have quite a few differences. Collei is a bow user, which opens up the use of weapons like the Viridescent Hunt, plus great for triggering ranged things. Her burst doesn't go implode on pyro application. There's the 15s versus 20s thing. Collei's boomerang lets you move to apply Dendro to enemies that DMC can't hit with a single E use. She also has the lingering aura, which again, facilitates the application of dendro to spread out enemies. And on DMC's side of things, well, their E doesn't suffer from the targeting/bad-flight-path issues Collei can have with her boomerang, and the DMC's burst covers a much wider area than Collei's tiny thing.
It does make sense for the two to fill the same base role, though. For all of us playing now, using Traveler for dendro was a pretty simple choice (or, in my case, using Collei over DMC was). We have a ton of other characters for various elements, and, well, Traveler's other three sets all self-sabotage in some way, from the annoying blockages caused by the geo constructs, the moving burst of anemo, and electro's kit being garbage. Though I guess that sort of applies to DMC as well, with the pyro + burst thing... that'll suck for those newer players that want to use Xiangling or Diluc as DPS. And then there are situations where they are using DMC in another role to do things like geo or anemo puzzles. So another character to handle the basics is needed.
Overall, I'm relatively happy with dendro. The one exception is the lack of interaction(s) with geo. Geo could really use both a direct interaction and a bloom trigger one (because water + plant interacting with dirt makes way more sense than fire and electricity). Geo needs a little something besides Zhongli+resonance and/or mono-geo using Gorou, and Dendro could have provided that. And not something defensive either, nor something that would mostly be counter-productive like a movement slow. No, it needs something that brings the pain. Something that makes it worthwhile to add a sole geo to a team... ideally something that doesn't favor said geo being Zhongli. Like, say, by having a dendro crystalize shield giving -resists... and that not stacking with Zhongli's shield's resist debuff.
11:08 Not true To fully get the buff you would need 2 characters of each of those elements. Nahida was not made with the purpose of having a dendro, hydro, pyro and electro on a team. Actually quite the opposite as she was made to fit with basically every reaction based team even anemo (her a1 passive). Also spread increases dendro dmg so I don't fully agree with the idea that dendros only purpose is to apply the element.
Dendro really stuck the landing in making old units relevant, re-balancing Electro and EM, and adding fun new gameplay styles. I agree with you, there are some major holes in the Dendro roster, but hey, they gotta make want to us pull for future Dendro units somehow, right? They’ve played the whole thing very smartly.
Electro (except for Raiden) is still the second worst element
@@bobjones1934 except its really not though. Yae. Razor, Kuki, Cyno??? They're all good in their roles now (razor getting another role now, as an elemental dps instead of just physical, he can do both now)
@@hey7492 lol and they’re all mid. Btw I like how you didn’t mention Keqing, and for the right reasons. She’s still the ugly and worthless cow that she was since 1.0. All these morons keep thinking that dendro saved her when dendro didn’t do anything for her lol.
@@bobjones1934 electro is easily top 3 element nowadays
@@aaykat6078 yet pyro, cryo, and hydro (aka freeze and National) still continue to dominate the abyss. Your point?
It is true that the element lacks variety at the moment. But there´s a high chance that will change with time. Still, the way Dendro is designed, it will almost always be desired for the elemental application. The element by itself is that good, so unless they release a Dendro character that sucks at applying Dendro and has almost no utility/damage... then I can´t see any Dendro character being bad.
Maybe hoyverse is trying to avoid having the most complete kits on the first batch, like how it is with beidou, xingqiu, fischl and surcrose. Yeah, you will pull for Yelan and Kazuha, but always measuring them against Xingqiu and Surcrose. Now they can release the dendro gameplay specialists, and Nahida will be the top tier well rounded dendro. IMHO
Dendro(more to nahida tbh) def buffed 4 of the element (aside from geo and anemo) in the game, the main issue i notice with dendro is Nahida. She's unreplaceable and some reaction(burning, and quicken) feels like incomplete without nahida. Burning without nahida is nearly pointless, doesn't deal much damage and only tick for short amount of time and the only available dendro character all had noticeable downside when using along (for example DMC with long CD and energy and Collei with really short burst range) you need to bring both of them to maximize cycle. The only fix with dendro is another off-field long lasting support that provide dendro with elemental skill or burst with less energy requirement (basically dendro fischl/beidou/Xingqiu/Yelan/others) this would allow character with long burst to keep gaining the buffs for example cyno or allow perma burn team with thoma and the character for example.
Aggravate team sometimes prioritize Dendro MC over Nahida tho. She applies so much Dendro that it consume all the Electro aura which makes it hard to reliably Swirl Electro without adjusting rotation. And sometimes it can feel really awkward.
