Because They Follow-Up on their attacks

What makes follow up attacks so good? Action Economy.

I love how expensive the team is makes sense because the IPC characters are probably millionaires or billionaires lol, and Robin as a singer probably is quite wealthy as well

FUA is basically a way to sneak in additional attacks or actions in a limited cycle than what you are normally given based on your speed or advance forward. And on top of that it's just pretty funny seeing your FUA units cheesing SU because of Aftertaste. Moving forward it would be interesting how DoT and FUA develop considering the units there look more like they're meant to build on their own playstyles. So now you have 3 general ways of dealing damage: the typical DPS of dealing damage as we do now, DoT that leverages enemy turn taking and action, and FUA with ways for you to deal more instances of damage or mechanics in the same cycle.

There are two specific kind of rewarding feelings that only follow-up and DOT can do, the feeling of "oh no I'm about to loose!? wait no just managed to take the win on the enemies turn."(dot is really good at this one) and "You're already dead, you just don't know it yet." when black swan has ulted and you're about to ult then skill with kafka into the enemy turn, or IPC follow-up when everyone has their ultimate and you're about to watch a 2 minute cutscene of the boss exploding

"There weren't any teammates for Topaz other than Jingyuan" I'm sorry when did Clara stop existing?

They’ve really start to form this “engine” that feels really fun, and still feels like there’s a wide space available. Aventurine and Topaz LC having debuff FUA effects also makes Ratio such a delight. I can see future potential for more “Counter” based FUA, where a new sustain debuffs an enemy’s defenses whenever that enemy attacks for clara / march / aventurine buffs. I also would love to see burst and bounce FUA for some wackiness outside the Hunt and Erudition FUA. Or like a character that charges up FUA from overhealing. Or a character that gains charges based on instances of any ally attacking, including ult and FUA. They’re just straight up fun in a turn based game, and have a lot of open design space Lastly, with the IPC squad synergizing so well together, it’s so cool and fun that it almost retroactively makes the rest of the characters oddly less spicy. Like, it feels like Xueyi and Hanya should synergize, or Gui and Sushang, or the Stellaron Hunters, or Asta and Arlan. These synergies add this feeling of cohesion and relation, flavor-blasting these mechanics the FUA engine.

They laughed at you Topaz, they even doubted you! Stand proud knowing you ARE the future (pls dont tax me)

I also love using Elation path in the various stimulated universe as I am huge fan of follow up attacks!

Out of turn actions are very very valuable in turn based games. We've had tastes of this already all the way in the early months of the game with Clara and Luocha (altough his action Is not a FUA)

In the Portuguese localization all follow ups attacks are translated as "extra attacks".

11:58 March 7th and Xueyi are also 4stars with accessible FUA's, especially with eidolons! They aren't cracked damage dealers, but they are absolutely sufficient for reaping the benefits of Elation blessings in SU.

Vars : Follow-up characters - What make them so powerful? Me : Money, Vars money. 💰

Another point for non hypercarry teams is flexiblity. We've all had those moments where the hyper carry leaves an enemy on like hp and have to go through another cycle because the supports do no damage and have to waste an important resource like a jingliu charge. With duel dps or team like ipc fua where everyone does their share of damage. The problem with dual hunt is that they are good at deleting enemies 1 by 1 but they have to waste time dealing with trash mobs. Aventurine can thin out or at least weaken the mobs enough and robin ult can add more damage so they can actual kill. Also with these dual carry comps it lets you cover more contents since they cover multiple weakness breaks. Also if something happens to your hyper carry you're likely to lose a cycle but with ipc team the damage is more spread evenly so say if something happens to ratio you still lose a big chunk of damage you don't lose everything. This is a reason why im hyped for break teams and eventually want to make a dot team when the banners rerun or new units come out.

When I went all in on Topaz on release they called me a mad man! Who’s laughing now!?

