History GameBreaker / HonkaiStarRail

* '''Bronya''' (Wind-Harmony)
** Bar none ''the'' most powerful of the standard banner 5-stars, thanks to her simple yet incredibly potent supportive capabilities. Her skill, by its own, does 3 things at once: 1) cleanse an ally's debuff (including crowd-control ones), 2) buffs their damage output (regardless of which stat their attacks run on), and 3) advance said ally's turn right after hers, which, given the turn-based nature of the game, is very powerful and versatile. With Eidolon upgrades, she has a chance of recovering 1 Skill Point after using her skill, and extend the damage boost to 2 turns, which now makes her damage boost helpful to characters who rely on follow-up attacks or DamageOverTime as their main source of damage. If the action order makes it somehow undesirable to make her use her skill on an ally (usually when their turn is already right after hers), she can instead use her talent to advance her next turn when she uses her basic attack, thus turning the action order around in a different way. As cherry on top, her Ultimate buffs the whole party's Attack and Crit DMG, the latter scaling off her own Crit DMG.

* '''Gepard''' (Ice-Preservation)
** Gepard is a strong contender for being one of the best standard banner 5-stars, thanks to his straightforward and highly powerful defensive prowess. His abilities are pretty decent, with his Skill having a good chance to freeze the enemy for crowd control, and his Talent being an AutoRevive that further adds to his durability, and when upgraded with one of his Bonus Abilities, can restore the energy for his ultimate ''at full''. But what truly makes him incredibly powerful is his Ultimate, which puts up an extremely sturdy shield around the entire party for 3 turns, letting them shrug off powerful attacks that would severely damage them and require healing. Gepard's shield is sturdy enough to practically make a healer unnecessary, and his sixth ascension Bonus Ability boosts his ATK by 35% of his DEF, letting him at least provide an increased semblance of damage. He's also one of the best characters to use on the Path of Preservation in Simulated Universe thus far, as listed in its folder below.

* '''Seele''' (Quantum-Hunt)
** Seele is one hell of a speedy killer. Her main claim to fame is her talent Resurgence, which allows her to take an extra turn if she lands the finishing blow on an enemy (unless if already in Resurgence). The Resurgence triggered by her Basic Attack/Skill and by Ultimate are considered separate from each other, potentially allowing Seele to act '''four times in a row'''. In addition, she can give herself passive buffs to her speed, allowing her to very often get two turns in before the enemy can act. Suffice to say, this kind of action economy is incredibly powerful in a turn based system, and a fully leveled and geared Seele can easily trivialize entire groups of enemies, potentially killing all of them before ''anybody else'' can act - turning her into a pseudo-Erudition character. And since she already has very high ATK and CRIT stats as part of the Hunt path, Seele can still easily deal with bosses and enemies without Quantum weakness through sheer brute force alone, especially if she's paired with potent offensive buffers like Bronya, Tingyun, or Sparkle.
* '''Silver Wolf''' (Quantum-Nihility)
** Silver Wolf is a godly boss killer notable for her ability to make a core mechanic of the combat system ''completely irrelevant''. The bread-and-butter of her kit is her skill ''Allow Changes?'', which makes an enemy weak to an element in your party, while at the same time decreasing their resistance to that element by 20%. This alone makes team composition a non-issue, and can in fact reward you for bringing a Hunt unit that the boss ''isn't'' weak against. The extra weakness lasting for three whole turns before Silver Wolf needs to refresh it makes her action economy incredibly efficient, and she herself isn't lacking in damage output. Her ultimate, which can cut an enemy's defense almost in half, her talent, which can apply even ''more'' debuffs and can proc with any attack she makes, and her technique, which deals Toughness damage to all enemies regardless of whether or not they have a Quantum weakness and inflicts Entanglement on the ones broken this way, are just the cherries on top of an already absurdly powerful skill. Thanks to the sheer number of debuffs she can spam, she's a perfect pairing with Acheron, building up her Ultimate quickly and opening the enemy up to Acheron's ridiculous damage. If Silver Wolf has any real drawback, it's that she has no multi-target capabilities.
** Starting with the release of Fu Xuan and Lynx, Silver Wolf's skill also enables the ability to build a '''mono-Quantum team''', which mitigates the [=RNG=] nature of her skill by forcing it to only choose Quantum as a Weakness Implant, therefore it will always match your main damage dealer(s). This is accomplished by having Fu Xuan or Lynx serve as the sole sustainer, Silver Wolf and Sparkle acting as supports, and any one of Seele, Qingque, or Xueyi as the main damage dealer.

