Ruan Mei is Honkai: Star Rail's new broken 5-star Harmony support! Here's how you build her, Light Cones, and more

Happy holidays, Trailblazers! Honkai: Star Rail version 1.6 is finally here and with it comes the debut of the game's latest 5-star character: Ruan Mei!

Ruan Mei is the 81st member of the Genius Society, an exclusive group of the most brilliant minds in the universe gathered by the Aeon of Erudition Nous, and is one of the co-creators of the Simulated Universe. Her expertise in the field of Biology is second to none, though that does shroud her in a bit of mystery...

Ruan Mei wields the Ice element and follows the Path of Harmony, being the game's first limited 5-star Harmony character. So, it's only fitting that she boasts an insane kit that lets her buff her allies' DMG, Weakness Break Efficiency, Speed, and more!

If you were lucky enough to get Ruan Mei to join your party, read on as we break down how to build her as well as her best Light Cones, relics, and teammates!

Ruan Mei's kit and how you can best utilise her

Transcendent tunes, blushing blooms

As a Harmony character, Ruan Mei is all about empowering her allies with a myriad of buffs, including huge boosts to their DMG, Weakness Break Efficiency, Speed, and All-Type RES PEN. Not only that, she is able to extend the Weakness Break state on enemies, letting your party deal more damage and preventing your foes from even lifting a finger in resistance.

Ruan Mei's bread-and-butter is her skill, String Sings Slow Swirls, which lets her gain the Overtone effect for 3 turns after using it. When Overtone is active, all allies will receive buffs to their DMG and Weakness Break Efficiency, reaching 32% and 50%, respectively, at level 10.

The duration of Overtone decreases by 1 at the start of Ruan Mei's turn, which makes her a skill point-positive character — a huge boon for any Harmony support.

Ruan Mei's ultimate, Petals to Stream, Repose in Dream, lets her deploy a field that lasts for 2 turns. While the field is active, all party members will have their All-Type RES PEN increased — with the bonus reaching 25% at level 10 — and their attacks will apply Thanatoplum Rebloom to any enemies hit.

When enemies afflicted by Thanatoplum Rebloom are put in the Weakness Break state and attempt to recover on their turn, the duration of Weakness Break will be extended and have their action delayed by an amount based Ruan Mei's Break Effect stat while taking Break DMG based on Ruan Mei's Ice Break DMG.

At level 10, Thanatoplum Rebloom will delay a Weakness Broken enemy's recovery by 20% of Ruan Mei's Break Effect plus 10% and deal Break DMG equal to 50% of Ruan Mei's Ice Break DMG.

The duration of the field created by Ruan Mei's ultimate decreases by 1 at the start of her turn. Enemies also cannot have Thanatoplum Rebloom re-applied to them until they recover from Weakness Break.

Ruan Mei's Talent, Somatotypical Helix, gives a constant Speed buff to all allies except Ruan Mei herself while also dealing additional Break DMG whenever an ally inflicts the Weaknes Break state on enemies. At level 10, this Talent boosts the Speed of Ruan Mei's allies by 10% and deals an additional 120% of her Ice Break DMG to enemies inflicted with the Weakness Break state.

Ruan Mei's major Traces play further into her reliance on the Break Effect stat while giving her an additional source of energy.

Ruan Mei's A2 Trace, Inert Respiration, passively increases the Break Effect of all allies by 20% and her A4 Trace, Days Wane, Thoughts Wax, regenerates 5 energy for Ruan Mei at the start of her turn.

Meanwhile, Ruan Mei's A6 Trace, Candle Lights on Still Waters, increases her allies DMG by 6% for every 10% of her Break Effect that exceeds 120%. The DMG bonus for allies from this Trace caps out at 36% when Ruan Mei's Break Effect reaches 180%, so that's gonna be the stat you have to chase.

When leveling up Ruan Mei's Talents, prioritise her skill first, Talent second, ultimate third, then eventually have them all leveled up to max. You don't need to level up Ruan Mei's basic attack even if she will use it from time to time to generate skill points, but if you feel like burning more resources to get just a tiny bit more damage then more power to you.

In battle, use Ruan Mei's skill to increase her allies' DMG and Weakness Break Efficiency. Since the buff from her skill lasts 3 turns, Ruan Mei can spend the 2 turns after using her skill to generate skill points for her allies. When her energy is full and your enemies are nearing the Weakness Break state, use Ruan Mei's ultimate to give another boost to her allies' damage output while hamstringing your opponents further.

Since Ruan Mei buffs direct DMG% to all allies, she is a perfect Harmony support for pretty much any character. Since her buffs are party-wide too, Ruan Mei can work beautifully alongside two DPS characters instead of being limited to supporting just one hypercarry.

