Honkai: Star Rail Has a DAMAGE Problem

A discussion about shields in Honkai: Star Rail and some opinions about how the game can be more varied while in combat.

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#hsr #honkaistarrail

[Truck-kun]

It is literally IMPOSSIBLE to get past the hardest levels of the Simulated Universe without a shield since no matter how good your healer is it is useless if the enemy kills your characters in 1-2 hits.

I predict that in the future they will start:

- Making healers capable of converting overheal into Max Health or Damage Reduction

- Making enemies capable of going through or nullifying shields to motivate the use of healers.

Also about why we dont have more Preservation Characters, i think they kinda peaked to soon with Fu Xuan and Aventurine since they are just TO GOOD and they are afraid of powercreeeping them and break the game

[PMDG]

Content that “requires” healers can be just as easily done by shielders but content that requires shielders cannot be done with healers

[LucasFernandez-troq]

the moment we get a healer that overcaps your max hp and acumulates the amount of healing you get so u deal more damage, that day, me and all the Bladie mains will finally be happy

[glaive]

I think the problem is that specifically Adventurine and Fu Xuan are insanely good, not so much shields. Gepard, March 7th, and Fire Trailblazer can all give shields but for the energy/skill points cost its not worth it in most cases. The whole Preservation Path was pretty useless until those 2 came around. Shields arent that good in Star Rail, but Adventurine's shields are really good.

[aenodarr]

Hoyo will most likely just make a 5* overheal abundance that will heal a lot and compensate for lost health from overheal provided (basically working like a shield) and not look at the problem any further

[Knavex_]

If healer not doing the work of harmony they're pretty much useless

[Real_Igor]

I'm actually quite surprised they still didn't do an direct counter to Shields
Like a shield breaker or an enemy that ignores them for the most part (An enemy that focuses on one ally per once like you'd do it with a Hunt character would also work to counter Aventurine since he relies on AoE damage)
There's already some enemies that counter Abundance characters, so no reason to not add enemies that directly counter shields

[saltyismymiddlename]

I'm day one gepard user and still going. I never realize how broken aventurine till I count the sp uses. He's basically can refresh every turn while gepard with need to spend 2 sp to make sure he gets perfect uptime

[whdbals]

i got this after being pummled to death in v6 with fu xuan 💀 very good points

[lucadivine]

For months now I've been thinking how cool it'd be to have a preservation with a somewhat weak, but stackable, single target shield on their ult, but make the ult super cheap (like 60 energy), and allow them to hold like 3 or 4 charges.

I think a preservation thats reactive rather than passive in their sustain role and giving you the moment to moment choice of how and where to distribute your shielding would be pretty fun.

[iTiefling]

Shields are stronger than heals unless you have some overheal mechanic that would temp increase hitpoints it will not be equal

[ZableThyTable]

I haven't watched the video yet but is it because shields count as a additional hp bar that allows supports to invest more in offensive stats

[Kidyungblack]

Honestly suprised they just havent added an enemy that does more damage to shields in the game or something that eats through shields to your real health like those wolves from genshin.

Atm i think Lynx is the only healer that overheals by increasing max hp but its only to one person so its only really beneficial on blade tbh.

[FallenPhoenix-mlmn]

Honestly the biggest issue with healers vs Shielders is the tuant value.

Not only do shields give as much sustain as healing but just having Gepard or Adventurine in the fight already lowers the chance of your weak squishies to get targeted.

Meanwhile Loucha and Lynx doesn't stop enemies focusing on your Tingyum and bursting her down every other attempt.

[lovingmurclock]

The thing is that there are no alternatives that already exist. You mentioned taunt but realistically how many bosses use single target attack as their big stronk? Maybe Lofu's monke, a couple of centaurs, Hoolay and that's about it. Aventurine does aoe, Kafka does aoe, Phantylia- aoe, Dragon does...something, Sam aoe as well.

[seraphlazuli]

I just hope healers can keep up with Aventurine. Like an artifact set that can increase defense or max HP of allies when healed. You can’t not have a reviving feature in the game and then make the enemies so strong that they kill the allies before they have a chance to react.

[anguyen]

It might be unpopular, but I think introducing evasion mechanics could mix things up a little. Most turn-based RPGs (SMT, Persona, Pokemon, Digimon, etc.) have some form of accuracy and evasion stat. A Preservation unit that sets up an evasion veil or a Nihility unit that debuffs enemy accuracy. They can also tune it so we can't just abuse evasion too, some attacks can be unavoidable, setting a limit on how much this stat can be manipulated, there's plenty of ways of doing it.

[Isnochao]

Boothill also has a taunt as part of his skill, so that makes three playable characters instead of two.

[hayderade]

Even though I love my aventurine I realized overtime the flaw of shields and why it’s hard to counter, if all they do is up the damage to get past it then abundance units aren’t as viable.
The only way I can think of balancing it is having future enemies counter shields in some aspect to have units like abundance be more attractive. Like 20% of the damage goes through shields.
I personally just think it’s kinda boring that you just turn off your brain with preservation units and hope there’s content that helps with that. Aventurine has way too much uptime on his shields.
I just want to actually have to worry about dying in harder content besides simulated universe lol but that’s just my weird opinion

[garrettfisher]

A healer whose skill heals but whose ult gives one instance of block or dodge to the team could be really fun to play, as you'd have to time the ult in order to nullify damage. Something like that could be satisfying without being insanely overpowered maybe