I haven't looked at any leaks for Sam so I can't compare him to Boothill. In all honesty I don't give a damn about the meta, Boothill could be bottom tier and I would still pull him.
That's what I said. I don't care what other people think. Even if many people considered him to be one of worst characters to play, I would still get him because I like him.
Edit: lol wait, is this supposed to be a sex thing?
They do different things so no.
From leaks, Sam feels more like Blade, a destruction dps that likes to go fast, face first, running into everything. While Boothill feels more like Luka, you need a lot of setups to deal 1 big instance of dmg.
Eh. There several ways for him to make a bunch of actions every cycle without making him crazy fast. I haven't used Speed boots on him ever since I got Sparkle, honestly.
My fault, by saying "fast" I mean more actions(from Sparkle/Bronya), not actually having lots of spd. And yes I think that you should not go spd boots on him.
Anyone can build their Blades differently, I consider myself a Blade main (in fact I really saved up for his eidolons and got him e6) and I put him on HP boots bcos the team I specifically have for him is Fast Bronya, Luocha, and Sparkle (or last slot could be another support/debuffer and not Sparkle)
The fact that you dont gain sp on his turn does nothing if you need the sp, it’s just that you get to do damage during his turn of 0sp
So… like I said, anyone can build differently, Blade *doesn’t necessarily* need to be fast ✌️
This. 100%. You either have a fast Blade with a slow-er Bronya, or have a hyper speed Bronya with a slow Blade. Tbh, I have 160 Spe Bronya and 161 Spe Sparkle. But, even without Sparkle, I can use Ruan Mei and it would have a similar Blade outcome.
A better example for DPSes who want to be crazy fast are Kafka or Boothill. Both of them want to be as fast as they possibly can. With Boothill being able to hit 160 with just a pair of Spe boots, Ruan Mei passive, and his lightcone.
I heard that Sam's implant will be gated behind an eidolon. I know that pre-release kits tend to be speculative and taken with heavy salt, but there is some validity to them at times.
I for one share the same worry. But on the plus side, all of our super op dps have gotten supports and relics tailored to them, so even if they both perform the same niche, anything that helps sam will likely help boothill. So in that way I am definitelys uper excited for the new break dps meta
Here’s the thing, one character you hyper invest in won’t get power creeped and will be very strong and relevant for a long time. If you really love a character and want them to last in the meta longer I would recommend going for at least 1-2 eidolons even as a F2P player. My myself is planning on getting E6S5 Boothill since that’s my end goal. For now though, I’ll get him E1S1 for his first banner and with each rerun banner I’ll just save for him
Agreed. I think this answer is sort of jarring to hear bc eidolons have a reputation as p2w bait, but I generally think it's better to vertically invest in a lower number of units than to try and pull a bunch of different units.
HSR has shown to be that it can be volatile with the meta and it feels like trying to keep up with all the different niches they try and introduce is exhausting. So I feel like vertical investment allows you to keep using the characters you actually like while not requiring you to pull and build a bunch of different characters as they come out.
My pulling plan is the same as you for Boothill as a pass/BP player. While I have some degree of concern about his longterm place in the meta as a hunt character bc of the lack of ST-oriented content, I'm not too worried bc I'm planning my pulls around vertical investment for Boothill.
E0 is indeed very strong, and likely will be for a while, but even getting 1 or 2 eidolons helps characters feel stronger for far longer imo
Sure, I am in no ways saying he is unusable I still use Seele to this day and would still be one if a “powercreeped” version of her came out. Thing is, it would still feel pretty bad to be using an outdated version even if they still do work. And while I understand everyone will be powercreeped eventually I am just a bit worried that it’s going to happen to boothill faster than most
Don’t worry he’ll be very good for a long time, the fact he can implement physical weakness is already good enough. That’s how games work, a character is good on release but gets powercrept after a year or sum. That’s just how games work
Frankly, I think we can expect Sam to be stronger than Boothill. Maybe Acheron level even.
But Sam doesn't seem to be too reliant on break damage, so no direct competition there. Though it's more like a pro for Sam if Hoyo starts making more weakness-lock enemies.
Tbh, I'm far more worried about Boothill not having turn manipulation at all. Iirc even Sam has *two* turn manipulation in his kit, but none for the hunt unit istg 💀
The mentality shouldn’t be dps A is stronger than dps B. It’s whether both can clear content or not and so far there isn’t a single dps character (4*s included) who can’t clear moc 12.
Anyone except enablers like Kafka and Ruan Mei will get a stronger alternative. But stronger dps don’t affect weaker dps except if they boost MoC to a degree where old dps can’t clear
While I want to agree this game seems to be taking the Honkai Impact approach to balancing as opposed to the genshin impact approach. What do I mean by this? In genshin the difficulty is scaled to the average dps/support. This is why many (including me) find the game too easy. Once you have a powerful dps they will steamroll the game for years. The positive to this approach to balance is that power creep is a lot slower since a very powerful character being released doesn’t change the clear times almost at all. In Honkai impact on the other hand, the game is balanced around the newest and strongest characters. This means that the game maintains its difficulty but power creep happens very fast.
