E2S1 Himeko, E4 Welt, RMC, and E1 Mortenax Blade with Cipher’s S1 take on Himeko’s grandma in the second non-Elation Anomaly Arbitration this year, while I yap about why this is a team unlike any other HSR has ever seen.
Team overview
If you’ve played enough RPGs, you may have noticed that HSR is unusual in how it manages the power budgets of its characters. Other games put more of it into their DPSes, which is what makes solo runs possible, for example. In HSR, that’s obviously off the table even for E6 characters; the worst case of that used to be pre-Novaflare Firefly, who dealt close to zero damage without her supports.
Himeko Nova is different. Her gimmick is that she wants Astral Express teammates, but not every AE unit synergizes with her, or with the rest, or even brings any meaningful buffs at all.
So the solution: Himeko is… her own best support.
Verdict
She has two forms, called protocols.
In the Verdict protocol, which we trigger first, Himeko Nova self-buffs her DMG dealt by 100%, and her Ultimate’s DMG by 100% more. Verdict can be triggered by the Trailblazer, Sunday, and DHPT. Under this protocol, every time an ally launches an Ultimate, Himeko gets closer to a free additional attack called an Assist Skill. We’ll use that later.
Decimation
Assist Skills can also be launched with a dedicated button, even on the turns of teammates other than Himeko, which means she can keep dishing out damage regardless of who’s on her team. There are limits, of course; she can only launch so many Assists, and at E0, the ones she activates on a non-AE character’s turn instantly end that turn.
If the teammate is AE, however, using that button will also trigger a protocol change. That’s why, when we click it on Welt’s turn, we set Himeko’s form to her second one, Decimation. During Decimation, Himeko buffs all allies’ CRIT DMG by 100%, and CRIT DMG for skills specifically is increased by yet another 100%. We’ll be using it throughout the first part of the fight, as this is her AoE mode: in Decimation, free Assist Skills come from hitting enough enemies, so it’s perfect for fights with three or more targets and teammates with AoE abilities in their kits.
Your Himeko will only be as good as her rotation
Himeko’s rotation revolves around getting as many Assist Skills and Ultimates as we can. The more Assist Skills she launches, the more energy she gets, and the more energy we give her, the more often she can ult. And as you watch me play, you’ll soon realize, just like I did, that switching protocols blindly doesn’t produce the optimal number of Assist Skills.
This makes Himeko Nova one of the most expressive units in HSR: every boss may require a different team; every player may prefer a different protocol in a different situation; and you’ll often have to decide when to take the free Assist Skill and when to overcap her energy, depending on your goals.
Melting Graphia's first phase
How much you gain or waste depends on factors like investment, too. In this run, I use E2S1 Himeko, so I benefit from improved energy rotations, which is why I can focus on getting more Assist Skills and ignore overcap. I also decided I had enough damage in the first wave to hold off on Welt’s Ultimate and use it on Graphia to trigger a sequence of moves that gets her to 17% HP before she can even move.
Depending on your conditions, don’t be afraid to experiment with her rotations, as well as with team-building. Himeko’s kit directly contradicts how almost all damage dealers in HSR are designed, and that’s how she wants you to pilot her.
Even Phainon, famously the most standalone unit in the game, needs his supports before he can snapshot their buffs when he enters his territory. But Himeko, combined with her E2, is one of the best wheelchair drivers in the game.
Her E2 makes her Assists triggerable even on the turns of non-AE teammates, so you can put basically any 2-3 units in there and, as long as they synergize among themselves and with somebody from the Astral Express, they’ll battery Himeko anyway. I’ve seen and played teams like Himeko – RMC – Cyrene – Evernight or Himeko – Welt – The Herta – Tribbie. Not fully optimal, true… but possible, which makes it fun.
Avoiding overkill
In Silver Wolf’s showcase, I mentioned that she was the only unit in the game who can instantly restart her turn mid-enhanced-basic with zero overkill between waves or phases. Not anymore. Himeko, to a slightly lesser degree, can do the same during her Ultimate. Seems to be a new trend with HSR’s main push characters.
