After the long wait, and back-and-forth debates about Iansan’s release date and rarity in Genshin Impact, she has been officially announced as an upcoming four-star, Electro Polearm character. Iansan is set to release alongside the new five-star character Varesa in Genshin Impact’s upcoming version 5.5 update.
Ahead of Iansan’s release, recent leaks for Genshin Impact have already revealed her full kit. Ultimately, Iansan already seems like she could compete with some of the best four-star support characters, while also shaping up to be a powerful DPS unit for free-to-play players.
Genshin Impact: Every Unreleased Region In Teyvat
Genshin Impact reveals an expansive roadmap for its upcoming regions: Natlan and Snezhnaya, set to to be released by 2025.
Predicting How Iansan Will Compare to Genshin Impact’s Current Meta
Iansan’s Rating Predictions
- B-Tier DPS
- S-Tier Support
Iansan’s Strengths
- Kit features damage buffs and off-field healing
- Buffs and healing scales with Iansan’s attack attribute
- The potency and duration of Iansan’s buffs can be extended based on the active character’s movement distance
- Nightsoul’s Blessing state can persist while Iansan is off-field, and can be extended in the same way as her buffs
- Synergizes well with other Natlan characters and Electro characters
- Nightsoul’s Blessing state provides exploration and combat utility
Iansan’s Weaknesses
- Iansan can’t heal herself, making an additional character with healing abilities necessary
- Some of Iansan’s buffs only apply to herself
- Can’t provide or otherwise override other characters’ damage types with Elemental damage
- The base duration of Iansan’s buffs is extremely short
- Iansan’s damage buffs and healing seemingly don’t apply to co-op players’ characters
Iansan’s leaked attributes, attacks, and abilities are subject to balancing changes ahead of her official release in Genshin Impact’s 5.5 update.
Iansan Could Replace Bennet as a Support on Natlan and Electro Hypercarry Teams
Overall, Iansan’s combined kit of attack scaling, damage buffs, and off-field healing naturally put her in direct competition with Bennet, a four-star Pyro support character who has a similar kit. Ultimately, one of the biggest factors of whether Iansan could effectively replace Bennet as a better support unit comes down to how efficient Iansan’s attack scaling will be for her abilities and talents, which remains to be seen. However, there are already a couple of notable differences between Iansan and Bennet that could be considered disadvantages for Iansan:
- Bennet can override players' physical attacks with Pyro damage via Constellation upgrades, while Iansan can’t provide any Elemental damage to her teammates’ attacks
- Bennet’s buffs and healing are applied to all characters within a specified radius, including co-op teammates and himself, while Iansan has buffs that only apply to herself or can’t be applied to co-op teammates, and her healing also can’t apply to herself
Since Bennet can provide a universal +25% attack buff via Genshin Impact’s Elemental Resonance feature when paired with a Pyro hypercarry, Iansan likely won’t be able to efficiently replace Bennet on Pyro team compositions. However, Iansan’s natural synergy with Natlan characters and her diverse support kit could give her an advantage on Natlan team compositions and/or as a battery for an Electro hypercarry team.
Iansan Could Be a Great DPS Among Four-Star Characters
Although Iansan’s kit generally lacks a high-damage attack combo or nuke, Iansan can still be considered a powerful DPS unit, specifically when compared to other four-star characters. With seemingly all of Iansan’s abilities and talents scaling with her attack attribute, this naturally makes her flexible as both a DPS and a support unit hybrid.
At first glance, Iansan seems like a blend of many different powerful support buffs. However, as a four-star character, the potency and sheer variety of her buffs might ultimately be too good to be true. Hence, Iansan might not be able to compete with some of the best four-star support characters who players likely already have some or all of their Constellation upgrades, but she could still be a powerful DPS in Genshin Impact for free-to-play players who might not have some of the newest five-star characters.
Genshin Impact
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 81 /100 Critics Rec: 87%
- Released
- September 28, 2020
- ESRB
- Teen / Alcohol Reference, Fantasy Violence, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- HoYoverse (Formerly miHoYo)
- Publisher(s)
- HoYoverse (Formerly miHoYo)
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- RPG, Action, Adventure, Gacha, Open-World
