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If you’re one of the millions of other players who joined in when Honkai: Star Rail (HSR) was launched, then you probably know just how important building a team is in the game. Honkai: Star Rail is all about dominating the battlefield and anticipating your opponent’s moves. With its anime-inspired tactical RPG look and gameplay, it’s no wonder why so many players are hooked on this game. To help you dominate the early game, here’s a quick and easy guide on Honkai: Star Rail teams and how you can build the perfect team to take control of the battlefield.
Honkai: Star Rail Characters Explained
Part of the fun of playing a game with multiple characters is the ability to mix and match different characters and their abilities to create a unique and effective team. Currently, there are 22 playable characters in Honkai: Star Rail, 23 if you include the main character’s second class, which we’ll go back to later. With all those choices, you’ll have an almost limitless number of team compositions to choose from. But before you can build a team, let’s break down the different attributes and roles you need to consider when for each character.
Character Elements and Toughness
Similar to Genshin Impact, HSR also has seven unique elements. Every playable character will have one of these elements, and it determines their strengths and weaknesses as well as how they interact with other elements. The elements are:
- Physical
- Fire
- Ice
- Lightning
- Wind
- Quantum
- Imaginary
During gameplay, a character’s element will determine how much damage they deal over their opponents. An enemy with a weakness to wind, fire, and physical elements will take more damage from a character who specialises in those elements. In a team, you can either choose characters with different elements to cover all weaknesses or focus on one or two elements for maximum damage output.
In most encounters, you’ll notice that enemies have two bars on top of enemies. The red one is the HP bar, and the white one is the “Toughness” bar. Matching the enemy’s elemental weakness with your character’s elemental attribute can help you deplete the toughness bar faster, making it easier to take down the enemy.
The 7 Paths Explained
In Honkai: Star Rail, each character will have a chosen path that will determine the type of role they play in your team. Instead of your usual tanks, supports, and DPS classes, HoYoverse took a similar approach but with its own unique flair. There are a total of 14 paths mentioned in the game, but only seven of them are currently available. To better understand how they function, let’s group the character classes into categories based on their role in your team:
Sustain
These are character classes that excel in supporting the team by providing healing and defensive capabilities. The Sustain classes include:
The Abundance: These characters have skills that can restore the health of their team members, making them crucial for keeping the team alive during battles.
The Preservation: Characters who follow the preservation path provide amazing defensive capabilities to their team, such as shields, barriers, and damage reduction abilities. In a typical RPG game, they are your Tanks that act as a front-line defence for the team.
DPS
Your team will not be complete without characters who deal high amounts of damage per second (DPS). These characters are usually ranged or melee fighters who specialise in dealing as much damage as possible to the enemy. There are three paths that are considered damage dealers in the game, namely:
The Hunt: Characters on this Path possess exceptional abilities to inflict damage on a single target. They can be quite useful in blitz battles where taking down a particular enemy quickly is important.
The Erudition: If you’re dealing with multiple enemies at once, characters on this path excel in dealing with area-of-effect (AOE) damage. They are great for crowd control and clearing out large groups of enemies.
The Destruction: Those who follow this path are highly skilled in frontal attacks and exhibit their best performance when fighting solo.
Support
Aside from your healers and tanks, support characters are essential in any team. They provide buffs and debuffs that can greatly enhance the performance of their allies or hinder their enemies.
The Harmony: This path is composed of characters that can buff their allies’ abilities and increase their overall damage output.
The Nihility: On the opposite side of the spectrum, Nihility characters provide debuffs to enemies, reducing their damage and making them vulnerable to attacks.
The Basics of Team Building
You can have up to four characters in your team at a time. Building a strong team requires a combination of characters with complementary skills and elemental attributes. Here are some tips for building a solid team:
- Consider Each Character’s Role: Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, so it’s essential to consider what role they will play in combat. For instance, a balanced team should have two DPS characters, one sustain, and one support. This will ensure that your team can deal damage, heal, and provide buffs when necessary.
- Balance Elemental Attributes: As mentioned earlier, elemental attributes can significantly affect the effectiveness of your attacks. Make sure to have a balanced team with different elemental attributes to take advantage of enemy weaknesses.
- Experiment With Different Team Compositions: Don’t be afraid to try out different combinations of characters to find the one that works best for you. You never know which team will be the most effective until you try it out.
