Ruan Mei: The All Purpose Support - Why EVERYONE Plays Ruan Mei | Honkai: Star Rail 

Damage boost, resistance penetration, speed boost literally just by existing, easy to build, fits in every single team, hot and can ruin me. What more do you want?

Ruan Mei is hilariously funny with Dot teams when they break. Essentially, they get broken, they take their turn to recover and get the FIRST instance of applied Dot damage- Her ultimate ability makes it so they get broken again, giving them another turn to recover aaaand take more Dot damage. Basically she creates two enemy turns with no detriment to the player 😂

"getting 180% BE is hard" me: sweating with an unintentional 273% BE Ruan Mei.

7:48 it's actually 160 ! One of her major trace gives 20% break effect to the whole team, including her !

also if you're in Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster or Gold and Gears, if you get the Ruan Mei (pt1-2) occurrence blessing, and she is in your team, that'll make you choose to get all the listed rewards(curios, blessing of the path you chose and cosmic fragments)

I fell in love with her design the first time I saw her in a card in the Simulated Universe. Then she showed up on one, and gave me a fuckton of Blessings the first time, and I was won over. THEN she showed up, and was a cool, calculating, but awkward genius with a host of strange cute little creatures and what seems to be a clear presence on the spectrum, and I was sold. She's beautiful, elegant, reposed, and loves desserts... what's not to love? So I rolled her. Then like a week or two later my friend was like, "By the way, she S tier meta support," and I said, "Oh shit for real?"

As a ruan mei owner its important to point out that she does have a minor weakness where all her break effect bonuses and utility are negated as long as the enemy is stunned by her ultimate because all time where the enemy is weakness broken is time where they could have taken break damage. This is especially noticable when playing units like xueyi, who is suppose to work well with her in theory but less so in practice. This is very noticable when the boss does not have resistance to delayed action like yanqing and gepard.

Keep in mind because this woman exists, Boss toughness bars were buffed so that basic attacks only deal 1/20 of the Boss' toughness bar without Ruan Mei, so it would take you 20 basics to weakness break a Boss.

3:27 if in the future we have units whose dps scale off break effect. Xueyi literally crying bro

The "By the wind of time" ad spam sure helped a lot

Why everyone plays huohuo would be quite good , she is soo popular in the CN community but i feel like ppl dont talk about her enough on the global side

I feel like Why Everyone Plays: Fu Xuan would be amazing, she’s just so broken.

on average of 97% usage of every moc since her release, and similar number on pf since its release too, both in CN and global data thats fucking wild

The most unsurprising video. Lololololol I love using Ruan Mei. She's such a fun and surprisingly easy character to build. Res. Pen, DMG boost, gives SPD, scales off one stat? It was a recipe for success. Fun fact also, she was initially going to give more speed in battle until she was nerfed.

I would consider her the single best unit in the game as of right now. And she will most likely hold that spot for quite some time unless someone who is even more broken comes out.

Man, I love your thumbnails. You deviate yourself from all other youtubers. It makes it really easy to find you and really happy when I do find you

Such a great video Vars!!!Been really enjoying these videos looking at recent characters. Everyone moves on to the next hottest thing. Good to do a retrospective after a character has been out. Would love one on Sparkle.

Ruan Mei is a must have, she's one of those units that once you put her on a team, you're never taking her off. She's incredibly broken. Maybe the next weop should be a DPS, like Dan heng or jingliu., idk Also what you said at 6:00 I think huohuo does the same thing, so it seems to be a trend

"... if in the future a damage dealer that focuses on break effect appears..." *Xueyi crying in corner*

She’s in my team since I pulled for her almost 100% of the time. Flexible, useful, beautiful and powerful.

Ruan mei is like Furina. Lifting up the restrictions for non-elemental goblets and planar orb sets, making them more preferrable to use. This makes building some characters become easier as there is no mandatory need to put elemental goblets and planar orb sets

Your videos butter My biscuits thank you

short answer: she buffs everyone's dmg indiscriminately and incentivizes the only mechanic star rail has -> toughness breaking

Ever since I got her she's been in pretty much every single one of my teams. And even though I don't have her legendary light cone I have 230% break effect so she chunks in simulated universe and helps my Jingliu destroy any ice weakness enemy

12:04 about that, she has her own traces that buff her Break effect, and she gives 20% teamwide break effect (which includes herself) in combat. Combine those with Comet Thief relics and the break effect planar from Simulated Universe 4, and that's 189% break effect (in combat) with Cogs.

