"Who's your main DPS?" Sucrose taser: Yes.

I believe the "main dps" term was adopted at launch mainly because we didn't have enough resources to spread evenly (events actually needed resin to gain rewards), farming scales with AR level and some characters could carry your team while invested with the bare minimum amount of support. It kinda made sense in context, but is very outdated indeed.

I’m glad Zajeff brought up the difference in investment into 1 vs 4 characters, at earlier ARs it’s definitely a dilemma one can have

i love how zajef is explaining genshin info, which the chat is on a completely different wavelength OMEGACUMJESTIC

my biggest mistake is not discovering your channel earlier

20:55 " 3 units that's doing damage and 1 unit that buffs them" This is such a nice wisdom, thank you zajeff

the editor does such a good job as making the video visually engaging. props to them!

I feel like the concept of Main DPS in genshin has to do with the days of 1.0-1.4 where most players were hard capped by resources, such that hypercarry comps were more efficient. Even thougb Xingqiu does a ton of damage himself, it was better investmentwise to have a fully invested Diluc with a minorly invested Xingqiu than two equally invested Diluc/Xingqiu. Most people were doing abyss with a team of mostly level 60 characters. Now, most people already have well invested characters and they can make quick swap teams. I do think that quick swap is sort of how genshin is "meant" to be played

It takes a mindset shift of separating the character from the unit to lift the curtain on Genshin combat. Once you look past personality, story and aesthetics, you begin to see units as basically packages of motion values, element types, area of effect, and cooldown timers. Combat in Genshin is fundamentally you selecting these bundles, and combining and deploying them altogether like some kinda rhythm game. If a perfect AI played Genshin we'd probably see a wild team with no set rotation and just adaptive weaving of Es NAs and Qs, to fit in as much grouping, energy gen and DPS as possible depending on the real time situation. All units, all inputs, all actively contributing to damage, all the time.

I love you Zajeff

Excellent video, my first interraction with this concept was when Kazuha started "supporting" my team by killing everything faster, than my "main dps" 🤡

i was literally contemplating making something like this myself. thank you so much for your service, Mr Zajef.

Maybe the Main DPS were the friends we made along the way?

