Raiden or C6 Fischl? Answer Inside

Hey folks, Xandy here.

As Raiden’s banner quickly approaches, players tight on resources may still be on the fence about pulling Raiden for a number of reasons. One of the most important factors of making a 5-star unit worth pulling is their ability to outshine options that require less resources.

With an off-field E, high battery capabilities and as a fellow member of the Electro element, it is natural and obvious that Raiden vs Fischl should be brought up to discussion when we consider their similar capabilities. As such, I took it upon myself to analyze the pros and cons of specifically C0 Raiden vs C6 Fischl, both under the context of similar team composition roles as well as gear. For a deeper dive into the calculations and circumstances used for my comparison, feel free to use the link below leading to a spreadsheet.

Supportive Capabilities

What is a support that has no supportive power? While some people do plan to run Raiden as a hyper-carry/main DPS, the majority of players will look towards her capabilities in the support role as her personal damage does not begin to hit its stride until certain constellations or weapons are acquired.

A common trope of the Electro element is impressive energy generation, not only through particles but through talents/passives/Electro resonance. In a hypothetical situation where Fischl is able to summon Oz consecutively, players can expect roughly an average of 14.4 Electro particles over the course of 25 seconds (24s Oz, 1s Casting) as Oz generates particles at a 60% rate. Within Raiden’s 25 second E uptime and 0.9 second cooldown between procs, players can expect an average of 13.5 Electro particles if they can proc the hypothetical maximum of 27 Es. This tips the scale in Fischl’s favor as not only does Oz generate more particles in the same time frame but it is unlikely that the player ever achieves the hypothetical maximum of Raiden’s E.

The energy race, however, begins to quickly shift back in favor of Raiden when we see that she can generate 20 energy for ALL teammates with her Q using a typical build. This equates to ~33 Electro particles for non-Electro characters off-field, and ~11 Electro particles for Electro characters off-field. Another hidden benefit of this is that it is not gated by particle generation rate and thus will always happen so long as the player can use Raiden’s Q to proc 5 energy bonuses, as where Oz and Raiden’s E are subject to RnG and may potentially give less particles than expected.

Last but not least, Raiden’s E grants a 12-24% Burst DMG bonus to all allies depending on their Burst energy costs, making it an easy win for Raiden in the support showdown.

Winner: Raiden

Overall Damage

A deciding factor of an off-field support is their damage capabilities. At first glance, players will be alarmed to know that Fischl averages around 9% more damage over a single rotation compared to Raiden. However... this is only taking into account Single-Target damage and the apparent gap begins to close as we learn that only roughly 15-20% of Fischl’s damage can hit multiple enemies as where 100% of Raiden’s kit can. Raiden begins to win the damage race by accomplishing something as simple as hitting 2 enemies with her initial Q slash.

In regards to team damage, Raiden pulls ahead regardless of single or multiple target circumstances due to her ability to confer Burst DMG% Bonus buffs to the entire party through her E, as well as allowing for higher stat allocations into damage-related stats by lowering Energy Recharge thresholds for teammates via her Q energy gain.

It should be noted that Raiden’s potential for damage is also open to more potential, as C1-3 and Engulfing Lightning offer an incredibly high personal damage gain that will easily leave C6 Fischl in the dust. However, only lucky players or spenders/savers should expect to achieve these constellations.

Winner: Raiden

Playstyle/Flexibility

What makes Raiden so niche, unfortunately, is her requirement of field time to fully utilize her full supportive potential. When we compare this to Fischl, who can potentially only remain on-field for a brief second of a 25 second timespan, it becomes evident that a few requirements are needed for Raiden to fit well into a comp.

First, a team must stand to benefit from the high amount of energy gain that Raiden produces. At first, this sounds like a rather idiotic requirement but in practice, many teams can more or less ignore energy requirements due to low costs or easy methods of particle generation for the entire team. Thus, in teams where her energy gain is overkill makes her fairly non-viable unless her inclusion adds greater total DPS gain through her E and personal damage than another unit could achieve.

Second, Raiden’s Q uptime must not be a DPS loss. This is rather hard to gauge due to her ability to boost Burst DMG as well as lower ER thresholds, but what this essentially means is that if another character can be used on-field to produce higher damage than she can during her Q then she becomes a less attractive option. One example is in a Eula comp where a Eula is invested enough to simply continue using Normal Attacks instead of using Raiden.

Third, the team must have downtime that Raiden can fill. Essentially an extension of the previous requirement, teams with empty downtime often used just to generate energy can easily replace that downtime with Raiden who can produce both damage and energy at the same time. Comps such as Childe Fireworks are prime examples as Childe must take the bench as his E recovers and the rest of the cast wait for their Bursts to come off cooldown.

On the other hand, Fischl does not have such requirements and thus is far more flexible in terms of viable placement into team comps. Additionally, players who prefer ease-of-play will find that Fischl’s playstyle is far less calculated to be fully optimal while Raiden must take on-field time and utilize certain combos for optimal damage over her infusion time.

Winner: Fischl

Conclusion

While Fischl is far more flexible due to her essentially requiring no field time, Raiden will be an obvious upgrade in teams where she fits all the requirements for being optimal. Players who either want a direct upgrade or lack C6 Fischl can find Raiden to be a great replacement.

Readers can find the mathematical analysis and further insight here.

Thank you for being a part of our community! Stay tuned for more information! If you have any questions, come bother us on Discord to strike up an amazing theory discussion.

Keep on Raiden!