Link to spreadsheet.

BEFORE YOU READ THE DATA

This data is not 100% accurate, but it can give good insight into many categories. First of all, I always used Diona in those stats so her pick rate by other players is 0%, or rather 100% since she was always present. In some cases I also had to switch to dps characters or I decided to give another Diona a chance (usually they quickly switched after seeing my lvl 90).

Data I present in the "Stats" sheet and in this post is based only on "Diona" stats. Runs recorded in "Other" are not included for consistency.

For reference how strong my Diona is: C4, lvl 90, R2 Sacrificial Bow, 34.5k HP, ~200% ER, talents 9/10/12, 4-piece Tenacity of the Millileth.

MOST USED CHARACTERS

• #1 Ganyu - 163 (30.8%)

• #2 Zhongli - 155 (29.2%)

• #3 Eula - 139 (26.2%)

• #4 Xiao - 105 (19.8%)

• #5 Bennett - 102 (19.2%)

• For more detailed statistics, check the spreadsheet

Ganyu and Zhongli were by far the most popular choices. Their popularity was equal for the majority of the time, but last week Zhongli slightly dropped in pick rate. Ganyu shouldn't surprise anyone - good damage from a safe distance. They weren't discouraged even by cryo resistance that significantly reduced their damage. Zhongli is more of a comfort pick if you just don't want to die and still be useful to your team. A lot players see value in that.

Eula is not far off from the top contenders. Her being versatile against any Azhdaha form certainly contributed. She's also fairly new so I bet it boosted her pick rate by a good amount.

Xiao and Bennett were very close to each other, but the gap between them and Eula is the highest pick rate difference that I've documented. Similarly to Eula, both of them are good no matter which elements Azhdaha absorbs.

LEAST USED CHARACTERS

• #29 Lisa - 2 (0.4%)

• #28 Traveller Geo - 3 (0.6%)

• #27 Xiangling, Albedo - 4 (0.8%)

• #26 Amber - 6 (1.1%)

• #25 Xinyan, Xingqiu, Traveller Anemo - 7 (1.3%)

• For more detailed statistics, check the spreadsheet

Lisa being at the bottom shouldn't surprise anyone, since she's barely ever picked in abyss as well. The lack of Geo Travellers and Albedos makes sense too. Azhdaha has innate 70% geo resistance, so their damage drops drastically without Zhongli to shred those. Albedo is hurt especially as his flower is very easy to destroy AND he requires C2 to be a burst character.

Personally I'm shocked by the incredibly low popularity of Xiangling. Even without reactions she's still capable of dealing great damage and also boosts the damage of other pyro characters. Xiangling's best buddies - Bennett and Tartaglia were fairly popular too. To be less picked than Amber or Xinyan... I didn't expect this.

Amber holds the 4th least popular spot. She still has a dedicated playerbase... and some players might've picked her as a joke. Xinyan who's forgotten by players and developers is on par with Xingqiu and Traveller Anemo. To note, most Xinyans didn't do much, but one or two were fairly strong.

I can understand Xingqiu not being very popular, to many he's more of vaporize enabler than a real dps. Traveller Anemo was picked more often than I expected. They actually dealt fairly good damage most of the time, but nothing extreme.

DEATHS - Who died the most? (20+ picks)

• #1 Catalyst users - Yanfei (48.9%), Klee (34.3%), Ningguang (24%)

• #2 Archers - Ganyu (20.9%), Fischl (20.5%), Venti (20.5%), Tartaglia (20%)

• #3 Melee dps - Diluc (20%), Xiao (18.1%), Eula (17.3%), Keqing (15.2%)

• #4 Tanky melee dps - Razor (11.8%), Beidou (10.7%), Hu Tao (10.3%)

• #5 Wandering Samurai - Kazuha (9.8%)

• #6 Healers - Bennet (10.8%), Barbara (9.8%), Jean (9.1%), Qiqi (5.8%)

• #7 Immortals - Noelle (5.1%), Zhongli (3.2%)

Grouped by roles as they all aligned perfectly (almost). Only Bennett and Kazuha are slightly off. Jean is healer/dps/support all at once so you can argue here as well. Unfortunately, death stats can be fairly volatile and I would need significantly more runs for them to be reliable. Deaths also heavily depend on player skill, so some character's their win rate can be boosted by good players who are familiar with the boss fight.

Despite the unreliability, in some cases it's possible to figure out certain patterns. Based on my experience, catalyst users were incredibly squishy and keeping them alive was a challenge. This is reflected by a significantly higher death rate compared to the rest of the cast.

