Honkai: Star Rail introduced a new healer in its 1.5 update. Huohuo, a judge-in-training for the Ten-Lords Commission, hosts a powerful spirit named Tail as a glowing, green fox tail attached to her body. This Foxian girl might seem cowardly and pitiful, but she’s one of the game’s best supports to this date because of her healing and energy regeneration abilities. Here’s what you need to know about Huohuo, including what each ability does and the best way to build her.

Huohuo abilities

Huohuo is the first five-star unit advertised as a healer and battery in one. She can restore health with her skill and talent, and charge up everyone’s Ultimate with her own when she calls upon Tail. Tingyun, one of the game’s best supports for her buffs and recharge abilities, can only charge one ally at a time. In that sense, Huohuo’s abilities are a combination of the healing Abundance characters’ are known for plus the energy recharge that a character Tingyun offers. She recharges more energy with her Ultimate as it levels up, so you should focus on that before her Skill and Talent.

Here’s the information about her skills as explained in the game at Level 1:

Basic attack: Banner: Stormcaller

Huohuo deals Wind DMG equal to 25 percent of her Max HP to enemies. Note that this percentage raises all the way to 65 percent at max level.

Skill: Talisman: Protection

Huohuo’s splash healing ability, which primarily heals one target with residual heals that affect adjacent allies. She dispels one debuff and restores health by 14 percent of her Max HP plus 140 to the target ally. Allies beside the target receive healing equal to 11.2 percent of Huohuo’s Max HP plus 112.

Ultimate: Tail: Spiritual Domination

Huohuo’s Ultimate makes her a team battery. With it, she can regenerate Energy for all allies by an amount equal to 15 percent of their respective Max Energy. At the same time, she increases their ATK by 24 percent for 2 turns.

Talent: Possession: Ethereal Metaflow

After using her Skill, Huohuo gains an effect called Divine Provision that lasts for 2 of her turns. While active, Divine Provision restores 3 percent of Huohuo’s Max HP plus 30 for allies at the start of their turn or when they use their Ultimate. This includes dispeling one debuff from allies. This effect can be triggered up to 6 times. Using the skill again resets the effect’s trigger count. Every ally with 50 percent HP or lower also gets one emergency heal.

Technique: Fiend: Impeachment of Evil

Huohuo afflicts nearby enemies with Horror-Struck, a status affect that reduces their attack. When entering battle with enemies in Horror-Struck, there is a 100 percent base chance of reducing every single enemy’s ATK by 25 percent for 2 turns.

Ascension Passives

• Ascension 2 Passive–Fearful to Act: When battle starts, Huohuo immediately gains Divine Provision for 1 turn.
• Ascension 4 Passive–The Cursed One: The chance to resist Crowd Control Debuffs increases by 35%.
• Ascension 6 Passive–Stress Reaction to Horror: When her Talent is triggered to heal allies, Huohuo regenerates 1 Energy.

Best Light Cone for Huohuo

It’s no surprise that Huohuo’s best Light Cone is Night of Fright, her signature weapon running alongside her in the limited-time Light Cone banner. Night of Fright raises her Energy Regeneration Rate and enables allies to trigger healing and attack buffs with their Ultimates. So Huohuo will be able to charge up her Ultimate more quickly and the whole team also gets a big benefits package out of it.

However, Night of Fright isn’t the only five-star Light Cone that can work with Huohuo. Time Waits for No One, currently the only 5-star Abundance Light Cone on the standard banner, offers a hefty HP and Outgoing Healing buff that works with all Abundance characters.

Shared Feeling is Huohuo’s best 4-star Light Cone because of how it increases Outgoing Healing and regenerates 2 Energy for all allies whenever the wearer uses their Skill. In other words, it only adds more energy efficiency to Huohuo’s team. Post-Op Conversation also benefits Huohuo because of its Energy Regeneration boost, but it won’t do her as much good as another Abundance character because her Ultimate doesn’t heal allies like with Natasha and Lynx.

You can also get Hey, Over Here, a frightfully fitting Abundance Light Cone, from the current ongoing event, A Foxian Tale of the Haunted. This one increases the wearer’s max HP, something that serves Huohuo well because of all her skills that scale with HP.

Last but not least, the three-star Cornucopia Light Cone works as a serviceable « intermission » Light Cone until you get something better, especially since every Superimposition raises its HP bonus. Four and five-star Light Cones outdo it in terms of stats, so it’s best to replace it with one of the choices above when you have the chance.

Here’s a short description of all the recommended Light Cones as they appear in the game at Level 1:

5-Star Light Cones

• Night of Fright: Increases the wearer’s Energy Regeneration Rate by 12 percent. When any ally uses their Ultimate, the wearer restores HP for the ally currently with the lowest HP percentage by an amount equal to 10 percent of the healed ally’s Max HP. When the wearer provides healing for an ally, increases the healed ally’s ATK by 2.4 percent. This effect can stack up to 5 times and lasts for 2 turn(s).
• Time Waits for No One: Increases the wearer’s Max HP by 18 percent and Outgoing Healing by 12 percent. When the wearer heals allies, record the amount of Outgoing Healing. When any ally launches an attack, a random attacked enemy takes additional DMG equal to 36% of the recorded Outgoing Healing value. This Additional DMG is of the same Type as the wearer’s, is not affected by other buffs, and can only occur 1 time per turn.

4-Star Light Cones

• Hey, Over Here: Increases the wearer’s Max HP by 8 percent. When the wearer uses Skill, increases Outgoing Healing by 16 percent, lasting for 2 turn(s).
• Shared Feeling: Increases the wearer’s Outgoing Healing by 10%. When using Skill, regenerates 2 Energy for all allies.
• Post-Op Conversation: Increases the wearer’s Energy Regeneration Rate by 8 percent and increases Outgoing Healing when they use their Ultimate by 12 percent.

