(5.1) Nahida Rerun
Version 5.1 Phase 2
5-star: Nahida
4-stars: Kuki Shinobu, Xingqiu, Sethos
TLDR - This is a pretty good banner and that’s not just because none of the featured characters are duds but also because this banner is actually a competent team in it’s own right. Sure, hyperbloom wouldn’t be Sethos’s first choice but you could use these 4 as some kind of quickbloom team which will work even if it’s not exactly ideal. This ready-made-team aspect of this banner should be appealing to newer players. You get arguably the strongest, most useful and most flexible dendro character around in Nahida alongside the joint-best off-field hydro DPS in Xingqiu plus the only 4-star hyperbloom trigger in Kuki. All of these characters are very valuble to most accounts so you are almost certain to get something useful if you invest a decent number of wishes into this banner though as per, you should be pulling mainly for the 5-star with the 4-stars being a cherry on top. This banner’s cherry is very nice indeed even if you just end up with a bunch of Sethos cons since that’s probably the worst outcome.
In the grander scale of things, if you’ve been waiting for a Nahida rerun then it’s unlikely Hoyo could have given you a better banner so I don’t have any issue recommending this. The Hu Tao banner on the otherside could also be appealing but a bit less so due to Hu Tao being a bit less flexible. If you are split between both for some reason, I’d recommend this one over the Hu Tao banner but neither is a bad choice. Looking forward, 5.2is bringing a new anemo on-fielder in Chasca who is looking interesting more than anything. It’s difficult to gauge her strength at this point which is not common. There’s also the issue of the pyro archon coming is 5.3 most likely. I can’ blame anyone if they just want to save their primos for that instead since all the archons had significant effects on the meta when they released. This was true for Nahida 2 years ago as well.
Nahida - Dendro catalyst character
Role: Off-field DPS
Teams: Quicken, aggravate, spread, bloom, hyperbloom and burgeon
Cons: C1 makes the buffs her burst gives more consistent and makes it much more valuble overall, the C2 is a signifcant damage increase
Artifact set: 4pc Deepwood Memories, 4pc Gilded Dreams or 4pc Golden Troupe
Weapons: A Thousand Floating Dreams (best), Kagura’s Verity (5-star option), Sacrifical Fragments (4-star option), Widsith (4-star option), Mappa Mare (craftable), Magic Guide (3-star option)
Pull value (good, ok, bad) - Good
Ahh, our little dendro radish is back once again and it’s her birthday to boot. Anyway, I’ll cut to the chase. Nahida is easily the strongest dendro off-fielder and I can say that without any reservations. You can make an argument that Emilie’s personal damage is a bit higher in Emilie’s best teams but that would then ignore all the other benefits Nahida brings. The main one of those being her fantastic dendro application. She just needs to mark all enemies with her skill then dendro will be consistently applied to all enemies again upon triggering a dendro reaction. It’s also worth noting the sizable elemental mastery buff she gives her whole team as well. Turns out great elemental application, a big team-wide buff and decent damage makes for a pretty damn good off-fielder. I will mention that Nahida does have one weakness and that’s her performance in multi-wave content in the abyss. She does need to come back on field to reapply her skill whenever a new wave spawns which can interrupt rotations on some teams and be a bit annoying but it’s not that big of a deal plus all the other dendro off-fielders have bigger issues to worry about.
