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You might have many reasons to play Honkai: Star Rail and one of them is probably the wide range of playable characters. Hoyoverse is known for making some of the most beautiful character designs in anime games, and the special part about this game is that it shares some characters with Honkai Impact 3rd.

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The game has a set of four-star and five-star characters, and they're divided by their respective paths and combat types. Each path has a specific job in the team, but the characters can still be ranked based on their overall value.

Updated on February 29, 2024, by Sanyam Jain: Harmony characters have been the most valuable ever since the release of Honkai: Star Rail, and the trend continues with Sparkle's release in the Version 2.0 update. The tier list has been updated with her position.

Basis Of This Tier List

Honkai Star Rail Seele Looking At Screen

In Honkai: Star Rail, every character's effectiveness is determined by various factors. Whenever you get a character by summoning them, progressing in the game, or through a limited-time event, they'll already have a set of five Traces (abilities):

Basic Attack

The basic attack of every character can be used both to start the battle and to deal damage to the enemies in battle. During the battle, each character's basic ATK DMG is a percentage of their overall ATK.


This percentage is the same for every character at a certain level. For example, each character's level one basic attack deals damage equal to 50 percent of their ATK.

Skill

Every character has a unique skill that's usually in line with their path. These abilities consume one skill point to trigger, and you can get skill points by using basic attacks.


The skill points of all characters are cumulative in battle, and they're displayed beside your abilities at the bottom right.

Ultimate

You gain Energy by using your basic attacks and skills, or taking damage from the enemies. After getting enough energy, you can use your ultimate. Character ultimates can easily change the outcome of the battle.

Technique

This ability replaces your skill button if you're roaming around in the open world. You can use this before starting a battle to get advantages based on the character you're using.

Talent

Talent is the main passive that connects all of the character's abilities. Apart from the main talent, you can still get three bonus passives on each character after ascending them a certain amount of times.

Apart from the level of a character's Traces, their damage can depend on the Light Cone level, the type of Relics you give them, and the level of your Relics. There's a variety of Light Cones and Relics you can use on each character, and the game gives this freedom to you.

The only thing you have to keep in mind is that a Light Cone's ability only works if it has the same path as your character.

Because of the possible variety, this tier list focuses on a character's value based on their Traces. Moreover, every tier list is subjective, and you might not agree with all the character placements in this one. At the end of the day, you should always try to have the character that you'll have the most fun with.

S+ Tier Five-Star Characters

Honkai Star Rail Sparkle Evil Face With Masks Around
  • Sparkle
  • Black Swan
  • Ruan Mei
  • Huohuo
  • Jingliu
  • Dan Heng: Imbibitor Lunae
  • Fu Xuan
  • Kafka
  • Bronya

The S+ Tier in this tier list represents the best five-star characters in the game in any given situation. These five stars can easily perform better than the rest of the characters, and they can carry you through the endgame content like the Memory of Chaos or Swarm Disaster.

Sparkle

If you're lucky enough to pull Sparkle in Honkai: Star Rail, your account is likely set to beat any possible endgame content. Her Skill can advance one ally's turn by 50 percent while also giving them a massive Crit DMG bonus.


Her Talent and Ultimate increase the overall DMG of your entire team, making her viable for two-DPS compositions too.

Black Swan

Nihility was already in a decent place, but Black Swan's release allowed it to compete with Destruction because of her free massive damage. She essentially punishes enemies for getting a turn using her Arcana stacks.


You'll commonly see over 100,000 DMG on a single target with this character, and the fact that she's easy to build without any Crit requirement is a cherry on top.

Ruan Mei

Ruan Mei has one of the most unique kits in Honkai: Star Rail since it focuses on the weakness break aspect of combat. Her Skill can let her party members break the enemy's Toughness Bar much faster, while the Ultimate makes it harder for them to recover.


You can use her with almost every DPS character in the game, and the DMG Bonus provided from her Skill and Ultimate can increase their DMG monumentally.

Huohuo

Huohuo is the latest healer to be released in the game, and she can do absolutely everything. Apart from having the ability to solo-sustain the team, she can also increase your party's Energy and ATK.


You need a total of two solo-sustainers on your account, so if you only have one or less, it's definitely worth getting this character since she also has Harmony elements.

