Uploaded March 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Sima Yi has recently emerged as the best speedrun character in the game. So, what exactly makes him so good?
First thing is that he is a relatively low-maintenance character. You don't need much to make him the perfect killing machine: just 4 Cold (to receive a large damage bonus from his weapon) and 8 Skill (to unlock his EX attack). After you get these basic things, you can essentially skip the rest of the fights without real concern.
Second thing is that his mechanics are probably straight-up bugged. His weapon passive says it gives him 50% damage boost towards frozen targets, but it melts boss lifebars in a way no other comparable damage bonus I've noticed does.
Third is his EX attack. While his starting moveset is already slightly better-than-average - compact combos with pretty good range - his C3 EX is ridiculously powerful. It's fairly quick to pull off, destroys 75% of screen's worth of enemies at once, works at bosses too since it does quick multi-hit damage and can be used with evade cancelling. It has a higher dps and range than most summon attacks, allowing Sima Yi to use a playstyle which does not rely on summon damage at all.
Also, since he is Wei and acquires double Wisdom, he also has pretty efficient damage scaling synergies, although this isn't very critical when doing runs on the lowest difficulty.
-- Watch live at twitch.tv/akheon
Sima Yi has recently emerged as the best speedrun character in the game. So, what exactly makes him so good?
First thing is that he is a relatively low-maintenance character. You don't need much to make him the perfect killing machine: just 4 Cold (to receive a large damage bonus from his weapon) and 8 Skill (to unlock his EX attack). After you get these basic things, you can essentially skip the rest of the fights without real concern.
Second thing is that his mechanics are probably straight-up bugged. His weapon passive says it gives him 50% damage boost towards frozen targets, but it melts boss lifebars in a way no other comparable damage bonus I've noticed does.
Third is his EX attack. While his starting moveset is already slightly better-than-average - compact combos with pretty good range - his C3 EX is ridiculously powerful. It's fairly quick to pull off, destroys 75% of screen's worth of enemies at once, works at bosses too since it does quick multi-hit damage and can be used with evade cancelling. It has a higher dps and range than most summon attacks, allowing Sima Yi to use a playstyle which does not rely on summon damage at all.
Also, since he is Wei and acquires double Wisdom, he also has pretty efficient damage scaling synergies, although this isn't very critical when doing runs on the lowest difficulty.
-- Watch live at twitch.tv/akheon