It might be easier to talk about the dendro teams where Nahida isn’t the best choice first. In burning teams with Kinich, Emilie is preferable since those teams don’t care about the EM and don’t care about elemental application, only damage. Aggravate teams end to only need a little bit of dendro to get a quicken reaction started so might often opt for a more defensive option like Kirara, Yaoyao or Baizhu though Nahida will do more damage than all of these options. Every other dendro team however (Nilou bloom, hyperbloom, quicken, quickbloom, spread, burgeon ect) are almost certainly going to want Nahida for their dendro off-field slot since Nahida’s damage and application is much better than the alternatives. The hyperbloom core tends to be [dendro]/[hydro]/[electro trigger]/[flex] which is fine but in practice, using anyone but Nahida in the dendro slot tends to necessitate using a second dendro character in the flex slot to keep up the dendro application needed. It is worth mentioning that playing Alhaitham as the on-fielder in hyperbloom is enough dendro application but that eats up your on-fielder slot which reduces team flexibility. You can on-field Nahida herself in hyperbloom if you don’t have a proper on-fielder so for example, Nahida/Xingqiu/Kuki/Yaoyao is a team where it makes sense to use Nahida as the on-fielder but also isn’t hurt much by needing to give up field time to others like Yaoyao. The burgeon variants will basically switch the electro trigger for a pyro trigger (meaning Thoma) but burgeon tends to be less effective than hyperbloom in general. You can also do quickbloom variants such as Cyno/Fischl/Nahida/Xingqiu as well where Nahida is not really replaceable without causing the team some dendro issues. Quicken teams tend to be some mixture of Nahida/Fischl/[dendro]/[electro] since these teams are focused on triggering as many aggravates and spreads as possible. Nahida is unlikely to get replaced here, regardless of the on-fielder. Spread teams tend to be [dendro on-fielder]/Nahida/[electro]/[flex] where the on-field choice is between Tighnari and Alhaitham, the electro slot is some off-fielder, and the flex slot is usually a defensive option like Zhong Li. Nahida is a great offensive option for Nilou bloom teams due to her high dendro application, but these teams are very flexible within the dendro-hydro constraint. You can on-field Nahida for extra dendro application if need be. There are many more options than what I’ve just listed so the moral of the story is, if you are building a team that is centred around dealing damage with a dendro reaction, Nahida is almost certainly one of, if not the, top choice for that team. Also, I didn’t even mention Furina who adds a whole new layer of possibilities.
Nahida’s constellations are interesting so let’s get into them. Her C1 improves her burst by increasing the count that her burst does when it triggers. The main benefit of this is the damage bonus increase to teams that don’t already have a pyro character on their team but it’s still a nice constellation for most teams. The C2 is a big damage increase since it allows the bloom-related reactions to crit and the quicken-related reactions to shred defence. This is a big benefit for all Nahida teams. The C3 is skill levels which makes Nahida’s personal damage a bit higher so it’s not as impactful. The C4 gives Nahida an EM boost when enemies are marked by her skill which is nice to have and makes Nahida’s reaction damage a bit better. The C5 is burst levels which doesn’t do that much unfortunately. The C6 makes Nahida a much better on-fielder by allowing her normal attacks to deal much more damage when hitting enemies marked by her skill for 6 normal attacks. It’s not the best C6 but it is a good damage increase for more quick swap focused teams.
First thing to note here is that Nahida’s skill scales with both elemental mastery and attack so both stats matter but the EM scaling is much more significant so that’s the stat to focus on. Using an EM sands, EM goblet and EM circlet is very viable as is EM sands, dendro damage goblet and crit circlet. It might well come down to what has better substats. Speaking of, you are looking for EM, crit rate, crit damage, and energy recharge here. You could make an argument for an ER sands as well but it’s a pretty big damage loss so I don’t recommend it. Nahida has a few options for artifact sets and it will come down to team composition. 4pc Deepwood Memories is something you want on every dendro team so it’s what Nahida should use if she’s the only dendro character. If another character can use Deepwood then 4pc Gilded Dreams will be better. If the team has a dendro on-fielder (Alhaitham, Tighnari ect), Nahida should be the one to use Deepwood. There’s an argument for 4pc Golden Troupe but the other options tend to be slightly better. They are also in the same domain so you can farm for both at the same time.
Nahida does have a number of reasonable choices for her weapon, however. A Thousand Floating Dreams is her signature so you shouldn’t be surprised when it’s her best weapon since it gives a massive amount of EM. Kagura’s Verity is also very good for her if you happen to have one lying around. Sacrificial Fragments is a 4-star weapon that gives a good amount of EM though the passive is a bit wasted unfortunately. The Widsith is another good choice since Nahida can actually use all of its passive effects and crit is always valuable. The craftable Mappa Mare is a good more f2p option for players who don’t have any of the other options yet. The 3-star Magic Guide is also a possibility but Mappa Mare at high refines should be preferable.
In conclusion, Nahida is a great character that gives lots of team building options if you have a desire to play any kind of dendro team. Particularly with hyperbloom being what it is, Nahida’s value to newer accounts is very high since she works well with many of the 4-star options and is even better with the certain 5-stars that fit onto the various dendro archetypes. While the current meta might seem to favour some of the new, very flashy 5-stars, this isn’t to say that the strong dendro teams (hyperbloom, Nilou bloom, aggravate) have gotten worse or can’t get the job done. They absolutely can and the flexibility they have is a very strong draw for newer players. Nahida is a character that most accounts should have if I’m being honest.