Traveler’s and Collei’s kits being similar is a good thing when everyone switches Traveler to Hydro-mode a year from now.
I feel this was somewhat premature, but a necessary video. I feel like dendro at the moment is rightfully about the application, given that the element is in its introduction phase, and I’m pretty sure Hoyo is aware of that. Right now, player concern is about how dendro will essentially fit in with the other elements, given that it hasn’t been in the game for two years. I think dendro opens up more playstyles for the future, and i’m looking forward to it!
they now have a lot of room to grow with dendro atm. lots to explore with mixing story, playstyle, and the like with the new characters. i, for one, am excited to see what they come up with.
I'm hopeful that most if not all the problems you mentioned (monotony, no damage outside reactions etc) will be addressed with future Dendro characters, particularly Alhaitham.
I think dendro definitely missed an opporunity to raise the geo element in some way/reintegrate it into the elemental system again, which is unfortunate, geo really needed SOMETHING to come out of this, but itll remain solitary and the objective worst element. It sucks even more due to the fact that geo/rock/earth and dendro/plants would have made a lot of sense to have reactions together, maybe a reation between the two would create some sort of plant growth/dendro construct that could affected by the other elements that interact with dendro (kind of like the mushrooms you can bounce on in sumeru, in a way). Hydro could water the plant and make it grow and that would cause something to happen, electro could hypercharge it and that would do something, pyro could could cause it to burn and hurt enemies near it, or die and something else happend because of that, etc. It just wouldve been nice to have dendro be geo's much needed gateway back into the mix of elemental reactions
@Fuyuki Ryujin imo, that doesnt really mean it SHOULDVE been. The geo element, like it was stated, only works as well as it does because of the characters attached to it, which is unfortunate because it has plenty of rock/earth related concepts that couldve been made into just as interesting reactions. Aside from that, i 100% believe we are sorely lacking in geo representation
Tignhari is a quickswap spread DPS, DMC and Collei are off feild dendro applicators (collei is more bursty whereas DMC is more sustained) that boost em a bit and Nahida is mostly an off field damage dealer / dendro applicator / support that can be played on field. I don't see the problem.. especially since they all have a reaction that they are stronger at (nahida for burning bloom, dmc collei for quicken and ok for bloom, tignari for quicken)
Vars milking any- and everything as usual
@@mysteriousastrolabe True lmao, this is such an non issue, especially since dendro is designed around reactions / EM and for reactions you need elemental application
@@simonditomasso9868 Atp I watch his and most non-TC vids for entertainment rather than the info; I got no issues with abyss and there are no endgame plans, so why even bother optimizing/worrying about everything to deal 1% more DPS?💀
@@mysteriousastrolabe same, I watch the IWTL Vars Seka just to hear their great takes!
I actually enjoy Tighnari with Raiden cuz his own damage along with off field electro application from Raiden plus the two nukes they have on top of Tighnari's ultimate is so easy to maintain, it's just so good of a rotation so much that even if I lost 50/50 to him I'll still take it
I feel the same way about Tighnari and he is now one of my best units.
Ironically, I had assume the first Dendro units would’ve been the kinds to overlap and conflict with other supportive elements like Geo’s defence and Hydros healing but instead it’s all just about damage. And for Ranged units no less discounting Dendro Traveller. Non of them seem like you’d assume they’d be the Sub DPS type. It I guess subversion if expectations happened.
And soon, we’ll have the Melee units like AlHaitham and Kaveh, will they be the inverse and bring that missing utility or will they continue being DPS focused. All very curious.
I can wait for interesting characters...
Dendro support that has off field talent that turns dendro bloom explosions into team heals than damage.
Dendro burdgeon booster that makes burdgeon cores apply pyro and dendro on explosion
Dendro tank that as long as the enemy is applied with dendro or has been reacted with dendro in the last 4 seconds, takes 40% reduced damage and can recharge energy.
Talking about balance in a game with no endgame content and the devs simply dont care to buff/rework characters and mechanics is simply pointless
@natsumei we are still here only because of the story
@natsumei the guy presented a valid argument and you reply with this nothingburger of a retort?
@natsumei The fact that you're just repeating yourself proves that you have absolutely nothing to say. Keep being smug lol
Nerds.
@natsumei bro just you're the side of Genshin that we hate. Accepting shitty business practice and blindly licking their ball sacks.
Even there is no endgame the guy still want to see Vars Video.
