Honkai Star Rail relies heavily on correct Team combinations and the individual roles of each character in combat. With the huge number of available characters, which keeps growing with every major update, it can become hard for new players to know which character is good or bad in the banners. So, after careful consideration and analysis, here we have prepared the complete Honkai Star Rail character tier list.
Note:
Characters in each tier are not ranked by their order. Also, the characters have been placed based on their performance in early, mid and late game. Note that this tier list is subjective, like every other tier list. You can play whoever you find best as long as you are enjoying the game.
Honkai Star Rail Best SS-Tier Characters
The SS tier characters are the undisputed best characters for their respective playstyle and position in Honkai Star Rail. Only two of the best characters from each of the team positions (DPS, Support, and Sustain) are selected for this tier. These characters are what you can consider as ‘Must Pulls’ as they provide insane value to any team. Having them will let you breeze past the most challenging content in the game.
Jingliu
Jingliu is the strongest DPS character in Honkai Star Rail, with Dan Heng Inbibitor Lunae being a close second. She is a hyper carry who does insane Ice Blast damage with her Skill and Ultimate. Her kit allows her to consistently take 3 damage turns at the same time — using her skill to enter Transmigration State, using her Enhanced Skill, and then using her Ultimate.
Once Jingliu enters her Transmigration state, she starts dishing out some serious damage with her enhanced skill. Entering the Transmigration state gives her a 50% Crit Rate buff letting her deal insane Crit Damage, if build with the correct Relics. Other than dealing high damage numbers, she is also incredibly skill positive in her playstyle, making her better than Dan Heng Inbibitor Lunae.
Dan Heng Inbibitor Lunae
Much like Jingliu, Dan Heng Inbibitor Lunae, aka Dan Heng IL, also deals insane damage. His skill doesn’t deal any damage by itself, instead it amplifies his basic attacks. Using his Skill doesn’t end his turn, and can be used 3 times consecutively. The effect of his Enhanced Basic Attack changes based on the number of Skills used, dealing a 7 hit Blast attack at the 3rd Skill usage. With each hit of his attack, Dan Heng IL’s Talent further increases his Attack and damage output.
Dan Heng Inbibitor Lunae is an insane hyper carry who can let you breeze through MoC and Swarm Disaster. However, he is very Skill Point negative, which is why Jingliu is still considered the better DPS than him. Pairing someone like Hanya with Dan Heng IL can let you generate enough skill points to consistently use his maxed Enhanced attack.
Bronya
Bronya is the only character in the Honkai Star Rail that I consider an absolute must pull. She provides a ton of value to any team. Her Skill and Ultimate provides insane damage and Crit rate buff to your main DPS. Bronya’s Skill also allows a 100% action forward to an ally, allowing your main DPS to take action twice in a cycle, but with a bigger attack buff the second time.
Almost all Harmony characters are amazing in Honkai Star Rail, and Bronya currently stands above all of them. As she buffs damage, she can pair with any DPS, even someone like Blade who scales on HP instead of Attack. Select her at the 300 pulls in the Stellar Wrap if you haven’t got her already, because she is the best Harmony character in the game.
Silver Wolf
Silver Wolf in Honkai Star Rail is like a cheat code to its in-game mechanics. The game heavily relies on the weakness system to make the combat difficult and forces players to pull for different characters. But, if you have Silver Wolf, you no longer need to worry about having DPS of the same weakness type, as she can apply weaknesses on enemies using her Skill. Having her instantly makes any DPS team viable for all content in the game, irrespective of the enemy weakness.
Other than adding weaknesses, Silver Wolf’s Skill and Ultimate also debuffs enemy defenses and All Type Resistance, making her a very powerful debuffer. She is also the only character who can debuff enemies with her Basic attack (because of her Talent), making her highly Skill point positive and an invaluable asset to any team.
Huohuo
Huohuo is one of the newer additions to Honkai Star Rail with an insanely diverse healing kit. Initially criticized for not having reactive heals, it quickly became evident that she is the best Healer in the game. She has a strong Blast Heal, which triggers her Talent for 2 turns. It allows her to cycle her Skill and Basic, making her Skill point neutral. Huohuo’s talent is a continuous pool of cleanse and heal, cleansing every character at the start of their turn with additional health restoration, basically never allowing them to have delayed action.