- Equip Your Characters With Appropriate Gear: Each character has their own set of weapons and relics that can enhance their abilities. Make sure to equip your characters with gear that complements their strengths and elemental attributes.
- Level up Your Characters: As you progress through the game, make sure to level up your characters to increase their stats and unlock new abilities.
Team Comp Recommendations
In order to achieve maximum effectiveness in battle, it’s important to have a well-balanced team composition with great synergy. Here are some early to mid-game team comp recommendations for F2P and premium players:
F2P All-Around Team
- DPS: Dan Heng, Trailblazer (Destruction)
- AoE: Serval
- Buff/Debuff: Asta
- Support: March 7th
This team is made up of all free units and is the ideal team composition in the early game and even well into the mid-game. You’ll have some pretty good coverage when it comes to elemental damage and still a decent level of survivability with March 7th’s shielding capability. She can also deal ice damage that can freeze enemies, giving you some extra breathing room for the next few turns. Dan Heng’s single-target damage combined with the Trailblazer’s multi-target skill will give you great damage output. As for the buffer’s role, Asta is also a great support unit that can give your team an SPD boost, while also dealing some great damage on enemies that are weak to fire. But if you want to focus on damaging more enemies at once, then you can replace Asta with Serval.
5-Star Hyper Carry Team
- DPS: Seele or Sushang
- AoE:
- Buff/Debuff: Bronya, Tingyun
- Support: Bailu or Natasha
Forget about shields. This team focuses on bringing maximum damage and control to the battlefield. DPS can be filled by either Seele or Sushang, who both have strong attacks and can deal immense single-target damage. You may also notice there aren’t any AOE characters here since you’ll be relying on your DPS for the majority of your damage potential.
Your goal is to boost your DPS damage greatly with Bronya and Tingyun’s buffing abilities. Bronya can also dispel a single debuff with her skill, making her a valuable addition to the team. Since you don’t have any shielders in the team, Natasha will be a great support option with her healing ability. Bailu is the same, but she has the ability to revive teammates who’ve been knocked down.
5-Star Defensive Team
- DPS: Yanqing
- AoE: Himeko
- Buff/Debuff: Bronya or Tingyun or Pela
- Support: Natasha or Bailu, Trailblazer (Preservation) or Gepard
Yanqing is also a formidable single-target damage dealer. However, to fully utilise his kit, you’ll need a good shielder. Yanqing relies heavily on his Soulsteel Sync, which is a buff that boosts his CRIT DMG but can only last one turn, and he shouldn’t get damaged while the buff is active. This makes shielders a must for a DPS like Yanqing. Gepard and the Trailblazer are your best options here, and they offer enough protection to keep your Yanqing unscathed in a battle. You have a lot of different options for your buffer and AOE slot, so you can experiment around. Bronya is still one of the best buffers, but you can substitute Tingyun if you don’t have Bronya. On the other hand, you can go for a debuffer like Pela or an AOE damage like Himeko. It’s a pretty flexible, but just make sure you have a shielder to protect your DPS.
Enhancing Your Team’s Abilities
Like in any modern RPG, enhancing your team’s abilities is of paramount importance. It’s not enough to just level them up. You need to enhance their stats and abilities by building the following:
- Light Cones – This is your character’s weapon. Aside from choosing one that synergises well with their abilities, you also need to level up all of your team members’ light cones in order to increase their damage output.
- Talents – Each character possesses a unique set of skills and abilities called talents. These can be upgraded by spending talent materials earned through challenges.
- Relics – Your relics serve as your character’s gear in the game. Equipping your team with the right gear can make a huge difference in battles. Upgrading and enhancing gear can also further boost their stats and abilities.
- Eidolons – If you manage to get duplicates of your characters from the game’s gacha system, you can use them to increase the character’s Eidolon level. Eidolons give characters some unique boosts in stats, skills, and sometimes their overall playstyle.
Building an effective team in Honkai: Star Rail is both fun and challenging. It requires strategic thinking and knowledge of the game’s mechanics. By understanding each character’s strengths and weaknesses and equipping them with the right gear, you can create a powerful team that can take on any challenge the game throws at you. So, experiment with different combinations, don’t be afraid to try new things, and most importantly, have fun!
Watch out for our upcoming guides on advanced gameplay mechanics and character progression through the Codashop Blog. Also, remember to top up your Honkai: Star Rail Stellar Jade on Codashop! We offer safe and convenient methods so you can focus on a hassle-free gaming experience.