"assuming of course there is no hard once per turn" YGO moment 6:50

Secretly? Ive built my entire hsr experience around fua, it all began with clara 😮‍💨

I play other turn-based games with out-of-turns actions that procs (both damage, support and healing), so I knew immediately how strong follow-ups will be. So after seeing auto-heals, damaging ones is next, and we've seen how it took people a while to recognise Clara's kit potential.

Got Jing Yuan since Day 1 of his banner. Got Topaz for him. Got Ratio for free. Only regret is I wasn't able to get Aventurine and I lost on Robin banner.

To add onto the point of fua compounding on each other lets just look at topaz alone in the ipc fua team Topaz can fuel 2/3 of aventurine ally fua stacks while ratio can fill the last. Topaz is going to be attacking the most often on that team so she’s going to be batterying the most energy for robin and benfiting from robins bonus damage the most. She makes the team able to cover both imaginary and fire weak enemies which a lot of other comps cannot boast since they primarily focus on one weakness type. Then she provides a debuff for ratio and buffs everyones fua while still being able to provide a good chunk of damage. She syngersies with all 3 other characters on the team while in most other teams funnel everything into the main dps.

Follow-up attacks have been my favorite thing about star rail since version 1. That first combat event that let me trial Himeko and Herta together really sold me on this game.

Topaz is there only to sell. Our cute numby is the real character

They always give a buff for the follow up attack characters in both MoC and PF

IPC meeting of the ten stonehearts: Now, we need to follow up on this uncollected Debt. And we need to do a Follow up on...

Aventurine

Star rail content: positive trends Genshin impact content: downfalls of characters

The "VARS" watermark that appears every so often gave me an idea... reduce the size by half, farther lower the opacity, and then have it bounce around the screen slowly like old DVD players. lol

I only started playing at the very end of 2.1 and I count myself so lucky to have been able to get the entire Follow-up Attack team since. It's extremely fun and getting to use Dr. Ratio, who got me into this game in the first place, is very satisfying

What I love about follow up attacks is that they naturally produce the most nail bitting scenarios because since follow ups are inherently a response to something else you get moments that you get into a situation where you are praying for that follow up to happen to clutch the game. It happened to me while I was very nee to the game and was playing SU World 2 with a bunch of 4 stars and Physical TB and the last boss was incredible how Herta’s talent would save me cause she broke the toughness gauge or killed the spawned minions right before they killed my units. Its very fun

As turn based games are my favorite games I find it annoying that he has to disparage them at the start of every star rail video

There is a saying in Chinese for stuff 'working off eachother', and it goes along the lines of 'left foot stepping on the right foot and we reach the sky' and that is so real for the IPC FUA team like that's what some people have decided to call them in CN now

God damn i f*ing love follow-up attacks, the didn't have to go that hard in aesthetic and playstyle and dropped my girl topaz *followed up* by the imaginary daddies and then WELCOME TO MYY... WOOOORLD

I was always confused why erudition didn't get a part in su, after play golden gears I see why

I look forward to what else kind of future comps there will be. Maybe action advance might be the next after super break

> Follow-Up characters are the most future proof > March 7th has follow-ups Alright, the plan is coming together

Soon we see a video on break effect units probably after boothill release. For sure after Firefly

This is good timing because I'm struggling with content lately as a f2p with limited 5* units, and I'm incapable of playing some meta archetypes for missing key units. Most of my DPS are hypercarries too. I got Robin super early with one 10-pull. Sadly it seems like her best team is the FUA IPC gang, of which I was missing Topaz. I don't even have Ratio fully built since I didn't have a good team for him. So I threw singles while doing Penacony things, and I just got Topaz relatively early at 56 pity. I know I shot myself in the foot with future banners but I'm excited to be able to play FUA at last! When I finish building Ratio and Topaz, of course.

