Firefly - First Impressions | Honkai: Star Rail | Prydwen Institute (2024)

Disclaimer

The information you can find in this article come from the Creator Experience server and as such are subject to change - so while you can check out Firefly's kit details a bit early, please keep that in mind. A full guide for Firefly will be released as usual once the patch introducing her goes live.

Introduction

Firefly's Profile

Firefly is a 5★ character from the Fire element who follows the Path of Destruction. A member of the Stellaron Hunters and a young girl clad in a mechanical armor "SAM." Born as a weapon, she's afflicted with the agony of Entropy Loss Syndrome due to genetic modification. She joined the Stellaron Hunters in search of the meaning of life, relentlessly pursuing ways to defy fate.

Firefly's Intro

Ah, finally, everyone's favourite Kamen Rider, Gundam, Orbital Frame, Samfly soon will become playable! There's a frightening lot about her that's great and a little about her that's somewhat rigid for now, but all of this culminates in one of the highest ceiling characters we've gotten so far. To leave it at that wouldn't be telling the whole story, but make no mistake, Firefly is definitely on par - or even better - than the likes of Acheron and has no trouble wiping the floor with pretty much everything that breathes.

Firefly is an entirely Break-focused unit with no inherent CRIT scaling in her kit - you’re hitting for peanuts before an enemy is Broken. Samfly is designed to take advantage of the Weakness Broken state by dealing Super Break DMG, stacking a lot of SPD and Break Effect to maximise the damage you can deal and speed up the process of Breaking foes again. The immense bonuses she gets from her kit make her expertly suited for the task of abusing Broken foes, especially with the guaranteed Fire Implant on her Enhanced Skill, as well as the ATK conversion Bonus Trace.

But there's a catch to her kit! Firefly's intrinsic Super Break is not that strong on its own. It sounds like it'd be quite strong but it's surprisingly weaker than her kit would imply. This is exacerbated by the completely fake damage her upfront multipliers give because, as mentioned before, she is an entirely Break focused unit. She can very quickly and easily get enemies Broken, but she appreciates some assistance to continue the decimation after they're already Broken.

This means Firefly needs her emotional support raccoon, the Harmony Trailblazer. The immense amount of Break Effect that the Harmony Trailblazer grants alongside the Super Break provided by the Backup Dancer effect is exactly what Firefly needs to destroy enemies. The Super Break from both characters are two separate instances, so it results in a lot of damage after enemies are Broken.

Traces and Eidolons

First, let's go over Firefly's kit - so stats, skills, major traces and minor traces - and explain how they work.

Firefly's Stats (level 80)

Firefly's Skills

Well, nothing much can be said about Firefly's basic attack - like majority of the characters, it's a simple one-target attack with average damage, but it becomes enhanced in her special state.

The enhanced Basic Attack heals Firefly and it deals more damage, but it still a one-target attack. Though compared to other Enhanced attacks, it actually does recover Skill Points, so if you will be starved for them, you can use it.

Firefly's Skill consumes 40% Max HP to deal up to 200% ATK to a single target, and recovers up to 60% Max Energy on use. If there's not enough HP, the HP is set to 1. Using this Skill will also Action Advance Firefly by 25%. This is why the 240 Energy cost of the Ultimate is less relevant, as it will always take at most 2 Skill uses to regain Firefly's Ultimate, and with the Action Advance she can further expedite the process of getting back into her Complete Combustion state.

The Enhanced Skill will now restore 25% Max HP on use, and will apply Fire Weakness to the primary target. It becomes a Blast AoE, dealing 0.2 x Break Effect + 200% ATK to the primary target, and half of this to adjacent targets. The Break Effect taken into account for this attack caps at 360%.

This Enhanced Skill deals 90 Toughness damage to the main target and 45 to adjacent foes. This is actually before the Weakness Break Efficiency from the Ultimate is applied, meaning she's actually doing 135 Toughness to the main target. Along with the forced Fire Implant, Firefly can quite quickly Break anyone without much effort, even if they're not naturally weak to Fire.

Firefly's has a colossal cost of 240 Energy, though this is not as limiting as it may initially seem. Upon using the Ultimate, Firefly enters the Complete Combustion state. She gets a 100% Action Advance, meaning it is now her turn, and she gains up to 60 SPD. The Weakness Break Efficiency of her Enhanced attacks is increased by 50% and the Break DMG received by enemies is increased by up to 20%.