I think that Dendro has balanced out the elements quite well! Its branching subreactions as well as similar resistance shredding like Anemo allow for it to thrive in niche, yet rewarding playstyles. Pyro, Hydro, and Electro, have all been balanced out. Burning isn't that great, so Pyro doesn't become too overbearing. Bloom allowed for simple playstyle with fruitful (pun intended) damage, while also making Barbara super good for it. And Aggravate was the perfect counterweight to all the detrimental parts of Electro reactions. It can coexist with Cryo, providing some insane Burning/Melt and Fridge teams. The only elements that didn't benefit were Anemo and Geo, which understandably are the "support" elements. Dendro slots nicely as the third support while giving powerful teams that leveled the playing field.
Anemo got a bit of a buff as some anemo characters can buff elementsl mastery and anemo helps with hydro and elctro application and crowd control which works for bloom
It balanced Pyro and Electro for sure, but at the same time because of Dendro, Hydro is now broken. To make it worse, it's still not on it's full potential yet due to it being the only element until 3.3 to not have their own element buffer (Dendro has 4 piece Dendro debuff set), not have an HP buffer, AND the Hydro Archon.
Anemo benefited in that the element can still trigger dendro reactions via swirl and infusions. That's why I like to say that Kazuha's element is whatever element you want and then some
About Tighnari and the Aggravate/Spread reactions. They may add a flat bonus instead of a multiplier like vape and melt, however the way electro and dendro (that we've seen so far) characters typically have lower scaling attacks that deal damage and apply aura rapidly. Unlike pyro and hydro characters that usually have 1 big attack scaling thats further amplified by vape/melt and wont proc the reaction as quickly as a dendro/electro chaarcter would because of ICD and whatnot (ofc there's outliers like Ayato and childe who dont really use vape in their best teams to my knowledge.). Not to mention the aggravate and spread reactions gain much more benefit from elemental mastery than vape/melt.
Though i respect your statement from the beginning about it being too early to judge, we've only got 1 dendro artifact set so far aswell as only 1 artifact set that benefits aggravate.
Remember when geo was considered mediocre back when the game first came out? That all changed with the emergence of new weapons, characters and artifact sets, aswell as the changing of how the element works?
Edit: I know that the video wasn't just a bash on dendro and its reactions but rather the differentiation between dendro characters and why you would use one over the other, but would you really use Collei or DMC over Tighnari if you're looking for sheer dendro damage? And would you use Tighnari over Kusanali if you were looking for Sheer dendro application?
I watched this after 2 more Dendro characters, Alhaitham and Yaoyao, are released. Yaoyao answered your wish for a Dendro healer (which should make her important in Nilou comps), and Alhaitham covers whatever niche Keqing covers, since he's basically Dendro Keqing. We still have room for more Dendro characters, so let's see what happens in the future.
This is basically a "Why everyone plays Nahida" episode :)
Lol Nahida is mid. She’s B tier on a good day.
@@bobjones1934 someone lost the 50/50
@@bobjones1934 lmao nahida is literally the meta
@@bobjones1934 copium
@@bobjones1934 Not his dumb clown again, this guy was crying about Ayato being bad the other day, get a life troll
I will never think of the Traveller when someone says DMC
I think the problems that are being raised in this video are simply due to how recent Dendro is. Yes we had for example varied hydro units in the early game, but it was different back then. We had less characters overall so units that covered multiple functions were a must. Now with the arrival of dendro, the main need that we as a playerbase face is the necessity for good dendro application, and that what hoyo is providing us. Other functions can easily be filled with other elements, as said in the video. Besides, hoyo is also providing that, exploring the niches of dendro already, with cyno and nilou, and also having already provided characters with good sinergy, like thoma and kuki. So what if theyre from other elements? It isnt that much of a problem if dendro doesnt cover multiple functions if characters from other elements (that have been around for a while, mind you) can fill that gap.
As we settle into the main logistics of this new element, we might see some more varied units in the future. A "backwards implementation", as said. And I dont see it as a problem. We still have so many dendro characters to come, some of them we even know the name, like YaoYao, Baizhu, Alhaitham, Kaveh. My advice for everyone reading is to have patience and enjoy the good things that the element has brought already. Let´s nitpick problems about the element in the future. We'll have more characters of the element, then at least it'll be possible to raise these issues with property
I think you forgot that tighnari's skill confuses enemies. This might be a feature unique to dendro
Even though I am fairly new to the game (end of august start) I am very satisfied with Dendro, and I'm pretty sure there will be a Cryo overhaul when Fontaine launches. Geo had it's screen time but we can't discard they will implement some new fascinating mechanics later implemented. Guess we will have to wait and see.
dendro being a "taunt" element could be a really cool idea. it could be a unique variation of increased resistance to interuption and crowd control. a character that specializes in taunts and renders characters "invisible" has a lot of potential
Dendro would be a better balancing element if it helped geo, they had a pretty good opportunity with geo to create a reaction that reduces enemy speed, attack speed and movement speed
Also burning on characters specifically needs to be fixed, nahida can cause you to burn over 1k which will absolutely destroy anyone without a shield or lots of hp
That would basically be a less effective freeze tho
@@andreuschulzmestre2049 it doesn't have to operate exactly like Freeze, like this lasts longer or also affects bosses, does more shield dmg to fatui healer/hydro abyss lector etc
They should’ve just turned Geo into a physical focused/support element like how anemo is for elemental damage. And replace crystallizes effect with superconduct.