3-Star Light Cones

• Cornucopia: When the wearer uses their Skill or Ultimate, their Outgoing Healing increases by 12 percent. This raises to 24 percent at Superimposition Level 5.

Best Relics for Huohuo

Thankfully, Huohuo’s best Relics make it easy to mix and match. We recommend using two Passerby of Wandering Cloud to increase her Outgoing Healing by 10 percent, and Longevous Disciple to increase her Max HP by 12 percent. Both these buffs work together to fuel her healing, energy recharge, and other buffs. They also work for most teams without considering speed tuning.

It wouldn’t make sense to do a four-piece set for Passerby of Wandering Cloud or Longevous Disciple because there isn’t much return on investment for either of them. One Skill Point at the beginning of the battle only makes a smidge of a difference, and Huohuo doesn’t benefit from Longevous Disciple’s Crit Rate increase because she’s not an attacker.

Honorable Mention: Messenger Traversing Hackerspace also works well as a two-piece set for either Passerby of Wandering Cloud or Longevous Disciple if you need that extra SPD buff to survive, especially if Huohuo is your only source of protection. Four-piece could work for teams who want as much speed as possible, especially with players that understand speed tuning.

These are the descriptions for each Relic set mentioned above, just so you can see:

Passerby of Wandering Cloud

• Two-piece effect: Increases Outgoing Healing by 10 percent.
• Four-piece effect: At the beginning of the battle, immediately recovers 1 Skill Point.

Longevous Disciple

• Two-piece effect: Increases Max HP by 12 percent.
• Four-piece effect: When the wearer is hit or has their HP consumed by an ally or themselves, their CRIT Rate increases by 8 percent for 2 turns and up to 2 stacks.

Messenger Traversing Hackerspace

• Two-piece effect: Increases SPD by 6 percent.
• Four-piece effect: When the wearer uses their Ultimate on an ally, SPD for all allies increases by 12 percent for 1 turn. This effect cannot be stacked.

As for your Ornaments, Fleet of the Ageless is an uncomplicated one to go for that will buff Huohuo’s HP and additionally buff allies’ ATK

• Fleet of the Ageless: Increases the wearer’s Max HP by 12 percent. When the wearer’s SPD reaches 120 or higher, all allies’ ATK increases by 8 percent.
• Broken Keel: Increases the wearer’s Effect RES by 10 percent. When the wearer’s Effect RES is at 30 percent or higher, all allies’ CRIT DMG increases by 10 percent.

Huohuo’s Relic stats

Focus on HP. Huohuo’s healing and buffs scale based on that one stat, so it’s going to be her most important one. You can choose HP% for boot relics, but you should eventually replace them with SPD when you get the chance. If you don’t have enough SPD, then enemies can potentially outpace you and make it difficult to survive before you get your heals in.

Huohuo isn’t meant to fight, so sub-stats like ATK, Crit DMG, and Crit Rate are useless. The only ones you should really focus on are HP%, SPD, and Effect Res. As mentioned earlier, even her attacks scale on HP% and SPD helps for squeezing turns in before enemies. Effect Res ups her survivability against effect-heavy bosses and qualifies her for equipment like the Broken Keel Ornament Set.

Best teams for Huohuo

Huohuo can fit into almost any team as a healer and battery. In that sense, you don’t need to double up on healing and energy-boosting characters because she fills both needs on her own. All you need are three other characters that work together to deal as much damage as possible. These are just a few teams that can work with Huohuo.

Huohuo (Healer), Jingliu (DPS), Bronya (Support), Tingyun (Support)

• This team revolves around strengthening and enabling Jingliu, a Destruction character capable of dealing tons of damage to single and multiple targets. However, you can replace Jingliu with whichever damage dealer you want to hypercarry your team. Bronya delegates turns and buffs teammates, and Tingyun plugs up empty Ultimate gauges where necessary. Even then, Tingyun might be considered overkill for this team.

Huohuo (Healer), Sushang (DPS), Pela (Support), Yukong (Support)

• The first team requires at least two other five-stars, so it’s not exactly the most free-to-play friendly. Here, we replace Jingliu with Sushang, but Dan Heng, Physical Trailblazer, or Hook can also work as a four-star replacements. Meanwhile, Pela debuffs enemies and reduces their defenses so that they’re easier to take out. Yukong, a free-to-play character, buffs ATK and raises Crit Rate for her teammates when her ability is active.

Huohuo (Healer), Kafka (DPS), Guinaifen (Sub DPS), Asta (Support)

• Asta can Burn enemies and boost SPD at the same time. That’s especially important if you decide to skip on SPD buffs in Huohuo’s Relic set. Guinaifen, who also specializes in Burn DoT, can do even more damage with Asta enabling her. Kafka, the queen of DoT, benefits from both of them with her DoT-focused Skill and Ultimate. Note that you can replace Guinaifen and Asta with other DoT characters like Luka or Sampo.

Huohuo (Healer), Trailblazer (DPS), Serval (Sub DPS), Asta (Support)

• Huohuo can still work in a purely free-to-play team, even if the results won’t match five-star filled ones. Physical Trailblazer can work in most situations, but especially when they can break weaknesses or defeat enemies in waves. Serval excels at multi-target damage, breaking weaknesses, and and shocking enemies. Meanwhile, Asta boosts the team’s SPD so that Huohuo can use her abilities as much as possible.

Again, most Huohuo teams will revolve around a main DPS with two supports to either debuff enemies or buff allies. Alternatively, they can also consist of a main DPS, sub DPS, and a buff or debuff-focused support.