Honkai: Star RailFireflyBest build, teams and other guides

[Overview]

Firefly is a Destruction Superbreak main DPS with the ability to Implant Fire Weakness onto her enemies. She is extremely fast acting, and has a strong self-sufficient Energy loop to enter her Enhanced state through her Ultimate. She deals high amounts of Super Break DMG to Weakness Broken foes, and can extend her Enhanced state by Breaking foes. She is also inordinately durable, possessing very high persistent damage reduction and Effect RES, and even heals herself whenever she attacks in her Enhanced state. 

[Intro]

The black swan of this round of Novaflares (no not that Black Swan, she was last round), I don't think anyone really expected an already top performing DPS to be getting buffed, but here we are.

I really want to say that the buffs has fixed all of Firefly's issues, but not all of them have been, and maybe even a new issue has shown up. It's not like a real issue, it's kinda fake actually, but it is something that can mess with some peoples' old setups for Firefly.

She was already strong when she got a new teammate that literally revived the archetype, and now she's getting buffed again.

Curious.

[Abilities]

Firefly has an Enhanced state that is entered with her Ultimate, and she is strongest within that state. Using her Ultimate will enter the Complete Combustion state, advancing Firefly's action by 100%.

In Complete Combustion, her Basic ATK and Skill are Enhanced, her SPD is increased by 60, and she gets an extra 50% Weakness Break Efficiency when attacking, while also increasing the Break DMG enemies receive from her by 20%.

A countdown timer for the Complete Combustion state appears on the Action Order with a fixed SPD of 70. Once this passes, Firefly will exit the Complete Combustion state automatically. She cannot use her Ultimate before the countdown is finished, so you can't stay in the Ultimate permanently.

Her regular Skill will consume 40% of Firefly's Max HP and attack a single enemy for 200% ATK. This attack will also regenerate 60% of Firefly's Max Energy, and will Advance her next action by 25%. This is what helps Firefly to get back into her Enhanced state as quickly as possible, and the massive percentage Energy restore means that at worst, it will only take her 2 turns to re-enter her Ultimate.

Due to Firefly's Ultimate costing an insane 240 Energy, it's unlikely that she will be able to have enough Energy restored for a 1 turn re-entry without specific teammates like The Dahlia to help her out.

The Enhanced Skill completely changes its tune though. Attacking will restore 25% Max HP to Firefly. This is now a Blast AoE that applies a Fire Weakness to the enemies that you hit for 2 turns. Then it deals DMG equal to (0.2 x Break Effect + 200% ATK) to the primary target, dealing half the amount to the adjacent foes.

Despite how awful that looks, it really is fairly meaningless. This isn't where the real damage is from at all, we need to wait until the Bonus Traces for that, so you can safely ignore this.

Firefly's Talent will grant her damage reduction based on how low her HP is. When her HP is at 20% of lower, she will gain the maximum reduction of 40%. During the Complete Combustion state, Firefly is always benefitting from the 40% DMG Reduction, and will additionally gain 30% Effect RES.

When entering combat, if Firefly's Energy is less than 50%, it will be set to 50%, and when her Energy reaches 100%, all debuffs currently on Firefly will be removed. This starting Energy allows Firefly to enter her Ultimate after her very first turn thanks to her normal Skill restoring 60% Max Energy. The debuff cleanse is great but it'll come up so infrequently due to Firefly's own good Energy economy, and there's also nothing stopping you from getting afflicted by debuffs after the initial cleanse goes off, so just ignore this line for the most part, I say.

Due to the SPD boost provided by the Complete Combustion state, it's pretty effortless to reach over 200 effective SPD in combat, made even easier if you have Firefly's premium teammates.

Maintaining the gameplay loop for Firefly is quite easy and intuitive.

[Bonus Traces]

A2 has received a bit of a revamp due to Firefly actually being able to apply Fire Weakness in a limited AoE now, so the old 55% Break Efficiency for non Fire-Weak foes is redundant.

Instead, Firefly gets a 25% Break Effect boost during Complete Combustion, and Breaking an enemy with her Enhanced Basic or Enhanced Skill will cause the Complete Combustion countdown (the one in the Action Order) to be delayed by 10%. This can trigger up to 3 times in one Complete Combustion cycle.

This is what I was alluding to by a new 'fake' issue. There are rotations where it's important for Firefly to be able to leave the Complete Combustion state, use a normal Skill (that under the right circumstances deals some good damage too), and then immediately re-enter the Complete Combustion state. This advances you by 100% and so you get an immediate Enhanced Skill again.

Delaying the countdown timer can prevent this from happening, and in those specific cases, now you'd actually lose the 'free' unenhanced Skill. In general though, this simply doesn't matter, especially for the overwhelming majority of people, and trying to account for this without being very familiar with SPD mechanics will probably just cause more issues and headache. Maintaining the extra 60 SPD from the Enhanced state for longer is generally just fine.

A4 has been turbo buffed. Previously, this would grant 35% Super Break DMG against Broken foes if you had 200% Break Effect, rising to 50% Super Break DMG if you had at least 360% Break Effect. Unsurprisingly this completely sucked and is nothing short of insulting for a supposed Super Break focused DPS to have.

Rest easy because the Super Break DMG values have been increased massively, now providing 100% Super Break DMG at the first threshold, and 150% Super Break DMG at the second one. Damn, imagine being competent at the one thing you do. This was why people were so up in arms about it on her release, because she literally wasn't functional without the Harmony Trailblazer's assistance.

The thresholds for reaching these Super Break bonuses have also been lowered to 150% and 300% respectively, making them much more accessible for the majority of people without having to sacrifice other luxuries like SPD.

