Novaflare – this word and all the possibilities it promises had been on the minds of Honkai: Star Rail players ever since the first batch of enhancements rolled out in Version 3.4, targeting Kafka, Silver Wolf, Blade and Jingliu. The buzz died down somewhat in the versions that followed without the announcements, only to spring back to life stronger and hotter than ever before when Black Swan, Sparkle, Firefly, Huohuo, Welt and Seele got theirs.
Now, granted, not all Novaflares were made equal – just compare someone like Black Swan, Kafka or Sparkle to Jingliu or Huohuo, but the possibilities are endless. At any moment, a character can be randomly buffed in their niche or swapped into a different one, like Jingliu.But the question remains: who? Who is going to be the next?
It doesn’t seem like HoYoverse has been doing these enhancements randomly: Jingliu and Blade took advantage of the unfolding HP meta, mostly thanks to Tribbie and Hyacine (or her LC); Kafka’s and Black Swan’s Novaflare ushered in the DoT dominance; Silver Wolf served as a generalist debuffer and Acheron support before the arrival of the big guns in V4.3.
Sparkle and Huohuo acted as a temporary support and sustain for the Elation comps until all limited characters would be released to form the premium pack. On the way, the two helped out Archer, general crit Hypercarries and energy-starved DPS like Saber.
Blade and Silver Wolf also got their SP versions, so the arrival of the Novaflares could have been a way to increase hype about these characters. Emanator Jingliu and Godslayer Protocol when? Welt is rumored to be working with the new Himeko Nova who wants Astral Express members in her party.
Sure, there are some outliers like Firefly and Seele that seemingly got theirs just because, for the love of the game, but we love to see it. The point remains, it seems there’s a trend, a certain logic behind the picks and the order, so let’s try and reason who might be next!
One extra note: no Remembrance or Elation units, the Paths are too fresh. Although there’s plenty to be said about how no one told Aglaea about the synergy between MonoRem, or that Elation Trailblazer has banger animations but is next to useless if you play SW999, but that’s a whole another topic.
Let’s get this out of the way first: any Standard or 4-star getting theirs would be awesome. Some characters are just a slight change away from being not only usable, but good at least for the early game, like Bailu getting a cleanse or Sampo and Luka exploding not only Windshear and Bleed, but also other DoTs at a reduced rate to be able to act as a mini-Kafka for your comp while you wait for her to be added to Stellar Convergence shop.
Bronya and base Himeko still see quite a bit of use, add HP% buff to Bronya’s existing ATK% and extend the duration of her buffs, and you’ll see her become the go-to action advancer for the HP-scaling hypercarries like the base Blade and Jingliu. Still, as the meme says, this isn’t about them. Instead, let’s go over some of the struggling limited 5-stars, one for a chosen path with a couple of honorable mentions, before moving onto the controversial picks.
Nihility – Jiaoqiu
Okay, this one feels like cheating and can be considered a freebie before moving on. Poor Jiaoqiu had all the odds stacked against him since the beginning and, inevitably, his frail foxian body folded under their strain.
To start, Nihility and debuffs as a whole have a huge disadvantage compared to Harmonies and the buffs they provide. First, the need to stack Effect Hit Rate (EHR) to ensure that a debuff even lands. Precious relic rolls that could have gone into Speed, ATK% or Crits instead used up as tax simply for being a Nihility. Lately, characters like Welt, Silver Wolf, Black Swan, Hysilens and Kafka at least started getting bonuses from their EHR, but before it was a dead stat sent to haunt your relics.
After all, Harmonies don’t need to build, say, Effect RES to land their buffs, do they? Notably, the most recent non-DoT Nihility characters – Cipher and Mortenax Blade – need barely any EHR or no EHR at all compared to their earlier colleagues.
Secondly, debuffs need to be re-applied on the newly arriving enemies and sometimes when a boss switches phases. In an unlucky scenario, that means that your DPS – say, Acheron – will have to spend a turn without the debuffs being up, maybe delay using an Ult as well, bringing your damage to a temporary stop. Admittedly, Jiaoqiu’s debuffs do carry over, but that is still an existing problem for other characters.
That is only talking about Nihility units in general, and the character has plenty of problems of his own besides being blind. The fox chef arrived as a dedicated Acheron support and DoT sidegrade (especially if you went to E2). At that point, when Acheron had been topping all the charts, all he had to do was buff her ult damage and debuff enemies to generate stacks for her ultimate, which he did quite easily. The DoT archetype, meanwhile, was starved until the arrival of Hysilens and would take anything they were offered, gladly.