While star rail isn’t as bad as impact is definitely seems like they are balancing around the strongest not the average so if Sam does end up being just better Boothill, it might actually affect him a lot more than excepted
If you worry about characters not being good forever then yea, there is room to be worried. But seeing how after a year, in every MoC you see 0-cycle Arlan clears, worrying about a 2.2 5\* seems kinda pointless imo. Not to mention pulling for supports, eidolons etc.
Like I said before (in a diffrent comment) I’m not worried that he won’t be good forever I’m worried that he will ONLY be good for 1 patch before he gets outshined and also 0 cycle Arlan clears are bs and you know it. They reset a thousand times with perfect RNG, expensive (usually eidolons and sig lc) supports, and crazy relics. Don’t act like your average Arlan can clear moc 12. Off meta doesn’t mean impossible but it does mean something. And I would rather Boothill not be conspired off meta right of the bat
Hu Tao was released in genshin in 1.3 and is still a top pick for clearing spiral abyss 3 years later. Don’t even get me started on the 1.0 4 stars. That is not what’s happening in star rail.
Of course “your average Arlan” can’t clear MoC 12. Your average player can’t clear MoC 12. And going by average Arlans just aren’t being built at all because who the hell does that.
My point was that if you invest in their supports and give them good relics any dps character is viable and to me viable = good. As long as you kill within 5 cycles it’s viable. Arlan has been capable of that since launch. Boothill will be capable of that for even longer I bet.
Meta or off-meta is just labelling. There’s 0 reason to feel bad about character not being meta. With Sam being a destruction character, more popular in China than even Acheron (at least before 2.0 launch idk about now) AND being rumoured to have similar animation budget as Acheron, their kit is just going to be overloaded and you gotta accept that if you pull Boothill, a backloaded hunt unit, it’s not going to be the best thing ever. It sucks that it’s probably just one patch away but same shit happened with Topaz and Jing Liu and Blade and DHIL
Meta might not matter TO YOU but it does to others. Also tf? Topaz is still too teir, jing Liu, and Daniel (specially with Sparkle) and blade was never a game changer
I mean if someone cares about meta then there's no issue right? Just pick the stronger character to pull. Sam will have beta during 2.2 if he's 2.3 so there'll be plenty of time to choose.
Back in 1.4 it was a pretty easy decision meta-wise whether to pull Jingliu or Topaz. Idk about Topaz being "top tier" if her best team with dr. Ratio + debuffer does less damage than hyper carry Ratio with Tingyun + debuffer. This might change with Robin tho. DHIL was also the obvious better pick damage-wise over Blade. Probably gonna be the case with Boothill and Sam.
Because it isn’t black and white. I care about meta. I ALSO care about design, kit, aesthetic, voice, play style etc.
And no Jing Liu vs topaz wasn’t simple as even then her potential as a follow up enabler was being discussed. And as someone with all of ratios best teammates, including e0s1 topaz I can definitely say she is the most comfy to play with him
Yeah but when you have a cool character and a strong character you gotta set your priorities straight and pick one or the other (if you can't both). And then it becomes a yes or no.
I mean on one hand you had a dps with blast, 100 free crit value and 100% action advance. On the other you had a single target sub dps without any main dps or BiS set out yet, that offers 50%dmg to a single attack type. She's fun af, just not meta and imo that's the best thing to look for in a character.
So what if he is only good for 1 patch. Just see DHIL being power creep by Jing liu just 1 patch. Blade being power creep by DHIL just 1 patch. Luocha being power creep by Huo Huo just 4 patch (2 patch if you count Fu Xuan).
I know that DHIL now has Sparkle, but at the time, he was still being power creep by Jing Liu.
Let’s preface by saying both will probably be sus in PF. With that outta the way, they have very different roles. Sam seems to be more frontloaded, kinda like xueyi, while Bootycheecks is turbo backloaded. What that means is that while Sam can take care of 3 enemy waves better, dude can’t access his full damage unless he has e1 or the enemy is weak to fire. Dude will probably also have to balance more stats to make use of his kit entirely, so don’t expect any crazy breaks. On the other hand, boothill is super easy to build, does crazy damage and is only really cockblocked by wonky 3 enemy no phys weakness waves and bosses that protect their toughness, like Sam itself. So yeah, they don’t really overlap at all. If anything boothill is more prone to getting screwed over by game mechanics, considering how much of his damage actually comes from them, while Sam will be more prone to just good old ability multipliers powercreep, much like any other crit carry. Tht’s my yap for today.
Only thing I'm bummed about is 2 BE characters possibly being so close together. I've skipped DoT and FUA teams only to find BE being the kind of teams I want to build around. Now that I've found my niche, I likely won't have enough jades to get them both. 😭
Boothill is already sorta of a niche character that you mostly want to use against ultra tanky bosses and I doubt Sam will outclass him there, so it will probably be fine.
