Genshin Impact

I think I literally spent the whole Saturday playing Act II of the AQ… But it was so so great! I can’t believe we were in the middle of a closed circle murder mystery!! This was right up my alley, and the plot was so good too! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, I rarely get so engrossed in an AQ. The atmosphere was also great, I really liked how they used the picture and the effects added.

I haven’t finished yet, but at least I finished the big part. I don’t know how long it still is…

Oh and I just saw the thumbnail for the cutscene on the official channel… I can’t believe they managed to make a really good plot with a really good twist then decided to completely spoil it to all players (even the ones who stay away from social media as long as they’re doing the AQ) via their official channel. Why?!?? The patch’s been out for 10 days, it’s reasonable to think players still haven’t finished the story.

Finished Act I, it was so great!!
I’ll continue with Act II today too. With the constant rain there’s not much else to do anyway.

I’m playing a bit everyday, just progressing one or two scenes at a time, but I have to say it again: the plot is really really good so far (I just finished the council part). For once, they managed to make the story really suspenseful, with a lot of mystery.

I enjoy Genshin story in general, but I also don’t find it the most suspenseful most of the time (like there will be a bad guy, and we’re going to defeat them), but here I can’t wait to know how it will unfold.

It’s crazy that Reverse 1999 current story is as suspenseful and engrossing and both happen at the same time, whereas recent patches were extremely boring in both games to me (AQ Act X and the Enigma story for example).

I continued the AQ, the story is so cool this time. Good pacing and a lot happening, the plot looks so promising too!

I usually always love Act I of any nation’s AQ, so it doesn’t necessarily means that Snezhnaya’s AQ is the best so far, but if it continues like that, it will be!

Oh, and I met Vodyanitsa, I love her!!

I continued the story and finally met Odette in game. She is so so pretty, she looks so different from other characters. I’m glad the MC got the new skin, because Lumine would have looked so fade in comparison with the old design.

One thing annoying is that there was a situation described as urgent, but to go there you have to take path that starts a side activity automatically. It’s annoying because you’re told you must go somewhere to help an emergency and all of the sudden you’re chatting with an NPC about something else. Not only that, but Paimon was there too! So the whole thing completely breaks the immersion. It happened twice to me on the way to where the AQ continues.

Otherwise the story is still as good, I’m really enjoying it.

I continued the AQ a bit, still very good!
It actually allows us to unlock the main region quite soon, so I was able to start farming for Odette much sooner than expected.

The beginning of the AQ is so so good! The story is great (though starting slow), and there were so many things to do! Sharp contrast with the end of Nod-Krai. I loved it! So many new mechanics too in the new region,

The story was very easy so far, it’s probably going to be more difficult as we progress (and even more if the last chapters are only people discussing lore), but for now it really feels good to be able to play in Chinese without problem. Even tutorials were okay.

I finished the story! I absolutely loved the end, where we can talk to all the Fontaine cast!
Otherwise, even though I loved all the Fontinalia Festival parts, I was not a big fan of the Sandrone parts. I especially didn’t like the Sandrone x Columbina cutscene, I found it quite cringe.
And overall, I don’t like how the Sanbina ship is now represented in game. I really loved their interactions at the beginning, I loved how Columbina would keep on teasing Sandrone even though she looks so cold, annoyed and irritated by it. And subtlety hinting that Sandrone secretly cared for Columbina was fine too. That’s the most interesting part, when characters hardly reveal their true feelings, that makes them mysterious and we want to know more about them. Now I find that Sandrone has lost a lot of her aura and uniqueness.

I played through chapter 2 today! Not my favourite part of the event… I liked Sandrone at the beginning of the AQ, or in pair with Columbina, but I kind of get easily bored when we’re alone with her…

I started the event, love the story and the character apparitions so far. Scenes with Citlali were quite funny!

I finished the last chapter of Nicole’s quest. It was a nice event overall, it’s cool to have new formats for events/stories.

I finished Lohen’s SQ, so great!! I loved it, makes me feel like I know the character better, it was not too long which I really appreciate, and there was good pacing and action. No cutscene though, exactly like the event… really hoping this is not a trend.

I finally started Lohen’s SQ! I love it so far! It has good pacing, we spend time with Lohen and we’re learning things about him. I also just reached the point where the plot is becoming really intriguing. There were some funny moments too!

I finished Varka SQ, it was insane!! He got a crazy trial, I can’t remember any character having so much combat in their story! (though to be fair, there are a lot of SQ I haven’t done yet). I loved the last part a lot, the cutscenes were great too, and the combat was really cool. Thank goodness I haven’t played his story during his banner! Varka’s playstyle is so good

I made some progress on the quest, but then there’s a warning saying the next part is going to be long, so I’m keeping this for another day. My goal was to finish it before Lohen’s release, which might not be possible now but it doesn’t really matter.

I started Varka SQ and I loved the beginning: lore impactful, but sounds intriguing with a good plot. And a lot of characters too! I’ll need to note down some names in Chinese to match with their equivalent in English.
I wanted to play all chapter 1 today, but I won’t have time. Anyway, I’m glad the story looks promising.

Finally!!! It’s over!
There’s really a problem with the length of AQ Acts this version… Act X was the worst, dialogues dragged on forever, you could easily cut half of it. Maybe part of it was to build tension, to accentuate that feeling that everyone’s getting ready like it’s going to be a tough confrontation, and we might all disappear and so on… but as a player, you know everything’s going to be fine in the end, so I personally felt no tension at all, and all the build-up ended up being useless.
And it was so static too, most of it happens in the same place. No action at all, apart from the end.
I also wish that characters for which this act was really important, namely Colley and Wanderer, had more screen time. Like I can’t believe the act was 8 hours long, but they didn’t really go over Wanderer’s past. Like there were some quick pictures flashing at the end, but you can’t even call them flashbacks. Also they expected players to remember events from years ago and/or to have played limited events not available anymore.
At least it was a relief to be able to play it by chunks.

