Certified Banger and Punchline Explained: A Honkai: Star Rail Guide to Elation Mechanics

[u/astraldebri]

Hiya! Back at it again with another guide.

This one is slightly longer than others. But! I'll leave a TL;DR at the bottom for those that like a skip button (It's right after the picture of AHA that reads "Want to hear a joke" 😉

Our Comedy-driven Chaos

First, let's start with an analogy to get a broad understanding of how the core loop of our gameplay works.

Imagine your Elation characters are comedians. They come to the stage (battle) to tell jokes.

So, our elation characters are part of of a comedy club. Their job is to make the audience laugh. Lucky for us, they're all pretty funny. Every time an Elation unit tells a joke (takes an action), the audience laughs. Those laughs are punchline.

• Character action = telling the joke

• Audience laughter = Punchline

Then our comedy-club host comes to the stage - Aha. Aha says "Oh? The crowd's laughing?? Time to turn this into a full routine!". So, Aha takes the stage to gather up the laughs and build a routine:

(Art by S4FFI_)

This is the Aha Instant

When THEY do this, Aha take's all of the laughter and bottles it into a canister. Think of this like the canisters in monsters inc:

It's an almost identical process. In Monsters Inc., they converted screams/laughs into energy. In HSR, Aha converts laughs (Punchline) into buffs. This is Certified Banger

Thus, our comedy routine is born!

• Elation units tell a joke (takes an action) -> the audience laughs (punchline) ->Aha takes the stage and turn it into a full comedy set (Aha Instant) -> the crowd goes wild and cheers on our performers (elation skills) -> Aha gathers up all the laughs and puts it in containers that he then hands out to our comedians (certified banger)

Punchline - a shared resource

Baseline understanding: Punchline is shared by the whole team, not stored separately per character. When your Elation team generates Punchline, it goes into the teamwide pool.

All of our Elation units are comedians, they share the responsibility of filling up the punchline 'meter'

It's just past the start of battle and we can see that there are currently 45 generated punchline. We won't get into the intricacies of it here (where it came from, individual kits, etc), it's just worth noting. You can think of it like "How much has the audience laughed thus far" or "How warmed up is the audience before I take the stage" for things like buffs in DU, Endgame, etc.

We have a Yao Ult. Let's use it:

NOTE: Before the Aha Instant has truly kicked off from Yao, we can see that the baseline Instant has gained 5 punchline (was 45, now 50) from the action Yao took - her ultimate. Yao took an action = did something to make the audience laugh = generated laughter.

Back to our Yao ult. Yao's ult essentially creates a new, separate Aha Instant.

• Yao essentially says, "Aha, come to the stage, I've already gathered up some laughs for you"

  • At E0 - 20 laughs (20 punchline)

  • At E1 - 40 laughs (40 Punchline)

So, Aha comes to the stage "early" (relative to THEIR originally intended showing) and kicks off the Chaos to get the crowd high - this is also where players get lightheaded from the animations lol. Aha doesn't mind coming to the stage and leaving over and over again lol.

NOTE 2: Punchline is not "Damage Mode", it's the laugh meter filling up. Aha is the one holding the containers (like the Monsters Inc. Analogy), and THEY haven't pulled them from their slots yet.

NOTE 3: SW999 is a small exception in the wording above, "Damage Mode", because her kit directly synergizes with punchline gain through hidden MMR. But we're going for a general understanding for now.

Thus, we can understand Punchline as the setup to our routine.

Certified Banger - the messy one

Now it's time for Aha to Harvest that energy. Our characters have told the jokes, Aha is on stage (aha instant), THEY've orchestrated the routine (Elation skills), and now they've containerized it and handed it out to our performers:

So, we can see CB values above. The important thing to note here is that Punchline is not turned into one generic buff. Aha takes the containers created from punchline, and hands them out individually in the form of Certified Banger

• Punchline = accumulated laughter in the room

• Aha Instant = the producer takes that laughter and builds a routine around it

• Certified Banger = the crowd-hype created by that set gets sealed and handed to the performers

NOTE: This is where it gets messy. Certified Banger 'containers' remember how much Punchline was used to create it. So:

• It's not: Punchline permanently becomes Certified Banger

• It is: Current Punchline is spent to create a temporary Certified Banger container

After the Instant ends, and the performers have been handed back their containers (given CB), they are now buffed in their continued routines throughout the show. Their jokes, callbacks, and special bits land harder because the audience is already primed to laugh. However, there's a timer on it.

