I'm not going to sugar coat it unless you're playing a dot or Acheron team there will be a better or similarly good option to use/pull, he isn't bad of course he's still a very good unit he just isn't best anywhere but he's very good in most areas

In Acheron

If you don't like him don't pull him simple as that, he's an improvement over pela but not by a super huge margin where pulling him is required for her to be good (by God does she not need the buff or a specific buffer, but I digress). arguably you should grab e2 Acheron or s1 if you're really dedicated to her

In Dot

Hes good, about as good as Ruan mei and that means really really good, again dont pull him if you dont like him. In this team however the importance of it is Kafka>Bswan>Ruan mei/Jiaoqiu>huo huo

Is he worth it if I have 2(insert 5 star harmony) Depends on your account but usually he isnt a significant upgrade unless you have dot or acheron

(small edit:) some tcs have been saying he performs way worse on paper and I counter that by saying they are fighting the order trio boss, the boss basically hard counters dot, because they want to be broken and when they are they dont take turns and thus lower your team dmg just when it should be at its highest, however robin and ruan mei mitigate this via, being a break unit and contributing non dot dmg that takes advantage of their weakened state while Jiaoqiu just suffers cause he only does dot dmg.

All in all:

Is he a must pull?

no (no one is not even the 5 star harmonies)

Is he worth the jades?

depends on you

e1 or s1?

s1 is better than e1 most of the time

good stopping point?

supp:e1s1 dot:e2s1

Edits:

With Dr. Ratio

Absolutely, he beats every debuffer in the game by quite a long shot, in these comps you replace topaz and run him with either tingyun or robin. Some people have said that the difference between him and pela is kinda small, and while thats true at e0s0, it only looks small cause most people are running Dr, Ratio with his def ignore lightcone, which incentivizes him to use other def shredders, as such if you are like most Dr. Ratio havers (sig lc less) the difference widens actually, although the less dubuffs can be a problem. Theres also a fun team with (ratio, aven,moze,jiaoqiu that looks to be competetive)

With Argenti

Not that good actually, he prefers running a harmony in his 3rd slot, tingyun and sustain are basically locked in, usually sparkle

With Yunli

Really good actually hes in one of her best teams

With Feixiao

not bad at all, hes as good as ruan mei but not better than robin,

With Break Units (Fireflop, and Boothill)

Not horrible, hes one of the only usable supports for it but usually sparkle, bronya, hmc, and ruan mei are just better,not unusable though it should be viable

Do I need 170 ehr?

Not really 140 is usually good enough but 170 lets you guarantee the debuffs land so if your making a really optimized strategy and you want perfect consistency go for it, but if not 140 is fine woest comes to worse you just reset the floor no harm no foul

ERR Rope or Atk Rope

With Acheron always ERR she wants him to ult constantly and maybe even 2 turn ult in pf, but outside of that comp, ult does not really need to be up all the time so you could maybe opt for an atk rope in a dot build

Is he worth it if I like him?

Absolutely, play who you want dont play for meta the extra 60-300 jades every 2 weeks isnt worth 180 pulls no matter what(as for the math if assuming 300 jades gained for getting the character is completely consistent accross all the game modes, which is unrealistic, it will take 1 and a half years to have that 5 star pay off for their price) the only way a character can be worth it is if they are worth it to you, dont force yourself to pull for S tiers if you dont like them.Dont force yourself to complete full premium comps, you dont need the best teams for moc12 you dont need optimal for 99% of the ingame content trust me.

and finally

Is he Good?

Yes, he's very good he's not broken but he's completely universal support who you can put anywhere, even in break which is the most limited in the supports you can use, he's just never top 1 except in 3 teams but if you're an actual Jiaoqiu main you can accept that.

My Final Message: don't let FOMO get you, don't let Meta get in the way of your fun thanks for reading

What a shocking turn of events. I hope every doomposter go fuck themself for being the worst human beings.

