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Serval in Honkai: Star Rail is a free-to-play character available to everyone in the game, meaning you will always have her by default when you complete the tutorial. She's a powerful AoE DPS character who uses lightning to damage and debuff enemies, giving her a ton of utility early on.
Unless you get lucky on your banner pulls for Arlan or Bailu, Serval will be your only Lightning-based damage dealer. Setting aside her skills and abilities, simply being a F2P character is reason enough to invest time into building her. The result is a powerful AoE damage dealer who can help round out your teams.
Best Relics And Planar Ornaments For Serval
Every character in Star Rail can equip four Relics and two Planar Ornaments. If you're familiar with HoYoverse's other gacha game Genshin Impact, you'll recognise this system immediately. Relics come in sets, offering a bonus stat or effect if you equip two pieces and another bonus if you equip four of the same set.
Planar Ornaments operate similarly, but there are only two slots for them. As such, there are bonuses for equipping two of the same Ornaments on your character. Finding the best set and stats for your characters is half the battle, so here is how to choose them for Serval.
|
Type |
Name |
Reason |
|---|---|---|
|
Relics |
Band of Sizzling Thunder Two-piece bonus: Increases Lightning DMG by 10 percent. Four-piece bonus: When using your Skill, increase your ATK by 20 percent for one turn. |
The Band of Sizzling Thunder relic set increases Serval's lightning attacks, which is her primary source of damage. The four-piece set bonus synergises with how you want to use Serval: using her Skill to attack multiple foes in one strike, giving her more damage thanks to the bonus. |
|
Musketeer of Wild Wheat Two-piece bonus: ATK increases by 12 percent. Four-piece bonus: SPD increases by six percent, and Basic ATK DMG increases by 10 percent. |
The Musketeer set is decent for Serval until you can get the Band of Sizzling Thunder. This set is a decent substitute since it increases her Speed and ATK, moving her up in the turn order and giving her attacks some more oomph. |
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|
Planar Ornaments |
Space Sealing Station Set bonus: Increases ATK by 12 percent. When your Speed reaches 120 or higher, your ATK increases by an extra 12 percent. |
Space Sealing Station offers a boost to ATK when you equip two pieces, giving you a damage boost to Serval's attacks. If you want more damage from Serval, choose this one. |
|
Pan-Galactic Commercial Enterprise Set bonus: Increases Effect Hit Rate by ten percent. Increases ATK by an amount equal to 25 percent of the current Effect Hit Rate, up to a maximum of 25 percent. |
The Pan-Galactic Commercial Enterprise will increase Serval's Effect Hit Rate, which means she will be more likely to inflict the Shock debuff when using her Skill. This debuff does damage over time, making it incredibly powerful. |
Between Space Sealing Station and Pan-Galactic Commerical Enterprise, pick the Ornament based on Serval's effect hit rate.
You want to make sure enemies are being debuffed by her Skill regularly.
The Head and Hand relic slots in Honkai always have the same main stats, namely ATK and HP respectively. When choosing the Relic and Ornament main stats, you want to focus on the following:
|
Body |
Crit Rate / Crit DMG |
|
Feet |
ATK Percent / Speed |
|
Planar Sphere |
Lightning DMG |
|
Link Rope |
ATK percent / Energy Regen |
Generally speaking, Serval should be built as a standard DPS, which means ATK percent, Lightning DMG and Crit Rate/DMG should be covered.
It depends on several factors, but you shouldn't see a massive difference between using a four-piece Band of Sizzling Thunder, VS using two-piece Thunder and two-piece Musketeer.
Best Light Cones For Serval
Light Cones come with stat bonuses and passive effects. These passives grant several boons in combat, but each one is tied to a Path, meaning only characters of the corresponding Path can gain these various effects.
