Eternal Return Black Survival: Hyejin Guide

Hyejin is rated a 3/3 difficulty who specialises in crowd control, with abilities that can deal area of effect damage and also pack a serious punch. She can equip a bow or shuriken, both viable choices for a main weapon. I personally use the bow as when upgraded can be more powerful than the shuriken but the shuriken is quicker to craft allowing a more aggressive early game. As Hyejin is a specialist of crowd control, she pairs well with tanks or in general, characters that need to be within a close vicinity of enemies in order to deal damage.

What makes Hyejin difficult to play is how fragile she is early game and is a character that represents a high risk, high reward – her vulnerability in early game and her defence in comparison to other characters isn’t great, but if you make the effort to learn combos and how to take fights efficiently, she is so good. As said before, Hyejin is more than capable of dishing out serious damage, making her a viable solo queue pick but she probably prospers more playing in a duo or with a three-man stack.

Hyejin possesses a bow or a shuriken as her main weapon, with either one having effective crowd control as the weapon skill (your ‘D’ key). The shuriken allows you to drop caltrops on an area, dealing decent damage hen stepped on by enemies and reduces their movement speed. This is insanely useful for fighting on your terms, as you can gain some distance if you need to run away, or just the fact that the enemies have their movement heavily shunned and take constant damage every time they step on a caltrop.

The bow allows you to fire a rain of arrows on top of your designated area, dealing heavy damage and reducing their movement speed; it should be noted that the further into the middle the enemies are, the more damage will be taken. There is a delay on the time it takes for the arrow rain to begin after initiating the attack, which raises the skill cap of the character as you will be either rewarded for predicting your opponent’s movement or punished by missing most of your damage. I find that using this weapon skill is usually more effective when playing with teammates, using them as a shield to protect you whilst you have more time and less distractions to place the attack accordingly.

Charm of Despair (Q) – Hyejin casts a projectile in the targeted direction, dealing a good chunk of damage and reducing their movement speed. This can be recast after a couple of seconds which is followed by a larger cooldown. This is a good ability which should be a focus for upgrades when you level up.

Charm of the Prophecy (W) – Hyejin casts a rectangle on a designated area which, after a short delay, activates dealing damage to any enemies in its vicinity and roots them in place. This isn’t that good for solo queue as you will mostly be taking 1v1 fights and it’s rare to get teamed on. There are other abilities that are better to level up, specifically in solo queue anyway – in duo or squads this is a viable ability to level up.

Charm of the Nomad (E) – Hyejin casts a projectile in the targeted direction, dealing good damage, which is also collateral. Activating the ability again (pressing E again whilst the projectile is still in motion) will teleport her to the location of the projectile, dealing damage to enemies. In my opinion, this is Hyejin’s best ability and should be the first thing you max out. Furthermore, this can be used to escape from aggressive players but is a little unreliable.

Five Omens (R) – Hyejin’s movement is slowed for 1 second, allowing her to cast 5 balls of energy that circulate around her for a while (enough for a fight to start and finish) which deals damage every time an omen hits an enemy. Omens are consumed after hitting an enemy. To negate the slow movement speed when casting 5 omens, you can cast Charm of the Nomad as the same time, which is a good combo.

Three Calamities (Passive) – After hitting an enemy for the third time (abilities and standard M2 attacks count as a hit), enemies gain ‘fear,’ slowing their movement speed and sending their character the opposite direction to you for about half a second. Upgrading this passive ability will increase the time enemies have ‘fear.’ This is not essential but when you’ve maxed out other abilities the Three Calamities are a viable upgrade when you don’t have too many other options.

Both recommended plans for the bow and shuriken are good standards but there are better items which are easily attainable to maximise your chances of winning. Regardless:

Elemental Bow – A powerful bow, good for farming albeit that’s all your M2 attack is best for most of the time.

Commander’s Armour – A good chest plate and with meteorite can be turned into a legendary Kabana.

Imperial Burgonet – This helmet’s most notable stat is the cooldown reduction of 10%, which is always good so you can spam your abilities as much as possible.

Draupnir – Good for increased SP. Admittedly being low on SP is never an issue after you break out of early game, but the Draupnir is still good for the extra defence stats.

