It has been done.

Not my first c6 5* sadly (f you Diluc for stealing that) but at least he's still my first limited c6 5*. He will very likely remain the only one for a long time (Shenhe feels tempting sometimes but... nah), the amount of wishes I needed was ridiculous. Still with how much I enjoy him it's absolutely worth it for me and welkin has been helping quite a bit.

This just further prooves that there should be a playable Melusine. They're just too adorable to not have it be possible. Which is why I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen.

May all Tortellini wanters be Tortilla havers. I'm so incredibly happy I got Tarte as he's easily the most enjoyable character for me. I'll be going for his c6 because he deserves it - yes I know it's not worth it when compared to throwing your primos elsewhere and igdaf.

Having the underground map feature earlier definitely would have been helpful. Also less stuff locked behind the Aranara quest - they're cute but holy f those quests were easily the worst of Sumeru for me. The Aranara quests were the first time I actually didn't read all of the dialoge because all of these -nara, -bara, -tara, whatevara words made it extremely tedious to follow. As for the archon quest the time loop thingy was sort of whatever, they could have shortened it a bit without making the overall plot worse imo. It wasn't unbearably long, just sort of rather obvious pretty quickly.

Other than that Sumeru is easily my favorite region though. The maps are gorgeous and I honestly don't mind the huge desert, as one half felt more like huge ruin exploration than anything else to me. The surprise inside the sandstorm from the second half is also a truly awesome area and I'm honestly sad we didn't get any reason to go back there after the quest (like big spots of specific resources).

So far my personal ranking from best to worst region is:

Sumeru

Liyue = Inazuma

big huge empty space

Mondstadt

I'm really hyped about how Fontaine will turn out, I'm loving what I saw so far.

There's still 10 days left for Koko, so you can still try whatever single pulls you manage to save up. People have gotten 5* in a single pull before, it's all down to luck (of which I wish you a lot of!).

Yelan is a really cool sidegrade to Xingqiu and they work amazingly well when paired up. But wether she's worth it for you depends on what you want from that new hydro and your personal tastes. Hydro Archon still could be anything role-wise, so it's not possible to say wether they'll be better than Yelan for whatever you want or not.

I can already see my c6 Tortellini on the horizon. Yes, I know he's not the best 5* to get c6 for. I don't care, he's the most fun character for me and my absolute favorite overall.

I finally got to try this event and it's definitely ridiculous (as event) if you don't have at least 3 teams with all different characters build. My 3 teams are Childe National, Alhaitham Hyperbloom and Nilou bloom (Nahida is overlapping between Alhaitham and Nilou, so I used a lvl 60 Collei with random Deepwood for Alhaitham's team instead).

I was struggling the most with the first challenge. Nilou was the only thing I tried who was able to absolutely shred the first round - all other teams I tried made it half through at best. And I knew I needed my Childe team for round 2 or 3. Turns out my Hu Tao came in to save the day by barely being able to clear round 2. I really should try to work on improving that poor girl's artifacts, she's sitting on 50% crit rate and can't seem to get more. =/

The others challenges were comparatively a lot easier than the first one and I was able to just cycle through my 3 teams mentioned above.

I can't see how newer players would be able to enjoy this however, even if they somehow manage to at least get the primos. The lack of trial characters, who help in at least comfortably getting the first 2 tiers of rewards, makes it worse than it has to be.

Overall I'd really appreciate something like this event but without rewards (!) tied to it and with customizable waves (!) either as permanent domain or for the teapot. This is generally super fun for trying different teams. It's bad as event though because not being able to get some rewards feels shit, so it's always going to be too hard or too easy overall. And getting all of the rewards this time is hard, especially considering that you're never guaranteed good artifacts.

Yay: 50 pulls in I got Wanderer after winning a 50/50, so he's now c1. Currently useless for how I have him geared but it's one step closer to later constellations so it's something I'm happy about. Another 30 pulls later I got Jean, who is now c3. Only 1 more loss to her and she can shred anemo res which is cool and might make me actually use her.

Sadface: Only managed to get 2 copies of Faruzan during this so now she's at c3. I really would love a c6 Faruzan but absolutely don't want to ruin a guaranteed limited 5*, so no more pulls for me this time. I already have Kokofish from an earlier banner and I don't want her constellations.

Idk how to feel about this: For some weird reason 4* weapons loved to jump me this time while pulling on the character banner. Then again this means I now own an r5 Stringless - yay for Fischl I guess? If only I would use her more.

Dinner quest? Do you mean the summer quest? If so I recorded the main and all sidequests I could find for myself and have about 6h 30min of video content just from those quests. So without hunting any chests or doing minigames.

And imo finding the chests is a lot easier than it was during the archipelago last year.

I also fully recommend this spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gNxZ2xab1J6o1TuNVWMeLOZ7TPOqrsf3SshP5DLvKzI/pubhtml?gid=654398186#

I honestly can't tell you where I found the link, but it has helped me immensely when building my characters. Just keep in mind that it is meta-focused, so doing things totally different than whatever the spreadsheet suggests is absolutely fine for anywhere outside of the last few spiral abyss floors!

The Widsith is the best weapon I have for him. The ATK buff especially is awesome if you happen to get it. The EM is pretty meh, but still increases whatever swirls you happen to do. And even if you don't get the ATK buff it still gives you crit damage, which is always nice to have. If you want I can make pictures of my gears later when I'm at home.

As for a general text version to answer your question from above:

I always run Bennett with 4pc Noblesse + Sapwood Blade (or any other high ATK Sword in case you're good on ER). Crit, ATK and ER (as always only until you can burst off cooldown) substats are all valuable. For main stats I'm running mine with Crit/Pyro/ER, though you can also use ATK sands if you have enough ER without then.

For Layla 4pc Millelith with Favonius Sword is great imo - just make sure to give her enough Crit Rate. Mine is Crit rate/Cyro/HP for main stats as I want her to have a balance of shielding and personal damage. If you rather have her shield be more tanky you can also simply give her 3x HP main stats, as long as you make sure to get crit rate for the sword somewhere.

Since you don't really need the swirls with Wanderer as carry I'd just give Faruzan a 4pc Emblem to help with her high ER requirements at c0 and to also boost her burst's damage. I'd also give her a Favonius Bow. If you build your Layla more offensively you can also think about giving your Faruzan a 4pc Viridescent Venerer set and try to swirl cryo to improve Layla's damage even further.

You'll still need to invest heavily into your Wanderer though. The supports alone won't give you consistent 100k charged hits. Also c6 Faruzan helps, even though I definitely wouldn't recommend spending to get that.

How much does your Wanderer currently hit for? With the team you mentioned (with some constellation differences that is, no c6 Faruzam though and the other 3 shouldn't matter as much) I can get mine to relatively comfortable and consistent 40k~50k depending on enemy and ignoring Widsith because the ATK buff from that thing hates me whenever I damage test.

My Wanderer really isn't my best geared character though.