But times change, and the nature of Acheron’s gameplay is that now you have to choose between stack generation speed and buffs, since Harmonies (outside of Tribbie E1) generally provide stronger buffs but generate fewer Ultimates, while Nihilities generate more but don’t really make up for it in terms of sub-DPS or their debuffing capabilities.
Or so it was before the arrival of Mortenax Blade that made Jiaoqiu completely homeless: the man has stronger buffs AND debuffs overall, allows allies to apply debuffs on their attacks like Silver Wolf E2, and grants extra stacks when being attacked like Aventurine with the Trend LC. All of that at E0S0.
Now we find ourselves in the situation where Jiaoqiu is simply obsolete. Acheron needs stacking, general vulnerability debuffs, DEF Shred and Ult damage amp. Blade needs healing and allies that can attack quickly, perhaps utilizing Follow-Up Attacks (FUA). Jiaoqiu does neither: he has lower than average speed, no follow-ups, and no healing. But what if?..
What if HoYo looked at his Currency Wars kit and the general position as a Xianzhou healer, and allowed a portion of it to carry over to his normal abilities? Some debuff-related healing capabilities and frequent (if weak) attacks would allow Jiaoqiu to take the 4th slot in the triple DoT comp, Acheron and Mortenax Blade parties, and even serve as a stand-in healer for FUA parties until the arrival of an actual new FUA, Debuff and/or DoT sustain.
That would also tie in with HoYo’s latest extra attention for Acheron, FUA and DoT. Come on, let the pink fox cook! And before we forget: if you force us to build EHR on him, let him give something back to the party with it like Black Swan and Kafka.
In case you couldn’t tell yet, yes, I’m a Nihility main. It’s been a struggle, but it seems to be looking up.
Hunt – Topaz
Jiaoqiu’s sister from another mister, Topaz was our first real niche dedicated support, buffing FUAs before a whole FUA comp was even a thing. And, naturally, her kit was designed with a very different game in mind, one without Mortenax Blade, Tribbie E1, and toughness/HP bars of enemies stretching to infinity and beyond.
Much like Jiaoqiu’s meant to work with Ultimates only, Topaz only buffs Follow-Up attacks, which drastically lowers her options of teammates and general use. Which would be fine if she were the best in it, the niche pick that would elevate your FUAs to new levels, but… she hasn’t been that for a long, long time.
Beyond her buffs being weak by the modern game standards and Eidolons that aged like milk (seriously, 5 energy on E2?), Topaz is also brought down by her low Energy gain, being exclusively single-target (which her Currency Wars version is not), and the RNG in her Proof of Debt debuff. In an ideal world, it would prioritize targets with the highest maximum HP, but alas.
Still, looking at her drawbacks above, none of them are beyond fixing. Send the girl back to the IPC training camp to grind her numbers, both the multipliers and Energy regen, buff her supportive capabilities, add a condition to Proof of Debt that makes it act less moronic, or better yet act as an AoE Buff/Debuff by stealing her Currency Wars kit. In the world with Tribbies, Mortenax Blades, Ciphers and Ashveils, seeing one-target weak sauce debuffs is certainly a choice.
If you want her to be chained to the FUA teams, make her debuffs stackable, with stacks increasing on being hit by allies’ FUAs – that way, it would naturally focus on the targets you wish to bring down ASAP.
Honorable mention: Dr. Ratio, our very first free unit and a FUA DPS, who is very much suffering from that success right now with low multipliers, high energy cost, and debuff requirements. The way to fix him is simple: poach his kit from Currency Wars that turns him into a FUA machine, pair him up with beefed up Topaz, Mortenax Blade and buffed Jiaoqiu. Profit. Endless debuffs and FUAs for days.
Erudition – Argenti
Okay, at this point I really feel like I’m cheating. It takes no more than a few seconds to point out which units are struggling for their life right about now, and Mr. Worldwide, Argenti, is among them.
When he released right around the time that Pure Fiction became available, he was the go-to man for clearing out that game mode completely. All for Idrila, of course. But times have not been kind to this Knight of Beauty: his multipliers are… questionable at best, he is stuck as an AoE-only unit as opposed to Ratio and Topaz being single-target only, and it proves to be just as limiting if not more so, and his general hunger for Energy.