There is nothing wrong with Geo. The problem is the Abyss.
Geo doesn't have many reactions because it's supposed to be the raw damage/tank element i think (many characters like itto ningguang noelle do high raw damage, many of them scale off defense and have shields, crystallize create shields, so it seems like a tank role)
Interesting to note that the elements that don't interact with dendro have their own supports dedicated to their element - Shenhe for Cryo, Gorou for Geo.. and anemo.. well, if you know, you know.
Anemo for emotional support.
They are inherently the support for other elements xD
faruzan my favourite dps sayu support
@@paulskiye6930 Faruzan is the Anemo Sara/Gorou.
I have come to believe that Dendro is the "reaction" element. I know that every element (save geo) relies and is defined by their reactions but I think (can't prove) that the theme or concept behind Dendro is that they are supposed to be the element of change and reactions compared to Anemo's more crowd control and spread focus (no real "main" stat associated with it), Geo's defense and solitude focus (Most Geo units have some form of Defense or HP scaling), Electro's battery and sustained damage focus (ER is heavily associated with the stat thanks to Raiden and their high burst costs in Inazuma), Pyro's burst damage and lets say 'aggressive' supports (personal guess but I suspect that Attack is going to be very important to the Pyro Archon in some way), Hydro's new focus on health and old focus on healing (the change to the hydro resonance and the number of health scaling hydro units coming out recently points to potentially HP being associated with Hydro more going forward), and finally Cryo's focus on stasis and crits (I would argue Crit damage [or Crit more broadly] is Cryo's main stat mostly because of the blizzard strayer set and its absurd crit bonus when paired with the Freeze reaction).
EM has been the new "power' stat since 3.0 because of the updates to transformative reactions and Dendro's multipart/complex reactions encourage a mix of elements in a team (despite Nihlou's more restrictive requirements, I would argue Nahida's bonus and far more forgiving and because they tier up when two of the other element are present I think they are meant to encourage 3+ element teams in order to maximize the buff you want not to punish the player for not taking 4 element teams). With that said, I think that Dendro units in general going forward are going to prioritize Dendro application regardless of their role (Healer, Tank, CC, Support). As for the four characters that have been released for Dendro at this time I would point to Geo as another example of an element that was rather ill defined or one-note until it got some expansion (and poor Ningguang was left behind in the process).
I feel like Tighnari really got overlooked by content creators as he's DPS and his Dendro application isn't a main focus... Also that he was placed onto the Standard Banner. That being said, I've been running him and Collei together (She's using Deepwood Memories) and was kind of disappointed in Nahida being more of the Dendro enabler in a team that wants to run a spectrum of elements for the reactions and her Burst's bonus.
Tighnari will have his day!
Frankly this video was a bit too early and didn’t focus on what they could synergize with. Dendro is best used with off field characters like yae, fischl, xingqui, and even bennet to some degree. Working best with cataylst and bow users, they so far focus on having some level of elemental mastery buff to boost core reaction damage, while wanting fast element application like childe.
That being said most of what you said was true.
I think that for the first few dendro units they just wanted to play it safe and ensure all of them could achieve the reactions. I believe this is because they aren't expecting most players to use more than one dendro unit in a team when there are only 4 available (I don't think they expect their super casual players to use both their free DMC as well as their free Collei).
If anemo was new, and there were only 4 units thus far, the variety (in regards to a character's purpose) would result in characters (e.g. Jean) not being received well because they can't achieve quite as much as Kazuha in regards to swirl efficiency, even if the variety is appreciated.
I went into the video skeptical, but you actually put the finger exactly on what feels so frustrating about release order of Dendro chars to me. Save for Tighnari, they literally are all 100% interchangeable. As a result, I, having my Traveler already lv 84 and built, have zero reason or excitement to use any other current Dendro. Why would I use resources on them, if it’s just a reskin of the same kit? It is ridiculous that we have to wait till Alhaitham and Baizhu to get our FIRST proper DPS and healer for an element which released 3 months ago. It is frustratingly limiting for using the element as a whole, and hype-killing because waiting half a year is not “anticipation”, it’s just pain. I genuinely enjoy Dendro reactions more than other elements but oh boy do I wish we had at least a crumb of variety.