I feel like I played for hours, but it’s still going on… and it also doesn’t feel like it will end soon. There are a lot of useless and repetitive dialogues in my opinion… Act X is much much too long.
I really don’t understand why they feel the need to make it so long… Oh well, I’ll probably won’t be able to finish it this weekend, but if I play a little bit everyday next week, I will get there eventually.
So far, by far the best thing in the AQ is the music, and there are some scenes I really loved too like that art of Jeht dragging us out of danger, Faruzan and Nicole’s dialogue, the Aranara following us, Paimon and Wanderer’s private discussion (I almost cried when they talked about that feeling of being useless), Mavuika casually throwing her gnosis to us… but these are really small sparkles in a sea of complete boredom.

I started Act X, and I really don’t like this AQ. I think it’s the first time since playing that I really don’t like a content in the game. There are things I liked less, like some Fontaine WQ that felt much too verbose to me. And yeah, I did found the last Nod-Krai AQ acts much much too long to the point where they burnt me out, but I wasn’t bored exactly.
I’m not saying that it’s uninteresting, but the way it’s delivered is very monotonous. It also feels verbose for the sake of it, like they absolutely want to make the AQ 8 hours long.
I’ve played for a long time, but it seems unending… at least we can take breaks.

I finished the event, it was so sweet! It might just be one of my favourite events I played in the game. It even had me tearing up in the last chapter

I played through chapter 2, it was so so cute and so so funny!!! I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard in a Genshin story. The whole party is just adorable I constantly had a big smile on my face while playing the story.
So far, I’m 100% loving the event story more than the AQ.
After playing chapter 2, I’m even more annoyed at the weapon skin. If it had to be a skin (and not a real weapon), and if it had to be recycled design, they could have at least made a version per weapon type so that all the “Little Witches” could equip it as a souvenir of their adventure…

I was so tired of the AQ, I decided to start the event story to distract myself, and yeah, it worked! I only played until the mini-games presentations (I’m so happy these were voiced), but I liked the beginning, it was very funny and cute, and it’s nice to get to know Prune!
Yeah I guess that rather than discussing Sumeru lore with grown-ups, I prefer to play with children and their imaginary friends…
And also, I love Qiqi
I only played one game of each, I love the Yaoyao/Qiqi one and the Sayu one too! Combat was good too, much better than what we had last time (I’m not super fan of the “interrupt combat to use a mechanic” type of game). As for Klee’s… I guess I just still haven’t gotten the hang of it…

I finally finished act 9!
First of all, I must say that it’s really cool to open the game and think “I will play the AQ for 20 minutes”.
But then… the first half of Act IX was really good, but the second half was just people standing in circle discussing lore? I’m personally not a fan of this kind of AQ, and unfortunately we had a lot of it in Nod-Krai, especially towards the end. I don’t find listening to endless discussions very engaging for a video game, I would prefer more action, having things to do, feeling more involved.
And then, Sumeru lore is quite difficult too. At first, I wanted to read the wiki to fill the gaps (either things I don’t understand in Chinese or things I forgot), but then it was just too much so I gave up.
So yeah, I personally haven’t been a fan of the end of Act IX… I hope Act X will pick up the pace.

I continued the AQ a little bit, and I know I said it already, but I’m so so happy that they’re now allowing us to leave more often
I swear Nod-Krai AQ has completely burned me out, and I haven’t played as much the last patches because of it. I can’t play for hours at a time, I usually just spend 20 or 30 minutes in the game then do something else. I can spend 1 hour for some story content, doing IT or playing TCG, but 4-5 hours in a row was exhausting.
And I really love the story so far
As for Chinese level, I think that now I’m confortable following any Genshin story in Chinese, but I must admit that Sumeru lore is still hard to me. The reason is that I was still playing in English when doing all the Sumeru AQ and the WQ, so I don’t know the terms in Chinese, but most of the time it was easy to deduce from the context.
For example, I had no idea that the Akasha system is called 虚空. Thankfully the way it was talked about in the story made it obvious characters were talking about the Akasha system, but I was surprised by the Chinese name.
And I find Paimon’s notes quite useful!

I started the AQ, what a start!! The beginning is so good!
And it looks like they really did allow us to quit when we want to! I’m just at the beginning, so I hope it’s not going to change, but so far, there were a lot of “breaks” where it was possible to leave the AQ. I will try to progress a little bit, maybe not every day, but several times a week if I can. So I can finish during the patch without burn out.
Also the title… 身土坏空，五蕴识转. I know all the characters, I have no idea what it means.

I finished Emilie SQ! I loved it, it was my favourite genre, and yeah the end was foreseeable, but I enjoyed it still. It’s the kind of story with a lot of recurring vocabulary, so even if the beginning had a lot of unknown words to me, I found the second and third parts to be much easier to follow.
I’m also glad that I finished before the next patch given that we’ll have a new AQ.
Now I need to add new words from the end of part 2 and the whole of part 3 to my flashcards!

I finished adding all the new words to my flashcards from the part I already played through, which means I can now continue the story! I must say, the genre of the story is right up my alley!

I continued Emilie SQ, there was a big chunk where I couldn’t pause, so this means I have a lot of text to study now before continuing. Still enjoying the story very much!

I finished the event story and the associated anecdotes. I loved it very much, and I really really love Aino! The additional anecdotes were very good too (I much prefer this format over the drink event we had last time).