Kuki Shinobu - Electro sword character
Role: Healer and hyperbloom trigger
Teams: Quicken, spread and hyperbloom
Cons: C2 increases her skill duration by 3s which gives the skill full uptime
Artifact set: 4pc Flower of Paradise Lost, 4pc Gilded Dreams, 4pc Tenacity of the Millelith or 4pc Deepwood Memories
Weapons: Freedom Sworn (5-star option), Xiphos Moonlight (4-star option), The Alley Flash (4-star option), Iron Sting (craftable)
Pull value (good, ok, bad) - Good
When Kuki first came out, she was considered not very good since she’s a bit of an awkward healer with some ok electro application. Come 3.0 and the introduction of dendro and she got a second chance at this life of Genshin characters. Kuki’s skill makes it so that the active character will emit a ring of electro damage every few seconds. This is nice for applying electro in close range to an enemy but also, more importantly, it will also hit dendro cores caused by the bloom reaction which then triggers hyperbloom and all the damage that reaction can deal. This is a pretty big deal since the Raiden Shogun is the only other character that can reliably trigger hyperbloom from off-field. This gives Kuki a good niche within which she can be very useful to mainly players, especially if you want to free up your Raiden to do something else with her like overload for example. Kuki isn’t just limited to hyperbloom however, she can be used on spread teams as all she needs to do there is apply enough electro to keep up the quicken aura. She can also be used on Chevreuse overload teams as well because, again, applying electro once every few seconds is all these teams really need from an electro off-fielder. The one caveat to this is that you generally want to be playing a melee on-fielder so that you can get the most out of Kuki since her electro application won’t work if there’s some distance between you and the target you are hitting. Due to all this, her best teammate tends to be Alhaitham since she is good at applying electro for both of his main teams, hyperbloom and spread. You could play [flex]/Nahida/Xingqiu/Kuki as a general hyperbloom core with the flex slot being any hydro or dendro on-fielder you like and be able to see good results. Having Kuki is very valuable for hyperbloom teams since she’s the part of it that is the most difficult to replace. The healing she can do is more of a cherry on top than anything else.
Kuki’s constellations are quite the mixed bag. Her C1 increases her burst AoE by a decent amount but her burst isn’t that important since the skill is what gives the good electro application, making this constellation quite underwhelming. Her C2 on the other hand increases her skills duration by 3s which is great since the skill has a 15s cooldown compared to the 12s duration which doesn’t feel great since part of your rotation will be hampered by a lack of electro. This constellation fixes this and is her most impactful constellation. The C3 is skill levels which don’t mean much. The C4 gives her skill an extra effect that deals a bit more electro damage which procs every 5s. It’s not that important. The C5 is burst levels so again, doesn’t do much. The C6 gives Kuki a revive once every 60s which is again, not worth much but it also gives an effect that if she drops under 25% HP, she gets an extra 150 EM for 15s which is quite a nice boost. Getting her HP down that low is a bit dangerous and inconvenient, however. It nice when it triggers though.
Stats for Kuki will end up being torn in two directions. Building HP will improve her damage and healing while building elemental mastery will improve her reaction damage. This means if you are playing hyperbloom, you want EM, if you’re playing spread, it’s a bit more of a tossup. A hyperbloom build will have an EM sand, EM goblet and EM circlet. The substats don’t matter much but get HP if you can. A build focused on healing would use a HP sands, HP goblet and healing bonus circlet but her healing isn’t that great, and it only affects the active character. For hyperbloom damage, 4pc Flower of Paradise Lost is the best but 4pc Gilded Dreams is only slightly less damage but in a much better domain to farm. Kuki can also reliably use 4pc Tenacity of the Millelith as well since her skill reliably hits opponents but the attack boost from this set is going to be less useful than the EM boost from Gilded Dreams in all of her dendro teams. It’s an option if you want to use her in an overload team or something, however. None of the healing sets are worth using here. You also can use 4pc Deepwood Memories on quicken or spread teams to free it up from a dendro character.