Noticed recently that I use guides to replace thinking, so I forget altogether what exactly the character can do after I understand what stats they need -_- So videos like this one help a lot! I finally understand why Mei deals additional damage when the enemies' weaknesses get broken heh

Ruan Mei was the first 5-star I lost the 50/50 on (though 2nd 5-star I seriously pulled for after SW), but I still kept pulling for the guarantee get after losing a 50/50. While I haven't used her much, I will say she has not disappointed so far

I find it interesting that there's always an out for every character if you don't have the will or ability to pull their signature light cone. In most cases though it does mean you have to get S5 of a gacha only light cone. Ruan Mei with MotP, Sparkle with DDD, Kafka and Acheron with GNSW, and many more. Well luckily we have the SU lightcones which are also very strong, nearly competitive with signature lightcones in some cases. I just feel so lucky I've S5's all the aforementioned ones because I've only ever been able to get 2 signatures, Jingliu and Dr. Ratio, and I still feel like I have plenty of options for all my characters.

She's my best e6 character. Having her in SU is such a blast and having perm uptime on ultimate is heavenly

Ive found a universal team core is RM, Sparkle, and Fu Xuan Dps varies based on type effectiveness on the enemy. I usually use Xueyi though for the universal toughness bar damage

Not only that, before Ruan Mei was released, her event in SU is very OP.

She got it all the passive speed buff the dps boost best in slot for most teams best in slot of dot break efficiency, able to break the toughness meter she really is just one of those future proof characters

10:00 to be fair, there is only 1 subtle detail about when using her burst, which usually is during her turn, and ofc right after you're done setting up everyone else's buffs in that cycle and are ready to strike. (eg jingliu 2 stacks, burst ready). I have a 19% er link and still can't get 100% uptime, so that's how I learned to deal with it (yes, I am HuoHuo-less)

The problem with units like Ruan Mei is that she is such a "team agnostic" amplifier is that now every support unit in the game has to compete with her for a team slot, and very few characters can even hope to match her. Like, I got Hanya way back when, and I built her bcuz I really liked her animations and playstyle. But now I have Ruan Mei, Bronya, Sparkle and E6 Tingyun, what team composition could I POSSIBLY justify using Hanya instead of one of those 4, and NOT be actively griefing myself with DPS loss??

Ruan Mei is so good that the other team that i dont have her in is basically the hard part of MoC and Pure Fiction, also, i pulled her Lightcone and its now a SP emergency generator as well, she is just bonkers.

Honestly I love Ruan Mei and her character is quite... interesting.

The Kazuha of Star Rail probably

She's a super cracked support on DoT team, been enjoying Kafka DoT team lately cuz of her, sad that I had to skip Black Swan though. My only problem is that I'm also a Jingliu main so I want (NEED) a second Ruan Mei 😂

she literally has everything in her kit to be able to be slot in every team possible the only general thing she could buff is attack but it would affect blade, and there will probably be more hp scaling dps on the future

Im calling out next one will be either Jingliu or Acheron (overworld farming stonks go crazy)

At E6 she skyrocketed everything everyone are dps

It’s surprising we have a character like her so early it’s like Nahida or even Furina getting released a year sooner which is big for free and low spenders.

Sparkle and Robin video coming next 😂😅

Mine has 240 break effect at base, not counting the +20% break effect bonus trace, and damn does it hurt when I break a shield, I pretty often one-shot the first phase of a simulated boss thanks to her

"She's the best unit to use in simulated universe" It's very good that you got this video out before the livestream tomorrow. Would be a hassle to change that script again😊

The fact you can also use her technique and just basically insta clear sim makes her even better for lazy people like me 😂

Next one could be about Jingliu :)

