Trailblazer • Harmony Best Build Guide

The Harmony Trailblazer is the first of their kind, being a fully dedicated Break support. They provide teamwide Break Effect and unique benefits for attacking Broken enemies in the form of Super Break DMG, dealing considerable Break DMG based on the character's Break Effect and the Toughness-reducing damage of the attack. The Trailblazer themselves deal extremely high Toughness damage, meaning they will also be able to contribute very high damage against Broken targets. This Super Break counteracts the natural downside of Break setups; the damage usually trails once an enemy is Broken, but with the Harmony Trailblazer, it only increases that damage — vastly so.

You know, it seems like as more and more Harmony characters get released, Xipe must have a clause in the Harmony contract that states 'Thou shalt be damn strong and have mad swag' because every single one of them has been outstanding, and the Harmony edition of the Trailblazer is no different. If you were worried that the Trailblazer's new behatted form isn't worthy of hanging with the greats and is doomed to never be used, then I have some great news for you because it looks like the Harmony Trailblazer is going to become a staple support for Break focused teams moving forward.

Their Skill is a Bounce ability, dealing up to 50% ATK damage to a target enemy and then dealing an additional 4 hits of the same damage to random enemies after. As a Bounce ability, this has a tremendous amount of Toughness damage attached to it, especially if you're against small numbers of enemies. Especially since the Harmony Trailblazer wants to Break enemies as quickly as possible to take advantage of their Ultimate's effects, if the enemy is weak to Imaginary you'll be absolutely bullying them with this Skill.

This Skill helps a lot with Energy gain as well, so it's highly recommended to use this every single turn to maximize the gains from both aspects. Their Talent also plays into this by providing up to 10 Energy whenever an enemy target's Weakness gets Broken, so Breaking faster also regenerates Energy faster. This is triggered on any Break, so you don't necessarily have to have the Trailblazer being the one to Break enemies to benefit from this.

Now for the Ultimate, it's the most important aspect of their kit. For the cost of 140 Energy, they grant all allies, including themselves, a buff called Backup Dancer that lasts for 3 of the Trailblazer's turns. Allies with Backup Dancer will have their Break Effect increased by up to 30% and gain access to a new exclusive mechanic called Super Break. When an ally with Backup Dancer hits a Broken enemy, they will deal an instance of Super Break DMG, and this damage is based on both the Break Effect of the attacking character as well as the Toughness DMG of this attack.

This new Super Break mechanic is the answer to the most profound question that has plagued full Break setups up to now, which is 'I've broken the enemy! Now what?' — when you Broke an enemy before, you got a huge influx of damage upon the initial Break, but all that Break Effect you stacked is useless until the target recovers from Break. It was the ironic downside of Ruan Mei's Weakness Break Efficiency for Break users, in that delaying the enemy from recovering from Break was actually worse for you. But now with Harmony Trailblazer's Super Break, all that Break Effect comes in like Truck-kun to decimate the already Broken enemy, turning the ironic disadvantage of a Broken enemy into the time where the team can put out their most potent damage.

Now is probably the time to explain why Break DMG is so special and unique. Break DMG is not like other sources of damage in this game in that it has far fewer ways to be affected; unsurprisingly CRIT stats do nothing, but even things like your usual DMG% increases will also do nothing. No other stats besides Break Effect will affect the Break DMG, but certain character effects and debuffs on enemies will also be able to increase the Break DMG enemies receive; things like Gallagher's Talent increasing Break DMG directly, or reducing enemies' DEF or Elemental RES, or applying vulnerability. This also goes both ways, so if an enemy has increased stats, they will end up taking less damage.

Break DMG also gets increased based off of the enemies' Maximum Toughness, so you'll do much more Break DMG against a Boss or Elite with a large Toughness bar than you would against an elemental bird that gets Broken in a single hit. This is actually not the case for Super Break, meaning you can do the same amount of extra damage against all enemies once they're Broken, though the initial Break DMG will still be affected by the enemy Max Toughness as normal.

It's particularly interesting that Super Break also cares about the Toughness damage of the action that triggers it, so other support characters can end up dealing a surprising amount of damage with Super Break; once again, Gallagher is a particularly great example of this due to his Ultimate and Enhanced Basic combo being a huge total of 150 Toughness, and Aventurine is also a great example thanks to his frequent Bouncing follow-up from his Talent. The Harmony Trailblazer themselves will be consistently making full use of these effects thanks to their high Toughness damage Skill as well as obviously being incentivised to build for maximum Break Effect, so don't be surprised to be easily broaching 6-digit damage numbers with the dapper hatter.