When it comes to weapons, we are looking for elemental mastery or HP again. Unfortunately, as a sword user, that limits Kuki’s options here. Freedom Sworn is a 5-star option with EM it works well. Xiphos Moonlight is a rarer 4-star weapon that also has a good amount of EM but otherwise, you will probably be stuck with the craftable Iron Sting. The Alley Flash also exists but it’s arguably rarer than Xiphos so I won’t dwell on it. There are only 2 swords that give HP, Key of Khaj-Nisut and The Dockhand’s Assistant. Obviously, if you are wanting to build Kuki for her healing then one of these would make a lot of sense.
In conclusion, Kuki is a valuable character for the niche she fills on hyperbloom teams. If you already have an EM Raiden Shogun built then Kuki loses a lot of her value because Raiden just does her job as an electro trigger much better, in my opinion, but you can make a case for Kuki having value that Raiden doesn’t. Hyperbloom is still a strong archetype however that’s also quite friendly to new players. Kuki also works as an electro character for spread teams as well. I just wouldn’t advise trying to use Kuki as your primary healer as you might be a bit disappointed in the results.
Xingqiu - Hydro sword character
Role: Off-field DPS
Teams: Vaporise, bloom, hyperbloom, burgeon, freeze, electro-charged, “national” teams
Cons: All of them are good and worth having but C6 does help with his energy needs
Artifact set: 4pc Emblem of Severed Fate
Weapons: Primordial Jade Cutter (5-star option), Sacrifical Sword (4-star option), Favonius Sword (4-star option), Fleuve Cendre Ferryman (Fishing in Fontaine), Amenoma Kageuchi (craftable)
Pull value (good, ok, bad) - Ok
I looked back at the review I did for Xingqiu back in 4.5 and I was a little embarrased thai thought that was decent. Whatever, enough about me, is Xingqiu good? In a word, yes. Xingqiu is one of the game’s premier hydro applicators. If you’re on-fielder does normal attacks then Xingqiu is going to be a great choice if you need good hydro application. He does function very similarly to Yelan and they end up being interchangeable in most teams. Xingqiu’s main advantage is the damage reduction that his skill offers your on-fielder which is significant. It also offers a small amount of resistance to interuption which can be helpful. This all means that Xingqiu teams can sometimes forgo the need for a shielder if the defensive benefits he offers are good enough, freeing up another slot on your team for another offensive option. I should be clear however, his hydro application and damage are enough to justify using him alone. The main downsides are in his cooldowns. 20s on the burst and 21s on the skill is a little too long in certain teams which creates a bit of down time for your team that you wouldn’t have with Yelan for example. Her burst is 18s for reference and while it doesn’t sound like much, it does make a difference for teams with shorter rotations. Another limitation that’s worth mentioning is that Xingqiu’s hydro application is single target meaning in content with multiple enemies, he might not feel quite so good. Yelan has exactly the same issue however. This is where Candace (at C6) can be an alternative though her off-field damage is much lower. All of the other hydro off-field options tend to have clear limitations that make Xingqiu preferable in this role. Furina’s hydro application is a bit inconsistent but she is normally used for the buff her burst provides. Sigewinne’s hydro application is a clear downgrade to Xingqiu as is Kokomi’s. Long story short, you want off-field hydro application, Xingqiu is the top choice alongside Yelan.
There’s a lot of different teams that want off-field hydro application. Vaporise teams are the most obvious example such as Hu Tao/Xingqiu/[flex]/[flex] where the flex slots can be for additional hydro units like Yelan or Furina or a double geo core of Xilonen/Chiori and Zhong Li. VV users such as Kazuha, Venti or Sucrose also fit in nicely. Hu Tao herself can be swapped for Arlecchino, Gaming, Yoimiya, Yanfei or another pyro on-fielder. There’s lots of options. Xingqiu is a great choice alongside Nilou in bloom teams with 2 other dendro characters. He can also be a great choice for hyperbloom teams, for example Alhaitham/Xingqiu/Kuki/[flex] will work. I’d typically recommend a second dendro in that comp like Nahida or Kirara, just to ensure you keep up with Xingqiu’s hydro application but Zhong Li can also be a fine choice. Burgeon is the same story but swapping the electro trigger (Kuki above) for a pyro trigger like Thoma or maybe Deyha though I’m not a great fan of Deyha burgeon. Old school freeze teams work great with Xingqiu as long as you are playing them into enemies that can be frozen which hasn’t been possible on the 12th floor of the abyss for years now but Ayaka/Shenhe/Xingqiu/Kazuha used to be a top tier team. Electro-charged (or taser) teams tend to revolve around applying lots of hydro and electro then swirling it with an anemo on-fielder so Xingqiu is great here, for example Sucrose/Xingqiu/Fischl/Beidou is very f2p friendly as it uses no 5-stars. Just don’t expect to be getting the fastest abyss clears with it however. Lastly, the old National team, Tartaglia/Xiangling/Xingqiu/Bennet, is still more than functional for clearing the games hardest content though again, don’t expect the best clear times in this day and age of abyss content. There’s a few other more niche teams that you can use Xingqiu on like Navia teams but that is also one of the cases where Furina tends to be preferable.