This Ultimate state gets a separate countdown timer in the Action Order, much like Robin's Ultimate, with a fixed SPD of 70. The Ultimate may not be recast before it expires, but if you defeat all enemies within a cycle in Memory of Chaos, you can extend the effects of the Ultimate as the fixed SPD countdown gets thrown back down the Action Order. By default, this allows SAM to perform 3 Enhanced attacks per Ultimate usage, but with enough Speed, you can increase it up to 4.

Firefly's Talent provides her with DMG Reduction based on how low her health is, capping out when her health is at or below 20% Max HP and giving her up to a 40% DMG Reduction. However, during her Ultimate she will always have the maximum amount, and additionally gain 30% Effect RES on top. When her Energy reaches 100% in combat, all of her debuffs will be dispelled, meaning she will almost never be subject to pesky stat-reducing debuffs when she goes to destroy enemies in her Ultimate. This Talent will also ensure Firefly starts every fight with at least 50% Max Energy if she is below 50% when combat starts.

Firefly's Major Traces

• A2 will allow SAM in Complete Combustion to deal 55% of the original Toughness damage to enemies that are not weak to Fire. This is not always useful since her Enhanced Skill Implants Fire Weakness, but it will affect the adjacent that don't get Implanted.
• The A4 states that while SAM is in the Complete Combustion state with 200%/360% Break Effect or more, attacking a Broken enemy will convert the Toughness reducing damage of this into a single instance of 35%/50% Super Break DMG.
• The A6 also has a stat conversion, turning every 10 points of ATK beyond 1800 into an extra 0.8% Break Effect.

Firefly's Minor Traces

Break Effect

+37.3%

Effect RES

+18%

Speed

+5

Eidolons

Now let's check Firefly's Eidolons and how they affect her buffing capabilities and damage output.

Firefly's Eidolons

Eidolons reviewed

• E1 when using the Enhanced Skill, the DMG dealt ignores 15% DEF, and more importantly, the Enhanced Skill will no longer consume Skill Points. This alone opens up the possibility for far more SP heavy support characters like Bronya, and makes it that much easier to reach 100% DEF reduction with the right setups.
• E2 is extremely impressive and the one to go for, making it so that whenever an enemy is defeated or Broken while under Complete Combustion, SAM gets an Extra Turn, with a 1 turn cooldown between triggering this effect. Basically you get Seele's Resurgence but without the need to worry about SP (since you're already past E1 at this stage).
• E3, E4, and E5 are largely filler on the way to E6 (though E4's 50% Effect RES is quite nice).
• E6 grants SAM 20% Fire RES PEN under Complete Combustion, and provides an additional 50% Weakness Break Efficiency when using either Enhanced attack, for a new total of 100% Weakness Break Efficiency, literally doubling the Toughness damage of the attacks.

Relics and Light Cones

Recommended Main and Substats

Body

ATK

Feet

Speed

Planar Sphere

ATK

Link Rope

Break Effect

Substats:

SPD (until Breakpoint) > Break Effect > ATK%

See Also

Memory of Chaos Analytics | Honkai: Star Rail | Prydwen Institute

Recommended Endgame Stats (while buffed in combat)

• HP: 2600+
• SPD: 150 (outside Combustion) / 210 (in Combustion)
• 165 Speed (or higher) outside the Combustion state guarantees you an extra action in the Cycle 0 of Memory of Chaos.
• Break Effect: 360%

More info about the stats:

Outside of BREAK EFFECT%, SPEED, and to a lesser extent ATK% (as it grants BREAK EFFECT% thanks to Firefly's bonus ability) traditional damaging stats like CRIT RATE, CRIT DMG or DMG% have very little use for Firefly as almost the entirety of her damage is pure BREAK or SUPER BREAK damage. Here are some additional comments.

