Damage Types and Weaknesses are two important factors to understand in Honkai Star Rail. Using the right combinations can lead to quick victories, reducing enemy Toughness and triggering other useful effects. This is what we know about Weaknesses and how to utilize them to your advantage in Honkai: Star Rail.
All Damage Types and Enemy Weaknesses Explained
There are seven damage types (or Combat Types) in Honkai: Star Rail that directly correlate to enemy weaknesses. Each character, including the main character, has a particular damage type for their skills. For example, Stelle and Caelus deal Physical damage, Dan Heng deals Wind damage, and March 7th deals Ice damage.
The damage types have their own symbols, which are used to show enemy weakness before and during engagements. You can find these symbols by opening your character menu and clicking the Combat Types option in the top right. You’ll quickly memorize them.
The damage types and their in-game descriptions are:
- Physical: Using physical attacks to trigger Weakness Break will deal Physical DMG and apply the Bleed effect, dealing Physical DoT.
- Fire: Using Fire attacks to trigger Weakness Break will deal Fire DMG and apply the Burn effect, dealing Fire DoT.
- Ice: Using Ice attacks to trigger Weakness Break will deal Ice DMG and Freeze the target, immobilizing the enemy and dealing additional Ice DMG.
- Wind: Using Wind attacks to trigger Weakness Break will deal Wind DMG and apply the Wind Shear effect, dealing Wind DoT.
- Lightning: Using Lightning attacks to trigger Weakness Break will deal Lightning DMG and apply the Shock effect, dealing Lightning DoT.
- Quantum: Using Quantum attacks to inflict Weakness Break will deal Quantum DMG and cause Entanglement, delaying the enemy’s action and dealing additional Quantum DMG to the affected enemy at the start of the next turn. When the enemy is hit, this extra DMG will increase.
- Imaginary: When using an Imaginary attack to inflict Weakness Break on target enemy, the attack will deal Imaginary DMG and inflicts Imprisonment. Imprisoned enemies suffer from delayed actions and SPD reduction.
Screenshot by GameSkinny
Exploiting Enemy Weaknesses Before Battle
As you approach enemies, you can see their weaknesses displayed above them, with each symbol correlating to a specific damage type. Keep an eye out as you approach them.
If you hit/engage enemies with a corresponding attack or skill ahead of battle, “Weakness” will flash on the screen as you go into battle, and you’ll gain an advantage. Keep this in mind and switch characters as needed while exploring.
Exploiting Weaknesses in Battle
During combat is when using weaknesses against your enemies really shines. It’ll allow you to momentarily stun/freeze/immobilize your opponent, inflict extra damage, and win battles easier.
To see what weaknesses an enemy may have while in battle, look above their Toughness bar (white) and Health bar (red). You can also open their information to view weaknesses.
Toughness and Weakness Break
Hitting an enemy with an attack it’s weak to inflicts some damage, but also removes some of its Toughness. Toughness is an enemy’s resistance to attacks and is only reduced when hit by attacks it’s weak to.
When the Toughness bar hits zero, you’ll inflict a Weakness Break. This inflicts additional damage as well as causes a status debuff. When the enemy’s turn starts, they’ll recover from it, refilling their Toughness bar.
While an enemy is Broken, they’ll take more damage from all attacks. When they have some Toughness, the modifier for damage is only 90%. Once that Toughness bar disappears, however, the modifier goes up to 100%, regardless of what damage type the attack is.
Utilizing correlating damage types and weaknesses in battle can often mean the difference between victory and defeat. If enemies in a particular area all have the same weakness, it may be in your best interest to switch up your team to exploit that damage type. Formidable enemies and bosses can be blasted down quickly when using weaknesses. For more, check out our other Honkai Star Rail guides.
Featured image via HoYoverse.