Unlike most of the other launch 4-stars, Xingqiu actually has a decent set of constellations. The C1 gives his skill an extra rain sword which increases the overall usefullness of the skill. The C2 increases the duration of the burst by 3s and also applies a hydro res shred when the burst hits, making the burst overall much more effective and being a decent overall damage increase. The C3 is burst levels so that means a bit more damage but nothing special. The C4 increases the damage the skill deals by 50% as long as the burst is active. It’s an odd constellation but also alters the optimal rotation. The C5 is skill levels so not that impactful. The C6 might be the best one. It increases the damage of every 3rd sword and also gives Xingqiu some energy regen when the 3rd sword hits which also helps lower his ER needs. Making any progress towards C6 on a characters that’s as valuable as Xingqiu is at C0 is always going to be welcome.
One potential issue Xingqiu has that I glossed over earlier is that of energy because Yelan has the same problem so it’s not actually a differentiating factor between them. For Xingqiu to be effective, he needs to burst every rotation which mean his ER needs can be quite high since his burst has an 80 energy cost. In many cases, you’ll need to run an ER sands but it might be possible to get away with using an attack sands with enough substats and the right weapon. His goblet should be hydro damage bonus but attack can also work and the circlet should be crit rate in most cases. Crit damage can also work though. You want energy recharge, attack and both crit stats in the substats. 4pc Emblem of Severed Fate is the goto set for Xingqiu since he deals most of his damage via his burst and also gets rewarded for building ER. You can make a case for 4pc Heart of Depths but it’s very unlikely to be worth it.
There are a number of nice swords for Xingqiu but Primordial Jade Cutter is a nice 5-star option if you don’t need ER from the weapon. Favonius Sword is a good 4-star option if you really need all the energy you can get. Sacrifical Sword is also good on him as at high refines, the passive can trigger consistently, allowing for the skill cooldown to be ignored which helps tighten up his rotations while also still giving ER. The Fleuve Cendre Ferryman and Amenoma Kageuchi are decent alternatives for him that are more accessable to players that don’t want to role on a weapon banner. Obviously, both Favonius Sword and Sacrifical Sword are on the standard banner but you need to have done a lot of pulls to get these, statisitically speaking as the standard 4-star pool keeps getting diluted further with new options.
In conclusion, its good to see Xingqiu on a banner if you don’t already have him at C6 since he is almost certainly going to be useful to you. Hoyo probably didn’t realise when they designed him (along with Xiangling, Bennet and maybe Fischl) just how strong they would be as Genshin continued to grow leading to the situation we have now where it’s difficult for them to make other hydro off-field characters that are not going to disrupt the balance of the game. Every player should really get Xingqiu and build him becuase he is extremely useful and really damn good.
Sethos - Electro bow character
Role: On-field DPS
Teams: Quicken, aggravate
Cons: C2 is a significant buff to his electro damage and C6 makes his charged shot playstyle much better
Artifact set: 4pc Wanderer’s Troupe, 4pc Gilded Dreams
Weapons: Hunters Path (5-star option), Slingshot (3-star option), Cloudforged (event)
Pull value (good, ok, bad) - Ok
Oh Sethos. Getting released alongside Clorinde was a bit cruel of Hoyo for him since, as an on-field electro DPS, Clorinde is just better overall, even in the aggravate teams that Sethos is designed for and considerably better in other teams such as overload. At least in this banner, there isn’t another electro on-fielder to steal his thunder, pun intended. The important thing to understand about Sethos is that he has two different playstyles; he can spam normal attacks with his burst (like Yoimiya) or he can consume energy to do charged bow shots (like Lyney but it’s not quite the same). Between these two play styles, there isn’t much of a damage difference at low constellations but things swing more in favour of the charged bow shot style at C6. Both are viable however. The bigger problem is that neither are great. Being an on-field electro DPS is quite a crowded arena these days since Clorinde, Cyno, Keqing and the Raiden Shogun. You can make an argument to include Yae Miko in that list as well. I suppose at least Sethos is a 4-star and therefore is easier to obtain and get constellations on (in theory) than any of those other characters. All this isn’t to say that Sethos is bad, it’s just that he doesn’t do anything particularly special in the grand scheme of things.
