All Characters in Honkai: Star Rail Ranked (Tier List)

Honkai: Star Rail is all about the characters, with new ones joining the game monthly. This ranked tier list aims to help you understand who the best characters are in Honkai: Star Rail and is current as of patch 2.0.

You can read our ranked list of all the characters in Honkai: Star Rail, ranked by tier from SS to C, below.

Every Honkai: Star Rail Character, Ranked by Tier

We’ve assigned each character in Honkai: Star Rail a rank based on their power and usefulness as a whole in the current meta. Here is a summary of the characters rankings from the strongest SS Tier to the weakest C Tier.

SS Tier Characters in Honkai: Star Rail

Acheron

Acheron is about as top-tier as it gets when it comes to damage dealing. If you want to easily hit enemies for eye-popping numbers like half a million damage, a quick Ultimate from Acheron is what you need! She has rather specific team-building requirements due to her passive ability improving her damage when paired up with at least two other Nihility characters. Once you check that box, though, she’s an unstoppable damage dealer worthy of the SS tier.

Imbibitor Lunae

Dan Heng’s dragon form Imbibitor Lunae is in Honkai: Star Rail. This is the strongest character yet, topping the charts in both single-target damage and multi-target damage. He’s very skill-point-hungry, though, needing up to three skill points per turn to reach his maximum damage output. You’ll need to build a team comp around him to suit this need, and there are very few characters that make an ideal team. He is worth it, though. His superb animations and crazy damage output make him currently the best character in the game. As such, Imbibitor Lunae remains in the highest tier on this ranked list of all the characters in Honkai: Star Rail, at least in my opinion.

For those interested in using Imbibitor Lunae in Honkai: Rail, here’s our best build for the character, along with the best team comps.

Jingliu

Jingliu charged to the top of the damage rankings in Honkai: Star Rail on release, immediately rivaling Imbibitor Lunae for the best damage in the game. Jingliu is a 5-star Ice Destruction character who can put out impressive damage without using many skill points at all. This makes her very flexible in team comps, working well alongside a second damage dealer or a support who likes to buff often. She gets to attack frequently thanks to her ability to advance her own turns often and has some passives in her tree that really boost her damage very easily. Despite being a damage dealer, she also adds nice utility to a team thanks to being able to freeze enemies often. She is well worth investing in for a top-tier damage dealer.

If you’re looking for more on Jingliu in Honkai: Star Rail, here’s our pick for the best build for the character, along with the best team comps.

Ruan Mei

Ruan Mei is a 5-star Ice Harmony character and the first to give Bronya a real run for her money as the best support in the game. Ruan Mei specializes in the Break Effect stat and can provide team members a buff that increases both their damage as well as their Break Effect stats. She also has a debuff that can shred enemies’ Resistances to elemental damage, which is incredibly powerful. You can expect to see Ruan Mei being used in a ton of top-tier team comps in Honkai: Star Rail going forward for quite some time!

With Ruan Mei being a recent addition to Honkai: Star Rail, we put together a best build guide for her, along with our choices for the best team comps.

Fu Xuan

Fu Xuan is an incredible Quantum 5-star character that was added in the second half of patch 1.3. She follows the Path of Preservation and fulfills the role of a powerful tank. She now outclasses Gepard as the best tank in the game. She can take damage in place of her teammates, heal herself, and buff the team’s Crit. This combination is just wild, and she’s an absolute boon to any team comp, making her a natural fit for a high spot on this ranked list of all the characters in Honkai: Star Rail!

Fu Xuan is a total powerhouse. If you’re looking for the best build for her, check out our guide for that, or maybe you want to find what team to put her in, so here’s our guide to that.

Huohuo

This adorable little spooky 5-star character features the Wind element and the Path of Abundance. She is an incredible healer who’s easily on par with Luocha, and she also has powerful buffing utility. She can fit into almost any team comp and provide her incredible healing output and damage-boosting buffs to really make a team comp shine. If you have Huohuo, you really can’t go wrong investing in her and making her a core player in your teams!

