Should you pull Paper Heron?

• Maybe
• Are you an Impromptu fanatic and are you collecting the colors?
• Do you get FOMO not pulling for Limiteds?

The spearhead of the Impromptu (Plant) team, Paper Heron is our most recent Chinese New Year Limited character and a very interesting unit puts all of her eggs in the Impromptu basket.

She scales up remarkably well among the high-power peers of the 3.X generation. Impromptu is always kind of a difficult Archetype to judge as it functions very differently from other teams and also has extremely rigid team-building requirements.

Plantpromptu is a beast at both single target and multi target situations, as [Qi Panorama] maximizes [Impromptu Incantation]’s power by making the split attacks deal the same amount of damage as the main one, and just straight up hyperbuffing all of its stats while condensing it into 3 attacks at most.

In most Archetypes that have access to an Array, Impromptu is extremely powerful with theirs. The unfortunate part is that it’s a bit awkward to make use of it in Starpromptu, as Paper Heron is pretty focused on her own brand.

For those building Impromptu teams, Paper Heron is an extremely powerful choice and a definite want if you’re able to set it up. Any amount of investment into this archetype is valid, as Plantpromptu is extremely versatile and hits very hard.

If you’re not building Impromptu teams, Paper Heron is most likely a skip. She cannot be used in any other teams, and Plantpromptu is behind the Top 3 Damage Dealers (Liang Yue, Beryl, Brume) currently. On the other hand, her team isn’t difficult to set up and her BiS (An-An Lee/Tooth Fairy/Kiperina) isn’t that difficult to get. Tooth Fairy and Kiperina were BiS for Impromptu teams to begin with, and An-An Lee is available from the beginner 6-star selector.

Gameplay

Let’s go through Paper Heron’s kit step-by-step, starting off with her insights.

Her Precognition is that of a standard Impromptu character until you reach it’s second paragraph. Like Barcarola, Paper Heron assigns an Afflatus to [Impromptu Incantation]. In this case, it’s Plant instead of Star and deals Reality DMG instead of Mental DMG. If you use both of these units at the same time, whoever is in the higher position will proc the Afflatus (so if Barcarola is in front of Paper Heron, it’ll be Star).

The rest of her insights revolve around deplaying [Qi Panorama] and boosting its effects. It is also the most integral part of Paper Heron’s kit, so let’s see what it does.

[Qi Panorama] is an Array, meaning that it cannot coexist with things like [Pulsing Field] or [Horror Story Night]. At base, this Array increases the damage dealt by [Impromptu Incantation] and makes it’s split attacks deal additional damage as well. The trade-off is that [Impromptu Incantation] can only hit up to 3 times per round, but every ‘additional hit’ effect will instead make it deal additional damage.

There’s a progression mechanic to this Array, however, called [Glimpse of Tao]. This buff can be leveled from 1 to 3, after which it returns to 2 (similar to how [Pulsing Field] functions). At 1, it makes all split attacks deal the same damage as the main attack. At 2, it deals additional damage based on the amount of enemies present. At 3, it grants extra offensive buffs to the attacks and deals additional damage based on present enemies.

If that wasn’t powerful enough on its own, Paper Heron also gives a free ATK buff to allies scaling with the amount of [Impromptu] characters on the team.

Let’s go to her Ultimate next, as it’s the most important part of her kit.

“One Paper, Five Armies” is a mass attack that scales in damage with stacks of [Eureka] owned by Paper Heron. Like all Impromptu Ultimates, this adds additional points to the attack for that round. The key thing here is that it advances [Glimpse of Tao] one stage, and it’s the primary way of progressing your [Qi Panorama] Array.

Her other spells are less consequential, but given that she is a Limited unit, she has extra privileges.

“Reader of Qi” is a mass buff that grants herself stacks of [Valley Wind] and allies [Auspicious Wind] while increasing the DMG Dealt of [Impromptu Incantation] for that turn. That first buff is consumed by Paper Heron to further increase [Impromptu Incantation]’s damage, while the second buff grants bonus DMG Dealt and Incantation Might.

