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Honkai: Star Railroutinely gives out free 4-Star characters through various events.Similar to Hanu’s Prison Break, the new Origami Bird Clash event gives players the opportunity to claim one of four featured 4-Star characters. The four available characters are Gallagher, Hanya, Luka, and Arlan, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
While the choice is highly dependent on each player’s roster of characters, the best pick is the one that brings the most overall value to the various end-game content. This could be a character the player has yet to own or an Eidolon that significantly improves the strength of one.
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Gallagher is a 4-Star Fire Abundance unit with a unique blend of offensive and supportive capabilities. Alongside healing, he excels at debuffing enemies and dealing large amounts ofToughness damageon his own.
Gallagher’s main strength revolves around the use of his Ultimate, which appliesBesottedto all targets hit and enhances his next Basic ATK. Targets afflicted with Besotted receive increased Break DMG, and allies that attack them are healed. This makes Gallagher the first character inHonkai: Star Railto directly provide an increase toBreak DMG, previously only influenced by Break Effect.
Furthermore, his enhanced Basic ATK reduces targets' ATK for two turns and inflicts a staggering 90 Toughness damage, on par with many single-target Ultimates in the game. Coupled with his Ultimate advancing his action by 100%, Gallagher’s contribution to Toughness damage is unprecedented for a healer. As an added bonus, the enhanced version also activates the healing from his talent for his team.
One thing to note is that all of Gallagher’s healing is flat, meaning they do not scale with any stats and can only be affected by increases toOutgoing Healing. While that may sound like a downside, this allows him to invest heavily in otherstats like Break Effect, which happens to affect Outgoing Healing through his A2 Major Trace.
Gallagher’smain weaknesslies in the difficulty maintaining Besotted against fast enemies with action advancing skills. This can be circumvented by using his Ultimate right after the enemies' turn, although that may be challenging when emergency Toughness damage or healing are needed.
Unlike most other Abundance units, he alsolacks the ability to cleanse debuffsfor his allies, a feature locked behind his second Eidolon.
Overall, Gallagher’s kit is incredibly powerful in the current Break meta, especially when paired withHarmony Trailblazer. He also synergizes very well withdebuff-focused units like Acheronand those that use Pioneer Diver of Dead Waters. While Gallagher performs well without Eidolons, his E2 is highly beneficial, with E1 and E4 providing quality of life improvements, and E6 offering slight personal damage and great Toughness damage boost.
Impact
1
When entering the battle, Gallagher regenerates 20 Energy and increases Effect RES by 50%.
Medium
2
When using the Skill, it removes 1 debuff(s) from the target ally. At the same time, it increases their Effect RES by 30%, lasting for 2 turns.
High
4
Extends the duration of the Besotted state inflicted by Gallagher’s Ultimate by 1 turn.
6
Increases Gallagher’s Break Effect by 20% and Weakness Break Efficiency by 20%.
Hanya is a4-star Physical Harmony unitthat excels at regenerating Skill Points and providing SPD, ATK, and DMG buffs for the team, making her a versatile addition to many compositions.
Hanya’s Ultimate buffs a single ally with SPD and a large amount of ATK for two turns. Notably, players can use the Ultimate on the targeted ally’s turn, effectively extending the ATK buff (but not the SPD) to three turns.
Her Skill deals damage and appliesBurden(not counted as a debuff) to a single target. Allies gain aSkill Pointfor every two Basic ATK, Skill, or Ultimate used on that target, with Burden disappearing after two Skill Points are gained this way. The damage from Hanya’s first application of Burden counts towards this effect, so the team will only need three more actions on the target to trigger both Skill Points. Unfortunately, recasting her Skill before both Skill Points are recoveredresets the count.
Allies attacking the Burden target also gain a massive 30% DMG increase that effectively lasts the whole fight due to Burden’s easy reapplication.
The ally that triggers Burden’s Skill Point recovery gains a 10% ATK buff for a turn.
Hanya’s weaknesses include her highEnergy cost Ultimate, which only applies to one ally, her low base defensive stats, and her Skill’s somewhat clunky interaction with Burden. Despite these drawbacks, Hanya remains a very strong and flexible support, especially for Skill Point-hungry DPS likeImbibitor Lunaeand Qingque. While her Eidolons are not required, they do provide nice quality of life improvements and enhance the effectiveness of her buffs.
