Put down your memes, this is not a drill. Developer HoYoverse announced a new round of Novaflare enhancements to arrive in Honkai: Star Rail in Version 4.2, buffing Firefly, Huohuo, Seele, and Welt. These four will join another six already buffed characters: Jingliu, Blade, Kafka, Silver Wolf, Sparkle and Black Swan.
Not only is this new round of buffs enhancing a Standard character, but also two more very early game heroes enjoying their makeover. The game’s very first limited 5-star, poor Seele had been all but dead in all forms of content… unless you have E6 supports to wheelchair her to the finish line.
And then we have the impostor among us, Firefly, who seems a bit out of order in this lineup with the recent release of The Dahlia and resurgence of Break. Especially when you consider that many characters such as Topaz, Argenti, DHIL, Dr. Ratio, Jiaoqiu, and many others, are in a much worse position right now.
Much like it was with Black Swan and Sparkle, we don’t know the details about the upcoming buffs, but who stops us from speculating some and pointing out their weaker sides? After all, there are quite many! So, let’s get started in chronological order – from the initially available to the latest released.
Welt (Imaginary Nihility)
Welt, the senior of the Astral Express and one of the Standard 5-stars, was created with an entirely different game in mind. In the early HSR, scoring this man from the beginner/Standard had been considered a win, he had nice damage, the coveted Imaginary element that stumped many young Trailblazers, and a unique gimmick of Slowing and Imprisoning enemies. Which, in turn, allowed your team to dish out more damage without focusing too much on keeping the health up.
This let Mr. Not Your Turn have a brief resurgence with the release of Acheron, as he could carry out the role of a pseudo-sustain and also take the 2nd Nihility slot to activate Acheron’s trace. But, alas, times have not being kind to Astral Express’ resident Dad. His own damage is negligeble, Eidolons are a product of his early release (as in, nigh useless unless you are closing in on E6 with the sole reason to start getting your Companion Spirits), and the Slowed/Imprisoned state can bring as much good as it does bad in the modern endgame outside of Currency Wars where he is the undisputed debuff champion.
Additionally, at this point there are simply better ways to play sustainless: with Dahlia, Fugue and HMC on the team, Superbreak teams can, well, break their enemies before their first turn and handily dispatch of them. As for the rest, why bother on ineffectively slowing down your opponents when you can bring multiple action-advancers such as Sunday, Robin, Sparkle, Remembrance Trailblazer or Bronya?
To be entirely honest, I’m not sure what can be done to Welt’s kit outside of basically redoing it to make him relatively competitive in the 4.x era, but I’m excited to find out. Perhaps his more potent AV manipulation from Currency Wars? But the man, the myth, the legend could also heavily benefit from revamping his Eidolons, traces and talents while at it.
Seele (Quantum Hunt)
If Welt is Mr. Not Your Turn, then Seele is Ms. My Turn, My Turn, Ooh, Would You Look at the Time – My Turn! Or, at least, she had been during her release in the faraway HSR Version 1.0, before the HP/Toughness bars of enemies stretched to the infinity and beyond and inadvertently made her kit disappear among the sea of butterflies.
Seele’s abilities revolve around her buffed Resurgence state that is triggered by finishing off or, in an ideal world, one-shotting smaller mobs. While in the buffed state, she gets to attack once again immediately, and the damage of Seele’s attacks increases by 80% for 1 turn.
Unless you have a couple of busted supports, getting Resurgence and dealing any kind of competitve damage outside of CW becomes harder and harder. Seele also has the Eidolons problem much like Welt and many other pre-3.x characters.
However, her kit overall is salvageable. For once, the best girl needs her multipliers adjusted for… everything, really. Add her CW Execute mechanic to her kit so that killing of trash and proccing Resurgence is more guaranteed. Reshuffle her Eidolons or, better yet, scrap them and start again, especially for E1 and E2 that should frankly simply be in her base kit. Perhaps some Speed scaling, like Aglaea and Cipher, to spice things up? Also, have you seen her Traces and Talents? That’s some blast from the past that has no place in the modern HSR anymore.
Anyway, there are plenty of ways to improve her kit – and I’m excited for the return of my very first limited 5-star. Please be better than Jingliu’s Novaflare!