If you decide to get Huohuo in Honkai: Star Rail after reading this ranked tier list, you should check out our build guide for the character, as it’ll help you get the most you can out of her.

Kafka

Kafka joined the roster in the second half of patch 1.2 as a 5-star Nihility Lightning character. She brings a whole new viability to a handful of characters thanks to her skillset focusing on Damage over Time and improving both her own and her teammates’ DoT. The result is an absolute monster damage dealer. Kafka falls just behind Seele and Yanqing for single target damage but rivals Blade for the best AOE damage dealer. This makes her one of the top damage dealers. Throw in her ability to enable whole new team comps focused on DoT, and you have a very well-rounded character.

If you’re looking for the best build for Kafka in Honkai: Star Rail, you should check ours out, as it’ll help you get the most out of the character. Otherwise, look into our guide for the best team comps for the character, as that’ll help you go far!

Black Swan

Black Swan is one of the most formidable DoT characters in the game. Pair her up with another strong DoT dealer, such as Kafka, and watch her absolutely destroy enemies with constantly ticking damage from her Tarot Cards. The constant damage racks up very quickly and makes teams featuring her top tier across all content. If you enjoy using Nihility characters, Black Swan can take teams with them to a whole new level!

Sparkle

Sparkle is a support character that provides game-changing skill point mechanics to a team. If you’ve got a team that needs a ton of skill points to function well, such as an Imbibitor Lunae team, Sparkle can take these teams above and beyond. Finally, you can play skill point-hungry teams without just having to basic attack half the time with the power of Sparkle.

S Tier

Silver Wolf

As a 5-star, single-target-focused debuffer, Silver Wolf has carved out a spot in the SS Tier among Honkai: Star Rail characters. She has Quantum damage typing and performs very similarly to Welt, with the main difference being that she doesn’t have much area of effect capability and instead excels at single target debuffing and damage.

Silver Wolf also has the unique ability to enable type weakness of a random selection from your team comp to be placed on the enemy that she attacks with her main skill. This is incredibly strong if you reduce the number of elements running on your team. For example, if you were to run a full mono Quantum team (which isn’t yet possible), then she would apply Quantum weakness to 100% of targets she hits with her skill. You could then use that kind of team to defeat literally any content in the game. Silver Wolf is also able to shred enemy resistances and defenses by huge amounts, enabling damage-over-time inflictors like Sampo to be more reliable and damage dealers to output far more damage.

Luocha

Luocha is the pinnacle 5-star healer in Honkai: Star Rail. Luocha’s healing output is right on par with that of Bailu, but there are two big differences: Luocha scales off of Attack, which makes him a capable damage dealer, and he can do most of his healing and debuff removal completely passively. Luocha’s skill allows him to heal a target based on his Attack, and he also gains an Abyss Flower stack that then triggers for free when an ally gets below 50% HP. That makes it an incredibly useful targeted and passive heal that can be triggered without an extra turn or skill point being needed.

His ultimate is also stacked full of useful utility – Luocha will remove one buff from every enemy, hit them all with damage based on his attack, and gain an Abyss Flower stack. Luocha’s passive talent is also strong—when reaching two stacks of Abyss Flower, both stacks are used up, and a field is deployed that allows any ally attacking within the field to receive healing when they attack an enemy. This kit is absolutely wild, and Luocha is a top pick to pair with almost any team if you have him.

Considering that Luocha is such a formidable healer in Honkai: Star Rail, there’s a good chance you’re going to want to use him. As such, we’ve made a best build guide for the character as well as a list of the best team comps.