Archers, mostly Ganyu and Tartaglia, had a very consistent week by week death rate. They died significantly more in electro and hydro weeks. I'll talk about it in the next section. Venti and Fischl were usually sticking closer and their death rate was more volatile.

Tanky dps died less often than others. A good chunk of deaths comes from the electro phase. Both Razor and Beidou have means to protect themselves against it. Hu Tao is also here. While she hurts herself with her E, she usually has more health than other characters.

Healers don't die very often for obvious reasons. Combined with Diona's shield, they complement each other very well. Noelle and Zhongli... they just don't die.

DEATHS - What did players die to?

• Total deaths: 257

• #1 Electro burrow phase - 51

• #2 First & second stomping phase - 62 (out of 530)

• #3 Hydro bubbles - 29

• #4 Cryo burrow phase - 26

• #5 Pyro runes - 19

• #6 Electro barrage - 9

• #7 Pyro burning ground - 7

• Other deaths that weren't specified: 54

Electro burrow phase claimed the most souls by far. I can only either cleanse the DoT or block a big portion of incoming damage, never both. It's fairly easy to completely avoid damage once you understand the mechanics. If you look at the week by week stats, melee dps (Xiao, Diluc, Eula, Keqing) died much less that week which suggests they've learned their lesson from first week. This phase is also extremely deadly for Ganyu and Tartaglia in particular. They have a habit of sticking to the edge of the arena (and spam charged shots), where it's harder or impossible to avoid the damage. They're often too far away to receive my shields, further inflating their death stats.

Stomping phase killed more players total, but less on average as it's present in all runs compared to the elemental moves. It could've been deadlier if I didn't save countless people with my shield. I'm personally amazed by how many players suicide to stomps. The game gives you many cues that you should run. There's the announcement that Azhdaha is about to absorb an element, it deals a lot of damage, pushes you away and the boss' health cannot drop below certain level. To note - this is only the first and second stomping phase. Any stomping phase past electro/cryo burrow phase isn't announced and is much harder to avoid as a result.

Hydro bubbles (or circling bubbles in commentary) are very annoying to deal with as Diona. She cannot cleanse the DoT, but only prevent the damage with her shield. Players often receive the DoT debuff (outer ring) and I would block most of the damage. The real problem starts if bubble collides with someone, then they take constant heavy damage. I've had a few cases of teammates standing on my ulti and still dying to the debuff despite having the shield on top of it. Similarly to the electro burrow phase, this move is also very deadly for Ganyu and Tartaglia. In aiming mode they don't see their surroundings too well, making them an easy target. Again, they also like to wander far off where my shield cannot reach them which needlessly put them in danger.

Cryo burrow phase could've been Azhdaha's deadliest move if I wasn't using Diona. Her shield with 250% effectiveness against cryo almost entirely blocks the incoming damage. Despite that, it still killed a lot of players. Teammates are still vulnerable during the ~1 sec shield downtime and if 3 or more runes (delayed AoE explosion) overlap. Without Diona's shield, it's not uncommon to die from full health within 1 second (I experienced that as Xiangling once). There's also another problem - if you get hit by a rune you'll have your movement speed slowed which makes dodging even harder. Overall this phase is capable of melting Zhongli's shield within seconds and even my health dropped dangerously low few times.

Pyro runes (delayed AoE explosion) are similar to cryo with more up-front damage. However there's only one wave and it's much easier to play around it. If i had my Sacrificial Bow proc ready then teammate would almost certainly survive. Problems started when i didn't ...

Electro barrage only happens past burrow phase and it's easy to deal with. It went very similarly to the pyro runes, including my relying on a Sacrificial Bow proc to guarantee my teammates' safety.

Pyro burning ground despite being obvious danger still killed seven players. Most of the time players would tank a hit from Azhdaha (which I blocked with the shield), which made it easy for burning ground to break the shield and start dealing damage. A few times I observed people standing on top of them as if nothing happened.

CHARACTER TENDENCIES

Over those 500+ runs I've noticed that certain behaviours were more common for particular characters than others. For example, Zhongli and Noelle would nearly always facetank Azhdaha. They're incredibly tanky and players are used to their shield never breaking so it makes perfect sense.