** Robin puts the "harm" in "Harmony" with the utterly monstrous amount of multipliers and additional damage she offers to almost any team she's in, to the point where she is considered competitive with Ruan Mei in terms of how much value she provides. On top of her Talent giving free Crit DMG to all party members just for existing and her Skill providing a massive damage multiplier (up to 55%!), the bonus damage provided by her Ultimate is truly staggering, with a base 100% crit chance and 150% Crit DMG, making teams that hit hard and fast hit even harder and even faster. She is also one of the easiest characters to build in the game as she only truly needs ATK% stats to function, and follow-up enjoyers rejoice as not only do they benefit massively off the bonus damage inflicted by her Ultimate, but she also passively boosts their Crit DMG by 25% with her Bonus Ability, making them even more powerful than ever before.
** If you truly want to make Robin into a unholy singing disaster zone, her 6th Eidolon Resonance, ''Moonless Midnight'', increases the Crit DMG of her Ultimate by '''''450%''''' (up to 8 times per Ultimate cast). She basically becomes the team's damage dealer off this effect alone and can virtually carry the team on her back with the utterly monstrous amount of damage she's doing every time a teammate gets a hit in.

** The Path of Harmony casts our main character themselves as the star of the show with access to a completely new mechanic called Super Break. Super Break is a mechanic uniquely exclusive to the Trailblazer that allows all allies to repeatedly deal Break damage to enemies even after they're already Broken. This confers a slew of advantages; for one, Break damage is exclusively dependent on the Break Effect of the attacker and the enemy's stats and is completely independent of any of the user's other stats, meaning that characters with high Break Effect do not need to worry about Critical Hits or high ATK to inflict heavy damage. Furthermore, unlike normal Break, which scales off the Type of the attacker and the Max Toughness of the enemy, Super Break damage is completely independent of Type and only factors in the Toughness Reduction of the attack, allowing even weaker characters with high Toughness Reduction and/or multi-hit attacks to chop off gigantic portions of HP. The Trailblazer needs their Ultimate to enable Super Break access, but not to fear, as not only does their Skill offer a great amount of Energy gain, their 2nd Eidolon Resonance ''Jailbreaking Rainbowwalk'' increases their Energy Regeneration Rate by 25% for the first 3 turns, allowing them to quickly get their act in gear and start dishing out pain. The fact that nearly all of their damage comes off their Break Effect stat makes them one of the easiest characters to gear in the entire game, and with their 4th Eidolon Resonance, ''Dove in Tophat'', they can pass down 15% of their Break Effect to all other allies, further bolstering the amount of Super Break damage that the team is pushing out every cycle. To make them even more of a menace, access to Ruan Mei makes them a truly frightening damage dealer, as Ruan Mei's Weakness Break Efficiency boost not only enables faster Weakness Breaks but also directly improves the damage of the team's Super Breaks by 50%, and Ruan Mei's unique ability to delay an enemy's Break recovery by 1 turn gives the team even more time to pummel Broken foes into submission with Super Break damage.

** Ruan Mei has quickly proven herself to be one of the top damage buffers in the game. Her Skill improves the Weakness Break Efficiency of allies, something that previously could only be done through a Blessing in the Simulated Universe (or by event-specific buffs), making it easier to stun enemies, while her Ultimate allows her allies to place a debuff that delays enemies from recovering from a Break, keeping them essentially stunned for longer. And that's before you get into the damage buff that her Skill provides (which, with her A6 passive, can reach a whopping 68%, more than Bronya's skill buff ''and'' permanently active as well), or how her Ultimate allows her team to ignore a significant percentage of the enemy's resistance to all elemental types. This synergizes extremely well with established DPS characters like Jingliu and is a huge boon for damage-over-time teams as well, letting them keep an enemy stunned for longer so more [=DoT=] effects can be landed before they recover. Ruan Mei isn't without damage either; whenever an ally Breaks an enemy, she'll deal a hefty chunk of damage to them that scales off her Break Effect stat. Simply put, Ruan Mei is a ''massive'' force multiplier for any team's damage output.

