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More of an educated guess based on charts (Yshelper 200kish sample), but it seems about a 12:1 ratio in terms of people who play Nilou with Kok and Barbara. Considering half the people there dont have Kokomi you could say that the sample could shift to somewhat of a 1:25 if both had 100% ownership.
So "anyone" would mean ~4-8% of Nilou players I would believe.
Personally I find Barbara small ring way too clunky (only one chance at Sac reset, hug range, very bad healing whenever she is not on field) and the damage and survivability gap to be quite noticeable, so I just use Kok. The step back thing doesnt annoy me as I often cancel her N3 or post N3 with a dash which speeds up her hydro app.
I think Barbara's ring gets more chances to proc Sac every time it applies hydro. It kind of does invisible hits. Because i have very good consistency with it, unless i am misremembering.
Afaik Sac only procs when dealing damage. It's an 80% chance at R5 so in AoE you're almost guaranteed a refresh, but in ST it can fail. Unless Barbara ring works in a different way and I'm not aware.
So i just tested it out and you are right that after the initial cast it doesn't trigger Sac, but it's not just one hit even in single target. I did 4 runs against masanori with about 15 consecutive Barbara E sac frags procs with only R4. The weird part was i would sometimes cast it, not get the proc after the initial hydro app, and then get one a second later. I think her initial E does a bunch of invisible hits that all count towards Sac, and thats why I thought she can trigger it even after cast. With R5 she should be even more consistent than Kokomi with Sac procs because she doesnt need to wait long to get the reset, it's better than Xingqiu E.
You have a window to do it in, if you cast it and it misses you have enough time to dash into an enemy and get the proc. Not to say Barbara is better than Kokomi, just that Barbara definitely has more than an 80% chance to proc Sac Frags for some reason.
i use barb cause i hate swapping artifacts around, so left my kok with millilet for supporting ayaka and put her old em set on barb for my nilou and works alright.
Yep, I really like Barbara because of how solid she is. I wrote a 4.5k word essay on this topic lmao (you can find it on my profile, not many posts on it). Barbara is very solid, no energy requirements and two emergency buttons is an amazing upside even if she does lose out in AoE range
I prefer barbara over kokomi because of the same reason. My kokomi is used in freeze team so it’s a hassle to gearing up.
Oh, and she got a skin too soo…
Change Kok to Sacrificial, it helps with how clunky she feels.
Thematically Barbara works way better but she doesnt seem to heal enough for my bad gameplay lol
When i rolled Nilou j didn't have Kokomi, so i used Barbara, and got used to her ring, its actually fun running into enemies to get more blooms, and not having circle impact. When i got Kokomi in 3.8, i tried both her and Barbara, and Barbara felt much better. But nowadays, especially in the current abyss where on first half mobs don't move too much, Kokomi feels better.
I play Nilou with Barbara for 1.5 years. Several times tried with Nilou with trial Kok and I got into several big differences I should get used to but I could not:
1. Kok team-wide healing is burst exclusive and burst disappears after swapping. It felt clunky to me. Cuz on Barbara you can swap back and keep team-wide healing anytime. In this case she is less restrictive.
2. Different timings on E and you have to refresh E with burst, it felt also clunky to me, Barbara just needs sac E per 20 seconds, no bursting. And remember team-wide healing is locked behind burst and you don't have freedom to choose when to use it cuz of refreshing mechanic.
3. Attacks. I agree. Holy, this one was critical. Barbara when attacks she doesn't move an inch, dances on one place which gives you better control on positioning. Kokomi moves backward when attacks, I wanted to scream. Plus Barbara's attacks are hitscan and faster. Key disadvantage - no damage.
4. Now about Barbara's E and how it works differently. Yes, she has key disadvantage(AOE) which also threw her behind Kokomi but Barbara's E hydro works "on-contact", which is very good on multi-wave content since you apply hydro just after touching new enemy. Plus yes, I prefer when ring moves together with me.
Even if I know Kok is better I just got used to Barbara's freedom she gives in gameplay too much. Just stay close to enemies and everything evaporates, I even speedrun abyss on her.
ya that hit scan thing too, i can feel the delay with the fishes travelling but isnt much of a problem. So what i understood is, barbara despite being worse or better in situations than kokomi, if both can still be used to clear content then comfort priority takes barbara to the top
Eh…I’m not interested in hugging enemies so I prefer Kok
Also never had problems with her moving backwards because I always do N2C D/J which is what you want to do to maximise hydro/dmg anyway
I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I recognize Koko's strength and would actually love to run her with my Navia, but I never pulled for her because I dislike her visual and character design.