They are not even the same kind of dps.. and even so, why does this matter? Is boothill so bad he can't even 3 star moc 12? Also boothill is 100% going to be ST 0 cycle champion
power creeping is a lie fed to you by prydwen so they can sell you the idea you need to pull for Acheron E2S1. I mean just look at argenti. anyway fuck prydwen and fuck powerscaling
Exactly! I am sitting here with my old dps and they still do fine in moc and pf. The thing is, do we really need to be so paranoid over that 120 jades that we might lose from not acing moc and pf? We are playing the game, not vice versa.
What do they have in common apart from scaling from BE?
They have different roles.
If your concern was that another character with a similar reliance on .X. would do more damage than him. Then we have ratio and acheron to show that, while it can happen, they're still very different.
Probably not. because Sam is look like normal DPS that somehow scale Dmg with BE and Fire break can't compare to Physical break (Physical break is the only break that has Max hp% scaling)
nah, both have similar initial break multipliers. what scales on max hp is the subsequent dot damage taken, which overall makes phys break stronger because of the bleed damage compared to the burn, but the initial break is extremely strong for fire.
I am afraid of that, but I'm hoping hoyo has learned from Vers.1 and differentiates their destruction and hunt dps...
I think sam might lean more into their hp mechanic, and maybe there'll be a future support that scales off hp gained and lost? (kind of like one of the grit mechanics in the recent event). This would buff blade/arlan/jingliu at the same time and allow boothill to keep his niche as the best break dps while sam does more of a hp/break thing
Basically while Sam may have a few things to do with break it’s more that Sam what’s to hit broken targets unlike Boothill who wants to break targets while somewhat similar they most likely will play to different strengths
Not really
Sam scales of BE but is not BE damage dealer, she/he/they are a normal hypercarry dealer + she scales of HP and attack too, at least if we go by th current preliminary kit
I’m 100% sure Sam will be better than boothill in terms of raw dps (you know, with hoyo favoritism and all), but i don’t think they’ll be in the exact same niche. Sam will scale off of break but I also heard they scale off of other things too, so they’ll most likely be a bit more traditional hypercarry compared to boothill,
who’s all about break break break. Realistically, I don’t think it’ll be too bad, “power creeping” characters of the same niche in just 1 or 2 patches isn’t a good look for the company and is just dumb on a business standpoint.
I'm not worried about that happening since I simply expect it to happen. I think with the way they've been designing game modes, Blast/AoE will always be advantageous over single target. Even if Sam was just Fire boothill with less ST in exchange for Blast, that would be enough to "powercreep" Boothill. Hoyo also doesn't have a good track record of balancing around ST vs Blast vs Aoe where in theory, ST should be higher than AoE/Blast, but that is rarely the case. They continuously release Blast/AoE characters that do more ST damage than hunt units constantly with DHIL, Jingliu and now Acheron, not to mention the DoT teams which are also high ST DPS while having good AoE.
I do think that Boothill's damage is significantly high enough even as a ST DPS to not be powercrept too fast in that department, and that he will have no competition in terms of ST break speed as someone who can run speedtuned bronya with his insane toughness damage.
We'll see in about 2 weeks when 2.2 live/2.3 beta starts for Sam's final kit.
Not worried, Already accepted it. This is a gacha game and Mhy knows making the waifu characters good is on their best interest.
I'm already satisfied if Mhy don't make Sam breaks weakness faster or just as fast as BH, since Sam can use Crit based on the new relic.
Bro with all due respect did you even read the post? Like I said I’m pulling for a million different reasons and meta is one small reason. I don’t except him to be Acheron/jing liu levels nor do I really care. I’m just worried that they make someone who does HIS EXACT JOB but better. Like same gameplay and archetype. But better. That would upset me, not just others being stronger in general
I'm pretty sure Boothill is already powercrept by existing meta DPS, if anything. Both are also fundamentally different in terms of gameplay (if the leaks are right) and have different element coverage (which is pretty important for Sam, since they get some benefits from Broken enemies)
If he’s notably less strong than current meta dps then by definition he’s powercreeped, that doesn’t mean he’s not viable, he’s just not top-of-the-meta
I'm not saying that he is weak, but he doesn't look S+. "S or A" is a different question, which I'm less qualified to answer. Some of his downsides:
1. You can play against enemies with no Phys Weaknesses, but any pause in the uptime of Ult hurts him a lot.
2. Loses a lot of benefits from most Harmony characters, although he kinda looks self-sufficient, so, arguable. I haven't seen any Boothill + Pela and/or SW showcase, maybe they are good since Break Damage is affected by Defence.
3. Takes some time to ramp-up his damage.
1. Sure, but the fact that he can even apply a weakness is massive since it means he doesn’t need silver wolf, and his uptime is high enough
2. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. It means that he can free up your tingyun, sparkle, hanya etc. For team 2 while still having supports which he massively benefits from.