Huohuo (Wind Abundance)
Unlike the previous two examples, Huohuo still sees plenty of use in the game between the DoT and Elation teams, Aglaea and Saber. She is a master of dispelling debuffs and CC, and her energy restoration Ult sees many uses, even if overall she takes more effort to sustain than others.
But let’s face it: the days of sustains only needing to sustain are long gone. With the likes of Hyacine and DHPT available in the game, what is expected now is strong sustain abilities, powerful buffs, skill point positivity, and unique gimmicks such as DHPT’s dragon or Hyacine’s signature LC which helps HP teams ramp up. And let’s not forget dealing damage on their own!
Let’s go point by point: strong sustain abilities… questionable. Being a healer in most situations is actually worse than being a shielder. After all, a shielder prevents the damage done to the team, while a healer restores damage already done. Huohuo’s Skill targets a single party-member to heal, but also restores HP to the adjacent characters, leaving the 4th to just stand there. Her Talent, Divine Provision, also provides some extra healing on Ults.
Powerful buffs, sort of? 40% Attack for 2 turns from the Ult, all allies Speed increased by 12% from E1. E1 also helps with SP since it increases the duration of Divine Provision to 3 turns, making Huohuo use her Skill less often, which ties into SP positivity. But even with Huohuo E1, you are unlikely to have her be completely Skill Point-positive if you want consistent Ults, and there likely will be situation when you have to panic-Skill to keep your team alive. Still, SP-neutrality is reachable for her.
Unique gimmick: can regenerate 20% energy for others from her Ult, gives Speed increase from E1. Damage? Non-existent, she doesn’t really need it to fulfill her sustain role… But I would be pretending if I said it wouldn’t be nice to have anynow.
The real problem with Huohuo’s kit is not that her healing itself is bad per se, it’s that the damage output of enemies had increased so much overtime. She could benefit greatly from having some sort of increased survavibility buff such as reducing damage received by allies and/or damage done by enemies being baked into her kit beyond her technique, and her E1 going baseline to bring her up to speed, quite literally.
Perhaps taking a look at CW and incorporating some kind of energy restoration mechanism based on Allies’ ults and returning a Skill Point on her own Ult use akin to Hysilens.
Firefly (Fire Destruction)
The most unexpected addition to this lineup, as even now she is closing content just fine as long as you pull for the premium team members: Dahlia and Fugue. Firefly and the Break archetype altogether hit the low point during Amphoreus due to being unable to quickly break and thus deal Break/Superbreak damage to Amphoreus’ fat enemies. Looking at you, intimidating evil horse and lion.
However, that problem went away with the release of The Dahlia, a walking and talking Break Eidolon that allows teammates to deal Break damage before the enemies Toughness bar is gone.
That is not to say that Firefly does not have some sharp edges in her own kit: she gets a massive speed bonus in her Complete Combustion state, leading to a very high SP consumption at base; needs to restore energy to enter the buffed state again (solved by the Dahlia); enemies that are unbroken or have Toughness lock drive her damage into the ground (solved by the Dahlia).
Sure, there’s a world of difference between Dahlia-less E0 Firefly that can be miserable to play and E0/E2 Firefly with the Dahlia and Fugue, but that much is the truth for any damage dealer with dedicated supports out there, is it not? Amphoreus teams without Cyrene, DoT without Kafka, Archer without Sparkle and so on. The same can be said about our other limited Break damage dealers, Boothill and Rappa, who run into the same situation as well – but don’t get the Novaflares for themselves.
To be honest, I’m at a loss as to what can be changed for base Firefly. Perhaps reshuffling Eidolons, especially post E2? Changing her defensive talent, Chrysalid Pyronexus, increasing the general multipliers/scales, resulting in more speed, more Break/Vuln/Def Shred, CW taunt? Last but not least, CW ultimate so that it doesn’t simply feel like a button you press to start doing damage, but is actually something that feels impactful? Alternatively, being used as a way to “exit” her ultimate state as Phainon exits his?
I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to find out – and see how my E0S0 Firefly deals with endgame going forward, being that hers is one of my best teams anyhow. Still, I hope it is characters who are currently in Seele’s and Welt’s positions who get their Novaflares going forward – despite my endless love for Acheron that insists she should be next.
