Creating your own team is vital for success in Honkai: Star Rail where you need to carefully strategise your every decision as you battle through different stages in this turn-based game. Having a well-balanced team with various characters will help you survive till the end essentially making the difference between victory and defeat.
This guide will tell you everything you need to know about team building in Honkai: Star Rail
Essential Guide to Team Building in Honkai: Star Rail
Weakness Type Coverage
The combat system in Honkai Star Rail is visually similar to the one found in Pokemon such as the different combat modifiers like super effective,netural and not very effective.
Enemies in Honkai have different types of enemy bars that are super effective against Gepard. If can press Z in the game before the match starts then you will notice that teams sometimes have a type resistance and also a crowd control resistance.
Any other types that are not included in the weakness bar or found in the resistance tab can be considered “neutral”.If you are below level 40 Trailblazer then your team should cover as many types as possible as you will face different types of enemies that will vary a lot with their weaknesses.
Since you only get 4 slots, it’s best to get 4 unique types for maximum coverage. There are 7 total types in the game and having atleast 4 of them will give you a decent chance of emerging victorious over your enemy.
As you progress further by farming relics and clearing Simulated Universe 5 and 6 repeatedly, you will need to focus more on the enemy type’s weakness. This means that instead of covering all bases with 4 different types, we can double down on identical types for more consistent weakness coverage.
You will be able to finetune your team further down the road as you become stronger and add specific enemies that are weak to certain types. After you become strong enough, you won’t need to worry about weakness rates as you will be able to one-shot most enemies.
This is referred to as Brute Force which means farming XP and EVs using your overpowered characters for your lower-levelled ones.
Character Paths
There are currently seven different types of character paths present in the game:
- Harmony
- The Hunt
- Destruction
- Erudition
- Nihility
- Preservation
- Abundance
These characters not only play different roles but are also helpful for positioning your team. This is due to each of the seven paths featuring hidden taunt levels meaning that they are more likely to be attacked.
There are also different character abilities and light cones that affect traits helping you create tanky units
Taunt Levels
For each of the seven paths, we have 4 levels of Taunt with 4th being the highest and the 1st being the lowest one.
Preservation has the highest taunt level of 4 which makes it the tankiest unit having higher defence numbers than attack and great bulk HP. Their abilities, light cones and relic possibilities enable them to mitigate damage and tank more.
The next is Destruction which has a Taunt Level of 3 and these are bruiser characters which typically provide a balance between high HP and attack to deliver good DPS and ball. Their abilities, light cones and relics allow them to be bulkier.
They can heal a portion of their HP from the damage dealt or convert the lost HP to deliver more damage.
Harmony, Nihility and Abundance have a low Taunt level of 2 and they basically fall into the category of either support or a healer. These typically have balanced stats with their abilities, light cones and relics with their healing that improve their utility in terms of utility such as healing strength, abundance, buffs for harmony, effective debuffs on enemies for nihility, increase damage or nihility debuffs.
Last but not least are The Hunt and Erudition which have the lowest taunt level of 1. These are mainly DPS units with higher base attacks and base speeds at the cost of fragile defences. Their abilities, light cones and relics are glass canon-focused and provide raw DPS in the form of attack and crit damage.
Character Positioning
There are 4 slots where we can position our characters starting with the tankiest one on the left or the right which is either the Destruction or Preservation oriented character.
AOE enemy hits can sometimes cause collateral damage on the side and having the tank on either the left or right side can help reduce atleast one side of the collateral helping significantly reduce the overall damage to your character.
Depending on the edge where you decide to slot your tank, the rest of your team will be placed in descending order based on their taunt levels. For example, if you have your Preservation or Destruction on the left or right then you should place your Support and Healer in the middle slots.
To help you further with the positioning, you can place characters with the same taunt levels with the highest effect resist near the tank to reduce the chance of debuff. Similarly, you can also put characters with higher energy generation after you get hit closer to the tank.
Do note that the second option is a bit risky as you might end up accidentally knocking out one of your less tanky units just because you need more energy.
If you are not using Preservation or Destruction characters then the only two taunt levels that you will be left with are the lowest ones of levels 2 and 1. The best solution, in this case, is to place your Hunter or Erudition character near the ones close to the edge as it will reduce the chance of them getting hit by a group attack.
Synergies
There are a total of 22 characters available in the game including the Trailblazer, let’s take a look at the synergies they offer in detail.
The Preservation Path offers three characters with a Tubing Ice type and a Trailblazer fire type. The 4-star rated March 7th is a unique preservation character that comes equipped with a shield that offers increased taunt levels.
She has a special ability that allows her to redirect taunts to another ally with her shield or draw the attention of the enemies using her shields. Gepard and Fire Trailblazer on the other hand are standard tank units.
Gepard has an AoE shield as his ultimate, free revive upon taking lethal damage through his passive and also frees utility on a skilled independent of the ice weakness break freeze.
