Hello and Welcome, fellow Captains, to my Equipment Review!

Today we have in store, the newly added Crosses, the signature Weapons for Starry Impression (Griseo):

Elysian Astra, and its PRI-Arm: Elysian Astra: Heart's Color.

INTRODUCTION:

Elysian Astra and its PRI-Arm are Bleed Damage-Focused Crosses and work as damage amplifiers for Griseo all the while inflicting Bleed Trauma on enemies and also boosting the team's damage.

This cross plays a major role in Griseo's Kit as along with buffing her Bleed Damage dealt, it helps Griseo to force-activate her Ultimate Evasion skill whenever this cross is deployed, providing us with some much-needed Time Fracture.

The PRI-Arm takes this one step further, by auto-deploying the cross whenever Griseo's QTE is activated.

So how do the other Physical Focused Crosses fare against this new one? We'll determine that here, but first let's take a look at the Skill Descriptions of Elysian Astra and Elysian Astra: Heart's Color.

Elysian Astra

"Griseo, stay away from that thing, that's not a toy."

"It's okay, Kosma."

"Aunt Mobius gave me this palette. With it... I can mix any color I want."

Stats and Skill Description:

(**Based on a max level 50 weapon)

[ ATK - 285 CRT - 22 ]

Active Skill:

- This Cross deals Physical damage, inflicts mild Bleed Trauma, and also deals Physical Damage over time to the enemies that are in the cross' field.

- Although one of the main selling points of this cross, as mentioned before, is its ability to force activate Griseo's Ultimate Evasion skill on deployment, when it is being equipped by her.

Passive Skill:

-The Passive skill buffs the wielder's Combo/Ultimate Attacks and also provides a 15% Physical Damage Bonus to the whole team.

PRI-ARM

Elysian Astra: Heart's Color

"Isn't this the little toy I gave to Griseo? Why are you giving it back to me? Kosma, how can you not trust me in the least?"

"Relax, I want to protect Griseo as much as you."

"No... Mobius, it's not that I don't trust you, but rather..." This tool spewed out paint all over the studio, and it's a pain to wipe it clean...."

"..."

"Okay, fine."

"I'll add an auto-erase function."

Stats and Skill Description:

(**Based on a max level 65 weapon)

[ ATK - 392 CRT - 56 ]

Active Skill:

- As usual, the PRI Active Skill has mostly the same type of buffs as the Base Weapon, with beefed-up multipliers, taking the Physical Damage dealt on deploying the cross from 400% ATK of Physical Damage to 600% ATK of Physical Damage, increasing the Bleed Trauma inflicted from 6 to 10 and dealing a 60% ATK of Physical Damage over time instead of 40%.

- The force activation of the Ultimate Evasion skill is also upgraded, to where now on Griseo's QTE Entry, the Cross is auto-deployed, and also the Ultimate Evasion Skill is Force-Triggered.

Passive Skill 1:

- Same as before, just a stronger version of the base form, this time increasing the Wielder's Physical damage done by Combo/Ultimate attacks by 35% instead of 25% and Increasing the Team's Physical damage by 20% instead of 10%.

Passive Skill 2:

- This is an extra Passive that comes with the PRI-Arm. It gives Griseo a 20% bonus on the Bleed Damage she does.

- This skill also makes unshielded/shield-broken Enemies take 8% bonus damage, which lasts for a duration of 22 seconds, with no Cooldown. It can be triggered again.

So if we look at this buff, and the cross' Active Duration (18s) / Active Cooldown (20s), this means we can keep this buff up for essentially 100% of the time, as long as we manage to deploy the cross as soon as it's Cooldown period is over, making this PRI very powerful.

- Another bonus that the Wielder gets is a one-time AOE 5 x 140% ATK of Physical Damage that is triggered by hitting a bleeding enemy.

ALTERNATE WEAPONS AND DAMAGE COMPARISON:

As stated in my Valkyrie Overview about Griseo, if you weren't able to acquire the signature Cross, you can go with the other Physical Support Crosses in the game for the time being.

Hekate's Gloom:

The alternate best option that can be opted for if you don't have Griseo's weapon can be Hekate (PRI). It's a good general Support weapon too so you cannot really go wrong with that, but you will lose a bit of time doing rotations and miss out on the Bleed damage, and bleed damage is quite valuable when it comes to Griseo.

Other than that, Hekate will serve you just fine.

11th Leitourgia:

Another decent weapon, if you already have it, won't recommend forging just for Griseo. If you want to forge anything, put your resources in Hekate instead.

Zither's Lament:

Gives a decent buff to Team Move speed and Burst mode attacks, if you don't have Hekate, but have this lying around in your Inventory, it can be used as a replacement.

Silver Reaper:

F2p choice if you don't have anything else.

DAMAGE COMPARISON:

[DISCLAIMER: The following test is just for a simple demonstration in equally similar situations. These results can vary quite a bit depending on enemies/weathers/team comps/playstyle etc. ]

The following will be the team setup that we will be using to test Griseo's support capabilities in the DPS check stage:

Emblem Used:

Dorm Buffs:

(Dorm Squad Lvl. 38)

~[No ELF/Divine Key Buff used]~

Enemy:

Imperator (3810 Physical Defense; 55% Elemetal Resist; Medium resistance to freeze/paralysis/stun)

Rotation:

Switch to HS > Weapon Active > Clone pop using spear combo >

Griseo QTE > Weapon Active(except for Elysian Astra PRI) > Combo Attack > Ultimate

> HS switch in (HS QTE is turned off) > HS Ultimate >

PE QTE > Ultimate > Evasion > Horse Charge > Weapon Active > Switch form > Charge Attack > Enhanced Weapon Active

Result:

The Damage value for each set is determined by doing 3-5 rotations and sorting out the average damage observed. Essentially, avoiding the extreme ends of the damage variance and picking up the one that lies in the mid.

The numbers observed are like the following:

- Elysian Astra and Elysian Astra: Heart's color are pretty much the best in their own level of fields.

- Hekate (PRI) comes out as the next best option, with the ability to inflict Physical vulnerability on enemies.

- Leitourgia is an okayish weapon if used on Griseo, it performs just on par with Zither.

- Zither is really good, if you are willing to work for it. For example, I was hitting like 6mil+ sometimes when all the crits landed perfectly. But most of the time it stayed around the 5.8mil mark.

- Silver Reaper is the cheapest option, so it performs decently for what it costs imo.

FINAL THOUGHTS AND CONCLUSION:

I really advise everyone that already has HoS to pull on this weapon and stigmata set. Even for an SP valk gear, this set of gears is way too valuable to be missed out. Also, the fact that since this is the Debut Banner for Elysian Astra + Cezanne, we get a one-time 120 pull guarantee, which will never return in the future.

There is no other physical support valkyrie other than HoS that is higher than Griseo in terms of requirement at the moment. Starlit Astrologos and Shuijing/Zither have been completely phased out and Carol and Kissy Pillow/Paganini have become niche to the shield-heavy stages only.

So unless you are totally down in the dumps when it comes to your crystal count, do not by any chance miss this banner. The Herrscher Patch is still most likely 2 patches away, you still have enough time for it.

That brings us to the end of this post. I hope you found this overview usefull. Feel free to ask raise any questions you want in the comment Section. Any Feedback will be greatly appreciated as well!

Thanks for reading through to the end!

Source for the Weapon Images and Banner: https://bbs.mihoyo.com/bh3/accountCenter/postList?id=73565430

- Red Dragon

UID: 200016842

(EU Server)