Your point in bringing Mihoyo's business decision making in character balancing is great. I wanted to add some thoughts too. I see mihoyo nerfing several times a bunch of overworld enemies at world level 1 to 6 and story battle are easy AF. For a while I've been perplexed as to why Mihoyo doesn't make actual hard enemies that have like party wipe mechanics or hit shield or lifesteal or damage reflection but instead increasing the invulnerability time because my 4* teams can already wipe everything out I don't even have content to use my built characters. My first thought was that Mihoyo just wants to sell bigger numbers. But since I love watching new players join genshin, I noticed the game is already hard enough. They have the statistics, and noticed this game is hard for new players. But not hard in the sense that it needs high apm or inhuman reflex times, it is hard to learn about the game mechanics and how to counter them. And to tell the truth, without watching any of theory crafting videos, I would not and I don't have the time to test out a bunch of the stuff you guys perceive already as common knowledge. I've seen plenty of casual players who joined genshin because of the story/music/art just anything BUT combat, all they do is advance in the main story quest, gain a bunch of adventure exp because of that, refuses to spend resin because this is the 1st gatcha game they play and they don't have this idea that spending the time-currency in any gatcha game is important, then gatcha (yes they spend, mihoyo need to keep them playing) on the newest characters that they can't farm the materials for, level up the world level because of the notification and rage quit/cry/gets very frustrated/gets stuck in the middle of the quest because they didn't notice the ruin hunter flies up when you use Kazuha's E and you just needed an archer to shoot it down (some of you might know who I'm talking about in this particular example lol). Not only that, because they are content creators, they want to feel that their way of playing must be special so that it can actually attract views, their ego speaks louder and so they refuse actually use specific characters they have to counter certain mechanic. (like just using amber to shoot down the ruin hunter or using kaeya to take down hydro abyss mage's shield, simple stuff like these). I also created a 2nd account (one of my rerolled account and doing a challenge of saving up primo for 1 C6R1 5* character) out of nostalgia for the early game and noticed a few interesting things. You get to AR 50 (World level 7, mostly unnerfed stuff) really really fast. All quests you can do really speeds up the adventure rank. So this leaves with so little time to actually farm elites for berserk set or instructor set. (I still remember those early days when I would get around 20 4* artifacts on a map wide elite hunt with friends, some of those 4* ones have the correct elemental dmg bonus with great substats too) And also farm the weekly bosses for 5* artifacts. And you are thrown into AR50 domain with 3 star artifacts and level 40 new region characters... and at best level 70 or 80 weapons... also without a healer. Man... not only you had to dodge all incoming attacks because 2 hits will kill you, the fight takes so long that it challenges your decision making so much with simple mechanics as hydro abyss mage shield restoring after certain time passes and while (pyro electro) hili archers overloads you around. Take note that this is a challenge I imposed on myself and I'm doing fine 9* until floor 12 but most casual players have it worse. Not in the sense they don't have characters to synergize with. It is that they refuse to use characters that have synergy and can counter enemies. They don't know the simple mechanics, their party is 4 fav characters with no synergy at all (this is why they love qiqi and zhongli so much, because once they swap 1 of those 4 out for a unbreakable shield or infinite healing they feel like they won the game). They are not used to the attack pattern and can't dodge shit. And they refuse or are straight up unable to build their new region characters. So as much as it pains me, a day 1 genshin player, to see the game mechanics so simple and easy. I've seen how these simple mechanics combined with casual playstyle can totally ruin casual player's experience. I've seen more than enough casual players who refuses to think about artifact out of SPITE of their chat/comment section keep arguing back and forth on the BIS when it is ok to just use anything in overworld/story stuff. People keep bashing their heads as to why Mihoyo keeps building ALL their story trial characters with the exact same 5 nobless pieces (same main stat and sub stats) saying "MihOyo dOSen'T kNoW hOW tO bUiLd tHeIr cHaRacTErS" and fail to realize that that is all any character needs in order to enjoy Genshin Impact's story, visuals, music, ambience. It is so obvious that Mihoyo knows about their own game's mechanics but this is off-topic. Genshin is such a polished game, not only in the Visuals, also in character movement, music, story, and specially things that are not combat that it attracts a lot of casual players who ignore all in-game tutorials and have misleading pre-concepts of gatcha games that leads to pulling uncontrollably. So in order to cater to these new players casual tendencies (which are the majority), it only make COMPLETE business sense that they don't dare to increase game mechanics and instead lower the difficulty for new players and in order to sell higher numbers, most of the 5* characters are designed in a way that attracts the pre-conceited notion of other games that you NEED a main dps followed by their support. Two last thing is that Hoyoverse is playing the LONG game... just like any of their other titles. One thing any long lasting gatcha game must have in consideration is the CREEP. Power creep, feature creep, visual creep, mechanic creep... every and any thing creep. Because the game can't and shouldn't be stagnant, so there must be creep, but it can't have too much creep. And since Genshin is such a ambitious project that expands over 7 years, they can't implement more than 1 new mechanic to every new boss, so their default mechanic is the stall mechanic (which is annoying af but understandable in the context Genshin has to also cater to casuals and avoid mechanic creep of dozens of bosses to come). One proposal to this lack of game combat system mechanic-side depth that I've heard a few times and I do agree myself is the one Honkai does, the breakthrough mechanic. Because clearly world level mechanic isn't enough to satisfy both casuals (too hard for them) and hardcore (too easy for us) at the same time.