Straitjacket Sneakers – Increased movement speed is vital to Hyejin which I will get into more later and with that being said there are far better options but they are solid shoes which can be crafted relatively quickly.

Schrodinger’s Box – Increased HP is always nice but as stated speed is normally more important than health, unless your build doesn’t emphasise speed, which is why all of these items synergise well with one another, you can become relatively tanky – but I would NOT advise a play style where you sponge damage, it really isn’t Hyejin’s best quality.

Wind and Fire Wheels – Not as much damage as the bow but this isn’t necessarily important (M2 attacks are normally for farming)

Imperial Burgonet –

Commander’s Armour –

Draupnir –

Straitjacket Sneakers –

Uchiwa – This accessory is average, the life steal is nice but not really a statistic worth a lot of praise and of course, the 150% SP regeneration rate isn’t very necessary.

Elemental Bow/Wind and Fire Wheels – These primaries deal good damage and searching for Hyejin’s legendary gear isn’t worth it as the M2 damage is really for farming.

Mithril Helm – Not only does this give +28 more defence than the Imperial Burgonet but gives a higher cooldown reduction, faster attack and movement speed. Finding mithril is the hardest bit but finding wolves and bears aren’t difficult on this route.

Blazing Dress – With my route, which will be discussed later, gaining this legendary chest piece is incredibly easy and often doesn’t see any competition with gaining the tree of life (the main ingredient in crafting this). Even if someone gets the tree before you, there are still 2 other opportunities to get the tree at other locations.

Draupnir – Despite speed being key, you still need some form of defence and the Draupnir is effective enough for the job.

Feather Boots – What else is there to say apart from ‘speed.’ These boots give an extra 30% faster attack speed and +0.4 movement speed. These are normally crafted midway into the route so finding the remaining items is more efficient and makes the decision to take fights easier.

Veritas Lux Mea – This accessory is incredible for Hyejin and makes an awful lot up for her vulnerability in damage. Because this build makes her faster and slightly weaker than the recommended build, the +150% HP regen is insane at getting your health back, often WHILST in a battle. Simply run off for about 5 seconds and a major chunk of health will be restored for you. Moreover, there’s an extra +10% cooldown reduction with +8% skill amplification.

I have named the build ‘Speed Plan’ for obvious reasons.

In general, Hyejin is not a character to sponge damage and this is most evident through battles against a Jackie or Chiara. Jackie is so strong when she gets close to an opponent and if you let that happen whilst playing Hyejin and don’t have your Charm of the Nomad ready to escape, you’ve basically lost the fight already. Therefore, gaining additional speed allows you to flee from fights early or prematurely or hunt down fleeing opponents. Many a time have I won a losing fight because I was significantly faster than my enemy, so I regained enough health to go back into the fight and win.

Moving on, the debate of whether you should use the shuriken or bow is all really down to preference as they aren’t too dissimilar in terms of damage. As stated in the introduction, I prefer the bow over the shuriken mainly due to the faster attack speed you get after levelling up a significant amount but the shuriken possesses a really good weapon skill which is probably better than the bow’s skill as it’s possible to change the outcome of the battle, more so than the bow. The bow’s weapon skill is a rain of arrows that covers a good area dealing good damage and this is really good for finishing off enemies and dealing with crowds. However, the shuriken’s weapon skill is an area of caltrops that slow enemy movement and deals damage which is unbelievably good. I cannot stress how much you can turn the tides of a fight into your favour by using this ability effectively.

Hyejin is extremely vulnerable to heavy damage dealers like Jackie and players who play Jackie normally know this, so they tend to get very aggressive towards you. But, using the caltrops, you can punish the aggressive mentality of these players and combo them very effectively and there is very little that they can do. In this game, stun mechanics are infuriating because of how effective they are but nevertheless, they exist, so why not use them yourself as Hyejin? The caltrops aren’t necessarily a stun mechanic because they don’t immobilise enemies completely, but it does a job very close to that and paired with Charm of the Prophecy you can stun agro-players and kill them quickly. More on play styles later. Regardless, the caltrops are very powerful and are more than viable to use over the rain of arrows.