The ATK is for the A6, by the way. Top segue. For every 10 points of ATK that exceeds 1800, you gain 0.8% Break Effect. This, amusingly enough, hasn't got an upper limit to it. Yeah, this just... goes on and on if you can keep pumping ATK.

100 ATK is 8% Break Effect, slightly nicer numbers (c'mon devs, you didn't think to put it in integer form, what are you twelve?) and this is going to be a big way that you reach the upper threshold for the A4. It also means that any outside sources of ATK and ATK% can actually be surprisingly good for Firefly, even if those sources don't otherwise provide Break Effect up front (achoo *Bronya*).

Minor Traces are also pretty good, even more Effect RES is kind of whatever, but the extra Break Effect to get to the threshold is great. 5 SPD is 5 SPD.

[Eidolons]

The usual disclaimer about Eidolons here. As an older unit it's not too surprising for people to have Eidolons, especially since she's a favourite and has had a couple reruns now.

E1 is unchanged. Using the Enhanced Skill against enemies will ignore 15% of the targets' DEF, and the Enhanced Skill will no longer consume Skill Points. Great to have, both effects are great for damage and quality of life.

E2 has been... Let me check my notes real quick... THEY BUFFED THIS??? Completely inexplicably, might I add. This was already her best Eidolon given what it did and how early it was.

It's the same as before, using Enhanced Skill or Enhanced Basic to defeat an enemy or to Break them will grant Firefly 1 extra turn, and this had a 1 turn cooldown, so you couldn't use it on repeat. That limitation is now gone. Yeah. So now you can gain that extra turn on EVERY turn. Hey at least it's still limited to one extra turn per turn or we'd really be in trouble, wouldn't we?

Incomprehensible, may god have mercy on your wretched soul.

E4 is unchanged, granting a bonus 50% Effect RES during Complete Combustion, making you functionally un-debuffable.

E6 is also unchanged, granting 20% Fire RES PEN during the Enhanced state, and providing a further 50% Weakness Break Efficiency boost to the Enhanced Basic and Enhanced Skill.

[The Rest]

Going into it, I thought that I'd probably have the least to say about Firefly out of all the characters, and now that I'm here, I can see that I was absolutely right about that.

She's already a top performer, I'm still somewhat baffled by the decision to Novaflare her... Is what I would say if her A4 Trace wasn't hot garbage before this update to her. Seriously, how that thing made it through playtesting is beyond me, and now finally Firefly is able to be unbound from the necessity of playing with another source of Super Break.

Just in time for sustainless Firefly teams to become pretty widespread. Missing the mark yet again, eh? Well, better for us I guess, having both Fugue and the Harmony Trailblazer on the same team as Constance and Firefly is nothing short of nuclear, with these buffs especially. Enemies can't hurt you if they're a cwispy cwater now can they?

Aside from that, the overall team hasn't changed pretty much at all. Either you have The Dahlia, or you're not running Super Break. The environment without Constance just doesn't really allow for Super Break to function without her. It wasn't really that long ago that this archetype was literally dead in a ditch, so don't go using the Firefly Novaflare as an excuse to run weird stuff.

... But since you're here, let's talk about Bronya. Hey! Hey, sit down! Listen, Bronya gives Firefly additional actions, and also gives her a decent ATK boost through her Ultimate (even if it only lasts a couple turns)... Okay a big part of it is because of that Battle Pass Harmony Light Cone that increases the team's Break DMG dealt, but DDD is fine too, you know?

This is definitely a Pure Fiction only strategy, and it's not really something I'd recommend for an E0 Firefly unless your Bronya already has a few Eidolons in her, but if you have at least an E2 Firefly and your Enhanced Skills don't cost SP anymore, and you get the extra turns to kill things even faster... Hey, it's there, and it's pretty cool. The delicate balancing act of advancing Bronya just enough to line her up with Firefly gets me all giddy, but I'm a wacko who enjoys SPD discussions for fun.

If you want to be safer and go with a sustain, your only two real options are Gallagher and Lingsha, though they're also somewhat improved by Firefly's improved Weakness Implanting from this Novaflare. Ruan Mei can be a good middle ground, offering some offensive and defensive value, and she's also pretty accessible since she's in the 5-star shop.

Oh, and since you can save the Trailblazer's Path per team preset, you can switch between your Break and non-Break setups much more easily. Just remember that the Remembrance Trailblazer is peak design and hotly contested, and the Elation Trailblazer just showed up to the archetype that's currently being shilled (and will likely continue to be shilled), so maybe make a preset that doesn't rely on having the Harmony Trailblazer in it. I know how hard it is to give up DDD, but you may need to consider it depending on what the endgame boss line-up looks like.

Firefull Flyshine, indeed.

[Wrap up]

If you're looking to get into Break and you've got the pieces but never quite experimented with them, now would be the time to do that. The team is highly competitive, and even has preferable matchups into a lot of the unpleasant Bosses.

This team also has a pretty good time brute-forcing content thanks to The Dahlia's whole 'You should take Super Break DMG, NOW!' thing she has going on, so the full premium team is gonna stick around for quite a while I reckon.

If you don't have all of these constituent parts, then it's the same story as always, you should get the important supports first (this is a thinly veiled way of saying that you get The Dahlia first and foremost), and hold off until you have the full ensemble. Three copies of Exodia's Left Leg aren't gonna really accomplish much, and to add to that, even though these are some great changes for Firefly, she still isn't quite on the same sort of level as the capital M 'Mistake' characters, like a certain pink-haired jellyfish, so how far you could push it into the future is entirely dependent on your own investment into Firefly.

For now, at the very least, it's way more than enough, so for the Firefly havers (and especially the E2 havers), congratulations! You had enough foresight to choose one of the devs' favourites.