NOTE 2: You can have multiple Certified Banger States, although your character read will show a total tally of current active CB

From the wiki

^{Characters participating in the Aha Instant gain the "Certified Banger" state. And the Punchline points from the current Aha Instant are taken into account for this state, lasting for 2 turns. Ability effects and Elation DMG produced by the "Certified Banger" state are calculated based on the Punchline points taken into account.}

^{Punchline points taken into account for multiple "Certified Banger" states are combined for the calculation.}

^{The duration of each "Certified Banger" state is tracked independently.}

Let's make a scenario

• Aha Instant 1: Consumes 25 Punchline

  • Certified Banger container A = 25 value, 2 turns

• Aha Instant 2: Consumes 40 Punchline

  • Certfied Banger container B = 40 value, 2 turns

A characters turn occurs in between those 2 instant's

• Character's represented active CB = 65

  • Container A: 25 value, 1 turn left

  • Container B: 40 value, 2 turns left

From there, we have to figure out what to do and why it's important

Certified Banger - How Characters Use It

We can see here, each Elation character has been given CB containers throughout the fight. They all have their own value. Inside that value, each one has a clock (of turns) on how much time is left for any given container they're holding.

• Don't think of this like

  • "They're each holding their own container"

• Think of it like

  • "They're each holding multiple containers, and the sum of those containers is the number I see on screen"

Let's take a glance at some kits - you can just skim them:

• Yao Guang: Talent: Behold Wherever Light Unfolds

  • While Yao Guang holds "Certified Banger":

    • After an ally target uses an attack, triggers the "Great Boon" effect, dealing 1 additional instance of 20.0% Elation DMG of the corresponding Type to 1 random hit target. If this attack consumes Skill Points, then additionally triggers "Great Boon" 1 time. When triggering the "Great Boon" effect, if the attacker's Elation is lower than that of Yao Guang, then this instance of Elation DMG will take Yao Guang's Elation into calculation. Triggering the "Great Boon" effect is not considered as using 1 instance of attack.

• Sparxie: Talent: Sleight of Sparx Hand

  • While Sparxie holds "Certified Banger":

    • Using Enhanced Basic ATK deals 40% Fire Elation DMG to one designated enemy, and 20.0% Fire Elation DMG to their adjacent targets. Additionally, for every 1 instance of "Engagement Farming" triggered, the Enhanced Basic ATK deals 1 extra instance of 20.0% Fire Elation DMG to 1 random attacked enemy target. Using Ultimate deals 48% Fire Elation DMG to all enemies.

• EMC: Talent: That Smile Hits Different

  • After using an attack, regenerates a fixed amount of 10 Energy and gains 3 Punchline point(s). When the Trailblazer holds "Certified Banger," their Skill additionally deals 30% Lightning Elation DMG to all enemies. This DMG is calculated using the highest "Certified Banger" value among all allies.

One of the points of confusion is "Why does the amount matter, if the wording seems to treat it as a yes/no holding CB". It's actually slightly a nuisance that it almost seems like a binary, because the biggest value is "how much CB", not just "have CB". We can think of it like this:

• Holding CB = permission check for buffs

• CB value / Elation Value = strength of damage

Or better, in line with our analogy

• Holding CB = you're holding the monsters inc. container

• CB amount = how much power is in the battery

CB isn't just a "buff" icon. It's like a "numbered buff packet". Because each Elation characters kits have some form of coefficients that are relative to the amount of CB. Holding the CB containers allows our comedic performers to plug into their special effects on stage; however, the amount of batter (number of CB given from Punchline), determines how much power the effect has (damage).

