Alhaitham is finally making his debut in the first half of Genshin Impact version 3.4! Don’t be fooled by him calling himself a Feeble Scholar, this 5-star Dendro sword user brings both brains and brawns to the table. Here’s everything you need to know about him. (Photos: HoYoverse)
With the release of Genshin Impact version 3.4, Alhaitham is finally here!
After being an integral part in our quest to save the Dendro Archon Lesser Lord Kusanali, this 5-star Dendro sword user now brings both brains and brawn to the Traveler’s party.
And while Alhaitham called himself a ‘feeble scholar’, don’t be fooled by his words. There’s a vicious strength hiding behind Alhaitham’s rather quiet and studious demeanour. Here’s everything you need to know about Alhaitham!
Analyse, Hypothesise, Plan, Decimate
Alhaitham boasts a kit that focuses on dealing fast Dendro-infused attacks, making him a Main DPS that requires him to take the majority of field time for your party.
And while he is similar to other 5-stars, especially Keqing, we actually headcanon-ed that he learned their techniques through the variety of Knowledge Capsules he had come across as the Akademiya Scribe and made them his own.
Alhaitham’s skill, Universality: An Elaboration of Form, is where the brunt of his damage output comes from. It allows him to enter an Aiming Mode to rush on enemies head-on, teleporting to the target location and dealing Dendro DMG to any nearby enemies, similar to Keqing’s skill.
During this time, Alhaitham will generate Chisel-Light Mirrors, which will infuse his Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks with Dendro. When his infused attacks hit opponents, the Chisel-Light Mirrors will unleash a coordinated Projection Attack that deals area-of-effect Dendro DMG based on the number of Chisel-Light Mirrors existing on field. A maximum of three Chisel-Light Mirrors can exist during the duration of his skill.
Switching out Alhaitham prematurely will destroy these Mirrors and end his skill duration, so it’s ideal to keep him on-field at all times when you have deployed his skill.
His burst, Particular Field: Fetters of Phenomena, creates a Particular Binding Field which deals multiple instances of area-of-effect Dendro DMG.
When you have Chisel-Light Mirrors during the duration of the burst, all the Mirrors will be consumed and increase the number of DMG instances dealt. After the burst ends, Alhaitham will then regenerate the number of Chisel-Light Mirrors consumed.
Alhaitham’s A1 Passive, Four-Casual Correction, allows his Charged or Plunging Attacks to generate one Chisel-Light Mirror when hitting opponents. This effect can be triggered once every 12 seconds.
Meanwhile, his A4 Passive, Mysteries Laid Bare, will increase the damage of Projection Attacks from his Chisel-Light Mirrors as well as his burst by 0.1% of his Elemental Mastery. You can gain a 100% DMG bonus in this way.
Due to his A4 Passive, Alhaitham scales with both ATK% and Elemental Mastery, and maximizing his damage output will require you to maintain a good balance of these two stats alongside your Crit ratios.
Your focus in ascending Alhaitham’s talents should be his Normal Attacks, then Skill, and lastly his Burst.
Sometimes, group studies are necessary (Alhaitham’s best teams)
Alhaitham may like to work alone, but he shines best in a team that pushes him towards his full capability. With his Dendro alignment, Alhaitham is a formidable DPS that takes advantage of the myriad of Dendro elemental reactions that were introduced in the game back in version 3.0.
This lineup utilises the Quicken-into-Spread and Bloom-into-Hyperbloom reactions. Alhaitham will take advantage of the increased Dendro DMG from triggering Spread while creating Dendro Cores with Bloom, and subsequently detonating them early to deal homing Dendro DMG with the help of an off-field Electro support like Fischl, Yae Miko, or Raiden Shogun with an Elemental Mastery build.
This team can get on the technical side, so it’s ideal to have a healer like Kokomi for Hydro, Kuki Shinobu for Electro, and Yaoyao for Dendro. The flexible spot in this team can be taken by Dendro supports like Collei, Nahida, or Dendro Traveller.
