Inazuma-Induced Idleness

Be prepared to see these guys...a LOT!
Yes, it's hard to get good pictures of enemies when they attack you and interrupt your freakin' photoshoots.

The Inazuma region

A land of big fat content

That's hard to speedrun.

Inazuma, the Electro region based on Japan, has finally made its way at last to Genshin Impact after months of waiting and sheer uncertainty. Among other things, it means a new story, new characters, a new element for the Traveler, and...tons and tons of grinding.

Not gonna lie, I got so addicted to the sheer amount of new content in Inazuma compared to other versions that I spent significantly longer all-nighters, sometimes stretching to 5:30 AM. The most time-consuming things early on were completing the Archon Quests plus Ayaka's and Yoimiya's required Story Quests, not to mention the reading comprehension exercises (i.e. dialogue) and the fact I want to enjoy the characters' voices.

After those, I exhausted myself to unlock Reputation Level 2 so I could do my bounties before the end of Inazuma's launch week--I made it probably one hour before the weekly reset.

Later, my time was consumed by World Quests, most notoriously the Sacred Sakura Cleansing Ritual which is filled to the absolute brim with unvoiced dialogue (I become lazy to read when I'm tired). I've already finished the majority of them and gotten all the 5 craftable Inazuma weapon blueprints.

miHoYo isn't kidding with the sheer amount of content they put in this update; they know a lot of players complain about "not enough content", especially with Dragonspine and the time-limited Golden Apple Archipelago.

Enemies

Important advice: If you only want to speedrun Daily Commissions, choose Mondstadt. The enemies here are significantly easier than in Liyue and Inazuma, except for the occasional "For The Harbingers!" commission in Dragonspine.

The enemies in Inazuma are a huge difficulty spike compared to the Golden Apple Archipelago which was featured in 1.6, immediately before 2.0.

Most enemies in the open world are Nobushi (bandit ronin). Despite some of them being lowly mooks (the Kairagi are mitachurl-sized Nobushi), none of them can be sucked up by Venti's Elemental Burst, forcing me to fight them the hard way (in other words, Kaeya + Tartaglia permafreeze). The lowly mook Nobushi have more HP than a big-bodied Treasure Hoarder and the Kairagi have only slightly less HP than a Fatui Cicin Mage.

The funny thing is, the Kairagi carry Electro- or Pyro-infused katana...and they can't be Swirled by Anemo characters, unlike a Blazing Axe Mitachurl's Pyro axe. You guys must really hate when Venti makes things too easy.

As sexy as the Fatui Mirror Maiden is, it's completely neutralized by how freakin' tanky she is. I rely heavily on my Darting Blow permafreeze team (Venti, Sucrose, Kaeya, Tartaglia) to speedrun content with minimal DMG taken...and the Mirror Maiden has 50% Hydro RES.

I insist on using my Darting Blow team because the Mirror Maiden is, in Filipino, malikot (erratic-moving). Literally all members of that team can stop enemies from moving in some way. While Geo is helpful in avoiding DMG, Noelle is held back by a long cooldown and has anti-synergy with permafreeze teams.

Not to mention, Inazuma has been memed on for having difficult enemies that guard...Common Chests. In Mondstadt, Liyue, Dragonspine, and the Golden Apple Archipelago, similarly difficult encounters would yield Exquisite, Precious, or even Luxurious Chests.

All this is available upon reaching Adventure Rank 30. I can't remember how much I knew about Genshin Impact back in this AR except for not using Geo and preferring Swirl over the superior Melt and Vaporize, but I imagine F2Ps who are new to the game will struggle a TON here, especially given how I thought Inazuma would reel in a lot of weebs.

Materials

Ayaka was the first character to come out along with the 2.0 update and she uses a new ascension material, Sakura Bloom. The problem is, these are fairly rare, found one by one, and spread around various places in Narukami Island, so I've been getting more and more join requests from other players.

Another major time-consuming activity for me early on was farming Naku Weed. They share some of the difficulties of getting Sakura Bloom, except they're often found in VERY dangerous places in Inazuma, including but not limited to near freeze-proof rivers of electrified water, in Balethunder (Sheer Cold-like) areas, and near squads of Fatui members.

There's a hidden Naku Weed donation house after completing a World Quest which grants an Exquisite Chest every day for 3 days, each giving 5 Primogems. The problem is, it needs 12 Naku Weeds per day while I've pretty much wasted a lot of them on another World Quest plus the quest needed to unlock this donation feature.

But, for me, it was worth it to catch 'em all even faster in the long run.

Domain Farming

Note that I haven't tried the new artifact domain.

Along with the Ley Lines, these new domains are freakin' HARD, but mainly because of a Self-Imposed Challenge. To avoid having to think of characters I don't like, I use them first in anything that increases Companionship EXP like Daily Commissions, Random Events, and of course, domain farming.

The Crackling Axe Mitachurls rush you like crazy with their quick spin attacks and jump attacks. The Kairagi are...well, super tanky.

What Does This Mean For The Rest of My Life?

I'll be honest: Genshin Impact is in my Top 10 favorite video games of all time, so it's gonna be very hard for me to quit it. (It's REALLY hard to reach my Top 10, so in CDawgVA's words, I'd say miHoYo absolutely killed it.)

Right now, I'm back to the usual routine of "do Daily Commissions, spend Resin, kill Weekly Bosses, and do Reputation Quests" with the occasional mining if I have extra time.

Note that I have another Genshin Impact thing keeping me busy, so keep an eye out for my next post.

I'll spend the rest of this week recovering my sleeping habits. I hope to sleep by 1 AM at worst so I don't boot up Genshin Impact the next morning with more than 120 Original Resin.

Ideally, I should spend all my Resin, take a bath, and brush my teeth before 12:30 AM.

In case of unexpected real-life events preventing me from spending all my Resin the usual way, there are always Condensed Resin and Magical Crystal Chunks.

Heck, in addition to the small Mora cost, the reason I usually don't make Condensed Resin is to prepare for such events.

These include appointments, schoolwork, and vacations.

Still, I used to be indifferent about new regions so I kept my hopes low for Inazuma, but now, I'm nervous about Sumeru. Not because of the puzzles like the memes say (but the Inazuma ones still hurt my tired brain), but because Sumeru might make Inazuma look like Mondstadt in terms of quest length and enemy difficulty.

Heck, perhaps one reason the Inazuma quests were too long for me is, in my head, I was practicing pronouncing every Japanese name and word. (My pitch accent is trash.)

I hope to get a more powerful PC than this because I currently can't record Genshin Impact--I can't leave my future viewers in the dark.

TL;DR summary: Screw Inazuma's tanky enemies and super-long quests. Good thing I finished them all so I can bring my life back to normal slowly, but I'm now nervous about the next Genshin Impact regions.