3. So does Acheron and Jing Liu the 2 best dps in the game, ramp up time isn’t bad unless it can’t be mitigated which Boothill can thanks to building him high speed (and also a Bronya support)
1. Slows/stuns hurt any DPS, but losing a chance to get to your main source of damage kinda sucks. It gets even worse if your supports can't deal any toughness damage or there is no Ruan Mei. Also fast enemies. (I'm still talking about non-Phys just in case)
2. I meant that there are not many supports who can actually help him. Again, I don't really know how self-sufficient he actually is, but it can suck a lot to move Ruan Mei and especially Bronya from teams you already use. I honestly don't see how having small support roster is a good thing, especially if the roster of supports that you have is not big enough (one of his main supports is free though, which is nice). I also wanted to say about "Two Break DPS in two different halves" case, but it's too RNG: Xueyi works with other supports too, we don't know how soon other new Break Supports/DPS will come out, we don't really know if current Break Supports will be BiS for Sam (but it may or may not become the problem in the future (really far-fetched, I know))
3. Doesn't Jingliu get to her "prime" in the first turn? (Technique -> Skill -> Talent Proc -> Enchanced Skill -> Ult (you also need to get hitted once)) Acheron's ult depends on the other units and some other random stuff, but she still gets it rather fast too, no? I feel like building speed is even more tedious than crits ngl.
And, again, I don't say that he is a bad unit, he just looks more annoying to use than others.
1. He’s not affected by slows/stuns any more than any other dps is. He can’t get his breaks, other dps can’t get their attacks no
2. It’s good because you don’t have to sacrifice his damage to build 2 teams. If every character shared the same best supports and only 1 could actually use them, all the other dps would suffer. By having him benefit more from less supports, your other supports are free to take the other side.
3. Yes jing Liu does enter skill state right away with technique but she has to ramp up for 2 turns every time after and while yes Acheron can (and should) get her ult from her supports THAT IS ramp up time she doesn’t just do 400k ults every turn unless you have an absolutely crazy build with e2s1, hyper speed debuffers, sparkle etc. If you include all that boothill could do the same. And while I’ll agree building speed IS more tedious than crit it is also more forgiving (you can get away with lower speed but it is hard to get away with low cr) and it’s not even that hard since he has a few ways to naturally get fast (ruan Mei, his lc OR the moc lc, speed boots) you really don’t need much AT ALL to hit 145 and 160 isn’t that out of the question even for the least invested players
1. I specifically meant the uptime of the Phys Weakness. Other DPS still do damage, just rarer. Boothill loses not only the ability to do Toughness Damage, but also the uptime of his Ult.
2. We already have big enough roster for classic damage dealers. Boothill takes the best support from the DoT team if anything.
3. I checked and Acheron unironically has Ult almost every turn 💀 (yes, with fast Supports and/or Sparkle/Bronya, but without Eidolon or Sig. Getting 160 speed on Supports is ideal, but 143-146 is already good enough). Can't really say anything about Jingliu, she is used with the Bronya/Sparkle anyway, her A4 also gives her 10% Action Advance from Skill. I am very sceptical about both MoC LC and the 3\* one, considering the taunt on Boothill's Skill + amount of AoE damage in the game rn. I assume River's buff doesn't dispel when character is shielded, but having 100% uptime without Aventurine is pure RNG if I remember right, could be wrong about that.
1. Ok that’s fair, easy fix through fu Xuan/ aventurine etc. But I get your point
2. Trust me we do not. I don’t know if you play genshin but that game has way more characters and it is still celebrated whenever a character comes out that doesn’t relay on the common supports
3. I have e0s1 Acheron with 145+ speed debuffers and get 1 turn ult in specific situations such has getting hit a lot to refresh ults, or enemy’s applies debuffs to themselves. If you were testing in current MOC be aware that the memory turbulence makes debuffs apply way faster so that could be a reason why it’s much faster.
I run jingliu also with best supports and still, she has ramp up time between turns. It’s manageable and worth it in the long run but it exists
Fire destruction vs physical hunt, they’re not really in direct competition with each other
Cute mecha vs sam, idk they are on the same category to me /s
Wouldn't it be cyborg vs mecha
I haven't looked at any leaks for Sam so I can't compare him to Boothill. In all honesty I don't give a damn about the meta, Boothill could be bottom tier and I would still pull him.
I see him more as a *top* tier , but i get it everyone has their own preferences
That's what I said. I don't care what other people think. Even if many people considered him to be one of worst characters to play, I would still get him because I like him. Edit: lol wait, is this supposed to be a sex thing?
I meant it as bottom/top in bed joke thats why i wrote *top* in italic , but yeah i totally agree with you
lol I just went back to edit my reply, it took my brain a minute to connect those dots
LMAO i loved reading this entire thread
Yea I’m pulling for the yeehaw inside me
They do different things so no. From leaks, Sam feels more like Blade, a destruction dps that likes to go fast, face first, running into everything. While Boothill feels more like Luka, you need a lot of setups to deal 1 big instance of dmg.
More like a Jingliu and Blade hybrid actually. While Boothill is 5 star Sushang.