However, even in his only niche, he can’t hold up to 3.x, let alone 4.x, units anymore, and had been resigned to being The Herta battery slave. But even in that niche he doesn’t excel: he offers no buffs of his own to make the Peerless Gem stand out from the bleak crowd, and can be swapped for invested-in Serval or even mini-Herta.
Pick the niche: either make him a powerful main DPS by beefing up his numbers drastically and allowing him to be played as a Hypercarry with Huohuo and Sunday and a flex support of your choice to supply energy and buffs/debuffs, or resign him to be the Erudition sub-DPS support for The Herta, but do something.
With Himeko Nova and Tohsaka Rin from the Fate collab, other Erudition characters that were freshly announced, perhaps the Erudition Support route has a chance to fly. Needless to say, 1.x Eidolons are… yeah.
Honorable mention: madam Jade, an actual Erudition sub-DPS that doesn’t do enough damage nor buff your main carry to be a real pick in the ocean of Harmonies. Unless we’re talking The Herta, but even then she flies only because of the character’s absolute need for another Erudition.
Abundance – Luocha & Lingsha
Now it’s getting more interesting. Obviously, when it comes to Abundance, the obvious pick would be Bailu. She is simply not holding up anymore: she has no cleanse, no additional utility and no way to deal with the increased enemy damage and oneshot chance. But that would be as much cheating as picking the trio above, so let’s go to the Limited characters instead.
Luocha and Lingsha find themselves in the tail end of the meta but for different reasons. First, Hyacine exists, and has more healing, more attacks and more buffs than Luocha and Lingsha combined.
Luocha’s case is that of reverse Huohuo: where the little green fox has her buffs and energy gimmick, her healing output and death prevention can be found lacking. Luocha, meanwhile, has heals for days… but that is literally all he has and it is entirely not enough in Honkai: Star Rail V4.x. The ATK-scaling and the lack of panic button is also clearly felt.
Last but not least, the Eidolons. Those were totally fine for 1.x, but when you look at Luocha’s stuff, and then turn your eyes to Hyacine or DHPT, the modern sustains, the abyss between the performance becomes even more apparent.
So the problem is thus: Huohuo, Fu Xuan and Lingsha may struggle to sustain, which is a sustain’s only job. Meanwhile, Luocha can still keep your team alive, but it won’t feel good regardless.
Some of the things that could smooth out his gameplay: his zone should end on his turn, not after it, so you can put it back up ASAP, get 4 stacks instead of 2, scale his healing with the number of enemies hit. Perhaps buff his ult with some extra debuff like RES PEN or DEF shred.
Lingsha… is a bit of a special case. She is a niche Break sustain – that is, the sustain for the one archetype that frequently goes sustainless due to its gimmicks of breaking and keeping the enemy broken until they’re gone. She has barely existing damage and shaky healing tied to her summon, Fuyuan, eats up SP, and provides next to no buffs.
All in all, between the two, Lingsha might be in a bit more trouble as her own problems go beyond numerical and QoL matters. However, I believe that she has more chance to be buffed in the future, and the reasons are as mentioned above: the release of Mortenax Blade and through him the need for healing and frequent attacks, extra attention to Acheron and FUA archetype, and Firefly’s previous Novaflare.
If your Hyacine is otherwise preoccupied or non-existent, Lingsha is a great choice for Mortenax Blade team due to her frequent attacks, especially if you can get her speed up. Yes, she eats up all of the extra SP, but it helps that Mortenax doesn’t need any.
So, instead of trying to make her the Break-only sustain, focus on her flexibility, attack frequency, and general sustain capabilities. making her a generalist healer that can serve in a variety of teams – DoT, Break, FUA, DoT even. She’s already halfway there – AND she’ll buff Firefly by proxy, you know the devs would love that.
Preservation – Fu Xuan
When it comes to our healers, there’s a clear separation. You have your Hyacine who boosts HP-scaling units… or, at least she would be if she weren’t so busted that she is the single most powerful healer in the game for every possible situation. Then there’s Huohuo who aids ATK-scalers and Energy-hungry comps, Luocha who boosts ATK with some Eidolons, and Lingsha that flounders aimlessly around Break.
When it comes to tanks, you have Dan Heng: Permansor Terrae that boosts ATK-scaling comps and Aventurine that has FUA and buffs Crit damage received by the target of his Ult. And then there is Fu Xuan. Technically – very technically – she could serve as our tank for HP-scalers. She boosts Max HP, she gives extra Crits, CC protection, damage reduction, she even heals – and she doesn’t actually give shields to interfere with HP-scalers’ mechanics.
