Raiden's Pre-Release Constellation Overview
As our second major item on our roadmap, we tackled the Pre-Release Constellations of her majesty, Raiden Shogun and their impact on DPS.
NOTE: These are still based on pre-release leaks and speculations so far, and they will be subject to change as new information becomes available.
C1 Ominous Inscription: Increases Resolve gained from ally Bursts, +80% for Electro Bursts and +20% otherwise.
Prior to C1, Raiden can expect 45-50 Resolve stacks by just naturally rotating through her teammates' Bursts. At C1, if one of these units is an Electro 80 cost unit, then this pushes it to nearly 60 stacks by itself. However, with no other Electro units in the team then this only pushes you to around 54 up from 45.
Fine constellation that puts you one step closer to C2 and C3.
DPS Increase: 4% - 7%
C2 Steelbreaker: Mushou Isshin Attacks ignore 60% of the enemy’s DEF.
Now that this is her C2 instead of her C4, this has become a very potent while still moderately accessible constellation. 60% DEF shred on its own is around 44% increased damage for her Isshin attacks. The best part about DEF shred is that it doesn’t diminish like RES shred does, so getting 60% is a really big deal.
However, since this constellation doesn’t work on her Skill damage, the actual DPS increase is not actually 44%. Her Skill damage adds up over team rotations, but there a lot of variables like AoE that can either push the DPS increase higher or lower than projected values.
DPS Increase: 30 - 37% in a 20s rotation.
C3 Shinkage Bygones: +3 Burst Level
Quite strong, due to how the largest portion of her damage is from her Burst.
DPS Increase: 12% in a 20s rotation.
C4 Pledge of Propriety: After Musho Isshin expires, all party members except Raiden gain +30% ATK for 10 seconds.
It’s pretty situational, borderline bad. You never want to use Raiden’s Burst first in your rotation to take advantage of this, otherwise you waste all of the energy she provides. By playing normally, this constellation would only really benefit your second rotation which is still more ideal than playing with horrible rotations.
C5 Shogun's Descent: +3 Skill Level
It’s good, not great.
DPS Increase: 4 - 5% in a 20s rotation.
C6 Wishbearer: Each hit from Mushou Isshin reduces all party members except Raiden’s CDs by 1s, up to 5 times.
It’s a bit hard to evaluate this constellation but just conceptually, it’s not particularly good. While shaving 5s off a powerful boost can be a 33%+ DPS increase, you have to remember that decreasing cooldowns also increases the ER requirements to Burst off cooldown to actually take advantage of the reduced CD. Raiden does generate a lot of energy, but not nearly enough to allow party members to Burst 5 seconds ahead of usual at the same ER. So it’s a DPS gain in one sense in perfect scenarios, but also gets slightly devalued when you need to adjust your builds to have the ER to actually take advantage of it.
Furthermore, the fact that Raiden cannot benefit from this CDR is also a bit troubling. Say you reduce a 20s Burst to 15s, Raiden will still be on an 18s cooldown, so your team rotation is still going to be 18s. In the case of shaving a 12s or 15s burst to 7s and 10s respectively, this can allow you to fit multiple casts into your rotation. But again, ER needs go up when cooldown decreases. Raiden can also only fuel one cast of their Bursts with her energy gen, so you’d need to rely on a secondary battery character to fuel them.
When we take a look at the strong Bursts in the game, they tend to be 80 cost bursts: XIangling, Xingqiu, Beidou, and so on, so Raiden will still want to be paired with them anyways for maximum efficiency in her buffing and her own Resolve stacking.
Overall, not a very straightforward C6 with clear advantages like Eula’s C6, but can maybe be potent and fun in the right hands.
Hope that helps provide some context around what each constellation of the Narukami Ogosho is for now. Stay tuned for more information! If you have any questions, come bother us on Discord to strike up an amazing theory discussion!