It’s funny how we never realize how critical a character will become in a gacha game until some time’s past. We may have ideas about how they will affect the meta, what their role could be in a story, or how useful they could be in certain modes, but it won’t be clear until a few updates later. Case in point, Luocha turned out to be one of the best and most useful characters in Honkai: Star Rail, and now he’s someone who it feels like we “need” to have around to help make certain characters more viable, clear certain modes more easily, and even to understand what’s going on in the story.
I mean, it’s obvious even before we get into it that Luocha is important. He’s one of the best healers in the game. His Prayer of Abyss Flower Skill cleanses and heals at the same time. His Death Wish Ultimate debuffs while attacking every enemy. He deals Imaginary damage, and we see a lot of enemies in every available region who count that among their weaknesses. He can set up a regenerating Field in battle, and it is very easy to trigger it even without trying. He has fantastic Eidolons that make his Field more effective by applying additional buffs and debuffs when set up and makes him a better healer. He’s good.
The array of characters released since Luocha’s launch also point to how necessary he is on almost every team in the game. Blade? He has a blood knight mechanic that deals damage to himself and relies on low health, so you need someone to heal him up. Kafka? While you could probably get by with someone else acting as a healer in her party, he’s still a good option there. Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae? Since he’s going to gobble up all the Skill Points sometimes, you need someone who can heal without using them. Luocha’s Skill means he can automatically heal someone whose health drops below 50% once in a while. Plus at two stacks of Abyss Flower — which builds up based on his Skill, that automatic use of his Skill, and his Ultimate, the Cycle of Life Field goes up and heals allies for a while whenever they attack enemies. Jingliu? Using one of her attacks deals damage to the party, which means you’ll need Luocha there to heal them.
Even more striking is how important Luocha can be in the new Honkai: Star Rail Simulated Universe Swarm Disaster. This is such a challenging new mode. Especially as the enemies grow in power as you move around the field and the Swarm focuses on DOT. It means the Abundance path becomes a critical lifeline and Luocha, as a character who can set up a regenerating field and cleanse, becomes the most useful healer in the game for this mode.
This also goes along with what’s actually happening in the Honkai: Star Rail story, as it feels Luocha is being set up to play a greater part. Spoilers aside, he was introduced in the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Missions. It seemed like he was a supporting cast member. He didn’t show up too often, outside of the segments where we followed Dan Heng’s point of view. However, the quests ended with him reemerging alongside another character with quite a history.
Editor’s Note: There will be Honkai: Star Rail and Honkai Impact 3rd spoilers for Luocha in the next paragraph.
At the close of the story segment for that region, we see Jing Yuan confronting Luocha. He suggests the traveler with the coffin brought the Stellaron there. Luocha maintains he is an enemy of Yaoshi, and that’s when Jingliu appears. The two are allied with one another, and she notes that Yaoshi needs to die due to the battles between the Aeons. We haven’t seen any follow-up from that. But HoYoVerse seems to be positioning him as a major player in the coming fight.
But really, we shouldn’t be surprised at this turn of events. Luocha is an expy of Honkai Impact 3rd’s Otto Apocalypse, and his journey to the Xianzhou Luofu parallels Otto’s Shenzhou, complete with Sushang’s involvement. Otto is one of the most important characters in that game, as he helped kick off events, is involved with various situations, and has a connection to Void Archives. Even Welt Yang, the Astral Express character directly pulled from the Honkai Impact 3rd universe, is aware of it and expresses the same sort of caution. There’s a saying that notes history repeats itself. His appearance and role wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by those aware of HoYoVerse’s past, and it offers suggestions as to what could happen in the future.
In any case, Luocha is both one of the best playable characters in Honkai: Star Rail and could prove to be very notable in the story. It’s astonishing how pivotal he’s become in such a short time. As such, anyone who intends to play should both keep an eye on him and always attempt to pull for the character.
Honkai: Star Rail is available for the PC and mobile devices, and the PS5 version launches alongside 1.4 on October 11, 2023.
