If you’re still following Genshin Impact to this day, you’ll be impressed with how many people are crazy enough to do so – you probably know exactly what this article is about. And if you didn’t, the header plus the featured image gave the info away. Anyways, Dehya sucks. There, I said it. Now go read something else or just touch grass for once.
…Wait, what do you mean I need to elaborate? Oh well, here we go. Let’s start from the beginning. Hoyoverse is somehow still managing to release one or two new characters in each update of their hit gacha game. But obviously, not every single one of them receives equal care from the balance team in their production. The most recent 5-star Dehya was a victim of this.
The newest addition is being criticized since her introduction in the closed beta. Through many leaks and videos, people were in continuous awe since she felt so… strange. It was like her kit didn’t really have synergy with itself, even though her signature weapon is nuts. Conspirational theorists say that it was all intentional. Well, let’s see what’s wrong with her.
A Misguided Kit Would Be a Compliment
Her kit is very unique. And as much as I would love to say that in a good way, it isn’t. Nothing makes sense here. Her Skill works when she’s off-field, gives interruption resists, and redirects part of the damage the active character takes to her. This is something that no other character does currently. It would be incredible if it did anything else. With low damage and bad elemental application, she’s not a great option even for Burgeon teams.
Let’s hop to her Burst. Well, that’s incredibly fun to use with that awesome animation of an angry girl angrily punching stuff. It extends her Skill duration, so the idea is to Burst regularly to maintain 100% uptime on her mitigation tool. But guess what? The punches are not that good either. And with no Energy Recharge, your loop is over.
With subpar damage, keeping her on the field is usually worse than having any other DPS thanks to her low scaling. Raiden Shogun works in a somewhat similar way, but her Burst is so busted that completely makes up for that. All while refilling her team’s energy in a blink.
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It feels especially bad because Dehya was an important character in the main quests since 3.0 and people grew attached to her. Many will keep their “waifu > meta” motto, but it still hits hard knowing that she could have been something better.
The game’s official Reddit page had its share of Dehya-related posts too. While some people can make her work well, most posts are just memes or strange interactions such as not being able to hit a weekly boss or her Burst being canceled if she jumps, for some reason (not a bug, according to support). And for the love of your sanity, don’t look at r/Dehyamains.
Does that mean that she’s just terrible? Not really. She’s still viable just like any other character. People have cleared the Abyss with her and the Burst can hit really hard with a good setup. But it’s just not what anyone expected from a 5-star. She can shine bright, but others can shine brighter with less effort.
It’s like one of those sandwiches from fast food ads that looks great but, in reality, it tastes awful because the ingredients are just a bunch of randomly tossed shit that somehow looks pretty together. And the cashier won’t take it back because that’s exactly what you asked for. You’re stuck with this abomination forever. I’m not lovin’ it.
Have They Done Her Dirty on Purpose?
People were skeptical about her utility from leaks alone, but when the official stream for 3.5 showed her struggling against a Hydro Slime, all hope was gone for most. And they had the nerve to put those same creatures on her character test. They’re just laughing at us at this point.
So many started to say that it was all made on purpose. She was never supposed to be good. Something that supports this theory is that she’s being added to the standard character pool in the following update. She’s not limited, hence she shouldn’t be that great. Makes sense. Except that it doesn’t. Tighnari had the same treatment in 3.0 and he feels like a complete character, possibly the best out of the current six standard 5-stars.
So would she be on the same level as older standard 5-stars? They usually fill this niche of great early-game carries that are not the best later, but can do their job fairly well. Mona, Jean and Keqing (after Dendro) stood the test of time and are still widely used. Diluc is still decent and Qiqi is a godsend healer for newer players. But Dehya is just wacky in both support and offensive roles.
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Others will say that they’re just testing the players. Will they keep spending their money if the character’s not as good as the others? Her Weapon being generically good – great, actually – might be their way of guaranteeing some gain from this banner period, as Cyno’s not as popular either.
But well, I don’t think that was the case either. We’ll probably never know the real reason. Players have been saying that the company has been ignoring beta testers (who also complained about her) for a while, and this case is evidence for them. Players have expressed their negative feedback to the company, but no official answer on the subject was given.
The last straw of hope is that we get another Zhongli situation and she gets a buff in the next patch. We shouldn’t expect that to happen, but who knows? Christmas might come earlier this year.
