We’ve gotten a brand new Hong Lu Identity tease on the Limbus Company Twitter, adding some credence to a rumored leak and giving Burn even more tools to play with. Whether these tools are even worth running or not is the question, and the answer might actually surprise you!
As someone with their nose to the Limbus grindstone, always theory crafting new teams, let me throw my hat into the ring once we fully reveal the new ID, of course.
Cinq East Hong Lu Identity
It has been quite a while since we’ve gotten a new Hong Lu Identity with some bite, with his latest, the Ring Nursefather, dropping towards the start of Season 7. We also got S Corp Hong Lu, but he struggles to find his niche in teams that would rather run his Nursefather or Full Stop variants, as much as I personally enjoy S Corp.
With this news drop, we finally have a new addition for Hong Lu for Burn and Pierce, namely his entry in the Cinq East lineup. The East section of the Cinq Association only had Cinq East Don Quixote as representation before, a fun, stylish ID who is super solid, but never broke the bank.
If this new Hong Lu follows in her footsteps, he’ll be a hybrid Burn/Poise ID that focuses on Pierce damage. Considering the overwhelming number of Slash and Blunt IDs this season has granted us, another Pierce option is a great addition.
How Effective Will Cinq East Hong Lu Be?
Cinq East Hong Lu fills a very nice niche, finally granting us a proper three-star Burn Hong Lu ID to slot into the ever stronger Burn comp. His current best in slot for the team is Liu Association Hong Lu strictly for his Support Passive, relegating him to the bench permanently.
As a member of the Cinq East, he’ll also be utilizing Poise to set up for some easy crits. While this may seem silly since Hong Lu already has multiple very solid Poise IDs, remember that Poise in an ID’s kit is largely self-sufficient.
The current best Poise teams are more about stacking faction unity buffs than Poise itself. This way, the Poise on Cinq East Hong Lu will serve to give him solid extra damage via crits and gain Poise effects in MD.
Personally, I hope he focuses more on the Nerve Strike mechanic, a subsystem of Cinq East Don that allows her to apply a debuff that makes targets weaker to her. Maybe he and Don will work off of each other’s Nerve Strike debuffs, combining their effects or setting up extra synergy.
Project Moon has shown just how much they love thematic teams this season, and finally getting more of the Associations to round out all the Syndicate love that made up Season 7 is very exciting!
If you’re curious about how the most recent drops in Limbus have fared, take a look at our discussions of the Lifetime Stew upties and Don’s newest EGO!