** An all-purpose debuffer who gets the majority of her utility from her Ultimate, which reduces the DEF of all enemies currently on field for 2 turns, up to 40% with no Eidolons. You'd think having the majority of her utility locked behind her Ultimate would make her a pain to use, along with the debuff only lasting for two turns, but that's where her Talent and Technique come in. Her Technique reduces enemy DEF by 20% for two turns, while with a Level 10 Talent, every time she debuffs an enemy after an attack, she generates 10 Energy. That last part isn't limited to her Technique and Ultimate either, with her 4th Eidolon her Skill can debuff her target's Ice resistance, and certain Light Cones that allow the user to inflict debuffs (such as "Resolution Shines in Pearls of Sweat") will also interact with her Talent, so even her Basic Attack can potentially work with this as well. Give her an Energy Regeneration Rate Link Rope with either the Sprightly Vonwacq or Penacony's Dream-Seeking Tracks set and you can have her Ultimate up ''indefinitely'' with the right rotations. Speaking of which, while her Ultimate needs Effect Hit Rate unlike her Skill, Pela has so much of it in her traces, including her Ascension Trace, The Secret Strategy, which increases all party members Effect Hit Rate by 10% as long as she is on field, that it's practically child's play to build her.

** Ruan Mei has quickly proven herself to be one of the top damage buffers in the game. Her Skill improves the Weakness Break Efficiency of allies, something that previously could only be done through a Blessing in the Simulated Universe (or by event-specific buffs), making it easier to stun enemies, while her Ultimate allows her allies to place a debuff that delays enemies from recovering from a Break, keeping them essentially stunned for longer. And that's before you get into the damage buff that her Skill provides (which, with her A6 passive, can reach a whopping 68%, more than Bronya's skill buff ''and'' permanently active as well), or how her Ultimate allows her team to ignore a significant percentage of the enemy's resistance to all elemental types. This synergizes extremely well with established DPS characters like Jingliu and is a huge boon for damage-over-time teams as well, letting them keep an enemy stunned for longer so more [=DoT=]'s can be landed before they recover. Ruan Mei isn't without damage either; whenever an ally Breaks an enemy, she'll deal a hefty chunk of damage to them that scales off her Break Effect stat. Simply put, Ruan Mei is a ''massive'' force multiplier for any team's damage output.

** Although the only relic set designed for a [=DoT=] playstyle, it greatly elevates the power of that playstyle. Its 2-piece bonus contributes a pretty standard 12% Attack, which all [=DoTs=] scale off of. However, its 4 piece is a powerful 6% Defense ignore per [=DoT=], for a maximum of 3 [=Dots=]. This 18% Defense ignore almost matches that of the Genius set listed above, and arguably has an easier requirement to reach (3 [=Dots=] can be achieved with 2 [=Dot=] based units and a [=DoT=] created from a weakness break, or from Kafka's signature Light Cone, while Genius's extra 10% needs an enemy to be naturally Quantum weak, or have Silver Wolf, a limited character, artificially implant the weakness).