The first time I ever encountered the concept of follow-up attacks was in Persona. I am a huge JRPG fan and my main series as a kid was Final Fantasy which was about as JRPG as you could get, especially with the turn-based combat system of the earlier games (I hit you, then you hit me, repeat until someone dies). So the idea of "I hit an enemy, then my teammate follows up and hits the enemy immediately after me" was so new and cool to me when it was first introduced. I'm glad they are expanding the FUA meta in HSR and hope they continue to innovate on it.

love how u used the word cornerstone there you sneaky sneaky hahaha

11:30 Just wait until nihility trailblazer enables DOT crits..... BET

there is a style of gamplay that i don't know if i love or hate, thats the break team. so the pros is that break leave the enemy weak and deals more dot but the cons is that if you can break the enemy in time or not with the right unit your damage will be low... having character that don't care to much who break is now the best, now with boothill i will be less scare to use luka, or the herta himeko ruan mei combo.... but now with harmony mc you can break even if there is nothing to break, and i really want more characters like that. so we have 4 main style of gameplay: hypercarry, DoT, follow up and break, but you can have more than one in one team... thats why i like honkai

Getting Topaz E1S1 was def a good investment I made from her first banner. Especially with the leaked wind hunt character coming out with fua. 😉

I remember pulling for Topaz when she came out for the first time, I was running on fumes with the jades and I had to win a 50/50 and I ended up getting her and she’s been my favorite character ever since! glad to see that she works so great in FUA teams!

You forgot Xueyi is a 4 star follow up who has amazing synergy in a break effect follow up team with Himeko, her ult also procs her own follow up very easily if you have Ruan Mei along with Xueyi being easy to E6

I haven't played for too long but I have Ratio, Robin, Topaz and Clara, so follow up attacks have been carrying me for a big part of the game now (I usually run two of them, Ratio/Topaz are the ones I use the most along with Robin and Gallagher), it is also very satisfying to use with for example ratio doing a follow up then topaz then ratio again

I like how everything got a little change of scenario or even new entire unit to "buff" their niches. Break Effect, Follow-Ups and even Applying debuffs that doesn't really doesn't damage directly but flavour the next strike. There will be even a new end game for The Hunt chars! That's so much to wait for. Crazy stuff, HSR is doing great imo.

I wish you talked about the fuA for Yanqing and it’s over all clunkiness Or Xuiye and her synergy with the break meta Or characters who gain FuAs status that come from Eidolons like Bronya or QQ E4

Started a new account right before 2.1 ends (for free ratio) and now I have the premium fua team (minus aventurine since I lost 50/50). So far I have been breezing thru every content except for moc and pure fiction. It's insane how they all support each other's kit beautifully that I doubt there will be any replacement for either 4 in the near future. (Now I just need to figure out how to build my seccond team)

As someone who's been on this train since jing yuan's first banner, it honestly feels like the end of an era of suffering to see this video; one i've been praying to see Vars make one day for AGES now! Feels good to win at last, man.

Luocha’s healing field working in tandem with FUA works really nice, specifically with clara. She gets hit so much that the healing keeps the team near if not completely full

One of my favorite PMD tracks ❤

The jump in DPS once I got Topaz and Robin to complete my IPC team was insane. I struggled hard with MOC 11 and 12 and this team just steamrolls everything. My Robin is barely built and my Aventurine is built for shields and not DPS and they can still brute force anything the game throws at me. It'll be interesting to see if star rail comes out with content that hard counters follow-ups.

i recently started using a four fua team consisting of Claraventurine and Ratiopaz it is incredibly fun

As someone that REALLY enjoyed the FuA even before Dr. Ratio. It makes me soo happy to see that it's becoming such a strong team despite being purely for fun!

I find it adorable that Herta's kuru-kuru chibi is in this video, hahaha!