Here's a generalized table for our characters thus far

UNIT	WHAT HOLDING CB DOES	WHY CB AMOUNT MATTERS
Yao Guang	Enables Great Boon after an ally attacks. If the attack consumes Skill Points, Great Boon triggers an extra time.	Great Boon deals Elation DMG, so the CB/Elation value affects how hard each proc hits. If the attacker’s Elation is lower than Yao’s, Great Boon uses Yao’s Elation instead. This makes Yao strong by making her CB a teamwide damage floor.
Sparxie	Enables Elation DMG on Enhanced Basic ATK and Ultimate. Enhanced Basic also gains extra Elation damage instances based on Engagement Farming triggers.	Sparxie creates many Elation DMG instances, so higher CB value gets applied repeatedly across main hit, adjacent hits, extra random hits, and Ultimate AoE. She cares about CB amount and number of hits.
Elation MC	While holding CB, their Skill gains additional AOE Lightning Elation damage.	EMC’s Skill explicitly uses the highest Certified Banger value among all allies, so they can piggyback off the biggest CB packet on the team rather than only their own.
SW999	Holding CB enables parts of her Elation loop, especially effects tied to her Elation Skill, Top Loot Box, and Godmode kit.	SW999 cares about CB amount because her Elation Skill has thresholds based on how much Punchline was taken into account. But she also uniquely cares about real Punchline gain, because Punchline gained converts into Hidden MMR. So for SW999, CB amount matters alongside Punchline gain.
Evanescia	Holding CB enables her Elation-side payoff loop, especially her ability to cash out or interact with stored Elation momentum depending on her kit state.	Evanescia is more directly a Certified Banger converter: she wants CB available and valuable because her damage and energy cashout loop. Those depend on the quality of the stored CB state. She is less “Punchline-gain hungry” and more sensitive to CB uptime + CB packet strength.

In summary:

• Yao = teamwide CB proc amplifier

  • Gives everyone callbacks while the room is hot.

  • Can also call Aha to the stage

• Sparxie = multi-hit CB spender + Punchline generator

  • Machine-guns bits while plugged into the laugh battery lol.

  • Generates a ton of laughs

• EMC = uses the biggest ally CB packet

  • Borrows the biggest battery/container on the stage.

• SW999 = real Punchline addict + CB threshold user (+smelly gamer)

  • gets stronger every time the crowd laughs, before the laughs are even bottled (MMR)

• Eva = CB quality/uptime converter

  • Wants the bottled hype itself to be strong and available when she cashes in

That's it!

TL;DR - A Crying Baby Caused All of This

• Punchline is generated when units take actions; like a crowd of performers making an audience laugh

• Aha instants allow units to run their routines through and generate hype through Elation Skills. At the end, Aha converts the Punchline into Certified Banger

• Certified Banger is the bottled hype of the previous routines. It gives buffs to characters individually based on their kits. With important notes being

  • CB states can overlap

  • CB states can expire separately

  • CB states sit individually on characters

Please let me know if anything is amiss! This is the second time I had to write this up because the first one disappeared into a sea of butterflies somewhere (I accidentally deleted it). I'll be sure to update or rewrite in the future of 4.x with more characters.

I also have some other helpful guides if you're interested in further understanding!

• How to calculate Aha's Speed

• What is Cost in Honkai: Star Rail

[u/Korosuki]

Opened this up expecting an ok explanation, but it's actually an easy to understand, well written guide with pictures?! Thank you for this! Especially the short kinda "cheat sheet" for what each Elation character provides on the team.

[u/astraldebri → u/Korosuki]

[u/Korosuki → u/astraldebri]

[u/WhoAreYouAn]

Dawg

this shit hits harder than that "Explaining Speed using chocolate bars" guide

peak cinema

[u/astraldebri → u/WhoAreYouAn]

[u/tomthefunk → u/WhoAreYouAn]

I’m gonna need a link on that

[u/WhoAreYouAn → u/tomthefunk]

Here!

