Huohuo Guide

Updated for Version 1.5

Note that the information given may change if new discoveries are made. More extensive testing is in progress.

Join our Discord to check on and participate in the theorycrafting process.

Introduction

Huohuo is a 5-star Wind character in Honkai: Star Rail following the Path of Abundance. She is our first Wind-type sustain unit, and excels at providing large amounts of healing and cleansing, making her an exquisite pick against enemies that apply multiple troublesome debuffs. In addition to this defensive utility, Huohuo also provides a moderate teamwide ATK% boost and percentage-based Energy regeneration for the entire party. However, because of her relatively high Energy cost and dependence on SP for her defensive utility, careful consideration is required to ensure she fits into a team effectively.

Infographic

Mechanics

Huohuo has great healing multipliers, which makes her effective at solo sustaining with sufficient investment. Her Skill provides a powerful burst heal, while her Talent allows for chip heals over time. 

Aside from Huohuo’s healing, she also offers seven debuff cleanses per Skill use, one cleanse on the primary target of her Skill, and six from her Talent. Even if Huohuo is affected by Crowd Control debuffs, her Talent can still activate and can cleanse herself or her allies as long as sufficient Talent uses remain. 

It is noteworthy that Huohuo’s Talent procs before the unit takes their action, meaning it will free allies under Crowd Control debuffs, allowing them to take action on their turn.

If Huohuo’s Ultimate is activated during an ally’s turn but before their action, the ATK% buff will only start ticking down on that ally’s next action.

Trace Priority

Huohuo’s Ultimate is her only form of offensive utility to the team, and should be prioritized as such. 

Her Talent heals the team passively by small chunks, and is the only form of panic healing. As the healing multiplier for Huohuo’s Talent is not great, leveling it should be the first priority if survivability issues are faced. 

Huohuo’s Skill has a great amount of burst healing to a primary target and those adjacent to it. Due to its immense healing multiplier, it normally ends up in a full heal, making more Skill levels less necessary.

Basic ATK levels are additional damage but not particularly notable.

Traces

Note: Trace levels shown are 1/10/12 (Basic ATK 1/6/7).

Eidolons

Playstyles

SP Neutral Healer

Without any ERR% from Light Cones, Huohuo generally should be run in a very straightforward play pattern in which she alternates between using her Basic and Skill. This allows her to get her Ultimate in 4 turns and maintain 100% uptime on her Talent.

This playstyle does result in a consistent 100% uptime of her Talent, but does require additional SP use.

SP Positive Support

This playstyle is enabled by getting 131.4% Energy Regeneration Rate. This can be acquired with an ERR% Rope, and either S1+ Night of Fright, Post-Op Conversation at S3+, or a lower Superimposition Post-Op Conversation with either Penacony, Land of the Dreams, or Sprightly Vonwacq.

This Energy threshold will allow Huohuo to Ult every 4 turns by cycling Skill > Basic ATK > Basic ATK and using her Ultimate whenever it is available. Performing this rotation will still give Huohuo her Ultimate in 4 turns, but will also regenerate a notable amount of Skill Points for your team. However, in exchange for this improved SP economy, there will be one turn when her Talent is not activated.

Given that one of Huohuo’s major limitations is her inability to regenerate as many Skill Points as other sustainability units, this rotation is highly recommended if you can reach the Energy requirement, as it allows Huohuo to be run in teams that require more Skill Point usage.

A Note on Ultimate Efficiency

As Huohuo’s Ultimate provides a large amount of near universally appreciated benefits, it can be challenging to make the most out of all of them. You want to make sure that no Energy is being wasted for any other teammates, but you also want to make sure the ATK% buff lines up with your damage dealers’ big hits. In practice, this is not possible to accomplish in most scenarios unless you hold off on using Huohuo’s Ultimate. Due to the Energy gains from Huohuo’s Talent healing, as well as the gains from any Actions on her turn, it is generally inadvisable to hold off on using her Ultimate for too long, as it can result in significant overcapping of Energy or low uptime on the ATK% buff, leading to lower overall damage output and thus diminishing one of the core aspects that make Huohuo a desirable pick.