When an ally with Hanya’s Ultimate’s effect defeats an enemy, Hanya’s action is Advanced Forward by 15%. This effect can only be triggered 1 time per turn.
Low
After using the Skill, this character’s SPD increases by 20% for 1 turn.
5
Ultimate Lv. +2, up to a maximum of Lv. 15. Talent Lv. +2, up to a maximum of Lv. 15.
Increase the DMG Boost effect of the Talent by an additional 10%.
Luka is a4-Star Physical Nihility unitwith strong single target damage and team utility. His Skill applies a special Bleed that deals 24% (level 10) of the enemies' health each turn, capped by a percentage of Luka’s ATK stat, and dispels one buff from the enemy. Removing enemy buffs is a rare ability, currently possessed by only three units in the game. Luka’s Ultimate also increases the target’s damage taken by 20% (level 10), a Vulnerability modifier considered to beone of the best damage multipliers in the game.
The main contributor to his damage is his Talent, which enhances his Basic ATK with every two stacks ofFighting Will, gained by using his Basic ATK, Skill, and Ultimate. Luka’s enhanced Basic ATK causes existing Bleeds on the target, including ones from Break and allies, to instantly deal a large percentage of their original damage, without consuming their duration.
The main drawback for Luka is thelack of multi-target abilities, preventing him from being the sole damage dealer in the majority of current end-game content. Alongside a high Ultimate cost, his damage potential also falls off against non-boss/elite enemies due to HP percent scaling for Bleed damage. Luka functions best as a supplementary damage dealer while providing utility forDoT units like Kafka.
When Luka takes action, if the target enemy is Bleeding, increases DMG dealt by Luka by 15% for 2 turns.
If the Skill hits an enemy target with Physical Weakness, gain 1 stack of Fighting Will.
Low to High
For every stack of Fighting Will obtained, increases ATK by 5%, stacking up to 4 times.
After the Enhanced Basic ATK’s “Rising Uppercut” hits a Bleeding enemy target, the Bleed status will immediately deal DMG 1 time equal to 8% of the original DMG for every hit of Direct Punch already unleashed during the current Enhanced Basic ATK.
Arlan is a4-Star Lightning Destruction unitwith a berserker-type playstyle, dealing damage at the cost of his own HP instead of Skill Points. His damage multipliers are quite high due to his Talent, which increases damage based on his missing health, but it requires him to hover near death to fully utilize them.
Unlike Blade, Arlan lacks a consistent way to keep himself alive. Even if that weren’t the case,Arlan prefers not to be healed,as it results in damage loss and requires extra turns to ramp back up without enemy interference. To make matters worse, Arlan has one of the lowest base DEF in the game, a stat he desperately needs instead of the high base HP and HP Traces.
To facilitate Arlan’s damage, players need to include a dedicated shielder in his team. However, onlyAventurine provides consistent team-wide shieldsworth the Skill Point expenditure, something Gepard and March both lack.
Since Arlan ideally doesn’t want to use Basic ATKs, the team wouldrequire a Skill Point generatorlike Sparkle before adding in another DPS.
While Arlan’s damage is respectable, especially with Eidolons, it is not enough to justify all the effort needed to make him function. Many other 4-Star units perform just as well, if not better, without needing to jump through hoops.
When HP is lower than or equal to 50% of Max HP, increases Skill’s DMG by 10%.
Using Skill or Ultimate removes 1 debuff from oneself.
When struck by a killing blow after entering battle, instead of becoming knocked down, Arlan immediately restores his HP to 25% of his Max HP. This effect is automatically removed after it is triggered once or after 2 turns have elapsed.
When HP drops to 50% or below, Ultimate deals 20% more DMG. The DMG multiplier of DMG taken by the target enemy now applies to adjacent enemies as well.
Best Overall Pick
Assuming players have none of the four units,Gallagher stands out as the best overall pickin the current Break meta, followed closely by Hanya’s versatile kit. Luka is a decent choice for DoT, Break, or Debuff teams, but he can be replaceable by other 4-Stars. Unfortunately for Arlan, his rigid kit makes him the least desirable of the four. Even if players already possess the other three units, you should go for their Eidolons instead of Arlan.
For those struggling to decide, do not fret, asHonkai: Star Railregularly brings back 4-Star units for players to claim.
