Should you pull for Castorice, Anaxa, or someone else in Honkai: Star Rail 3.2

The 3.2 update to Honkai: Star Rail brings two long-awaited characters: Castorice and Anaxa. There's also a host of popular character reruns, many of which are still in the meta long after their release. But who should you pull for?

Should you pull for Castorice in Honkai: Star Rail 3.2

Castorice is a Quantum DPS following the path of Remembrance, and, according to the Honkai: Star Rail leaks and beta footage posted online, her potential damage output is absurd. Her primary source of damage is her Ultimate, which summons a massive dragon. She's an HP-scaling character and uses her and her team's health as a resource to power both her and her dragon's output.

The dragon expends HP to use its breath weapon to attack the entire enemy field and can use up all 100% of its health to deal — and I kid you not — over 1 million damage consistently. You can also restrain it from using its full capacity to keep it on the field longer.

Castorice's biggest handicap, as you might imagine, is her and her team's health. She goes some way toward dealing with that issue so long as the dragon is on the field, as no team member can be KO'd while it's out. Castorice, therefore, requires a strong healer to work at 100% efficiency. You can use Gallagher, but her best choice will likely be Hyacine, who should release in 3.3.

As far as her sub-DPS and support options go, Castorice succeeds where Aglaea failed. Yes, Sunday is probably still her best option overall, given his specialty buffing memosprite summons, but there are a lot of other solid options available:

• Remembrance Trailblazer, a free DPS increase via True Damage
• Ruan Mei for the additional Toughness reduction, Break extension, and damage increase
• Tribbie for the defense shred and massive damage bonuses
• Pela for high Skill Point economy and AoE defense shred
• Sparkle for the Crit buffs and action forward

The Amphoreus characters have also introduced Honkai: Star Rail to the double DPS meta, and Castorice works surprisingly well with other characters who manipulate their HP. Blade and Mydei, in particular, are amazing partners. She's also brought Luocha back into vogue (if only temporarily) thanks to a vast increase in attackers powering his healing Talent.

All told, Castorice is likely a surefire winner, even if you don't have the resources to pull for her signature Light Cone. More Remembrance Light Cones are undoubtedly on their way to make Castorice more free-to-play friendly. If you don't like losing 20% damage and lots of gameplay comfort, her signature is all but required, though that's true of almost any limited 5-star these days.

Should you pull for Anaxa in Honkai: Star Rail 3.2

The Erudition Path is eating good with Star Rail's Amphoreus arc. First came The Herta, who could be argued to be the most versatile DPS the game's ever seen. Next, in 3.2, comes Anaxa, a Wind-element character here to put Silver Wolf out of a job. Why? His Ultimate afflicts the entire enemy team with Physical, Ice, Wind, Quantum, Imaginary, Fire, and Lightning Weakness.

All of them. Until their next turn.

His Ultimate also applies a crowd control debuff should they lack resistance to such effects. He's got respectable DPS of his own, too. That makes Anaxa yet another "Toughness bars are a suggestion" character who simultaneously ensures the 3.x content never beats the massive powercreep allegatoins.

His teams are pretty flexible as well. He can be played as either a traditional Hypercarry with two supports or as a sub-DPS to even higher-damage potential units.

• The Herta is one of Anaxa's best teammates, as one of her core passives requires another Erudition character, and Anaxa ensures enemies are always weak to Ice.
• Tribbie is fantastic for many reasons you'd expect, boosting Anaxa's damage and dealing a good amount of her own.
• Bronya for the same reason she's been good since 1.0: damage buffs out the wazoo, plus 100% action forward.
• Huo Huo for the Ultimate energy, top-tier healing, and attack buffs.
• Robin + Sunday (or either one) for the additional action forward and damage/Crit buffs.
• Aventurine for the still S-tier shielding, single-target Crit boost, and supplemental damage
• Lingsha for the AoE Fire damage to break enemies and keep them broken. She also heals, I guess.
• Gallagher remains a top Lingsha free-to-play substitute who more than holds his own.

Like all DPS units, the biggest thing holding Anaxa back is his reliance on Skill Point usage. Your SP management can become an issue on a team with The Herta or other Skill-centric characters, especially without signature Light Cones. If you build Anaxa with enough Energy Regen, you might be able to sidestep some of these issues.

If you don't have other characters capable of applying elemental weakness or otherwise ignoring enemy Toughness, or you want a character who functions differently from a more traditional DPS, Anaxa is a great choice. He's also likely to grow in value over time because blanket Weakness application will be much harder to powercreep than Silver Wolf's single-target, random application.

...Right?

Should you pull for a rerun character in Honkai: Star Rail 3.2

There are a lot of top-quality rerun characters making an appearance with the 3.2 update to Honkai: Star Rail. And not just DPS units, but supports as well. We'll briefly go over each of them here so you can get an idea of who to prioritize:

• Acheron was one of the first "Toughness bars are a suggestion" characters and the first to not use Energy to power her Ultimate. Her damage output without her meta teams is still more than functional, and she's remained near the top of the DPS charts for more than a year, thanks to her adaptability, relative ease of use, and overall effectiveness. Pair her with the next character on rerun, and things get literally spicy.
• Jiaoqiu is, put overly simply, the Acheron enabler. Her Ultimate relies on enemies gaining debuffs to function, and Jiaoqiu applies them with gusto. His effectiveness on non-Acheron teams is a bit less notable, and hers suffers without him, as well. If you already have one character or the other and you have the Stellar Jade to spare, I can guarantee you won't regret finishing the set.
• Fugue always felt like a swan song for the Super Break meta, but that does her far too little credit. Any Break-centric team is almost immediately improved by having Fugue on it, and she frees up Trailblazer to walk the Remembrance Path on other teams, to boot. Suddenly, Firefly, Rappa, and Lingsha didn't have to rely on Harmony Trailblazer for their Super Break damage. Fuguee also allows her teammates to Break enemies twice for even more damage output. For my money, she's almost as important as Ruan Mei for consistency and comfort.
• Dr. Ratio is probably the least impressive rerun character, coming as he did before the 2.0 Penacony update. He also helped usher in the follow-up attack meta. His greatest strength is his still-respectable Imaginary damage, and though he's a single-target specialist, he remains a solid pickup if you don't already have him. Perhaps more valuable is his signature Light Cone, which is fantastic on almost any Hunt character you could think up.

If you were to ask who I'm pulling for, the answer would always be Castorice. Part of it is to keep up with the meta, and part of it is being fond of her character and design. I don't have a need for Anaxa's endless Weakness implant, and while I'd like to add Jiaoqiu to my Acheron team, he's not someone I'm missing.

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