Her talent also allows the ally with the lowest HP% to heal a decent amount when any ally uses their Ultimate, which kind of acts like a reactive heal in emergencies. Combining that with her Eidolon 2, which allows her to revive knocked allies twice in a fight, makes her function as a combination of Luocha and Bailu. Other than healing, her Ultimate also regenerates energy and buffs Attack of allies. Playing her with Tingyun can allow extremely fast Ultimate recharge for your Main DPS and team.
Fu Xuan
Fu Xuan is one of the strongest Sustains in Honkai Star Rail. Her kit is very unique, as she doesn’t focus on healing or providing shields, but on Damage mitigation. Her Skill allows Fu Xuan to receive 65% of the damage taken by her allies for 3 turns. The skill buffs the Max HP of her allies by a portion of her Max HP, and also increases the Crit Rate of all allies, making it a very strong offensive and defensive skill.
Her Talent is the main factor for her viability as she reduces damage taken by all allies and also restores her HP reactively when she reaches or falls below 50% of her Max HP. Fu Xuan can solo sustain through the hardest content in the game, without the need to heal or shield. Also, having the Quantum weakness type is great for clearing Swarm Disasters.
Honkai Star Rail Best S-Tier Characters
The S tier characters are the strongest characters in Honkai Star Rail, who are not in the top two for their respective team position. These characters are extremely strong and a tremendous asset to any team. Pulling for any of these characters will make your team capable of clearing the hardest content in the game with ease.
Seele
Seele reigned as the strongest DPS character in Honkai Star Rail until Dan Heng Inbibitor Lunae and Jingliu made their appearance. She is still among the best, if not the best, single target damage dealer in the game, and having the Quantum damage allows her to breeze through Swarm Disaster.
Even though she is a single-target character in Honkai Star Rail, her Talent allows her to take an extra turn after defeating an enemy, further buffing her attack. When paired with her extremely high single-target damage and speed, she can do massive multi-target target damage output each turn cycle. Adding the Imperishable Victory Hunt Blessing (in the Simulated Universe) can even let her clear entire groups of enemies in a single turn cycle.
Argenti
Argenti is another new character in Honkai Star Rail and probably the hardest tier to figure out. Argenti’s Ultimate is layered twice, with one charge getting filled at 90 energy and the next stronger charge filling at 180. His 90 charge Ultimate is nothing short of special, and deals a good amount of AoE damage. However, his 180 charge Ultimate adds 6 additional attacks to a single enemy after doing a stronger AoE damage. When facing a single elite enemy, the randomness no longer matters and Argenti basically Nukes the single target for insane damage.
Pairing that with his Talent, which regenerates Argenti’s energy by 3 for every enemy hit while also buffing his Crit Rate up to 28% at full stacks, he can constantly recharge his Ultimate and continuously Crit and deal insane single target damage. Additionally, his Skill also does AoE damage, making him a pretty strong AoE damage dealer with an insanely strong single-target nuke. It is the reason why we have featured Argenti in S-tier in our Honkai Star Rail character tier list.
Tingyun
Tingyun is one of the strongest buffers in the game, perfect for Hypercarry teams, and an amazing alternative for Bronya. Her Skill buffs an ally’s attack by 55% up to 27% of Tingyun’s attack, for 3 turns, and deals additional lightning damage equal to 44% of their Attack. This skill works with most DPS characters in Honkai Star Rail as most of them scale on Attack.
Her Ultimate additionally buffs an ally’s Damage by 56% and regenerates 50 energy. Using her Ultimate at the right time will let your main DPS energy recharge quickly while dealing significantly more damage. She is also very Skill point positive, as her Skill has a long uptime. She is a 4* character so pulling for her and even getting her E6 is comparatively much easier.
