History GameBreaker / HonkaiStarRail

** While this set is highly specialized for follow-up attacks, it is greatly credited for essentially singlehandedly [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap saving the Erudition Path]]. The 2-piece bonus is already respectable by increasing the damage of follow-up attacks by a whopping 20%. The 4-piece bonus gives the wearer a stacking 6% attack bonus every time their follow-up attack deals damage up to a max of 8 stacks, meaning you could potentially get a '''48%''' attack bonus buff. This obviously benefits characters whose follow-up attacks either inflict multiple hits on a single target or hit multiple targets at once, which Erudition characters specialize in. In particular, this set provides a massive power boost to Jing Yuan and Himeko, turning them from niche characters at best to viable mainline damage dealers.

** An all-purpose debuffer who gets the majority of her utility from her Ultimate, which reduces the DEF of all enemies currently on field for 2 turns, up to 40% with no Eidolons. You'd think having the majority of her utility locked behind her Ultimate would make her a pain to use, along with the debuff only lasting for two turns, but that's where her Talent and Technique come in. Her Technique reduces enemy DEF by 20% for two turns while at Eidolon 5 (the one that adds an additional 2 Levels to her Ultimate and Talent), while with a Level 10 Talent, every time she debuffs an enemy after an attack, she generates 10 Energy. That last part isn't limited to her Technique and Ultimate either, her skill has a 'guaranteed' buff removal for a single-target enemy, no Effect Hit Rate needed. Give her an Energy Regeneration Rate Link Rope with either the Sprightly Vonwacq or Penacony's Dream-Seeking Tracks set and you can have her Ultimate up ''indefinitely'' with the right rotations. Speaking of which, while her Ultimate needs Effect Hit Rate unlike her Skill, Pela has so much of it in her traces, including her Ascension Trace, The Secret Strategy, which increases all party members Effect Hit Rate as long as she is on field, that it's practically child's play to build her.

** An all-purpose debuffer who gets the majority of her utility from her Ultimate, which reduces the DEF of all enemies currently on field for 2 turns, up to 40% with no Eidolons. You'd think having the majority of her utility locked behind her Ultimate would make her a pain to use, along with the debuff only lasting for two turns, but that's where her Talent and Technique come in. Her Technique reduces enemy DEF by 20% for two turns while at Eidolon 5 (the one that adds an additional 2 Levels to her Ultimate and Talent), while she generates 10 Energy. That last part isn't limited to her Technique and Ultimate either, her skill has a 'guaranteed' buff removal for a single-target enemy, no Effect Hit Rate needed. Give her an Energy Regeneration Rate Link Rope with either the Sprightly Vonwacq or Penacony's Dream-Seeking Tracks set and you can have her Ultimate up ''indefinitely'' with the right rotations. Speaking of which, while her Ultimate needs Effect Hit Rate unlike her Skill, Pela has so much of it in her traces, including her Ascension Trace, The Secret Strategy, which increases all party members Effect Hit Rate as long as she is on field, that it's practically child's play to build her.

** Acheron can be [[DifficultButAwesome a little more complicated to work with]] than previous main damage dealers, but she absolutely delivers once she's all set up. Her Ultimate is the primary source of her damage, letting her deal a multitude of slash attacks that will utterly eviscerate any unfortunate foe she's faced with. Said Ultimate also deals Toughness damage regardless of the enemy's weaknesses, and it reduces the All-Type RES of all enemies until the Ultimate ends, so no enemy is safe from it. With her sixth Ascension Trace, the damage her Ultimate deals to a target increases by ''up to 90%'' as long as there are Crimson Knot stacks are on said target, which can be applied by afflicting it with debuffs, so she synergizes extremely well with characters like Silver Wolf, Pela, or Black Swan. When she removes Crimson Knot stacks from a target via her Ultimate, she also deals damage to all enemies on the field, with said damage increasing based on how many Crimson Knot stacks are removed. She also gets a 60% boost to her damage if she is in a team with 2 other Nihility characters[[note]]Her second Eidolon makes it so she only needs to be paired with 1 other Nihility character to achieve the full effect[[/note]], and she gains Crit Damage from her Traces as well, which leads to synergy stacking upon synergy that turns her into a boss-deleting monster. Her only drawback is that [[MechanicallyUnusualFighter her Ultimate doesn't use energy]], so she doesn't pair well with characters like Huohuo or Tingyun, and her reliance on pairing with other Nihility characters (as well as characters who can apply debuffs) can limit the number of teams she'll work best in. Getting around these limitations however, rewards you with an extremely powerful attacker who functions as a Destruction, Hunt, and Erudition unit ''all at the same time''. Her Eidolons are also rather busted: her 2nd one, aside from reducing the required amount of Nihility characters in the team to buff her, will also make her regenerate her special "energy" meter per turn, and her 6th one makes her Basic Attack and Skill be treated as Ultimate, complete with the similar properties her Ultimate has (increased RES PEN and breaking Toughness regardless of weakness).

** Your reward for painstakingly grinding through the Swarm Disaster mode is the Path of Propagation, and its power more than justifies the effort needed to unlock it. The path revolves around using basic attacks and skill points for all sorts of power and utility, and it boasts one of the most powerful Path Resonances in the game, granting a selected ally their turn immediately and restores 2 skill points. Another major part of its power are the Spores, which are inflicted on enemies through consuming or recovering skill points with the 3-star blessings unlocked, and detonated with any attack for ''humongous'' damage. And the Spores can further be enhanced to deal increased damage and be able to spread to the same unlucky target to burst again for even ''more'' damage. The power from this path brings two specific characters into the spotlight: the already game-breaking Imbibitor Lunae, and the seemingly unassuming Qingque, whose heavy usage of skill points turns them into walking nuclear warheads that will devastate everything in their way. While the path doesn't always work for everyone, it's still powerful and versatile enough to benefit most DPS characters. Also, if you're playing through Swarm Disaster using this path, you can try your luck to get the best result in the Dice of Propagation: letting you [[DungeonBypass skip straight through the Boss domain]] and gain Blessing of Propagation equal to the number of Swarm-related domains you skipped through this way, allowing you to finish the mode more quickly and with increased power as well.

