Should you pull for Ruan Mei in Honkai Star Rail 1.6? Pull value and team role explored

Honkai Star Rail 1.6 is stacked with characters like Ruan Mei, Dr. Ratio, Kafka, and Blade. This version of the game is one of the biggest updates since the RPG's debut in April 2023. Ruan Mei will be heading the patch by debuting in Phase 1 alongside Blade. She is the title's first limited Harmony unit, concentrating on improving the break potential of a squad.

Many players may wonder whether Ruan Mei is worth investing their precious Stellar Jades and Special Passes. This article attempts to resolve the predicament and provide an answer to the question.

Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and solely reflect the opinions of the writer

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Honkai Star Rail 1.6: Ruan Mei and her kit

Ruan Mei is a support unit with the Ice element (Image via HoYoverse)

Enemies in Honkai Star Rail have toughness bars. Depleting these bars using the corresponding weaknesses softens up these enemies, allowing you to dish out more damage and clear content faster.

Ruan Mei is a limited Harmony 5-star character who can buff break potentials of allies while boosting their speed and attack. When an enemy's weakness is broken, they lose a few turns before recovering and attacking you again.

Ruan Mei can also increase this number of turns and further slow down adversaries, creating more space for your team to keep dealing damage.

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Honkai Star Rail 1.6: Phase 1 Banner

Honkai Star Rail 1.6 will also bring back Blade (Image via HoYoverse)

Another thing to consider while pulling on the banners for a 5-star unit is which 4-star characters are on rate-up. These characters with lower rarities are easy to obtain as they require 1600 Stellar Jades or 10x Warp tickets. Honkai Star Rail 1.6 Phase 1 is stacked with some of the best 4-stars units in the game.

Both Xueyi and Tingyun will be featured in the first half banner of Honkai Star Rail 1.6. Tingyun is the strongest 4-star Harmony character with strong buffing abilities, and Xueyi is the second 4-star Quantum damage dealer. These units further add to the pull value of the banner, and you can consider spending some Stellar Jades to obtain them or their Eidolons.

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Conclusion

Support characters are an essential part of any combat-oriented, party-based video game. This is also the case for Honkai Star Rail.

Supports in Hoyoverse's sci-fi space RPG have always formed the core of a team and can create a path for the only damage dealer to one-shot or one-cycle bosses if appropriately utilized.

Compared to Bronya, Tingyun, Asta, or Yukong, Ruan Mei is a significantly different type of support unit.

Unlike the conventional Harmony character, which provides direct buffs to attack and crit values, she focuses on slowing enemies down. Her primary role is to improve allies' resistance penetration while buffing their damage and enhancing weakness breaks on enemies.

Ruan Mei will be one of the strongest support characters in the game for the foreseeable future. If you are a new player or looking forward to getting a Wind or Lightning-based damage dealer, you can consider skipping her.

Kafka and Blade will also return as limited character event warps in the 1.6 update, and Dr. Ratio will be available for free.

However, if you enjoy the game's meta or struggle with tougher content due to a lack of proper support to apply debuffs on enemies, you should consider investing in Ruan Mei, who will be debuting in the first half of Honkai Star Rail 1.6.