I finished chapter 3 of the story, and it was so great! Even though I found the story very predictable, and even though what happened was what I expected, it was still very good. I loved the main NPC’s story.
To be honest, I haven’t been a big fan of the last two events stories (the Mondstadt one and the Dragon Spine event), so I’m really glad about this one.

I’m progressing very slowly, but I did study one more short passage. It was pretty easy, almost no new word apart from 嗅觉. I was surprised I never saw this word before! I do think I have a solid vocabulary basis now, but then sometimes I come across basic words that I didn’t know at all, and it always feels weird.

I was afraid that Emilie Story Quest would be full of words related to perfume and flowers (not really the kind of vocabulary that I’m the most interested in), but the beginning has brought me surprisingly useful words that I didn’t know like 囤积居奇. I did add a lot of words just for the second dialogue, but I’ve seen most of them in my flashcards now, so I’ll continue the story as soon as I have time.

I finished chapter 2 of the current event. I like the story (always here for crime fiction!!), but it’s very foreseeable…

I don’t know why, but I started Emilie SQ. I’m going to study it too. I don’t have Emilie and I know nothing about her, but I love her CN voice. I only played through the beginning, but I added all the unknown words to my flashcards (there were a ton of them!). I also just did day 1 of the current event, so I’ll need to progress on that too. Still can’t study the event because the text is not in the wiki yet.

I tried a fearless clear, but I don’t know how to beat the second boss. Xiao can’t do it (I believe there’s too much anemo res, he can break the shield very easily, but there’s not enough damage overall), Lohen and Durin have good DPS but take too much time breaking the shield… I don’t know if other lunar teams can do it…

I finished an IT run I had started at the beginning of the month. Didn’t manage to get that last flower… but it was so close!!
Now I didn’t have Odette nor Alyosha, so I could give it another try during the week or next weekend. Odette is IT ready, even though she’s not fully built yet, but Alyosha is not… Just bringing Odette might be enough, especially since it’s SO artifact farming time right now, so I don’t know if I want to build Alyosha just yet. Oh and I can bring Lumine cryo too… If I find the time to do a new run, I’m sure getting full flowers won’t be a problem.

Finally did the event! What a missed opportunity to feature Barbara in her beach outfit…

I found the mini-game quite fun, like last time, especially because it’s co-op!

I finished the event! I didn’t like the mini game all that much, I’m not a fan of the shooting gameplay generally speaking, but this one in particular didn’t feel that interesting to me…

I cleared IT with full flowers this time! It’s much easier for me when there’s no geo!
The run was actually very smooth and easy. Gaming is always one of my favourite characters to play, there’s that eidolon stage, that I always clear with him if I can.

I tried again to clear with Xiao first half and Mizuki second half, but I still can’t do a continuous run.

This team clears first and second chamber, but I obviously can’t do third chamber with that:

Xiao

Faruzan

Fischl

Xianyun

And this team clears second and third chamber, but I’m too slow on the first chamber… (was missing 30 secs, it seems impossible…):

Xiao

Fischl

Lauma

Xianyun

Maybe I’ll give it another try later…

I more or less finished the management game! I still have a couple of things I haven’t done, but I secured all the primogems, so I don’t know if I’ll try to really 100% complete it. If it was the only content remaining for the patch, I probably would, but I still have the whole WQ and Moon exploration to do, so I’ll probably stop there.

Charlotte’s skin is adorable and I really loved the game and the interactions that were in it (especially Sandrone playing the piano!). I’m still really not a big fan of underwater exploration and combat, though with all the upgrades, it was a much better experience. I would have much preferred if the “exploration” part of the game had been real combat instead.

It was very long too, I can imagine that players who keep the event/mini games for the last minute will struggle to complete it in time…

I tried the new Abyss, couldn’t clear with Xiao and Mizuki yet…
Mizuki lunar charged is obviously very good second half. The problem is the first half. By adding Fischl to the Xiao team (replacing Furina/Durin) I can clear the first chamber no problem. The second chamber was easy too. The problem is the last boss, I can’t do anything against the mechanic. I could try and bring Lauma too just for that, but this would mean having two characters in the team that do nothing most of the time. It would basically be a Xiao and Xianyun duo run. I don’t think it’s enough DPS, and I would need to put both on support sets actually useful to Xiao.
I might give it a try in the next days, and if it doesn’t work, well I’ll have to clear with Sandrone.

I made a lot of progress on the management game, I really like it!
It feels so strange to see Columbina with eyes opened for so long!

I continued the aquarium management game, and I like it a lot. I think I’ve unlocked all the major things, I just need to continue playing and progressing.
It’s so much better than the theme park thing we had in Fontaine last time. There was nothing to do apart from clicking on things again and again. Here at least there are several activities and we really get to do things.

I continued the event and finally unlocked the management game!
I love management games, and I particularly love the aquarium theme, so I’m biased, but I find that the game is much better than the two other iterations we had before. Underwater combat is really not my favourite thing though, but filling the aquariums, doing commissions and levelling up is fun.
I’m not sure about the backpack thing though, it doesn’t seem to be that important to optimise it…

I’m still at the very beginning of the game so we’ll see, but I’m loving it so far!

I started an IT yesterday, everything went very smoothly (cleared about half or 1/3 of it, I don’t remember where I left exactly). I’m confident I’ll be able to clear with all the flowers this time!
The elements are much better for me this time, I hope I’ll have time to continue the run today!

I wanted to test Mizuki with her buffs, so I did an Abyss run. I thought it’ll also be a good opportunity to test Xiao with Durin and Nicole.