I have a bit of a question. Clara was my first standard banner character, and thus most developed (used quite a bit in the beginning too). I want to put her in a FUA team, but it feels like the majority of FUA team conversation is around Dr Ratio, Topaz and Aventurine, and Clara is almost never mentioned. Do those three just work better together? Does Clara clash with the others? My still-to-be-built Clara team: Clara/Topaz/Tingyun/Lynx. (I don't have Aventurine, and Ratio is still at level 1.)

my list: -Not being able to control when it happens, Jingyuans lightning lord when the enemy is at 1% -Penacony, the tv screen who provides that sweet sweet energy, but you cant if you anger then because of follow up attacks. -the relics.... -Not being able to choose who gets hit, esp when there is a boss that needs the weakness break and it randomly hits a different enemy. -Not bbeing able to choose who gets hit to trigger the other follow-up attack. -now with all the debuffs, the debuff relics is such a good choice for so many characters -When there is a boss like the bug that multiplies, you will be risking more damage, just like the tv screens in penacony, where when you hit them and become angry, your entire team gets hit.

The X on Sampo warms my FUA heart.

I've said it when Topaz first released and I pulled her over Jingliu. I really want to explore FUA. Now my main GG team consists of Ave, Clara (I refuse to pull for Robin) Topaz and Ratio and it carried me through Conundrum 6 where my Dot-Acheron team failed. And seeing how all the IPC units shape up to ve FUAers, we're in for a good time I'd say.

Thank u Vars

I gotta say I love getting Robin as most of my team damage comes from follow up attacks! When Aventurine comes back I can replace Gerpard as my shielder and he can complete my follow up attack team!!

FUA and DOT teams are some of the most fun there is

I love fua aventurine was the first 5 star i got and wanted topaz and ended up getting robin as well and it is carrying me so hard

I pulled Topaz on design and Clara synergy alone. I have yet to regret thigh-this decision.

I need to see how good Break effect will be.

I remember how upset I was when I got Clara for my first 5 star because I wanted to get a support or a healer instead and pull for the limited hypercarries. But I got unlucky with my pulls so I struggled early on, because I used Clara as my "dps" and I needed both March and Natasha to sustain her since she needed to get hit to do damage. As a result, most of my SP was spent trying to keep her alive while dealing barely any damage at all. It was when I got Luocha that I saw the potential in follow up attacks and thought that maybe FUA just didn't have the right characters to enable the playstyle just yet. And sure enough Topaz came out and I pulled for her and the other IPC characters as well.

the mystery dungeon music 🔥

I like Marvel Strike Force how employs Follow-Up Attacks, in which certain characters will engage a follow up attack if they have significant connections lore-wise, for example. Black Widow’s passive can level up to have her gain about a 50% chance of calling for an assist from Hawkeye during normal attacks, if he’s in the party. Cyclops has an attack that will call assists from 2 allies with the X-Men trait to attack different targets.

i think another strength of FuA is that they dont (necessarily) cost skill points. sure using himekos skill reduces toughness faster, and using skills may reduce enemy hp faster so herta can kuru kuru, but both of these affects can occur without the usage of sp. i’d say clara not being sp hungry to deal damage a part of what makes her so good.

Moving outside of ur turn is always op

When everyone was making fun of Topaz and called her mid, i pulled E1S1 cus i loved her a lot, she is still my favourite character, and i used her with Clara, Himeko and Herta a ton (those two then became PF meta too) After getting free Ratio, i pulled his LC and it turned out E1S1 Topaz is the perfect teammate for him Got Aven because i liked his story and his kit When pulling for Robin, i got my first double pull in HSR so i got E1 Robin, pulled her LC too ofc And now i have the team people call biggest "p2w" just because i was pulling for who i liked instead of chasing meta like IL and Jingliu Topaz is amazing and will be with any future FuA character Pull for who you like, it’s way more fun and may turn out to be one if not the best team in the game lol Jing was never good, Blade was always middle of the pack, even Jingliu is kinda falling off lately meanwhile Topaz is getting stronger All the midpaz clowns crawling back to the best girl now lmao, it’s just so funny to me