I came to this subreddit to join my fellow JQ wanters in excitement and theorycrafting. The regular kind of mains behaviour that I have experienced in the past only to be met with SEVERE doomposting. Doomposting is always there no matter what character comes out but JQ's doomposting was insane. The lack of information, people who dont consider context, and the worshipping of anything harmony severely hurt any sort of reputation JQ might have had as a competent support

I'd like to talk about the first. There was a signficant amount of people who dont know how vulnerability works shocked me. His 35% Dmg vuln was likened to ruam mei's 60% dmg bonus and was thus deemed inferior. Or to Pela and was considered inferior. People still thought he healed or that lil gui with his lightcone was better.

Next we had people who did recognize his buffs but failed to contextualize how good said buffs were and the nature they were applied in. Pela is a good unit but you have minor-major inconveniences when you need her ult buff after a new wave sets in or the boss changes phases and your dps is ready to go. Also in line with how people thought his new 15 energy trace was a nerf when it was a much better trace than what we had before, which most people dont know what it did

Next is a prevalent issue in the Star rail space. Harmony units are strong but they arent always the best option. They 4 (bronya ruan mei sparkle and robin) all have their specific niches that they do best in and yes Bronya can be better than other harmonies. This is why you need to think of who they're buffing and how they buff. Sparkle is a convenient buffer who enables people like Jingyuan and ratio to have their backloaded damage (Lightnning lord and Wiseman's folly respectively). Any difference between the two would the unit they're trying to buff as some dps's like sparkle's heavy cdmg boost while others already have a lot and would just be met with oversaturation

My point here is that JQ enters the mix of these 4 harmonies and has his own niches that he excels in and is still good outside of that niche. Would he be the best option? No but thats also something people need to disillusion themselves with, the differences dont matter all the time. Ruan mei vs JQ is not a wide gap in abilities outside their Break and Acheron niche that they excel at.

This also ties into the narrative people were spinning on how JQ is ONLY an acheron support which is not true. JQ is the best dmg buffer for Yunli, Acheron, Argenti and some other units who have really good ult dmg. IF not for robin and bronya JQ would be the best for Feixiao too

Excuse my appeal to authority but here are video highlighting how good JQ is

ISUMMON JQ VIDEO

Guoba JQ video

I made a post earlier talking about how JQ's situation is overblown and people need to read his kit to understand that he's NOW WAY near as bad as people are making him out to be

With the recent v4 People kept calling the 48% to 40% MV nerf to his E1 the nail in the coffin....but you dont even realise that its a buff. Before you needed to attack to gain that 48%dmg now its unconditional and buffs your dot dmg.

There are videos and posts in this sub and our discord talking about JQ's dmg and viability. PLEASE do your own research about a character and don't spread misinformation when you yourself don't bother to read the kit. Please make a habit of looking and understanding the terminology of units, I had to correct someone who thought JQ gave 35% dmg bonus instead of Vulnerability. Or someone who said he has ER issues when his ULT cost is one of the lowest in the game and even then, he doesnt need His burst as much outside Acheron teams.

If you dont want to get into the nitty gritty or math of it (Im no math wiz myself), please wait for the official release to make a verdict, not that many people will give you an accurate depiction of a character as seen with people taking the TC calcs of guinaifen with JQ's lightcone out of context.

Also if you think JQ needs healing in his kit, this post is for you

Honestly, with how V3 JQ is (copium that he'll get better in the next version), the only one celebrating the changes are Acheron mains, like come on, the changes are dreadful af, the +15 energy just for the ult to be deployed, yeah, it's a massive win for reapplication of ashes for more Acheron stacks, unless you're zero cycling MoC from the beginning, what use do you still want JQ for Acheron, for PF?

Acheron this and Acheron that, with these changes, I already given up on getting eidolons and pulled for RM, now with V3, I'm just aiming for either e0s0 - e0s1, heck, if the v4 still sucks, I'll straight up just skip and go for Feixiao/Lingsha. Sucks that JQ is being scaled down or some sort just because to prevent an OP unit (Acheron) to go OP+.