She is someone that can be compared to Furina or Kazuha (which is much closer to her). Kazuha gives dmg bonus based on his EM while Ruan Mei does the same based on Break Effect Kazuha does swirl damage while Ruan Mei does Ice Break Damage Kazuha, since he is anemo, can equip 4pc VV and res shred while Ruan Mei also does the same on her Ult. Kazuha makes overworld a breeze while Ruan Mei makes SU a breeze. However, unlike Kazuha, Ruan Mei can be used on any teams. Its like, can u imagine, if u can use Kazuha on Bloom teams and shred dendro res? Now that I think about it, Ruan Mei can also be compared to Nahida who is wearing 4pc deepwood as a way to justify being the BiS support on DoT teams. I myself run a slow Ruan Mei on vonwaq (120 spd with 260% break effect) and for 0-cycle runs, its so good. This is why I would say Ruan Mei is the best character in the game. She literally can be used to any team, SP positive, easy to build (literally can run Break effect rope and use 2pc vonwaq with 120 spd and u are gucci), easy to play and well, she speed runs SU. Out of the topic, but, I have seen E6 Ruan Mei gameplays and dear god, even your sustains can become main dpses. Like imagine doing 350k Ice break damage on a single enemy with ur supports/sustain, that is a very significant amount of damage for the entire team. I am considering getting her E6 on her rerun so good luck to me i guess.

I remember when people downplayed her before her release, now look at her.

Now i wonder if you're going to make a new video about post PF Herta

In august: What Happened To Ruan Mei?

I got so much Break effect substat pieces, my Ruan Mei was built before I even pulled her 🥲🥲🥲

My fave aspect of Ruan Mei is in SU when she uses her technique to obliterate mobs in one go. I’ve gone as high as 600k dmg just from initiating battle with blessings to help. And her technique doesn’t discriminate on weakness type too cause every enemy is ice weak to her

One point to note, the toughness shred only works in simulated universe

The only weakness i see for ruan mei are weakness break "immune" enemies and by that i mean when an enemy recovers from a break it gets broken again thanks to ruan meis debuff but it mmediately recovers

All I can say is that Ruan Mei can Ruin Me any day

I can't take it anymore. I'm sick of Ruan Mei. I try to play Tingyun. Ruan Mei provides more damage. I try to play pela. Ruan Mei provides more damage. I try to play Bronya. Ruan Mei provides more damage. I want to play Jingliu. Her best team has Ruan Mei. I want to play Kafka, Topaz. They both want Ruan Mei. She grabs me by the throat. I babysit creations for her. I kill an emanator for her. I give her S5 memories of the past. She isn't satisfied. I pull Past self in mirror for her. "I don't need this effect if my ult will still take 4 turns" She tells me. "Give me any 5% err planar ornament set." She grabs my sustain and forces them to receive every point of damage from enemies. "You just need an err rope. I can do a 3 turn ult rotation without external energy sources." “Pull e1” she says. I can't pull e1, I don't have enough Stellar jades. She grabs my credit card. It declines. "Guess this is the end." She grabs her Ruan. She says "Sound lingers." There is no hint of sadness in its eyes. Nothing but pure, 68% damage boost, 50% weakness break efficiency and 25% res pen. What a cruel world.

Haven't watched but I'd say it's because it's easier to list what she *doesnt* do instead of what she does

ruan mei is now my kokomi(in early), i have Ruanmeidependency :(

Ruan Mei is BiS for dual dps comps (Dot and FUA) and Break Teams, on Hypercarry scenarios, she is the best auxiliary support there is and the single best damage scaling Combination is Sparkle Ruan mei, 48% damage bonus and 100% crit damage basically on skills + 68% damage bonus and 25% Res pen, in this team you have so much damage bonus and crit damage that you can quite literally just tun 4 atk Main stats and get better damage 😂, Granted the only character who doesn't like sparkle is Jing Liu because she already has a ton of CD and atk, so you miss damage bonus and for her and her only Bronya ruan Mei is better

Tl,dr She is op!

Who you're doing next? I'd like Fu Xuan which I'm planning on pulling on her rerun

This hurts me even more by the fact that i could've get her if i wanted to since i lost 50/50 on huo huo to yanqing and have tons of stellar jades saved.

Or in the words of Venom: (S)he's got shit you've never seen.

the real reason why she is the best support is because both ruan and sparkle has one of the most broken eidolon and kit in the game for ruan mei her e1 makes her ignore 20% def and e2 sparkle ignore 24% this stack if i remember and since this is not a debuff on the enemy on gamemode like moc and pure fiction you dont have the problem with like nihility which is you need to reapply debuff/defense down and also that 25% all type res is good because any enemy have a -20% damage to all element that they're not weak to (on some cases -40% like gepard/cocolia ice res) and you also need to put in mind the -10% damage when they are not weakness broken, finally one of the best thing when having ruan mei is using her on SU and finding a ruan mei part 1 and 2 occurences because normally you can only pick one option for example ruan mei part 1, 2000 cosmic fragment or every blessing for a certain path, but if you're using ruan mei a 3rd option unlock and you will get both fragment and blessing. so yeah both her and sparkle is a harmony/nihility unit but ruan mei is more universal

There is ONE archetype that she hinders by existing, those that rely on breaks or toughness damage to do their damage. Right now thats basically just xueyi and himeko but this will expand over time

If hoyo adds a relic set or LC in the future that LOWERS speed as a drawback, Ruan Mei would be one of those characters that actually benefits from lower speed.