• SPEED:
• Speed is an essential stat for Firefly as it enables her to hit an incredibly potent Speed breakpoint within her kit, allowing her to execute 4 Enhanced Skills during her Ultimate as opposed the the usual 3. This is of course on top of all the usual benefits Speed provides. Almost all of Firefly's damage stems from her Enhanced Skills so it goes without saying every Firefly around is going to want the 4th one and fortunately it's not too hard. Here is how much Speed you'll need exactly in a number of different scenarios to get that 4 skill activation:
• 210 Speed total while in Combustion state is the goal,
• This translates to needing 150 Speed before the Combustion state (you'll get 60 when entering the state),
• When using Ruan Mei or similar permanent Speed buffers that grant roughly 10% you can get away with 140/141 (Ruan Mei grants 10% which is 10.4 Speed for Firefly),
• 165 Speed (or higher) outside the Combustion state guarantees you an extra action in the Cycle 0 of Memory of Chaos.
• Break Effect%:
• When playing Firefly outside of stacking enough Speed to hit her 4-skill breakpoint your other main objective is hitting 360% Break Effect (while buffed) to enable her 50% Super Break bonus ability. Also, thanks to the vast majority of Firefly's damage of course being break-related stacking Break Effect % is simply the best way to increase her damage from raw stats. Outside of Speed and ATK% (as it can become Break), Break Effect is the only stat Firefly really has to pursue so don't be stingy when targetting it even at the cost of all other damage sub-stats you might be used to like CRIT.
• ATK%:
• ATK is a funny stat for Firefly as she doesn't gain close to anything from the traditional uses of the stat with all of her damage being from BREAK and SUPER BREAK. The sole purpose of the ATK stat on Firefly is to gain the additional bonuses from having over 1800 of it from her bonus ability Module y: Core Overload granting her 0.8% Break Effect for every 10 ATK over 1800. This exchange is quite a good one but still doesn't make stacking Attack as good as stacking pure Break Effect - although if you've got a high base Attack Cone equipped, it can get quite close when comparing sub-stats for example (keep in mind though Firefly's signature has low base ATK for a 5 star Cone so Break will still be better). As a general rule Break is generally always the better option when comparing the two but taking 2 ATK% subs over 1 BREAK EFFECT % sub might be something to consider especially with the high base Attack in mind.

Recommended Relic Sets

100%

(2)

Increases Break Effect by 16%.

(4)

If the wearer's Break Effect is 150% or higher, ignores 10% of the enemy target's DEF when dealing Break DMG to them. When the wearer's Break Effect is 250% or higher, the Super Break DMG they deal to enemy targets additionally ignores 15% of the targets' DEF.

Best and most consistent set for Firefly by a significant margin, granting her BREAK EFFECT% but more importantly DEF SHRED for her Break and Super Breaks. As a break-focused character, stats that boost that damage are rare making DEF SHRED absurdly valuable for her.

96.32%

(2)

Increases Quantum DMG by 10%.

(4)

When the wearer deals DMG to the target enemy, ignores 10% DEF. If the target enemy has Quantum Weakness, the wearer additionally ignores 10% DEF.

[Assumes the enemy is Quantum weak]. A set with similar potential albeit a little bit lower than 4P Iron Cavalry, but with the big caveat that it's only at half power when against enemies that aren't Quantum weak and also is missing 16% break effect. In Firefly's best teams, you won't have any way to guarantee Quantum Weakness on enemies, meaning unless the enemy is naturally weak this set will be at half power more often than not.

90.88%

(2)

Increases Quantum DMG by 10%.

(4)

When the wearer deals DMG to the target enemy, ignores 10% DEF. If the target enemy has Quantum Weakness, the wearer additionally ignores 10% DEF.

[Assumes the enemy is not Quantum weak]

90.72%

(2)

Increases Break Effect by 16%

(4)

Increases the wearer's Break Effect by 16%. When the wearer inflicts Weakness Break on an enemy, regenerates 3 Energy.

Mixing two 2P Break Effect bonuses or using a 4P Thief set is never bad on Firefly, especially while trying to hit her bonus ability goal of 360%. But ultimately Break is a stat she can gain a large amount of from her ideal teammates and other sources like her ATK% conversion bonus ability. This means she would much rather DEF SHRED or similar debuffing stats as they scale much better in full team scenarios.

Recommended Planetary Sets

100%

(2)

Increase the wearer's SPD by 6%. When the wearer hits enemy targets with Fire Weakness, the wearer's Break Effect increases by 40%, lasting for 1 turn(s).

Best Planar Set for Firefly, offering her some much-appreciated Speed so she can reach the desired Speed breakpoint easier and tremendous amount of Break Effect on top of that.

96.45%

(2)

Increases the wearer's Break Effect by 16%. When the wearer's SPD reaches 145 or higher, the wearer's Break effect increases by an extra 20%.

A reasonable alternative to Forge of Kalpagni with a similar Break% but no Speed bonus. If you've already got Speed covered and aren't looking for more this set isn't much of a downgrade.

94.10%

(2)

Increases the wearer's ATK by 12%. When the wearer's SPD reaches 120 or higher, the wearer's ATK increases by an extra 12%.

A stop-gap option that isn't terrible but isn't great on Firefly and relies heavily on you having a Cone with reasonable base Attack to compete. Should be used only until you have one of the better options.