However, there are certain characters that prefer one part of the Ultimate over the other; some characters greatly appreciate the ATK buff while not necessarily needing the Energy, and other characters are extremely fond of the Energy restoration while not really caring about the ATK buff. In these scenarios, it can be better to use Huohuo’s Ultimate in a way which maximally benefits these characters, focusing more on only one part of the Ultimate’s effects even if it sacrifices efficiency of the other effect. For example, Kafka already has no issues with her Energy and so does not really need that aspect of Huohuo’s kit, but makes excellent use of the ATK buff due to her Damage over Time playstyle. The other end would be Jingliu, a character who already gets obscene amounts of ATK through her kit, enough that a 40% increase adds almost nothing, but who has a phenomenally powerful Ultimate of her own that she would love to use more of especially during her Spectral Transmigration state.

This is even before mentioning other support characters with their own highly influential Ultimates that can in turn affect the damage dealers that Huohuo is also catering to. There is also the potential to have Huohuo’s Ultimate sooner than expected due to things that happen within a fight like taking hits from enemies, and this extends to other characters as well, resulting in having to adapt your Ult usage dynamically.

Because of all of these considerations, this ‘Ultimate efficiency’ is not something worth worrying about in general, as the potency losses from not being 100% efficient with her Ultimate’s effects are very rarely significant. You will naturally get a feel for when to use her Ultimate over time as you continue to use her.

Build

Light Cones

Huohuo uses her Skill much more frequently than most other healers, making Light Cones that depend on Skill uses more valuable.

Night of Fright	Typically her Best-in-Slot option for overall utility, providing both great base stats as well as effects that Huohuo can easily benefit from. The ERR% allows her to perform a Skill Point positive rotation while still getting her Ultimate within 4 turns, while the additional healing when any ally uses their Ultimate alleviates the lack of healing on her Ultimate if burst healing is required. The ATK buff passive is easily kept at 100% uptime thanks to her Talent.
Post-Op Conversation	An excellent option. The additional Energy Regeneration Rate can enable SP positive rotations and faster Ultimates. Huohuo can benefit from the Outgoing Healing Boost if her Talent triggers during an ally’s Ultimate, which can be somewhat useful.
Shared Feeling	Being bound to the wielder using their Skill, this Light Cone has an inherent synergy with Huohuo who uses her Skill very frequently. It also offers a good amount of Healing Bonus, making it a solid alternative to Post-Op Conversation if not specifically aiming for faster Ultimates.
Quid Pro Quo	Strong F2P option, passively giving energy to the team over the course of a fight. Available from the Forgotten Hall shop. Despite the passive providing frequent high amounts of Energy, it is mostly luck dependent and is very hard to play around, making it mostly outperformed by Shared Feeling.
Hey, Over Here	As the Healing Bonus from this Light Cone can easily be kept up permanently with a Skill Point positive rotation, it is the most recommended F2P option if you face survivability issues. Nonetheless, this Light Cone focuses on pure healing, making it worse than the above mentioned utility providing Light Cones most of the time.

Relics

Relic Sets

Huohuo’s Relic Sets are very straightforward. Generally, it is recommended to use the set with the best substats.

2-Pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud + 2-Pc Messenger Traversing Hackerspace	Hybrid combo, improving both Huohuo’s healing capabilities, as well as the frequency of which her Ultimate is used relative to other allies, as 2-Pc Messenger of Traversing Hackerspace provides Huohuo with 5.88 SPD.
2-Pc Longevous Disciple + 2-Pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud	Exchanges SPD for a small healing increase. Recommended option if facing survivability issues, alleviating the risks of less frequent healing.
4-Pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud	Many teams can benefit from starting with an extra Skill Point, especially when attempting to optimize Huohuo for Ultimate usages, but can result in lowered healing compared to 2-Pc Longevous Disciple.

Planar Ornaments

Without any ERR% from Light Cones, 5% ERR from Planar Ornament sets is needed to perform an SP neutral rotation. For SP positive rotations, this 5% ERR is also required if using Post-Op Conversation before it reaches S3. It is recommended to choose whichever has the best substats within said archetype.

