TC Weekly - Round Up 2 - Buffs and Recent Changes
For our second edition, we wanted to talk about buffs and recent changes that have come in the last week or so.
Raiden Buffs and Nerfs on August 12th, 2021
This week, a plethora of news was able to clear up relatively confusing wordings and mysteries surrounding Raiden’s kit. We’ll start with the bad news to leave you off with good expectations. Remember that some of this information is tested by leakers and always subject to change in the event miHoYo™ chooses to or if more accurate tests are performed in the future.
Transcendence - Baleful Omen
This suggests that Raiden’s elemental skill will only produce damage and thus generate particles when hitting an enemy with either no shield or a damage-reduction based shield. Raiden’s damage and particle generation versus enemies such as Abyss mages, lectors and heralds should now function similar or identical to Albedo’s elemental skill transient proc.
Secret Art: Musou Shinsetsu - Snapshot Status
(Note: Snapshotting is the preservation of stats upon use of skill/burst. A Raiden who snapshots will maintain a 6 second Sara buff for the entirety of her 7 second Isshin state.)
The prior assumption for Raiden’s Burst not snapshotting is based on other infusion-based skills/bursts behaving in a similar way. The only reasoning to suggest the contrary was Sara’s, who is debuting on Raiden’s banner and appears to be made to synergize with Raiden’s kit, ATK buff not synergizing with the entirety of Raiden’s 7 second infusion. A leak was released suggesting that her Burst did snapshot but was later disconfirmed and retracted when it did not line up with a CN beta tester’s experience.
Secret Art: Musou Shinsetsu - Resolve bonus damage increase
Earlier in the week, there was a damage scaling adjustment. Although minor at face value, digging deeper reflects an amazing 8% increase in Raiden’s elemental burst damage output with no drawbacks.
The wording on Raiden Shogun’s Constellation 2 has changed.
The wording changes bring about a huge buff. Constellation 2 now enables Raiden’s elemental burst to affect both her Initial Slash and subsequent Sword attacks. This confirmed wording change on C2 increases Raiden’s damage output by an astounding 32%! It should be noted that the wording continues to suggest only Raiden can take advantage of this DEF reduction.
New Assumptions
Interaction between Engulfing Lightning’s Energy Recharge ability and Emblem of Severed Fate 4-piece bonus.
R1 Engulfing Lightning’s special ability for reference:
ATK increased by 28% of Energy Recharge over the base 100%. You can gain a maximum bonus of 80% ATK. Gain 30% Energy Recharge for 12s after using an Elemental Burst.
Grasscutter Light Engulfing Lightning’s Energy Recharge proc adds to the Elemental Damage Bonus increase of Emblem of Severed Fate’s 4-piece bonus. This was tested with Bennett C2, which adds 30% Energy Recharge when under 70% health.
This differs from Electro Traveler’s interaction with Emblem of Severed Fate, where their granted Energy Recharge bonus does not interact with the 4-piece bonus and appears to be due to an aversion to scaling buffs feeding into scaling buffs (Electro Traveler’s amulet grants ER based on their own ER, and Emblem grants Burst DMG% Bonus based on ER).
Raiden’s Secret Art: Musou Shinsetsu’s sword attacks benefit from attack speed.
A CN leaker tested with Chongyun (A1 provides 8% ATK SPD while standing inside of his Elemental Skill), and was able to complete three full normal attack chains against the air with the aid of Chongyun’s ATK SPD increase. Unfortunately, the full benefit of ATK SPD with Raiden remains unclear once hit-lag during practical scenarios is considered, and will need to be playtested post-release. However, if confirmed, this means that Raiden’s Secret Art: Musou Shinsetsu’s sword attacks are still considered normal attacks, even if they scale with Elemental Burst DMG instead.
Recommendation
Overall, the TC team continues to encourage players to keep their expectations in check as we wait for more info to confirm/disconfirm certain assumptions.
Raiden has seen another round of buffs--this time significantly larger than the ones we saw last week. To recap, she received a ~8% overall damage increase in the form of an adjustment to her Elemental Burst’s resolve damage bonus, and the new wording to constellation 2 provides approximately 32% overall damage increase.
The “nerfs” detailed above are not as encompassing and thus Raiden appears to be overall stronger as of the information we have acquired this week. It is suggested that players continue to assume that Raiden’s Burst does not snapshot as a majority of similar skills/bursts behave as such.