Is it worth playing Ruan Mei in Honkai: Star Rail?

In Honkai: Star Rail, Ruan Mei is a member of the Genius Society and an experienced expert in the field of biological sciences, who became a playable character after the start of the first phase of update 1.6. This guide will tell you whether or not Ruan Mei is worth spinning after launching her banner. We will tell you about the key features of the heroine, indicating who exactly should knock her out, and who can skip her Jump with peace of mind.

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Main features of Ruan Mei

Pros and cons of Ruan Mei

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First, let's briefly tell you what this lovely explorer is all about – she is a 5-star Ice character belonging to the Harmony path. Her set of abilities is aimed at strengthening allies by increasing their damage, vulnerability penetration efficiency and speed. Next, we will briefly consider the main advantages and disadvantages of the heroine. The first include:

• She has a fairly high base attack power for the Harmony character, which allows her to inflict good ice damage (for support) to enemies with regular attacks, which she will use quite often.
• Capable of passively inflicting damage when allies break through enemy vulnerabilities or when opponents try to restore their stamina. The amount of damage depends not on the strength of the heroine’s attack, but on the penetration effect. This brings her a little closer to the role of a sub-damage dealer.
• An extremely versatile buffer, as it is capable of directly increasing all damage dealt by allies and their speed without any additional conditions. It can further increase damage with the help of Trace, but with certain requirements (more details in the disadvantages).
• Significantly buffs the effectiveness of breaking through vulnerabilities of allies, allowing them to keep enemies in a broken state for almost the entire cycle (they will not be able to attack you), and we remind you that without durability, resistance to all types of damage among mobs drops by 10%. In addition, this reveals the mechanics of breaking through vulnerabilities in a new way, allowing you to build new battle tactics around it (more details in the section on how to play Ruan Mei).
• It is quite easy to assemble, since you will not need to spend your energy on pumping up many characteristics, trying to perfectly balance them – it will be enough to increase the penetration effect, energy recovery and speed for a confident buff to your allies. In addition, the penetration effect and speed are increased by traces.
• It can perfectly fulfill its main role without opening eidolons and purchasing signature weapons, which F2P players will certainly like. At the same time, unlocking eidolons is not a waste of time and resources, as it enhances the positive aspects of the heroine and allows you to give her additional capabilities on the battlefield.
• Saves and generates new skill points for the team, since her abilities can last several moves.
• It is highly advisable to take it into the Virtual Universe, as it allows you to inflict significant damage on enemies and break through their vulnerabilities at the very beginning of the battle.
• It has considerable potential in the long term, when more damage dealers of different elements appear in the game, aimed at breaking through vulnerabilities. Therefore, it can be considered a good investment in the future of your account.

However, you should not consider this talented scientist an ideal character, since it has a number of disadvantages, and some may find them quite significant:

• The damage from regular attacks and passives, although not bad for a support, is however not high enough for Ruan Mei to be considered a full-fledged sub-detonator. You can make her a damage dealer only by unlocking the fourth and sixth Eidolons, which will be inaccessible to many players.
• The basic defense and health indicators leave much to be desired, which negatively affects her survivability, so you will have to take care of having a good one in your team shield/healer or try to increase her HP and defense with secondary stats from relics.
• The duration of the buffs depends on the number of turns of Ruan Mei, that is, if she manages to walk twice in a cycle, the bonus from her ult will immediately disappear. It is advisable that she does not do this before the damage dealers. This leads to the need to properly balance the speed so that it is not too high or low.
• The high cost of the superpower (130 units) makes the heroine very demanding in terms of energy recovery. You will have to sacrifice the connecting rope by taking it to the VE.
• To get the maximum increase in damage from the “Candlelights on the surface of the water” trail, you will have to increase the penetration effect to at least 180%, which can be very problematic if you do not have the necessary cones.
• It fully reveals its potential only with the player has a larger roster of characters, when he can choose between damage dealers of different elements to receive various bonuses from breaking through vulnerabilities (more details below).

More detailed information about Ruan Mei's stats, abilities, and eidolons, as well as tactics for playing her, can be read in our separate detailed guide.

Reasons to rock Ruan Mei

Now that you're more It's less clear what this heroine is capable of, the question of who should knock her out can be answered. If you have Silver Wolf (Oblivion: Quantum) or plan to knock out the 4-star Xuei (Destruction: Quantum) that will be present in the same banner.

The first will allow you to apply vulnerabilities to your enemies that correspond to the elements of your damage dealers, so you won’t necessarily have to keep a ton of pumped-up fighters for each enemy. The second, with the help of her ult, can break through resistance of any type, which again reduces the need for a large number of damage control of different elements.

Here are a few more reasons why you might want to draw this character:

• You liked its gameplay and/or appearance. Still, you shouldn’t look at just the numbers – if you like the way the heroine looks and you feel comfortable playing as her, then you can ignore the statistics (use a test run to evaluate them).
• You Another good buffer is urgently needed to create a second powerful team for passing the Halls of Oblivion and other activities.
• You have a large number of damage dealers of different elements that could use increased damage, speed and efficiency of breaking through vulnerabilities, or you plan to expand their number in the near future.
• You look not only at the present, but also look far into the future, so how the game will probably have more characters who can ignore the type of shields of enemies or impose the necessary vulnerabilities on them.

Reasons not to play Ruan Mei

If you do not have a large selection of damage dealers of different elements and this situation is unlikely to change in the future, and you do not plan to knock out Xuei and there is no Silver Wolf in your team, then the usefulness of Ruan Mei for you may decrease slightly.

If you also have well-pumped buffers on your account, such as Tingyun, Yukun, Asta and Armor, then we do not recommend that you pull out Ruan Mei, since these supports will be enough for any purpose.

Be sure to also take into account the banners of other heroes. In the first half of update 2.0, for example, the developers will release Sparkle (Harmony: Fire), which can increase the critical damage of allies, advance their action forward and restore skill points. Perhaps, in your particular case, she will bring you more benefit than this talented biologist.

In patch 1.6, with an increased probability, you will be able to get Kafka and Blade, who serve well as the main or secondary damage dealer. If you have a shortage of damage dealers, then saving star jades for Stellaron hunters can be a good solution.

Conclusions

To summarize the above, Ruan Mei can be called an excellent support that is suitable for everyone players who feel an acute lack of buffers. However, she will be able to reveal her full potential only on those accounts where there are a large number of damage dealers of different elements.