PATIENTLY waiting for her rerun

You’re bold to assume that I HAVE Ruan Mei to begin with. . . . . . Damn Yanqing.

There is ONE team that does not want Ruan Mei, which is Clara hyper carry. Her enemy delay directly inhibits Clara's dps by reducing the amounts of actions they take.

I had one support ruan mei E5S5 that make my life easier

So I took a break from Genshin and I missed Farina's run. Now I started HSR recently and I've missed HSR Furina. What the fk bro 🗿

I was lucky and got her E2, aside from crit she litterally gives every single buffs in the game TEAMWIDE while delaying enemies and doing some damage. For a DPS like Jingliu who has insane self crit buffs it's too strong.

I was gonna skip her, because I wanted to pull Black Swan and I was a 10-pull away from a 5*, and I didn't know how good she was. I pulled her on an impulse trying to attract some of that New Year's luck. Now I keep watching these videos that tell me how MUCH I lucked out and that skipping her would've been terrible. Worth it.

My dream team is Fu Xuan, Sam, Ruan Mei and Huohuo when Sam comes out

I lost every 50/50 in Honkai Star Rail. Including Ruan Mei. I don’t have her all because of Bailu. I have terrible luck

Got lucky on her banner got her and the lichtcone🎉

It was a matter of time before Vars made a video on his waifu 😅

Ruan Mei is the best unit in the game so far easily. She fits and does so much for so many teams it’s nuts. They cooked hard with her kit and she’s hot af on top of it all

46% from set, 20% from A2, 37% from minor traces, 65% from rope. you can hit 168 break effect without a single substat or lightcone. The idea that it is somehow hard to hit 180 is absurd.

I think she has for competition 100% pick ban rate which for a game even in its infancy is actually insane, not only that but an 80-85% win rate (this is being generous) which makes the pick ban phenomenon causation not correlation

It’s actual y 160 break effect because of her trace and then getting break effect isn’t that hard use bother break effect sets for 2 piece and just get half decent roles

Basically HSR's Kazuha (from Genshin).

Two characters I regret didnt pull Huo Huo and Ruan Mei Huo Huo due to the need of sustain, and being a weebo who only wants female characters Ruan Mei due to, well, obvious reason, and the way she gives onee-san vibe

Best speed runner lmfao. Acheron.

She's the only character in the game that I felt like I HAD to get. No debate. I usually only pull on characters that I think look cool but she was the first character I felt was a must-pull.

"If in the future we have units whose DPS scales off break effect..." I can't believe you forgot Space Katheryne like that. The disrespect.

Im shocked the first episode of the HSR everyone plays isn't JingLiu

We play for Thigh Mei

Ruan mei: Plays a tune Teammates: I feel the power! Ruan mei: That's nice. *sips tea as everyone beats up the beetle monster*

2:29 buffing the enemy team 💀 also 3:24 we already have xueyi, who is break effect scaling

I have 200+ break effect without the set or her weapon, and I don’t even have all of the break traces unlocked

I predict the second charechter to be kafka or fu xaun

"If we get a unit whos dmg scales off break effect...." Xueyi: 👁👄👁

Next thing I know there be why everyone play Jingliu,Fu Xuan What happens to Topaz and Seele

12:36 Me when Meshing Cogs:

Shes amazing and while completly pasive the most fun support. I would rather go for E1 instead of her signature, it looks sick. Lets see how she fares against Robin, I hope she is a sidegrade, maybe RM for dot and Robin for follow up or crit scalling double dps.

At which level can I start farming 5 * relics, and as a new player should I go for Sparkle ?

i feel like the first 3 should be on the best supports cause dps’s are replaceable so id suggest doing fu xuan and silver wolf next

she's the closest thing we have to an archon version of HSR. she's literally trying to ascend as an Aeon.