Denial

Yoimiya is the newest limited 5-star banner character to be added into Genshin Impact at the point of writing. And she has problems. A lot of problems. So many problems in fact that there is a whole list of them compiled in a single Reddit post with videos demonstrating said problems.

To summarize the list, these are her main issues (if you are interested, please read the actual Reddit post, /u/PartyConfetti gives a really thorough breakdown on Yoimiya’s issues, and I cannot do that post justice here):

1. Genshin’s auto-targetting for bow users have always been unreliable, but Yoimiya is the first 5-star character that relies on it for damage. As such, she can actually lose out a lot of damage because the game simply decides that her bow shots are not going to hit anyone.
2. Aside for that, her ult can miss as well. And even if it hits and marks an enemy, it only deals damage when another character deals damage to the marked enemy. She’s meant to be an on-field DPS.
3. She is replaceable in all her best team compositions with other Pyro characters. Not just other 5* Pyro characters, even some 4* characters are a better fit for her teams than her.
4. She can only deal single-target DPS, but she isn’t the best single-target DPS even.

In other words, as a limited 5* character she is absolutely lackluster and not worth the money put into it. Unless you just like the character.

However, as with the massive debacle with Zhongli’s first release, where he was released in a massively underwhelming state, some players and content creators are dead set on not properly representing the character’s flaws. They release videos where Yoimiya supposedly clears the game’s hardest contents in record time while conveniently ignoring that most of the damage is dealt by the other three members in the team.

One of my favourite examples for this is a comparison between IWTL Gaming’s and OkCode’s videos. IWTL Gaming released a video which shows his massively overinvested Yoimiya clearing one of the hardest content in the game, Spiral Abyss Floor 12 Chamber 1 first half, in 21.32 seconds. It seemed impressive at first if not for three reasons:

1. His Yoimiya is at Constellation 6, which requires him to pull Yoimiya 7 times and gives her a massive power boost. And he has the Thundering Pulse on her, which is Yoimiya’s signature 5* weapon that is designed to work with her kit.
2. Yoimiya had the three strongest support characters in the game as part of her team: Bennett, Zhongli, and Kazuha
3. The first of the two waves of enemies were killed before Yoimiya even stepped on the field, and when she was finally brought in the supports have set up all their buffs for her already.

Just to be clear, IWTL Gaming did not say that Yoimiya is absolutely wonderful. He did acknowledge that Yoimiya currently has no niche of her own when it comes to speedrunning Spiral Abyss clears. In another video, he also went through how Yoimiya is lackluster compared to other 5* DPSes in the game. My issue with the video is that the Yoimiya Abyss run is less of a Yoimiya showcase and more of a Bennett/Zhongli/Kazuha showcase.

OkCode, on stream, demonstrated that by running an Amber/Bennett/Zhongli/Kazuha team and achieved the same timing as IWTL’s attempt. For context, OkCode’s Amber compared to IWTL’s Yoimiya is like comparing a butter knife to an axe. And when someone can chop through a tree in one swing with either the butter knife or the axe, it’s pretty obvious that the tool used to chop it down does not matter at all.

The problem with a lackluster limited 5* character is that they are extremely hard to pull for. Wasting hard-earned in-game currency (or real-life cash) for something mediocre when you could’ve used it on getting a more powerful character is simply doing whoever pulled for the banner dirty. And when content creators do not properly represent the character and give the illusion that the character is good when she is full of issues, they are doing their own community a disservice. Parading around a fully whaled character with top-tier supports, not acknowledging her issues and acting like she’s good is simply dishonest.

On the bright side, Yoimiya is a great filter for Genshin Impact content creators. You can safely write off whoever keeps singing her praises and refuses to acknowledge her flaws as someone not worth watching.