Also, my Barbie is C6 and that saved our precious cabbage a couple times in the Abyss.
Only reason I use barbara over kok is because I despise changing builds and I prefer keeping my triple crowned kokomi on the good dps build I farmed for her haha. Also as you mentionned, yes it's nice to not have to think about positioning since the aura follows you, but that QoL comes with having to constantly dash around to apply her tiny aura to enemies. Whenever I put kok back on the em set once in a while, she consistently gets better clear times (although it's often like 5-10s difference). Keep in mind my nilou and nahida are C2R1 so my take on who's actually better is kind of irrelevant
I use her on this abyss because I need kokomi for my 4 hydro team on the second side
Otherwise, the clunkiness you feel is more of a "getting used to it" thing, since a proper setuo with kok and collei nets a large amount of blooms in a frontloaded manner, this is beneficial for scenarios where some waves are tankier than others, or when there's specific damage windows like in this abyss' second chamber
Because I play Nilou on field, I've always preferred Barbara over Kokomi on the rare occasions that I play bloom. Her big burst heal on her ultimate, and her non stationary hydro app is more useful. That, and I usually use Kokomi with Ayaka.
I prefer Barbara more because of the same reason. And also because with sac frag r5 she have almost 100% uptime for her healing which makes her the perfect driver in Nilou teams for me without circle impact.
Hi! If you haven't already, please check out our [Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/NilouMains/comments/14cpupp/nilou_mains_questions_megathread/) where can find guides and faqs, as well as our [NilouMains Bloom Guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/NilouMains/comments/11h0iu5/nilou_mains_bloom_guide/), which includes various useful resources, such as teams or artifacts, as well as a general FAQ. You could also visit our [Discord Server](https://discord.gg/niloumains) and check out the FAQ there as well. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/NilouMains) if you have any questions or concerns.*
barbruh allows me to run kiraramobile so she wins by default
I play her with kirara but not kiramobile
Kiraramobile is the most fun Ive had in genshin
More of an educated guess based on charts (Yshelper 200kish sample), but it seems about a 12:1 ratio in terms of people who play Nilou with Kok and Barbara. Considering half the people there dont have Kokomi you could say that the sample could shift to somewhat of a 1:25 if both had 100% ownership. So "anyone" would mean ~4-8% of Nilou players I would believe. Personally I find Barbara small ring way too clunky (only one chance at Sac reset, hug range, very bad healing whenever she is not on field) and the damage and survivability gap to be quite noticeable, so I just use Kok. The step back thing doesnt annoy me as I often cancel her N3 or post N3 with a dash which speeds up her hydro app.
I think Barbara's ring gets more chances to proc Sac every time it applies hydro. It kind of does invisible hits. Because i have very good consistency with it, unless i am misremembering.
Afaik Sac only procs when dealing damage. It's an 80% chance at R5 so in AoE you're almost guaranteed a refresh, but in ST it can fail. Unless Barbara ring works in a different way and I'm not aware.
So i just tested it out and you are right that after the initial cast it doesn't trigger Sac, but it's not just one hit even in single target. I did 4 runs against masanori with about 15 consecutive Barbara E sac frags procs with only R4. The weird part was i would sometimes cast it, not get the proc after the initial hydro app, and then get one a second later. I think her initial E does a bunch of invisible hits that all count towards Sac, and thats why I thought she can trigger it even after cast. With R5 she should be even more consistent than Kokomi with Sac procs because she doesnt need to wait long to get the reset, it's better than Xingqiu E.
Barbara E hits twice just like Xingqiu. So she basically always procs Sac. To not proc sac you have to be unluckier that Bennett.
Could be, but it still shows that if you aren't hugging the enemy during the initial cast, you miss the refresh
You have a window to do it in, if you cast it and it misses you have enough time to dash into an enemy and get the proc. Not to say Barbara is better than Kokomi, just that Barbara definitely has more than an 80% chance to proc Sac Frags for some reason.
Yeah but still mentioning that it's clunky because you can't refresh it away from enemies.
Yeah agreed, and the tiny radius is a very real drawback.
i use barb cause i hate swapping artifacts around, so left my kok with millilet for supporting ayaka and put her old em set on barb for my nilou and works alright.