I am deeply glad Collei's role overlaps with DMC, because I prefer to stick to EMC due to battery and coordinated auto attacs (which makes my Yoimiya more fun to play)
Dendro feels like something you don't need (maybe lot dps you already have through playing game for 2 years) but turn out appreciate it when you have them on party, I've been ignorant when I got tighnari, use him just for exploration. But I was wrong, all this dude kit is based on Speed, his quick swap play style just satisfying.
Correction, Nahida is an off-field DPS. With Tighnari being main DPS and Traveller and Collei being there to provide the elemental reaction, 3 types of roles for 4 characters isn't that bad. We'll get the healer eventually I'm sure.
Nahida can be both on field and off field depending on the team. She's super flexible as far as roles go
Yao Yao will probably be a healer, they like making the children healers for some reason
Probably Baizhu… whenever they decide to finally release him
I'd even argue that collei has her own category as as m introduction to sumeru/exploration. In 3.0 most exploration required a dendro chr and ideally an archer collei looking like a chr that was made to help with exactly that imo.
Nahida can work both off field and on field. But on her best teams she´s prefered to play On Field.
Pre-video viewpoint:
1. Dendro reinforced the ludicrous firepower of anemo by allowing them to proc bloom/hyperbloom/burgeon and catalyze/aggrvate, and also allowing them to corral the blooms into a tiny area.
2. It finally allows electro's quick elemental applications to finally shine, instead of being stuck in one-shot meta due to having limited elemental gauges to react with
3. It gave new niches to old characters (Thoma, Kuki, Miko, to name a few) that allow them to be more meta
4. Geo's still ot-so-balanced.
5. Nahida's busted, no questions asked. Still deciding if I should pulll on her though... saving for Raiden and Eula.
miko was already good thoma and kuki were the worst 4* in the game before
@@junyaiwase No. Amber was the worst. Thoma was close but Kuki wasn't really all that close to being the worst.
@@kawaiimika7974 yes she was she was straight dogshit
@@kawaiimika7974 amber is more useful than thoma
@@junyaiwase Not really... She is useful if you have elegy... But at that point you might as well say that for any bow user
Another problem is every dendro character will potentially be judged almost on one sole thing: elemental application
And every anemo character is judged on VV, grouping, buffing, and swirl ability. Doesn't stop Jean, Xiao, and Heizou from being decent characters, though.
@@Axterix13 but mihoyo hasn't gotten to that point with dendro dendro's role can't be fully established if it's own characters don't have different specialities despite the element they share
@@UncannyCreative8128 Jean predates Venti, and Xiao predates Kazuha, who pretty much defines what anemo is now. It also took almost a year to get a four star anemo healer, almost two years for an electro healer of any rarity, and we still lack a hydro claymore and cryo catalyst user. So, yeah, they can definitely do that. I mean, if it was me, I wouldn't have bothered with Dori so soon after Kuki, nor with Candace at all as she currently plays, nor with Nilou when there are still so few dendros to pair her with, but, well, they released those as well.
Besides, dendro has the support aspect pretty well covered already. The only big thing that'd be nice to have is a healer/dendro applicator, for role compression and how that would open up some team building options. But we could equally use a good on-field dendro DPS for spread builds (a dendro equiv to Cyno/Keqing) or perhaps one that specializes in amping up burn damage (though, personally, I'm against overly niche characters like Sara, Gorou, Shenhe, and Nilou). Given how burn wants lots of dendro application to keep the fire going, an on-field dendro DPS specializing in this makes more sense than a pyro character. Or, in other words, on-field DPS is a specialty that would differentiate a potentially new dendro from most of the others.
Also, I think, in general, characters are judged on elemental application, except for geo. ICDs matter for reactions, and reactions matter for damage. Dendro is no different than anything else, there.
5:22 Spread can crit and is amplifyed by dmg bonus, so the only thing Spread doesn't scale off is Atk.
And btw yes, Nahida DMC and Collei all do the same thing, but Tighnari is quite a bit different.
Tighnari focuses on damage via Spread, with relatively weak application.
For me Dendro has so much qualities and just some problems, but still those problems are veeery heavy. Dendro helped peaople forget about pyro being the best element cause it kinda nerfed it, and to be sincere pyro deserved it, because electro needed a boost and we needed a better variety of comps that don't include pyro in every team. But unfortunately, dendro boosted hydro TOO much, hydro really didnt need a buff this big now it literally turned into the best element of the game, cause all of its reactions are too op, also, geo and physical were nerfed a lot and forgotten because of dendro, so it basically buffed and nerfed a lot what it didnt need to be.