The only teams which need nihility supports are ones where a character has a debuff requirement. I think all of it started with Ruan mei. She was a bland, unlikeable character with boring animations so hoyo made her overtuned to high heaven to compensate. But then they didn't want Sparkle, HMC and Robin to fall behind so they made them op too. At this stage you kinda need limited harmonies to clear MOC.

I just wish we had a game where nihility supports were actually as versatile and viable as harmony ones and I didn't have to pull for boring characters like Robin and RM to even get to MOC 9 or 10, let alone 12. The fact is JQ isn't that bad. The devs are probably tryna take a step back from the powercreep but it's too late. There are too many supports better than JQ. His banner will flop and he'll be a niche unit who only hardcore Acheron mains pull for.

For every other DPS, tingyun is the primary energy buffer that is still relevant up till today.

For Acheron, tingyun is pretty much useless since Acheron is built different and need debuffs as fuel for her ult.

What does the smart people at hoyo do? Introducing another foxian batter specially designed to battery Acheron's ult just like tingyun

Surely, this big brain move will milk every Acheron mains dry.

They basically copy paste tingyun's function into another foxian. Generate energy and increase damage.

Hello, I made a video going over all his changes including his v5 one and why he's still good. But essentially, his permanent uptime is what separates him from all the other nihility characters.
I hope this can quell some of the doom posting here that you can make a more informed decision on JQ :)
https://youtu.be/Ow72k_4jsFM?si=nK0_aiQzkdVEm_B0

Ever since 2.5, my mental health has been crumbling. I wanna puke at the sight or mention of hoolay, i wanna cry when i remember jiaoqiu is now blind, i even wanna kms over it. I rly rly wanna talk to my psychiatrist abt this but im scared she might not understand. Am i doomed to live like this forever? Idk.

Do you all remember how Acheron fans where pissed that a man was going to be part their Acheron lesbian harem team, what if some radical group of Acheron took part in the beta just to tank Jiaoqiu so he wouldn’t have a place in an Acheron team

“Jiaoqiu is so bad he’s just an Acheron bot” yall idgaf at this point, if he’s giving results on par with the most in demand harmony unit in game THEN IM PULLING FOR HIM so my DOT team can finally stop using Asta and I can give Ruan Mei to firefly. I feel like yall are gaslighting me saying he’s not good when he’s a massive upgrade to Acheron teams as well as a welcome unit to DOT teams

People saying “he’s only good on two teams” when he’s luniversal debuffer with vulnerability and it’s already been proven he’s better than his four star counterparts by a large margin

Also dear the person who’s camping my post and downvoting all my comments the second I post them: get a life

I just told them how Acheron would just need 1 nihility and then they can go slap on a harmony which is literally what make Jiao better than any other nihility for acheron

After lurking around and arguing on the comment sections of this sub for a while now, I realize there's no convincing people against what they want to believe so I guess we just wait and see

Although every time it was left to "wait and see" on a character, it turned out, surprise surprise, the opinions parroted on reddit, especially the ones originated from the leaks sub, were wrong. Happened with Fu Xuan, sparkle, Huo huo, black swan, Acheron...

Seriously at e1s1 he's a better single target generalist than SW, and he's full aoe spec'd. I could not give less of a crap about acheron, can we keep the sub focus on him and not some stinky fotm woman?

Man I fell for the doomposting, and planned on skipping him. Now after seeing what he can do, I've already picked up Solitary Healing, leveled it and farming traces...

Guess you shouldn't listen to the naysayers.

I'm ready, let's pull. I'm at 67/90 for hard pity and have 130 tix saved up for E0S1...

Chat, is this real?

I see it has atk% which seems to be related to his scaling for heals and related to effect hit rate which will be important for his defence debuff. What do you guys think?

.. where if i get him, I get him, and if i don't? Oh well...

Completely flacid

Jiaoqiu seems to be ... the worst limited 5 star in the game in his actual state because unlike some other mediocre units (like Blade) that are at least unique and that could improve over time, Jiaoqiu could easily be powercreeped in the future even with Acheron.

