In Honkai Star Rail, Ruan Mei is a standout 5-Star Ice character on the Harmony path, excelling at elevating her team’s damage output, especially when enemies are in a weakened state. Her unique set of abilities and skills is designed to exploit Weakness Breaks, making her a valuable support for maximizing your team’s combat effectiveness. Below is a comprehensive look at her abilities, passive traits, and the materials needed for her ascension.

Ruan Mei’s Skill Set in Honkai Star Rail

Character Overview:

  • Element: Ice
  • Path: The Harmony
  • Rarity: 5-Star

Ruan Mei’s abilities are based on her proficiency in Ice damage and her skill in boosting team performance, particularly when enemies are Weakness Broken.

Basic Attack: Threading Fragrance

Ruan Mei’s standard attack, Threading Fragrance, deals Ice damage equal to 50% of her attack power to a single target, focusing on delivering efficient, direct damage.

Skill: String Sings Slow Swirls

Activating String Sings Slow Swirls grants Ruan Mei a status called Overtone, lasting three turns. Each turn, the duration of Overtone reduces by one. While Overtone is active, all allies gain a 16% damage boost, and their Weakness Break Efficiency is increased by 50%. This skill enhances overall team damage and Weakness Break capability, giving allies an edge during key moments in battle.

Ultimate: Petals to Stream, Repose in Dream

Ruan Mei’s Ultimate ability, Petals to Stream, Repose in Dream, creates a field that remains active for two turns, with the duration decreasing by one turn at the start of her turn. Within this field, all allies gain a 15% increase in All-Type Resistance Penetration, enabling their attacks to apply the effect Thanatoplum Rebloom to any enemy they strike.

Thanatoplum Rebloom activates when an enemy tries to recover from Weakness Break, extending the Weakness Break’s duration and delaying their next action by a percentage based on Ruan Mei’s Break Effect plus an additional 10%. It also inflicts extra Break damage, equal to 30% of her Ice Break damage. This effect cannot be re-applied to an enemy until they recover from their Weakness Break state.

Passive Talent: Somatotypical Helix

Ruan Mei’s passive talent, Somatotypical Helix, passively boosts the party’s Speed by 8% (excluding herself). Whenever an ally Weakness Breaks an enemy, she automatically deals additional Break damage equal to 60% of her Ice Break damage to the affected enemy. This effect reinforces her team’s advantage over already weakened enemies.

Overworld Technique: Silken Serenade

Ruan Mei’s Silken Serenade ability is particularly useful in the Overworld. At the start of a battle, she automatically activates her Skill, without using Skill Points. When Silken Serenade is active, attacks in the Overworld are treated as targeting enemies’ Weaknesses, even if they do not match the actual Weakness Type. This allows her team to reduce enemy Toughness regardless of their Weakness Type, delivering additional Toughness damage and further enhancing Break damage based on her Ice Break power.

Additionally, Toughness Damage scales up by 100% for every Blessing collected in the Simulated Universe (up to a maximum of 20 Blessings), making Ruan Mei even more potent against tougher enemies.

Bonus Traces

Ruan Mei has several Bonus Traces that provide added benefits:

  1. Inert Respiration: Increases the Break Effect for all allies by 20%.
  2. Days Wane, Thoughts Wax: Grants Ruan Mei an additional five Energy at the start of each turn, speeding up her Ultimate recharge.
  3. Candle Lights on Still Waters: For every 10% of her Break Effect that exceeds 120%, Ruan Mei’s Skill further boosts allies’ damage by 6%, up to a maximum increase of 36%.

Ascension Materials for Ruan Mei

To enhance Ruan Mei’s stats and unlock her full potential, you’ll need a variety of materials focused on Ice-type and Immortal-based items. These items are required to increase her health, attack, defense, and critical hit effectiveness.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Immortal Scionette: x15
  • Immortal Aeroblossom: x15
  • Immortal Lumintwig: x15
  • Gelid Chitin: x65
  • Credits: 308,000

With these materials, you’ll be able to raise her stats and optimize her performance on the battlefield, allowing her to fully support her team and take advantage of her Weakness Break synergies.

By focusing on these strengths and abilities, Ruan Mei becomes an essential character for maximizing team damage and handling tough battles effectively, especially in challenging encounters where Weakness Breaks are critical to turning the tide