Hu Tao re-run is go! Having missed out on the spooky girl last time I was determined to get her this time and have been saving my primo's. Lost the 50/50, got Diluc and Thoma, then finally got Hu Tao after 130 pulls.  

 

 

I levelled her up to 80 and took her for a spin, and I'll admit her playstyle will take some getting used to. Her base attack is terrible by design - but she gets up to a 400% attack boost when using her Skill if her health is low enough, which also means you ideally need to run a 2 x DPS line-up for the downtime (similar to how you'd switch out Childe when his Skill was on cooldown) and a shielder to make the most of her. 

I'm running a sub-DPS/support Xingqiu for the vaporise, Pappa Z for the shield, and Bennet for the pyro res, damage buff and heals. For artifacts and weapons I'm using a Crimson Witch 4 piece set for the pyro and elemental reaction buffs, and the Dragon's Bane polearm for the extra damage vs pyro affected enemies and the EM boost - which when combined with the Crimson Witch reaction buff plus Xingqiu's water application all works a treat.  

When I manage to pull it off.

I've been taking a break from this since the Chasm update (I never finished exploring the new area or completed that part of the Archon quest), but with the summer event bringing back a re-worked Golden Apple Archipelago and with the new region of Sumeru coming soon I thought I'd jump back in. 

This game is such an easy time sink; from the gorgeous visuals and soundtrack to the fluid and fun combat to the fantastic characters bursting with personality to the wealth of exploration, puzzles, and side quests. Yeah it's a shame about the gacha elements, but if you're not desperate to get every new character that comes along and you work with the characters and premium currency the game gives you just for playing - it really is a crazy amount of content for free. 

I've only played through the first couple of parts of the new GAA story so far, but it seems they went above and beyond for this event, delivering two of the best character-based story missions in the entire game. Plus, Kazuha's back! I always regretted not pulling for him last year, but I saved up my free primos and easily had enough to guarantee him this time around. I'm happy to say he's every bit as good as his rep. With his resistance shredding, enemy grouping, and swirl damage, he makes every team better. I'm running him in all four of my comps atm; an all-Inazuma taser comp with Raiden Shogun, Yae Miko, and Kokomi, a freeze comp with Ayaka, Shenhe, and Kokomi, a melt comp with Hu Tao, Ganyu, and Zhongli (could be my favourite team ever), and my exploration comp with Keqing, Mona, and Zhongli. All are disgustingly potent.  

And as if having the Golden Apple Archipeligo and Chasm to explore and their quests to play through isn't enough - Sumeru's on the way! The devs dropped a new vid this morning, and holy shit it looks stunning. Not that I'm surprised, from the dramatic change and improvement in landscape from Mondstadt to Liyue in the OG game, to the post-launch regions of Dragonspine, Inazuma, Enkanomiya, the Chasm, and now Sumeru - the world design has only gotten better and better with each new region you visit.