Ruan Mei's best gear

Light Cones

Ruan Mei's best Light Cone is obviously her signature, Past Self in Mirror, which passively increases her Break Effect by 60%.

After she uses her ultimate, all allies will also receive a 24% DMG buff for 3 turns. If if Ruan Mei's Break Effect is equal to or more than 150%, 1 skill point will also be recovered. In addition, this Light Cone also regenerates 10 energy for all allies at the start of each wave.

If you don't have Ruan Mei's signature Light Cone, don't fret as she has solid alternative options.

Aside from her own signature, the other 5-star Light Cone Ruan Mei can use is But the Battle Isn't Over, Bronya's signature. While it's not the best fit for Ruan Mei, it's still worth using if you have it but don't have Bronya to give it to.

This Light Cone increases Ruan Mei's energy regeneration rate by 10% and regenerates 1 skill point whenever she uses her ultimate on an ally, with the skill point regeneration effect able to be triggered after every 2 uses of her ultimate.

In addition, using her skill causes the next ally taking action to deal 30% more DMG for 1 turn.

Ruan Mei's best 4-star Light Cone is Memories of the Past, which passively increases her Break Effect by 28%. In addition, it regenerates an additional 4 energy for her whenever she attacks.

Another solid 4-star Light Cone for Ruan Mei is Carve the Moon, Weave the Clouds, which can be acquired from the paid upgrade for the Battle Pass. This Light Cone will give an alternating random buff to the entire party every time its wielder takes action. The buffs available include: 10% bonus ATK, 12% bonus Crit DMG, and 6% bonus energy regeneration rate.

If you are pairing Ruan Mei with an Ice DPS character like Jingliu, then you can also use Planetary Rendezvous, which increases the DMG of all allies by 12% if they have the same elemental alignment as the Light Cone's wielder.

Finally, you can also go for the 3-star Light Cone Meshing Cogs if you don't have anything else. Don't underestimate this Light Cone just because it's a 3-star though, as it is a very good pick for Harmony characters with high energy costs. At Superimposition level 5, this Light Cone lets its wielder regenerate an additional 8 energy whenever they attack or get hit by enemies.

Relics

Ruan Mei's relic choices are pretty straightforward thanks to her reliance on the Break Effect stat.

As you can probably guess, her best Cavern of Corrosion relic set is the 4-piece Thief of Shooting Meteor set. This relic set gives its wielder 16% Break Effect with its 2-piece bonus while its 4-piece bonus gives an additional 16% Break Effect and regenerates 3 energy for its wielder when they inflict Weakness Break on an enemy.

Meanwhile, Ruan Mei's Planar Ornament relic set will depend on which characters she will be supporting.

If Ruan Mei is supporting a typical DPS character that can use additional Crit stats, then go for the 2-piece Broken Keel. It gives her 10% Effect RES and increases all allies' Crit DMG by 10% if her Effect RES is at 30% or higher.

If Ruan Mei is supporting a damage-over-time character like Kafka who wants ATK over Crit stats, then go for the 2-piece Fleet of the Ageless. It increases her Max HP by 12% and increases all allies' ATK by 8% if Ruan Mei's Speed reaches 120 or higher.

The main stats you should go for are HP% for the body, Speed for the feet, ATK% for the Planar Sphere, and Energy Regeneration Rate for the Link Rope. Substats to look for are Break Effect, Speed, ATK, and HP.

Ruan Mei's best teammates

As we mentioned previously, Ruan Mei is a universal Harmony support that can be used with anyone because she directly buffs DMG% instead of giving something like bonus ATK. More Speed for the entire party is great too. While Weakness Break Efficiency and Break Effect are niche stats, Ruan Mei makes good use of them to not only boost her allies' damage output but also keep enemies Weakness Broken and prevent them from fighting back.

And because Ruan Mei's buffs are party-wide, she can also work as the sole support in a team that includes two DPS characters. This gives Ruan Mei more flexibility compared to someone like Bronya, who works best in a hypercarry setup with multiple supports buffing just one DPS character.

Honkai: Star Rail version 1.6 features three new characters, namely the 5-star Ice Harmony character Ruan Mei, the 5-star Imaginary Hunt character Dr. Ratio, and the 4-star Quantum Destruction character Xueyi. Dr. Ratio will be given to players for free at the start of the second half of this version.

After version 1.6 comes the massive version 2.0 update in February 2024, which will see the release of a new planet in Penacony as well as three new characters in Black Swan, Sparkle, and Misha.

Yan Ku is a full-time dog parent, part-time (gacha) gamer, and part-time writer.

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