The Bonus Ability Traces matter quite a bit, not just because they're really good but because Break DMG cares immensely about your Character Level. Their A2 will increase the damage of Super Break based on the number of enemies on the field, having higher benefits the fewer enemies there are; you get a 20% increase against 5 or more enemies, but you get a whopping 60% increase against only a single target. Either way, you're getting a substantial boost because this increase to Super Break is actually a separate final multiplier, making this an inordinately powerful damage increase.

A4 will similarly provide a massive boost, increasing the Toughness damage of the initial hit of their Skill by 100%. This is ambiguous so let me elaborate. As a Bounce ability, the initial hit has the most Toughness damage, followed by a halved value for all remaining hits. This generally puts 5-hit Bounce abilities in the range of about 90 Toughness damage, about the same as most single-target Ultimates. By doubling the value of the initial hit, the Harmony Trailblazer's Skill now deals a colossal 120 Toughness damage, putting it on par with Xueyi's Ultimate and Imbibitor Lunae's Fulgurant Leap.

A6 also provides a massive benefit that was previously a downside for Break setups. Whenever an ally Breaks an enemy, their next action will be delayed by 30%. This allows for more time to wrack up the impressive damage from Super Break and also doubles as a means of improving team survivability. This delaying effect stacks extremely well with both Ruan Mei's Ultimate and Welt's Ultimate; you can actually send enemies to the shadow realm and then keep them there for long enough to get obliterated by the subsequent Super Break damage.

Since this is the Trailblazer, you will get access to all Eidolons for them - but the grind to unlock them will be quite long and annoying as you will need to scour the whole Penacony for chests and events. E1 will refund a Skill Point for the first Skill of a fight, making it easier to get the ball rolling without screwing over your DPS, and E2 will grant 25% Energy Regeneration Rate for 3 turns at the start of combat, speeding up the rate at which you get the first Ultimate. E4 will increase the Break Effect of all other allies by 15% of the Trailblazer's current Break Effect, and this will dynamically update if the Trailblazer's Break Effect changes. E3 and E5 are both very appreciated Trace levels. Finally, E6 will add 2 extra hits to the Bounce of the Skill, for a new total of 7 hits, resulting in this one Skill dealing a hilarious 150 Toughness damage, tied with Argenti's Lv2 Ultimate for the most Toughness damage on any single ability. The extra hits also mean this Skill will regenerate more Energy, opening up some more build flexibility in terms of Light Cones.

With this particular kit, it's no surprise that Ruan Mei is an exceptionally good pairing with Harmony Trailblazer; one helps you Break faster and the other helps you delete the then-Broken foe. Ruan Mei’s Weakness Break Efficiency also helps to improve the damage from Super Break. While this is the ideal combination, you should not despair if you do not have Ruan Mei, as Harmony Trailblazer is more than powerful enough to be the complete backbone of Break teams moving forward. Other units can also be substituted to achieve whichever result is most desirable. If you want more actions then Bronya or Asta can grant the Break DPS more effective SPD, and if you want to make sure the enemy never gets up again you can use Silver Wolf or Pela to send the enemy's DEF to Caelid.

Once again, I'm mentioning Gallagher, because this man just keeps on winning. As already mentioned, his Talent directly improves team Break DMG, his own Toughness damage is highly impressive, and he has no troubles keeping the team alive, especially at higher Eidolon levels. You are also incentivized to build him with Break Effect in mind, so he can provide very impressive damage numbers with the help of the Backup Dancer buff, all from the role of sustain. Unless another sustain shows up with an explicit Break focus, Gallagher is going to be quite the appealing pick for maximizing damage.

This is an undeniably powerful kit and on the Trailblazer of all things! With everyone gaining access to this wonderful break-focused kit, it's not a surprise that the game meta shifted toward Super Break. Dedicated Super Break damage dealers were released soon after with Firefly, Boothill, and then Rappa - all who can use both Ruan Mei and Harmony Trailblazer to dominate the meta (out of the three, Boothill tho doesn't rely on them as much as Firefly and Rappa).

Do not underestimate them, and let us all 'Hee-hee' into that White Night.