leifa

Current thoughts on Hugo:
Done a bit more testing on Hugo to make sure I'm not just terrible at the game and I think I'm ready to give my thoughts.

At least right now, he is a bit underwhelming for me. Thankfully, that's almost entirely just from a numbers perspective, and damage numbers are very easy to tweak. I will say, despite his kit stating his Basic 4 and Charged Shot have increased Anti-Interrupt level, it currently does not feel like this is the case, where I am getting interrupted quite frequently trying to perform these attacks if I ever do take him on-field.

However, I do find the playstyle very fun. His mechanics are extremely unique and I'm happy to see characters still get unique playstyles rather than copy pasting of a previous kit. I currently am having pretty much no Energy issues on him at all either, to the point where I sometimes have enough spare Energy to use an EX1 in between his Chain Attacks, which is always nice to have. Generally, I have been detonating Stun with his EX2 as soon as possible for a bigger nuke, however some teammates don't always want to do this.

4pc Hormone Punk looks enticing on paper, however there are periods where I do like to bring him on-field and get some extra Ice Anomaly Buildup so I can line up my Freeze for the Stun window. This can help with using his Ultimate in Stun for teams that don't have Lighter's Stun Duration Pause. As a result, I have mainly been using 4pc Woodpecker for now, which will have a consistent 2 stacks on his nuke during Stun.

Regarding some of his team options:
Lighter: I'd currently say Lighter is his most important teammate out of the current options. Not only is he extremely flexible with his field time, but the buffs he provides to Ice characters are very strong. The +3s Stun Duration Pause also helps with getting two Chain Attacks + Ultimate into Stun without the Stun Duration decaying at all. His field time also lets him be very flexible with both a 2nd Stun character or a Support. I do personally feel at times the Daze DMG is a bit lacking with just Lighter but the overall buffs make up for it.

Astra: Don't think I need to say much here. Strong buffs for Hugo, as with every team currently.

Trigger: Funny enough, I've really enjoyed playing Lighter + Trigger with Hugo. The Daze DMG, at least against Marionette, feels like the perfect amount to not have Hugo on-field constantly, but also enough to make sure all resources are ready for Stun. Do note that her Sig W-Engine is a strong team damage increase, but I've been having very similar performance at the moment using Lighter + Trigger M0P1 to Lighter + Astra.

Qingyi: An alternative Stun character that does work with Hugo thanks to his preference of frequent Stun windows. However, thanks to Hugo's Max Daze on his Additional Ability, there are times where Qingyi has been stunning too fast to get all of her stacks up in time. To counter this, I've found it best to do an extra EX and Charged Shot in Stun and detonate his EX2 before Stun ends to get less Max Daze by the end. This allows Qingyi to use her Ultimate when needsbe and still get 20 stacks on the enemy.

Lycaon: I do think Lycaon can be a good pairing alongside Lighter, where Lycaon would run something like Energy Regen Slot 6 + 4pc Proto Punk. However, as a solo Stunner, I currently don't like him too much. Due to also being Ice, I'm unable to consistently control when I trigger Freeze, leading to wasted Freezes that don't pause the Stun timer. Maybe this is mitigated somewhat by running Soukaku instead of Astra, where the Ice Buildup is just so high that you get Freezes regardless, but I currently am yet to test Soukaku so I can't speak on that. Despite this, his buffs are still good and I've enjoyed using him alongside Lighter or Trigger more than by himself.

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