Jingliu

Jingliu is a five-star Ice unit that enters a special state whenever you use her Skill or Ultimate twice. You can only use your buffed Skill in this state, but it destroys everything in its path. However, Jingliu does take quite a bit of skill.


For example, you need to remember that it's better to use her Ultimate in the buffed state since she gets a DMG boost.

Dan Heng: Imbibitor Lunae

Hoyoverse does a decent job at balancing most of their characters around the same power, but they seem to like Dan Heng's upgraded form a bit too much. This character is undoubtedly the strongest DPS in the game with his third Enhanced Basic Attack.


You don't even need to have Imaginary Weakness on the opponent. Imbibitor Lunae destroys every single enemy equally, regardless of how tanky they are.

Fu Xuan

Fu Xuan is the first limited Preservation character in Honkai: Star Rail, and she excels at mitigating her team's damage by taking it herself. She can single-handedly prevent your team from dying and particularly excels against enemies who deal single-target damage.

Kafka

Kafka was one of the most anticipated characters in the game, but she also had a lot of debate around her usefulness due to the lackluster nature of DoT. On release, she shattered all expectations by making this play style one of the best.


Apart from dealing big damage, she's also future-proof since any DoT character released in the future can be put with her to get extra damage.

Bronya

Bronya is a five-star character that can be acquired from the beginner and the standard banner. Her kit is entirely based on buffing her teammates. Not only does she provide extra damage to a character with her skill, but also removes one of their debuffs.


Moreover, the character instantly gets their turn again. All of this is just her skill, and her Ultimate gives even more buffs.

Seele

Seele is the first limited-time character in Honkai: Star Rail that follows the path of The Hunt, which means she deals heavy damage to a single target. Her kit is entirely based around giving her extra SPD, which essentially does the same thing as Welt.


Even after being a single-target DPS, Seele can perform exceptionally well in multi-target scenarios since she instantly gets a turn if she defeats an enemy.

S Tier Five-Star Characters

Honkai Star Rail Dr Ratio Reading From A Book-1
  • Dr. Ratio
  • Argenti
  • Fire Trailblazer
  • Silver Wolf
  • Luocha
  • Blade
  • Gepard

This tier contains all the characters that have a great skill set, and they can work in a lot of teams. Overall, you will benefit from having these characters in your account no matter what. Genshin Impact players might be surprised by the placement of the main character in S-Tier, but the Trailblazer is actually quite strong in Honkai: Star Rail.

Each character's Traces earns their place in this tier:

Dr. Ratio

Unlike most DPS characters in the game, Dr. Ratio brings in a unique gameplay where you'd want to use debuffers in the team instead of the meat Harmony characters. He relies on the amount of debuffs on the enemy for his DMG.


You can see some staggering numbers from Dr. Ratio when you put him in the right time, but the only reason for him to be in a lower tier is the game being biased towards AoE unit at the moment.

Argenti

Erudition has been suffering as a path in Honkai: Star Rail, but Argenti picked it up a little by being able to deal big damage if you get his second Ultimate. However, you need quite a setup if you want to use this character.


If you're not using Tingyun or Huohuo with him, he'll easily go down to the A tier since his Energy problems outshine in that scenario.

Fire Trailblazer

To unlock the Fire Trailblazer, you'll have to reach close to the end of the main story in Jarilo-VI, which starts after you get past the Herta Space Station. You'll be following the path of Preservation, which specializes in protecting your team from damage.


This is very important in the endgame content of Honkai: Star Rail like the Forgotten Hall. Moreover, Fire Trailblazer can also taunt every enemy on the field, diverting the damage from the DPS of the team.

Silver Wolf

Silver Wolf is one of the most game-changing characters in Honkai: Star Rail and she's also immune to being powercrept. She's a Nihility character who can decrease one opponent's DEF with her Ultimate and implant a new Weakness with her Skill.


If you form a team around her correctly, you'll be able to use the different debuffs from her skill set efficiently. However, all her debuffs have a certain percentage chance of taking effect, which means that you'll need a ton of Effect Hit Rate on her.

Luocha

You can't prevent your characters from taking damage due to the turn-based nature of Honkai: Star Rail. This makes it important to have at least one healer in your party, and Luocha does that job best by automatically healing characters.