Fire Trailblazer has an actual taunt effect on his skill which is different from the taunt level offered on each path and produces a visual debuff that can be inflicted upon enemies. It combines a true taunt providing self and team damage reduction on skill after trace upgrading, excellent AoE fire coverage with ultimate and enhanced basic attack.
Make sure to place these preservation characters close to one side since playing with them can be pretty intuitive.
Next is the Destruction path which features 4 characters with two physical ones including Trailblazer and one fire as well as one lightning. Clara offers the most unique destruction with a taunt and counter type of playstyle.
Using a combination of Clara and March 7th can be really deadly with March 7th’s shield and increased taunt adding to Clara’s self-taunt and counter abilities. It forces enemies to always attack Clara while she counters with her Svarog given she is not in a crowd control mode.
You can create an even more deadly combo with Clara, March 7th and Natasha using both March 7th’s and Natasha’s Cleanse Ascension Trace upgrade to provide infinite sustain to Clara while she counters the entire battlefield of enemies.
Hook and Arlan on the other hand are Blizzard’s DPS. Hook can deal consistent damage via high multipliers and burn over time while Arlan is a berserker DPS who can sacrifice HP in return for increased damage.
Both of these Destruction characters have life-steal HP sustain enabled on their first Ascension trace for synergistic survivability from their offence.
Physical Trailblazer’s agenda is dealing as much physical damage as possible in a short duration. While it doesn’t have sustain, it can still deal high multipliers and trace upgrades to deal more damage and ultimate uptime.
Using Destruction based characters requires focusing on the specific strengths of the character. Since these characters are mostly based on a more offensive playstyle, they shine best when enemies have their corresponding time weaknesses.
The third is the Abundance path with two healers: physical Natasha and lightning Bailu. These Abundance characters are generally stand-alone units and their character type hardly matters as they can only break the weakness of the enemies using their basic attacks.
These are currently the most valuable characters to have since damage is inevitable in a turn-based game and characters like Natasha can be unlocked for free by progressing further into the story. It is highly recommended that you upgrade her Ascension Trace or Skill Cleanse as early as possible.
Bailu on the other hand is a superb healer and while she doesn’t have a cleanser kit, her healing potency is staggeringly high and also comes with a free revive once per battle using her talent.
It’s best to save atleast one slot in your team for an Abundance character unless you are highly confident in relying on shield and tank with the Preservation path.
The Harmony and Nihility path offers a total of six characters which usually form the specialized backbone of your team and occupy the two slots in the middle. Harmony characters are less dependent on character types and mainly chosen for direct Synergy with your other characters.
Bronya and Tingun are heavily offensive that focus on increased turn order, attack damage, CRIT buffs and higher ultimate uptime. Asta is a great specialized fire boss weakness breaker that allows your team to loop potential with their ultimate increased speed.
Nihility characters are sort of a 2-in-1 type that is mainly used for their potent debuffs, type coverage for consistent weakness and serve a dual role as your DPS with a high multiplier, relics and offensive nihility light cones.
Welt is another Nihility debuffer that has excellent imaginary type coverage, imprisonment and moving speed reduction and high damage output thanks to his talent.
Sampo on the other hand is a wind weakness destroyer that offers similar effectiveness as Asta but he also delivers some damage over time using his talent.
Pela is an ice weakness destroyer that uses her buff remover on her skill and her defence breaker on her ultimate as well as her technique.
While Pella and Welt do not have any specific synergies, they are mainly stand-alone debuffs that work primarily with Hunt or Erudition characters to improve their DPS.
Sampo is more of a DPS debuffer who is more focused on maximizing damage over time in a long-duration fight instead of trying to assist his allies in dealing more damage. His greatest asset is single-target bosses where his skills shred the enemy’s weakness bar similar to Asta’s skill.
If you decide to use your Nihilty as a DPS then you won’t need a Hunt or Erudition character in your team to accommodate another Nihility or supportive defensive character. While the overall damage output will be lower, you will definitely get higher crowd control.
There are a total of 8 characters in The Hunt or Erudition paths with all of them belonging to character types. All Hunt characters have relatively high speed, extremely potent single-target damage and effective weakness breaking of their respective types.
The only exception to this rule is Seele’s passive resurgence which allows her to act again upon killing an enemy and turns her into a pseudo-AoE character.
Erudition characters on the other hand also operate in a similar fashion with Himeko and Serval being AoE and damage-over-time carriers using burn and shock. Herta is a follow-up focused damage while Qingque is a RNG AoE quantum damage type character.
It’s best to pair your Hunt or Erudition DPS character alongside atleast 1 Harmony or Nihilty character as well as 1 Abundance while leaving the last slot for Preservation to create a true tank plus DPS-oriented team composition. You can also double up on Harmony, Nihility for 2 supports, 1 healer and 1 DPS or use another Hunt or Erudition for more DPS.
That’s it, now go ahead and create the team of your dreams in Honkai: Star Rail!