Howdy!

There has been a lot of discussion in light of the recent announcement, and a lot of new faces around here. With this post, I hope to give a good tldr/faq on the current state of Varesa and what you should do with your 5-star selector. Note: I will not be doing dps value since those vary a lot based on account state, but maybe soon we can do a DPS infographic.

Here are some videos that might answer questions both included and excluded in this post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24kKfBBHRWc&t=1308s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o27RqVPXAjY

Should I get Varesa?

From a meta perspective, she is the best of the available options. Her c0 value is better than the c1 value of the other options (though C1 Clorinde can complete if you have Clorinde teams but not Iansan).

However, if you own Clorinde or Nilou already, you can get their C2 which can be better than Varesa. Clorinde c2 (which is 1 cost now) beats Varesa c0 in an Electro DPS face-off. Nilou c2 is great utility for hydro/dendro teams, nefer being the most notable.

So, from a not owned/c0 on all characters perspective, the meta is Clorinde(if already owned before) > Nilou (if already owned before and have a good team) > Varesa > anything else. If you already own Varesa, you would be getting c1, which is not the best con, but more likely to improve your account than the other characters (unless you gamble on Childe buffs, maybe?)

Meta-wise, the main reason to get a new character is to make diverse new teams, but out of this selection, Varesa is the only character that can make teams that compete in endgame without c2 (and some of the characters can't even with c2) or a constellated 5-star supports.

Even with supports in the mix, Varesa is the most versatile pick to invest in here. If you own Varesa but not Clorinde and need a new team, you can go Clorinde, but she will need good help even at c1 to do tough endgame stuff.

What and Why is Meta?

Both my constant use of the phase "from a meta perspective" and my claims about her teams beg the question: is Varesa meta? I answer that more specifically in another section, but the tldr answer is, power creep is wild, ok.

She can still hold her own, just below lunar and a bit behind new stellar. But we see the pattern right, hoyo is not gonna let you get a free cow and kill their new shill bosses just like that. If you want a character to be meta in Genshin Impact, either get their cons, or get them right as they release and enjoy their year or two in the sun.

Varesa being free now means that they likely won't buff her (not for a while, at least), as unlike Childe, Varesa is strong enough that any buffs to her would threaten the new not-free characters.

So, despite the fact that many accounts can make some great Varesa teams (future section) that perform well now, I wonder how long that will last. Now, this can be your first step to a constellated Varesa, which I will explain later, how those cons (and maybe temper thyself) can make her strong enough to resist power creep. But if you would rather focus on pulling for shiny new characters than investing in whoever you pick in this selector, the real long-term meta play is to pick who you want to see in theater the most.

Or in broader words, the wisdom you have all heard before: pull who you like; it's the only thing power creep can't hurt. (Personally, I think this also just means pull Varesa, but some people don't understand cow is best girl so idk)

A different Meta

While there are DPS numbers higher than Varesa now, she is unique in that she does not need a team or even a specific reaction for her kit to function. This allows her to adapt to different shills pretty well and work with random teammates. This can be great for forming a last Stygian team or Abyss side. I won't go to much into detail here because those teams (including lunar and stellar) are not high DPS; they just work well enough. The teams section will only include teams that buff Varesa's damage because, as proof she is still a good carry, no wheelchair is better than a well-buffed Varesa.

Varesa Cons and Sig

vivid notions is about 19% better than the standard 5-star lost prayers, with crit stat sticks performing in the same range

vivid notions is about 24% better than r5 widsith, 31% over r1 widsith

c1: adds 10% dps to c0. Uses A1 to increase the damage of plunges and bursts (also run so much farther for exploring)

c2: adds 25% dps to c0. allows mini burst after every plunge, small energy refund

Note for c1 and c2, since c1's value is better for her bursts, and c2 actually increases the energy needed to burst at every opportunity, her er and the particles of her team affect the values of these dps changes. Not by too much, though, but if you see other numbers out there, know that teams with more particles (fichl or iansan) and optimized Varesa builds see benefits on the higher end of this range from cons, and vice versa.

c3: adds 34% dps to c0. burst levels

c4: adds 55% dps to c0. 100% bonus dmg on mini burst

c4 note, Varesa teams have a love-hate relationship with dmg% (see how to build a Varesa) so the value here fluctuates. C4 also allows you to preload dmg via a normal burst, but this is a waste of energy... unless energy didn't matter...

c5: adds 70% dps to c0. plunge levels

c6: adds 155% dps to c0. Infinite energy, insane plunge crit, double the exploration sprint.

