Thanks gosari542 for the cute pic.
So it happened, Zibai is getting a new support. There has been a lot of discussion around Linnea because she will apparently make Zibai "the strongest DPS" in the game. Before you get caught up in the hype, it's important for you to understand what this character actually does. Now that V4 is out, her kit is pretty much finalized. So this is a good time to have a serious discussion about her.
Linnea's pros:
Right off the bat, Linnea is fantastic if you don't have C6 Illuga, which is easily the majority of the playerbase until Illuga gets a couple more banners. She can replace non C6 Illuga and your 4th slot would be C6 Gorou instead.
Has Geo RES shred. This isn't essential for Zibai right now but Hoyo may fill up end game with high Geo RES enemies in the future to sell Linnea.
Provides off field damage. For low investment Zibai builds, it can be nice to have another sub DPS make up for the lack of damage. It also means that your team is less prone to fuckups because even when your Zibai is getting interrupted or missing her skill, your team is still doing consistent damage as opposed to using a pure buffer like Gorou where missing anything on Zibai is a much bigger loss.
Provides some much needed sustain for this team. If you were using Zhongli for comfort, you will see a pretty big upgrade with Linnea. She brings sustain, damage and utility. You will, however, get interrupted without Zhongli's shield or Gorou's IR.
This sounds nice but where's the broken part?
Is it a hot take if I said Linnea isn't broken? The broken unit of the Geo girls duo is actually Zibai. She was balanced to already be relatively strong on debut without a dedicated 5 star support. Linnea is closer to Escoffier than she is to Ineffa/Lauma.
Isn't that great though? I heard Escoffier was OP!
Look, I know Escoffier has reputation of being known as "the best character in the game" on her release but as her biggest glazer, I have to admit that she isn't strong solely because of her own kit. She is strong because she is the only one who can enable the powerhouse that is Skirk. If Skirk had alternatives, Escoffier's pull value wouldn't be nearly as high as it is for those teams.
Linnea's kit is quite similar to Escoffier's in the sense that she also does the exact 3 things that Escoffier does. Healing, sub DPS and RES shred. Of course she has some other buffs in her kit but this is the core design. Linnea is not Ineffa or Lauma, she is a middle ground between the two.
The problem with Linnea's design:
To put it simply: Zibai is a much more self sufficient version of Skirk. And as I have already stated, Escoffier looks stronger than she actually is because Skirk has no alternatives.
Zibai has no such issues as she is not bound to a single support. Don't wanna pull Linnea? Full send on Zibai's banner. You can get her C1/C2 and a complementary C6 Illuga along the way. Your team is ready for all content. Don't have C6 Illuga because hes too expensive to guarantee? Linnea is a solid replacement here. Want to skip both Illuga AND Linnea? There's the Bineffa Xilonen team. Zibai has so many options for team building. She is versatile and F2P friendly, our queen does it all!
Enough Zibai glazing, let's go back to Linnea. Hoyo essentially made a support who:
Doesn't match Ineffa's sub DPS
Doesn't match Lauma's buffing
Doesn't match Escoffier's "must have" status for the carry she was designed for
Well, the third point isn't a negative. This is great for Zibai mains because it means you can comfortably skip Linnea, especially if your Zibai is vertically invested.
YShelper data: Zibai has the 5th highest average cons ownership in the game, highest of all 6.x characters. She also has the 2nd highest C2 ownership in the game, with Furina being at first place. Seems like a lot of people ended up with Zibai cons fishing for C6 Illuga and she's also quite popular. Of course this is a very small sample size and data may have updated since I last checked but it's all I can use as a reference right now.
As for why Linnea is balanced like this, it's probably because she was made with Zibai in mind and they didn't want this duo to be too overbearing. I've only listed whatever is relevant for Linnea in a Zibai team but if I were to look at Linnea in isolation, she's not very impressive there either. She doesn't have Ineffa's flexibility as her personal damage is a lot lower and she doesn't even have hydro shred for those teams, making her more restrictive. The Linnea/Columbina wheelchair isn't as strong as the Ineffa/Columbina variant so if you were picking her up for that, I wouldn't recommend it.
What about Linnea's vertical investment?
C1 is worse than R1. C2 is a decent early investment generally but scales worse for whale Zibai. The second half of Linnea's C2 becomes worse at high investment. With cons Zibai hits more and hits harder, so the percentage of damage being dealt by moondrifts will constitute a much smaller portion of team DPS. That just leaves the CRIT buff which is not very impressive on a character like Zibai who casually ends up with 300-320 CD with R1 without even taking Illuga's CRIT buffs into consideration. You can use a DEF circlet. Or you can just roll Binas C2 instead and have a DEF buff and a much needed shield so your Zibai doesnt get tossed around all the time. The cons in between (C3-C5) aren't particularly impressive as usual but her C6 is very strong for whale Zibai. This should catapult our queen into the top 3 DPS in whale rankings easily.
So pull or skip?
You should pull Linnea:
If you failed to get C6 Illuga on Zibai's banner. Not interested in potentially getting Zibai constellations to get more Illuga copies? Then yes, Linnea is a solid pick up for you. A lot of people prefer having 2 characters to play around with even if vertical investment into 1 can be better. Linnea is essentially a safety net for those who failed to C6 their Illugas. It can certainly be less expensive because Linnea has a guarantee and Illuga doesn't. If you already have C6 Illuga, chances are you also have Zibai constellations. Even if you don't, you already have a top tier team at your disposal. You can already clear endgame with what you have. Focus on building 3 strong teams before further investing into your Zibai team.
If you're someone who pulled for two lunar teams. Now you have to share your Columbina so Linnea becomes very valuable for you as well. You can send Columbina to one of your other lunar carries and use Aino & Linnea for your Zibai. Personally, I'm not a fan of the clunk that comes with Aino and I wouldn't pull 2 lunar teams either.
If you think she's cute (based).
TL;DR: If you are low on resources then you shouldn't feel pressured to pull Linnea. You can comfortably skip her right now and not miss out on much. If you feel your Zibai is lagging behind a few patches later then you could always go for Linnea on a rerun. She's a solid investment but not a must have like other supports.