Penacony, Land of the Dreams	Gives Huohuo the ERR she needs for a consistent SP neutral 4 turn Ultimate rotation. The 5% ERR from this set can also substitute insufficient ERR from Light Cones to perform an SP positive 4 turn Ultimate rotation. This will also give 10% DMG Boost to any Wind-type teammates.
Sprightly Vonwacq	Another option to give Huohuo the necessary ERR for expedited Ultimate rotations. The initial Advance Forward may be useful for tuning her turn order, but otherwise can be detrimental if Talent procs are desired before her turn starts.
Broken Keel	A potential supportive option if not using either Vonwacq or Penacony. Huohuo also has an easier time activating this due to having Effect RES Traces.
Fleet of the Ageless	An alternative to Broken Keel, providing your team with ATK% instead of CRIT DMG. Despite this generally weaker buff to your allies, Fleet of the Ageless provides Huohuo with HP%, improving her healing capabilities.  In a team that doesn’t need CRIT buffs, namely a team centered around Damage over Time, this set performs notably better than Broken Keel.

Stats

Body	Boots	Sphere	Rope
Outgoing Healing Boost%	SPD	HP%	Energy Regeneration Rate%

Substats

SPD > Effect RES (if using Broken Keel, until 30%) > HP% > Flat HP > DEF%

Huohuo sees high value in SPD as it improves the frequency of her Ultimate uses relative to other teammates.

E1 or S1?

Both Huohuo’s first Eidolon and Signature Light Cone provide quite valuable benefits to teams using Huohuo. Her E1 provides an effectively permanent SPD bonus as well as granting her full Talent uptime in Skill Point positive rotations. Meanwhile, Night of Fright provides a nice ERR bonus which allows Huohuo to be Skill Point positive, as well as a decent ATK bonus, again with effectively permanent full uptime and an increased burst heal capability that synergizes well with her Talent.

Huohuo’s first Eidolon is worth considering if you already have the required ERR% to perform your desired Ultimate rotation, and want to get some more utility for your team, and overall more healing. Hitting the desired ERR% threshold is most important, as the greatest benefit from Huohuo comes from her Ultimate.

Overall, Huohuo’s Signature Light Cone is often more valuable on the scale of your entire account by allowing SP-positive 4 turn Ultimates, a bit of extra healing, and an ATK% buff that can be kept up easily at a lower cost than her E1. Its conditions are very general, which allows other units to utilize it as well, while Huohuo’s E1 can only ever benefit her. However, her E1 is more useful if your goal is to improve Huohuo and Huohuo only. 

Character Comparisons

Luocha

Huohuo is in many ways similar to Luocha in terms of healing, both having a passive healing ability as well as possessing a cleanse on their Skills. Both characters have continuous healing in their kit. Luocha can activate this healing by gaining two Abyss Flower stacks, which are provided to him via his Ultimate and his Skill. Huohuo can activate her healing ability by using her Skill. It is important to note that Luocha’s inability to refresh his Talent while it is active means it will unavoidably have a slight window of downtime, while Huohuo avoids this by being able to refresh her Talent at any time.

Huohuo provides a greater ability to cleanse allies, giving her generally more defensive utility. Luocha, on the other hand, provides a dispel which can remove impactful enemy buffs. Luocha also has slightly faster emergency healing with his Skill’s passive, providing a large single-target heal outside of his turn.

Overall, both characters are able to fully sustain your team. Luocha has the higher healing output, an AoE dispel, and high SP comfort, while Huohuo acts like a mix of buffing and sustain and is potentially stronger against content where you are constantly afflicted by debuffs you want to remove.

Lynx

Huohuo provides significantly more raw healing and debuff cleansing than Lynx, while using similar amounts of SP. Huohuo also provides offensive utility through her Energy and ATK buffs which Lynx does not have access to without Eidolons.

On the flip side, Lynx’s Ultimate provides team-wide burst healing and debuff cleanse, giving her a reactive element that Huohuo lacks in most of her kit. Additionally, Lynx’s aggro increase for targeted allies on Skill can be valuable for Destruction or Preservation characters who benefit from being hit, such as Blade, and Lynx is usually the superior choice in these specific scenarios.

If not utilizing these particular characters, Huohuo’s higher team healing, Energy restore, and ATK% buff are far more widely appreciated, though both are capable of sustaining a team by themselves.

Fu Xuan

Fu Xuan and Huohuo both consume similar amounts of SP on average. They also both provide buffs to the entire team, on top of being strong solo sustain units. Fu Xuan’s Crowd Control prevention with her A6 is proactive compared to Huohuo’s reactive heal and cleanse on Talent, which can matter with certain characters such as Jing Yuan.

Both can also provide offensive benefits to the team; while Huohuo’s ATK% is more generally applicable, Fu Xuan’s CRIT Rate buff from her Matrix of Prescience can be maintained permanently.