Her least interesting card is “Shaper of Qi”, a simple 2-target attack that grants extra hits to that round’s [Impromptu Incantation].

Pros & Cons

Paper Heron is complete at Portrait 0.

Slight vertical investment is recommended to optimize output.

• Portrait 2 raises the maximum number of hits [Impromptu Incantation] can cast from 3 to 4 while affected by [Qi Panorama] this is pretty massive due to its limited attack count. In addition, this buffs the scaling from excess hits.
• Portrait 5 is very strong on most units. For Paper Heron, it’s a repeat of her Portrait 2 but it raises the hit count to 5 and further buffs the excess hit damage.

Paper Heron is an Impromptu character so quite limited in her teambuilding.

• Core: An-An Lee(E2), Kiperina.
• Impromptu: Tooth Fairy(E), Barcarola, Regulus(E), Voyager(E).
• Other: Flutterpage, Mercuria(E)

Wayfarer of the Tao3.4

Addio Coda

• Wayfarer of the Tao (Paper Heron Sig): Grants additional Incantation Might and DMG Dealt buffs with easy to hit requirements for Paper Heron.
• Addio Coda (Barcarola Sig): Generally used on more AP-negative characters to stack it up quickly. Paper Heron is pretty hungry for AP, so it’s not too hard to get use out of.

Resonances

Pattern: APgkJAQoVDRENBQ8YDxQOCI7MEASQCBCAEcCSAA

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

Vegan Impromptu[GLB]

Damage Dealer

Support

Sustain

TEAM EXPLANATION

• 4th slot options: Tooth Fairy
• Euphorias: An-An Lee (E2), Tooth Fairy
• The only real team for Plant Impromptu, it is focused on providing [Impromptu Incantation] with everything it needs to get its damage optimized. This version of the archetype is more generally applicable due to [Qi Panorama] allowing it to stay relevant even in multi-target stages.
• The spearhead here is Paper Heron, obviously. Without her, [Impromptu Incantation] doesn’t become Plant Afflatus and without her [Qi Panorama] you won’t get most of the juicy buffs that makes Plantpromptu so powerful. She leans to the AP-negative side due to the importance of her Ultimate in raising [Glimpse of Tao], but she makes up for it by providing additional buffs to your team through [True Guidance] and [Auspicious Wind].
• An-An Lee is the premier support here. With her second Euphoria she is able to generate a bunch of [Inspiration] at no AP cost through her [Wandering Spirit] mechanic. Besides that, she generally is a solid boost to the DMG Dealt by [Impromptu Incantation] and her team through her basic casts.
• Tooth Fairy is another no-brainer here. After her Euphoria, she gains access to [Continuous Action I], her [Neuralgia] is pretty nuts to buff each hit of [Impromptu Incantation] and her Crit debuffs are increased to massively shred both RES and DEF. Her added bit of healing isn’t really factored in here, but it does help make Plantpromptu extremely tanky when combined with Kiperina.
• Speaking of Kiperina, she is probably the most important unit. She is the only Impromptu sustain, provides massive shields, decent offensive buffs and is able to do all this while requiring next to no AP.
• Optional picks here are:
• An-An Lee → Mercuria, is an okay swap. Her AP-free playstyle and decent teamwide buffs allow her to slot pretty comfortably in this team.
• An-An Lee → Barcarola, is also an okay swap. Barcarola has extremely good [Inspiration] generation through her Ultimate cycle and some decent buffs for [Impromptu Incantation]. The only problem is that this team will usually run into *some* AP management skill-checks as both Paper Heron and her need a lot of it to be optimal.
• Flutterpage can be swapped with either An-An Lee or Tooth Fairy. It’s not nearly as good, but Flutterpage can function due to her great [Eureka] consumption (especially while in her Ultimate channel) which allows her to generate [Inspiration] really steadily.