Crafted to focus wholly on Alhaitham’s enhanced Dendro DMG through Spread, this team will consist of a Dendro Support, and ideally two Electro characters that can act as a healer and off-field Electro applicator.
However, if you want to be assured of tanking through enemies, a shielder like Zhongli, who can also shred resistances, is welcome in this setup. A Normal Attack buffer like Yun Jin can also be a viable option.
This team will take advantage of Nilou’s Bountiful Cores, that being Dendro Cores that explode instantly and with DMG that scales off of Nilou’s max HP. With Alhaitham acting as the Main DPS, Nilou’s off-field version of her skill will be the trigger to create the cores.
Kokomi or Barbara will act as healers, as well as triggering Hydro Resonance to further increase Nilou’s HP, while Dendro Traveler, Nahida, Collei, or Yaoyao will act as secondary off-field Dendro supports.
Taking advantage of the Burgeon reaction and its area-of-effect Dendro DMG, Alhaitham will act as Main DPS while Thoma’s burst will generate Pyro to trigger the reaction. Hydro characters like Xingqiu, Yelan, Kokomi, or Barbara will create the Dendro Cores. Nahida, Dendro Traveller, Collei, or Yaoyao will act as secondary off-field Dendro appplicators.
The Pen is mightier than the Sword, but not in this case (Alhaitham’s best gear)
When it comes to gear, the best option for Alhaitham is obviously his signature weapon, Light of Foliar Incision, as it is tailor-made for his kit.
It boasts the biggest Crit DMG substat in the game, maxing out at 88% to make up for the low base ATK. The passive also gives you a 4% Crit Rate increase, while increasing the damage of your Normal Attacks and Elemental Skill by 120% of your Elemental Mastery.
But if you’re not too keen on pulling in the weapon banner, here are some alternatives:
Primordial Jade Cutter: Ascends with Crit Rate, which is a welcome addition. The HP increase passive won’t benefit you, but the ATK bonus scaling off of 1.2% of Max HP means you can focus on getting more Elemental Mastery than ATK in your artifacts.
Mistsplitter Reforged: Ascends with Crit DMG, gives additional Elemental DMG bonus. Works well with Alhaitham as he can trigger the passive fairly quickly with his skill and burst.
Haran Geppaku Futsu: Ascends with Crit Rate, gives additional Elemental DMG bonus, and further Normal ATK DMG bonus when your teammates unleash skills.
For 4-star weapons, you can go for:
Xiphos’ Moonlight (Gacha)
The Black Sword (Battle Pass)
Toukabou Shigure (event-only)
Iron Sting (craftable)
Amenoma Kageuchi (craftable)
Festering Desire (event-only)
And for the true free-to-play experience, the 3-star weapon Harbinger of Dawn is also a good option.
For Artifacts, the best set Alhaitham can use is Gilded Dreams, which will increase both his Elemental Mastery and ATK with its 4-piece set bonus, and necessary to get bigger DMG numbers. You can also equip him with Deepwood Memories, but it’s more ideal to have a Dendro support in his team to have it.
The main stats for your artifacts should be:
Substats to go for should be: Crit DMG or Crit Rate, Elemental Mastery, ATK and ATK%, then Energy Recharge.
Alhaitham is featured as the new 5-star character for Genshin Impact version 3.4 alongside a rerun for Xiao in the version’s first half. The second half will then feature reruns for both Hu Tao and Yelan.
If you’re still torn between pulling for Alhaitham or Xiao, or thinking of waiting for Hu Tao and Yelan instead, we’ve got you covered.
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.
Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.
The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.
The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.
The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.
Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.
“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.
The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.
“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”
The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.
However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.
That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.
“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.
“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”
The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.
About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.
“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.
Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.
In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.
The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”
“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.
“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”
Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.
Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.
In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.
The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.
Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.
“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.
“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.
Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.
Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.
“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.
“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.
As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.
But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.
Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.
The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