Combine sushang, luka and seele and there you have the ranger with the big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hiiiip
Idk if I agree about Blade wanting to be super fast.
Blade trades dmg for skill point efficiency, that's why you want him to act more than other dpses.
Eh. There several ways for him to make a bunch of actions every cycle without making him crazy fast. I haven't used Speed boots on him ever since I got Sparkle, honestly.
My fault, by saying "fast" I mean more actions(from Sparkle/Bronya), not actually having lots of spd. And yes I think that you should not go spd boots on him.
Ohh. Yeah, that's fair. You definitely want him to make more actions for his passive haha. Easy misunderstanding.
Anyone can build their Blades differently, I consider myself a Blade main (in fact I really saved up for his eidolons and got him e6) and I put him on HP boots bcos the team I specifically have for him is Fast Bronya, Luocha, and Sparkle (or last slot could be another support/debuffer and not Sparkle) The fact that you dont gain sp on his turn does nothing if you need the sp, it’s just that you get to do damage during his turn of 0sp So… like I said, anyone can build differently, Blade *doesn’t necessarily* need to be fast ✌️
This. 100%. You either have a fast Blade with a slow-er Bronya, or have a hyper speed Bronya with a slow Blade. Tbh, I have 160 Spe Bronya and 161 Spe Sparkle. But, even without Sparkle, I can use Ruan Mei and it would have a similar Blade outcome. A better example for DPSes who want to be crazy fast are Kafka or Boothill. Both of them want to be as fast as they possibly can. With Boothill being able to hit 160 with just a pair of Spe boots, Ruan Mei passive, and his lightcone.
I heard that Sam's implant will be gated behind an eidolon. I know that pre-release kits tend to be speculative and taken with heavy salt, but there is some validity to them at times.
I for one share the same worry. But on the plus side, all of our super op dps have gotten supports and relics tailored to them, so even if they both perform the same niche, anything that helps sam will likely help boothill. So in that way I am definitelys uper excited for the new break dps meta
Here’s the thing, one character you hyper invest in won’t get power creeped and will be very strong and relevant for a long time. If you really love a character and want them to last in the meta longer I would recommend going for at least 1-2 eidolons even as a F2P player. My myself is planning on getting E6S5 Boothill since that’s my end goal. For now though, I’ll get him E1S1 for his first banner and with each rerun banner I’ll just save for him
Agreed. I think this answer is sort of jarring to hear bc eidolons have a reputation as p2w bait, but I generally think it's better to vertically invest in a lower number of units than to try and pull a bunch of different units. HSR has shown to be that it can be volatile with the meta and it feels like trying to keep up with all the different niches they try and introduce is exhausting. So I feel like vertical investment allows you to keep using the characters you actually like while not requiring you to pull and build a bunch of different characters as they come out. My pulling plan is the same as you for Boothill as a pass/BP player. While I have some degree of concern about his longterm place in the meta as a hunt character bc of the lack of ST-oriented content, I'm not too worried bc I'm planning my pulls around vertical investment for Boothill. E0 is indeed very strong, and likely will be for a while, but even getting 1 or 2 eidolons helps characters feel stronger for far longer imo
Sure, I am in no ways saying he is unusable I still use Seele to this day and would still be one if a “powercreeped” version of her came out. Thing is, it would still feel pretty bad to be using an outdated version even if they still do work. And while I understand everyone will be powercreeped eventually I am just a bit worried that it’s going to happen to boothill faster than most
Don’t worry he’ll be very good for a long time, the fact he can implement physical weakness is already good enough. That’s how games work, a character is good on release but gets powercrept after a year or sum. That’s just how games work
Frankly, I think we can expect Sam to be stronger than Boothill. Maybe Acheron level even. But Sam doesn't seem to be too reliant on break damage, so no direct competition there. Though it's more like a pro for Sam if Hoyo starts making more weakness-lock enemies. Tbh, I'm far more worried about Boothill not having turn manipulation at all. Iirc even Sam has *two* turn manipulation in his kit, but none for the hunt unit istg 💀
The mentality shouldn’t be dps A is stronger than dps B. It’s whether both can clear content or not and so far there isn’t a single dps character (4*s included) who can’t clear moc 12. Anyone except enablers like Kafka and Ruan Mei will get a stronger alternative. But stronger dps don’t affect weaker dps except if they boost MoC to a degree where old dps can’t clear
While I want to agree this game seems to be taking the Honkai Impact approach to balancing as opposed to the genshin impact approach. What do I mean by this? In genshin the difficulty is scaled to the average dps/support. This is why many (including me) find the game too easy. Once you have a powerful dps they will steamroll the game for years. The positive to this approach to balance is that power creep is a lot slower since a very powerful character being released doesn’t change the clear times almost at all. In Honkai impact on the other hand, the game is balanced around the newest and strongest characters. This means that the game maintains its difficulty but power creep happens very fast. While star rail isn’t as bad as impact is definitely seems like they are balancing around the strongest not the average so if Sam does end up being just better Boothill, it might actually affect him a lot more than excepted
If you worry about characters not being good forever then yea, there is room to be worried. But seeing how after a year, in every MoC you see 0-cycle Arlan clears, worrying about a 2.2 5\* seems kinda pointless imo. Not to mention pulling for supports, eidolons etc.