Serval is on the Erudition Path, which means her Light Cones should always be from the same. These Light Cones are among the best to consider.
|
Light Cone |
Rarity |
Reason |
|---|---|---|
|
Night on the Milky Way |
Five-star |
Night on the Milky Way is the best Light Cone for Serval since it enhances her AoE damage. The effect of this Light Cone increases the wearer's damage for every enemy in the battle. This buff stacks five times for a total of 45 percent damage boost. Since Serval is best suited for fighting large groups, this will enhance her Skill AoE damage considerably. It also increases your damage further when you inflict a Weakness Break. |
|
Geniuses' Repose |
Four-star |
This Light Cone grants a bonus to your ATK stat, increasing it by 16 percent. Naturally, Serval thrives on high damage, aiming to hit as many enemies as possible, dealing as much damage as possible. This cone also has a bonus that increases your Crit DMG by 24 percent when you defeat an enemy. |
|
Make the World Clamor |
Four-star |
Make the World Clamor increases Serval's energy regen and buffs your Ultimate damage by 32 percent. The idea behind this Light Cone is to capitalise on Serval's Ultimate, which will refill the timer on any Shock damage-over-time debuffs the enemies have on them. This keeps enemies taking damage every turn and gives her Ultimate more impact. |
|
The Seriousness of Breakfast |
Four-star |
Another attack bonus for Serval, this Light Cone grants a 12 percent damage increase. It also provides another effect that increases your ATK by four percent for every defeated enemy. Serval doesn't have to kill the enemy herself for this passive to kick in. This Light Cone can be claimed in-game, outside of the Gacha. |
|
Sagacity |
Three-star |
As a three-star Light Cone, this will be an excellent substitute until you can get something better. Sagacity increases your attack power when you use your Ultimate. This effect lasts for two turns, and since you should have multiple copies of Sagacity, you can Superimpose it to rank five in no time. |
Every Light Cone offers a bonus to HP, ATK, and DEF. The crucial part of the Light Cone is the passive effect.
When choosing between them, see if you can fill any stat gaps your Relics don't cover.
Alternatively, stacking ATK increases on Serval will be wonderfully beneficial.
Serval Traces Overview And Priority
Every character in Honkai: Star Rail has Traces, which are unlockable nodes that improve certain aspects of a character. You can level up characters' Attack, Skill, and Ultimate, and unlock new bonus abilities as you level and ascend your units.
When levelling and unlocking Traces, you should focus on Skill, Ultimate, and Attack in that order. You should prioritise Serval's Bonus Ability, Rock 'n' Roll, which gives her Skill a 100 percent base chance to inflict Shock.
|
Ability Name |
Type |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Roaring Thunderclap |
Basic Attack |
Deals Lightning DMG to one target. Damage increases with each level. |
|
Lightning Flash |
Skill |
Deals Lightning DMG to one enemy and two adjacent enemies. It has an 80 percent chance to inflict Shock, dealing damage over time. |
|
Here Comes the Mechanical Fever |
Ultimate |
Deals Lightning DMG to all enemies. Enemies already inflicted with Shock will extend the debuff duration by two turns. |
|
Galvanic Chords |
Talent |
Deal an extra instance of Lightning DMG to all enemies currently Shocked when Serval attacks. |
|
Good Night, Belobog |
Technique |
Attack the enemy to deal Lightning DMG. Shock one random enemy at the start of combat. |
|
Rock 'n' Roll |
Bonus Ability |
Serval's Skill has a 20 percent chance to Shock enemies. This gives her Skill a 100 percent base chance to inflict Shock when using her Skill. |
|
Mania |
Bonus Ability |
When an enemy is defeated, increase Serval's ATK by 20 percent. This effect lasts two turns. |
|
String Vibration |
Bonus Ability |
Serval recovers 15 Energy at the start of battle. |
When it comes to Traces, you should focus on increasing Serval's Skill and her Shock debuff hit rate. Serval is excellent at hitting multiple targets, and increasing these Traces will ensure Serval can hit more foes and almost always inflict Shock.
Are Serval's Eidolons Worth It?
Eidolons are special effects each character can unlock when you receive copies of that unit. There are six Eidolons for each character, all of which enhance their base kit and utility.
Serval's best Eidolons are her first, fourth, and sixth.
Her first Eidolon powers up her Basic Attack to an AoE, letting it deal Lightning DMG to a random enemy adjacent to the target of the hit.
Serval's fourth Eidolon gives her Ultimate a 100 percent chance to inflict the Shock debuff, effectively working the same as her Skill. This gives her an even bigger chance to debuff the entire enemy team and extend the Shock duration of any enemy already suffering from it.
While you should probably stop at the fourth Eidolon, if you happen to get Serval's sixth and final one, you can benefit from the effect that lets her deal more damage to Shocked enemies.
However, at the moment Serval can only be claimed once as a free character, and you will have to get copies of her from the Standard Warp Banner. As a four-star, your odds of getting her a fairly slim, so we don't recommend solely pulling for Serval.