** While this Path may seem like subject to CharacterSelectForcing like Elation, it has many Blessings that allow you to Freeze the enemy for free, such as '''Ultimate Experience: Maverick''', which Freezes the enemy upon entering battle, '''Perfect Experience: Reticence''' which has a high chance (above 100%) of freezing enemies after they take 6 attacks, or '''Perfect Experience: Fuli''', which applies Dissociation upon attacking Frozen enemies. Dissociation is a special variant of Freeze, and arguably the most powerful of all the special buffs/status effects provided by each path, as upon taking their turn and unfreezing, an enemy will take Ice damage equal to ''30%'' of their Max HP. No caveats, they just take their turn, thaw out and lose a huge amount of their HP in the process. This isn't even the end, as further Blessings allow you to automatically apply Dissociation upon Weakness Break, reapply Freeze upon the enemy ending Dissociation, and even manually trigger Dissociation's damage yourself by attacking Frozen enemies, which snowballs into [[CycleOfHurting having your enemies never move at all, or take a turn and die.]]
** Remembrance, especially its Dissociation Blessings also have very good synergy with the Path of Nihility. Due to Freeze turns being counted as the enemy taking a turn, the enemy will take a turn, take all the DoT damage you'll have stacked up on them, take a further amount of Dissociation damage if they have it, then skip their turn and wait until their next action to take all the DoT damage again (and Freeze/Dissociation damage again if you manage to reapply them), provided they don't die beforehand, and with all the damage you can stack up, they very likely will. The game even gives you 2 scenarios where you're encouraged to collect both Blessings: in Swarm Disaster, Path of Preservation has Resonance Interplay with said 2 paths, while in Gold and Gears, Path of Nihility has Resonance Interplay with Remembrance[[note]]i.e Path Resonance: Nihility's DOT effects deal extra damage and gain 1 more turn on Frozen enemies[[/note]].

** While this Path may seem like subject to CharacterSelectForcing like Elation, it has many Blessings that allow you to Freeze the enemy for free, such as '''Ultimate Experience: Maverick''', which Freezes the enemy upon entering battle, or '''Perfect Experience: Innocence''', which applies Dissociation upon Weakness Break. Dissociation is a special variant of Freeze, and arguably the most powerful of all the special buffs/status effects provided by each path, as upon taking their turn and unfreezing, an enemy will take Ice damage equal to ''30%'' of their Max HP. No caveats, they just take their turn, thaw out and lose a huge amount of their HP in the process. This isn't even the end, as further Blessings allow you to reapply Freeze upon the enemy ending Dissociation, re-apply Dissociation on those now-frozen enemies, and even manually trigger Dissociation yourself by attacking Frozen enemies, which snowballs into having your enemies never move at all, or take a turn and die.
** Remembrance, especially its Dissociation Blessings also have very good synergy with the Path of Nihility. Due to Freeze turns being counted as the enemy taking a turn, the enemy will take a turn, take all the DoT damage you'll have stacked up on them, take a further amount of Dissociation damage if they have it, then skip their turn and wait until their next action to take all the DoT damage again, provided they don't die beforehand, and with al the damage you can stack up, they very likely will.

** This Error Code Curio allows you to regenerate your characters' energy whenever they perform a Weakness Break. This curio is useful for practically every situation or path, but especially for Hunt and Erudition paths as they also have ways to empower your characters after a Weakness Break.

** While this Path may seem like subject to CharacterSelectForcing like Elation, it has many Blessings that allow you to Freeze the enemy for free, such as '''Ultimate Experience: Maverick''', which Freezes the enemy upon entering battle, or '''Ultimate Experience: Innocence''', which applies Dissociation upon Weakness Break. Dissociation is a special variant of Freeze, and arguably the most powerful of all the special buffs/status effects provided by each path, as upon taking their turn and unfreezing, an enemy will take Ice damage equal to ''30%'' of their Max HP. No caveats, they just take their turn, thaw out and lose a huge amount of their HP in the process. This isn't even the end, as further Blessings allow you to reapply Freeze upon the enemy ending Dissociation, re-apply Dissociation on those now-frozen enemies, and even manually trigger Dissociation yourself by attacking Frozen enemies, which snowballs into having your enemies never move at all, or take a turn and die.

** Acheron's Technique, Quadrivalent Ascendance, has a very unique property: if used against a normal enemy[[note]]Anything except large enemies, bosses, or Trotters[[/note]], it ''instantly kills them'' and grants you their rewards. This can be used to make exploring the overworld trivial and farm materials. But her Technique becomes broken in the Simulated Universe, as you still get Blessings and other rewards as normal with her instantkill, allowing you to speed through the worlds with little risk. But in the event you fight something you can't instantkill, the Technique does far more damage than most others, breaks Toughness regardless of resistance, and gives her a bonus stack for her second Ultimate. As the cherry on top, in wave-based combat such as Memory of Chaos, she recasts the technique ''every wave for free''. Oh, and did you know that this technique works '''even when you are low-leveled and is also cost-free from technique points if it doesn't hit an enemy?''' Hilariously, the 2.1 stream confirmed that even the developers thought that this ability was very broken and almost considered toning it down, but ultimately settled on keeping it as-is as it fits Acheron's character as a OneManArmy.

