6.0 Genshin Impact Stygian Onslaught guide

 

A new round of Stygian Onslaught is here, and I've been playing it nonstop. As I plan to do for future coverage moving forward, I've got some tips on how to beat this cycle, but also want to lay out my ongoing impressions of the mode as well.

As optimistic as I have been about this mode trying to avoid bad and greedy designs, this cycle has left me pretty pessimistic instead. There's not much else to say that isn't covered in more detail down in the sections, except to keep in mind that - unless stated otherwise--this guide is geared toward the game's Fearless difficulty mode.

Jump to Section:

• How to beat it
• What's good about this cycle
• What's bad about this cycle
• Closing thoughts

How to beat it

As always with these guides, I will try to shine a spotlight on guides that are particularly useful and try to transcribe some of those thoughts (for those who prefer to read), but then I'll also add my own anecdotal experience with these tips to help provide nuance and further guidance. Zajef has once again made a video guide that is super useful, though their patience and thoroughness is wearing thinner and thinner it seems (there is a reason for this I will muse on in the closing thoughts section!).

• Aeonblight Drake (Video Timestamp)
  • This boss is all about multi-elemental damage, which is distinct from reaction-based teams. Whatever your team is here, you'll want it to have strong damage dealers from at least two elements, as the drake alternates between very powerful elemental resistances based on how much damage it has taken from them.
  • The resistance switches occur after the drake loses a quarter of its health, which is useful to know especially since they don't happen instantly but rather activate after a short animation. This makes it so you can save some large burst damage until just before resistances switch to either get a head start on the next quarter of health or perhaps even try to offset which element the drake develops resistance to.
  • In the Fearless difficulty mode, you do not need to worry about the Drake going airborne and shooting it down with a bow character. There is technically a point in the fight where that can happen, but if it does it is a sign that you are not dealing enough damage to successfully defeat the boss in time.
  • The absolute best characters for this fight are Skirk with high-damage hydro teammates like Yelan and/or Xingqiu, Varesa with high-damage pyro teammates like Mavuika or Xiangling (with Chevreuse there to activate overload buffs), Mavuika in any kind of sub-dps role with a strong, synergistic dps like Neuvillette.
  • Compared to the other fights in this lineup, the Drake has the most flexibility for team options. As a result, if you have really well built carries that can sort of swap between off-field and on-field damage-dealing, they can all work, as can other hybrid-damage style characters like Chasca. So long as your teams aren't too focused on producing big damage numbers from one element, you can find a way through.
• Battle-Scarred Rock Crab (Video Timestamp)
  • The crab is among the most restrictive boss fights to come to Stygian Onslaught, both because it wastes a lot of time, but also because it essentially forces you to play bloom or hyperbloom teams only.
  • The start of the fight has the crab fly up in the air and gain a huge shield that can only be damaged by seeds on the ground, and these seeds can only be "activated" to deal damage if it receives bloom-related damage like hyperbloom or bloom. I would say burgeon here, but for some reason this fight just kills your characters if you use pyro, so don't do that.
  • Given the flying at the start, your team may want to spend as much of the 1-2 seconds before it takes off hitting it with skills so you can generate some energy, as it is a much-needed resource for all fights.
  • As Zajef says at the start of the description for this boss, having Nahida or Lauma makes this fight really easy, which I can attest to. I can clear it pretty comfortably with a Lauma on my account who is hardly even built and I couldn't clear this fight once without her. It is possible to beat this boss without those characters, but it relies on quite a bit of luck to do so.
  • The only silver lining of this boss is that you do not need to have great stats and damage to beat it compared to other fights. This is because the crab-spawned seeds keep appearing throughout the fight and activating them with bloom damage deals amplified bloom damage to the crab.
  • The reason Nahida and Lauma make this fight much easier is because of how big and easy-to-manage their elemental application is. Given the spacing of the seeds the crab spawns, having the ability to activate all of them at once almost instantly saves a ton of time.
  • Other notable characters to bring to this fight are Nilou (for her powerful bloom buff), Xingqiu, and Raiden or Kuki Shinobu. 

• Battle-Hardened Fireblade Shock Trooper (Video Timestamp)
  • One of the more interesting encounter designs in Stygian Onslaught thus far is this shock trooper, who deploys a three-layer shield that rapidly regenerates its own health unless it is hit by lunar-charge or electro-charge damage.
  • If you depend on energy weapons like Favonius Lance or Sacrificial Sword, just note that the shock trooper shield does not allow those abilities to activate, though you have a small window at the start of the fight to get in some hits before the shield goes up.
  • Not breaking the shield in time not only prevents you from dealing any damage to the shock trooper, but also eventually results in the boss emitting a blast that instantly kills the on-field character. - Unless you have an incredibly well-built team, you will probably have to break through this shield phase twice throughout the fight.
  • The design of the fight heavily incentivizes you to play a lunar-charge or electro-charge team, with ideal characters being Ineffa and/or Flins, Fischl, and perhaps even hydro carries like Neuvillette. I also did well using Chasca as my carry, although I also had Ineffa on the team.
  • You can also brute force the shield without electro-charge, but it isn't easy. Electro characters will have an easier time given the boss's lower resistance to that element, but even then there's nothing that works quite as well as electro-charge.
  • The easiest non-electro character for brute forcing the shield is Skirk, and even then it is quite difficult. The good news is that this effort will be rewarded by nature of the fact that this boss is freezeable, meaning it is possible to interrupt the shock trooper enough with that reaction to prevent a second shield phase.

What's good about this cycle

I don't have a lot of positive things to say about this cycle, and I will save my more critical thoughts for the next section. The only thing I will say is that I continue to like the concept of layering mechanics into combat such that your goal is not just to deal as much damage as possible.

Also as an aside I had the most fun here by playing co-op to help my friends through the Menacing difficulty level. Coordinating with someone else around the boss mechanics at this level is a lot of fun while still retaining challenge.

What's bad about this cycle

All the bosses are stronger and two out of three of them just about require you to own specific characters and play specific teams. This is BAD! It's not just that it feels like a greedy push for players to pull the newest characters, it's also just bad design. Genshin Impact's combat is built on the interlocking skillsets of characters and the interactions of their elements, and all of these fights basically ignore these concepts. Even the Drake, which has arguably the most flexibility, seems most easily clearable for most players by just playing two half teams instead of a unified whole.

I had mentioned being worried about the clear requirements tightening as soon as this mode launched, and guess what? Only three cycles here and we are very much in this bad space.

No wonder Zajef has relatively little to say besides things like, "If you [specific character], it's a lot easier."

Closing thoughts

I really hope Hoyoverse is just in a process where they are overcorrecting for the relative loose restrictions from the last cycle of Stygian Onslaught, because if things continue in this direction, it won't be worth writing about or even attempting.