Bronya

Bronya is hands down one of the best characters in Honkai: Star Rail for applying damage buffs to teammates. Pair her with either of the units above, and you’ll really see some big numbers. She can also help any other damage character exceed their limits and move up a tier in damage from her buffs – they’re just that good. If you ever get Bronya, she’s well worth building up and investing in. Pair her up with another powerful support character like Ruan Mei, and your main damage dealer will be hitting harder than ever!

Argenti

Argenti is a 5-star Fire Erudition character and the new king of AOE damage in Honkai: Star Rail. With the drop of a rose, Argenti can deal devastating AOE damage to all enemies with his powerful abilities. His Ultimate is his main source of damage, though. It’s a low energy cost yet damaging Ultimate that tears through waves of enemies. If you need someone to tackle a lot of wave-based content, look no further than Argenti!

If you’re looking for the best build for Argenti in Honkai: Star Rail, we’ve got you covered with this guide. If you’ve already checked that out, you may want to look into our picks for the best team comps.

Blade

Blade was the first 5-star character to join the roster in patch 1.2, making a splash with his incredibly strong kit. He’s a Destruction character of the Wind element, and he works off of HP: the lower his HP, the more damage he does. This means Blade wants to be getting attacked a lot and using his abilities to drain his own HP to get the most damage output. His Talent is where a good chunk of his damage comes from. After consuming HP, Blade will gain stacks and, at five stacks, will launch a devastating AOE follow-up attack, with damage scaling from both his HP and attack values. This means you can build him with HP, Attack, and Crit, and it will all scale his damage, which is very convenient!

Blade’s skill scales his damage output, and his ultimate is a very powerful attack that hits a primary target plus adjacent targets. Overall, his damage output is just below Seele and Yanqing for single-target DPS (at E0—he actually beats them at E6), and he beats out Jing Yuan to be the strongest multi-target DPS by a good margin as well. This makes Blade one of the best damage-dealing characters in the Honkai: Star Rail so far.

Considering just how powerful Blade can be in Honkai: Star Rail, you may be looking to maximize your use of him with the best build guide. You also may want a list of great team comps for him.

Topaz & Numby

Topaz and her faithful Wrap Trotter Numby make up the 5-star Fire Hunt character team that enables a whole new playstyle. Follow-up damage has been in a pretty poor place since launch. Characters like Himeko, Herta, and Jing Yuan, who make good use of the mechanic, just weren’t getting enough damage out of it. Now, Topaz and Numby – who assist greatly in boosting follow-up attack damage – will create an entirely new meta around follow-up attacks, especially with the addition of follow-up damage-enhancing Relics in patch 1.5. She does great damage herself, but as soon as she and other follow-up damage dealers have the new relics, the damage output will be very impressive. If you like the sound of creating a follow-up attack comp, Topaz and Numby are a must-pull!

With Topaz and Numby still being a big part of Honkai: Star Rail, here’s our guide to the best build featuring the character and the best team comps, too!

Tingyun

Tingyun is effectively the 4-star version of Bronya. She performs the exact same damage-buffing role, just not quite as well as Bronya. If you don’t have Bronya, Tingyun is the best thing for a strong DPS buffer. If you already have Bronya, though, and you also get Tingyun, it could very well still be worth building her to serve as a dedicated buffer for your second team when tackling Forgotten Memories.

Qingque

With the addition of Fu Xuan and Lynx in patch 1.3, Qingque got bumped up into the S-tier as part of the powerful new mono Quantum team. Earlier on in the lifecycle of Honkai: Star Rail, Qingque’s damage output seemed too random for her to be a top damage choice. We’ve found that, with high investment, she is actually incredibly strong and deserving of the S-tier. 

High investments mean Eidolon level 6, good relics, and talents highly level up. If you meet these conditions, she becomes an absolute beast, rivaling some of the strongest 5-star characters in the game. Pair her with Seele in a mono Quantum team, and you’ve got a force to be reckoned with! She’s still quite RNG-based, but at high investment, it’s less of an issue, and she’ll be hitting hard pretty frequently.

