by Venti was the first Archon I got when I started playing. Genshin Impact in 2021.
He was around adventure rank 40 back then. It was brilliant, the Spiral Abyss catered to you with mob-infested floors, and it made exploration fun.
To cut a long story short, I enjoyed his style of play.
I was even surprised that I gained early pity and got his (meh) Constellation 1.
I found fighting mobs in the overworld very easy (hehe) with his explosion. With little to no investment, Venti was a beast.
But as the game progressed towards newer versions and I got another 5 stars, I realized that it was getting harder and harder to fight with Venti as a support.
Why Venti, why?
I found myself using it more for its usefulness.
I realized how clumsy he was to use, how his Elemental Skill pressure animation was so detrimental, and how his C1 did absolutely nothing for me except help me turn Timmie’s beloved pigeons into fresh meat.
I also found myself trapped in the Spiral Abyss.
The other floors were a breeze with Venti, but the big fatui enemies suddenly turned into an iron wall preventing me from entering the upper floors.
While Venti’s outburst drew them in, she was unable to stagger or control them. And given that my character roster at the time was anything but stellar, it was a tough challenge to overcome.
And since I’m not a credit card-stealing mega-whale, I tried my best to get Venti the best gear I could get.
All the rare Stringless pulls I got ended up being refined for Venti, and I farmed the Viridescent Venerer mastery for three months.
But my efforts to refine the build of my Venti didn’t seem to do much.
At the end of Genshin Impact version 1, Venti sat in Serenitea Pot at level 80, intact.
It was pretty clear, it had already been powercrept. That became even more obvious when Kaedehara Kazuha was released.
Now we all know what happened when Kazuha first debuted. People kept belittling and hating his kit because he “couldn’t compare to a C6 sucrose” and was just a “Canadian ether”.
All the vitriol made Kazuha seem like a disappointing introduction to Inazuma’s then-anticipated roster of characters.
However, at the end of it all, people took back what he said and started demanding a repeat just days after his banner ended.
I was lucky not to be dissuaded in getting it. I try to take Genshin Impact seriously, so I’ve heard ‘meta’ players give on subreddits, guides, and YouTube videos, all of whom said to skip it and save for Kamisato Ayaka instead.
But seeing Kazuha’s design and learning about his lore made me want to support him.
I was also heartbroken that I didn’t get Xiao during his first run and promised to get all Anemo characters (laughs).
I ended up ignoring the advice I got from my Genshin friends and used my Ayaka Primogems and guaranteed banner character to get Kazuha.
And boy was it the best decision I ever made. (But don’t worry, I still got Ayaka in the end after losing to Qiqi on his banner.)
Kazuha’s early days
After getting Kazuha like 80 pulls, I had no idea how to build it.
The guides were dismissive and incomplete, the Genshin Impact subreddit had people complaining about his demo, and r/KazuhaMains was full of complaints about complaints.
After a full day of surfing the nets, I ended up just taking the Viridescent Venerer artifacts from Venti and giving them to Kazuha once I got him to level 90.
I read somewhere that Iron Sting was going to be your best weapon, for those staying away from the weapon banner, so I crafted it and basically consumed what little brittle resin (and Primogems) I had left to level up everything else. what i needed. .
But in the end, Kazuha was nothing less than a god… or more appropriately, the REAL Anemo Archon.
A bit of a stretch, I know, but casually running around the map and using Kazuha’s ability instantly killed any unlucky Hilichurls that came my way. The satisfying whirlwind sound of her leaping and diving was music to my ears.
Kazuha isn’t as good at CC as Venti, but it wasn’t a huge detriment to me when I started using it on Spiral Abyss.
With Kazuha on my team, I finally got over the hump, quickly taking out the wall I encountered earlier when Venti was my Anemo support.
In the end, and after much refining of my DPS characters, I finished the remaining floors in the Abyss in the same version I got from Kazuha, with him as my only Anemo support.
Let me be clear. This is not to say that Venti is a mediocre character. She is far from mediocre or disappointing. Her CC skills can never be beaten.
but with the address Genshin Impact It’s been working, Kazuha’s kit is only getting better as we progress through the endgame content. This is why:
crowd control
I just said that Venti’s CC burst is second to none, but it actually has quite a few drawbacks.
In addition to not being able to absorb larger enemies like Fatui’s big boys, Mitachurls, Lawachurls, and Shielded Abyss Mages to name a few, he can’t pull other enemies that are far from his void.
Venti’s CC isn’t as constant as you’d like either, as her burst has a 15 second cooldown and an 8 second active time, giving you at least 7 seconds of downtime.
