Adventuring as an Aloy main in Genshin Impact offers a good lesson in ignoring meta

destructoid.com:

Aloy is one of my favorite characters in all media. She’s a certified badass in the Horizon series, with crossover appearances in various other games. One of these crossovers is Genshin Impact, where Aloy is considered one of the worst playable characters in the roster. 

So, what happens when you decide to main an objectively bad character in a character-based RPG like Genshin? I’ve definitely gone through some Aloy-induced stages of grief thanks to my decision. Lots of negotiating that choice, too, but as they say, where there’s a will, there’s a way, right? 

Aloy arrived in Teyvat on September 1, 2021, for PlayStation users. Since I didn’t have a PlayStation, I forced my friend to log into my account on his console to claim her. When I got my account back, there she was. Anime-fied, but definitely still Aloy. She even had her own special Vision shape.

As a theorycrafter, I immediately looked at her kit. To my delight, Aloy could deploy bombs that looked identical to the Freeze Bombs in Horizon Zero Dawn. She also had a unique Coil stacking mechanic whereby she could infuse her Normal Attacks with Cryo damage.

That’s where the good news ended. Aloy’s Skill had a punishingly long cooldown, and there was another long wait between when she could obtain Coil stacks. Without sacrificing her damage with Sacrificial Bow, it was nearly impossible to consistently gain her Cryo infusion, rendering this part of her kit virtually non-functional.

Interestingly, Aloy’s Burst had a much shorter cooldown compared to her Skill. Maybe the optimal play was to ignore Aloy’s Coil mechanics and just spam her Burst? I hunkered down to try to make it work.

I changed Aloy’s build again and again in an effort to make her functional. Freeze Aloy didn’t have the consistent damage to compete with other Cryo options. Mono Cryo Aloy made more efficient use of teammates, but didn’t fix Aloy herself. Reverse Melt Aloy resulted in the biggest numbers, but much of the team’s overall damage came from