Star Rail should not keep an element on the back for too long

The current patch is less than halfway through and fans are already planning their moves for Honkai: Star Rail Version 2.7's Sunday and Fugue. Both supports can fit great in hypercarry/follow up and break comps. While both are exciting releases, their element types are already quite common. Sunday shares Imaginary with nine other characters, while Fugue currently shares Fire with 10. Honkai: Star Rail could stand to make its overall roster more diverse, and it should start with an element that seems to have been on the back burner for nearly a year now.




When a character's type matches an enemy's weakness i Honkai: Star Railthey deal toughness damage to that opponent. When the player depletes an enemy's toughness gauge, they suffer a case of Weakness Break damage and delay that enemy's action for at least one turn. Allied units also deal a little more damage to an enemy that is weak offense. Some elements also have special effects, such as damage over time and additional delays. Therefore, it is in the player's best interest to invest in units of different types.

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Why Honkai: Star Rail needs to expand its ice roster


The current number of Ice characters i HSR is just eight, tied with Lightning and trailing only Wind's seven units. The game already gave Wind and Lightning some love with Feixiao and Moze. As such, it is high time to do the same for Ice. There are many good reasons to give this cool element some well-deserved attention.

Ice's limited DPS units are sparse

Ice has some useful 4 stars like Pela and Herta. However, it lacks some good 5 stars, with the last limited release being Ruan Mei in version 1.6 almost a year ago. A new limited unit is long overdue for this Element Type, preferably a DPS one, as Ice's premier damage dealer Jingliu has fallen from the meta recently. Newer Destruction characters like Firefly and Yunli can consistently do better damage than her with fewer tradeoffs.

HSR has yet to release a support unit that interacts perfectly with Jingliu, such as Sparkle for Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae and Jiaoqiu for Acheron. If it has no plans to do so soon, it should add a successor to Jingliu with a new Ice DPS. Since there are already Hunt and Destruction characters in this type, it only makes sense for the new damage dealer to follow the path of Erudition. A 5-star Herta would fit perfectly in this category.


Ice's Weakness Break Mechanic is one of the best in the game

The best ways to gain an advantage in turn-based RPGs like HSR is to make one's characters act as much as possible, delay the enemy's actions as much as possible, or both. Ice characters are experts in the second category.

Ice units freeze enemies after breaking their weakness. While an opponent is frozen, they cannot take any actions for the duration of the turn. When they thaw on their next turn, they will take additional ice damage, and they still cannot act. However, their next turn will be advanced by 50%.

It would be interesting to see more modern characters take advantage of this weakness interrupt effect. A new Ice DPS can deal huge damage or gain resources like extra energy when hitting frozen opponents. The ability to extend an enemy's frozen state or reduce their speed when thawing, like Welt's slow mechanic, would also be interesting to see. Ice can even venture into damage over time (DOT) territory by introducing a frost damage. The possibilities are many for this element, and it deserves to be back in the spotlight. Perhaps Honkai: Star Rail Version 3.0 may bless Ice with some great new characters.


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