As someone who has been deeply fascinated with classes and roles in JRPGS in a variety of games, I was interested in seeing how those classes match up with the Paths of characters in Hoyoverse’s Honkai Star Rail. There isn’t a job system for any of the characters aside from your character in the game, and instead, they learn different elements that help them follow different Paths. What are these Paths’ significance, and why are they important when building a team? That is what I hope to cover in this guide!
Each character you unlock is on a Path in Honkai Star Rail. These Paths generally tell you what that character specializes in. Being able to have a good variety of Paths in your teams will help your fights be consistent with strategy and with overall utility. The first team you will use is mainly the F2P team which consists of March 7th (Path of Preservation), Your character (starts as Path of Destruction), and Dan Heng (Path of the Hunt). This is a good, well-rounded team that only really needs one more character Path in order for its use to be maximized.
What do these paths mean? How will you be able to look at them in-game? There is a way to look at the in-game explanations of the paths. It requires you to go to your character screen and go to literally any character that you own.
On the top right, you can see the name of the path underneath their name. If you click on the little icon next to it, it brings up a screen that helps you see what paths do what.
The Paths in-game explanations are great, but I want to make an easier explanation for each one to think about.
- The Hunt – DPS Damage dealer. They are strong against single enemies at a time. Most Hunt characters are ideal in situations where you fight bosses.
- Destruction – Master of Offense and Defense. These are tanky characters that can deal a lot of damage as well. Generally very useful against all ranges of enemies.
- Erudition – AoE Damage Dealer. These are attack-heavy-oriented characters that generally focus on mobs.
- Harmony – Buffers. They apply buffs to characters on your team. Very useful as a support to the character you want to focus on in battle.
- Nihility – Debuffers. These characters tend to attack moves that deal small amounts of damage but also inflict status effects on the enemies that get hit.
- Preservation – Tanks. They are tanky characters that can help provide aggro or defense bonuses to characters in your party. Generally, help provide shields to your team.
- Abundance – Healers. Characters in this path generally heal characters on your team.
Now that we have the Paths explained, what does this mean for your party setup? As I stated, you want to make sure your team has a variety of characters. You don’t want a full team of characters in the Path of The Hunt. A variety allows you to have a team for multiple situations in the game. Also, you want at least a healer or a tank in your team, if not both, for harder content.
Honkai Star Rail is available on PC and Mobile. It is coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 at a later date.