First half:

Xiao

Durin

Faruzan

Nicole

Second half:

Yumemizuki Mizuki

Ororon

Columbina

Ineffa

It was so much better than my first run!!! I had a lot of spare time on each chamber! Chamber 2 in particular was very close on my first attempt, but I finished well before the time.

Problem is that I don’t know whether it was Nicole in Xiao team or Mizuki’s constellation buffs that made the difference, my bad for testing both at the same time…

I did Mizuki’s quest “Witch’s Revelation “, and I was shocked, her fortune sounds so negative… I thought that maybe I didn’t understand well so I checked the English, and it sounds less negative in English, it feels like they deliberately chose mild versions of the three words Barbeloth gives as interpretation of her fortune. Like I can’t be sure of course, but I feel like the Chinese words all have stronger negative connotations than the English ones…

Finally did Fischl Witch’s Homework! The story was so great, I think it was the best one from the ones I did. And it would have probably helped to do it before my IT run rather than after but oh well…

Finished the event! It was really cool talking to Bennett, and I had completely forgotten how fun the region was with the asha exploration mechanic!
The event was okay, I like coop events anyway, but it was also not the most memorable one imo.

With this done, I cleared all the events of the patch, I’m ready for moon landing!

Finally finished an IT run! It was NOT easy… I managed to keep Zibai for the last boss, but even her with Aino and Illuga cleared on the last second.
I probably won’t try another run, I don’t see my characters able to make a full flowers run.

Also, strongest single strike was Linnea with other 500k!! How!?!

I did Lohen’s Witch’s Homework (his story was pretty good!) and tried the new IT, but it’s really tough. I’m halfway through, but I’ll have to give up on the full flower clear. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to complete the run even. If not I’ll have to redo a run without trying to go to the flowers, which will allow me to keep better characters for the last combats. And borrowing my husband’s Kokomi was a mistake…
MVP so far is Durin for sure.

As per tradition, my first Abyss clear was Xiao and Mizuki! Clearing with those two makes me so happy every single time
First half:

Xiao

Durin

Faruzan

Xianyun

Durin is back on NO for the clear… I’m so glad I pulled him for Xiao, because it’s so much easier to clear content that requires pyro.
And yes, I chose to play Xianyun instead of Nicole, but this Abyss is actually a good way to test the Durin-Nicole core for Xiao, maybe I’ll try later in the month if I feel like it.

Second half:

Mizuki

Ororon

Columbina

Ineffa

I didn’t think it would work because of the Suanni, but they did it!

I wanted to try Lohen in the current Abyss so I did a run last minute! He is still half built (level 69, talents 6/6 and no Witch’s Homework yet).

First half:

Lohen

Durin

Kazuha

Nicole

I tried with Citlali, but it didn’t work, I was missing a few seconds on the third chamber. Changed to Kazuha and cleared everything with a lot of margin. Lohen’s damage was really low given his build. I was also not doing his combos really. But Durin’s damage is impressive. I never really played Durin dark form before, he was just a Xiao support. But with Lohen, I gave him his DPS set, and I’m really shocked by his numbers!

Second half:

Columbina

Lauma

Linnea

Ineffa

The support team from Nod-Krai. It’s probably not optimal to make them all fight for hydro, but the team is mega strong still, and I find it fun to play.

I took the Miliastra personality quiz and my result was “Master Strategist of Liyue“.
I’ve been having fun with “One Stroke Puzzle”, “Nonogram Scrolls” and “Flappy Linnea” among others to farm primogems. Then I spent 15 minutes customising my Manekina. Some standard fates gave me the autumn-theme outfit I wanted so badly when it came out, but now the weather’s much too hot to wear that…

I finished the combat event, and it was so much fun!!! I loved it!! I’m hoping they will add this as a regular combat feature one day.
I named 咕咕丸 as champion
The most difficult part of the event, was to read the five sections tutorial in Chinese.

At least, now I know how to say “to parry” in Chinese.

Also, one thing we can say to Kazuha is 下回可以一起到処游览。If only it was true and we really could…

I’m still in the middle of the second chapter… I love how almost each time we get to do a different activity or game. On the one hand, I’m happy to still have these to do, so I can also meet Columbina still, but on the other hand, will I ever get the glider… not before Snezhnaya that’s for sure…

Prune is using the word 鼎鼎大名 and I was sure this word was in my wordbook already, but it was not highlighted, which I thought was a bug. It turns out that the word in my word book is 大名鼎鼎.

They’re probably just variants of each other, I don’t know if there are elements that would push towards using one more than the other.

Lohen’s SQ is very easy to understand so far. I usually find SQ one of the easiest content of the game because they are voiced, and don’t contain as much lore or aren’t as verbose as AQ, but Lohen’s is particularly easy.

It’s funny that I saw this word twice so far, and both times it was in the context of dozing off in the library: Lisa’s birthday mail and one of Durin’s voicelines

I saw this word in Prune’s story, and I had to look up what “to play house” actually mean because I dont’ think I ever heard this before. I don’t even know what’s the equivalent in French…

This is from Lohen’s presentation. 狡兔 is his constellation, and the expression explains why he has so many hidden weapons.

I didn’t know this word. It’s the kind of words where I feel like I should know it because the characters are very common, and I try to guess the meaning through the characters, but the real meaning is miles away from my guesses.