He's also great for Skill Point economy since you can just use his Basic Attacks while the Talent and automatic healing do their jobs. However, he can't protect your party members from getting one shot.

Blade

Blade is one of the few characters in the game who can fit in almost every play style. He does high AoE damage with his Enhanced Basic Attack, Follow-up, and Ultimate. He also manages his Skill Points extremely well since he only uses one every three turns.


Put him alongside a healer or a shielder who can keep him alive and he'll grant you victory in almost every battle.

Gepard

Gepard belongs to the Preservation path, which is supposed to have high defensive capabilities. His ultimate and technique gives a shield to all the allies, and his talent prevents him from being knocked down.


With the right Effect Hit Rate, you can also Freeze the enemy using his Skill. However, most F2P and low-spending players would want to stack a ton of DEF on him so that his shield can be as tanky as possible.

A Tier Five-Star Characters

Honkai Star Rail - Topaz holding a glass of wine in her hand
  • Topaz & Numby
  • Bailu
  • Physical Trailblazer
  • Yanqing
  • Welt
  • Clara
  • Jing Yuan

The A-tier includes both the characters that barely missed getting into the S-tier and the characters that give significantly less value than the S-tier characters. Most of these characters are a part of the standard banner, so you can get them at any point.

Topaz & Numby

This duo was the first Hunt character who was mainly a support for follow-up-based characters in the game. However, there aren't a lot of reasons to use follow-up units at the moment since they can be a little irregular.


However, Topaz & Numby have the potential of becoming one of the best supports in the game if Hoyoverse decides to focus on indirectly buffing follow-up attacks.

Bailu

At release, Bailu was one of the two healers in the game. Healers are heavily rated in Honkai: Star Rail during the mid to late game, but you get one healer for free during the story. Much like Bailu, Natasha can also heal characters through her Skill and Ultimate.


The only difference is that Bailu can prevent a character from getting knocked down once in each battle. She's a decent character to have, but you can work without her.

Physical Trailblazer

The best part about Trailblazer is that they're given to every player for free. They belong to the path of Destruction, which means that they're self-sufficient. The damage output from the Trailblazer is quite huge from the very start of the game.


Though their DEF only increases after you unlock the Perseverance bonus ability. Trailblazers can deal both single and multi-target damage to the enemy, and they're a great replacement if you don't have Clara or Sushang.

Yanqing

Yanqing is one of the characters that barely missed an entry into the S-tier. The outshining part about this character is that he's self-sufficient when it comes to damage. He can increase his own Crit Rate, Crit DMG, and overall DMG just by using his abilities.


This makes the stats from your Relics less important during the late game.

Welt

Welt is one of the standard characters that you can acquire both from the starter banner and the Stellar Warp banner. He was the only Imaginary character at launch, which gave him the Imprisonment effect.


This effect delays enemy turns and slows them down by quite a bit. Welt's entire kit is based around these two effects, and they can help you avoid a lot of damage. Enemies will have very high SPD when they're higher level, and this lets you keep up with them.

Clara

Clara is an adorable Destruction character in the game. It might not look like Clara has a lot going for her, but the main damage from her kit comes from Svarog whenever she or her allies take damage. She also takes ten percent less damage from the enemies.


Her skill set is quite good, but the overall numbers prevent her from reaching S-Tier.

Jing Yuan

Jing Yuan looked quite promising when he was released for the first time since Lightning Lord dealt a ton of damage to everyone on the field. Unfortunately, with newer characters coming into play, he might not be the best when it comes to damage per second.


Of course, you can still use him to clear all the content in the game and he's arguably one of the most fun characters to use.

B Tier Five-Star Characters

Honkai Star Rail Himeko Pose

Unfortunately, there's only one character in the B-tier in Honkai: Star Rail, which is the lowest tier. Himeko has a phenomenal set of abilities and ultimate animations, but other characters easily outshine her in almost every way.

Both her skill and ultimate deal damage to a group of enemies, but it doesn't quite feel enough. Moreover, the game gives you Asta for free, which is another great Fire character. A bunch of things come together to make Himeko not as strong. However, that doesn't mean that she's not viable.

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