How to use the Honkai Star Rail Paths and Elements

Honkai Star Rail Paths and Elements

Honkai Star Rail Paths and Elements are among the core game mechanics, but what do they mean? As you will soon discover, each playable character is assigned one of seven Paths and Elements, which influences their role in combat. To make the most of your characters’ abilities, it’s important to understand the Elemental powers and Path effects.

From The Hunt Path to the Quantum Element, here’s every Honkai Star Rail Path and Element explained. We can also help with your Honkai Star Rail Trailblaze Level and the Honkai Star Rail Simulated Universe if you need help elsewhere. 

Honkai Star Rail Paths explained 

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Every playable character belongs to one of the seven Paths. In Honkai Star Rail’s lore, Paths represent an ideology linked to an Aeon, a godlike creature. For example, followers of ‘Nihility’ like meaningless activities while followers of ‘The Hunt’ admire determination.

In combat, however, a character’s Path explains their combat role. This combat role is closely linked to that Path’s philosophy. Here’s an overview:

• The Hunt: DPS, excels at single-target damage.
• The Erudition: DPS, excels at multi-target damage.
• The Destruction: DPS, an all-round fighter who can hold their own.
• The Nihility: Support, specialized in placing debuffs on opponents.
• The Harmony: Support, excels at buffing the team.
• The Preservation: Support, defense-based. Typically provides shields.
• The Abundance: Healer, specialized in restoring allies’ HP.

Try to put a variety of different Paths on your Honkai Star Rail team. It’s useful to have an ally who can take care of the smaller opponents while having another deal with the elite enemies, both protected by a teammate who shields them from damage.

Honkai Star Rail additional Paths 

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Besides the ones mentioned above, Honkai Star Rail’s developers have mentioned several other Paths, including the Trailblaze Path. They will play a role in the game’s lore and possibly in other gameplay features, but we can’t say for sure whether they’ll be added as playable character Paths later on.

During Honkai Star Rail’s ‘Boarding Preparation Special Program’ livestream, the developers mentioned that the game currently has seven Paths, thereby suggesting that it could become more in the future.  

Honkai Star Rail Elements explained 

(Image credit: HoYoverse)

Every playable character in Honkai Star Rail is assigned a specific Element, which grants them elemental powers to use in combat. For example, March 7th has the Ice element, allowing her to freeze enemies, while Asta has the Fire Element, allowing her to burn opponents. 

Besides those special effects, the main function of an Element is to decrease the Toughness bar of enemies who are weak against that Element. Once this Toughness bar, which is the white bar below the opponent’s HP bar, is depleted, the opponent receives additional damage and suffers a debuff based on the Element that broke its Toughness.

You’ll know which elemental weaknesses your opponent suffers from by looking at their HP and Toughness bars; there are little elemental icons displayed right above them (usually two or three in total). 

Every Element Toughness Break effect in Honkai Star Rail

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Here’s an overview of the seven Honkai Star Rail Elements, plus their Toughness Break effects:

• Physical: deals Physical damage and causes Bleed, which deals additional Physical damage over time.
• Ice: freezes the victim and deals Ice damage over time.
• Fire: deals fire damage and causes the Burn effect, dealing additional damage over time.
• Wind: deals  immediate Wind damage plus additional Wind damage over time.
• Lightning: deals immediate Lightning damage plus additional Lightning damage over time.
• Imaginary: reduces the opponent’s attack speed and pushes them back in the action order, thus delaying their turn.
• Quantum: deals Quantum damage over time and lowers the opponent’s position in the action order, thus delaying their turn.

After the opponent recovers, they will regain their Toughness. It’s important to keep attacking opponents with the Element that exploits their weakness. 

That concludes our overview of Honkai Star Rail Elements and Paths. You’re all set to build a team!