** Acheron's Technique, Quadrivalent Ascendance, has a very unique property: if used against a normal enemy[[note]]Anything except large enemies, bosses, or Trotters[[/note]], it ''instantly kills them'' and grants you their rewards. This can be used to make exploring the overworld trivial and farm materials. But her Technique becomes broken in the Simulated Universe, as you still get Blessings and other rewards as normal with her instantkill, allowing you to speed through the worlds with little risk. But in the event you fight something you can't instantkill, the Technique does far more damage than most others, breaks Toughness regardless of resistance, and gives her a bonus stack for her second Ultimate. As the cherry on top, in wave-based combat such as Memory of Chaos, she recasts the technique ''every wave for free''. Oh, and did you know that this technique works '''even when you are low-leveled and is also cost-free from technique points if it doesn't hit an enemy?'''

** Acheron can be [[DifficultButAwesome a little more complicated to work with]] than previous main damage dealers, but she absolutely delivers once she's all set up. Her Ultimate is the primary source of her damage, letting her deal a multitude of slash attacks that will utterly eviscerate any unfortunate foe she's faced with. Said Ultimate also deals Toughness damage regardless of the enemy's weaknesses, and it reduces the All-Type RES of all enemies until the Ultimate ends, so virtually no enemy is safe from it[[note]]only enemies that have locked their Toughness gauge can stop her from reducing it[[/note]]. With her sixth Ascension Trace, the damage her Ultimate deals to a target increases by ''up to 90%'' as long as there are Crimson Knot stacks are on said target, which can be applied by afflicting it with debuffs, so she synergizes extremely well with characters like Silver Wolf, Pela, or Black Swan. When she removes Crimson Knot stacks from a target via her Ultimate, she also deals damage to all enemies on the field, with said damage increasing based on how many Crimson Knot stacks are removed. She also gets a 60% boost to her damage if she is in a team with 2 other Nihility characters[[note]]Her second Eidolon makes it so she only needs to be paired with 1 other Nihility character to achieve the full effect[[/note]], and she gains Crit Damage from her Traces as well, which leads to synergy stacking upon synergy that turns her into a boss-deleting monster. Her only drawback is that [[MechanicallyUnusualFighter her Ultimate doesn't use energy]], so she doesn't pair well with characters like Huohuo or Tingyun, and her reliance on pairing with other Nihility characters (as well as characters who can apply debuffs) can limit the number of teams she'll work best in. Getting around these limitations however, rewards you with an extremely powerful attacker who functions as a Destruction, Hunt, and Erudition unit ''all at the same time''. Her Eidolons are also rather busted: her 2nd one, aside from reducing the required amount of Nihility characters in the team to buff her, will also make her regenerate her special "energy" meter per turn, and her 6th one makes her Basic Attack and Skill be treated as Ultimate, complete with the similar properties her Ultimate has (increased RES PEN and breaking Toughness regardless of weakness).

** An all-purpose debuffer who gets the majority of her utility from her Ultimate, which reduces the DEF of all enemies currently on field for 2 turns, up to 40% with no Eidolons. You'd think having the majority of her utility locked behind her Ultimate would make her a pain to use, along with the debuff only lasting for two turns, but that's where her Talent and Technique come in. Her Technique reduces enemy DEF by 20% for two turns while at Eidolon 5 (the one that adds an additional 2 Levels to her Ultimate and Talent), while with a Level 10 Talent, every time she debuffs an enemy after an attack, she generates 10 Energy. That last part isn't limited to her Technique and Ultimate either, her skill has a 'guaranteed' buff removal for a single-target enemy, no Effect Hit Rate needed. Give her an Energy Regeneration Rate Link Rope with either the Sprightly Vonwacq or Penacony's Dream-Seeking Tracks set and you can have her Ultimate up ''indefinitely'' with the right rotations. Speaking of which, while her Ultimate needs Effect Hit Rate unlike her Skill, Pela has so much of it in her traces, including her Ascension Trace, The Secret Strategy, which increases all party members Effect Hit Rate by 10% as long as she is on field, that it's practically child's play to build her.