Pela
Pela is another amazing 4* Harmony character and one of the most powerful S-tier characters in Honkai Star Rail. Her kit mainly revolves around using her Ultimate, which does AoE damage and has a 100% chance to reduce all enemy defenses by 40%, giving a massive damage increase to your Main DPS units. Her skill also removes enemy buffs (except buffs that cannot be removed) and is very useful in stopping an enemy from doing massive enhanced attacks. She is also very Skill point positive.
Luocha
Luocha is one of the best healers in Honkai Star Rail. He doesn’t have a multi-target heal, but his reactive heals are insane and make up for it. His Skill does a high single-target heal but it also has a reactive heal function. When an ally’s HP drops to 50% or lower, this Skill is automatically triggered and the character is healed. The reactive heal can trigger once every 2 turns.
Other than that, Luocha’s Ultimate removes buffs from enemies and adds 1 stack of Abyss Flower. At 2 stacks of Abyss Flower, Luocha consumes the stacks and triggers a field. When any ally attacks enemies in this field, they automatically restore HP based on Luocha’s attack. Luocha is a very solid healer to have in your team and his reactive heals can save your characters during a bad enemy damage RNG.
Clara
Clara is a very strong DPS unit, who can also act as a Sustain due to her high damage reduction and aggro capabilities. She excels at drawing enemy attacks to herself and doing strong Follow-up blast attacks. Her counter-attacking play style can be a bit hard for starting players to fully grasp, but once correctly build, she can hyper carry through all the hardest content in the game.
Honkai Star Rail Best A-Tier Characters
The A-tier characters in Honkai Star Rail are very strong characters but they are not insanely strong like the SS and S-tier and work best as alternatives for different play styles. However, don’t underestimate them as if properly built, they can comfortably clear the most difficult parts of Honkai Star Rail.
Blade
Blade is a very strong DPS unit, that would be in the S-tier in our HSR character tier list if his playstyle wasn’t highly reliant on having a good healer in the team. Blade’s damage scales are based on his Max HP and the HP loss during combat. His Skill basically converts his HP into Damage. Because of this, you need a strong healer in the team to play Blade viably.
However, once Blade has a good healer and enough HP from his Relics, he can destroy most enemy health bars before consuming his own. A very strong character, and you won’t be disappointed pulling for him.
Jing Yuan
Jing Yuan is a follow-up focused DPS character in Honkai Star Rail. His main strength is his Talent, which summons the Lightning Lord at the start of the battle. Lightning Lord has its own turn and can deal up to 10 hits (at max stack) of Bounce lightning damage, considered a Follow-up attack. Other than that, his Skill and Ultimate deals high AoE damage. Overall, a very strong unit for clearing multi-target and Lightning weakness enemies.
Kafka
Kafka is the strongest DoT character in Honkai Star Rail, and a must-pull if you want to build a strong DoT team. Her Skill does good Lightning blast damage and instantly triggers every DoT applied on an enemy. She can also do Follow-up attacks that inflict Shock. Playing a good DoT applier with her can let her deal massive DoT to any enemy. One of the strongest characters in Honkai Star Rail and a clear fan favorite for her style and story significance.
Asta
Asta is the best free character in Honkai Star Rail and an amazing support character who requires very little investment. Her Ultimate increases the speed of all allies by 52 at max level, changing the attack order massively and helping your characters meet the speed break points and speed relic thresholds.
Asta’s Skill does a Bounce attack on random enemies. Her Talent buffs the Attack of all allies by 15% per stack, based on the number of targets Asta hits with her Skill or Basic attack (stacks 5 times). She is a very low investment, as you only need to invest in her Talent and Ultimate. The game also gives her for free at the very start, making her an invaluable early-game asset.
Qingque
Qingque is the best free DPS character in Honkai Star Rail, with the potential of becoming one of the strongest DPS characters after unlocking her Eidolon 4. Her playstyle is very gambling-oriented, as it depends on using her Skills to get 4 stacks of the same Jade tiles to do her enhanced Basic Attack for 1 turn.
