Blade

‘Local man literally too angry to die’ is an apt description for this Stellaron Hunter. Blade is an astonishingly durable and hard-hitting damage dealer. As a berserker-style character, he consumes his own HP to deal massive damage against both lone foes as well as groups of enemies and is able to recover that HP on his own terms, creating a very self-sufficient loop to decimate all his adversaries.

Particularly important to note right off the bat, Blade scales with his HP in addition to his ATK, in fact, his HP scaling is notably better than his ATK scaling to the point where it’s better to focus on HP over ATK. This has the rather powerful and rare result of vastly improving his damage output as well as his survivability, gaining HP values far exceeding those of any other character. 

Blade’s gameplay revolves heavily around his Talent. Whenever Blade sustains damage or consumes his own HP, he gains 1 stack on his Talent, up to a max of 5, and he can only get 1 stack from every individual attack against him (so no multi-hit shenanigans). At 5 stacks, Blade immediately launches a follow-up attack on all enemies, consuming all stacks and dealing up to 40% of his ATK plus 110% of his Max HP at max Trace level. In addition to this he also heals 25% of his Max HP at all levels. It is important to mention that any of his own attacks that consume HP cannot reduce him below 1 HP, and if his HP is insufficient then it’ll just get set to 1 HP and the action will continue.

This Talent makes it so that Blade does not care too much about being attacked, in fact, he may actually enjoy it. Having a follow-up on a Destruction character is uncommon, but especially with the way it works, getting to attack out of turn is already phenomenal, but having that huge of a heal, in addition, is the cherry on top. Considering his Skill and Ultimate interface with Blade’s HP as well, it’s very easy to rack up stacks on his Talent without needing to rely on getting hit.

His Skill consumes 30% of his Max HP to enter the Hellscape state for 3 turns, and grants him an Extra Action upon use. Interestingly because of the Extra Action, the 3 turn Hellscape state technically lasts for 4 turns, so it’s really quite efficient. While under Hellscape, Blade cannot use his Skill again, but his Basic ATK is Enhanced to become a Blast AoE, dealing up to 40% of his ATK plus 100% of his Max HP against the primary target and dealing 16% of his ATK plus 40% of his Max HP against adjacent foes. Using this Enhanced Basic also consumes 10% of his Max HP. 

This Enhanced Basic cannot generate Skill Points, but it also doesn’t consume any extra SP, meaning only the initial cost of the Skill is factored in. Despite this, this particular Enhanced Basic actually restores 30 Energy meaning it restores more Energy than you would otherwise expect. The additional Toughness damage is also very appreciated and allows Blade to have a much easier time breaking enemies in both single target and AoE. Every instance of HP consumption from this, meaning the initial Skill use and any subsequent Enhanced Basics, also adds to the stacks on his Talent. 

The HP consumption from his Skill is steep, but since all of it contributes stacks to his Talent, it’s not unreasonable to heal most of that HP back without any enemy interference. You may notice that it’s not actually enough HP recovery to offset the full cost of the Skill and its 3 Enhanced Basics, but that’s where his Ultimate comes in.

Blade’s Ultimate sets his current HP to be 50% of his Max HP and does a Blast AoE against the targeted foe, dealing up to 40% of his ATK plus 100% of his Max HP at max Trace level, with adjacent foes taking 16% ATK plus 40% Max HP. This then deals additional damage based on the amount of HP Blade has lost in the current battle, capping out at 90% of his Max HP. This value is stored and dealt to the enemy upon using his Ultimate, 100% of the stored value going to the main target and 40% to adjacent foes. This value then resets and starts counting again until his next Ultimate, repeating again.

Setting Blade’s HP value to be 50% of his Max HP means that if you’re below that amount then you’ll heal, but if you’re above it then you will consume HP. There is an opportunity cost present here where it can either be used as potentially a massive self-heal to get back to a reasonable HP value, or it can be used at higher HP values to add an extra stack to his Talent. Typically this is likely to be used primarily as a method of healing, since Blade already deals plenty of damage on his own, but with the huge Energy cost of 130, you’ll have plenty of time to gauge whether or not you want to try and optimise his damage a little further.

Blade is not particularly reliant on his Ultimate to deal damage, as the brunt of the work is done by his Talent and Hellscape, but with the improved Energy generation Blade has from his Enhanced Basics and his Talent’s follow-up attack, he’ll have it up quite often. If Blade is not paired with a suitably powerful healer like Luocha or Bailu, his Ult is probably best used for healing himself. While it is in no way necessary to pair Blade with either of the above, they do allow him to throw caution almost entirely to the wayside, with Luocha especially turning Blade truly immortal in addition to the rest of the team. 

Do know that Blade can absolutely still be killed. He is not invincible with zero effort unless backed by the aforementioned healers, and even then you should always pay attention. Blade absolutely does not need any outside help to be unkillable, but it certainly does lessen the burden of the player to play him well enough to reach that state, and without that safety net, Blade can actually be nightmarishly difficult to optimise for the average player. His playstyle is inherently risky and difficult, regardless of how much his kit tries to alleviate said risk.

Blade’s Major Traces help him to continue the carnage without losing too much momentum. A2 grants an Incoming Healing boost of 20% whenever he is below 50% Max HP, and A4 lets him restore 5% of his Max HP plus 100 whenever his Enhanced Basic hits a Weakness Broken enemy. At A6, Blade gets a significant damage increase by having a 20% DMG boost added to his Talent follow-up attack. His Minor Traces are also worth mentioning, since he gets a collective 12% CRIT Rate from them, making him have an easier time meeting CRIT requirements.

His Eidolons are all very useful albeit entirely unnecessary for him to excel. In particular, E2 granting him 15% increased CRIT Rate under Hellscape is very potent, and if one is so inclined to chase it, his E6 reduces the number of stacks needed to proc his Talent from 5 to 4 as well as adding an extra 50% Max HP multiplier to the follow-up attack, dramatically increasing his overall survivability and damage. It is complete overkill.

Because of Blade’s unique interactions and scalings, he actually does not really benefit at all from Harmony characters like Tingyun or Yukong; Tingyun really doesn’t do much of anything for him, and while Yukong’s insane CRIT buffs are fantastic, they’re far too infrequent on their own to be of much use to Blade.

He likes SPD, and he likes to act frequently, and as such his optimal pairing is with Bronya. She does everything Blade wants, and with Blade’s very low SP consumption, Bronya can afford to consistently use her Skill on Blade every single turn, boosting his damage output tremendously, albeit requiring some team SPD tuning beforehand. Asta is a much lesser but still viable alternative, providing a massive overall SPD buff through her Ultimate, even though her Talent’s ATK buff is almost entirely wasted. 

Nihility characters and other debuffers can also help boost Blade’s damage significantly since they can simply increase the enemy’s vulnerability to damage. Characters like Silver Wolf and Pela in particular are great pairings as well—even Welt could work well, again because of the low SP consumption of Blade allowing Welt to also contribute meaningful damage even on a support build. Blade can even be used as a flex pick for certain teams, though his efficacy in those scenarios depends largely on the discretion of the individual player.

Blade is a remarkable unit that seems poised to stay relevant for an exceptionally long time. With how durable of a damage dealer he is, even if future units come out that outdamage him, Blade’s hallmark will remain his excellent survivability and ease of use in the end game.

He’s also in desperate need of a hug.