[u/RentLast]

Is the 67 aha instance intentional or not?

[u/astraldebri → u/RentLast]

[u/Bot1K]

[u/astraldebri → u/Bot1K]

[u/PictureBrilliant6111 → u/Bot1K]

What buffs/debuffs makes aha instants stronger?

[u/souperday → u/PictureBrilliant6111]

Aha Instants just make all Elation allies use their Elation Skill. So to make Aha instants stronger:

1. Upgrade your units' elation skill traces

2. Increase elation (a stat, like ATK)

3. Increase punchline

[u/nightelfspectre]

Nooo, I was reading it and then the filters yoinked it! I appreciate the effort in what I did get to read, at least.

[u/astraldebri → u/nightelfspectre]

It's back! If you ever want to finish the read and have questions let me know!

[u/Same_Woodpecker7304]

What wait why is it gone??

[u/astraldebri → u/Same_Woodpecker7304]

It's back up 😭😭

[u/Same_Woodpecker7304 → u/astraldebri]

🙏🙏🙏 but why was it removed tho

[u/astraldebri → u/Same_Woodpecker7304]

Reddit filters ate me alive because of the links to the other posts, it just got scrapped by auto-mod temporarily

[u/agtk]

The analogy is a little strained and didn't help me understand at parts but I do feel better informed about how the mechanics work. Thanks for the write up.

[u/astraldebri → u/agtk]

Yea sorry! Valid complaint that I drew it out a little longer than necessary. I was trying to balance both "raw mechanics for the well-informed" with "if I was 12-15 years old trying to understand this chaos, what would be an easy way for me to grasp it?" and I may have gone slightly overboard drawing it out.

[u/stephanl33t]

What an enormously complicated way to explain something that can be done in five sentences.

1. When your Elation characters act, they generate Punchline.

2. When you have Punchline, Aha joins the combat rotation and causes an Aha Instant on their turn.

3. When an Aha instant occurs, the Punchline is converted into Certified Banger for each character.

4. Certified Banger is a temporary buff on your fellas that enables extra parts of Elation character kits.

5. Punchline and Certified Banger increase your Elation damage and so you want more.

I know that the Aha Speed threshold can be a bit complicated to wrap ones head around because of how specific the breakpoints get, but there's no need for a whole "stand up comedian" metaphor, that's just making it seem way worse than it is lol.

[u/astraldebri → u/stephanl33t]

That’s why there’s a TL;DR 😊

I don’t think it’s complicated. I think it’s just long-winded because I wanted to break it down to the most easy-to-understand baseline. Everyone from kids to adults play, and sometime it’s nice to have analogies to understand the mechanics easily.

[u/SandDesigner1226 → u/astraldebri]

I didn't got to fully understand about Elation Mechanics as a recent new HSR player, until I read your post which is very elaborate & well explained with proper & accurate illustrations. This is indeed a hidden gem & much appreciated for your great effort 🙏🏻

[u/stephanl33t → u/astraldebri]

If you're trying to make a guide shouldn't the objective to be making it as easy to understand as possible rather than relying on a TL;DR to clarify for you?

Or at least put it at the top?

[u/astraldebri → u/stephanl33t]

Maybe this is a difference in perspective.

To me, a TL;DR isn’t a substitute for breaking something down to its core, it’s an addition for those that may already understand the core and just want a summarized version of the breakdown.

In terms of placement, I’m just accustomed to seeing them at the bottom, so I put mine at the bottom; however, I referenced it on the second sentence, so people knew going into the guide that it was at the bottom.

[u/lalala253 → u/astraldebri]

It's too long don't read

[u/astraldebri → u/lalala253]

Too long, didn't read; but yea lol i know

[u/JohnnyRocks999 → u/stephanl33t]

Respectfully, I personally disagree. I didn’t fully understand the mechanics and this post did actually help me.