Her attack increases by 30% each time she uses her Skill (max 4 stacks), making the idle time to deal her enhanced Attack after her 4th Skill use. However, she can reach the 4 stacks of Jade tiles before, or worse, not reach at all after using all your Skill points, making her damage very unreliable each turn. She truly shines after unlocking her E4, which lets her do a Follow-up attack after her Basic attack (with the same multipliers), dealing the already high damage twice. She is a fun character to play but can be frustrating when the RNG gods don’t help you.
Geopard
Geopard is a very strong Sustain, who provides strong shields using his Ultimate to all allies. He can lead your team to victory without anyone taking a single damage. On top of that, his Skill has a good chance of Freezing a single enemy, while dealing Ice damage. Geopard can also self revive using his Talent, making him a very strong Tank. Pairing him with someone like Clara can let you effortlessly clear most of the difficult challenges.
Topaz
Topaz is a very strong character who made other Follow-up attack focused characters return to prominence. Her kit revolves around using Numby to deal high Follow-up Single Target and Blast damage. She also buffs all Follow-up attack damage, so pairing her with someone like Himeko, Jing Yuan, or Clara can bring out the best from kit. Topaz can be a main DPS in many teams, but she is more suited towards Support for other DPS Follow-up attack characters.
Lynx
Lynx is a 4* Abundance character and one of the best healers in the game. Her Skill is a single target heal that also increases the target’s Max HP. Additionally, her Skill gives aggro if it heals any Path of Destruction or Preservation characters, making her a perfect partner for Blade or Clara. Lynx’s Ultimate is a team-wide heal that also cleanses the targets for 1 debuff. Being able to cleanse is extremely important in late-game, making her an easy favorite over Natasha or Bailu.
Hanya
Hanya is another newly released character in HSR and she fixes the Skill Point issue for characters like Dan Heng Inbibitor Lunae and Qingque. Her Skill marks a single enemy and any attack on that enemy generates a Skill point (up to 2 Skill points). Also, allies attacking the enemy with the Burden status will deal 33% more damage.
Other than being a Skill point generating machine, she also gives a significant Speed and Attack buff with her Ultimate to a single target for 2 turns. She is overall a really strong Harmony unit and will help your high Skill Point economy teams cycle properly.
Honkai Star Rail Best B-Tier Characters
The B-tier characters in Honkai Star Rail are average or slightly above average characters. These characters are good enough to complete all the story mission content in the game. But for end-game challenges, like MoC and Simulated Universe, it’s better to pull for A-tier or above characters.
Bailu
Bailu is a very strong healer and the only Eidolon 0 healer who can revive knocked out characters. Her Skill is a bounce heal that heals the main target first and then jumps to two random allies. The highlight point of her kit is her Ultimate, which is a good team-wide heal that also applies Invigoration on all the allies for 1 turn. Invigoration lets allies heal automatically for a decent amount when they get hit by enemies, making your team a bit more tanky.
The biggest downside of Bailu’s kit is the lack of any cleanse. Cleanse is very important in the end game of Honkai Star Rail, and having a healer not able to cleanse can make challenges infinitely harder.
Welt
Welt is a great character and someone I really like playing. However, with release of better support characters, Welt has become more of an afterthought. Welt’s kit is very unique as he applies Slow on enemies with his Skill, forcing them to delay their turns, while his Ultimate imprisons enemies, making them skip turns completely. Building Welt properly can stop enemies from taking any action and is a genuinely fun way to play.
Himeko
Himeko is one of the popular characters in the Honkai universe, but her character in Honkai Star Rail doesn’t live up to her hype. Being a DPS, her damage is comparatively very low, only her Follow-up attack, which deals AoE fire damage, has any power behind it.
However, triggering her Follow-up attack requires weakness-breaking 3 enemies, which becomes increasingly hard in the late game. Nonetheless, she is still great for early-game content and might make a return to prominence with the new Pure Fiction mode that will arrive in the Honkai Star Rail 1.6 update.
March 7th
March 7th is the first free character you will get in Honkai Star Rail, and she does a fairly good job as a sustain, helping you clear most content until you get Fire Trailblazer or a better sustain. Her Skill gives Shield to a single ally and any attack on that ally triggers a Follow-up attack from her. Her Ultimate also does AoE attack with a small chance to freeze all enemies. Overall, she has a good kit for early-game content and can be useful if you want another shield provider in late-game challenges.