Pela

Pela moves up to the S-tier with the release of Imbibitor Lunae. She’s one of his best teammates due to her not needing to use her skill at all. She can simply focus on generating skill points for Imbibitor Lunae, who needs tons. Pela is a good debuffer, able to shred enemy resistances with her ultimate and use her ability to remove buffs from enemies. She’s still a good choice for other teams as well if you don’t have someone like Bronya or Tingyun available.

Related: Best Early Game Team Comp in Honkai: Star Rail

Jing Yuan

Jing Yuan has fallen down the ranks of damage-dealing characters quite a bit. He is still an awesome multi-target damage dealer but is easily bested by the likes of Kafka, Blade, and Imbibitor Lunae. He’s still one of the coolest characters, though. With the unique ability to summon an entity that gets its own attack on the timeline that hits all enemies up to 10 times, his damage output can be absolutely outrageous. If you have Jing Yuan, then he is well worth investing in, as he can easily carry a team.

If you do decide to invest in Jing Yuan in Honkai: Star Rail after reading this ranked tier list, check out our pick for the best build featuring the character and the best team comps.

Dr. Ratio

Dr. Ratio is a powerful follow-up attack damage dealer that excels in single-target DPS scenarios. He’ll mark a target and follow up with regularly triggering attacks that can be quite devastating, especially when he’s paired up with other follow-up attackers and a good support to boost his damage.

A Tier

Lynx

Lynx is the 4-star Quantum character added in the second half of patch 1.3. She’s a Path of Abundance character and one of the best healers in the game at high Eidolon levels. With her E6, she rivals Bailu in terms of healing output and utility. That’s pretty amazing for a mere 4 star!

Gepard

The best shielder in the game, Gepard is an absolute blessing thanks to the massive shield that his ultimate provides to the whole team. He outclasses any other shielder by far and should absolutely be invested into and built up as a core character if you pull him.

Bailu

Bailu has been dethroned by Luocha as the best healer in the game. She’s also had her value diminished by Lynx, Fu Xuan, and Huohuo. She’s still better than Natasha, especially in terms of her high healing output and her special, built-in defibrillators that can revive a downed character once per battle, which can really make all the difference in a tough fight.

Although Bailu isn’t the best healer in Honkai: Star Rail anymore, you may still want to build her up, so here’s our guide to that.

Asta

Asta has a pretty powerful team-wide speed-boosting buff with her ultimate, which can make her a great addition to teams. Asta goes from good to amazing when she hits E6, and with the focus on boosting character speed being so valuable in teams in the current meta, she’s become a staple across many comps.

Clara

Clara has incredibly good synergy with Luocha, in being able to use his healing to recover every time she counterattacks. With her robot homie Svarog, Clara is both a tank and a top-notch damage dealer. Able to retaliate after being attacked, she can be an absolute menace, especially when you can provide her with shields and a taunt. Meanwhile, Svarog will be blasting to bits anyone who dares try to strike Clara. If you get her, she is well worth investing in, as she can be an awesome addition to any team. 

Hanya

Hanya is a 4-star Physical Harmony character. She is an amazing buffer to use, thanks to her Ultimate ability granting an ally 20% of her total speed, plus 60% increased Attack. Those are really valuable buffs for most main damage characters in Honkai: Star Rail. Hanya is also amazing to use in teams that burn through a lot of skill points. Her skill can generate up to two additional skill points for the team per use, making her a great addition to many strong team comps!

Guinaifen

Guinaifen is a Fire-based 4-star Nihility character. She’s got some really strong damage over time abilities, and she makes a really strong addition to a Kafka team comp. Her damage is excellent, especially at higher Superimposition levels. The main downside is that you do need Kafka in order to really make her a strong character. Outside of Kafka teams, she’s not that useful.

