It has been over two years since Pure Fiction arrived in Honkai: Star Rail with the version 1.6 update back in early 2024. I still remember how the community scrambled to figure out the best strategies for this wave-clearing endurance test. Now, in 2026, Pure Fiction has settled into a familiar rhythm for veteran Trailblazers like me, but one question continues to pop up in every discussion: which buff effect should you actually pick? Erupt, Excitation, or Rupture? After countless cycles, roster rotations, and more resets than I’d like to admit, my answer remains unchanged. Excitation is the king. Let me walk you through why.
Before diving into the buffs, it helps to quickly revisit what makes Pure Fiction tick. The mode throws endless enemy waves at you within a limited number of cycles, and your score relies entirely on defeating as many foes as possible before they take action. The special sauce here is the Shatter debuff. When an enemy carries Shatter stacks, those stacks explode on its turn or upon defeat, dealing damage to the target and adjacent enemies. Up to six stacks can be applied to a single unit, and the chain reactions are what turn mediocre teams into wave-melting machines. The three available buffs all modify how Shatter is applied or behaves, but not all are created equal.
Excitation has been my go-to ever since my first 60,000-point run. Its effect is simple: whenever an enemy is attacked, there is an 80% base chance to apply one stack of Shatter. That may not sound revolutionary, but the consistency is unbeatable. In a mode where every action counts, having a near-guaranteed application from any source of damage means your entire team contributes to building up stacks without relying on specific abilities or energy gauges. I’ve tested this across hyper-carry comps, dual-DPS setups, and even troll builds with three sustains, and the wave-clear speed practically writes itself. The only time Excitation feels slightly less dominant is when you face an enemy lineup that resists debuffs heavily, but even then, a modest amount of Effect Hit Rate on your supports patches that gap immediately.
Erupt comes in as a respectable second place. This buff grants a 100% chance to apply one stack of Shatter whenever an Ultimate is used. On paper, it sounds like a perfect tool for ultimate-spam rosters. In reality, the downtime between ultimate abilities introduces a noticeable ebb and flow in your clearing speed. I distinctly remember trying to force Erupt with a team built around Tingyun and Huohuo to solve the energy problem. It worked, but it demanded constant attention to rotation timing and became punishing whenever a cycle ended with only half the ults ready. Against bosses that delay their turns or stall through invulnerability phases, Erupt’s burst-oriented nature can sometimes leave you with too few stacks when you need them most. Unless you have a heavily invested ultimate-centric lineup and a battery support like a fully optimized Tingyun, Excitation simply offers more freedom to play reactively.
And then there is Rupture. I have a soft spot for trap options, and Rupture is the poster child for looking better than it performs. The buff states that when an enemy with a Shatter stack is defeated, your team’s Ultimate DMG increases for the next cycle. It sounds like a dream for those gigantic hyper-carry ultimates that one-shot whole waves. The issue? Pure Fiction is not about overkill. Defeating an enemy already rewards you with points based on the kill itself; piling on unnecessary damage doesn’t give you extra credit. What you actually need is enough damage to consistently clear each wave before the enemy acts. I learned this the hard way during a Moon phase where I stacked Rupture and brought a traditional hyper-carry team. My Acheron dealt comically large numbers, but the waves didn’t die any faster because I was already overkilling mobs by a factor of five. The buff’s damage boost is essentially wasted stats in the one mode that rewards speed over big numbers. I only recommend trying Rupture if you are genuinely struggling to defeat the final boss before the round limit; even then, a gear upgrade or a support swap usually solves that problem more elegantly than betting on a snowball that never gets rolling.
Looking at the current 2026 landscape, not much has changed regarding these core buffs. The dev team occasionally tweaks enemy lineups or introduces new gimmicks, but the fundamental principles remain intact. Excitation continues to be the safest pick for auto-battle enjoyers and manual min-maxers alike. Even with the introduction of characters who specialize in follow-up attacks or DoT detonations, the ability to apply Shatter off any damage event keeps Excitation at the top. Some players argue that certain teams can now fully exploit Erupt thanks to newer relics that refund energy on kill, and I won’t dismiss those setups outright. If you’ve built around that synergy, Erupt can reach similar levels of consistency. But for the average Trailblazer who just wants their 12-star clear without resetting three times, Excitation removes the guesswork.
One final tip from my personal playbook: always match the buff to your team’s natural rhythm rather than trying to force a square peg into a round hole. If your roster leans heavily on ultimate spam with a built-in battery, feel free to experiment with Erupt for the sheer satisfaction of watching the screen explode. If you are still in the early stages of account building and lack raw damage, Rupture might temporarily bridge the gap against particularly chunky elites. But once you reach a comfortable gear threshold and want that reliable, reset-free experience, Excitation will always welcome you home. Pure Fiction may be a test of patience more than anything, but choosing the right buff turns it into a victory lap. Stick with Excitation, and you’ll rarely need to look back.