** Is widely considered to be one of, if not ''the'', most powerful 4-star DPS characters in the game to the point where players who main her joke that she's actually a 5-star in disguise. The core to Qingque's power is her talent Celestial Jade and skill A Scoop of Moon, which increases the damage she deals based on the number of matching tiles she is holding. While this makes her damage output reliant on RNG, Qinque has ways to mitigate this as she can spend up to 4 skills points in a single turn to draw the hand she needs, and if all else fails, her Ultimate will effectively guarantee her the best hand when used. Combined with her Ascension Traces and Eidolons which massively boost her damage output, Qinque can rival or even surpass 5-star damage dealers. Not to mention, she can be obtained for free in the game and her 4-star status means dupes for Eidolons are fairly easy to come by. Her only disadvantages are that her unconventional playstyle makes her somewhat DifficultButAwesome to use, and she requires [[MagikarpPower her Traces to be fully maxed out]] to be viable as a damage dealer.

** While this set is highly specialized for follow-up attacks, it is greatly credited for essentially singlehandedly [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap saving the Erudition Path]]. The 2-piece bonus is already respectable by increasing the damage of follow-up attacks by a whopping 20%. The 4-piece bonus gives the wearer a stacking 6% attack bonus every time their follow-up attack deals damage up to a max of 8 stacks, meaning you could potentially get a '''48%''' attack bonus buff. This obviously benefits characters whose follow-up attacks either inflict multiple hits on a single target or hit multiple targets at once, which Erudition characters specialize in. In particular, this set provides a massive power boost to Jing Yuan and Himeko, turning them from niche characters at best to viable mainline damage dealers.

** An all-purpose debuffer who gets the majority of her utility from her Ultimate, which reduces the DEF of all enemies currently on field for 2 turns, up to 40% with no Eidolons. You'd think having the majority of her utility locked behind her Ultimate would make her a pain to use, along with the debuff only lasting for two turns, but that's where her Talent and Technique come in. Her Technique reduces enemy DEF by 20% for two turns while at Eidolon 5 (the one that adds an additional 2 Levels to her Ultimate and Talent), while with a Level 10 Talent, every time she debuffs an enemy after an attack, she generates 10 Energy. That last part isn't limited to her Technique and Ultimate either, her skill has a 'guaranteed' buff removal for a single-target enemy, no Effect Hit Rate needed. Give her an Energy Regeneration Rate Link Rope with either the Sprightly Vonwacq or Penacony's Dream-Seeking Tracks set and you can have her Ultimate up ''indefinitely'' with the right rotations. Speaking of which, while her Ultimate needs Effect Hit Rate unlike her Skill, Pela has so much of it in her traces, including her Ascension Trace, The Secret Strategy, which increases all party members Effect Hit Rate as long as she is on field, that it's practically child's play to build her.

** An all-purpose debuffer who gets the majority of her utility from her Ultimate, which reduces the DEF of all enemies currently on field for 2 turns, up to 40% with no Eidolons. You'd think having the majority of her utility locked behind her Ultimate would make her a pain to use, along with the debuff only lasting for two turns, but that's where her Talent and Technique come in. Her Technique reduces enemy DEF by 20% for two turns while at Eidolon 5 (the one that adds an additional 2 Levels to her Ultimate and Talent), while she generates 10 Energy. That last part isn't limited to her Technique and Ultimate either, her skill has a 'guaranteed' buff removal for a single-target enemy, no Effect Hit Rate needed. Give her an Energy Regeneration Rate Link Rope with either the Sprightly Vonwacq or Penacony's Dream-Seeking Tracks set and you can have her Ultimate up ''indefinitely'' with the right rotations. Speaking of which, while her Ultimate needs Effect Hit Rate unlike her Skill, Pela has so much of it in her traces, including her Ascension Trace, The Secret Strategy, which increases all party members Effect Hit Rate as long as she is on field, that it's practically child's play to build her.