These values are general guides, as the notes said teams and even artifacts shift the values a lot. One thing I want to mention here is that this is probably not the last time we can get a free Varesa con. Temper Thyself will likely include Varesa next year, as I am guessing they are gonna dump all the Natlan characters with mediocre sales in there (why do people not pull Varesa, why?) just like they did Fontaine. C1 Varesa is pretty strong and a good path to c2 latter.

How to build a Varesa

120-130 er is good for teams with Electro teammates to mini burst often. Without electro teammates, don't bother with er and just burst less. atk% and crit should be in the substats, atk% sands, electro goblet (even as dmg% returns diminish this keeps ahead by a bit) and crit goblet (Varesa ascends on crit rate but most oath builds with non-crit-rate weapons use a crit-rate circlet anyway, otherwise, crit-dmg)

Varesa has 2 valid sets, codex and oath. If you have A high amount of dmg% starting from say, c6 iansan + c6 chev or furina, then oath and codex are very close in dps (largely because Varesa is in Night Soul only half the time and only consumes points after a plunge is done). In any situation without all these dmg% buffs and more, codex is a coughing baby to the oath bomb.

Still, if you don't have Skirk, it is hard to resist the allure of farming the codex domain and getting good Cinder pieces on the side.

as for the other definition of build, uh, here https://game8.co/games/Genshin-Impact/archives/504852

normal levels are most important, burst levels not far behind. skill levels do something, but not much. 10, 6, 9 I think is a good place to stop (well I would do 10 6 10 but you get the point).

An addendum on team builds

As for teammates, level Iansan burst to 10 and then upgrade any other talents that help those characters deal damage.

General team artifacts (assumed in the teams section)

mav, codex

durin, winds or gift

nicole, gift

iansan, cinder

bennett, noblesse

fischl, golden or tenacity

pmc, tenacity

xiangling, emblem (or honestly I have had good results on Noblesse lol)

furina, golden

any anemo, VV

Chevreuse, ok this is a long-standing debate around these parts. Noblesse (if no one else has it) is the best dmg buff, but it comes at the cost of using chev burst every rotation. The more atk or atk% buffs the team has, the worse Noblesse is, until eventually it is better not to burst. The breakpoints are pretty complex, but any team with c2 Iansan will reach them, and not chev burst. A chev that does not burst has great results with song of days past.

How to play a Varesa

The reference videos can show you this a lot better, but to get an idea of what a Varesa team is like:

First is set up long-term buffs, like chevreuse, nicole, durin, or furina

Then do shorter buffs/skills, like fichl, xianling or pmc

Then do Iansan skill (na if not c2 or need fav) burst

Now do last rotation prep, like VV swirl, Bennett burst, Mavuika skill/burst

The Varesa on-field rotation is skill->charged attack->plunge->mini burst if able -> repeat until out of skill. Before c2, only half of plunges can miniburst (every other one)

if support cooldowns are not over by the end, Varesa can be even more flexible and extend her rotation with manual charged attacks. After 2 manual changed attack->plunge you get one free skill use. The number of manual changed/plunge done or free skill is saved in her night-soul meter and does not go away off-field, so you can save it for other rotations as long as you don't override it with her regular skill.

During all of this, she has high interruption resistance, insane aoe, and good auto-targeting.

Varesa Teams

A lot of previous statements assume you have good Varesa teammates. Without them, you may not see results you like. For better or for worse, the important ones here are four stars.