Fu Xuan’s drawback is that she can’t hold her own against enemies that either hit really hard or really frequently – or both, like stacked up DoT effects. It is also not so much that she has healing capabilities but rather the concept of them, even with her Signature and perfect stat rolls on her Relics.
Just a few adjustments, and while she still won’t challenge Hyacine’s undisputed rule over HP-scalers, she could serve as your reliable stand-in now that she’s in the 50/50 loss choice. Buff her Max HP, which in turn will increase her healing, HP buffs and damage – at the moment, neither comes up to the comfort provided by other limited shielders.
She is quite SP negative if you want your team to stay alive – in order to avoid having to use Skill on her every turn to recharge her Ult, Fu Xuan could use a trait that restores a small amount of Energy when her allies are being attacked – which actually already exists, it’s her E4. Or reduced Ult cost. Better yet, both going baseline.
Much, much higher damage mitigation, especially personal. At the moment, Fu Xuan quite literally explodes due to absorbing the damage meant for her teammates. Alternatively, let her Ult work the way Mortenax Blade’s, Mydei’s self-revive or her own in Currency Wars does: lower her HP to 1, eat up a stack of the Ult, restore, profit. Also, have you seen her animations and that ultimate? We need her to be good to see more of them. That was animation powercreep before animation powercreep became a thing.
Do I actually expect her to be buffed? No, because Aventurine exists, and he’s not only a more popular character, but also works with the FUA archetype which is going through its resurgence. But it’s nice to dream since Fu Xuan was my first limited sustain.
Destruction – Dan Heng: Imbibitor Lunae
Quick, everyone, act surprised!
Dan Heng: Imbibitor Lunae (DHIL) and Jingliu were the unmatched DPS monsters of HSR Version 1.x, before the Skill Point and HP fluctuation meta even became a thing later in 3.x. And both were completely unprepared for the combat changes that came with mid to late 2.x and the first big difficulty jump that arrived with the releases of Acheron and Firefly.
At the moment, DHIL has been completely kicked out of his own niche by Archer and Sparxie. He has average multipliers – which, admittedly, is impressive considering he’s a 1.x unit – and requires quite a bit of fine-tuning to be played optimally. Not to mention, he wants the same busted supports – Sparkle, Sunday, DHPT – that are used across far more powerful teams. The sad truth is simply that payoff is not worth it anymore.
His E2 was considered quite broken for his release, but now it only lands somewhere around “good”, while E1 should frankly be available as a part of his baseline kit. He could also use having his damage changed from distributed to bounce so that he is doing better in pure single target.
Plus, as of now I believe there is no Enhanced Basic Attack support the way Cerydra is a support for Skill-based DPS, which leads players to simply stack up Crits, PEN RES and Def Shred on DHIL. It is effecive, certainly, but becomes diluted and forces him to compete against others like Phainon, Archer and the rest who want the same supports. The combination of all these elements left Dan Heng to drown, but I don’t believe that his fans will have to wait too long – he is too much of a beloved character to be left in this state now that the game is buffing characters left and right.
Bonus mention: Jingliu. Come on, HoYoverse, that Novaflare was dirty and will go down in history as the worst one ever until we get another one to match it. The Sword Champion deserved better, and even narrative-wise she’s still locked in jail and waiting for the Xianzhou Godslayer Protocol to kick off.
Harmony – Cerydra
This one might seem like it came out of the left field when Robin and Ruan Mei exist and are becoming increasingly homeless, but listen – at least they have working kits, even if they could use some touch-ups here and there at this point.
Meanwhile, it’s like Cerydra’s working despite her kit instead of because of it. Half of it is dedicated to buffing her carry, with an extra special nudge for Phainon to give him 2 Coreflames instead of 1 (her E1). While the other half buffs her personal damage that you quite literally never see, especially if you are playing the aforementioned Phainon that rudely shoves his party members off the battlefield. Justice for the Imperator!
Cerydra’s A4 gives her 100% Crit Rate, while A2 increases her Crit Damage up to a max increase of 360% that literally does nothing for her or for the character she grants Military Merit to. Her E2 additionally increases Cerydra’s damage dealt by 160%, while E6 gives her All-Type RES PEN. What is even the point of it existing in the first place considering that she is most often chained to Phainon and doesn’t see the light of day while he’s throwing meteors left and right?
