Should you pull Liang Yue?

Liang Yue does a lot of things at a pretty sustainable level. She has access to great defensive support, a multitude of debuffs, extra actions, (de)buff extension and even incantation upgrades! While not as “must pull” as other Limited characters, if you’re looking for someone to cover a bunch of bases or wanting to progress into high-tier Reveries then Liang Yue is your gal.

Liang Yue is a 6✦ rarity Arcanist from the Star Afflatus whose kit is based around covering a very broad amount of bases through protecting allies and summoning Qiangliang, the Xiandao Beast.

This is also her primary gimmick. With “Call of Thunder: #0305” (Ultimate), Liang Yue summons [Qiangliang Completed] for 3 rounds while providing [Immunity] and DMG Taken Reduction through [Guardian’s Resolve] for all allies.

While [Qiangliang Completed] is active, your hand is augmented to do the following things:

• At the start of the round, your leftmost 3 Incantations will gain a green aura. Casting Incantations with a green aura will grant [Qiangliang Completed] a [Peace Talon]. In addition, any (de)buffs with a duration applied by these cards gain +1 duration.
• At the start of the round, your rightmost 3 Incantations will gain a red aura. Casting Incantations with a red aura will grant [Qiangliang Completed] a [Justice Talon]. In addition, they cast at +1 rank.
• By casting cards, the two areas slowly overlap. Incantations cast from the overlap between green and red zones grant [Qiangliang Completed] a [Balanced Talon]. In addition, they gain the benefit of both zones. The [Balanced Talon] is considered both [Talon]s.

When 6 [Talon]s are gathered, [Qiangliang Completed] will cast [Bane of All Evil], which is a Mass Attack that has secondary effects based on which [Talon] was gathered most and also grants [Guardian’s Resolve].

• When [Peace Talon] is gathered more than the other, [Bane of All Evil - Shadow] is cast. This adds the effect of inflicting [Poison] and [Burn] while increasing the attack’s damage based on the amount of those on the target.
• When [Justice Talon] is gathered more than the other, [Bane of All Evil - Tiger] is cast. The attack’s damage is increased dramatically for every [Justice Talon] consumed.
• When the [Talon]s are equal, [Bane of All Evil - Plague] is cast. The attack grants Liang Yue [Swift Resolve], which decreases the requirement for the next [Bane of All Evil] to trigger by 1 [Talon].

Now that that explanation is out of the way, let’s get into Liang Yue’s own skills.

“Banish Evil” is a simple 1-target attack that extends the duration of [Guardian’s Resolve] on all allies. It also grants [Qiangliang Completed] a [Justice Talon] if cast actively. It’s more or less an Incantation that you use to get a [Justice Talon] or for it to be cast through Liang Yue’s next Incantation.

“Bless Life” is a 1-target buff that grants [Dispel Misfortune - One/Two/Three] (based on rank) to the target for a short duration (or extends its duration if it is already applied). By casting this active, it grants [Qiangliang Completed] a [Peace Talon]. This is your bread and butter, as allies with [Dispel Misfortune] getting hit (or attacking) triggers a “Banish Evil” follow-up attack of the corresponding rank from Liang Yue. In addition, it grants the target +25% DMG Dealt and +25% DMG Reduction.

Gameplay

In two years we’ll be reading 300 page manuals in order to pilot our characters, Liang Yue is the descent into madness that all gacha games eventually face and we will never be free of the reading issue.

That aside, Liang Yue is pretty wild.

She has an absolutely insane array of different effects, from various sources of DMG Reduction to [Immunity] to DMG Dealt buffs to rank-up to Follow-Up Attacks to [Poison] and [Burn]. This is all then limited by a few things, namely that Liang Yue is extremely AP-negative (a bad thing for a character not intended to be a main carry). In addition, at P0 you will struggle to upkeep [Qiangliang Completed], causing a ‘gap’ in duration for your augmented hand.

There’s several things that are effective here though. You will mostly be spamming “Bless Life” to upkeep [Dispel Misfortune] for her FUAs and other buffs. This greatly benefits AP-positive teammates that function around FUAs such as 37 and Flutterpage. In addition, the sheer variety of her effects lets her slot alongside characters like Lopera, Mercuria and Tuesday(-Willow).

