Honkai: Star RailHuohuoBest build, teams and other guides

[Overview]

Huohuo is a solid mix of a sustain and dedicated support. She has extremely frequent cleansing and smaller amounts of healing that can aid survivability. Her biggest draw is that her Ultimate restores a percentage of allies' respective Max Energy when used, and also buffs ATK by a sizeable amount as well. Being able to offer Energy to allies is already very rare and Huohuo can offer it from the sustain slot. Huohuo's supporting is excellent, especially with Eidolons, but her healing can struggle to keep up against certain enemy factions and bosses with high burst damage.

[Intro]

Did you hear? The scaredy-cat Judge of the Ten-Lords Commission has received a Novaflare! And here it is! ... What do you mean 'where is it'?

Yeah, so, Huohuo got better, this is true, but she's still got her issues. They're not insurmountable by any means but people are already agenda-posting like crazy so let's try and break it down.

People are upset that Huohuo still doesn't have one-shot protection. This is a take that is far too Hyacine/DHPT-pilled, because those two are actual anomalies that kinda nullify the threat of death completely. I'm willing to bet that wasn't the design intent.

Cue the overcorrection though, and we got some factions that hit ridiculously hard and often like the Black Tide foes, and yeah, Huohuo isn't gonna be having fun against those guys any time soon, even with this Novaflare.

The trade-off is that Huohuo is a hybrid between a sustain and a support, and being able to grant the other three allies on the team 20% of their respective Max Energy is a very big deal, especially since we're seeing high Energy characters more and more these days.

In those teams, Huohuo is still really good, and still preferred sometimes over the numerically superior sustains because it allows for faster rotations and therefore faster clears. The point is moot if you die though, so y'know.

This is particularly good for the new Elation teams, as both the Elation Trailblazer as well as Yao Guang have high Energy costs but very impactful Ultimates. Even if a dedicated Elation sustain comes out, there will still be a use-case for Huohuo on the other side, on the other team.

And she's getting added to the shop too, so if you need a sustain that can pull double-duty as a support (but is maybe less comfortable to actually sustain with), then you should definitely consider Huohuo.

Oh, and obviously if you don't have other sustains then get her ASAP. There's only one GallaGOAT after all, and he ain't doing so hot either lately.

[Abilities]

Huohuo's primary reason for being considered in teams, especially these days, is her Ultimate. She regenerates 20% Max Energy for every ally other than herself upon use, and will also grant them 40% ATK for 2 turns. The Energy granted is 20% of each ally's respective Max Energy, so allies with much higher Energy costs will gain a disproportionately larger benefit from this (and this is why you see Huohuo a lot on teams that are Ultimate reliant but have high Energy requirements).

This Ultimate costs 140 Energy for Huohuo though, which is above average, and that means you're not going to be seeing this a lot unless you are fervently spamming Huohuo's Skill for the Energy, or getting slapped about by the enemies for that on-damaged Energy.

Speaking of her Skill, she cleanses 1 debuff from the targeted ally, and then heals the ally for 24% of Huohuo's Max HP plus 640. Allies adjacent to the targeted ally will be healed for 19.2% Huohuo Max HP plus 512.

I gotta say, keeping the Blast AoE targeting on the Skill was a bold choice, and one I vehemently despise. Did you forget that Hyacine heals the whole party? Or that DHPT shields the whole party? And they do this effortlessly? Why the nonsense with this buns targeting method?

Anyway, the Talent is the more passive healing method, and the one you'll want to try to rely on more. After Huohuo uses her Skill or her Ultimate, she gains 'Divine Provision' for 3 turns. This ticks down on Huohuo's turn.

When Huohuo has Divine Provision, at the start of an ally's turn, or when they use their Ultimate, they will have their HP restored by 4.5% Huohuo Max HP plus 120. The one ally with the lowest HP percentage will also receive this same healing. Then, all allies with less than 50% of their respective Max HP will be healed for this same amount. Whenever this healing is triggered on an ally, they will also have 1 debuff cleansed from them. This triggers up to 6 times, and will have the trigger count reset upon regaining Divine Provision (so using Skill or Ult again).

This is actually pretty solid healing, especially when below 50%. You enter this sort of exhilarating danger zone where everyone's hovering on low HP but never quite giving up the ghost thanks to the consistent healing coming out. I mean, that's what it would be like, but we have enemies that can absolutely one-shot you from 50% HP, and it's not even close. Hell, we have enemies that have real actual one-shots from 100% HP.