I think you were a little off about Tighnari. He's not just an enabler like the others because he doesn't have consistent dendro, only quick splurges. Which is not what you want for bloom nor aggravate.
Also, while not the best use of her, we now know Nahida can enable passable melt teams and does enough personal damage for fridge teams. She's the first dendro unit to actually have usability with cryo.
Overall agree with scope of the video though. Hopefully we see dendro units with more nuanced roles soon.
My main complaint with Dendro is the fact that neither the element nor its cores can interact with Anemo, Geo or Cryo in any way. When I found out that Dendro can’t be swirled or crystallized I assumed that would be because interactions with the cores were in the works, but since then I’ve learned that Mihoyo has no plans to add additional interactions for Dendro, and that feels wrong to me.
It might not have reactions with it but Anemo and cryo are actually pretty good with Dendro. I am too stupid to explain the usefulness of cryo but Anemo is still useful in Dendro since anemo can absorb other elements and I've been triggering hyperblooms using Kazuha also anemo can cc the seeds from bloom reaction. That's why even you don't have dendro in the party you can still defeat the dendro hypostasis with only electro, hydro and anemo.
@@euqisnow1047 you’re right, there still are a fair number of teams featuring Dendro and either Cryo or Anemo, such as Burnmelt, Salad, Kazuha Burgeon, Fridge and Hyperfridge - and many of these teams are solid or even good options. My issue is that design wise it makes Dendro feel incomplete, and I probably wouldn’t be complaining as much if we didn’t know that Mihoyo doesn’t plan on adding these reactions in the future either. Out of the 3 elements that don’t interact with Dendro at all, Geo is definitely the saddest case, since their only real options are either mono Geo or slapping Zhongli into an already existing core, and giving Geo a specific interaction with Dendro cores could be very interesting.
I believe that this video was still way too early. We have 4 Dendro characters so the argument of every character being similar while true is not very meaningful since they'll obviously expand on them moving forward. Tighnari is a main DPS Dendro character so he's unique on his own. Collei and Traveller are incredibly similar though I feel like they did that on purpose since they didn't want Collei to be that good and just there for exploration and as usual the Traveller is a worse version of the archon albeit this one can hold their own. Nahida is a great representation of the element and she successfully executes on that, I can also assume this was made before Nahida was released because calling her an on-field Main DPS is incredibly incorrect. I don't see the problem here other than there aren't enough Dendro characters and while the current characters rely on their element a lot, that is still just an assumption of the element as whole considering that again, there are only 4 characters.
I feel like this video came out too early. We know we are getting Alhethiem, Beihzou, and other not yet officially shown Dendro characters. So to critics Dendro for not being fleshed out in roles when it has not even been 6 months is weird. It took two years to get an electro healer and we had one pyro healer forever.
Also Nahida is a good off field Dps as she is one field. Arguably she is better as a sub dos rather than a carry. She can pass on Elemental Mastery, like Sucrose, to the on field unit. That way the on field unit can focus on other damage stats and still do great reaction damage. Nahida can do solid damage from off field with her skill.
We have 4 Dendro units. Tighnari being a Dendro carry, Nahida is a carry/sub dps/ buffer, and Traveler and Collie...who are pure supports. I don't believe that there are enough characters to represent Dendro as a whole.
1:20 is that the temporal tower OST? If so you have my sub. This melody caught me of guard so hard.
Introduction of Dendro opened the doors for creativity in team building. We are finally out of a fixed team composition.
I don't really agree that tighnari is similar to Collei and Traveler.
Collei and Traveler have the same purpose with some slight variations (apply dendro), i agree with that. But Tighnari is meant as spread dps, not for applying dendro.
I think a dendro has variety and is strong. Dendro team archetypes are:
1) Hyperbloom
2) Hypesrpread (variation of hyperbloom where you keep dendro aura to sustain aggrivate uptime)
3) Bloom (particularly effective with niloou)
4) Quicken + Spread (or just quicken)
5) Burgeon
6) Burn + melt (new way to sustain melt)
Definitely, dendro basically fixed electro completely, buffed hydro to a certain degree, made a unique case for pyro which was already strong, anemo gets buffed no matter what so lets not talk about it, cryo also got a lot of benefits (freeze blooms).
The only element that's left is geo. The only way to fix it would be to introduce new characters with kits that utilize geo (an anemo could cause sandstorms, hydro as mud that slows opponents, pyro as lava etc), kind of how nilou utilizes dendro in a unique way.