Sure, you can put her in a comp with Anaxa and Seele, too, and see some interesting gameplay, but she still won’t be bringing any non-negligible damage even remaining on the battlefield the entire time.
The developers need to look at her with a critical eye and choose which chair they want her to sit on, pure buffer like Sparkle or Sunday, or buffer with sub-DPS capabilities like Tribbie and Robin. The second option would require buffing her multipliers, perhaps making her Ult count as a Skill and buffing herself with a watered down version of Military Merit/Peerage so she can bring pain from time to time. That might also make her more desirable in the non-Phainon-centric parties while keeping his performance unaffected.
And, frankly, that would make her more interesting and exciting to play and vertically invest into. Do I actually expect it to happen? Of course not.
Chances are, the next one on the buffing list among the Harmonies is going to be Sunday – he’s in a similar position to Sparkle where his kit is perfectly functional and just needs some fine-tuning. He is also quite popular, has many more teams, and is almost a new Express member. If the theory about Himeko Nova preferences is true, his buff would play right into that.
Also, it will be an indirect buff to Jing Yuan, and we know HoYoverse loves these as much as Firefly’s.
Controversial
My favorite part: the controversial picks. Previously, I’d have included Firefly in here, but she’s gotten buffed before I even started thinking about this piece. This part will be really short and sweet because everything before it really wasn’t.
Acheron
You could argue that Acheron’s performance sky-rocketed with the release of Mortenax Blade to the level of 3.x characters, but while her numbers have improved, the rough edges of her kit have not, and have you looked at those Eidolons? 18% Crit Chance at E1, for real? When E1’s like Hysilens, Aglaea or Evanescia exist? E2 being a kind of bait that literally puts her on a more even playing field – the thing that other characters have as a baseline.
Even as E2, you have to choose: do you bring along two Nihilities to charge your Ultimate fast but deal mediocre damage, or do you bring a Harmony like Sparkle to have her hit stronger but less frequently? There are some very specific comps that circumvent that weakness – Mortenax Blade + Ashveil or Tribbie E1 – but do you keep pulling to improve performance of a 2.x DPS with underwhelming multipliers, or would you rather pair Mortenax Blade, Ashveil and Tribbie together with a sustain and see even bigger numbers if you already have the characters anyway?
There is also the point of RNG with her Crimson Knot applications when the battle starts or a new wave begins, which apply to a random enemy. Repeating the Topaz debuff section from above, “In an ideal world, it would prioritize targets with the highest maximum HP, but alas.”
Fugue
I know, I know – HoYo already buffed Firefly by releasing her Novaflare and giving her the Dahlia, and I suggest buffing both Lingsha AND Fugue? But listen, as a character, Fugue does sort of nothing unless you pick up Eidolons for a stronger buff on her Foxian Prayer and a built-in Dance! Dance! Dance! effect.
She has to build EHR because she is a Nihility, of course, and her battle performance amounts to her being an EXO Weakness bot that gives your Break DPS of choice an extra bar to nuke. Her enhanced basic does absolutely nothing special but look pretty, and the Ult is simply an aesthetic nuke with mediocre damage and expensive cost. Gameplay-wise, she’s one of the most boring characters there is.
The Herta
The Herta’s problems are not so much with her kit as they are with the combination of enemies’ stage and the lack of proper sub-DPS. Anaxa turned out to be better as a main DPS than The Herta’s support, and who else is there to support the peerless gem? Mini-Herta, Serval, Argenti? Jade? Neither brings much to The Herta over being a battery.
The Herta’s performance also plummets right into the abyss if she isn’t dealing with a full-on AoE situation or has to face a specific gimmick like the Elation or Remembrance shill, anti-Crit and anti-Energy debuffs in Anomaly Arbitration, and more.
Naturally, her existing supports being as much AoE-oriented as herself also doesn’t help in the situations where The Herta is already struggling – that is, 3 targets or less, let alone pure single-target. You might get away with it with highly invested Therta and Jade E1, but how long will you be able to keep doing so?
Now we have two upcoming Erudition characters, Rin Tohsaka from the Fate collab and Himeko Nova, but chances are neither is going to be an improvement for The Herta. Hold strong, The Herta stans, Acheron mains did it and sacrificed Jiaoqiu to the Nihility gods in the process, you will be next as soon as you get rid of Anaxagoras.