I just saw this word in lyrics, I first learnt it in a Natlan WQ, the one with the crafting bench. It feels like ages ago! Everything was so difficult in Chinese at the time…

There were so many funny moments related to words in the event.
For example, Qiqi didn’t know how to write 噩, so 噩梦碎片 became 饿梦碎片 in her notebook (which, thinking of it kind of makes sense because she heard about “eating nightmares” from Hyakujitsuhaku Shion so “nightmare” became “hungry dream”). Yaoyao tells her she’s going to teach her how to write 噩, which is adorable!
Sayu’s imaginary friend is called 大礼貉, it’s a mix of 礼貌 and 貉 because it’s a polite raccoon. Paimon hears it as 大狸貉, because it makes more sense given that both characters mean racoon. So she basically hears líhé instead of lǐhé, and Sayu says “I knew people would hear it as lí (instead of lǐ).
And now I’m sure I’m going to mix up 貌 and 貉 for the rest of my life…

This is another word I had in my Anki, I can’t remember where it came from, but I do remember that it’s one of the most recent words I added to Anki before completely moving on to my new flashcards.
It’s funny how I thought stopping Anki would be the end of the world, and now that I did completely abandon the system for a new one, I’m actually relieved that everything is faster now and more efficient. The words I was still in the process of learning will eventually come back and I can integrate them in the new system like this one.

I saw this word in three voicelines so far: Aino comparing her brain to a rusted screw when not fulled with cakes and sweets, Ineffa talking about her own joints under the rain… and Rubuska talking about a pair of rusted scissors she used to cut the burnt hair of her mother.
Some words associated with some of Rubuska’s voicelines make me really sad I cried a lot during her Story, it was one of the saddest I think

I just learnt this word in one of Linnea’s voiceline, and saw it just after in the lyrics of a song!

I learnt how to say “croissant” while studying name of dishes. Sometimes, Chinese words are really easy to remember, you see them once and immediately memorise them.

Genshin and Reverse use different words for “damage”.
伤害 is Genshin and 创伤 is R1999.

I just learned 无虞 which was at the end of Gorou’s letter, and if I’ve already encountered the hanzi of a word in another word, my flashcards will tell me. So this allowed me to realise that 虞 is the same as in 虞美人, which is a word closely linked to Charon. It’s in the name of his Ultimate, itself coming from his voiceline: 士兵不会瞑目，纵使虞美人盛开, which is one of my favourite voicelines in all Reverse.
But anyway, of course, in 虞美人 the character is a surname, so it has nothing to do with the meaning of fear, dread and worry we have in 无虞, that’s why I probably would never have realised that it’s actually the same character in both words if my flashcards hadn’t shown it to me.

I learnt how to say 해장국 in Chinese thanks to Varka!
Korean 해장국 is 解酲汤, so it’s a bit different.

I found this word three times in Aino’s voicelines. That’s definitely an Aino word for me now!

I learnt those two related words recently. 茧子 was Aino talking about Varka’s hands, and 老茧 was Corvus talking about her own hands. Always makes it easier to memorise a new character when seeing it in two different places in a short time!

Another useful word learnt in Emilie SQ! I must say that I really love the beginning of her story, the plot seems really great. There are a lot of new words, or words like 假账: words I didn’t know before, but looking at the characters and with the context, I can easily guess their meaning.

Lan Yan, Iansan and Aino on the next banners! I have none of them C6, but I do have both five stars, so no risking anything.

I finished adding words from Act I to my wordbook! I’ve never been so much on track when studying current events.

I don’t know if I should also work on the WQ, I haven’t started any yet. Given that they’re not voiced, they’re more difficult to study, but they’re also the content that needs the more effort so worth studying…

I did 克鲁日科娃‘s challenge, it was such a fun one! The mini game and the story were both really funny.

I’m so tempted to explore more and start the world quests… especially the one associated with Huimou, but I think it’s best to finish the AQ first… It probably doesn’t matter, but I just want to avoid having several things opened at the same time.

I tried a 2p/2p on Mizuki, I’ve been playing around with the pieces I have, I’m not sure which ones are the best. Is it better to have more EM or more crit? What about ER? Her burst will trigger more swirls so it can’t be bad? But I probably can’t burst every rotation with 120 ER anyway, so it might be better to build no ER at all and focus on crit… ?

Yumemizuki Mizuki梦见月瑞希 mèng jiàn yuè ruì xīC3 · Lv90

Talents

10/10/10

Weapon

寝正月初晴 qǐn zhēng yuè chū qíng (Sunny Morning Sleep-In)

Artifacts

晨星与月的晓歌 chén xīng yǔ yuè de xiǎo gē (Aubade of Morningstar and Moon) 2pc + 流浪大地的乐团 liú làng dà dì de yuè tuán (Wanderer's Troupe) 2pc▸

EM · EM · CRIT Rate

FlowerHP 4,780+20

ATK 18 · CRIT Rate 9.7% · CRIT DMG 20.2% · EM 16

PlumeATK 311+20

EM 63 · ER 12.3% · CRIT DMG 13.2% · CRIT Rate 7.0%

SandsEM 187+20

CRIT Rate 7.0% · CRIT DMG 14.0% · ATK 29 · HP 717

GobletEM 187+20

ATK 16 · CRIT DMG 20.2% · HP 9.9% · CRIT Rate 6.2%

CircletCRIT Rate 31.1%+20

HP 4.1% · EM 40 · ER 14.9% · CRIT DMG 13.2%

Stats

EM 1,032 · CRIT Rate 66.0% · CRIT DMG 130.8% · ER 127.2%

I usually only study event stories because they are shorter, but this time, I really want to study the AQ. It’s going to be very long, but it’s also a really cool project. I browsed the discussions with Huimou (Ash Eye? I don’t know his name in English) and added some words already, but I’m starting seriously with our meeting with Alyosha.

I went to the Shadow Realm, and I liked it a lot. I’m not very good at this, so I couldn’t complete whatever I was supposed to do(?), but it was fun. I was not hyped at all for this feature, but it turns out being much more fun than I thought. Exactly like the rhythm game.