Recommended Light Cones

116.91%

Increases the wearer's Break Effect by 60%. When the wearer deals Break DMG to an enemy target, inflicts Routed on the enemy, lasting for 2 turn(s). Targets afflicted with Routed receive 24% increased Break DMG from the wearer, and their SPD is lowered by 20%. Effects of the similar type cannot be stacked.

Source: Event Warp (limited)

Firefly's signature offers her a tremendous 60% Break Effect and a 24% damage taken debuff that multiplies all of her Break damage. Both of these are ideal for amplifying Firefly's damage but aren't something she cannot get elsewhere from the rest of her team. Break Effect can be acquired from her relics and teammates and as for the damage-taken debuff, she already has one that stacks additively with the Cone attached to her ultimate and Gallagher's damage-taken debuff also stacks additively with this as well. The combination of these facts means that while this Cone amplifies Firefly's personal damage fairly well, its value can drop off depending on which teammates you decide to pair with her.

100%

Whenever the wearer attacks, their ATK is increased by 8/10/12/14/16% in this battle, up to 4 time(s). When the wearer inflicts Weakness Break on enemies, the wearer's DMG increases by 12/15/18/21/24% for 2 turn(s).

Source: Herta's Store

Best free-to-play option for Firefly, offering up an incredible amount of ATK% and a strong amount of base ATK resulting in a sizable amount of Break Effect from her bonus ability as a result. The raw Break Effect gained thanks to her conversion is enough to make this Cone a strong option if you're not in the market for going for her Signature, especially if you make up for some of the lost damage multipliers through effective use of team building (you can gain damage taken multiplier similar to the one on the Signature from Gallagher shrinking the gap between the two Cones).

97.32%

Increases the wearer's Break Effect by 28/35/42/49/56%. When the wearer uses their Ultimate, increases CRIT Rate by 15/18.75/22.5/26.25/30%, lasting for 2 turns.

Source: Stellar Warp

An option for those who do not have Fall of An Aeon S5 available either due to it being used on another character or still waiting in the Herta's Shop (you should get on that for Firefly's sake!)

94.73%

Increases the wearer's ATK by 24/28/32/36/40%. When the wearer defeats an enemy or is hit, immediately restores HP equal to 8/9/10/11/12% of the wearer's ATK. At the same time, the wearer's DMG is increased by 24/28/32/36/40% until the end of their next turn. This effect cannot stack and can only trigger 1 time per turn.

Source: Stellar Warp

Calculations

Damage profile (solo)

Damage profile (with Harmony MC)

The difference with and without Harmony MC is staggering, like, Firefly is not the same character without the Trailblazer by her side.

Damage calculations

The simulation showcases characters damage potential in the 8 cycle turn limit of Memory of Chaos against 1 target. The section below has all the rules listed.

Firefly disclaimers:

• The damage char below compares Firefly damage output when you play her with Harmony MC and without them. Harmony MC personal damage isn't included and only their buffs and most importantly, their Super Break mechanic is (yes, Super Break is that important for Firefly),
• Firefly’s Super Break is capped at 50%, while Harmony MC’s Super Break can be as high as 160%,
• The damage is simulated against a single boss enemy and Break is fully simulated and included into the calculations.

Light Cone

Whenever the wearer attacks, their ATK is increased by 8/10/12/14/16% in this battle, up to 4 time(s). When the wearer inflicts Weakness Break on enemies, the wearer's DMG increases by 12/15/18/21/24% for 2 turn(s).

Source: Herta's Store

Relic Set

(2)

Increases Break Effect by 16%.

(4)

If the wearer's Break Effect is 150% or higher, ignores 10% of the enemy target's DEF when dealing Break DMG to them. When the wearer's Break Effect is 250% or higher, the Super Break DMG they deal to enemy targets additionally ignores 15% of the targets' DEF.

Planetary Sets

(2)

Increase the wearer's SPD by 6%. When the wearer hits enemy targets with Fire Weakness, the wearer's Break Effect increases by 40%, lasting for 1 turn(s).

Relic Stats

Body

ATK%

Feet

Speed

Planar Sphere

ATK%

Link Rope

Break Effect

Substats:

ATK (19.4%), Speed (11.5), Break Effect (81.6%)

Synergy and Teams

Firefly's Synergy

Below you can find some characters that Firefly has great synergy with.

Firefly's Best Teams

What's Next?

That's the end of the early impressions article for Firefly and we hope you did enjoy it! As we mentioned in the introduction section, full Firefly guide will be released and placed on her profile once she's properly available in the game and then she will be also added to our tier list.

Till then!