We’re free to shave the remaining 17% HP off Graphia, then instantly restart the attack in phase two, adding an Assist Skill and a follow-up attack by Blade on top, to open the second round with 79% HP left. Good start.
Switching protocols
Instead of fixating on a predefined rotation, look at the battlefield. Graphia’s alone. No chance we’ll get more Assists from Decimation; even at E2, the counter would have to reach six, which would be extremely slow. But three of our teammates almost have enough energy to activate their Ultimates, and RMC’s turn is up. So we switch to Verdict, ult, and pick up two more Assist Skills we wouldn’t otherwise get.
Finishing up
We hold Welt’s Ultimate for when new clowns spawn, launch another Assist, and finally gain enough energy for one more Himeko Ultimate, which kills every enemy in sight. Beautiful.
Now, let’s yap about Himeko’s future.
Teammates
First, you may be worried about her incoming teammates. In this regard, she’s similar to Cyrene, who’s restricted to synergies with Chrysos Heirs. Thankfully, we already know that Himeko’s Trailblaze Companions don’t use hardcoded values. The framework is expandable: more characters can be added later without much effort. Meanwhile, Cyrene’s Ode is basically hardcoded.
The obvious conclusion: even if a new Chrysos Heir is released when Amphoreus eventually returns, the devs will have to go back to Cyrene’s code and add the new Heir there manually every time, which they may or may not do… it’s a gamble.
Himeko’s kit, however, revolves around a system: the Astral Express faction. Any time a character is flagged as a member, which is probably as simple as changing a few variables in the code, they will automatically become a new trigger supporting one of her protocols. Much easier than designing a full-blown custom buff from scratch! And history says we get new SPs from the Astral Express every 1-2 years.
Weaknesses
The second big problem, which a paranoid reader may have already sensed, is energy. Himeko isn’t merely sensitive to energy. She’s energy-reliant. Since the frequency of her Ultimates limits how many free Assist Skills we can get, her rotation collapses when we can’t farm enough of them. And currently, almost every endgame stage is shilled with mechanics or enemies that grant her tons of energy, which is why we can afford some waste. But once these setups go away, or, even worse, get replaced by energy-draining environments, her energy regeneration slows down, she can’t use her Ultimate, so she gains even less energy, so she can’t get another Ultimate, losing several turns of damage.
On top of that, Himeko isn’t just affected but disproportionately so. Other units have traces that help them recover energy faster despite the Depowered debuff like Mortenax Blade, who has a low-cost Ultimate and a talent that restores a fixed 25 energy, have teammates who can recover large amounts of energy for them such as Saber and Gilgamesh, or can even siphon lots of energy from the team (Evanescia.) These teams would be slowed down by an energy-negative environment, but not disabled.
I’ve invested in multiple energy- and Ultimate-reliant units like Aglaea or Saber. The environment has never been a huge problem except for the King or Plight stages because of how the endgame is structured. We currently have 4 endgames with 13 separate battles. For Himeko to be bricked, all 13 stages would have to counter her in some way. In practice, maybe 1 out of 3 stages in a given endgame uses a debuff like Depowered. So guess what, you just use her in the other 2. This obviously can’t be done with King: if you’re countered there, you’re dead. I’d consider it a very niche problem.
And Depowered is such an invasive debuff, as it impacts so many different teams, that I doubt it will ever become common. Don’t get me wrong. It will most likely always be present; it’s the easiest way to shill special ult carries, and we get new ones consistently, but I wouldn’t bet on it becoming pervasive.
In my experience with all these teams, partners and the lack of upgrades are a much bigger problem. Energy supports are simply rare. Aglaea had to wait for Cyrene, and struggled because her starting team was outdated and her entire archetype drifted in another direction. Saber started strong but released precisely when everyone else jumped to another level; she stayed behind and had to wait for Gilgamesh to even appear in meta conversations again. This one, to me, is a valid concern.
Environments, on the other hand, are uncontrollable. Hoyo can design whatever they want to brick whoever they want in any way they want. I’ve learned to stop caring about that. Maybe I’m biased, but this is only really a problem when you’re a new player with limited options, or have one extremely overinvested team that carries you while every other team on your account struggles. But since AA released, the game has been heavily pushing players away from exactly that.