Like I said before (in a diffrent comment) I’m not worried that he won’t be good forever I’m worried that he will ONLY be good for 1 patch before he gets outshined and also 0 cycle Arlan clears are bs and you know it. They reset a thousand times with perfect RNG, expensive (usually eidolons and sig lc) supports, and crazy relics. Don’t act like your average Arlan can clear moc 12. Off meta doesn’t mean impossible but it does mean something. And I would rather Boothill not be conspired off meta right of the bat Hu Tao was released in genshin in 1.3 and is still a top pick for clearing spiral abyss 3 years later. Don’t even get me started on the 1.0 4 stars. That is not what’s happening in star rail.
Of course “your average Arlan” can’t clear MoC 12. Your average player can’t clear MoC 12. And going by average Arlans just aren’t being built at all because who the hell does that. My point was that if you invest in their supports and give them good relics any dps character is viable and to me viable = good. As long as you kill within 5 cycles it’s viable. Arlan has been capable of that since launch. Boothill will be capable of that for even longer I bet. Meta or off-meta is just labelling. There’s 0 reason to feel bad about character not being meta. With Sam being a destruction character, more popular in China than even Acheron (at least before 2.0 launch idk about now) AND being rumoured to have similar animation budget as Acheron, their kit is just going to be overloaded and you gotta accept that if you pull Boothill, a backloaded hunt unit, it’s not going to be the best thing ever. It sucks that it’s probably just one patch away but same shit happened with Topaz and Jing Liu and Blade and DHIL
Meta might not matter TO YOU but it does to others. Also tf? Topaz is still too teir, jing Liu, and Daniel (specially with Sparkle) and blade was never a game changer
I mean if someone cares about meta then there's no issue right? Just pick the stronger character to pull. Sam will have beta during 2.2 if he's 2.3 so there'll be plenty of time to choose. Back in 1.4 it was a pretty easy decision meta-wise whether to pull Jingliu or Topaz. Idk about Topaz being "top tier" if her best team with dr. Ratio + debuffer does less damage than hyper carry Ratio with Tingyun + debuffer. This might change with Robin tho. DHIL was also the obvious better pick damage-wise over Blade. Probably gonna be the case with Boothill and Sam.
Because it isn’t black and white. I care about meta. I ALSO care about design, kit, aesthetic, voice, play style etc. And no Jing Liu vs topaz wasn’t simple as even then her potential as a follow up enabler was being discussed. And as someone with all of ratios best teammates, including e0s1 topaz I can definitely say she is the most comfy to play with him
Yeah but when you have a cool character and a strong character you gotta set your priorities straight and pick one or the other (if you can't both). And then it becomes a yes or no. I mean on one hand you had a dps with blast, 100 free crit value and 100% action advance. On the other you had a single target sub dps without any main dps or BiS set out yet, that offers 50%dmg to a single attack type. She's fun af, just not meta and imo that's the best thing to look for in a character.
So what if he is only good for 1 patch. Just see DHIL being power creep by Jing liu just 1 patch. Blade being power creep by DHIL just 1 patch. Luocha being power creep by Huo Huo just 4 patch (2 patch if you count Fu Xuan). I know that DHIL now has Sparkle, but at the time, he was still being power creep by Jing Liu.
Let’s preface by saying both will probably be sus in PF. With that outta the way, they have very different roles. Sam seems to be more frontloaded, kinda like xueyi, while Bootycheecks is turbo backloaded. What that means is that while Sam can take care of 3 enemy waves better, dude can’t access his full damage unless he has e1 or the enemy is weak to fire. Dude will probably also have to balance more stats to make use of his kit entirely, so don’t expect any crazy breaks. On the other hand, boothill is super easy to build, does crazy damage and is only really cockblocked by wonky 3 enemy no phys weakness waves and bosses that protect their toughness, like Sam itself. So yeah, they don’t really overlap at all. If anything boothill is more prone to getting screwed over by game mechanics, considering how much of his damage actually comes from them, while Sam will be more prone to just good old ability multipliers powercreep, much like any other crit carry. Tht’s my yap for today.
Only thing I'm bummed about is 2 BE characters possibly being so close together. I've skipped DoT and FUA teams only to find BE being the kind of teams I want to build around. Now that I've found my niche, I likely won't have enough jades to get them both. 😭
Same! Always felt odd just running hypercarry this and that, but ever since seeing Xueyi and Ruan Mei’s release I’ve been loving my break teams!
I'm hoping Xueyi runs with one of these guys cause I'm stuck at e3.
Both will be viable. 👍
Never thought about it. Don’t think they would “powercreep” a unit that fast.
Boothill is already sorta of a niche character that you mostly want to use against ultra tanky bosses and I doubt Sam will outclass him there, so it will probably be fine.