I really appreciate this video because "needing" a main DPS is one of the biggest myths amongst casuals in this game and it leads to reckless pulling. The only thing I would like to see explained in a quick and concise video are the reasons extending your rotation lowers your damage. I see a lot of people talk about characters like Itto having downtime, or "just" doing an extra skill on Kazuha to get his burst back, and a video that addresses all of that would be nice. I know some of the reasons but releasing a video on it could help grow the understanding of how rotations work in the community.

I've been saying for a long time now to my friends and random people online. These outdated terms just doesn't do a good job at explaining what a unit does in-depth.

Now we need the same sort of role breakdown for overworld convenience xD Zhongli for example fills the roles of tall boi for faster movement, having his stele to help clear gaps or height, and being able to rapidly clear stone/mining ores, and for overworld battles his shield helps keep your health up Bow users are helpful with environmental puzzles and enemies on towers, not having one is a regular 'ugh, I should have brought one' nuisance Some regions benefit from having specific elements in your teams more. No dendro or electro in Sumeru is a pain, pyro puzzles are plentiful, but you'll rarely require cryo for overworld puzzles. Catalyst users and archers come with the bonus of not having a cooldown (Thoma for example is pointless to bring in for any puzzles where you need to apply pyro four times quickly) You may want a healer, personally I find Barbara and Qiqi very valuable for overworld as their healing is not Q reliant and works while traveling so you can constantly stay topped up Having an overworld team short at least one of these conveniences is a pain in the butt - playing XQ/Barbara, dendro MC/Collei, Yae/Raiden and Diona/Bennet combinations for example can be pretty fun and it covers your bases for dendro/electro, a bow if you use Collei or Diona, a more to less efficient healer depending on how much damage you're taking... Leave Bennet and you have no pyro though, leave Diona and you have no shields at all, and if you run into ores, have fun bc none of these can use a claymore or can burst rocks down. Yanfei's charge attack for mining is a thing but if that's all you have... Overworld team needs and conveniences are very different from 'kill things as fast as possible', finding the perfect blend of being effective in combat and not running into problems every five minutes is trickier than it seems there.

I've been using pretty much the same categories as *Zajef* for quite some time, but doing a "political compass" (lewl) for their on/off-field alignment was simply *_chef's kiss._* Really good and necessary video!

Such an excellent video. Since I found your channel it made me *actually* understand the mechanics of this game. Please never stop creating content

Great video. I think the key thing to ask when building a team is "Who will take up the majority of the field time?" That's the thing to consider. Usually that character and the "main DPS" are one and the same for many teams.

Love the videos! Keep up the great work!

It took me some time to accept the concepts discussed here. I put off building a taser team for the longest time. I always thought I needed a “hyper carry” that’s always on field. Then I realized the units that qualify for that are mostly 5 stars(w/c is not very good for a F2P). So I needed a change of mindset.

This mindset is honestly important in the abyss. teams where everyone contributes in damage instead of just a hyper carry itto or some sort, will often times do better in terms of faster clears. Unless ofc ur a c6 eula or a super invested dps that makes up for the damage on their own and does a pretty good aoe dmage

very good video!! it's nice to watch someone unpack a topic like this that has led to me enjoying combat in this game far more and has really opened my eyes in endgame. your videos have been so incredibly enlightening for me. i got linked to your discussion about ICD in your ayato pre-release video from a random genshin video and your videos started getting recommended to me after that. i'm so glad i started watching! you explain concepts in this game so well and it's been so much fun to learn in-depth about mechanics from you. you stream very early for me so they're often difficult for me to catch, but the atmosphere there is also really nice (it's so relieving to see someone so openly LGBT positive). thank you for creating, mr. zajef! can't believe your content is still somehow this underrated. i hope you have a good day and are taking care of yourself! :)

Thanks so much Mr Zajef, as a newer player who's only been around for about 7 months I've been feeling pressured and guilty about not pulling for "main dps" first before other characters that I prefer because that's what's recommended in most genshin circles. Most of the characters I like are mainly seen as "supports" that should be skipped in favour of "main dps". I feel more free from the pressure to pull for them now vs later on a rerun :D

Does anyone know what happened to part 4 of the elemental reaction guide?

ive talking about this since the start of childe international discoveries and nobody take me seriously. honestly i think KQM need to step up and make a fixed official guide for character role and various terms, so everyone can follow it.

ive always preferred to use on-field/off-field terms instead of main/sub dps. glad to know someone with a big audience like you to also feel the same way i do. nice vid btw!