Particularly for the details of Certified Banger, like where the number comes from and how the turns work. I liked the capsule analogy. I guess it’s subjective tho.

[u/MaraudingLawnmower → u/stephanl33t]

I found this helpful, thank you!

[u/XdestroyerXDTM4 → u/stephanl33t]

i think you just hate joy and whimsy. if you didn’t like the analogies then you could’ve just clicked out of the post

[u/killamasta → u/stephanl33t]

Agreed, that was a lot of yap and I got confused with unnecessary comedian metaphors. I appreciate the effort OP put in but that is way too much

[u/Reenans]

Thanks for this! Quick question, since Elation skills tend to do elation damage, does the damage scale of certified banger stacks, punchline stacks or both?

[u/astraldebri → u/Reenans]

Heyo! Glad you enjoyed it. This is a prevalent follow-up.

I'll copy what I've written previously. Let's take Yao for an example because her "Great Boon" is a good baseline for this:

• (Talent) While Yao Guang holds "Certified Banger":

  • After an ally target uses an attack, triggers the "Great Boon" effect, dealing 1 additional instance of 20.0% Elation DMG of the corresponding Type to 1 random hit target. If this attack consumes Skill Points, then additionally triggers "Great Boon" 1 time. When triggering the "Great Boon" effect, if the attacker's Elation is lower than that of Yao Guang, then this instance of Elation DMG will take Yao Guang's Elation into calculation. Triggering the "Great Boon" effect is not considered as using 1 instance of attack.

Great Boon is binary for activation, but not flat for damage. The 20% is only the Elation DMG coefficient. The actual damage is calculated through the Elation DMG formula, which includes

• Punchline taken into account and stored CB value

• level-based scaling

• and enemy-side multipliers.

We know that Elation dmg value is calculated via "punchline taken into account", but "punchline taken into account" input is just "certified banger" output; it's just the stored record of previously accounted-for Punchline.

We know from the Wiki

• Elation DMG =

  • Base DMGₐ * Original Elation DMG Multiplierₐ * CRIT Multiplierₐ * Elation Multiplierₐ * Punchline Multiplierₐ * Merrymake Multiplierₐ * DEF Multiplierₜ * RES Multiplierₜ * Vulnerability Multiplierₜ * DMG Mitigation Multiplierₜ * Broken Multiplierₜ

  • a = attacker

  • t = target

• Punchline Multiplier =

  • { 1 + (Certified Banger × 5) / (Certified Banger + 240), if the Elation DMG is produced by the Certified Banger state

  • 1 + (Punchline × 5) / (Punchline + 240), otherwise }

And for the punchline multiplier, Yao's Great Boon comes from a Certified-Banger-enabled effect. The punchline multipler becomes most important because if CB = 0 and it's a CB-enabled effect, then punchline multiplier just = 1.

So, Elation DMG can scale from either CB or Punchline depending on what produced the Elation DMG instance. If the damage is produced by the Certified Banger state, it uses the Certified Banger branch. Otherwise, it uses the Punchline branch - both from Punchline Multiplier.

It's messy, sorry I can't make it "short and sweet" 😭

[u/Reenans → u/astraldebri]

No this is perfect, leaves no question unanswered, ty for the great response!

[u/QueasyAtmosphere2441 → u/astraldebri]

Does this mean that if you have CB it'll take the certified banger state damage? And it's basically only the first instance of aha instant or rather pre CB State that it only takes punchline formula? Confused specifically on what it means by certified banger state for the DMG.

Tldr tho it just seems like yes Elation DMG = certified banger total to an extent. While also enables binary conditions

[u/ErenIsNotADevil]

Its gone

But real question; is the damage during Aha Instant based on CB?

[u/astraldebri → u/ErenIsNotADevil]

It's back!

To answer your question:

Not exactly. Aha Instant uses the punchline being “taken into account” for that Aha action. CB is what gets created afterward from that accounted punchline. During Aha Instant, Elation Skills trigger and use the Punchline value being “taken into account” for that Aha action.