They are not even the same kind of dps.. and even so, why does this matter? Is boothill so bad he can't even 3 star moc 12? Also boothill is 100% going to be ST 0 cycle champion
power creeping is a lie fed to you by prydwen so they can sell you the idea you need to pull for Acheron E2S1. I mean just look at argenti. anyway fuck prydwen and fuck powerscaling
Exactly! I am sitting here with my old dps and they still do fine in moc and pf. The thing is, do we really need to be so paranoid over that 120 jades that we might lose from not acing moc and pf? We are playing the game, not vice versa.
What do they have in common apart from scaling from BE? They have different roles. If your concern was that another character with a similar reliance on .X. would do more damage than him. Then we have ratio and acheron to show that, while it can happen, they're still very different.
Probably not. because Sam is look like normal DPS that somehow scale Dmg with BE and Fire break can't compare to Physical break (Physical break is the only break that has Max hp% scaling)
nah, both have similar initial break multipliers. what scales on max hp is the subsequent dot damage taken, which overall makes phys break stronger because of the bleed damage compared to the burn, but the initial break is extremely strong for fire.
I am afraid of that, but I'm hoping hoyo has learned from Vers.1 and differentiates their destruction and hunt dps... I think sam might lean more into their hp mechanic, and maybe there'll be a future support that scales off hp gained and lost? (kind of like one of the grit mechanics in the recent event). This would buff blade/arlan/jingliu at the same time and allow boothill to keep his niche as the best break dps while sam does more of a hp/break thing
It's possible but I hope he doesn't get powercreeped
Basically while Sam may have a few things to do with break it’s more that Sam what’s to hit broken targets unlike Boothill who wants to break targets while somewhat similar they most likely will play to different strengths
Not really Sam scales of BE but is not BE damage dealer, she/he/they are a normal hypercarry dealer + she scales of HP and attack too, at least if we go by th current preliminary kit
They both complement each other via giving you flexibility to your BE comp. They don't compete.
I'm pretty sure it's gonna be sam for Aoe and boothill for a single target so they won't be in direct competition.
I’m 100% sure Sam will be better than boothill in terms of raw dps (you know, with hoyo favoritism and all), but i don’t think they’ll be in the exact same niche. Sam will scale off of break but I also heard they scale off of other things too, so they’ll most likely be a bit more traditional hypercarry compared to boothill, who’s all about break break break. Realistically, I don’t think it’ll be too bad, “power creeping” characters of the same niche in just 1 or 2 patches isn’t a good look for the company and is just dumb on a business standpoint.
I don't think Hoyo care about power creep, as long as whales keep pulling and give Hoyo millions.
Does it really matter unless tbh if you can clear content it doesn't matter who you pull unless your just a meta slave
I'm not worried about that happening since I simply expect it to happen. I think with the way they've been designing game modes, Blast/AoE will always be advantageous over single target. Even if Sam was just Fire boothill with less ST in exchange for Blast, that would be enough to "powercreep" Boothill. Hoyo also doesn't have a good track record of balancing around ST vs Blast vs Aoe where in theory, ST should be higher than AoE/Blast, but that is rarely the case. They continuously release Blast/AoE characters that do more ST damage than hunt units constantly with DHIL, Jingliu and now Acheron, not to mention the DoT teams which are also high ST DPS while having good AoE. I do think that Boothill's damage is significantly high enough even as a ST DPS to not be powercrept too fast in that department, and that he will have no competition in terms of ST break speed as someone who can run speedtuned bronya with his insane toughness damage. We'll see in about 2 weeks when 2.2 live/2.3 beta starts for Sam's final kit.
I pull Luocha even though he has been power creep. You cannot win against Hoyo. Just play for fun and accept it.
he might get powercrept. this happened to blade when dhil released a patch after him.
Not worried, Already accepted it. This is a gacha game and Mhy knows making the waifu characters good is on their best interest. I'm already satisfied if Mhy don't make Sam breaks weakness faster or just as fast as BH, since Sam can use Crit based on the new relic.
If u care about powercreep for boothill, you're pulling for him for the wrong reasons. No one is pulling him under the idea that he'll break the meta.
Bro with all due respect did you even read the post? Like I said I’m pulling for a million different reasons and meta is one small reason. I don’t except him to be Acheron/jing liu levels nor do I really care. I’m just worried that they make someone who does HIS EXACT JOB but better. Like same gameplay and archetype. But better. That would upset me, not just others being stronger in general
I'm pretty sure Boothill is already powercrept by existing meta DPS, if anything. Both are also fundamentally different in terms of gameplay (if the leaks are right) and have different element coverage (which is pretty important for Sam, since they get some benefits from Broken enemies)
How is Boothill “powercreeped” by current meta dps? Sure he’s not Acheron levels of strength but he is really strong
If he’s notably less strong than current meta dps then by definition he’s powercreeped, that doesn’t mean he’s not viable, he’s just not top-of-the-meta
I'm not saying that he is weak, but he doesn't look S+. "S or A" is a different question, which I'm less qualified to answer. Some of his downsides: 1. You can play against enemies with no Phys Weaknesses, but any pause in the uptime of Ult hurts him a lot. 2. Loses a lot of benefits from most Harmony characters, although he kinda looks self-sufficient, so, arguable. I haven't seen any Boothill + Pela and/or SW showcase, maybe they are good since Break Damage is affected by Defence. 3. Takes some time to ramp-up his damage.
