HoyanBuild and Guide

Releasing alongside her twin brother Holden, Hoyan is a Hollow burst and revive specialist who struggles a bit to fully realize her potential in PVE; however, the threat that her revives pose to the enemy can make her difficult to confront in PvP, often destabilizing the opponent’s game plans.

Hoyan’s S1 is a straightforward 2-hit single target ability that inflicts okay damage and features a low chance to apply a 1-2 turn [Wound] with each hit. While the chance to land the Debuff is awfully low, [Wound] is an extremely powerful effect that is usually only applied for one turn. Raising this skill to level 5 makes the Wound last two turns, which in most cases is a death sentence to any Animus if they do not have access to Cleanse or abundant Shields.

Her S3 is a powerful 1-hit nuke that costs Hoyan half of her current HP whenever she casts it. In exchange, for every 10% of her missing Max HP, the attack deals 10% more damage up to 90%, skyrocketing its output and (with proper buffs - including her S2) gives her incredible Burst potential. Her S3 also has a very low cooldown and, thanks to her S2 (which we’ll cover next), also has a way to instantly trigger it for free at the maximum boost value of 90%. You can absolutely expect Hoyan to be using many, many ultimates in fights when fully geared.

Hoyan’s aforementioned S2 is where the complexity of her kit lies, summing it up, though it does three things:

• First, it allows her to cheat death once every four actions (when maxed), leaving her at 1 HP and also granting her Soul Ward for one turn (protection from death while active). After this cheat death triggers, Hoyan will also immediately use her S3 (at maximum DMG% boost thanks to being on 1% HP) regardless of its current cooldown.

• Second, it allows her to revive fallen allies whenever slaying an enemy; enemies slain by her are also banned from revival.

• Third, whenever either of the above occurs, she’ll gain a stacking ATK% boost which maxes out at 3 stacks.

Overall, Hoyan is a polarizing character; she’s either absurdly dominant, dealing tremendous damage in PVE with max passive stacks and frequent death prevention, while also being an absolute unkillable menace that snipes your team in PVP. Or she sits at zero stacks in PVE, dealing mediocre damage without any way to trigger her passive or for any allies to revive, while getting completely countered in PVP by characters like Massiah, Borgne, and Heinrich - which effectively render her passive and death prevention null.

In PVE, Hoyan’s damage potential is hard to fully unlock, as the most reliable way to gain stacks of her unique ATK+ is by having her survive killing blows repeatedly, and without it, her damage fails to take off. The ‘easiest’ way to gather stacks is by playing tankier allies while Hoyan becomes the sole glass cannon of the team. In this way, she is more likely to be targeted or to die from strong AOEs, and her allies can survive long enough to see her bloom into her ultimate form. Running her with CD reduction like Lily, Tsukiyo Mi, Beyontin, or Dorothy the Wisher (to name a few of the more offense-oriented Buffers) is a great way of cycling her S2 faster and capitalizing even more on the short CD of her S3. This remains a difficult setup to exploit properly, but the pay-off can be just as rewarding.

In PVP, Hoyan can be a monster, with a few ways of building her to very different effects:

• In general, a well-drafted glass cannon Hoyan is incredibly deadly, since without any counters to oppose her, she is guaranteed to take her turn or counter, removing an enemy from existence with every S3 or S2 activation. Drafting her late is a better way to go about it, but be careful that your opponent doesn’t secure her first!

• On the other hand, surprising the enemy with a more sturdy build that relies on slowly gaining the advantage by permanently killing an enemy and reviving an ally can give you an edge in stall matchups.

Beware of Celince, Massiah, Borgne, and Heinrich, to name some of the harder counters to her, as they can disable Passive effects or remove the [Soul Ward] and finish her off with Shell damage.

Also, here are some extra things to note about Hoyan’s unique interactions:

• Hoyan’s passive [Fleeting Glance] stacks are lost when Hoyan dies, which means she has to restart the process of stacking them if she gets revived by Sania, for example.

• Heinrich’s Buff block does not stop Hoyan from surviving on 1 HP, but will stop her from gaining Soul Ward, allowing her to be sniped by his teammates or an after-attack Shell he may have equipped (assuming he was targeting her).

• Borgne and Massiah S3 ignore passive effects on enemies, and they can kill Hoyan immediately - her passive cheat death will not trigger if the last hit is done by those abilities.

• Hoyan’s [Fleeting Glance] passive is gained after the S2 trigger of her ultimate, meaning it will not immediately benefit from the 40% boost.