I think this is indeed a bit early, the roster is currently 2 free characters, the standard 5*, and the archon. Those are staples of the element, not so much characters that would stand out for individuality. Nahida does give an EM buff, which is something!
one thing that would make Colei more fun is if one of her cons (ideally C4) added some 200% EM to 300% EM healing to her burst, ant that to be based off of her bursts tick speed, and maybe adding the taunt to the burst (either as part of the standard kit or a con) to reference Amber, while also giving her standard ICD (last one is optional)
and if that utility is too great, then just reduce her personal damage
yes it would render Dendro Traveler inferior to her when you don't need range, but it would also keep with the pattern of the traveler being mid at best from the start
I'm gunna have the temporal tower theme stuck in my head for the next week bc of this video...
I think dendro is really fun so far! But I'm really looking forward to the roster being expanded, dendro healers, shielders, or more on-field options would be greatly appreciated. I do understand wanting to start with *just* the dendro applicators before branching out- it feels similar to the launch characters being more general, and then future characters being more niche since those general roles have been filled
the current thing with dendro is that it's too new, there aren't enough dendro characters, and the element (and even electro after aggravate happened) is so incredibly reliant on em and level that the only thing that matters for dendro and electro is just how much of it you can get, a character with 1/1/1 talents and a level 1 weapon won't have a big damage drop, atleast compared to vape and melt
The one mistake I want to point out is that Quicken sub-reactions does amplify damage, in the sense that they scale with the character's % DMG and crit multipliers. It's basically flat damage that's added to the ATK*Talent damage just like Yun Jin or Shenhe buffs. As a result, Tighnari is a demi-quickswap character that's designed around Quicken - he basically applies dendro for quicken, fires off burst and his 3 attacks, and then gets out for your electro characters. You build him with damage stats as usual, and rely on some incidental EM subs and EM sharing to boost the quick damage. He also has pretty good dendro application during this on-field time to ensure he procs enough spread to be decently competitive in damage, even if it's not entirely "meta".
This is what makes quicken so good. You just build the trigger characters normally, and when you have Nahida or Sucrose EM sharing, that reaction damage gets boosted by the character's damage stats to propel the reaction damage way higher than usual.
Also, I think there's a lot of design space left for future dendro characters, especially with the bombshell that Nilou gave us - that characters can now just mess with the properties of reactions. So, what if a dendro character made bloom cores react with cryo instead? A dendro character that makes quicken work with Geo/Dendro instead of Electro/Dendro? A dendro DPS that turns aggrevate into a stackable self-buff instead? Heck, go crazy and have a character turn dendro cores into bonafide summons. Once reaction changing gets considered, the design space for dendro characters become infinitely vast.
After Nahida, it is difficult to justify pulling for Dendro characters, so Hoyo must provide us alternatives to Dendro application in order for Dendro to survive its initial hype
I wonder how nature works with lightning and fire but not rocks and wind.
I didn't expect to hear Pokémon mystery dungeon music being used by one of my favourite genshin creators, amazing
my problem with Dendro is mostly I don't know how it works and suddenly my Tighnari deal 10K damage from Aggravate.
Would you care for an explanation?
In my opinion Dendro is superior to the other elements when it comes to reactions. While with other elements you need to balance between attack and CRIT RATIO with dendro you just need to stack a lot of EM and level up your characters. I wouldn't say broken though.
It is exactly broken and your description directly explains why
Is ur luck with EM that crazy? Don't be shy, share it with us 😄😃
Except Quicken is a reaction where balancing is much more difficult because you need to balance EM (a way rarer stat than atl) and Crit, while also not completely ignoring ATK.
Let's just say this: I can safely use Lisa in Spiral Abyss up to floor 11 with her only being at 30% best in slot, simply because Dendro exists.
Fischl + Keqing + DMC has become the next Hu Tao + Xingqiu, and also works in AoE like a boss because Starward Sword's area is huge.
The Traveler, of all units, is *still* *really* *good*, even with Nahida out. DMC is an absolute unit of a character right now because of that Lotus Light.
Several weapons are coming to the forefront in terms of actual DPS potential like Magic Guide, Lion's Roar, Rainslasher, Iron Sting, etc. They don't compete with 5 star weapons, but they certainly compare now to Deathmatch, Solar Pearl, Catch, Wavebreaker, Stringless, etc.
Units like Shinobu & Kokomi went from really kinda meh to holy shit OP, basically overnight. Kokomi can get HP, ER, and ATK stats from subs, doesn't have to worry about crit, works amazingly on any of the EM or HP catalysts, and can still do 30-50k damage per second, from Blooms & EC reactions. Shinobu became the meta pick for Hyperbloom because she provides a stable electro application with solid healing and damage potential from Quicken.
