Yunli emerges as a formidable counter-attacking force, drawing parallels to Clara yet carving her own distinct niche in Honkai: Star Rail. This comprehensive Yunli Guide delves into her intricate mechanics, playstyle, and strategic depth, revealing how to harness her full potential. While seemingly straightforward, Yunli’s gameplay demands nuanced understanding to maximize her damage output and battlefield control. This guide will equip you with the knowledge to effectively pilot Yunli and dominate your enemies.
Yunli, a master of the sword, is a versatile character excelling in follow-up attacks, self-sustain, and energy management. Her kit, while bearing similarities to Clara’s, presents unique strategic considerations that set her apart. Understanding these nuances is key to unlocking Yunli’s true power as a damage dealer and strategic asset to your team.
Unpacking Yunli’s Abilities: A Deep Dive
Yunli’s strength lies in her Talent, the cornerstone of her counter-attacking prowess. Each time an enemy dares to attack her, Yunli retaliates instantly, unleashing a follow-up attack that deals Blast Area of Effect (AoE) damage. This counterattack hits the primary target with up to 120% of her Attack (ATK) and adjacent foes with 60% ATK. Beyond damage, Yunli gains a significant Energy boost upon being attacked – 15 Energy, in addition to the standard 10 Energy from landing the counter. In scenarios where no valid counter target exists, Yunli intelligently redirects her attack to a random enemy, ensuring her counter is never wasted.
Yunli unleashing her Talent counter-attack against an enemy, demonstrating her reactive combat style.
While the base damage of Yunli’s Talent may appear modest initially, its consistent activation and the substantial Energy regeneration it provides are invaluable. Gaining 25 Energy each time she counters essentially grants her almost a Skill’s worth of Energy passively. However, it’s worth noting that the Toughness damage inflicted by her Talent counter is minimal, even with its Blast AoE.
Yunli’s Skill mirrors her Talent’s Counter, delivering an identical Blast AoE attack with the same damage percentages – 120% ATK to the main target and 60% ATK to adjacent enemies. Interestingly, her Skill boasts enhanced Toughness damage against the primary target compared to her Talent. Furthermore, it provides self-healing, restoring HP based on 30% of her ATK plus a flat 200 HP upon use.
This self-sustain aspect of her Skill offers a tactical healing option when needed. However, given that Yunli’s primary damage source is her Ultimate-enhanced counters, expending a Skill Point for what is essentially a weaker version of her counter might not always be optimal. A Basic ATK, while dealing slightly less damage, generates a Skill Point instead. While her Skill can be used situationally for healing or extra Energy, relying on it solely to break enemy Toughness is generally inefficient, as broken enemies cannot attack, which diminishes Yunli’s counter-attacking potential.
Unleashing Devastating Counters: Yunli’s Ultimate and Parry Mechanic
Yunli’s Ultimate is the linchpin for maximizing her damage output. For 120 Energy, she enters the Parry stance, Taunting all enemies and boosting the Critical Damage (CRIT DMG) of her subsequent Counter by up to 100%. This Parry state is temporary, lasting only until the end of the next unit’s turn, whether ally or enemy. This timing is crucial, as Yunli’s actions within Parry differ based on whether she’s attacked.
If Yunli is attacked during her Parry state, she unleashes Intuit: Cull, a devastating counter dealing up to 220% ATK to the attacker and 110% ATK to adjacent targets. This is followed by six additional instances of single-target damage, bouncing between random enemies, each hit dealing up to 72% ATK. This is the optimal outcome, delivering massive AoE and single-target damage.
However, if Yunli is not attacked while in Parry, she executes Intuit: Slash on a random enemy. While it deals the same initial damage as Cull, it lacks the additional six damage instances, resulting in significantly lower overall damage.
Yunli entering her Parry stance with her Ultimate, ready to unleash a powerful counter.
This mechanic emphasizes precise timing for Yunli’s Ultimate. Activating it just before an enemy’s turn guarantees a Taunt, forcing them to attack Yunli and triggering the powerful Cull counter, maximizing damage. Conversely, using her Ultimate before an ally’s turn leads to the weaker Slash counter, wasting much of the Ultimate’s potential.
Yunli’s maximum Energy capacity of 240 is designed around this mechanic. Storing up to two Ultimate charges (2 x 120 Energy) mitigates Energy overcapping and allows for strategic Ultimate usage. Her Talent’s Energy influx ensures she consistently has Ultimate charges available, allowing players to strategically time their activation for optimal Cull triggers. Note that Yunli cannot recast her Ultimate while in the Parry state. All damage dealt during the Parry state is classified as Ultimate DMG.
