u/1k4r1A

Since they gutted the E2 so that the loop is not a thing anymore, I won't cover on that. And the buff on his sig is pretty much irrelevant to Acheron comp so I won't cover that as well.

First off, every time you wanna use Blade's Skill, either directly or via Talent's Extra Skill, it WILL consume HP and it FORCES you to have Blade on above 1 HP, to do either of that.

What does this mean?

1. Sustain comp, with either DH PT or Aventurine, got hit quite hard. Ofc they compensate with 25% DMG bonus compared to before, and he gains 50% DMG RES + Healing%. But if you play him enough, even atm, he barely loses HP at all, because the shield is thick enough for him to not get hit directly into his HP, though it's not always the case, especially if you want to get hit on the 1st wave, leading to even less HP to work around.

2. Sustain comp with ofc Hyacine, but also notably Lingsha, though unchanged, they got better because others got worse and they got buffed for free. But since these 2 sustains are also not as good as DH PT in terms of dmg amp, it won't change much.

3. Sustainless comp might... not change too much, maybe even better? I mean, he gets 50% DMG RES, consumes less HP. He can work out as a sub-tank to take aggro and take hits, and you rarely ever encounter such situation where he ends up at 1 HP and you cannot use his Extra Skill, but that is for later.

Also, this would mean you might have to manage his HP as a limited resource and can't really Skill all too often. Though usually you'd just Q to taunt them for guaranteed stacks instead of going RNG fest.

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Second, his personal dmg got buffed, and quite a lot:

- Ult HP% scaling goes from 300% to 350% (AoE).

- Trace buff changed from FuA DMG only to his DMG only.

This kinda made up on what I felt conflicted about his debuff as he will NEVER have it fully. Now they make sure that if he's not sub-DPS for Ult-reliant DPS, then he gets full buff.

I'm a bit scared on this. I did state before, unless it's like Anaxa or Ashveil where they excel at hypercarry when they shouldn't be, Blade is performing really solid as a sub-DPS / DMG amper, not as a hypercarry.

Now that they changed and buffed his personal dmg quite a lot, I am getting a bit scared, because they now have a REASON to throw a nerf without getting sh*t on. Really b*tch move from the devs, because this could actually just lead to a nerf in general, and it's justified because he's supposed to be a sub-DPS / DMG amper.

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Overall, V3 intention is clear, they do NOT wanna remove Blade + Acheron synergy (because honestly, they can just remove the whole debuff landing sh*t and put it in the Zone instead to gut that synergy), they also wanna pushes it up further, even if a bit. But with the fact that they buffed him, hypercarry wise, I am getting worried on the possibility of him getting hit in like everything.

For the sustain comp, I'll have to wait. Because not using DH PT, is a net loss in terms of dmg. DH PT usually provides like around 666 Atk, around 50% ATK in general. And Hyacine basically does not provide any or 16% DMG bonus from what, Herta shop LC. Combined with the bonus 25% more from the change, amounting to 41%, so might be slightly worse, also we have Hyacine energy issues if she only Q. Gotta test out.

Oh wait, DH PT LC is actually good here. Oh. Nvm, if any has DH PT E0S1, don't bother with this, nothing's changed for you, and you got buffed, great.

Oh yeah, last word, for a certain Aventurine main within here that constantly pushes the Aventurine propaganda, yeah you ain't gonna work out well with this.

To start off, we pretty much know the kit of both SW999 and Evanescia at this point, whether it's from the official web or from Currency War, so discussion here is rightfully following the rules. So mods, do not tap on this one.

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Now, to the main stuff. We all know Elation is a new mechanic from 4.0, and we were welcome with 2 Elation characters, 1 being Yao Guang, a complete support for Elation comp, and 1 being Sparxie, a DPS / sub-DPS (as of SW999 release), with the main focus for Punchline generator (albeit not really good, I'll go into that).

The main gig: Is Yao Guang replacable in the Elation comp or not? Should we play Future: Star Rail and hope for a new Elation character that pushes Aha Instant up?

1. It depends on what Elation DPS you're playing.

This might sound confusing, but with SW999 and Evanescia both being Elation DPS, but with very distinctively different resources, I can confidently split this into 2 groups:

• Elation DPS that CANNOT generate Certified Banger (CB) on their own. This is the category for Sparxie and SW999. You already knew how BAD Sparxie is without Yao Guang from 4.0, and this also applies for SW999, as they're heavily dependent on staying in CB state.

The reason being, Yao holds a very unique position in the Elation comp, as she's the sole method to "extend" their CB state, as of now. Even with EMC, it's only 50% effective as EMC can only choose one, therefore making either Sparxie (most likely) or SW999 to lose CB state, therefore deal 0 DMG basically.

• Elation DPS than CAN generate CB on their own. And this is where things get interesting.

