Is it worth pull Ruan Mei in Honkai: Star Rail ?

In Honkai: Star Rail Ruan Mei is a member of the Genius Society and an experienced expert in the field of biological sciences, who has become playable character after the start of the first phase of update 1.6. This guide will tell you whether or not Ruan Mei is worth spinning after launching her banner. We will tell you about the key features of the heroine, indicating who exactly should knock her out, and who can skip her Jump with peace of mind.

Main Features of Ruan Mei

Pros and cons of Ruan Mei

First, let's briefly tell you what this lovely explorer is all about - she is a 5-star Ice character belonging to the Harmony path. Her set of abilities is aimed at strengthening allies by increasing their damage, vulnerability penetration efficiency and speed. Next, we will briefly consider the main advantages and disadvantages of the heroine. The first include:

She has a fairly high base attack power for a Harmony character, which allows her to inflict good ice damage (for support) to enemies with regular attacks, which she will use quite often.
Capable of passively inflicting damage when allies break through enemy vulnerabilities or when opponents try to restore their stamina. The amount of damage depends not on the strength of the heroine’s attack, but on the penetration effect. This brings her a little closer to being a sub-DD.
An extremely versatile buffer, as it is capable of directly increasing all damage dealt by allies and their speed without any additional conditions. Can further increase damage with the help of Trace, but with certain requirements (more details in the disadvantages).
Significantly buffs the effectiveness of breaking through vulnerabilities of allies, allowing them to keep enemies in a broken state for almost the entire cycle (they will not be able to attack you), and we remind you that without durability, resistance to all types of damage among mobs drops by 10%. In addition, it reveals in a new way mechanics of breaking through vulnerabilities, allowing you to build new battle tactics for her (more details in the section on how to play Ruan Mei).
It is quite easy to assemble, since you will not need to spend your energy on pumping up many characteristics, trying to perfectly balance them - it will be enough to increase the penetration effect, energy recovery and speed for a confident buff to your allies. In addition, the penetration effect and speed are increased by traces.
It can perfectly fulfill its main role without opening eidolons and purchasing signature weapons, which F2P players will certainly like. At the same time, unlocking eidolons is not a waste of time and resources, as it enhances the positive aspects of the heroine and allows you to give her additional capabilities on the battlefield.
Saves and generates new skill points for the team, since its abilities can last several turns.
It is highly advisable to take it to Virtual universe, since it allows you to inflict significant damage on enemies and break through their vulnerabilities at the very beginning of the battle.
It has considerable potential in the long term, when more damage dealers of different elements appear in the game, aimed at breaking through vulnerabilities. Therefore, it can be considered a good investment in the future of your account.

However, this talented scientist should not be considered an ideal character, since she has a number of disadvantages, and some may find them quite significant:

The damage from regular attacks and passives, although not bad for a support, is however not high enough for Ruan Mei to be considered a full-fledged sub-detonator. You can make a damage dealer out of her only by opening the fourth and sixth Eidolons, so it will be inaccessible to many players.
Basic defense and health indicators leave much to be desired, which negatively affects its survivability, so you will have to take care of having a good shieldman/healer in your team or try to increase its HP and defense with secondary stats from relics.
The duration of the buffs depends on the number of turns of Ruan Mei, that is, if she manages to walk twice in a cycle, the bonus from her ult will immediately disappear. It is advisable that she does not do this before the damage dealers. This leads to the need to properly balance the speed so that it is not too high or low.
The high cost of the superpower (130 units) makes the heroine very demanding in terms of energy restoration. You will have to sacrifice the connecting rope by taking it to the VE.
To get the maximum increase in damage from the “Candlelights on the surface of the water” trail, you will have to increase the penetration effect to at least 180%, which can be very problematic if you do not have the necessary cones.
It fully reveals its potential only if the player has a larger roster of characters, when he can choose between damage dealers of different elements to receive various bonuses from breaking through vulnerabilities (more details below).

More detailed information about the characteristics, abilities and eidolons of Ruan Mei, as well as tactics for playing for her, can be found in our separate detailed manual.

Reasons to rock Ruan Mei

Now that it is more or less clear to you what this heroine is capable of, you can answer the question of who should knock her out. If you have Silver Wolf (Nothingness: Quantum) or are you planning to knock out a 4-star Xueyi (Destruction: Quantum), which will be present in the same banner.

The first will allow you to impose vulnerabilities on your enemies that correspond to the elements of your damage dealers, so you won’t necessarily have to keep a ton of pumped-up fighters for each enemy. The second, with the help of her ult, can break through any type of resistance, which again reduces the need for a large number of damage control of different elements.

Here are some more reasons why you might want to pull this character:

You liked its gameplay and/or appearance. Still, don't look at just the numbers - if you like the way the heroine looks and are comfortable playing as her, then you can ignore the statistics (use a test run to evaluate them).
You urgently need another good buffer to create a second powerful team for passing Halls of Oblivion and other activities.
You have a large number of damage dealers of different elements that could use increased damage, speed and efficiency of breaking through vulnerabilities, or you are planning to expand their number in the near future.
You are looking not only at the present, but also looking far into the future, since the game will likely have more characters that can ignore the type of shields of enemies or impose the necessary vulnerabilities on them.

Reasons not to spin Ruan Mei

If you do not have a large selection of damage dealers of different elements and this situation is unlikely to change in the future, and you do not plan to knock out Xuei and there is no Silver Wolf in your team, then the usefulness of Ruan Mei for you may decrease slightly.

If you also have well-leveled buffers on your account, such as Tingyun, Yukun, Asta and Armor, then we do not recommend that you pull out Ruan Mei, since these supports will be enough for any purpose.

Be sure to also consider banners of other heroes. In the first half of update 2.0, for example, the developers will release Sparkle (Harmony: Fire), which can increase the critical damage of allies, advance their action forward and restore skill points. Perhaps, in your particular case, it will bring you more benefit than this talented biologist.

In patch 1.6, with an increased probability it will be possible to get Kafka and Blade, who perform the role of a primary or secondary damage dealer well. If you have a shortage of damage dealers, then saving star jades for Stellaron hunters may be a good solution.

conclusions

To summarize the above, Ruan Mei can be called an excellent support, which is suitable for all players who feel an acute lack of buffers. However, she will be able to reveal her full potential only on those accounts where there are a large number of damage dealers of different elements.