** Silver Wolf is a godly boss killer notable for her ability to make a core mechanic of the combat system ''completely irrelevant''. The bread-and-butter of her kit is her skill ''Allow Changes?'', which makes an enemy weak to an element in your party, while at the same time decreasing their resistance to that element by 20%. This alone makes team composition a non-issue, and can in fact reward you for bringing a Hunt unit that the boss ''isn't'' weak against. The extra weakness lasting for three whole turns before Silver Wolf needs to refresh it makes her action economy incredibly efficient, and she herself isn't lacking in damage output. Her ultimate, which can cut an enemy's defense almost in half, her talent, which can apply even ''more'' debuffs and can proc with any attack she makes, and her technique, which deals Toughness damage to all enemies regardless of whether or not they have a Quantum weakness and inflicts Entanglement on the ones broken this way, are just the cherries on top of an already absurdly powerful skill.

** One of the more powerful sets in the game and for good reasons. Its 2-piece bonus gives a 10% bonus to Quantum damage, which any Quantum-type DPS appreciates, but the real kicker is the 4-piece bonus, which allows the wearer to [[ArmorPiercingAttack ignore 10% of the enemy's Defence, with an extra 10% on top if they're also weak to Quantum]]. This is a huge DPS bonus to any DPS, but works especially well on any DPS with huge amounts of Attack, like Jingliu, and on any team that runs Silver Wolf, since she can force an enemy to be weak to Quantum and activate that extra 10% Defense ignore.

* '''Vonwacq's Islandic Coast'''

** Aventurine has proven to be an insanely bonkers shielder that can rival or even surpass Gepard's tanking capabilities. From the get-go, his skill can provide a shield (called "Fortified Wager") to ''everyone'' in the party. Yes, you read that right, his party-wide shield is accessible from just a simple push of the E key, inheriting the strengths and forgoing (most) of the weaknesses of March 7th's[[note]]March's shield is easily accessible through her skill, but she can only shield one ally at a time, which can result in her being SP-negative if she needs to spend turns giving everyone a shield[[/note]] and Gepard's[[note]]Gepard can also provide party-wide shields, but that is locked behind his ultimate, leaving his unshielded team vulnerable beforehand[[/note]] shield. His "Fortified Wager" shield also increases the Effect RES of protected allies while Aventurine himself can outright NoSell Crowd Control debuffs once every two turns, mitigating any nasty status effects that can be detrimental to your victory. His talent allows him to accumulate stacks when allies protected by "Fortified Wager" get hit; once he reaches seven stacks, Aventurine will consume them and unleash a Follow-Up attack that hits all enemies randomly. His Follow-Up attack can also apply another layer of shield to all allies, potentially giving him near ''100%'' shield uptime that can make the other Preservation characters green with envy. And if that's not good enough, his Ascension 4 passive immediately grants a "Fortified Wager" shield whenever a battle starts, ensuring that the team doesn't get immediately get blasted by the bad guy's attacks before they can even act.

* '''Black Swan''' (Wind-Nihility)
** The new crown jewel of DamageOverTime teams, Black Swan turns [=DoTs=] from a ticking time bomb into what could best be described as consecutive nuclear detonations. Her kit revolves around Arcana, a special form of [=DoT=] that lasts ''indefinitely'' and cannot be dispelled. It stacks up to 50 times, and when an enemy takes their turn, they take ''240%'' of Black Swan's Attack as damage, plus 12% for every stack of Arcana beyond the first, eventually reaching up to an explosion of 840% of her attack at 50 stacks (for reference, Argenti's 180-cost ultimate with all of his bounce attacks hitting one target does equivalent damage). Additionally, reaching certain thresholds will add additional effects: at 3 stacks the detonation will become a blast attack, and at 7 stacks the detonation will ignore 20% of the enemies' Defence. This is on top of the fact that her skill reduces enemy Defence by 20%, leading to absurdly high damage upon detonations. Even better still, enemies taking damage from Arcana can spread the effect to other enemies, leading to entire waves of enemies dropping like flies, provided that they don't immediately die before Arcana runs its course. Not to mention, Arcana still counts as a debuff and [=DoT=] for gameplay purposes, so characters and relic sets who scale damage based on the number of debuffs and [=DoTs=] on the enemy like Kafka have powerful synergy with her.

** Aventurine has proven to be an insanely bonkers shielder that can rival or even surpass Gepard's tanking capabilities. From the get-go, his skill can provide a shield (called "Fortified Wager") to ''everyone'' in the party. Yes, you read that right, his party-wide shield is accessible from just a simple push of the E key, inheriting the strengths and forgoing (most) of the weaknesses of March 7th's[[note]]March's shield is easily accessible through her skill, but she can only shield one ally at a time, which can result in her being SP-negative if she needs to spend turns giving everyone a shield[[/note]] and Gepard's[[note]]Gepard can also provide party-wide shields, but that is locked behind his ultimate, leaving his unshielded team vulnerable beforehand[[/note]] shield. His "Fortified Wager" shield also increases the Effect RES of protected allies while Aventurine himself can outright NoSell Crowd Control debuffs once every two turns, mitigating any nasty status effects that can be detrimental to your victory.