Genshin Impact recently released its 2.0 update, bringing the new region of Inazuma to the game alongside new characters, quests, enemies, and locations to explore. Developer miHoYo also revealed a long list of upcoming characters in the region. With Ayaka's banner coming to a close, fans are looking forward to Yoimiya, the next confirmed 5-star character.
Genshin Impact players who have explored Inazuma's storyline will have already come across Yoimiya during their adventure as she's the owner of Naganohara Fireworks. A Pyro bow user, Yoimiya's kit is designed to reflect her love for fireworks. With the season of summer festivals around the corner, it's likely that she'll have an event to go alongside her banner release as well.
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Yoimiya should be familiar for Genshin Impact players who have played through a bit of the main story in Inazuma. Players encounter Yoimiya early on as the owner of Naganohara Fireworks, and the quest reveals a bit more about her role in the main story. A household name in Inazuma, she loves to have conversations with others and is in charge of the vibrant fireworks displays during festivals. She wields a bow alongside her Pyro vision.
Interestingly, the Inazuma main story revealed quite a bit about Yoimiya already. However, given the fact that Inazuma is based on Japan and fireworks festivals usually occur in August, there's speculation that there will likely be some event to go alongside Yoimiya's character banner. Much like Genshin Impact's Ayaka, Yoimiya comes from a different region than most of the current characters, meaning that there aren't many voicelines mentioning her. As such, players will need to wait until her release to get her full backstory.
Yoimiya's standard attack is quite similar to other bow users, but she does have a unique charged attack with two different levels like Ganyu. While Genshin Impact players aim Yoimiya's bow, flames will accumulate on the arrowhead and will have different effects depending on how long it has been charged. On the first charge level, Yoimiya simply fires a flaming arrow that does Pyro damage, but on the second charge level, it generates up to three Kindling arrows that will home in on nearby targets and deal Pyro damage.
Yoimiya's elemental skill is called "Niwabi Fire-Dance" and it turns her standard attack arrows into Blazing arrows. During this time, the damage of the arrows will be increased and converted to Pyro damage. However, her charged attacks will not generate Kindling arrows at level 2 and this effect will disappear if Yoimiya leaves the field.
Yoimiya's elemental burst is called "Ryuukin Saxifrage" and it allows her to leap into the air to launch fireworks dealing AOE Pyro damage while marking an opponent with a debuff called "Aurous Blaze". When any party member aside from Yoimiya damages the enemy marked by the Aurous Blaze, it will trigger an explosion that deals AOE Pyro damage. If a Genshin Impact enemy with the debuff is defeated before the duration expires, it will pass onto another enemy.
Yoimiya has two main passives in Genshin Impact: "Tricks of the Trouble-Maker" and "Summer Night's Dawn." The "Tricks of the Trouble-Maker" passive affects her elemental skill by increasing the Pyro damage bonus by 2% every hit from a standard attack. This effect lasts for 3 seconds and can have a maximum of 10 stacks. The "Summer Night's Dawn" passive causes her elemental burst to give her other party members a 10% attack increase for 15 seconds. A further attack bonus will be added based on the number of "Tricks of the Trouble-Maker" stacks that Yoimiya has by 1% per stack.
As Yoimiya is a 5-star Genshin Impact character, her constellations will be difficult to unlock without spending money. Thankfully, they appear to be nice bonuses instead of necessities. Yoimiya has three notable constellations: her first, second, and sixth ones. Her first one is called "Agate Ryuukin" and it simply extends the duration of her Aurous Blaze debuff for 4 seconds as well as increasing her attack by 20% when a debuffed enemy is defeated. Her second one is called "A Procession of Bonfires" and it gives her a 25% Pyro damage bonus when she scores a critical hit with Pyro damage. Her sixth one is called "Naganohara Meteor Swarm" and it gives a 50% chance to fire an extra Kindling arrow that deals 60% damage when she uses her elemental skill.
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Unfortunately, it seems that Yoimiya's kit is a little underwhelming when compared to other Genshin Impact Pyro DPS characters. The most controversial aspect of Yoimiya is that she was given a unique second charged attack but it has low multipliers due to its homing effect. In most cases, Genshin Impact players will rarely use it given that her auto attacks will be far more consistent. Given Yoimiya's design aesthetic of fireworks, it seems a little strange that her AOE Pyro damage is so underwhelming.
Another problem with Yoimiya is her awkward internal cooldowns as a result of her rapid-fire playstyle. Unlike Klee, Hu Tao, or Xiangling, whose attacks can easily proc Vaporize or Melt reactions, Yoimiya's attacks are too quick to reliably proc a reaction on every hit. As such, meta Genshin Impact supports like Xingqiu or Kaeya won't work as well with Yoimiya compared to other Pyro DPS characters. Yoimiya will likely be more suited to proc Overload reactions together with Electro supports like Fischl or Beidou.
Thankfully, Inazuma is the land of the Electro Archon, so Genshin Impact players that roll for Yoimiya will have plenty of options once new Electro characters appear on future banners. While Yoimiya probably isn't the worst 5-star Genshin Impact character, she does seem to be mediocre when compared to her fellow Pyro DPS characters. She does present an interesting playstyle centered around rapidly firing off infused standard attacks, however. For players that are unsure, she will appear on a trial run when her banner is released. Yoimiya might receive some buffs or scaling changes in the same way that Zhongli did in the future, but for now, players should only roll her if they enjoy her playstyle or character.
Genshin Impact is available now on Mobile, PC, PS4, and PS5.
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