Ganyu - run to the edge of the arena, toggle aiming mode, strafe to left or right and left click every now and then. Most of them tunnel vision really hard, making it very hard or impossible for me to heal them (as they're constantly strafing). Couple of times they'd run over my healing and pass it without realizing. These tendencies are why electro and hydro elements heavily increase their death rate. There's also some other very concerning behaviour I observed. Some Ganyus would stop shooting from afar and dash into Azhdaha to cast their spells... as he initiated his stomping phase. Only after announcement, never before. This usually resulted in death as Ganyus are squishy.

Tartaglia - I often paired them with Ganyu despite their different playstyles for a good reason. Overwhelming majority of them never entered melee stance, and when they did they often misused it. They seriously spammed charged arrows from afar nearly every single time. That's why they share the same problems and died in similar fashions as Ganyu.

Eula - I don't have much to say about about her. However I did observe how they'd facetank stomping in order to not waste their elemental bursts.

Xiao - very binary. They were either good players and cooperated, or quite horrible and relied on food instead. Majority of them dealt really good damage and carried the run on their own.

Bennett - I think more of them facetanked stomping phase than not. Cast ult and press on. This did lead to death a couple of times when they couldn't catch up to their healing zone...

Diluc - he had consistent popularity no matter the week. Because of that, they hit like wet noodles during pyro weeks. Diluc players just don't care. DILUC SMASH.

Jean - they hardly ever played badly. A little bit of damage, a little bit of healing and she can also cleanse DoT. I liked to be paired with them as a result. Good chunk of them would save their ults for emergency healing, which is something Diona lacks. They also liked to YEET players with their skill who didn't load in yet.

Hu Tao - contrary to popular belief they actually liked to use my healing (with some exceptions). They're probably more aware of their health since they hurt themselves with their elemental skill. In general they seemed to be better players on average compared to other characters. Their low death rate somewhat reflects that.

I didn't really observe anything unusual in other characters or just didn't play enough with them to confirm those specific behaviours.

GENERAL PLAYER TENDENCIES

Some behaviours are not tied to characters, but are shared between many players.

"Ignore healing, eat food!" - I don't mind if someone heals themselves with food in emergencies. However, a fair amount of players straight up ignored my healing even if it was right nearby. Wasting the food limit like this caused some deaths, as they couldn't eat later when they were actually in danger. Are people unaware that Diona can heal? Or maybe they have "coop teammate effects" disabled and cannot see the healing zone? I can't tell.

"I'm about to die, time to open inventory!" - This is similar to eating food, but in a different way. Most people use NRE or back out to heal up when they're low. There's a small amount of players who straight up open inventory even in most dangerous situations or when they'll die within a second or two. Many times I saved them regardless. Most extreme case (Diona #402) is when Klee spent around 40 seconds setting up NRE. Meanwhile I shielded her from the stomping phase and hydro bubbles. It's a miracle she survived.

"Azhdaha is invulnerable, time to use my burst!" - This happened all the time. People seem to be unaware that he's invulnerable during cutscenes, even though his hp bar perfectly indicates that. I'm a bit clueless here. What you CAN do is stack your weapon passives and use elemental skills to generate particles, it's always a good idea as it benefits everybody.

"Azhdaha absorbs fire this week, let's pick Diluc!" - It's not Diluc specific but he's the best example. Many players don't seem to know or don't care that Azhdaha is resistant to the elements he absorbs. This should be fairly obvious after a few runs, as your damage will drastically drop. Of course some people might not have good substitute characters or are still AR 50-54 and in the process of building. However in the best case character pick rate drops by ~50% on element resistant weeks (Hu Tao, Klee, Tartaglia).

OTHER STATS

• # of runs with three player team - 8

• # of C2+ Zhongli teammates - 19 (12,3%)

• # of players who disconnected / quit - 10

• # of players who rage quit - 10 (Ganyu 3, Xiao 2, Keqing, Bennett, Xiangling, Diluc, Qiqi)

• # of times all teammates died/left - 17 (14 of them happened in electro weeks!)

• # of retries after failing previous run - 8

CLOSING THOUGHTS

It was a fun project and I'll probably do it again. However once you start checking people's profiles and writing lengthy comments it does become fairly time consuming, so that's it from Azhdaha. I met some cool people along the way and it was always nice to see a familiar face from time to time. Hopefully new boss is as engaging as big angry frog.

If you have any questions or suggestions, let me know.

EDIT 4 months later: I just realized post's formatting is straight up broken in new version of reddit. I use old version so i had no idea until i opened it via short link. I only noticed that because i just published 600 Signora runs in coop and linked this article.