Amazing video, essentially each team comp as a whole is a character with abilities, and each units are just those abilities/spells and swapping between character is like a global cooldown..... I played too much Mmo.

I discovered this early. Genshin can get really boring if you play only one character and I now have a wide cast and therefore a wide range of teams for me to find fun. They don't have optimized damage, but its enough to keep me busy and entertained, and I like feeling like I'm being challenged still.

Finally a content creator who addresses this topic... While the rest just say that you should pull for Ayaka because she is the best Main DPS...

omg shoutout to yanfei i love to see my best girl being acknowledged also love that you mentioned how important it is to make sure you have lots of characters geared up besides your main DPS. i can attest to that because i try and build almost every character in the game for the sake of having options and avoid boredom. ascending to lvl 80/80+ and leveling up talents is actually quite easy. more often than not i find myself not even needing to farm talent books because sub dps and support units don't need that many of them since just one or two talents need leveling - and the exploration, events and parametric transformer give quite a few of them over time. as for artifacts, as much as we all love getting perfect substats and rolls, those aren't needed to 36* abyss. I have a bunch of really bad artis on my units and they are still perfectly able to get a perfect 36*. and farming a domain for like a week or two is enough to get mid artifacts that will carry you through just fine. i definitely think that having a larger roster of characters that are available to be used any time is more valuable (and fun!) than having one or two min-maxed main DPS

I learned a lot from your videos, thank you so much for making them

Just watched the vod of this yesterday. Time to watch the edited version, cuz why not? 😜

this would help curb down the perception of " tartaglia is a bad main dps" the whole point is to do good on field damage ( and this why you have to invest in your ult as it get get a HEAVY vaporize) along with enabling xiangling to hit pyronado in an aoe capacity .

Great video, should've been made a while ago but with dendro variety Its nice to see

This was a nice topic for discussion. A lot of newer players would benefit from the knowledge imparted. 😉👍🏽

Thank you for proposing an alternative system for me to use! Time to invest in my Qiqi battery!

Pog new video just before I go to sleep

Apart from dispelling a misconception about some terms, I really do like how the underlying message is that these specific misconceptions have actual implications on our pulls, and that we would be more careful if we're aware of things like this :) Great video as always mr strimmer

Thank u Mr. Editor for using Overwatch heroes around 00:50. I just know he's hyped for OW2

I'm 59 ar, I thought I couldn't learn anything drastically new, but this vid freaking opened my eyes... I love ur channel so much, the way that you express your thoughts is a chef's kiss :)

Excellent video, that being said I can't wait to pull for Cyno kekw

Could you do a video on at which point to stop artifact farming for a single character and move on to the next one? This will be extremely helpful

Good video. I also separate on-field damage dealer to their field time duration. Like less than 12sec are short duration, greater than 12 long duration and can qualify as a driver.

Every character/gear has on-field kit, and off-field kit. Like dmg, heal, buff, shield. We just need correct classification for everyone.

Amazing vid as always balls For those wondering, this vid was the result of a chatter on twitch asking if they should pull X character now or save for Y character since they don't have a "main DPS".

21:46 Bennet: Does all except crowd control (you can still, however, use charge atks to push enemies in a certian direction. Not optimal, but it works).