** Acheron can be [[DifficultButAwesome a little more complicated to work with]] than previous main damage dealers, but she absolutely delivers once she's all set up. Her Ultimate is the primary source of her damage, letting her deal a multitude of slash attacks that will utterly eviscerate any unfortunate foe she's faced with. Said Ultimate also deals Toughness damage regardless of the enemy's weaknesses, and it reduces the All-Type RES of all enemies until the Ultimate ends, so no enemy is safe from it. With her sixth Ascension Trace, the damage her Ultimate deals to a target increases by ''up to 90%'' as long as there are Crimson Knot stacks are on said target, which can be applied by afflicting it with debuffs, so she synergizes extremely well with characters like Silver Wolf, Pela, or Black Swan. When she removes Crimson Knot stacks from a target via her Ultimate, she also deals damage to all enemies on the field, with said damage increasing based on how many Crimson Knot stacks are removed. She also gets a 60% boost to her damage if she is in a team with 2 other Nihility characters[[note]]Her second Eidolon makes it so she only needs to be paired with 1 other Nihility character to achieve the full effect[[/note]], and she gains Crit Damage from her Traces as well, which leads to synergy stacking upon synergy that turns her into a boss-deleting monster. Her only drawback is that [[MechanicallyUnusualFighter her Ultimate doesn't use energy]], so she doesn't pair well with characters like Huohuo or Tingyun, and her reliance on pairing with other Nihility characters (as well as characters who can apply debuffs) can limit the number of teams she'll work best in. Getting around these limitations however, rewards you with an extremely powerful attacker who functions as a Destruction, Hunt, and Erudition unit ''all at the same time''. Her Eidolons are also rather busted: her 2nd one, aside from reducing the required amount of Nihility characters in the team to buff her, will also make her regenerate her special "energy" meter per turn, and her 6th one makes her Basic Attack and Skill be treated as Ultimate, complete with the similar properties her Ultimate has (increased RES PEN and breaking Toughness regardless of weakness).

** Your reward for painstakingly grinding through the Swarm Disaster mode is the Path of Propagation, and its power more than justifies the effort needed to unlock it. The path revolves around using basic attacks and skill points for all sorts of power and utility, and it boasts one of the most powerful Path Resonances in the game, granting a selected ally their turn immediately and restores 2 skill points. Another major part of its power are the Spores, which are inflicted on enemies through consuming or recovering skill points with the 3-star blessings unlocked, and detonated with any attack for ''humongous'' damage. And the Spores can further be enhanced to deal increased damage and be able to spread to the same unlucky target to burst again for even ''more'' damage. The power from this path brings two specific characters into the spotlight: the already game-breaking Imbibitor Lunae, and the seemingly unassuming Qingque, whose heavy usage of skill points turns them into walking nuclear warheads that will devastate everything in their way. While the path doesn't always work for everyone, it's still powerful and versatile enough to benefit most DPS characters. Also, if you're playing through Swarm Disaster using this path, you can try your luck to get the best result in the Dice of Propagation: letting you [[DungeonBypass skip straight through the Boss domain]] and gain Blessing of Propagation equal to the number of Swarm-related domains you skipped through this way, allowing you to finish the mode more quickly and with increased power as well.

** Silver Wolf is a godly boss killer notable for her ability to make a core mechanic of the combat system ''completely irrelevant''. The bread-and-butter of her kit is her skill ''Allow Changes?'', which makes an enemy weak to an element in your party, while at the same time decreasing their resistance to that element by 20%. This alone makes team composition a non-issue, and can in fact reward you for bringing a Hunt unit that the boss ''isn't'' weak against. The extra weakness lasting for three whole turns before Silver Wolf needs to refresh it makes her action economy incredibly efficient, and she herself isn't lacking in damage output. Her ultimate, which can cut an enemy's defense almost in half, her talent, which can apply even ''more'' debuffs and can proc with any attack she makes, and her technique, which deals Toughness damage to all enemies regardless of whether or not they have a Quantum weakness and inflicts Entanglement on the ones broken this way, are just the cherries on top of an already absurdly powerful skill.

