After the release of Black Swan in 2.0, one of the most popular meta teams in Honkai Star Rail is all about stacking damage over time effects. Another character, who is often overlooked, but fits right into this play style, is Guinaifen! Learn more about why you might want to give her a try right here!
A jack of all traits, a master of none. — This is how to accurately describe the character we're going to talk about today: Guinaifen!
Especially with damage over time comps being incredibly strong at the moment, Guinaifen is an easy and fun unit to pick up for most free-to-play accounts. Still not convinced? — Let me show you some possible perks and benefits this little lady has to offer!
Honkai Star Rail: Why Guinaifen Is A Free-To-Play Monster
As a free-to-play payer, it sometimes proves to be hard to abuse certain meta comps, either because a crucial unit is missing or you just don’t have enough resources to build a bunch of characters at once. That means you should always aim to get and build units, who brings high value to your account and are easy or efficient to equip.
“Geez, why do I feel like I haven't seen you in a long time? What? You saw me yesterday? Ah — a day without seeing you feels like three years!” — Guinaifen
Guinaifen is exactly one of them! — To show off her strength and versatility, we will focus on how to build and use her as a mini Kafka in a DoT team comp! (If you own Kafka, Black Swan AND Guinaifen, you can also play them together in a triple DoT comp.)
Honkai Star Rail: Get Guinaifen For Free
The probably most obvious thing, when trying to find out how free-to-play friendly a character is, is to check how you can obtain them in the first place.
With Guinaifen, it is quite easy actually! You can of course pull her from an event banner, but unfortunately, you can't guarantee to get her there! Luckily, with one of the most recent events, called “Hanu's Prison Break”, you can just claim one copy of her for free!
Honkai Star Rail: Guinaifen Works Like A Budget Kafka
In order to fully appreciate, where Guinaifen's true strength lies, we have to understand some crucial parts of her kit and how she synergizes with other meta characters.
Guinaifen: Basic ATK
One of the best things about Guinaifen's kit is the efficiency of her basic attack! Even though it is quite boring to use, it holds a little perk, when unlocking its bonus effect via Gui's traces:
- High Poles: Basic ATK has an 80% base chance of inflicting an enemy with a Burn equivalent to that of her skill!
In easier words: Guinaifen does not need to spend a valuable skill point in order to burn enemies, which is HUGE for DoT comps! (As I said: easy AND effective!)
Guinaifen: Ultimate
But let's talk about why Guinaifen is a good alternative to Kafka, who's main strength lies in triggering DoT effects. Since Kafka is a 5-Star unit, not each and every player could afford to get her, and especially newer once might have missed out on her banners.
If you still like to play a DoT focused comp and pulled yourself a Black Swan on the current banner, you might want to try out teaming her up with Gui instead, since she can also trigger already existing DoTs!
- Watch This Showstopper: Deals Fire DMG to all enemies. If a target is currently inflicted with Burn, then their Burn status immediately reproduces DMG equal to X% of their original DMG.
The only difference is, that Guinaifen only works like this for the Burn damage over time effect, while Kafka can possibly do all four. However, it still works really well, and you don’t have to spend a single skill point in order to use this mechanic!
Honkai Star Rail: Guinaifen Is Incredibly Easy To Build
As I mentioned earlier, another core element why Gui is super free-to-play friendly is her build!
Guinaifen: Relics
Especially with the release of Black Swan, many players like to farm a specific Relic set, which is called “Prisoner in Deep Confinement”. Luckily, this is also what Guinaifen needs to perform well! You can just give her the spare pieces you got while grinding for Black Swan's set, and our little fire lady is ready to go! You should mainly aim to give her Effect Hit Rate and AKT%.
Guinaifen: Light Cones
Guinaifen has a lot of Light Cone options, but one is particularly interesting, since it doesn’t require any gacha! The weapon I'm talking about is the new free-to-play 4-Star Light Cone from the Memory of Chaos shop! It is called “It's Showtime” and has the following effect:
- Self-Amusement: When the wearer inflicts a debuff on an enemy, gains a stack of Trick. Every stack of Trick increases the wearer's DMG dealt by 6%, stacking up to 3 time(s). This effect lasts for 1 turn(s). When the wearer's Effect Hit Rate is 80% or higher, increases ATK by 20%.
The best part about this weapon is, that it can be easily maxed out, since you can just buy all the five copies from the exact same shop. A pretty solid Light Cone, which can be obtained in no time!
Honkai Star Rail: Guinaifen Can Be Used In So Many Teams
Last but not least, we should take a look at some possible team comps that include Guinaifen. Some of them will be based on DoT, others however show off her versatility!
1. Free-to-play Black Swan DoT
This is exactly the comp I was talking about! — A really affordable and easy damage over time team, with lots of synergies! You can swap out Tingyun for any other buffer you would like to use, or even try to utilize a healer instead.
2. Debuff For Days
This team looks to be at least a little more expensive, since it has two 5-Star units, however, Dr. Ratio is completely for free as well, so you only needed some luck on the Ruan Mei banner for this comp. You can perma freeze your enemies with March 7th and keep them Weakness broken for longer with Ruan Mei! Next to that, Dr. Ratio synergizes great with debuff and since Gui's passive counts as a debuffs, they team up quite nicely as well.
And this wraps up our little Guinaifen showcase article! Hopefully, I could convince you building your Gui and try her out at least a little!