Since Sethos scales mostly with elemental mastery, this ends up making him being pushed towards dendro teams who can give him more of that stat as well as benefiting more from building it in the first place. This basically mean aggravate or quicken teams since hyperbloom with him doesn’t feel good to play since it doesn’t work particularly well. A standard Sethos aggravate team is going to look like Sethos/Fischl/[dendro]/[flex]. Fischl is capable of dealing loads of damage in aggravate teams due to her ascention passive. You could switch her for another electro off-fielder like Yae Miko or Beidou but Fischl is likely to deal more damge without taking up much field time. Sethos actually doesn’t need that much field time however so using Yae won’t feel terrible. Ideally, the dendro choice in these teams is Nahida for maximum damage but a defensive option like Kiara, Yaoyao or Baizhu will also work if needed. The flex slot will probably be a VV user like Kazuha or Sucrose but Xilonen isn’t a bad idea here either. I’d probably lean towards Sucrose over the others however given how Sethos is a ranged character. Zhong Li is of course an option in this slot as well. Using a dendro character in that last slot turns it into more of a quicken team where a mixture of spreads and aggravates will be triggered. In this case, a dendro combo of Nahida and Kirara is what’s likely to work best but if you can forgo Kirara for the Dendro Traveller then that will result in more damage. All in all, Sethos’s team options are a bit limited to these kind of quicken/aggravate teams since he tends to perform quite a bit worse on everything else with the exception of hyperbloom which just feels kinda bad to play.
As with most of the modern 4-stars, Sethos’s constellations are bit modest but they are not worthless. His C1 increases the crit rate of his special charged shots by 15% which is a nice buff for that playstyle. The C2 bascially gives Sethos a 30% electro damage bonus for both playstyles which is actually quite good and very welcome. The C3 boosts normal attack levels which gives a bit more damage on the special charged attacks but since a lot of the damage these shots do comes from the passive, it’s not much extra damage. The C4 gives a +80 EM boost to his team which is nice though not a big deal. The C5 is burst talent levels which does increase the damge of his normal attack playstyle by a reasonable amount. The C6 allows Sethos to get an energy refund on the first special charged shot he does which translates into a pretty good DPS increase, going from 3 to 4 per rotation. As you can see, the constellations do more for the charged shot playstyle rather than the normal attack playstyle but the difference between them in damage output is never that big.
As I mentioned before, Sethos is an elemental mastery scaler so that’s the stat you want to focus on. EM sands is the only way. Electro damage on the goblet tends to be preferable to EM but there isn’t much in it. EM or crit on the circlet finally. You will get better results going either full EM or EM/electro/crit rather than a mix however so that’s worth keeping in mind. 4pc Wonderer’s Troupe is his best set funnily enough. The normal attacks from his burst count as charged attacks for the purpose of item effects so the playstyle you use doesn’t affect how you gear him. You can also use 4pc Gilded Dreams if you have a decent set but Wanderer’s Troupe drops from lots of bosses plus it’s better for Sethos’s personal damage so Gilded Dreams is not something most players should look at.
Sethos’s weapon choice is very straightforward. Hunter’s Path is his best weapon but it’s a quite rare since it’s Tighnari’s signature but is not on the standard banner for some reason. The 3-star Slingshot at R5 then outdamages all the 4-stars so that makes for an easy choice. The event weapon Cloudforged seems like it was designed for Sethos and isn’t a bad choice but when a 3-star is better than it, you do have to ask what the point is.
In conclusion, Sethos is a decent enough character but not one anyone is going to call meta any time soon (or ever I imagine). The competition he faces in his niche plus his lack of flexibility compared to that competition can make him a bit of a hard sell but if you really want to use Sethos, he is capable enough of getting you through the hardest content the game has to offer. The ease of gearing him (Wanderer’s Troupe and a 3-star weapon) might make him extra appealing to new players as well since it doesn’t take much investment to get him functional.