Sampo

Sampo is a legend. He’s not just a funny character but also one that deals quite a lot of damage, particularly if you go all-in on his ability to deal damage over time. He falls into the same boat as Himeko, though, providing good multi-target damage but lacking when in single-target fights like bosses. Sampo is in the A tier as a match with Kafka, thanks to her new age of DoT greatness. Sampo can now shine alongside her and is an excellent damage dealer in a Kafka team.

Yukong

Yukong is another Imaginary character, a 4-star offensive support with some of the best buffing capability in the game, rivaling that of Tingyun and Bronya. Yukong’s specialty is being able to buff your main attackers’ Crit stats. Both Crit Rate as well as Crit Damage are increased by significant amounts, all while dealing damage with her Ultimate to an enemy at the same time. Her skill is also incredibly powerful, applying a team-wide Attack boost of over 40% for a couple of turns. With these kinds of insane damage buffs, she will be an excellent addition to any team, and pretty much every main damage dealer in the game will thrive on her buffs.

Although Yukong isn’t the best character around, there’s still a lot you can do with her, provided you’ve got the right build, so you can read our pick for that here, alongside the team comps of your dreams.

Fire Trailblazer

The best shielder alternative to Gepard, with a teamwide shield and full enemy team taunt, the Fire Trailblazer has an excellent kit and will serve any team well. Chances are you’ve already built up your Trailblazer a fair bit, so using them as a dedicated shielder and taunt tank is an excellent choice, especially if you don’t have Gepard or need a shielder for your second team.

If Fire Trailblazer is your shielder, here’s our pick for the best build for the character, which is likely to help you out a ton until you can get a better pull.

Himeko

Himeko is the next best multi-target damage dealer behind Jing Yuan, so if you don’t have Jing Yuan, she can take that role and will deal a ton of damage if you invest in her. The downside is that she lacks in single-target damage compared to Jing Yuan, so it can be difficult for her to be a solo damage dealer on a team, and she may need to be paired with a single-target damage dealer.

Considering that Himeko can be pretty formidable, you’re likely going to want to put some time into her, so here’s our guide for building up the Honkai: Star Rail character.

Hook

Hook is a good single-target damage dealer but worse than Dan Heng in all aspects. If you need a main damage dealer for a secondary team and don’t have a better option, Hook is pretty decent.

Luka

Luka is a 4-star character added in the second half of patch 1.2 alongside Kafka. He’s all about DoTs with his powerful bleeds, and he has a very strong mechanic similar to Blade in that he only needs to use his skill occasionally to empower his basic attacks. This means he works very well in teams with multiple damage dealers and is particularly useful in a team alongside Kafka to get the most out of his bleeds.

Related: Best Himeko Build in Honkai: Star Rail

Yanqing

Yanqing is a single-target damage powerhouse just a step below Seele. He comes with one caveat, though: he needs to be uninterrupted to deal the most damage. Unless you have someone else on the team to taunt and provide shielding, Yanqing won’t be able to reach his full potential. If you have the team to pull that off, he’s definitely worth investing in, especially if you don’t have Seele or need a main DPS for a second team. He’s power crept more and more with each new damage dealer released, though, so in patch 1.3, he dropped down to the A-tier.

Dan Heng

Dan Heng is the free-to-play champion of single-target damage. He rivals Yanqing and can’t quite catch Seele. As a free character, though, he can certainly get the job done and will make an excellent choice to build and use as a main DPS if you don’t have Seele or one of the other top-damaging 5-star characters.

Welt

Welt has the best disables and debuffs in the game. You can’t go 5-starwrong with using him, and he’ll fit into almost any team. He can lock down enemies and deal Imaginary damage, which is very useful as he is currently the only user of this type so far.

Gallagher

Gallagher is a good 4-star healer who sits on par with Lynx. He’s able to provide some solid team-wide sustain and is a great option to make use of if you don’t have any 5-star tanks or healers to use instead. At Eidolon level 6, he becomes much better and can even surpass characters such as Bailu and Gepard as a team’s sustain option, which is really impressive.