Mastering Yunli’s Ultimate timing is key to realizing her damage potential. Mistimed Ultimates leading to Slash instead of Cull will significantly reduce her damage output, as her Talent alone deals relatively low damage. Therefore, maximizing Yunli’s effectiveness requires careful planning and anticipation of enemy actions.
Bonus Abilities and Eidolons: Enhancing Yunli’s Kit
Yunli’s Bonus Ability Traces significantly enhance her gameplay. A2 addresses the issue of mistimed Ultimates. Each time Intuit: Slash is used (the weaker version), the next instance of Slash is upgraded to Intuit: Cull. This ensures that even if enemies don’t attack directly, Yunli can still access her stronger counter, albeit at a slower pace. This ability also opens up strategic possibilities for burst damage. By intentionally triggering Slash, players can prepare for a future Cull, enabling two powerful Cull counters in quick succession for burst damage windows, though this is an advanced technique.
A4 further strengthens the Parry state, granting Yunli 20% Damage Reduction and complete immunity to Crowd Control effects. This ensures her Parry follow-ups are never interrupted by debilitating effects. A6 provides a 1-turn 30% ATK boost whenever Yunli counters, adding a consistent damage increase to her core gameplay loop.
Yunli’s Eidolons, while not essential, offer notable improvements. E1 increases the damage of both Intuit: Slash and Cull by 20% and adds 3 extra hits to Cull. E2 makes all counter damage ignore 20% of the target’s DEF. These two Eidolons significantly boost her damage without altering her core playstyle. E4 grants Yunli 50% Effect RES for 1 turn after using Slash or Cull, useful against non-Crowd Control debuffs. E6 significantly alters her Parry mechanic: even if enemies don’t directly attack her during Parry, any action they take will trigger Intuit: Cull and end the Parry state. Furthermore, damage from Slash or Cull grants 15% CRIT Rate and 20% Physical RES PEN for those actions.
Yunli vs. Clara: Key Differences and Synergies
The similarities between Yunli and Clara are evident, yet crucial distinctions define their roles and optimal usage. Both rely on Ultimates for burst damage, but Clara lacks Yunli’s “failure” state. Poorly timed Ultimates can penalize Yunli’s damage, while Clara’s counter damage is inherently more consistent. Clara’s base counter damage is also higher (160% ATK vs. Yunli’s 120% ATK).
Clara’s Enhanced Counter deals 640% ATK as Blast AoE over two counters per Ultimate, whereas Yunli’s Cull deals a massive 872% ATK spread across enemies in a single counter. Clara’s Skill hits all enemies and can double its damage against enemies marked by Svarog, offering more consistent AoE damage than Yunli’s Skill.
Yunli boasts a higher damage ceiling in most scenarios, but Clara offers simpler, more consistent gameplay. Both excel in endgame content and share team synergy, often benefiting from similar support units. In essence, Yunli can be seen as a more specialized, higher-potential version of Clara, but Clara remains a highly valuable and less demanding counter-attacker. Having both on your roster provides incredible flexibility and counter-attacking power.
Units like Tingyun and Huohuo enhance both Yunli and Clara by providing Ultimate uptime and damage boosts. Huohuo’s Ultimate is particularly potent for Yunli, restoring a significant 48 Energy due to Yunli’s 240 max Energy, despite only needing 120 for her Ultimate. Robin synergizes exceptionally well, buffing both Yunli and a secondary DPS in dual-carry compositions. March 7th can also pair effectively, though her Enhanced Basic ATK’s Action Advance can disrupt Yunli’s Parry timing if not managed carefully.
Both characters share a vulnerability: reduced damage when not being attacked. Yunli can partially mitigate this with her A2, but Clara’s team-wide counter state during her Ultimate offers slightly better coverage in scenarios with fewer enemy attacks. This issue is more pronounced for Yunli without her signature Light Cone, which reportedly has a high Aggro modifier, making it valuable for consistent counter triggers.
Team Compositions and Synergies: Maximizing Yunli’s Potential
Lynx is an invaluable teammate for Yunli, significantly increasing counter consistency by boosting Yunli’s aggro and HP. Since Yunli doesn’t heavily rely on her Skill for damage, Skill Points are more readily available for Lynx to maintain her aggro-boosting Skill on Yunli. Pairing Yunli with Lynx is highly recommended, especially if you lack Yunli’s signature Light Cone, as it addresses her reliance on being attacked to deal damage more effectively than with Clara.
Yunli is a powerful DPS capable of clearing content efficiently. Remember to factor in her Ultimate’s CRIT DMG boost when building her and strategically time her Parry mechanic. If you already have Clara, Yunli may not be a mandatory pull, but both are exceptional characters and valuable additions to any roster, ensuring counter-attacking prowess for diverse combat scenarios in Honkai: Star Rail.