** One of the more powerful sets in the game and for good reasons. Its 2-piece bonus gives a 10% bonus to Quantum damage, which any Quantum-type DPS appreciates, but the real kicker is the 4-piece bonus, which allows the wearer to [[ArmorPiercingAttack ignore 10% of the enemy's Defence, with an extra 10% on top if they're also weak to Quantum]]. This is a huge DPS bonus to any DPS, but works especially well on any DPS with huge amounts of Attack, like Jingliu, and on any team that runs Silver Wolf, since she can force an enemy to be weak to Quantum and activate that extra 10% Defense ignore.

* '''Vonwacq's Islandic Coast'''

** Aventurine has proven to be an insanely bonkers shielder that can rival or even surpass Gepard's tanking capabilities. From the get-go, his skill can provide a shield (called "Fortified Wager") to ''everyone'' in the party. Yes, you read that right, his party-wide shield is accessible from just a simple push of the E key, inheriting the strengths and forgoing (most) of the weaknesses of March 7th's[[note]]March's shield is easily accessible through her skill, but she can only shield one ally at a time, which can result in her being SP-negative if she needs to spend turns giving everyone a shield[[/note]] and Gepard's[[note]]Gepard can also provide party-wide shields, but that is locked behind his ultimate, leaving his unshielded team vulnerable beforehand[[/note]] shield. His "Fortified Wager" shield also increases the Effect RES of protected allies while Aventurine himself can outright NoSell Crowd Control debuffs once every two turns, mitigating any nasty status effects that can be detrimental to your victory. His talent allows him to accumulate stacks when allies protected by "Fortified Wager" get hit; once he reaches seven stacks, Aventurine will consume them and unleash a Follow-Up attack that hits all enemies randomly. His Follow-Up attack can also apply another layer of shield to all allies, potentially giving him near ''100%'' shield uptime that can make the other Preservation characters green with envy. And if that's not good enough, his Ascension 4 passive immediately grants a "Fortified Wager" shield whenever a battle starts, ensuring that the team doesn't get immediately get blasted by the bad guy's attacks before they can even act.

* '''Black Swan''' (Wind-Nihility)
** The new crown jewel of DamageOverTime teams, Black Swan turns [=DoTs=] from a ticking time bomb into what could best be described as consecutive nuclear detonations. Her kit revolves around Arcana, a special form of [=DoT=] that lasts ''indefinitely'' and cannot be dispelled. It stacks up to 50 times, and when an enemy takes their turn, they take ''240%'' of Black Swan's Attack as damage, plus 12% for every stack of Arcana beyond the first, eventually reaching up to an explosion of 840% of her attack at 50 stacks (for reference, Argenti's 180-cost ultimate with all of his bounce attacks hitting one target does equivalent damage). Additionally, reaching certain thresholds will add additional effects: at 3 stacks the detonation will become a blast attack, and at 7 stacks the detonation will ignore 20% of the enemies' Defence. This is on top of the fact that her skill reduces enemy Defence by 20%, leading to absurdly high damage upon detonations. Even better still, enemies taking damage from Arcana can spread the effect to other enemies, leading to entire waves of enemies dropping like flies, provided that they don't immediately die before Arcana runs its course. Not to mention, Arcana still counts as a debuff and [=DoT=] for gameplay purposes, so characters and relic sets who scale damage based on the number of debuffs and [=DoTs=] on the enemy like Kafka have powerful synergy with her.

** Aventurine has proven to be an insanely bonkers shielder that can rival or even surpass Gepard's tanking capabilities. From the get-go, his skill can provide a shield (called "Fortified Wager") to ''everyone'' in the party. Yes, you read that right, his party-wide shield is accessible from just a simple push of the E key, inheriting the strengths and forgoing (most) of the weaknesses of March 7th's[[note]]March's shield is easily accessible through her skill, but she can only shield one ally at a time, which can result in her being SP-negative if she needs to spend turns giving everyone a shield[[/note]] and Gepard's[[note]]Gepard can also provide party-wide shields, but that is locked behind his ultimate, leaving his unshielded team vulnerable beforehand[[/note]] shield. His "Fortified Wager" shield also increases the Effect RES of protected allies while Aventurine himself can outright NoSell Crowd Control debuffs once every two turns, mitigating any nasty status effects that can be detrimental to your victory.