How The 'Power Five' Ruined Four Star Characters | Genshin Impact

Fischl, Bennett, Sucrose, Xiangling and Xingqiu were part of the first wave of units in Genshin Impact way back dating to its release, and though many players both free to play and pay to win have enjoyed their affordable yet surprisingly effective power, the "Power Five" has made it exceedingly difficult for new four star characters to shine outside of a select few like Shinobu and Yaoyao. Today we'll be discussing how these five units have ruined the balance of four star characters in Genshin Impact.

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[buttermanaws]

I still believe the main reason we got so many units who want HP or EM over attack more often than not us that Bennett provides so much bonus damage that they had to make it so you didn't have a reason to use him for so long

[yu-gi-noob]

My God. I remember the early days of Genshin. The power 5 were so underestimated. While Fischel was always seen as a really good unit, water swords dude was seen as a defensive unit with a weird gimmick. I remember Bennet was always placed on the bottom of tier lists, and people said Sucrose was worst Venti and reliant on C4 to function. No one called Xiangling bad, but people did call her a good early game character, suggesting that better alternatives of her will pop up at late game. It’s like reverse power creepy 😂

[YEHEY]

Yaoyao is a great unit outside of the power 5. Great heals, good battery, can boost your em if you equip the sumeru craftable spear. And also she's quite tanky for a chibi. And not to mention her bunny shoots out explosive cabbages

[albertodelarosa]

I can't take it anymore. I'm sick of xiangling. I try to play diluc. My xiangling deals more damage. I try to play yoimiya. My xiangling deals more damage. I try to play Hu tao. My xiangling deals more damage. I want to play Klee. Her best team has xiangling. I want to play raiden, childe. They both want xiangling.

She grabs me by the throat. I fish for her. I cook for her. I give her the catch. She isn't satisfied. I pull engulfing lightning. "I don't need this much er" She tells me. "Give me more field time." She grabs bennett and forces him to throw himself off enemies. "You just need to funnel me more. I can deal more damage with homa."

I can't pull for homa, I don't have enough primogems. She grabs my credit card. It declines. "Guess this is the end." She grabs gouba. She says "Gouba, get them." There is no hint of sadness in his eyes. Nothing but pure, no icd pyro application. What a cruel world :'(

[onlymyself]

I'll be honest, one of the funniest parts of watching new characters come out is seeing how Mihoyo is gonna dodge Bennett this time. It feels like ever since version 3 they've been desperately, carefully designing each and every new unit to not have Bennett automatically be the best in slot. Be it by giving them their own dedicated Bennett like Shenhe or completely ignoring attack like dendro and monogeo.

[drace]

I think units like Kuki and Gorou are exactly what every 4-star should be going forward. Units that are "Power 5" levels of usefulness but only when locked in their certain niche like being carried or limited by a certain element, reaction, play-style, and utility. That way we can have a diverse cast of 4-stars that can still compete in the meta, without having them all-encompassing like Power 5.

[poppling]

Is it me or does the power 5 look like a highschool friend group

Xiangling - the outgoing social butterfly
Bennet - the funny and clumsy
Sucrose - the shy and adorable cinnamon
Xingqiu - the calmest, wisest, motherly nerd
Fischl - the dramatic entertainer

280 likes and a reply from the actual vars....
1. WTF?!?
2. If this is a dream I do not want to wake up

[powwowken]

I remember back when I first started playing and actually got excited for new 4* characters... Then I eventually realized that the only remotely viable 4* units Hoyo will ever permit to see the light of day will be relegated to being "Like Bennett, but bad and/or so niche as to be useless in 99% of scenarios".

[Ali-cya]

Strong or even average powercreep in gachas is usually what a lot of people hate about gachas in general and why the term 'gacha' itself is an immediate turn off for many people. The power five are pretty much the backbone for why the game doesn't have immense powercreep and why old characters don't just suddenly become obsolete and forgotten. Most gachas can get away with it because creating 2D characters is moderately easy, creating complex interconnected 3D characters in an open world only to make them obsolete or even unusable in gameplay later on is a tease that no one wants to see being done to their favourite character.

[tayschrinngaming]

The newer 4* units also tend to have story locked and/or tedious to gather ascension materials that tend to also be needed for 5*.
Tooks me months to finally get around to unlocking the fog island for Thoma's mushrooms, and well...hes still level 20ish.