There was an NPC who kept rambling about stuff, and I felt like I knew the vocabulary but I didn’t understand a word she was saying, and so I started doubting my Chinese abilities and feeling really discouraged when Paimon said 呃…她说话好怪，我好像一句也听不懂 and we could reply 我也听不懂. What a relief…

I realised that trains in Snezhnaya only run in one direction on each track, so if you want to go to the station that’s just before yours, you need to take the train in the opposite direction and make the whole loop that will bring you to where you wanted to go. A bit like that weird loop there’s on Line 2 of Seoul metro.

I took the train, did some exploration but not much, unlocked the talent domain… I really love Snezhnaya map, the region is beautiful, and it feels like there’s a lot of mysteries to uncover, not just puzzles planted here and there. Just looking at the map it makes you want to go out there and explore.

I didn’t continue the AQ, but I made it to the village where there’s the current event. I wanted to unlock the Teleportation waypoint but immediately got caught in the event, then I wanted to unlock the viewpoint and started a WQ. I’m really confused because Paimon said “oh we wanted to go in that place anyway” and I don’t know what she’s referring to.
Not only that, but the NPCs were talking about a town called Aoguluofu (in Chinese), and Paimon calls it jiligulu (it’s like some sort of mumbling or unintelligible sound). She said that we wanted to go to jiligulu town, so first it’s weird to call it like that, and second, I didn’t know I wanted to go there? I’m really confused… Did I miss something?

I’ve decided that I won’t use co-op to build Odette, so I won’t even be able to start building her now, because I haven’t unlocked the domains, I don’t know where her boos is and I haven’t seen trace of her flowers. I kind of find it more fun this way, even though it means I need to wait to play Mizuki stellar swirl.

I did Xiao’s trial and got his echo!!!

The trial was so so fun, especially the first part. I think it was very well done, the flavour, the fact that we had to use his skill and jump ability, the constant drain and the healing mechanic when killing opponents was really cool. Combat part was so easy though, it’s by far the easiest I’ve done. They also made it easy with the ER thankfully.

I’m really happy I have his echo… but I’m also not super mega fan of how it looks when seeing him from the back, which is like always. Seen from the side it looks great, and I like the effects and the colours, but I really don’t understand how they designed the echos in the first place, it would be better if they were more subtle…

Oh well, still super happy!

I finally finished studying 幻友绮旅! All new words are in the flashcards. It’s one of the rare events I love enough to study entirely. I did cry at the end again while re-listening to it again.

I didn’t like the Fontinalia festival enough to go through it again, so next study material will probably be the AQ! I’m hoping it’s not going to be too long, but I’ll probably only study passages I like, not the whole thing.

Odette’s demo was sublime… I can’t forgive them for her heels though… especially since she had ballet shoes in her demo, and it looked so perfect.
I love her design but the heels just look so out of place…

I’m realising I also only have two days left to finish studying the 幻友绮旅 event story. I just started chapter 3… Good thing I’ll have a lot of time this week I think, I’ll try to do this today and tomorrow.
I probably won’t start the AQ right away, but I still want to be done with studying past events when the patch releases.

I don’t really follow anything about Genshin now, but my husband does and he told me that I’ll need to build crit on Mizuki. She is currently on a triple EM build with 44.7 CR and 115.3 CD, which I think is not bad for a start. I also found a CR circlet in VV with CD, ER and EM substats, so it’s simply perfect. Didn’t roll well, so I reshaped it which turned out to be a worse. I’ll probably reshape it later.

If it turns out she needs the new stellar swirl set, then I’ll farm it for her, but if it’s near equivalent, I’ll keep her on VV because it’s more versatile (I’ll still be playing a lot of Mizuki Lunar-charged I’m sure).

With the free constellation and the free standard character, she’ll be C5 soon!

I can’t believe that Genshin SP is this week already!! I haven’t done much in the game lately because I was too busy with my Japanese novel. I really want to finish the WQ before the new version…

I thought I had reached 11% of 霜月 (Frost Moon) as a region, but now I realised it’s actually 11% of 月之高地 which is one of the three regions of the Frost Moon!
I’ll have to pick up the pace if I want to complete (80%) the exploration before Snezhnaya…

I caught up on birthday mails! I remember saying I would not let them pile up and study them on their release day, but I’m unable to keep small resolutions like this haha.

The patch has been live for two weeks now, and I still have to do the third chapter of the event and finish the management game, which could take me one more week.
So it means I’ll only have the second half of the patch to do the WQ and explore the new region (still haven’t touched any of those).

I’m still unsure who I’m going to choose for the next and last constellations. So far I chose Xiao, Hu Tao and Ganyu, and now I’m torn between Shenhe and Baizhu. The thing is that I’m using Baizhu more than Shenhe, but I prefer Shenhe over Baizhu.
So for now I selected Shenhe…

I finally caught up on birthday mails! From now on, I’ll try to study them on the day we receive them (or the day after)!

I finished adding new words from 礁与浪的相逢 and I’m starting the 幻友绮旅 now!
I’ll try to work on one small segment per day, so that I can finish it by the time the Fontinalia Festival gets added to the DB. Oh and the next WQ will be voiced!!! That is insane!
If they decide to make all WQ of Snezhnaya voiced, I would be so happy, it would make playing the game in Chinese so much easier too, because right now WQ are the hardest content.

My initial plan was to study character’s mails on their birthday, but I have a lot of catch up to do… Mails have piled up so quickly these past weeks.

I’ve completed all the tasks I wanted to do during the patch, which included a lot of content from previous patches. I’m still very late in Nod-Krai exploration and anecdotes.,,
I will pull for Sandrone. and it would be tempting to go for constellations of Mizuki on the special banner, but I more or less like all the Snezhnaya characters so…

Snezhnaya characters look great
I especially love 达妮卡 and 阿罗夏
I’m so happy that Snezhnaya will release during August too, Summer always feels so long, so it will be something to be looking for.