However, what is great about the rain of arrows is not only its ability to slow down enemies but also it’s damage on a wide area. Paired with a build based around speed, using the arrow rain is fantastic to get free damage as you can run away quickly and bait aggressive players into the attack, as long as you predict correctly. It should also be noted that the arrow rain has a far quicker cooldown than the caltrops, allowing you to use the ability multiple times in a fight.

The main reason this route is so good is because it manages time so efficiently. It would be safe to say that in Eternal Return you’re far more likely to win if you can gain your gear as fast as possible and this would be applied to this route. You can be one item off your final piece of gear for every section of the route and allow me to explain. After a trip to alley you will require mithril in order to complete your headgear (or you will already have it if you get extremely lucky with your wolf and bear drops). At avenue you will only require a feather in order to craft your elemental bow and at school you will need feathers and the tree of life in order to create your boots and your dress.

Furthermore, on a standard run, where I’m not getting too lucky with looting but neither unlucky you should have more than enough time to get your items and farm some animals and then reach the tree of life in forest with perfect timing. The tree of life spawns in forest on day 2 and normally I reach it as soon as day 2 arrives, leaving me no competition for the tree. If someone beats me to it or I am forced away after a fight, the tree spawns again in cemetery on the night of day 2 and of course, if you’re lucky enough you can plunder one in a blue air supply box, but this isn’t a reliable way of getting it. Another reason for why this route is particularly good is due to the frequent teleporters that are available. If you ever get held up in fights early game, you can always take a teleporter to speed your search instead of running and at the end when you have found everything and have finished in chapel, there is a teleporter to allow you to get aggressive in any known hotspots of survivors. Of course, you do need to get lucky with the way areas get shut off to the ‘zone’ but you can always change your route and go to places that will be closed off first as a priority, so it’s not really an issue.

This isn’t really too much of an issue because in all honesty searching for legendary weapons is a waste of time and resources. During mid to late game, if you can craft a legendary weapon that’s great but it shouldn’t be something that you seek out to craft from the beginning. For example, the Sudarsana (the legendary shuriken) does +70 more damage than the Wind and Fire Wheels which is very significant but in order to craft it, you need meteorite, which in my experience is quite hard to find, even from wolf and bear drops. Furthermore, it would simply be far more effective to use the found meteorite on your commander’s chest to make a kabana, a legendary chest plate. This is the case for two reasons; firstly, trying to seek for multiple legendary items is greedy, time consuming and overall unrealistic. Secondly, the main use of your normal/M2 attack is to farm wild animals, not for fights. That’s where your abilities shine the most. This goes as the same for the Failnaught versus the Elemental Bow; there isn’t really a good reason to go out of your way to craft a legendary weapon. I’m sure this is not the case for other characters but for Hyejin, the epic weapons are definitely more than viable to use.

Hyejin, unlike a few other characters does have a few effective play styles. These ultimately depend on what game mode you are playing and how your game is setting out but they are all worthwhile tactics. Despite being a fairly vulnerable character relative to individuals such as Jackie, Hyejin is more than capable of being hyper aggressive. This is probably the most fun play style because when played right allows you to rack up many kills but be warned, hyper aggression cannot be used early game (unless you spot an opportunity) or as a set play style. What I mean by this is that you can’t spawn into a game and set out to kill whoever you see, this is just a one way ticket to getting you killed most of the time. Hyper aggression is most effective when you have upgraded your abilities at least 4 times and is best played as an ambush attack. Of course choosing whether you should fight based on the enemy character is important but you will always have the upper hand if you attack an opponent when they aren’t expecting it. An example of a perfect time to attack is if you see someone who seems to be intently searching for items and is clearly not interested in fighting, which will give you an advantage of a few attacks before they react. Hyper aggression works like a snowball effect where after you kill a couple survivors, you won’t really need to farm as much because of the xp you gained from the kills, thus, allowing you to continually fight more opponents and eventually you will have at least a level above the others, again giving you another advantage in the fights. As said you cannot hop into a match and start killing everyone, Hyejin’s base stats and kit is just far too weak to enable that. However, if you are successful in using this play style you should be racking up a minimum of 5 kills. This hyper aggressive tactic is most appropriate for solo play but can be used for other modes, just be prepared to have multiple enemies on you in that case which can be your downfall, especially if your teammates aren’t near you or a teleporter to help out.