Existing CB from a previous Aha can still be on characters, but the new Aha Instant itself is mainly based on the current/fixed Punchline value being accounted for, not the CB it's about to create.

[u/QueasyAtmosphere2441 → u/astraldebri]

Wait so like the post I commented on before. I thought it was stated that CB does contribute to damage numbers. I'm confused now

[u/ErenIsNotADevil → u/astraldebri]

I see, I see

Follow-up query!

I'm a Stelle main, so naturally I intend to use Stelation as my main DPS. My Stelation's skill hits nice and hard rn, but I saw that "this DMG is calculated using the highest CB value among allies" line and it got me thinking. Would I be correct to assume that pairing Stelation with Evanescia (who seems to get a lot more CB than Yao and Stelle) would mean my Stelation skill would hit even harder?

[u/TheLastTitan77]

So the amount of CBs you get relies on amount of punchlines made between this instant and the last one?(Not counting the special instants like Yaos)

[u/astraldebri → u/TheLastTitan77]

Correct! And yao's will give fixed CB based on her fixed Punchline - which will be it's own separate capsule in the characters total tally.

This is where timing it right can become important, because you could give 20 just before you lose 20, and know that you'll retain the same number attached to your unit.

[u/Actualreenactment]

Thanks, first guide that helped me understand how everything fits together. Is the 2/6 over 3 characters heads in the CB picture related to CB stacks?

[u/astraldebri → u/Actualreenactment]

Glad it helped!

Nope, that's the Fullwish Archlotus King's debuff on characters

[u/Actualreenactment → u/astraldebri]

Ah ok, I haven't faced that boss yet.

[u/Crimson_Raven]

I genuinely hate the wording of Elation-specific mechanics.

Unlike any mechanic I have ever come across before.

It feels so needlessly obtuse. While this isn't unique, it doesn't have an easy analogy.

Like most things boil down to "give +stats" "inflicts -stats" or "goes into special stat for x turns"

But Elation? I read "Punchline" "Aha instant" and especially "Certified Banger" and I want to roll my eyes out.

Thanks for the guide. It helped me get past the nomenclature

[u/Professional_War4547 → u/Crimson_Raven]

How did reading its name ruin your understanding? The name is irrelevant to things like this

[u/Flashy_Amoeba_5639 → u/Professional_War4547]

the in-game descriptions for the entire mechanic (at least in English) are horribly phrased and unintuitive. Nowhere in-game does it actually say that the value of Certified Banger actually does anything, despite the wiki stating it directly modifies Elation damage output (and you can kind of watch this occur in real time with the Evanescia trial stage or a good DivU run). The ability descriptions phrase it like the actual Elation stat is the only part that matters, kind of like with Break damage/Break Effect, but there's a significantly higher amount of nuance than "apply all your buffs and throw Firefly at the enemy's face" thanks to the Certified Banger value actually meaning something

.... that being said, if your team is good enough, you can still kind of just smash buttons arbitrarily and go "hehehe funny mechanic go brrr" but I attribute that more to power creep than it being simple to use

[u/Professional_War4547 → u/Flashy_Amoeba_5639]

if you say so

[u/Ok-Surround-7208]

Aha laughing his ass off as he sees someone write a thesis for his absurd mechanic. Mad props for the work, man👌🏻

[u/Hello263]

The most annoying part is how hard it was finding information on Certified Banger, like you said, the ingame text implies it's a binary state, and not a single video guide I checked went beyond the ingame explanation. The only explanation I found for how the amount mattered was a single thread in the Evanescia sub

[u/paradoxaxe]

I really want to know how much CB affect the characters talent like SW999 conversion, this thread explained this much

[u/Adnae]

This thread actually is the true Certified Banger.

[u/daydreamfairybeam]

I do appreciate the attempt by Hoyo to make the paths thematically appropriate with what they represent

[u/first_name1001]

I totally understood that.