Huohuo’s ability to deal with debuffs is greater overall, getting multiple cleanses out of a single Skill use. Additionally, Huohuo has a niche as the only sustain unit that generates Energy for teammates, and potentially making her superior for teammates with a high Energy cost on Ultimate.  

However, Huohuo provides no buffs to the inherent durability of the team, while Fu Xuan can effortlessly keep the entire team alive with no more micromanagement than remembering to refresh her Matrix. Fu Xuan is superior in situations where enemies are dealing enough damage to kill you before you have a chance to heal.

Gepard

Huohuo is much less SP positive than Gepard, wanting to use her Skill more frequently. However, Huohuo generally provides more offensive utility in the form of Energy generation and an ATK% buff, as well as a large amount of cleanses. 

Gepard’s shield duration is tied to the turns of his teammates. This means that teammates who take significantly more turns than him will have lower shield uptime overall. Huohuo’s cleanses can similarly be expended by fast teammates, potentially even faster than Gepard’s shields, as Divine Provision considers all ally turns. However, this does not apply to her Talent’s chip healing, which is based upon her own turns, allowing her to maintain full uptime on it.

Health regeneration can easily keep your team at max HP, assuming there is sufficient time for the healing to occur. Shields cannot restore HP for allies but can function as an extension to their health bars by outright preventing damage in the first place, making them more useful against particularly powerful or speedy enemies.

This difference becomes especially noticeable in more challenging endgame content where enemies are significantly faster and hit much harder, in which shields are better at blocking heavy hits while healing cannot prevent a one-shot.

Notable Synergies

Ultimate Reliant Damage Dealers

Units with heavy reliance on their Ultimates greatly appreciate Huohuo’s extra Energy generation.

Jing Yuan	The most important part of Jing Yuan’s kit is to gain more stacks for Lightning-Lord. As his high-cost Ultimate gives the greatest increase of stacks, Huohuo’s Energy restoration notably improves his ease of use. While Lightning-Lord can’t take action when Jing Yuan is under any Crowd Control (CC) debuffs, Huohuo’s Talent can remove CC debuffs placed on Jing Yuan when his turn starts, or falls below 50% HP, ideally cleansing him shortly before Lightning-Lord takes action.
Clara	Clara’s Ultimate is very important to her kit, as frequent Ultimates maintain uptime on her DMG reduction, aggro increase, and the source of the majority of her damage, enhanced Counters. She wants to Ult at least every second turn, which Huohuo’s extra Energy can help with. Clara’s Skill Point usage is very flexible, pairing perfectly with Huohuo’s higher SP usage.
Topaz	Similarly to Clara, a significant amount of Topaz’s damage relies on Topaz’s Ultimate. Her Ultimate enables Numby’s Enhanced attacks, which compose a large part of her damage, and also increases attack frequency by Advancing Numby. Topaz also is very flexible with Skill Points, pairing perfectly with Huohuo’s SP usage.
Jingliu	With a Max Energy of 140, Jingliu has one of the most expensive Ultimates in the game, and the 28 energy Huohuo can provide with her own Ultimate can help Jingliu get her Ultimate a turn faster. This can also result in being able to extend Jingliu’s Spectral Transmigration state for another turn, providing a significant damage bump as well as saving an extra Skill Point.
Imbibitor Lunae	Apart from the upfront damage that Imbibitor Lunae’s Ultimate deals, it also gives him essentially two free Skill Enhances after using it, allowing for a triple Enhanced Basic at only 1 SP cost. Due to his Ultimate’s high Energy cost of 140, he benefits noticeably more from Huohuo’s percentage-based Energy restoration. Increasing Ultimate frequency for Imbibitor Lunae results in a significant damage increase, a good amount of Toughness damage, and even helps alleviate his usually exorbitant SP consumption. If Tingyun is also added to the team, Imbibitor Lunae can potentially have 2 turn Ultimates, providing a colossal boost to both damage and ease of use. Do note that Huohuo should be played maximally SP positive in this case, and should heavily prioritize ERR for maximum Ultimate uptime. This pairing relies on Huohuo having high enough healing to offset the SP she won’t have with Imbibitor Lunae, or on Imbibitor Lunae to be dealing enough damage that it no longer matters (which is likely in this setup anyway).