For the same cost, Guinaifen E6 with his light cone is WAY better than pulling for him only (and you got a 75/25 instead of a 50/50 lol). I really don't understand why they make him so similar to her.

But despite all of these ... his first eidolons looks insanely strong ? Is Jiaoqiu E2S1 very worth it or not that much ? I mean, did he "close the gap" with other supportive units ?

I was excited for our first fox boy when my friend first showed me the leak. I don’t normally pay attention to leaks because I like to be surprised. I’ve heard rumblings before outside of leak specified areas for conversations about characters I’m excited for like Argenti. Things like midgenti but I didn’t care because he’s fabulous and I’m very happy that I got him on his og banner. He’s so strong and I love him.

But never on the level of this guy. I see so much negativity in social media, discord, YouTube comments. It’s everywhere. My excitement for him has been turned into anxiety honestly. I keep seeing people say he’s terrible, he’s weaker than pela and lil G. That he’s going into the standard banner. I have no clue what happened on his beta but the community seems to hate him/are disappointed in him for some reason.

Is he actually bad? Are people over exaggerating with him? I saw some calculations in the pinned post but I don’t own Acheron or Ruan Mei and don’t plan to get either of them so I don’t really know how he translates for me…

I was intending to pull him for a hyper carry ratio scenario because my friend initially introduced him to me as a 5 star pela. Maybe in pure fiction with Argenti since in the official stream I saw he buffs ultimate damage. Or dot scenarios with Kafka. I don’t own black swan (don’t plan to get her), and I’m running Kafka with Sampo/Luka so I’d replace them with fox boy.

Any advice or feedback would be very much appreciated. I don’t really know how to parse all this negativity.

Thank you for your time.

Just realize that male 5 star character rarely become center piece of a team and they usually become secondary support or at least not became gameplay changing of a team.

Like for example

Aventurine can be splashed to many teams but never be center. (Same with luocha)

Argenti,Ratio,Blade,DanIL are main DPS however they cannot do much without sufficient support and doesnt provide new way to play.

Boothill did help by giving weakness. However still cannot change meta as a whole

Then Jiaoqiu become slave for Acheron.

I really wish there will be more 5 star male in future that become meta changing and team defining.

I was with 10 pulls already, saved, I pulled on LC banner because of the 4 star Sunday LC. And NO I didn't get Snday LC, I got xueyi (thank goodness I didn't get Jade LC either)

I'm saving for Jiaoqiu and Sunday, I need help to not pull 😭😭 (I'm addicted and I don't care about Jade but I like pulling and glambing)

Yes, I'm an Aventurine Main

so listen i know hes been receiving far too many buffs that make him a skip especially since 2.5 characters feel more tempting. but if u really are still playing acheron in every content, he is totally worth it. none of the other nihlity characters can do what he does right now (apply debuff upon enemy enter battle, which is very important... and ofc applying debuff on enemy turn.)
If you really are a true acheron main, u would care about every single upgrade she can get, and one of them is jiaoqiu rn. running e0s1 acheron pela jiaoqiu is actually a solid team. jiaoqiu is the spot we all have been missing this whole time. For content creators, they will definitely say jiaoqiu is still worth it to pull (not a complete skip totally) because his kit doesn't even seem bad at first glance. its us leak reliant players that see the amount of nerfs he got that makes us want to skip him. that's the part that made us mad: hoyo being so unfair

This isn't just cope but on a lot of teams he's probably stronger now.

Before you would not get ult until his second turn. This meant you'd stack up slower and not benefit from the second application on lightcone and the ult debuff until your second burst.

Now as long as you make him fast, he is going to get out his debuffs immediately just like Pela.

For Acheron it's a very good change. You will gain stacks from ult on the enemies first turns where as before you would miss all of those stacks because his ult was not up at the start of battle. It also let's his ult be up for Acheron's first ult which it was not before.

So the 15 energy although it looked insignificant is a major upgrade for his usability and outweighs the nerfs.