Yukong
Yukong is a very strong Harmony character with a combined kit of a Sub DPS and Support. She can buff the Attack of all allies by 88% using her Skill which is much stronger than buffs received from other Harmony characters. Yukong’s Ultimate can additionally increase Crit Rate by 30% and Crit Damage by 70% for all allies, while dealing a ridiculous 410% of Yukong’s attack as Imaginary damage to a single target.
Her buffs are extremely strong but where she lacks is in her buff uptime, which is why we have kept her in B-tier in our Honkai Star Rail character tier list. Her Skill buff only lasts 2 turns of her allies and not her 2 turns. This makes building a team around her very hard as you always need to make sure the main DPS is going right after Yukong. However, if built and played correctly, she can provide a massive damage buff to your team while doing a decent bit of damage herself.
Guinafen
Guinafen is a strong DoT unit that can do a fair share of damage while decreasing enemy defenses if built correctly. Her Skill applies burn on enemies for 2 turns. When enemies with the burn status take DoT damage, their defense is weakened by 7% (can stack up to 3 times). Her Ultimate also does AoE fire damage, while also triggering all the Burn DoTs applied on the enemy. Overall, she is a good unit and can pair well with other Fire characters like Asta and Himeko, and DoT characters like Kafka.
Fire Trailblazer
Fire Trailblazer is a very strong sustain unit with a fair bit of damage output. His/her kit is primarily based around the Talent, which stacks Magma Will each time the Trailblazer is hit (up to 8 stacks). The Trailblazer can also get stacks from using their Skill. When the Trailblazer has 4 stacks or more, their basic attacks becomes enhanced basic attacks and deal Blast damage instead of single target damage.
However, the main highlight of the kit is that the Trailblazer will apply a small shield to all allies when the Trailblazer uses their Basic Attack, Skill, or Ultimate. Additionally, using Skill will decrease damage taken by 40% for the Trailblazer, with a 100% chance of taunting all enemies for 1 turn, drawing their aggro. Trailblazer’s Ultimate also does a fair bit of AoE damage, and makes the next basic attack automatically enhanced. The Fire Trailblazer has many good things in their kit, but sadly he/she cannot solo sustain a team, leading to their B-tier placement.
Honkai Star Rail Best C-Tier Characters
The C-tier characters in Honkai Star Rail are the comparatively weaker characters, who are only good in early game content or in very specific scenarios. In most cases, these characters will be left out of your main team if you are planning to take on difficult opponents.
Natasha
Natasha is a very good early-game healer. Players can get her for free in the early game, making her the first healer most players get to have. Her Skill lets her heal a single ally and it additionally heals the same ally at the start of their turn, for 2 turns. Her Ultimate heals all allies for a decent amount, making it really good for early boss fights. However, she lacks cleanse, and that makes playing her near impossible in end-game content.
Luka
Luka is a strong DoT applier who can also deal vulnerability to enemies, reducing their defenses. He is particularly good in DoT teams or as a sub DPS. Teams built around Kafka can use Luka to deal a good chunk of DoT damage, but other than that, you will be better off with other DPS characters.
Serval
Serval was a hard pick for the C tier as she can be really good (at least B tier) with her Eidolon 6. She is another DoT character but from the Erudition path instead of the Nihility path like most other DoT characters. Serval provides consistent damage every turn and they build up with each turn. Her main kit revolves around applying Shock on enemies and triggering her talent that deals additional damage to shocked enemies.
Having her E6, lets her apply Shock constantly on enemies and increases damage dealt to Shocked enemies significantly. At E6, Serval can clear most content in the game, but at E0, she is not good enough to be placed in Honkai Star Rail B-tier characters or above.
Yanqing
Yanqing is the only 5* character in the C or lower tiers (excluding Trailblazer) and the main reason for that is his playstyle. In terms of damage output, Yanqing can dish out a lot of damage due to his self-buffing capabilities. When Yanqing uses his Skill, he deals a good single target ice damage and activates Soulsteel sync for 1 turn.