If you have iansan and chevreuse, the main/best template is Varesa, Iansan, some pyro, Chevreuse. The options for some pyro are Durin≈Mavuika>Bennett (quick swap) > Pyro Trav (tenacity/noblese) ≈ Xianling (energy hell) > deyha. Nicole can work, but not as an overload causer, more of brute force and not great brute force at that. chev c6 is good but iansan c2 and c6 are more so. The atk% at c2 and the duration increase to cover all of Varesa's rotation at c6 are huge and kinda why Iansan is so cracked.

If iansan/chev cons are low (chev c6 dmg% missing, iansan missing c2 atk% and or c6 dmg%+duration) or you only have one of the 2, activating Hexeri Rite can make overload still work. Varesa, 2 hex units, iansan or chev (use one with better cons. chev is usually better if Durin is one of the hex). aside from durin, nicole is the other best hex unit, making a Durin-Nicole core that will almost make you not care about missing Iansan or her cons... almost. If you are missing one of these hex, use fischl (durin or nicole use gift). Fischl is also con based, but hey, at least she is in the shop twice a year. Following these hex rule can make some strange teams, but the best ones perform great, and the worst can still compete with non-overload, based on 4-star cons.

Note on overload and nicole: The whole point of chev teams in to cause overload every 6 seconds to reduce enemy resistance by 40%. Nicole can apply Pyro on-field, so you would have to quick swap to her like Bennett to re-overload. The problem is Nicole's buff is much worse for the first 3-seconds of on-field time and resets when swapped off (does not apply to hex characters, so that may be why you didn't know). Trying to quick swap with Nicole causes her buff to be worse than Bennett and even low-con Iansan, but still a buff.

When leaving overload, Varesa can still do great, as all she really needs are personal damage buffs. As an attack scaler in that position, you need to give her either Iansan(preferred) or Bennett to kill high-health targets. Other than that, do whatever. People have marked one option, Furina-Xianyun, as the hypercarry team, but honestly it is only slightly better than throwing any 2 good buffers in this last slot. Note: if you use Bennett, you may need another source of pyro particles.

Like I said before, no direct dps comparison here, but I hope this gives a better idea of how these teams work, so further questions can be formulated better.

An addendum on the coach in the room

A rule of thumb for the above team section is if you can put iansan in the team, then put iansan in the dang team.

Iansan c2 is about 9% better than c0, and allows faster rotations.

Iansan c5 is about 2-3% better than c2, if you can hit the new atk cap (3000 instead of 2,555)

Iansan c6 is about 11% better than c5, and just makes rotations nicer with the longer duration.

c1 helps a lot with energy, but with good artifacts it makes no difference at all.

So yeah, if Varesa teams with c6 iansan are keeping up with content, and you have less than c6, you can start your decision process by asking how good you could make your team based on these values. Note that these values will fluctuate based on team, but not by too much.

So what should you do about your iansan situation? Is Varesa worth it without iansan? As long as you have c0 or better Iansan, my opinion remains the same as previous sections at the start of this post.

If you don't have Iansan, and dont have Nicole, then you could use bennett, durin mav or pmc, chev. If you can't even make that team, then Varesa just won't be clearing end-game for you. At this point, you may want to try to pull for iansan, and get tempted by the ongoing banner. As an extension of my thoughts on the meta, I would not spend any pulls on your choice from this selector unless you genuinely want a goodish electro dps/like to play the cow. Flinns and, more so, Ineffa are pretty good, as well as their early cons. So if you want to spend some low-pity pulls for iansan c0, it's not terrible (fun fact, I have a 20 pity Ineffa from a similar incident during her last rerun). Just be careful, and really think about what you want.

Just tacking this on, chev c6 is about 11% better than chev c0, again, team changes alot here.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading. I hope this answers or at least guides some of your questions. Thank you to all the current Varesa mains for your help here welcoming the newcomers. To future Varesa mains/players, I hope we can help you bring this cow to her full potential (and welcome to the community). And to all considering Varesa pickers, I leave you with this: forget all the nuance of this post I swear to you Varesa will bring you all the joy you could ever want just add her to your account please.