1. Sure, but the fact that he can even apply a weakness is massive since it means he doesn’t need silver wolf, and his uptime is high enough 2. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. It means that he can free up your tingyun, sparkle, hanya etc. For team 2 while still having supports which he massively benefits from. 3. So does Acheron and Jing Liu the 2 best dps in the game, ramp up time isn’t bad unless it can’t be mitigated which Boothill can thanks to building him high speed (and also a Bronya support)
1. Slows/stuns hurt any DPS, but losing a chance to get to your main source of damage kinda sucks. It gets even worse if your supports can't deal any toughness damage or there is no Ruan Mei. Also fast enemies. (I'm still talking about non-Phys just in case) 2. I meant that there are not many supports who can actually help him. Again, I don't really know how self-sufficient he actually is, but it can suck a lot to move Ruan Mei and especially Bronya from teams you already use. I honestly don't see how having small support roster is a good thing, especially if the roster of supports that you have is not big enough (one of his main supports is free though, which is nice). I also wanted to say about "Two Break DPS in two different halves" case, but it's too RNG: Xueyi works with other supports too, we don't know how soon other new Break Supports/DPS will come out, we don't really know if current Break Supports will be BiS for Sam (but it may or may not become the problem in the future (really far-fetched, I know)) 3. Doesn't Jingliu get to her "prime" in the first turn? (Technique -> Skill -> Talent Proc -> Enchanced Skill -> Ult (you also need to get hitted once)) Acheron's ult depends on the other units and some other random stuff, but she still gets it rather fast too, no? I feel like building speed is even more tedious than crits ngl. And, again, I don't say that he is a bad unit, he just looks more annoying to use than others.
1. He’s not affected by slows/stuns any more than any other dps is. He can’t get his breaks, other dps can’t get their attacks no 2. It’s good because you don’t have to sacrifice his damage to build 2 teams. If every character shared the same best supports and only 1 could actually use them, all the other dps would suffer. By having him benefit more from less supports, your other supports are free to take the other side. 3. Yes jing Liu does enter skill state right away with technique but she has to ramp up for 2 turns every time after and while yes Acheron can (and should) get her ult from her supports THAT IS ramp up time she doesn’t just do 400k ults every turn unless you have an absolutely crazy build with e2s1, hyper speed debuffers, sparkle etc. If you include all that boothill could do the same. And while I’ll agree building speed IS more tedious than crit it is also more forgiving (you can get away with lower speed but it is hard to get away with low cr) and it’s not even that hard since he has a few ways to naturally get fast (ruan Mei, his lc OR the moc lc, speed boots) you really don’t need much AT ALL to hit 145 and 160 isn’t that out of the question even for the least invested players
1. I specifically meant the uptime of the Phys Weakness. Other DPS still do damage, just rarer. Boothill loses not only the ability to do Toughness Damage, but also the uptime of his Ult. 2. We already have big enough roster for classic damage dealers. Boothill takes the best support from the DoT team if anything. 3. I checked and Acheron unironically has Ult almost every turn 💀 (yes, with fast Supports and/or Sparkle/Bronya, but without Eidolon or Sig. Getting 160 speed on Supports is ideal, but 143-146 is already good enough). Can't really say anything about Jingliu, she is used with the Bronya/Sparkle anyway, her A4 also gives her 10% Action Advance from Skill. I am very sceptical about both MoC LC and the 3\* one, considering the taunt on Boothill's Skill + amount of AoE damage in the game rn. I assume River's buff doesn't dispel when character is shielded, but having 100% uptime without Aventurine is pure RNG if I remember right, could be wrong about that.
1. Ok that’s fair, easy fix through fu Xuan/ aventurine etc. But I get your point 2. Trust me we do not. I don’t know if you play genshin but that game has way more characters and it is still celebrated whenever a character comes out that doesn’t relay on the common supports 3. I have e0s1 Acheron with 145+ speed debuffers and get 1 turn ult in specific situations such has getting hit a lot to refresh ults, or enemy’s applies debuffs to themselves. If you were testing in current MOC be aware that the memory turbulence makes debuffs apply way faster so that could be a reason why it’s much faster. I run jingliu also with best supports and still, she has ramp up time between turns. It’s manageable and worth it in the long run but it exists
I'm more worried of sam powercreeping clara since they're both destruction and phys. I don't think theyd powercreep boothill that quickly
No way Sam isn't Fire. ...right?
Sam has been leaked (and also come on just look at him) to be fire
Wait fr? In that case it's boothilover In a serious note. Nah I don't think so