Support Synergies

Tingyun	As both Huohuo and Tingyun possess the ability to regenerate Energy for your damage dealer, pairing them together maximizes the Ultimate frequency of said damage dealer.  Huohuo’s Ultimate also restores Energy for Tingyun which can lead to Tingyun occasionally being able to use her Ultimate more frequently as well. Tingyun also follows a Skill Point positive rotation, complementing Huohuo’s SP requirements.
SP positive Supports	Sustain units are generally SP positive and are crucial in managing SP for the team. As Huohuo cannot be fully SP positive without shirking her healing responsibilities, pairing her with SP-positive supports, such as Pela, can help offset her SP consumption and provide a more comfortable experience.
Turn Order Specialists	Support characters who can influence teammates’ SPD or position in the Turn Order, such as Asta or Bronya, directly benefit Huohuo by providing more Talent procs and thus more Energy for Huohuo. As a result of this, Huohuo gets more frequent Ultimates, increasing the uptime of buffs for teammates and subsequently cycling that Energy back to these supports, where the cycle begins anew.

Notable Anti-Synergies

Qingque	Qingque has a strong ATK% buff built into her kit. This makes Huohuo’s ATK% buff from her Ultimate less notable.  Additionally, the lack of Skill Point generation from Huohuo directly conflicts with Qingque’s playstyle, as she likes to use as many Skill Points as possible in order to stack her Skill’s DMG% buff up.
Arlan	While Arlan’s SP efficiency may seem like a synergy, Huohuo’s Talent healing will keep Arlan at around 50% HP, preventing him from taking full advantage of his Talent. Arlan also does not build defensive stats, which can make him prone to being one-shot by stronger enemy attacks when run without a shielder.

Teams

Defensive Flex

Huohuo Solo Sustain

Although her SP cost does act as a slight restriction, Huohuo is flexible enough to work as a solo sustain in a variety of teams. 

Example Teams

Jingliu Hypercarry

Jingliu is a very SP efficient damage dealer, which makes Huohuo’s SP usage less of an issue. Pela finds her perfect use in this team as she not only tremendously helps with the team’s Skill Point regeneration, but also provides an AoE DEF shred, which is greatly appreciated by Jingliu who hits multiple enemies with her attacks.

Clara-Topaz Dual Carry

Topaz and Clara can both occasionally use their Basic ATK without losing much damage. While Huohuo can not provide any additional aggro to Clara, the extra Energy from Huohuo’s Ultimate combined with Clara’s Energy gained from getting hit means you can easily keep uptime on Clara’s Ultimate. The Energy restore also helps Topaz to maintain higher uptime on Enhanced Numby attacks.

Jing Yuan Hypercarry

Jing Yuan’s moderately high Energy cost synergizes well with Huohuo’s percentage based Energy restoration. This is especially noticeable when considering Jing Yuan’s reliance on frequent Ultimates in order to gain more Lightning-Lord stacks. This exact team substantially increases the ease of use of Jing Yuan.

While Huohuo does not have a cleanse on her Ultimate, the cleanse being able to trigger when Jing Yuan’s turn starts or when he falls under 50% HP will often allow her to cleanse him from Crowd Control debuffs shortly before Lightning-Lord takes action. 

Imbibitor Lunae Hypercarry

While Imbibitor Lunae consumes a large amount of SP every turn, Huohuo can be slotted in for her strong offensive utility at the cost of needing to play a bit more risky. Huohuo’s Ultimate also occasionally leads to more Ultimates from Imbibitor Lunae, which greatly increases his damage output and frees up more Skill Points to be used by other team members. Tingyun also getting more Ultimates results in yet more Energy being funneled to Imbibitor Lunae.

This is an incredibly strong team that can succumb to feast or famine; effectiveness is dependent on the damage output of the player’s Imbibitor Lunae, and on how much healing the player’s Huohuo is providing.

F2P

Huohuo being SP neutral means a team consisting only of free units will be fairly limited. This team runs a combination of damage dealers and supports who can afford to run SP neutral and positive rotations normally, as well as offering a mix of strong single target damage from Dan Heng and splash damage from Serval.

Credits

References

Guoba’s Energy Calculations

Changelog

• 28 November 2023 – Published for v1.5
• 30 November 2023 – Corrected Post-Op info, added additional info to E1 vs. S1.
• 1 December 2023 – Additional E1 vs. S1 corrections.
• 4 December 2023 – Added build infographic.