Totally agree, I find pretty hard to explain some things to new players because of those terms. I'll be using these new ones instead. Great video!! 👍

It’s so interesting that I’m not alone in my personal dislike of the Main/Sub DPS distinction. My realisation came when I was playing the International team and just realised how Xiangling was doing equal if not more damage than Childe, who was onfield for most of the rotation. I also started using the term “On-Field” and “Off-field” a lot more when I started getting into TC. I hope your video will help clear some of these misconceptions in the community

Thanks for putting the unit analysis sheet in the description

YES, THANK YOU! FINALLY! THANK YOU FOR MAKING A VIDEO ABOUT THIS!

Great video :3

i personally prefer to play quickswap teams than a team where one carry stays on field for an extended period of time. makes me feel like i'm actually being dynamic and doing something. then again, i can understand when people prefer a unit that stays on field for much longer time.

I get so happy when I see a Zajef upload

I can't believe I copied out the entire URL and now you just link the sheet in the description lol

Excelent video Zajef Quit the game months ago but I'm happy to see that you are, as always, delivering interesting information

great video, I've always built multiple units instead of one as it felt so shit to have all Ur dmg relying on them and it's very obvious when you're not reaching the dps mark in abyss

20:15 taser team also does a lot of stagger

Nice discussion!

unit analysis link where ? i dont see it in the description

The balancing in Genshin is actually kind of brilliant. The 4 star characters are great if you master the game mechanics, but 5 star characters let you ignore things that frustrate you. So there's always the option to just git gud, but a lot of people would rather spend a little bit of money instead. Zhongli, Raiden, Hu Tao, etc. all solve a specific problem, and you get exactly what you pay for.

Only 2 functions are in my mind for genshin impact, dps (on-field or off-field) which also encompasses grouping, energy, buffs, debuffs, and elemental application where more means more dps. If the team dps increase a pure buffer offer is not comparable to a off field dps, it is better to run the latter. As well as survival which feels less bias of a term than defensive, this includes heals which is a bit worse than shields and dmg reduction as well as CC like freeze and petrify, staggers which also includes pulling and pushing. Lastly, Shortest amount of vulnerability like quick elemental skill cast, Burst I frames where 5 stars are longer but can also be a dps loss like zhongli, tall or short on field so their sprints can cover more distance. I consider how much survival is required by their fraction of a whole like prototype amber is 1/2, same for freeze, albedo crystallize shields, xingqiu or beidou dmg reduction. This valuation is quite bad as it is tailored to my level of skill in dodging but it works. Staggering for survival can be like venti for small mobs or klee against big but stagger-able enemies which requires quite a lot of skill. Edit: stagger immunity is also a dps increase so less dodging.

11:01 I love how you can tell there is a time skip because day changes to night

that's actually really funny, I use the term Damage Dealer everytime. But I guess "On Fielder" is the Best term to use when someone is.. well.. on the field lol

I just watched this video and the youtube short and got flexed on by the same artifact twice... why am i even here

Could you please analyze aggravate venti? Personally since he's built with em I think it will be really good

can u make a video on venti and his utility as in 3.1... is he still worth pulling

5:16 right, the only quick swap team I remember hearing when the game is new is venti Jean quick swap

BatChest I HECKIN LOVE ZAJEF UPLOADS

This remembers me the first time I got 36*, I wasn't able to do 3 stars in 12-3 because in that time, was the 2 abyss pyro lectors, I realize I didn't needed use Ayato in that team, I need to use Barbara because the aura of the lectors hurts you so much that you need real time healing, and Barbara's auto can heal and do hydro aplication to deal with their pyro shields, that team was a taser with her, Fischl, Sucrose and Xingqiu, once I resolved that, the the second half was easy because was 2 abyss herald and Ayaka just freeze them. Really this game just tricks you on want a main DPS, I was thinking I needed a main hydro DPS, to this day, Ayato is the less I use of my hydro units, because in reality I never needed an hydro on field DPS.

In my current team ayaka roseria kokomi kazuha using what the main DPS? C0 and i didn't have 5 Star weapon.

