All Honkai: Star Rail Paths and Damage Types explained

Everything you need to know about Honkai: Star Rail’s class system
All Honkai: Star Rail Paths and Damage Types explained
All Honkai: Star Rail Paths and Damage Types explained /

Each Honkai: Star Rail character follows a certain Path that defines their role in combat. Every figure uses the power of a certain element as well, which specifies their Damage Type. If you’re familiar with HoYoverse’s flagship title, Genshin Impact, you could compare the characters’ Damage Types to their Visions and the Paths to their weapon classes.

A character’s Path defines their general combat role, which helps with building balanced teams, and is the determining factor as to which Light Cones they are able to use – these are items they can equip to enhance their stats and gain additional effects.

The Damage Type is critical in combat, as certain enemies will have weaknesses to a specific type. Each Damage Type also has a unique effect when breaking an opponent’s resistance. It’s good to have basic knowledge of each of these effects, as they are important when it comes to making decisions in battle.

Here’s everything you need to know about Paths and Damage Types in Honkai: Star Rail.

Honkai: Star Rail – all Paths

There are seven different Paths a character can belong to, each of which is associated with one specific Aeon – powerful, almost god-like beings. They form a loose class system for the game’s characters and are the basis for many of the factions you’ll encounter on your adventures.

  • The Preservation – focuses on creating shields and raising the team’s defense.
  • The Destruction – focuses on dealing damage and character survivability.
  • The Hunt – focuses on single-target damage.
  • The Erudition – focuses on area-of-effect damage.
  • The Harmony – focuses on buffing the team.
  • The Nihility – focuses on debuffing enemies.
  • The Abundance – focuses on healing the team.

Honkai: Star Rail – all Damage Types

Likewise, there are seven different Damage Types characters can use. Unlike in Genshin Impact, there are no elemental reactions that occur from the interaction of these types. Once you break an enemy’s resistance by depleting its white HP bar through applying a Damage Type it's weak against, that Damage Type's Weakness Break effect will get triggered.

  • Ice – applies Freeze to the enemy, which stuns them and deals damage once the effect runs out.
  • Physical – applies Bleed to the enemy, which deals damage over time.
  • Fire – applies Burn to the enemy, which deals damage over time.
  • Lightning – applies Shock to the enemy, which deals damage over time.
  • Wind – applies Wind Shear to the enemy, which deals damage over time.
  • Quantum – applies Entanglement to the enemy, which delays their next action, and damages them on the start of their next turn. This damage increases with each hit the target suffers in the meantime (the Damage Type of those hits doesn't matter).
  • Imaginary – applies Imprisonment to the enemy, which delays their next action and reduces their Speed.

Be sure to check out our Honkai: Star Rail character tier list as well.


Published
Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg