Loadouts: Tanky Steel Path Yareli (U33.0.4)

Yareli has gone through several rounds of buffs since her original release in U30.5. As the K-Drive Frame, she was always destined to be polarising, and her underwhelming on-release state certainly didn't help. With her many buffs and introduction of Augments though, Yareli is a surprisingly tanky Frame with reasonable CC and great Secondary buffs - provided you can tolerate her K-Drive gameplay.

Overview

While Merulina (2) is active, the only weapon Yareli can use is her Secondary, making the Primary and Melee choice largely for emergency/utility use only. This loadout is pictured including two of my default go-to weapons, Bubonico and Praedos, but they have little impact on the loadout as a whole.

Particularly for Steel Path and higher, I like having the Vazarin Focus School for emergency healing and invulnerability. If survivability is not an issue, you could absolutely switch it for another school, for instance Unairu for its Shield/Armour strip, or Zenurik for its Energy generation.

I use a Panzer Vulpaphyla in this loadout, like with most other non-Saryn Steel Path loadouts.

Yareli's kit has gone through a number of tweaks since her release, and is currently sitting in a decent state.

So long as Yareli remains moving, she gains the Critical Flow buff thanks to her Passive, which gives +200% Crit Chance to Secondaries (behaves like a +Crit Chance mod). This buff takes 1.5 seconds of continuous movement to activate, and will deactivate upon not moving for more than a second. So long as you use Crit Secondaries, this Passive is a pretty strong buff.

Sea Snares (1) throws forward water bubbles that suspend up to 5 nearby enemies per cast (with a maximum of 15 at any one time), also drastically increasing damage dealt to them. It is a useful Ability for both CC-ing and killing enemies, and is key to the Merulina Guardian Augment.

Merulina (2) is Yareli's K-Drive Ability. It is the core of her survivability as it offers 90% Damage Reduction while active. So long as Merulina is up, Yareli is basically impossible to kill in any reasonable content. Since it is a K-Drive however, it prevents her from using her Primary, Melee, or Archgun - only the Secondary is useful. It also has a tendency to bump into and get stuck in all manner of terrain, and its control physics are not for everyone.

Aquablades (3) creates a ring of water blades that orbit Yareli, dealing Slash damage and procs, as well as stagger to any nearby enemy. It can stack surprisingly strong Slash procs given time or the Surging Blades Augment, however I've found it largely underwhelming compared to just shooting the enemy. Its limited, non-moddable range is a notable flaw compared to other AoE Abilities.

Riptide (4) pulls in and ragdolls nearby enemies, suspending them for a time while dealing a little scaling damage. The damage dealt is negligible at higher levels, but its wider range grouping CC effect compared to Sea Snares keeps it a valuable niche.

Yareli's general playstyle is quite simple. Activate Merulina, then constantly throw out Sea Snares to CC enemies and keep Merulina alive. Use a Crit-viable AoE Secondary to tear through enemies. Riptide can be used to CC and group up enemies, while Aquablades deals a little damage and stagger to any nearby enemies.

I've taken this build to Steel Path, and provided you sustain Merulina, it works very well and is nigh-impossible to go down with. It won't last forever of course, but for the content that the vast majority of players will experience (below level 500), it will do just fine.

Yareli Build

The Yareli build I use is generally well-rounded, leaning towards Strength. Yareli appreciates pretty much all stats, though can also get by without heavy investment in any one stat. Strength directly increases Merulina's max Health, which is more beneficial the higher level enemies are. Range notably increases the CC range of Riptide, as well as the seeking range of Sea Snares. Duration increases the duration of Riptide and Aquablades, being probably the least impactful. Efficiency notably allows you to cast Sea Snares more frequently, which is ideal for Merulina upkeep.

Adaptation and Arcane Aegis, combined with Merulina's 90% DR, make Yareli nigh-unkillable in any reasonable content. It is so strong that this build completely forgoes a Health mod, with no issues at all.

The Merulina Guardian Augment is crucial to the build, as it gives Merulina impressive self-sustain capabilities as well as another pretty hefty buff for Secondaries. The Merulina healing effect allows it to stay up essentially forever (or at least until enemies start one-shotting it), ensuring that its massive 90% Damage Reduction remains active.

+200% Reload Speed and Fire Rate for Secondaries is a colossal buff. It can give a massive DPS increase to a lot of weapons, however comes at the cost of increased ammo consumption as well. This makes it better suited to more ammo-efficient weapons, or battery weapons that recharge and thus do not need ammo pickups.

Weapons

As mentioned previously, Yareli is restricted to using only Secondaries while Merulina is active. As such, the Primary and Melee slots are just to preference and have minimal bearing on the rest of the loadout. Notably, Merulina Guardian can allow you to forgo +Fire Rate/Reload Speed mods, freeing up space for other mods.

The Tenet Cycron is the first weapon I tried that worked all-round very well. On its own it is already a solid weapon, with decent Crit and great Status output, as well as a powerful chaining effect for AoE. Merulina Guardian's +Fire Rate and the +Crit Chance from Yareli's Passive crank its Burst DPS up to the extreme, while the increased ammo consumption is a non-issue as it is a battery weapon.

A Crit Sporelacer can be very effective as well. It already deals impressive damage-per-shot, which is cranked up further by Yareli's Passive. The low Fire Rate is easily rectified with Merulina Guardian, and Pax Charge can be used to eliminate any ammo concerns.

I prefer explosive AoE weapons for Yareli over chaining weapons, as it can be troublesome to keep shots exactly on target while moving on the K-Drive (I have trouble with it at least).

However, the best weapon I found for Yareli is a Tenet Plinx built for Alt-Fire. It already naturally deals colossal damage in a decent radius with its enormous Crit, however is held back by noticeable Charge Time (0.8sec) and extremely long Recharge Delay (around 3 seconds). Merulina Guardian significantly reduces both of these drawbacks, while Yareli's Passive cranks up damage output even further. As a bonus, its Primary-Fire is very effective at quickly killing Acolytes if the Alt-Fire does not effectively one-shot them. The TPlinx is also a battery recharge weapon, removing ammo concerns.

Companion

As mentioned previously, this loadout uses the Panzer Vulpaphyla to spread Viral procs. This frees up the Secondary to be built for Corrosive, for better damage against Acolytes. Besides this, a Panzer Vulp with Panzer Devolution is also immortal, ensuring it will maintain Vacuum and Enemy/Loot Radar well into Steel Path.

Alternatives

Yareli works well with any Crit-viable Secondary, particularly those with AoE that appreciate buffs to Fire Rate and/or Reload Speed. I'd recommend staying away from Secondaries that already have high Fire Rate and/or Recoil (e.g. Pyrana Prime, Kuva Nukor), as the additional Fire Rate makes their Recoil and Ammo consumption nigh-uncontrollable. Slower firing, more ammo-efficient weapons benefit much more. Yareli is also not as strong with high-precision Secondaries (e.g. Knell Prime) unless your aiming skills are exceptional, due to needing to stay moving for the Crit buff.

Besides the weapons already mentioned, I've also had decent success with a Crit Catchmoon. Ironically Yareli's signature Kompressa arguably isn't a great fit for her, as it has terrible Crit and generally unexceptional DPS.