B Tier

Natasha

Natasha is now not necessary at all in Honkai: Star Rail. She used to be the go-to healer for all players who didn’t have Bailu. However, with the releases of Lynx and Luocha, she’s now at the bottom of the barrel in terms of healers. That’s not to say she isn’t still a solid healer; she’s just getting further and further away from being the best. As such, Natasha is pretty mid-tier on this ranked list of characters in Honkai: Star Rail.

Xueyi

Xueyi is a 4-star Quantum Destruction character and can be used as a main or secondary damage dealer in teams. She’s a great addition to mono Quantum teams, where she serves as a secondary damage dealer alongside Seele. At her E0, she deals ok damage, nothing too crazy. If you get her to E6, however, then I’d say she’s easily a tier higher, as her Eidolons are really strong and more than double her damage at E6. Before that E6 breakpoint, though, she does belong here lower down the list.

Herta

Herta is slowly becoming more than just a meme character thanks to the release of Topaz and Numby, as well as the upcoming Relics sets in 1.5. All of these are designed to make follow-up damage powerful and a new viable meta to be explored. With these buffs, it won’t be long until Herta is actually a very viable damage option to have on a follow-up attack team! That means Herta is likely to end up higher on this ranked list of characters in Honkai: Star Rail, even if she’s still not the best right now.

If Herta does become more a part of the meta in Honkai: Star Rail going forward, there’s a good chance you’re going to want to build her up, so here’s our guide to doing that.

March 7th

March 7th is less relevant than ever with the likes of Fu Xuan being added. Gepard and the Fire Trailblazer are also superior choices, so she’s moved down to the B-tier. She does provide quite a big shield, but it uses her skill and can only be applied to one teammate at a time. This makes her quite the drain on team energy to get her shields up. On the other hand, you can build her as a tank with the right Light Cone, and she increases the chance of enemies attacking anyone she shields, so it can work quite well. She is also a perfect partner with Clara. If you put her shield on Clara, you can watch the enemies attack her and eat tons of retaliation damage.

Sushang

Sushang is another single-target damage dealer but is worse off than Dan Heng and Hook when it comes to her damage output. As such, there’s very little reason to invest in her, other than if you enjoy booty-slamming enemies with her giant chicken’s butt.

Serval

Serval is the 4-star option for a good multi-target damage dealer, but only as a free-to-play choice because she is quite weak and squishy compared to 5-star alternatives. She’s well behind Himeko and just ahead of Sampo in terms of her multi-target DPS. But if you need a good multi-target damage dealer and don’t have Jing Yuan, Himeko, Blade, or Clara, she can fill the role quite nicely.

C Tier Characters in Honkai: Star Rail

Physical Trailblazer

The Physical Trailblazer isn’t too shabby at dealing multi-target DPS, but there are better 4-star options in Serval and Sampo and much, much better 5-star alternatives like Jing Yuan. In this form, they’re not worth using, so stick to using them as the Fire Trailblazer. That’s why Physical Trailblazer has a low spot on this ranked list of characters in Honkai: Star Rail.

Arlan

Arlan is hands-down one of the worst characters in the game. Not only does he do very little damage, but he also needs to use HP to deal damage, which is annoying to sustain and very inefficient when he needs dedicated healing. I’d completely avoid using Arlan and spending any of your resources on him. As such, Arlan takes the bottom spot on this ranked list of all the characters in Honkai: Star Rail.

That’s all the characters in Honkai: Star Rail as of patch 1.6 ranked. I will update this list when patch 2.0 comes around and we get more new characters to try out, so make sure to bookmark this page! In the meantime, check out our full set of guides for advice on getting through content, setting up team comps, and much more.

Honkai: Star Rail is available now on mobile and various other platforms.

The above article was updated on 4/15/2024 by Alex Berry to clarify information about Honkai: Star Rail.