This isn’t much of an issue when you’re fighting standard Hilichurl or Treasure Hoarder mobs, as they pretty much disintegrate afterwards, but sometimes it also depends on when you hit Swirl other items that other CC characters are immune to.
Such is the case when Slimes get sucked into the vortex, you get stuck watching a barrage of immune instead of tons of damage numbers.
Another thing to note is that Venti’s burst height sometimes makes CC-ed enemies untargetable when trying to attack with shorter characters like Hu Tao (poor Walnut).
Kazuha’s CC may not be a force of nature, but the good thing about it is that she can do it much more consistently than Venti, since her CC is through her ability.
Give Kazuha the sacrificial sword and you won’t even have to worry about cooldowns, but it’s pretty overkill since it’s on a short cooldown anyway.
In the long run, although Venti’s CC it is more powerful because it can clear the area, Kazuha’s is possibly more convenient.
Kazuha’s ability can even stagger newer, heavier enemies like Kairagi or Nobushi, something Venti couldn’t with her ability and burst.
Support for
We all know in the late game that damage-boosting support characters are more valuable. This is most apparent when facing bosses that have over a million HP (such as the weekly Raiden Shogun boss).
The biggest difference between Venti and Kazuha in this regard is that Venti caters more to your energy needs with its high-energy particle generation, while Kazuha’s kit is more geared towards increasing elemental damage.
The biggest damage boost you can get from Venti is with elemental mastery, whirlpool reactions, and the 4-piece passive Viridescent Venerer. Additionally, he only deals 50% elemental damage with whatever element his blast has absorbed.
Venti’s bonus elemental damage support ability is locked behind her C6, challenge stormand even then it only decreases the enemies resistance to Anemo and any absorbed elements by 20%.
Compare this lack of support buff to Kazuha’s passive talent, Fuubutsu Poeticswhich grants party members a 0.04% Elemental DMG bonus with each point of their elemental mastery when triggering a whirlpool reaction on their respective element for 8 seconds.
So let’s say your Kazuha has around 600 Elemental Mastery, you’re already getting a 24% damage increase.
Stacking more Elemental Mastery on Kazuha just yields more damage boosts, and it’s pretty easy to get when you give her Elemental Mastery artifacts and weapons.
Of course, this isn’t supposed to be a big deterrent to using Venti. It is by no means intended to be just a buffer.
But his power recharging abilities tend to pale in comparison to what other battery characters can already do, eg: Raiden Shogun or Sucrose.
The 15 energy you get from Venti’s passive after her explosion doesn’t do much when your DPS character needs 80 energy to unleash hers.
So what awaits Venti?
Venti is by no means obsolete, at least in my opinion, it’s still a beast to use on Spiral Abyss floors that need crowd control.
But we can’t deny the fact that the longer the game goes on, the more Venti loses more and more of its usability. Only the 12th floor has almost no enemies that can be easily CC-ed by its explosion.
Personally, I think it’s about time the Venti kit was improved. Not big benefits like Zhongli received after his controversial debut, but small benefits like:
-
Fixing the orientation mechanic of his explosion where you can choose the direction of the vortex
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Pull in larger enemies so they can be more vulnerable to cc
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Reworking his A1 passive, which only gives you a stream of wind that you can use for 20 seconds after using his ability.
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Leaning more towards the utility aspect of his kit by having his A4 passive reduce ability and increase cooldowns by 10%, this is also thematic as Anemo Resonance reduces ability cooldowns by 5 %.
We’ve seen the HoyoVerse give an ability cooldown reduction talent to a 4 star character in Chongyun, surely they can do this for a 5 star character and an Archon.
The logic here is that Kazuha is Anemo’s maximum damage/buffer, while Venti is Anemo’s maximum utility.
This Venti idea won’t make your team deal more damage through buffs like Kazuha does, but it will make your team deal more damage through her utility, making sure your team always has enough energy and your abilities out of time. cooldown to immediately get to your next rotation.
I’m not saying you should stop using Venti and ask Kazuha to use it instead, although I’m not opposed to the idea. I mean, I did that myself.
It’s hard to argue against Kazuha being the strongest character right now, but if you like using Venti then use her to be your path to victory.
I just wish Venti was in a better place meta-wise, in keeping with her title as Anemo Archon.
Genshin Impact it is currently at version 2.7, which will be available until July 12. The upcoming 2.8 version will be released on July 13 and will feature reruns of Kazuha, Klee, and Yoimiya, the debut of Shikanoin Heizou, new skins for Diluc and Fischl, new events, and more.
Yan Ku is a full-time dog parent, a part-time gamer (gacha), and a part-time writer.
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