So while she definitely has her problems, the versatility of her as someone who can output decent amounts of damage while providing so many different things help her stay high priority for those missing certain effects or for newer players to take advantage of.

Pros & Cons

If you’re planning to roll for Liang Yue, it is recommended to try and push for her Portrait 1 at the very least. This increases the duration of [Qiangliang Completed] to 4 rounds, and enhances the augmentation zones to be 4 cards each.

This basically solves her downtime issue and allows her to upkeep [Qiangliang Completed] permanently throughout the fight.

With how wide her variety of effects is you’d think she has a lot of different teams she can slot in to and while that is technically the case, her AP-negative playstyle compromises a lot of teambuilding potential. Still, she has a few solid options.

• 37 due to being a very AP-positive Carry that enjoys FUAs.
• Flutterpage due to extending the duration of [Continuous Action I].
• Anjo Nala as her frequent casts will trigger Anjo’s own FUAs.

Here are the best Psychubes you can use on Liang Yue:

Ready on Call2.5

Blasphemer of Night

Long Night Talk

Resonances

Resonance Pattern

Genuinity Recommended

A few suggestions are listed below. 3-People teams are highlighted, with the 4th slot added at the side to provide a 4-P variation of the same team or even insights on possible variations of the 3-P team.

Standard Teams

Finding Truth[GLB]

Damage Dealer

Support

Sustain

TEAM EXPLANATION

• 4th slot options: Flutterpage
• Euphorias: None
• Very consistent team that abuses 37 (on “Silent and Adoring”) as AFK “Supplementary Formula” bot while Liang Yue and Fatutu set up for her. Flutterpage here is an obvious pick, boosting everybody’s damage with [Adieu Mother Earth] on top of [Spirit Shell] massively increasing any Follow-Up Attacks that occur. This will be frequent, as all team members have some form of it with Liang Yue and Fatutu being the most consistent (or FP while in her Channel).
• If you can fit [Continuous Action I] into the green side of your augmented hand you also massively boost the team’s consistency, allowing for easier FP cycling or some extra damage from 37.
• Defensively this team is also incredibly capable. Fatutu is a downright monstrous healer with very consistent healing in FUA teams and her ability to DMG Redistribute through [Shared Shells, Shared Fate]. Liang Yue layers [Immunity], [Guardian’s Resolve] and a 1-target +25% DMG Reduction on top of this, which provides an incredibly sustainable defensive anchor in the team.
• For a slightly different construction, you can slide Liang Yue into the Damage Dealer role and either keep 37 or swap her out for units such as Anjo Nala or Kakania. In addition, Fatutu can be substituted by Tooth Fairy (for her AFK debuffs) or Ms NewBabel(E) or Lopera in rare cases where you don’t need guaranteed or consistent sustain.

Look At All These Debuffs[GLB]

Damage Dealer

Support

Sustain

TEAM EXPLANATION

• 4th slot options: Melania
• Euphorias: Melania, Sotheby.
• Technically a more debuff-based Ultimate team (ignoring Recoleta’s existence for now). The main appeal to this is the variety of debuffs and being a team for Noire. It adopts a similar playstyle to [Poison] teams based around Willow+Tuesday in the sense that almost all of your AP will go towards Noire and Liang Yue. Noire to gather [Genius Insight] stacks and Liang Yue to upkeep both [Qiangliang Completed] and [Dispel Misfortune].
• The benefit here is that Liang Yue allows anyone to apply additional debuffs through the green augmentation zone, which lets Melania not waste the team’s potential with her Ultimate casts. In addition, Melania’s Euphoria allows her to spread massive amounts of Ultimate Might across her team, making her a very favored ally for Noire and her [Passion Drain] could potentially help Liang Yue with her [Qiangliang Completed] cycle.
• Sotheby is mostly here to act as an AP-positive healer, but the decent [Poison] application from the rest of the team could potentially help Sotheby deal some damage through her Ultimate (don’t count on it though).
• The problem here being that this is an Ultimate-based team that needs an extra step (debuffs) to reach its full potential whereas a Recoleta+Melania(E) team can do that with no such limitation, no such AP restraints and also do more damage. However, if you really like Noire or debuffs, this is as functional as any other team.