[Grac]

I genuinely think that nowadays, shinobu might be the closest we've ever had to breaking the status quo when it comes to four stars competing with these 5.

Its all down to hyperbloom, yes, but the sheer amount damage a full em kuki does with it, while ALSO providing enough healing to solo sustain a team, is severely underrated. Something i think people also overlook with her is how cheap and accessible she is. Similar to benny, you CAN give her a 5 star weapon, amazing artifacts and all their constellations, but the difference between that and f2p weapon, mid artifacts and c2 (c1 for benny) is minimal bc their baseline performance is so good.

I'd still say that it goes power 5 > shinobu >> all other 4 stars but she's unbelievably good nowadays.

[andersoul]

I think mihoyo should keep doing what theyre doing now, which is introduce new mechanics and characters. For example, Nilou buffing a specific reaction or Fontaine characters having hp draining mechanics allows for new meta units while also not diminishing the viability of the "power 5".

[Astonthepunk]

One thing to note that bro seemed to have missed out on during summaries was that fischl’s electro app being so strong not only comes from her skill with essentially 100% uptime, it’s from her A4 procing with no ICD whenever she triggers a reaction. This passive also does no small amount of damage either.

[gilroyscopa]

I still think the impact of the power 5 could be a net positive for Genshin. Not just because of the lid they put on powercreep, but because the Genshin devs need to get creative with designing 4-stars. make them super niche or fun to play (e.g. a weak unit that insanely buffs your attackspeed, some fun stuff with constructs; a charge attack support instead of a normoal attack support for once). That the Genshin devs don't see that chance and don't get creative to solve the 4-star problem is really on them and them alone. There is so much design space left that isn't just "create a damage area for 10seconds", yet they still default to the latter.

[lucianof]

For a time I didn't want to face reality. I never really liked Xingqiu's design and I also didn't like his story and since I didn't have him until AR 55 I used Candace since I love her design and story. But then I suddenly got a Xingqiu who performed way better and with less effort than Candace. I got extremely frustrated since one of my favorite characters was only occupying space.

[dustinabigan]

My own explanation as to why these five got released and ended up being destroying the case for a big chunk of 4* units is that Mihoyo didn't know as well what they were up to as they do now (somewhat). I don't think it's a coincidence that all five came from 1.0, which was a time when who we know as good or bad is all over the place with the benefit of hindsight (and that likely is the case for the developers as well). They basically had no idea what they were cooking until it was too late. And for obvious reasons they can't nerf them.

Personally I'm not really a fan of releasing newer more powerful 4* to match them as well. Because that could push 5* to be released as even more powerful units with higher scallings. And yeah it will solve the problem (maybe), but it doesn't seem fair for the big chunk of players that have already invested so much into specific units (esp 5* constellations and perfect artifacts) only to realize said unit could get blown out of the water with a half-assed built new 5*. And obviously releasing a more powerful unit would entail releasing a proportionately more powerful enemy, which just causes more problems for players. The whole thing just feels like a problem that you can't solve without introducing a solution that could cause even more problems.

[GyutaroFanboy]

As a cyno main who cannot get enough er but also couldnt get a songle fishcl until 1 and a half years into playing shes an insane battery and sub dps

[j.thewoodcraftninja]

I think one benefit of having these starter units being so strong, is that for new players who have them, since they are original starter characters in a sense, they are relatively easy to build and not region locked for leveling up, making good teams more accessible for anyone starting out in the game, even now. (assuming you have half decent luck pulling them)

[spiderdude]

I read somewhere that the reason some of the OG 4 stars are so strong and never got nerfed is due to

A. Hoyo really didn’t have a great handle on how the meta or power balancing would evolve and made a bunch of the 4 stars better than they intended.

B. There is a Chinese gaming law that states that you can’t make a character (that people pay for) worse after release. So, nerfing a character is not allowed after release.

So basically, I don’t think hoyo expected them to be as overpowered as they ended up being, and by then it was too late, they couldn’t make them less powerful. What they CAN do, and what they started to do more and more as time went on, was release 4 stars that are underpowered until they get more cons. And that’s basically where we’re at. Most 4 stars are con locked and feel incomplete at C0.

[wolfwoof]

Mihoyo seems to go either for the niche main dps or support (anemo damage, bloom, superconduct). It's totally fine. Though I don't like for some of them they are locked by constellations or only feel usable with them. I wish to see more support for like overloaded, superconduct support, burgeon, shatter.