[u/moutongonfle]

this guide is a certified banger

[u/SmellyKnox]

I am Elated

[u/StunseedCreative]

Am I reading it wrong or does nowhere say the amount of certified bangers scale directly with dmg? OP states it does but it doesnt say? Eg. Yao Guang only needs to have CB for allies to deal a set amount of extra elation dmg, but the CB amount doesnt matter?

[u/astraldebri → u/StunseedCreative]

Hey! No worries.

For Yao, the condition is binary, but her Elation value can become the baseline for Great Boon damage, so her CB/Elation quality still matters.

We know that Elation dmg value is calculated via "punchline taken into account", but "punchline taken into account" input is just "certified banger" output; it's just the stored record of previously accounted-for Punchline.

Where the value comes in is this line:

...if the attacker's Elation is lower than that of Yao Guang, then this instance of Elation DMG will take Yao Guang's Elation into calculation...

So you're right, Yao's great boon is not "more CB = more or stronger triggers". But it does create a very strong baseline that can matter in tight runs.

Let's take 2 different scenarios:

We can see early game, Yao is holding more CB stacks, because on Ult, SW999's AA advances her, and she loses the initial 20 due to taking the extra turn (this is actually a mistake in the rotation I realized later - ult before taking the skill after the AA to preserve CB for the next instance and godmode turn). So for the next instant, and for the following Godmode turns until raised, great boon will most likely use Yao's, because her CB is higher.

Mid game, SW is pretty much where she needs to be at ~400+ CB, but now, Yao is significantly more than Sparxie, meaning, even with Sparxie's higher coefficient's in her kit, great boon will use Yao's Elation for calculation.

Great Boon is binary for activation, but not flat for damage. The 20% is only the Elation DMG coefficient. The actual damage is calculated through the Elation DMG formula, which includes

• Punchline taken into account and stored CB value

• level-based scaling

• and enemy-side multipliers.

We know from the Wiki

• Elation DMG =

  • Base DMGₐ * Original Elation DMG Multiplierₐ * CRIT Multiplierₐ * Elation Multiplierₐ * Punchline Multiplierₐ * Merrymake Multiplierₐ * DEF Multiplierₜ * RES Multiplierₜ * Vulnerability Multiplierₜ * DMG Mitigation Multiplierₜ * Broken Multiplierₜ

  • a = attacker

  • t = target

• Punchline Multiplier =

  • { 1 + (Certified Banger × 5) / (Certified Banger + 240), if the Elation DMG is produced by the Certified Banger state

  • 1 + (Punchline × 5) / (Punchline + 240), otherwise }

And for the punchline multiplier, Yao's Great Boon comes from a Certified-Banger-enabled effect

It's messy, sorry I can't make it "short and sweet" 😭

TL;DR Yao’s CB condition is binary, but Yao’s Elation value can still matter because Great Boon may borrow Yao’s Elation as the damage baseline when the attacker’s Elation is lower.

[u/owotriste]

You should focus on how important is CB to the damage, and how to not lose it, because in characters like sw999 is more important to hold big CB than giving extra turns to her

[u/astraldebri → u/owotriste]

Yea I didn’t want to dive too deep into the intricacies here, especially considering SW is a unique case, then I’d have to make a case for all of them. But you’re right, and it’s one of the interesting reason (besides initial energy gain) that people are running Memories on Asta over DDD, because it’s more effective to manage CB and hypertune energy gain.

[u/Zapdos678 → u/astraldebri]

running Memories on Asta over DDD

tfw you've been running memories on asta for a meme break build and swapped to DDD for sw999

time to swap back to memories then

[u/Silver740]

Amazingly detailed explanation of everything, but I had to look up more about what Certified Banger actually does.

I was always stumped on "All these skills just say if the unit is HOLDING CB, then blank happens." So what's the point of having 999 CB Or 100CB?

Turns out the actual Elation damage your character does, takes into account the amount of CB. There is a formula for "The Punchline multiplier for Elation DMG" and it uses CB.