Really like your breakdown and I appreciate having a fairly deep understanding of the combat mechanics of the game. That said I think if daddy Zajef saw my teams and account he'd probably throw my PC out the window.

Overworld/SubAR 45 content pushes the term of main DPS to most players. This is one reason why you see alot asking for a main-dps advice because they got used to the gameplay of using "main dps". Main DPS is also tied with waifu-husbando favoritism and this is why you see shit like Physical Zhongli, Physical fischl, On-field mona dps and stuff.

It's not a zajef video if there isn't a 48.9 CV on-set goblet flex

Hats up to your editor, zajef. 😂

I love you Zajef

Is there an advantage to applying element to yourself? Most of my characters in my current team apply elements to myself too. Is it just a bad thing?

The video doesn't hit the same when you don't give me that little smile and say "hi" at the beginning after saying the hello to the beautiful people part =(

Amazing thumbnail!!

I like the term 'driver' in cases where your on-field character may not themselves be doing all the damage, but is still functioning to proc all the buffs, off-field attacks, and elemental reactions.

you literally never miss bruh

I don’t see your unit analysis sheet in the description

hyv didn't foresaw zajef's coming to the scene MEGALUL

Imo there are 4 types of main dps though I also most of the time call em on field auto attacker, 1 which is enabeler and kind of off to the side (think sucrose taser or tartaglia international), and then 3 on field main dps's split between quick-swap for those that get a few hits in and leave (keqing aggrevate), standard (think hu toa rev-vape) and hypercarry (think xiao) even if they are not doing the mayority of the damage.... basically I just made a split in my mind between the terms main dps and main damage dealer (which the later would include xiangling for example)

7:11 🤣🤣🤣 This was nice.

THANKS for this! I have been running around and telling people that using the "Main DPS"-terminology is just unfitting for Genshin and imprecise. I have been referring to a total of 7 combat roles for Genshin (On-Field, Off-Field, Burst, Enabler, Battery, Support, Healer) and using that and it feels much more in line with what you're telling in your video. Hope this video reaches more people to finally clear those things up.

I love you zajef

I love this topic, my friends would always go "raiden main DPS?" when I recommend them raiden national xD. Its hard to explain to new/ mid players since the term "main DPS" is very easy to co related with other games, and since artifact grind is a pain in the ass people want to only hyper invest into 1 character.

I basically use Ganyu for freeze comps, I don’t think I’ve ever fired an arrow in the abyss, I can do more DPS with Ayato instead of waiting for charge shots.

Tbh, mr jojef77 is the only strimmer that I know that brought this up and I am so Gladge. also qiqi battery KEKL

waking up to a new zajef banger PogU

Good guy Jojef

Now this makes more sense than most of the videos I watch on YT.

At the very start I had almost nothing, but even without Bennett, my Sucrose, Xiangling, Fischl and Jean carried me... I remember first building something close to a hyper-carry in the form of melt-Bennett (With cheap Chong, Xinqiu and Sucrose), and while the single-target was impressive, I couldn't help but notice Xiangling doing way better overal once I had proper ER, without the circle-impact limitation. Then I got Diluc when he was still hyped like crazy, I felt like I must've been missing something. I remember wanting a ''main-dps'' so badly, I had no idea how strong off-field dps and split dps was, split-dps sources can be expensive, but Xiangling is even strong enough to hyper-invest.

what an insane video, I wish so many more players would know of this channel

i totally like the idea my guy. whole change of mindset after playing a year now

So now it's the ODD

This reminds me back to 2.6 My Venti-Kaeya-Xingqui-Diona quick swap against the 3 abyss Heralds.... 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🙌🏼 I played for my life with this quick swap team. 😂

Hey Zajef quick question, does aggravate and spread have a standard ICD when quicken is active on the opponent or is it basically a permanent, no ICD damage buff to electro/dendro characters while the quicken effect is on the enemy?