The next play style is the passive aggressive approach, where your priority is finding your gear and taking fights whenever is required. This tactic does involve a lot of baiting just because you can capitalise on the fact that you appear to be very timid but then fight on your terms. Passive aggressiveness is probably the standard play style that should be used when playing Hyejin as it requires your brain a little more than the all out agro tactics and is more consistent in getting you kills and therefore winning games. This is very effective in all modes in Eternal Return.

Finally, the polar opposite to the hyper aggressive play style is the timid runner. I can only suggest this play style if you have a very basic plan that doesn’t require a lot of items or any high value items that will be desired by multiple players e.g. the tree of life, or if you reach the latter stage of a game and know that your opponents probably have the upper hand. This tactic is pretty infuriating to die to but waiting for the last few survivors to deal heavy damage to each other and then pounce onto them from a bush is an effective way to win games. Throughout the match, you will be relying on getting your gear fast and running from most fights in order to farm animals as a priority and boost your level significantly. This method can actually be devastating in duo or squad queue as ambushing teams unawares is always effective and often eliminates teams within 15 seconds.
All three of these strategies are more than viable as I have been a victim of them to another Hyejin using them and I use them myself. Play styles are all up to personal choice but playing all three will give you a good idea of whether Hyejin is right for you but regardless it shows how versatile she can be.

Overall, the most effective way to win with any character for that matter, in any game mode is to farm extensively. Farming gives good xp and takes 2 seconds to do for every animal most of the time and it is in your best interest to get your level as high as possible in order to give yourself the best chance of winning.
Speed is becoming a key theme in this guide but it’s for good reason. Hyejin’s lack of a large health pool isn’t fully compensated by her damage so the best way to counteract that it to become extremely fast. Attack speed is obviously important in order to deal the most damage but movement speed is heavily underrated as this factor allows you to fight on your own terms. Yes, stun mechanics exist but with certain builds you can become fast enough to avoid attacks altogether when running away and then counter at the appropriate time.
Due to the many play styles Hyejin has, solo queue is a great mode to pick her as it’s so easy to adapt accordingly to the game. Hyejin’s character skills can be well suited for one on one fights so there isn’t much of an issue when it comes to that but due to her main strength of crowd control, she is most effective playing in squads or duos. The sheer ability to deal collateral damage and huge area denial makes her really powerful, so pair her with a tank or anyone who can sponge damage whilst she pulls the strings from the back makes her almost unstoppable.

Learning combinations are so important as it can make the difference between life and death. Hyejin has access to a few effective combos which are easy to learn with some practice, I will showcase a few of my favourite combos which are always effective.

Against a melee fighter – Charm of Despair, M2, Arrow Rain behind them, Charm of the Nomad and teleport into arrow rain.

Running away from enemy – Charm of Despair, Charm of the Prophecy, Charm of Despair, Charm of the Nomad and teleport.

2 vs 1 – Arrow Rain, Charm of the Nomad (collateral) and teleport, Charm of the Prophecy, Charm of Despair (Arrow Rain falls).

Hyejin is probably one of the most qualified to x versus 1 other teams because of her ability to do collateral damage. The only way to effectively learn how to pull it off is to practice.

Ultimately, Hyejin is a very powerful and influential character that can really dominate lobbies. She requires a lot of practice in order to use her prediction based skills but it is extremely rewarding to be successful and frag. The best way to describe her would be punishing; if you’re not paying attention she’ll ambush you, if you get over aggressive she can bait you and if you bunch up with your teammates she will absolutely destroy you. That’s what makes Hyejin so fun to play, it’s so satisfying punishing overconfident players and killing enemies in such a short time. I would highly suggest picking up this character because it also presents a challenge. Playing characters such as Jackie honestly don’t require any where near as much skill as playing Zahir, Fiora or Hyejin so getting wins feels better and learning Hyejin takes time; all the time invested into playing her was very fun. One of my favourite matches playing Hyejin clearly displays what a monster she can be if you decide to learn her – this wasn’t even using her strongest setup!