Evanescia is currently the ONLY one to ever self-generate CB on her own, due to her traces leeching off the teammate's CB, whether they gain or LOSE CB. The latter part is really important, because it's pretty much the reason why Evanescia is not so dependent on Yao compared to SW999 or Sparxie, as she's not dependent on Aha Instant to gain CB, and her talent uptime is pretty much 100% without any problem.

This leads to the question of whether Yao is important or not.

• If you use SW999, basically she's like the "Kafka" of that specific Elation comp, where she keeps the team alive by "extending" their CB state. That's that.
• If you use Evanescia, you may play Future: Star Rail, pray for an Elation unit, that can generate CB, and then EMC is just there to do Yao's job, since Evanescia is hypercarry-focused.

1. An Elation unit that pushes Aha Instant up.

Pretty much, this will probably happen. Just speculation and no violation on rules (again) but it will, because at the end of the day, Aha Instant is a very much important mechanic to the Elation archetype as a whole. So advancing that can be good...

Although at that point, you might even use both Yao and that certain Elation unit. Even for SW, that could really happen and Sparxie gets kicked out of the comp.

Speaking of Sparxie, I did say she didn't really generate a lot of Punchline, and that's kinda the case here, mostly because of her being total dogsh*t on that without her sig. Even with sig, I'm not even sure she could consistently hit 20 charges on her EBA, into sth 20-25 Punchline? It's too unreliable, that if later they actually release a REAL Punchline generator without such RNG, I'll take it.

But back onto the matter of Future: Star Rail and whether Yao can be replaced, just know that, the best thing you can do atm, is to just get Yao, if you're a SW999 haver, or you can do either if you're a (soon-to-be) Evanescia haver.

Yao Guang is undoubtedly the "insurance" for whoever playing Elation comp, because she cannot go bad, and even if there's a better unit, you will use both. That's that.

Well, iykyk, so yeah we got PS V1 and after a few testing, I can point out sth with Mortenax Blade, and I'll be real, we got fooled real hard from his kit on paper. But overall, a really great improvement compared to SW E2, about 20 - 25% better. Take it or leave.

For whatever's better, it's stack generation, and a lot. The only thing that sucks, is that you might want to bring Hyacine. I tried DH PT E0S0 (grab a 635 ATK base LC), and .... let's just say, you might want to sacrifice a bit of attack from DH PT, for Blade's survivability, since he'll get focused, a LOT.

And then the dmg amp, ofc. 20-25% higher than SW E2, in terms of dmg amp. Like for SW E2, in ideal situations, with Tutorial S5, she can provide around 100% dmg amp value. And Blade E0S0 can provide 120-130%, depending on the situations. Yeah you can see where this is going.

And if you can build crit, I mean keep him around 70 - 80, have decent Spd, you're good to go. Can go with the newest relic set for more, or Eagle set if you have a lot of that.

.... Now, for the other parts that felt uncanny when using him.

1. He cannot 1st turn Ult without his Sig, or go Tutorial S5, have Def Reduction already (via Cipher E0S1 technique or sth similar) and then have either Fine Fruit or RM's Sig.

I mean, most recent support type unit in the game is Yao and she's one to suffer from similar situations, but really, devs? After countless supports not suffering from being unable to 1st turn into Ult, now you do this? Really? This set you back quite a bit wave 1, and it's really annoying.

2. Enter the Ult, and his Max Energy becomes 160, which made it kinda hard to abuse Eagle without Tutorial. But the most uncanny thing is that, you cannot pull off sth like having Ult and 80 excessive energy stored, using Ult and them have 80 Energy, hoping to instantly have Ult since you already had 80 Energy.

No, this does not work like that. He keeps his energy based on the % of max Energy once out of his Zone, not based on flat amount of energy. I mean, really? Just a bonus Ult into Ult again, why can't it be allowed?

So for Acheron, is he a great improvement? Yes. Again, dmg amp overthrows pretty much anything else. And even better stack generation. Might find it difficult to run him sustainless tho (but he's still tanky enough so....).

Order of investment is Blade E0S0 -> Blade E0S1 -> Blade E1S1. That's that. E1 is pretty much not prioritized, considering you will go Acheron + Blade + Tribbie. 44% RES PEN alr, that E1 can only amount to 13% dmg output increase, which is not a lot for an eidolon.

I'd say, I expect some changes in energy issue, maybe tune his scaling a bit down (he is doing really good dmg on the other team with Ashveil, we'll see about that). The dmg amp he currently provides, is really good, ppl say it will get nerfed, but I'd say the otherwise. I mean, you can already tell, SW Novaflare, Sparkle Novaflare, and then Welt E4 Novaflare. All of them have dmg amp at over 100% dmg output increase, so having Blade on that level, isn't too crazy anymore. At most they might tune it down to what, 24% Def Shred, 40% Vulnerability, and 90% DMG bonus, and he's still solid.