it’s really not that bad. i did it on wl9 with a very mid mualani build (c0, average artifacts, using the craftable natlan catalyst r1). was it hard? no. was it tedious as hell? yes. was it any fun at all? hell no.
i’m not going to defend it, i think it’s poorly designed and a bad direction for the game overall. but on the other hand people have gotten so used to the game being turn your brain off baby easy that the second it starts putting up a fight they want to whine about pay2win whales only content. i just wish they’d find some other way to add difficulty that isn’t regular enemies with enormous health pools.
Blaming babies is a slippery slope and remember that whining used to work back in inazuma.
Inazuma samurai were hard to stagger and lift? got nerfed.
Specter were tanky af and float off range? got nerfed.
Pyro hipo took forever to wet? shield nerfed.
Wolflord flies forever? (allegedly?) nerfed to be stunned longer before going to abyss.
Bleed wolves push you around with impossible hurtboxes? Pushback nerfed with itto release.
Husks would trivialize shields? Multiple nerfs within beta.
Looking at these without context you'd assume hoyo would nerf the worst sumeru and natlan enemies too but they didnt (afaik). They actually started making bosses different in abyss cause that's the only way to avoid backlash, but balancing around abyss also made boss design turn to shit (Compare Kenki to Wenut).
In my opinion it doesnt matter if local legends are optional, overworld should not be so much harder than abyss. I already get salty twice per month with abyss + IT, i don't want to get salty while exploring too.
I already saw a lot of "At least papilla is not as bad as wolflord" on reddit so i expect next abyss boss will be even worse (they didnt add xilonen boss to abyss, probably cause it gets countered by kachina who is free).