Needing to rely on being low HP to provide better healing is an interesting choice, and not one that I am particularly enamoured by. This is probably the thing that grinds peoples' gears the most, and the threshold to receive the healing staying at the old value of 50% is just... not good. Especially since it relies on your allies' having high enough HP to not just instantly dematerialise when an enemy looks at them funny.

Do you know how much 50% HP is for someone like Ashveil? That's like 1300 HP, and that's me being generous, and if you think that there is any enemy left in the game that can't instantly down a character at that HP amount, then much like Ashveil himself, you must have just woken up from an extended cryosleep, welcome to Current Year™.

The way to get around this is to have allies acting frequently enough that you don't need to rely on the extra healing below 50% HP, whether that's from faster Ultimates or just more turns total. Even then, you're only healing two characters at most, so it can still be kinda devastating if things start to go wrong.

This isn't even mentioning that this healing is based on the lowest HP PERCENTAGE, so if you're rocking a particular support with a high Max HP in your team (can't think of one off the top of my head) and they get 'low' as in they still have 4000 HP and are in no danger of dying, and your other character is at like 2000 HP and just barely within range of a one-shot... Well I've got bad news, friend, you may need to hit the Restart button in a couple actions.

Yes, you can of course heal directly, and that is an option that more people should consider using, because you don't deal any damage when you're dead. Worrying about optimisation is for the living. But it still feels bad, especially because you don't really want your sustain to NEED to use SP to keep the team alive right? You want that SP for other purposes.

Granted if you're in a team where SP is a commodity then it's not so bad, might even help Huohuo with her Ult uptime. Plus, Divine Provision used to only last 2 turns, so you were forced into using SP a lot more often if you wanted to actually maintain healing on the team, whereas now, if you're Ballin'☼ and don't actively need the healing from the Skill, you get to enjoy a bigger safety net in case things do suddenly take a turn for the worse.

[Bonus Traces]

A2 gives Huohuo 30 Energy at the start of combat, allowing for a fast turn 1 Ultimate to get everyone ramped faster. It also gives her 2 turns of Divine Provision. This used to only give 1 turn of Divine Provision, so it's safe to say this is a vastly improved Bonus Trace. The Energy in particular is extremely valuable as a lot of rotations suffered early on from Huohuo needing to use her Skill and then also get hit a bunch of times before her first Ultimate, by which point a lot could have happened in the fight.

A4 gives Huohuo a 35% Crowd Control RES, making her less likely to get wrecked by all our favourite CC effects. Additionally, when using her Ultimate, if an ally's Max Energy is 160 or higher, they will have their ATK increased by an additional 24%, for a new total of 64% ATK. Huohuo likes to be paired with high Energy cost characters anyway, so this is just a better benefit, but what you may be surprised to realise is that not everyone who needs Energy cares about ATK%, so in those cases, this is kind of a dead Trace.

Lastly, the A6 will grant Huohuo 1 point of Energy every time her Talent is triggered to heal allies. This is a consistent stream of Energy, and importantly it is affected by Energy Regeneration Rate, but it's still... somewhat meagre. Unfortunately for everyone, I have personally experienced this giving me back her Ultimate in just the nick of time to give another ally their Ultimate and then end the encounter, so I am obligated to call this Energy gain 'significant'. Just know that I mean it in the most dictionary definition way possible.

[Eidolons]

The usual spiel about Eidolons and how they're not needed but are nice to have and whatnot. As Huohuo is entering the 5-star shop from this patch, it's actually feasible to get some Eidolons for her if you are so inclined.

E1 will increase the duration of Divine Provision by 1 turn, for a new maximum of 4 turns. In addition, while Huohuo has Divine Provision, her Outgoing Healing is boosted by 20%, and all allies' SPD is increased by 12%.

This is a very good E1, especially for the teams that want her. Percentage based SPD increases are extremely rare — actually scratch that, any form of SPD boost is extremely rare, and this is just a passive boost to the entire party. 12% is also a pretty generous amount for not needing to work for it at all, and combined with the SPD demons we've been seeing more of lately, this is going to end up being even better than you think, especially if it helps you to reach SPD thresholds like 160 or the fabled 200.