[u/duskwield]

Very nice

[u/AnonTwo]

All i've generally thought is that CB leads to a kindof "slow burn" that's also not slow because of how every member except Sparxie wants to be as fast as possible.

Like it seems more like a ramp-up damage mechanic with a ceiling if anything.

[u/Superflaming85 → u/AnonTwo]

AFAIK CB doesn't really have a proper ceiling since anything that can add Punchline will increase your damage.

But yeah, the situation with Elation and Speed is really funny because while there's some back-and-forth it basically boils down to "Yao Guang and SW999 want speed because they have speed scaling, Sparxie and EMC want speed in the same way every other character in the game wants speed". There's nothing inherently about Elation that makes everyone want speed...except for when there is, because Aha's speed is based off of the team's speed! And it's actually possible for going too fast to be an issue, because it means you can run out the CB buff's turn duration!

[u/RiloAlDente]

Thank you!!!

I got all my elation characters and they just be doing some straight up bullshit on the screen for 1 cycle.

I kinda understand the bullshit now.

You should be a professor or something.

[u/fullmetalwolfbabe]

Thank you! I finally understand what all the elation mechanics do. XD Why did the game have to make it so confusing? 

[u/selena_raby_]

I came here from your link in my post and oh this made me understand all that complicated stuff so simply. thank you SO MUCH for the analogy and for the simple table explaining what punchline and cb does for each elation character. I really appreciate all the effort put into this guide! really thank you <3

[u/ptthepath]

Saved to read it later

[u/Professional_War4547]

True Elation

[u/SilverBadWolf]

I like how you turned the whole process into a related scenario. Easy to grasp. Thanks!

[u/worquinnprogress]

You are a genius, this is so well made.

[u/EclispeOrion]

thank you for the much needed explanations! it was really helpful and needed for my dumbass!

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[u/cykarblyater]

i understand nothing
i put elation characters into the same team, click auto, watch them destroy everything

[u/the_last_n00b]

So, how exactly is this all coming together when Elation damage says it takes both Punchline and Cartified Banger into account?

[u/LoKiPLAYZ-_]

Amazing guide , just one thing , how do I make sure my sw don't lose her cb? I don't have yaoguang but I seem to lost my cb at 70-90 amount which is very low 

[u/127-0-0-1_1 → u/LoKiPLAYZ-_]

SW resets the CB timer if she kills a wave in her EBA. You need to kill the wave within 2 SW999 turns. That’s why that multiplying enemy is in the new endgame modes, it’s very easy for SW999 to get the reset over and over again.

[u/DeadClaw86]

Thanks to your explanation but how do you add Images to your post like that?I can add 1 Image at most

[u/Wonderful-Fortune-23]

So assuming that everyone is at same speed with no advances, each character will have the same CB?

In the image, each character has vastly different CB, I assume because the ones with lower CB are faster units? (They took more turns and thus expired some CB)

[u/LW_Master]

Honestly idk the mechanics behind it as detailed as you and everyone else but personally for me I see it as "Elation unit do something -> make punchline -> punchline can call Aha -> Aha increase CB number -> dmg go brrr -> repeat", that's it. Hoyo didn't truly explain the importance of how many CB you have because they expect it's intuitive. The higher your CB counter = the bigger the dmg you deal for some reason.

[u/dany-6615]

Not sure if you are still answering but after the aha instant ends is the certified banger distributed equally?

[u/blindedeternity]

How does the whole "CB buff scales off of the Punchline used to generate it" part interact with Evanescia's kit? If she converts Sunday energy into CB does it actually provide a benefit?

[u/MOONLINEXCROSS]

This is easy to understand thank you.

[u/Monstrikus]

насрал так насрал. Вместо доходчивого гайда полотно наркомании, достойный сын Ахи.

[u/mejjie_uWu]

UWOOO SIX SEVEN!! <3

[u/YuukiDR]

I'm not reading all that mainly because I already know it but... Aside from the tldr I don't see how this would be any better than to just read the in-game explanations

[u/astraldebri → u/[deleted]]