The only units who kinda got the shaft are Thoma (because he's still cope), Sara to a tiny extent (She's still actually decent as a Burst DPS and synergizes famously with Raiden & Yae, but her ATK buff is pretty short and hard to apply normally outside C2, so . . . ), any Geo (they stayed pretty much untouched, so Zhongli's still Geo Daddy, Yun Jin's still niche but strong, Gorou's still niche but strong, Itto & Noelle are still beat sticks, and Ningguang is still . . . honestly kinda good because of her DPS output & Screen utilities).
Let's mourn geo characters to stand through their abilities and not the element
I think the whole theme of Dendro as an Element is to upgrade the teams reactions efficiency, as DMC, Collei and Nahida all have some kind of way to boost the team's EM.
dendro sheilds not exist? that one big hilicurt whos sheild can only be brought down by pyro uses a DENDRO SHEILD
i feel like complaining about the lack of variety when the element just came out doesn't make much sense.
though collei and dmc basically do the same thing (providing dendro application), considering they're both f2p and how useful dendro application is for dendro teams i feel like it's justified. they do have their differences (dmc not working well with pyro, different energy costs, application rates, and uptimes on their application) but they both boil down to dendro applicator. yelan and xingqiu also both boil down to hydro applicators (while having their own differences ofc), but there's nothing wrong with it because of how useful hydro application is. tighnari is more of a quickswap dendro spread dps who relies on quicken to deal damage. nahida basically does all of their jobs but better plus buffs the on field character's em and can be used on field as a driver, but she's the archon so it makes sense.
as they add more dendro characters, there'll be more that fulfil different roles like healing, shielding, hypercarrying, buffing, etc, but we can't really expect them to bombard us with nothing but dendro characters every patch just so dendro characters can have as much variety as the other elements as soon as possible.
plus in general the traveler's kits have always been pretty replaceable. i feel like it makes sense to always have another character who can fulfil the traveler's role, since you might want to use their other elements for whatever reason.
Off topic, but could you maybe include the titles of the tracks you use in your videos in the description? It frustrates me so much to listen to cool soundtracks and being unable to find them xD
I'd say as someone who has only Traveler and Collei as my Dendro applicators and have tried using em in different reactionary teams, even a bit on their own pure Dendro dmg teams- (though i'm not a master in any of em save for Quicken bc it's pretty easy;) They do have their individualism. It's just incredibly subtle and is made to be a smaller part of a bigger picture so to speak.
As a Cyno enjoyer i found Collei's Skill to be more useful for fights with a lot of mobility which helps out a lot just for that tiny Dendro application for his extended Burst up time. This helps in Dendro reaction team comps with no crowd control and relies on the player being able to make quick distance to finish off scattered enemies.
Traveler has been working as that fully balanced Dendro unit who can double well as a sub dps for Dendro solely because Spread exists. I can have Traveler and Cyno share in the Quicken reaction dmg boosters and their Burst when affected by Electro makes for really fast kills and short confrontations of otherwise tanky enemies like Fatui or Ruin machines.
From what i've tried/seen of Nahida and Tighnari, you could also see their differences. Tighnari obviously being a Spread dps/Applicator of Dendro in a very Ganyu-esk style while Nahida is a huge team support that goes full circle into a possible dps like Raiden would especially in her C2.
They all might look the same on the surface but with just those 4 alone we have many styles of how Dendro can be used for the rest of our current roster of characters and they just do it so well without many hiccups that we don't have much to complain about other than lack of more obvious variety, which i definitely think Alhaitham and Kaveh will be. If they don't Baizhu for a while at least.
TLDR; I think they are different styles, just more subtly and close knit than the other elements.
I think adding some more expanded reactions sorta in the line of hyperbloom or bludgeon, maybe something like Fissure that would be using a geo move on a frozen enemy creating an aoe effect or whatever dd
I think the one thing Collei has over DMC is *overworld* consistency. Her floral ring ability (esp. at C2) gives consistent application without wasting DMC's 80 cost burst on a small mob.
That plus the usefulness of archery in the rainforest (as others have pointed out) makes her a comfort pick in the overworld, even though I'd choose DMC over her in most domains/etc.
I will allays just be a melt/vaporize person so Dendro for me is just burning support to facilitate those reactions lol
We do have at least 3 known currently-unavailable dendro users- Baizhu, Alhaitham and his boyfriend, err… roommate, Kaveh. (Yaoyao is rumored, but I’ve seen nothing official)… hope they will help broaden the element!
Dendro will probably get character specific subclasses. For example, there may be a Geo or Dendro character that comes out that says “when Dendro/Geo cast by user hits a unit with Geo/Dendro, grows thorns around enemy that deals x damage and slows them by x % while in the thorns.
the only reason i play DMC is because i need to feel motivated.