E2 gives Huohuo an in-combat revive. When she has Divine Provision, if an ally is knocked down by an attack, they will instead simply refuse to go down and instead have 50% of their Max HP restored. All of this in exchange for 1 turn's duration of Divine Provision, and with a max trigger limit of 2 times per battle.

2 times, okay. Great for stray and unexpected focus-fire against an ally. Dismal for teamwide AoE one-shots. If that is what you are dying to, then this will absolutely not help you in the slightest.

E4 will boost Huohuo's Outgoing Healing based on how low the HP% of the ally she's healing is. This caps out at an 80% Healing Boost when the ally is at critically low HP. This actually does help with keeping allies more healthy, it's just a shame that it comes so late, and it's a bit tough to justify going this deep into Eidolons just to stop at a purely defensive E4.

Lastly, the E6. When an ally is healed by Huohuo, their DMG is increased by 50% for 2 turns.

Amusingly enough, if you thought to yourself 'yeah, these are 1.X Eidolons', you'd be right on the money, because only the E1 was buffed, and it was the addition of the Outgoing Healing Boost. The SPD buff was always there and has always been an enticing draw, but now with the much higher quality of life changes to Divine Provision, it's a lot more enticing to actually go for it.

Please do not go past E1. Please.

[The Rest]

Sustains always get the short end of the stick when it comes to the amount of yap I can put in. They're really quite self-explanatory and that's no different here, even with the buff.

I do want to draw attention to something though. My tone may be a little negative, mostly because I was hoping they would do some more interesting changes, but that does not mean I don't think highly of Huohuo.

I do think highly of this character.

I think she has utility that precious few other characters have, and that's not even mentioning that it's coming from a sustain slot. In fact, she was one of the first sustains ever released that truly challenged the notion that all sustains were supposed to do was... well, sustain.

You could argue that she is therefore the instigator and the one to blame for the way that sustain design has gone over the years (yes, years, plural, more than one), and it'd be hard to fault you. But I'm not about to sit here and tell you that just because enemies are more geared towards annihilating you faster that Huohuo is suddenly completely useless.

Lest you forget, there are plenty of people doing 0-cycles without a sustain of any kind at all, and they don't have any kind of safety net at all. Yes, of course none of us see the countless resets they have, but the fact it's possible at all means that enemy damage has not yet reached a point where only the top two dogs from Amphoreus are capable of sustaining the team.

ESPECIALLY because neither of them can provide Energy for the whole rest of the team in the way that Huohuo can. To say that simply because Huohuo is incapable of preventing one-shots that she's useless as a character is so blitheringly disingenuous that it makes my one good eye water, and this is a take I saw even before this Novaflare.

The quality of life given to the Divine Provision status really cannot be overstated. She feels so much better to play now compared to before — I mean people were specifically pulling for her E1 just so that they could have an extra turn of Divine Provision before needing to reapply it (even though the SPD buff is the way more enticing reason to go for it).

And now using her Ultimate can reapply it! You used to be forced into using her Skill to do that, and now it's just free to do by just doing what you were doing anyway, and with the extra SP you save, hey, maybe you'll get to use that on her actual Skill when you need the emergency healing. 

To follow on from that, I'd be remiss to not mention the constant Cleansing that Divine Provision provides, as there's some real pesky stuff that can slip by, and I mean some real run destroyers. Just because it doesn't have a visual effect doesn't mean that it's not causing trouble, like the ATK debuff that the Aurumaton can inflict, or the incremental SPD debuffs that can show up, or hell even just DoT effects from enemies. Bet you've died to those more than once, eh?

Seriously, I won't tolerate any Huohuo slander.

... Okay I won't tolerate any unwarranted Huohuo slander, but seriously, if you're consistently dying to enemy AoE attacks, maybe that's a You problem at that point, either because you're not playing well or because you've just not bothered to build people properly.

[Wrap up]

She's good, stop crying. No, not you, I meant Huohuo. Well okay, maybe you as well, I don't know.

For as long as people want Energy, Huohuo's going to have a really solid niche. It's definitely possible for it to be overtaken, for sure, I mean we saw Sunday get a percentage based Energy restore, right? But it was for only one person, and Huohuo can do it for everyone, so even still it's pretty good.

Whatever you believe, Huohuo is still going to be miles better than pretty much every other sustain you can have access to, especially as a newer or returning player. No, she doesn't compete with Hyacine or DHPT, and no, she probably won't be competing with the inevitable future Elation sustain.

But she'll always have her niche, and will therefore always have a home.