I can’t find the time to start Lohen’s SQ, and I’m waiting for the ascension materials it gives to fully level him up. I’ll only try an Abyss run with him once he is 90 and talents 9. I still don’t know if I want to double crown him…

Now that I have Mika, it makes farming 空羽蛾 for Lohen much easier than it was for Linnea!

I can’t wait to start Lohen’s SQ but I didn’t have time this weekend… I’ll wait to have the ascension materials from his SQ to fully ascend him too, so it slows down his build. I’m working on building Prune in the meantime.

Did a lot of things in Genshin today, Nicole’s quest part 3, Prune’s Witch’s Homework (it was adorable!), some exploration, visited Columbina, and I just did the introductory dialogue of the new event (so happy to see Kazuha!! ) but I haven’t started it yet.

I still haven’t done the new IT, but now I might as well wait for Lohen to be IT ready. I think that even at 70, he would be a big upgrade to my cryo roster!

Lohen’s story details and kits aren’t updated on the Chinese wiki yet, so I’ll probably won’t start studying them today.

It’s a shame that Lohen is really not the best choice to farm his boss and his talent domain…

I’ve been lazy with reading character stories lately, because I can’t deny that with content in Chinese, I just don’t have the motivation to start reading character stories in-game, with everything else there is to read. It’s really a shame, so I’m going to study character stories from the wiki instead, that way I can paste them to my learning Chinese website and use the dictionary. I don’t know if I’ll have the courage or time to catch up on older characters, but I’m starting with my latest ones: Prune, Lohen and Mika.

I finished studying chapter 2 of 礁与浪的相逢, I only have chapter 3 left! I love this event! I also saw that the 幻友绮旅 event story is already on the Chinese wiki! I’m tempted to start it right away…
So my plan for the second half of the patch is to finish studying 礁与浪的相逢, then do 幻友绮旅, and maybe study Lohen SQ, but only if I like it enough. I don’t think I will study Varka SQ.

Wow Lohen’s trailer… this guy feels like a mix of Sparkle and Jane Doe, clearly worth risking going to double pity for him.
I should also have two points of capturing radiance already, so it will help, because I do want Sandrone…

风起之日

I forgot this set actually gives 20% CR! Thankfully I was a bit short on Durin, so he’s build is not as bad as I initially thought, even though most pieces I found rolled poorly.

My exploration team is all broken supports from the version. I need Nicole to find treasure chests, Lauma because I love using her deer form to run around, Linnea for ore mining and healing, and Columbina is not there for any exploration abilities, but we need her because the team would fall apart otherwise.
I also use the team for farming, Linnea is dealing so much damage, nuking most ennemies, and Lauma’s hold skill can finish off whatever is still alive. Nicole is completely useless as no one scales attack, but I love her burst animation so I do it anytime I get a chance.

Nicole

Lauma

Linnea

Columbina

I pulled Durin for Xiao, so I put him on NO and never farmed his DPS set (I did farm the domain a lot, but never found good Rising Winds pieces). But there’s two things happening now:

• I’m thinking of continue playing FFXX rather than the Nico-Durin core for Xiao
• I will pull for Lohen, which means that Durin is probably better on Rising Winds, and that Lohen will need a set of his own anyway!
  So I need to find two good sets now, with DPS requirements…

I’m reading Lohen’s skill showcase and anecdote in Chinese, and there’s a passage where he says:

快、准、狠。我的技巧就是这样，不知道你跟不跟得上？

These three adjectives immediately brought me back to 流行蝴蝶剑, I think Gu Long liked to use them in combination to praise a martial art, I remember it because I found it so cool haha.
I found some examples:

够快、够准、够狠的暗器

他武功本和孟星魂是同一路的，又狠，又准，又快

One more reason to pull for Lohen then!
Also 火光炸开，冰晶封路—— So cool!

Lohen teaser is so good… I guess he’s kind of a must-pull now… my plan to save for Snezhnaya has been short-lived…
It would be funny if I get Lohen before Mika, he’s the only 4star I’m missing.

I had a good time in the game today! Visited Columbina and Nicole. I really love her side quests, 胜过白银与精金! The first two chapters were great. I love listening to Nicole
I finished the mini games (the Yaoyao and Qiqi one was so cute), so now I completely finished the event. I also got the Dust from SO farming, so now I can go back to regular farming, which allowed me to finally complete (for now) Nicole’s build.
I didn’t have time to start something long like the Temple of Space WQ or Varka SQ as planned, but I’ll probably have time tomorrow.

Setting the supporting cast for IT made me realise that the only hydro character available is Aino (I don’t have Kokomi), so three of my Geo characters won’t do anything unless I manage to keep Aino for them. This means I’ll have to pick my husband’s Kokomi for sure.
I’ve been thinking that Lunar characters will be very bad in IT versions where hydro is not featured. Some opponents do have hydro auras, but still…
I haven’t tried it yet, but I feel like it’s going to be quite difficult this time too! (the last two IT versions were a real challenge). Not complaining though, I love difficult combat!

I’ve been extremely efficient in Genshin today! I can’t believe I completed everything I had planned: I finished the event, did the Liyue part of the Temple of Space WQ, did Durin’s Witch’s Homework and completed a run of IT. I only got 6 flowers, the worst I ever did… I usually get full flowers on the highest mode, except for last time and this time. To be fair, I haven’t tried hard, maybe I’ll do another run this weekend to try and get at least the next elixir. But for now I just wanted to complete a run to get the primogems so I don’t need to stress about it.
I also used all my condensed resin in SO to farm the new artifacts and I got a full set for Nicole. It’s far from being perfect, she only has 3500 Atk right now… I don’t know how much she needs, but it’s probably not enough. Oh well, I’m happy she has the set now!
The only thing is that I can’t find the motivation to continue the AQ.

