Qingque

Qingque is weird. She’s a perfectly fine unit, and she is free, but this means she has the misfortune of being compared to the other free characters… and she’s undeniably lacking in that comparison.

Qingque is a victim of having her primary source of damage come from an RNG mechanic. Her talent has her randomly draw tiles on each ally turn, 1 per turn, with 3 possible suits. At 4 perfectly matched tiles, her basic attack becomes enhanced, becoming a blast AoE and dealing vastly increased damage, while also getting an ATK% boost. If you are not matched, your basic attack will discard 1 tile with the lowest tile matches. This enhanced basic attack actually hits surprisingly hard, but comes with the additional caveat that it will not recover a skill point like other basic attacks.

Her skill immediately draws 2 tiles and grants a damage increase until the end of the turn, and immediately grants an extra turn where you can choose to draw again, or exit with a basic attack. Drawing again will stack the damage increase, up to 4 times in total. This is where you’d expect the main gameplay loop to come in, you cycle tiles with her skill until you’re matched, and then toss out your enhanced basic attack for big damage. Sadly, you’re gambling on getting those matched tiles, and much like gambling in the real world, the only winning move is to not play.

It’s entirely possible for you to use Qingque’s skill 5 times in a row, expending literally all of your skill points in the process, and you might still not have 4 matching tiles. There’s no pity system in place besides the damage increase from the skill, but even stacked fully, it’ll still just get spent on an underwhelming unenhanced basic attack. It’s too risky to gamble on her skill under most circumstances.

The way to circumvent this rather severe limitation is to avoid using Qingque’s skill at all; simply focus on using her basic attack whenever it’s her turn and have her recover skill points for the rest of the team. This works because her tiles naturally cycle themselves on every ally turn anyway, so sooner or later, you’re going to get an enhanced basic attack. Because of this as well, Qingque naturally performs better with faster teammates or teammates that can raise their speed, as it’ll give more opportunities for Qingque’s tiles to cycle.

Her ultimate guarantees an enhanced basic attack after using it, allowing you to strategically skip entire tile searches and have potentially back to back enhanced basics, but the ultimate has an absolutely absurd energy cost, one of the absolute highest in the game, meaning you are not going to enjoy this luxury very often. Worse still, using her skill doesn’t recover any energy for Qingque, making it even worse to try and gamble with it.

Her bonus traces do very little to alleviate these concerns. A2 refunds a skill point on the first skill usage of a fight, meaning it’s a one-time benefit in an encounter. A4 can help give the stacking damage buff of her skill more value, resulting in a colossal buff if fully stacked, and A6 increases Qingque’s speed for 1 turn after using her enhanced basic attack, which helps her get back in the fight sooner to start recovering more tiles and energy.

Interestingly enough, the ratio of skill points used to output value is exceedingly high with Qingque’s skill, because the damage bonuses she gets are astronomical—if you’re lucky. If you’re in the mood to gamble, maybe you win big and win often, but the inverse is also just as likely to occur.

Qingque has two eidolons that significantly improve her performance. E4 gives a small chance for a phantom follow-up attack to occur after using a basic attack or enhanced basic attack, potentially allowing her to double-dip into the big damage bonuses she can accrue. E6 fixes the most glaring issue of her enhanced basic attack, allowing her to actually recover a skill point with it. This alone raises Qingque’s value significantly, but it comes as her final eidolon, and arguably too late. Even with both of these, the general recommendation to avoid Qingque’s skill remains.

Because of all of this combined, Qingque is quite the inconsistent and potentially frustrating character. Her performance can range from anywhere between ‘Surprisingly good’ and ‘Decidedly underwhelming’. She is the only free Quantum character you’ll get, so she can definitely see use and find success, even later on… But just be aware of the headache you’re signing up for by even playing her.