Good takes overall. But to be fair Aventurine has a few scenarios where he is the better sustain over Fu Xuan, specifically if you have to tank massive AoE nukes. Gepard also works but only if there are enough small hits coming his way to refill his ult between nukes. If you are running a team wide buffer in a follow up centric team Aventurine's damage can get quite sizeable. Lastly Dr. Ratio is affiliated with the Genius Society, not the IPC.

i genuinely want to cry bc i only started playing consistently again at the end of aventurine's banner bc i've been so busy at college i didn't have a lot of stellar jades. and i know he just ran but can he pls come back 😭😭 not only do i love his game play but playing 2.0 & 2.1 i love him as a character too, i need him back pls

You speak so well❤ I love FUAs, and I love you

fine you convinced me to build the follow up team

I feel like us Clara mains are united with the DoT mains in wanting a Nihility character that increases enemy speed in exchange for decreasing their damage (to an amount where you wouldn’t even need proper sustain in these teams) 🤝

I need someone to make a Topaz, March 7th, Aventurine, and Clara squad and tell me how it performs. Theoretically a single attack on Clara would cause Clara and March to attack, causing Numby to attack, and giving Aventurine 4 stacks from the 1 hit. If the enemy hits the entire squad with an AOE that’s the full 7. It should theoretically make it have a ton of damage output with plenty of Numby attacks AND unlimited shields.

I knew I had to invest in Topaz Glad I did =D

When firefly release i want to see Var discuss break DPS and Super break as a whole and is it good or niche or bad

(11:30) I PERSONALLY strongly disagree about "crit being useless on dot units is a con", because you can have an easier time with investing in a dot character without worrying about crit ratios. (Yes, I am still salty about barely getting any crit substats and rolls on my relics.)

I just want followup erudition and hunt characters for multiple waves, multiple enemies and bosses respectively

I love the IPC Follow up attack team so much lmao Im F2P and Ive put 80% of my stellar jades into the team with Ratio S1 Robin Topaz S1 and Aventurine S1 Its such a fun team lmao except for the fact tht I dont have anything for MoC side 2 lmao

11:45 The reason why i personally won't go full follow-up team cuz there's no current way to fully manipulate/control the mechanic

Just wanted to name drop Xueyi who's a lowkey 4* follow up attacker. Sure you need to reduce toughness 8 times (6 if she's E6) and it doesn't do a lot of damage but combined with her element ignore break effect it does clutch weakness break sometimes 😂

“Herta is the only 4-star FUA character…” *Xueyi being forgotten*

As an early Jing Yuan player, Elation was always my go-to (with hunt) as paths to clear SU. Now with Ratio, Topaz and Robin, I hated my life for not having Aventurine...

7:21 funny you say that, that firefly is technically in that category

gambling on Topaz' first banner was well worth it

Top Rat Urine in SU with elation path is the most fun thing ever, the damage potential is ridiculous, and you don't even need wacky capitalist strats to pull it off

If I have all the characters in premium FUA team but I don’t have either Ratio&Topaz lightcone, is that a problem?

I like how they can just go whenever conditions are met lol.

I LOVE FOLLOW UP ATTACKS!!! I LOVE THE IPC!!!

I'm enchanted by how quickly this team annihilates anything. They took a single turn to finish Cocolia on SU 6 with only 2 of the 3 Elation resonances, it was crazy

Your videos butter My biscuits thank you

could have mentioned that cc not only removes their general value but also drastically reduces the uptime they have

"An Erudition FUA DPS would be amazing" *Jade is announced* *is an Erudition path character* *Is IPC so high likelyhood she's FUA just like Ratio, Topaz and Aventurine* well then

I hear the music you're using, you've been secretly addicted to pokerogue haven't you?

Even with multiple targets, full followup attack teams just do such an absurd amount of damage that it doesnt even matter when they 1-2 shot all normal enemies. Not to mention adventurine just always keeping your team alive just by existing

i do the herta and himeko combo for exp domains, let me say infinite follow attacks do realy exist

With getting both robin and topaz I am excited to just spam follow up attacks, still mad I missed out on adventruine. Also why the X on Sampo?