Mono teams got a lot of hype before and after Silver Wolf's release. As long as the boss has one of your two elements, you can reliably force your second element onto them. Basic knowledge, right? This also lets you do some extremely nasty things when she is combined with Pela, and lets you greatly reduce the amount of time you spend farming Stagnant Shadows.
Here is why the SW+Pela combo is hella broken:
- Damage applied at the end of quantum break is increased by DEF debuffs.
- Pela's technique and skill both stack with Silver Wolf's ultimate, bugs, and resistance shred. (at E0 and max traces: 45%+40%+20%+10% DEF, 10% all-type resist shred, 20% less resistance from guaranteed element weaknesses) This lets you burn through a boss quickly as long as you maximize the damage done before Pela's technique expires at the end of their second turn.
- Quantum and ice breaks both delay the boss's recovery from weakness break, further increasing their vulnerability windows.
- Attack-type techniques like Pela's can be used against Stagnant Shadows, and most of them are weak to quantum or ice. Don't forget to exit battle between fights so that you can enter with a technique again.
- This can also be used to speedrun any Simulated Universe stage where the elite sub-bosses are heavily biased toward quantum or ice. (currently all worlds, 3-7) You can download three other characters as you go and reconfigure your team for the final boss, but don't forget to align your blessings toward the final team. Path Resonances benefit from defense debuffs as well, so remember to burn through those before the debuffs expire.
The standard team template looks like this:
- SW and Pela are the core of the team.
- A Hunt DPS. Seele and QQ are best because of how DEF debuffing interacts with quantum break. Yanqing can work if you don't have either, but you'll want to land the break with SW if possible.
- A defensive support. Gepard is ideal, March is workable but skill point hungry as usual. Fu Xuan and Lynx should also work a few patches from now, but I haven't looked at their leaked kits in any great detail.
The combat flow is pretty basic stuff:
- Your goal is to maximize damage done to the break bar. If the enemy is not weak to ice, do not use Pela's ultimate until after SW's skill. It won't do damage to the break bar otherwise.
- Wait until the boss makes their first action before using your debuffing ultimates in order to extend their duration. Ideally the boss will be vaporized before this becomes relevant, but it's a good habit to develop. You don't need to wait until the second half of the boss's turn is completed to abuse this. This is particularly helpful when debuffing the Guardian Shadow, because it lets you extend the debuff durations without getting nailed by the counters that are active after her second action.
- SW's ultimate does more damage to the boss than Pela's, so you usually want to drop it after Pela's. (especially when running SW with a sub-DPS build)
- If your skill points allow it, it's helpful to use Pela's skill once in order to increase the energy she has at the end of battle. If that means Pela eats a counter from Guardian Shadow, so be it.
- Try to avoid breaking the boss immediately before their first turn. (only a risk if they're very slow) You want their weakness break phase to be extended as deep into your character turns as possible. This maximizes the time the boss spends with a broken gauge which in turn increases your overall damage. It also reduces the likelihood that the debuff from Pela's technique will fall off before the boss is down.
- Obliterate the boss, delete the minions, repeat. If you're abusing the quantum break interaction, try not to overkill the boss. Switch off to the minions once you have a good feel for the ridiculous damage that a 5-tap quantum break deals under a mountain of defense debuffs.
- Don't rush to kill the minions if you need to squeeze in some extra energy gain. Use normals on characters who don't need energy, and save skill points for characters who need to fill theirs. (usually Pela and your Hunt character)
When farming a Stagnant Shadow, you'll want to chow down on Cheetos (Trick Snacks) and Mountain Dew (All Good Potion) between battles in order to maintain your gamer gremlin energy. The ingredients for these are extremely easy to farm with Assignments and you should not be shy about burning through them. The time that you spend in menu is much less time than you would otherwise spend fighting the boss since it lets you spam Pela's technique and ultimate at the beginning of every fight.
And there you have it, trivialized shadow farming. Too bad Pela's technique can't be used in Caverns of Corrosion...