While this effect is active, Yanqing gets a buff to his Crit Rate by 21% and Crit Damage by 33%, also allowing a 60% chance of doing Follow-up attacks after attacking enemies. His Ultimate increases his Crit rate by 60% and additionally increases the Crit Damage by 54% when the Soulsteel Sync effect is activated while doing a good amount of single target damage.
However, the main drawback of his kit is when Yanqing takes damage, he loses his Soulsteel Sync effect. This is why, to have the best out of Yanqing, you need to use a good shield applier. Although he is a very strong character, there are better DPS units than him who are easier to play.
Dan Heng
Dan Heng is the 2nd free character given at the very start of the game. Being the weaker version of himself, Dan Heng can still become a formidable character at Eidolons 6. He can act as a carry for most of the early game content at E0 as he possesses strong single-target damage that also has a chance to Slow enemies. His talent also gives him 37% Wind Resistance Penetration as long as a targeted Skill is applied to him, like Tingyun’ Skill or Asta’s Ultimate.
Dan Heng’s Technique also gives him a 40% Attack increase for 3 turns. However, he truly shines at E6, as he can take another action after defeating an enemy with his Ultimate and can Slow enemies with a better chance. Dan Heng is a good character for beating most of the early game content, and if properly invested, can be a good late game asset if you are lacking a good single target DPS carry.
Herta
Herta is one of the easiest characters to get Eidolon 6 on Honkai Star Rail, as you get most of them free from the Simulated Universe. She is a decent character with good AoE damage Skill and Ultimate. Additionally, she does AoE Follow-up attack when an enemy hits 50% or lower health. She is very good in the early game and the Ashblazing Grand Duke Relic set has only made her stronger. I am expecting more use from her once the new Pure Fiction game mode releases.
Honkai Star Rail Best D-Tier Characters
The D-tier characters are the weaker characters in Honkai Star Rail. These characters can be good but need high investment and very specific teams to shine.
Sushang
Sushang is a decent single-target Hunt character with the Physical damage type. She gets a significant speed buff when enemies are broken. Her Skill does good single-target physical damage, with a chance of triggering Sword Stance, which deals additional damage to the enemy. Sword Stance has a 100% chance against weakness-broken enemies, so her main damage output is going to be against them. She also has a good single target Ultimate, which also 100% advances her turn.
Sushang is a lovely character but her damage is not significant, and someone like Dan Heng is a better choice because of the Slow debuff they can apply on enemies. Sushang will appear in the phase 2 of Honkai Star Rail 1.6 banners.
Hook
Hook is another decent Honkai Star Rail character. Her Skill basically does good single-target damage, which also applies Burn on enemies. Her Burn damage scales with her level so she can do pretty good damage once fully leveled. She does consistent damage and can let you clear early-game content pretty easily, especially against the Fire Weakness types. But compared to other DPS characters, she doesn’t stand out at all.
Sampo
Sampo is another good DoT applier who can quickly rack up Wind shear stacks on enemies. His Skill bounces between enemies dealing Wind damage and applying Wind shear up to 5 hits. This is RNG with multiple enemies, but against a single target, its really good. Sampo’s Ultimate also makes enemies vulnerable to DoTs, making him decent for DoT teams.
Honkai Star Rail Best E-Tier Characters
The E-tier characters in Honkai Star Rail are the weakest and don’t bring much value to any team.
Arlan
Arlan is widely considered the worst character in Honkai Star Rail. He has a similar playstyle like Blade, but without the high damage part. His kit also consumes his HP to increase his damage, however, his multiplier is below subpar, leading to barely any damage.
Physical Trailblazer
Ranking Physical Trailblazer in the E tier was physically painful for me, because I absolutely love the Galactic Baseballer. However, his/her kit is just straight single and blast Physical damage with very poor damage numbers. If looked at it from pure damage numbers, players are better off with any other DPS than him.
So, this is our Honkai Star Rail character tier list. This list was created after carefully analyzing each character and their kit for early, mid, and late-game content. We would love to know your thoughts about our tier list and your favorite characters. Share your opinion with us in the comment section.