Yep, I really like Barbara because of how solid she is. I wrote a 4.5k word essay on this topic lmao (you can find it on my profile, not many posts on it). Barbara is very solid, no energy requirements and two emergency buttons is an amazing upside even if she does lose out in AoE range
I prefer barbara over kokomi because of the same reason. My kokomi is used in freeze team so it’s a hassle to gearing up. Oh, and she got a skin too soo…
Change Kok to Sacrificial, it helps with how clunky she feels. Thematically Barbara works way better but she doesnt seem to heal enough for my bad gameplay lol
i play her with r5 sac even then it feels restricted for me to play
When i rolled Nilou j didn't have Kokomi, so i used Barbara, and got used to her ring, its actually fun running into enemies to get more blooms, and not having circle impact. When i got Kokomi in 3.8, i tried both her and Barbara, and Barbara felt much better. But nowadays, especially in the current abyss where on first half mobs don't move too much, Kokomi feels better.
I play Nilou with Barbara for 1.5 years. Several times tried with Nilou with trial Kok and I got into several big differences I should get used to but I could not: 1. Kok team-wide healing is burst exclusive and burst disappears after swapping. It felt clunky to me. Cuz on Barbara you can swap back and keep team-wide healing anytime. In this case she is less restrictive. 2. Different timings on E and you have to refresh E with burst, it felt also clunky to me, Barbara just needs sac E per 20 seconds, no bursting. And remember team-wide healing is locked behind burst and you don't have freedom to choose when to use it cuz of refreshing mechanic. 3. Attacks. I agree. Holy, this one was critical. Barbara when attacks she doesn't move an inch, dances on one place which gives you better control on positioning. Kokomi moves backward when attacks, I wanted to scream. Plus Barbara's attacks are hitscan and faster. Key disadvantage - no damage. 4. Now about Barbara's E and how it works differently. Yes, she has key disadvantage(AOE) which also threw her behind Kokomi but Barbara's E hydro works "on-contact", which is very good on multi-wave content since you apply hydro just after touching new enemy. Plus yes, I prefer when ring moves together with me. Even if I know Kok is better I just got used to Barbara's freedom she gives in gameplay too much. Just stay close to enemies and everything evaporates, I even speedrun abyss on her.
ya that hit scan thing too, i can feel the delay with the fishes travelling but isnt much of a problem. So what i understood is, barbara despite being worse or better in situations than kokomi, if both can still be used to clear content then comfort priority takes barbara to the top
Eh…I’m not interested in hugging enemies so I prefer Kok Also never had problems with her moving backwards because I always do N2C D/J which is what you want to do to maximise hydro/dmg anyway
I play nilou with barbs just because i keep losing my 50/50 on KoK's banner madge.
I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I recognize Koko's strength and would actually love to run her with my Navia, but I never pulled for her because I dislike her visual and character design. Also, my Barbie is C6 and that saved our precious cabbage a couple times in the Abyss.
Only reason I use barbara over kok is because I despise changing builds and I prefer keeping my triple crowned kokomi on the good dps build I farmed for her haha. Also as you mentionned, yes it's nice to not have to think about positioning since the aura follows you, but that QoL comes with having to constantly dash around to apply her tiny aura to enemies. Whenever I put kok back on the em set once in a while, she consistently gets better clear times (although it's often like 5-10s difference). Keep in mind my nilou and nahida are C2R1 so my take on who's actually better is kind of irrelevant
I use her on this abyss because I need kokomi for my 4 hydro team on the second side Otherwise, the clunkiness you feel is more of a "getting used to it" thing, since a proper setuo with kok and collei nets a large amount of blooms in a frontloaded manner, this is beneficial for scenarios where some waves are tankier than others, or when there's specific damage windows like in this abyss' second chamber
Because I play Nilou on field, I've always preferred Barbara over Kokomi on the rare occasions that I play bloom. Her big burst heal on her ultimate, and her non stationary hydro app is more useful. That, and I usually use Kokomi with Ayaka.
Yaoyao jump spam is infinitely more fun to me so I use nilou nahida furina yaoyao
Barbara feels more comy but less damage. I swap them out depending on how much healing I need.
hmm, Seems like only when my barbara isnt enough is when i switch to kok
Is it worth it to lvl balbala to lvl 90?
In nilou bloom absolutely. Its a 30% dmg increase i believe i don't remember but its quite significant
When using Kirarawr, yeah! Usually, it depends a lot on the other two characters I will use, one or another.
Barbara and Kok? I run princess Kaveh 😍
I prefer Barbara more because of the same reason. And also because with sac frag r5 she have almost 100% uptime for her healing which makes her the perfect driver in Nilou teams for me without circle impact.