I have so many things to do in Genshin, I made a detailed to-do list, but every time I open the game all I do is play the rhythm game…

The audio for Linnea’s voicelines is on the Cn wiki! So it’s exactly what I thought, the audio gets uploaded the patch after the character’s release. I can study her voicelines now

On the one hand, Nicole-Durin is an increase over FFXX for Xiao, on the other hand, it means building more ER. With C2 Xianyun, I can run Xiao with 0 ER no problem, he consistently cleared one stage of SO Fearless without ER (though not recently as there’s too much shill). Right now I have 110 ER because it’s more comfortable and allows for mishaps in rotations, but I don’t want to build more. Also, I do have C2R1 Xianyun… so it hurts putting her aside (I’m not sure, but I do think Faruzan C6 on Favonius is still better?). If only Xianyun would buff all his plunges instead of only 8 ST.
So of course, I did pull Durin and Nicole to have the team available, but I don’t know how much I’m ready to invest into this team.
Oh well, it’s going to take a while anyway, I still haven’t done the Witches’ Homework, and I haven’t farmed the new artifact set for Nicole at all yet.
But building like 130-150 ER on Xiao? I don’t really want to…

They added die Mittsommernacht-Fantasie to the rhythm game!!!
I’m so happy!! I thought this one would never make it to the rhythm game because it was a limited track, but they did add it!!
I must say that overall, this album is really not a collection of my favourite tracks… Can’t complain though!
Chinese title for this song is 仲夏夜绮思.

I love Nicole’s ability to show the direction of treasure chests, but I don’t like that they are pinned on the mini map too, which makes Nicole’s ability feel a bit useless, because you might as well look at the mini map to have a more precise indication.
I don’t like using the compass and just go from chest to chest, I prefer to look for them myself. But I really love Nicole’s ability because it’s a good trade-off: it shows the direction, but not the exact spot. I really wish there was a way to remove the chest pins from the mini map, but I couldn’t find any. So I decided to remove the UI altogether, and I love it!!! I find it so fun! I never tried before, but I love the experience.
I do wish they let us customise it, like for example keeping HP bar and stamina bar… And I also wish we could toggle it on and off more easily that going in the menu every time I log in.
But anyway, it makes exploration even more fun!

The only compass I had was the Nod-Krai one. I crafted the others except for Fontaine and Liyue because I’m lacking materials. I have a lot of exploration left basically everywhere on the map, so it will be nice to look for treasures with Nicole.

,,, I’m not sure I loved Nicole’s demo trailer all that much…
Still looking forward to tomorrow I’ll just pull one copy, no weapon. I recently decided to not pre-farm for new characters because I find it fun to build them slowly, actually farm their materials with them and see the performance increase. So nothing is ready for her, I don’t even know what materials she needs
I’m looking forward to exploring with Nicole, I still need to unlock the compasses of the new regions though (I think her ability only works if we already have the compass?)

So does this mean that both my C3R1 Mizuki and my triple-crowned Qiqi will get a buff?? Two of my favourite characters!! This is absolutely fantastic
And I’ll choose Mizuki with the next selector, so she’ll be C4 soon!
This reminds me that I should finally do Durin’s Witches’ Homework! At least before Nicole’s release. It’s crazy to think I still haven’t done any, but I only really played Durin in Xiao’s team, and to be honest, I was kind of burnt out at the time with the AQ, and his SQ was quite long too…

On the one hand, the AQ looks really great and I’m looking forward to playing it, on the other hand, I hate how long the AQ has been this version, and I’m kind of stressed out just thinking that the next one might again be a 7 hour long story. They did say players will now know when they can stop the story without losing progress, but knowing it won’t be useful if we effectively can’t get out of the story like it was the case for previous chapters. If I’m forced to play a 4 hour chunk in one sitting, knowing there’s a save point just after taking back control of the characters won’t be that useful. I really really hope they added more spots where we can actually leave the story. I don’t care about breaking immersion, I just want to enjoy the story at my own pace and not burn out.

The biggest surprise of the whole SP to me is Nicole’s burst animation. It’s so beautiful!! Nicole was my least favourite design from all the version cast, but because she can be a potential teammate for Xiao paired with Durin… I had decided to pull her in spite of her design. But now my opinion is completely changing, her animations are sublime, I’m really starting loving her now and I’m looking forward to playing her. And given that I am really behind in my exploration progress, her special ability will be very useful too.

The 速摄快镜 event is so weird. I thought each stage would bring more freedom of expression but we’re back to just walking in line today? And the result is not even what we shot, I tried turning around and walk in zigzag, but the final film didn’t show any of that. So it feels like what we do doesn’t even matter, it’s just pick a character and then watch a pre-made animation of them walking in line… what?!

So I thought I’d go watch some films from my friend list (which turned out to be equally boring). First video I saw was the NA one, and it was Zibai wielding Prototype Rancour?

Edit: Oh, I think Prototype Rancour was on trial Zibai! They really didn’t even try to make this event feel real hahahaha!

I know I haven’t played a lot of Genshin lately, still haven’t explored Dornman Port nor did the World Quest, and it’s true that I haven’t gone very far in the last Nod-Krai expansion… but running out of encounter points still feels like shock TT

My top 7 Xiao is now top 8! Someone, somewhere, has upgraded their Xiao’s artifacts ^^.
(I still have some dust left…)