Honkai: Star RailBoothillBest build, teams and other guides

Boothill is an extremely strong and self-sufficient single-target decimator. He is an entirely Break-focused character specializing in dealing extreme amounts of Toughness damage and subsequently exploding Broken enemies with raw Break DMG. He ramps up quickly and stays ramped up. In the event that an enemy is not weak to Physical, Boothill's Ultimate has a guaranteed Weakness Implant on it, allowing him to brute force his way through any enemy that does not lock their own Toughness bar. He is very versatile and effective.

This Space Cowboy Galaxy Ranger showed up out of nowhere and turned out to be surprisingly endearing. Turns out he’s also a very powerful DPS character. He is our first real Break DPS character, requiring completely different stats to our usual CRIT hypercarries. He's got a very complete and self-contained kit, and he's got no trouble showing any son of a nice lady the Boot.

Boothill's Skill forces him and a single enemy to have a Standoff for 2 of Boothill's turns. Both units are Taunted and may not attack any other unit. During Standoff, Boothill receives 15% more DMG from the Taunted enemy, and the Taunted enemy receives up to 30% more DMG from Boothill. If Boothill Breaks the target or defeats them, he gets a stack of Pocket Trickshot, and Standoff will end. If he kills and Breaks in a single action, he will gain 2 stacks. Boothill can circumvent the Taunt with his Ultimate, letting him prime a new enemy in advance while he finishes off his current one, but that’s a little farther down.

Using the Skill gives no Energy, but it doesn't end his turn, much the same way that Qingque's Skill doesn't end her turn, essentially being an Extra Action. While Boothill is in Standoff, his Basic ATK gets Enhanced, dealing up to 220% ATK to a single enemy. This Enhanced Basic ATK actually restores 30 Energy and deals 60 Toughness damage as though it were a Skill. It's important to note that the Enhanced Basic costs no SP whatsoever, so Boothill is actually more SP efficient than most DPS characters. This is somewhat nullified if Boothill wins his Standoff in a single Action, so keep that in mind if you’re slaying out.

Boothill's Talent is the centrepiece of his Break kit. It gives him bonuses for having stacks of Pocket Trickshot granted from his Skill. Each stack will increase the Toughness damage of the Enhanced Basic ATK by 50%, for a max of 150% at 3 stacks. This results in the Enhanced Basic ATK dealing a total of 150 Toughness damage, the same as Argenti's level 2 Ultimate! If I had a nickel for every time a new character dealt 150 Toughness damage, I'd have two nickels. Not a lot, but weird it happened twice back to back (Harmony Trailblazer). There is technically a cap on how high the Toughness damage can go for this attack, but it looks so astronomically high that I don’t think this is something we need to worry about any time soon.

This results in Boothill very quickly deleting enemy Toughness bars and leaving them wondering what just happened. Ordinarily, this wouldn't do much on its own, but his Talent has a second part. If the target is Weakness Broken when you use the Enhanced Basic, Boothill pulls out his gosh darn ALL AMERICAN* FINGER GUNS to blow the enemy sky high, dealing an instance of Break DMG to the enemy based on the number of stacks of Pocket Trickshot. Per 1/2/3 stacks, he can deal up to 70%/120%/170% of Boothill's Physical Break DMG.

Aside from looking incredible, this is pure Break DMG, meaning it only cares about the usual things that Breaking an enemy would; the level of the enemy, the Break Effect of Boothill, the maximum Toughness of the enemy, and any DEF or RES altering statuses. This means Boothill circumvents the downside of Break units, being able to continue to deal remarkable Break DMG even after the enemy has already been Broken, and up to 170% of his Break DMG on every single turn.

Because the condition for this pure Break DMG to be dealt is to be using his Enhanced Basic when an enemy is Weakness Broken, Boothill will pull his finger guns on an non-Broken enemy as long as they're Broken during this Action, even if it's only on the very last hit; this Break DMG can also be in addition to the Break DMG you would deal by Breaking the enemy, resulting in an absolutely ludicrous amount of damage in a single action, and that's even before factoring the devastating Bleed Break DoT that comes after.

Of course, the other disadvantage pure Break characters have is that if enemies aren't weak to their chosen element, you kinda can't do anything. Here's the thing though, Boothill's Talent lets him deal Break DMG to Broken enemies. Doesn't specify anywhere that they have to still be weak to Physical. It's completely reasonable to have enemies get Broken by allies and then to roll up like 'g'day mate' and blow their br — I mean uh, give them a goodnight kiss from the galactic homie (it's for the forever sleep he's sending them to).

If you're still worried about that, enter Boothill's Ultimate. He will apply a Physical Weakness to a single enemy for 2 turns, and deal up to 400% ATK as damage. Additionally, he will delay their next action by up to 40%. Hey, look at that! He just gets to point at someone and say 'you are already Physical Weak', circumventing the only other big issue Break DPS have. It really is pointing and appointing the Weakness — this is a guaranteed Weakness Implant, there is absolutely no dice rolling or Effect Hit Rate requirement, it just does the thing. The delay is also incredible since it can also be used to extend the length of time an enemy stays Broken, giving him even longer to fill their dark soul with light™.

With this, Boothill can very realistically contend with any enemy in the game that does not lock their Toughness bar (think Gatekeeper Aurumaton). Sure, against non-Physical Weak enemies, Boothill's success will depend on his Ultimate uptime, but guess what, he gets a lot of Energy, and his Ultimate only costs 115 Energy. If your Boothill is particularly fast, it's very reasonable to expect that you can keep the Ultimate's Weakness Implant up pretty much 100% of the time on a major enemy. The only enemies fast enough to potentially outpace this (at least as of the time of writing) are naturally weak to Physical anyway.

His Technique actually also lets him apply a Physical Weakness to enemies upon entering combat. The first enemy he uses his Skill on to initiate Standoff with will have the same Physical Weakness applied to them as the one from the Ultimate, lasting for 2 turns as well. This can let him ramp up right from the beginning when he doesn't have his Ultimate yet, even against enemies not weak to Physical.

This man rocks, but it gets better with his Bonus Abilities. His A2 gives him increased CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG based on his Break Effect; 10% is converted to CRIT Rate and 50% is converted to CRIT DMG, for a maximum increase of 30%/150% of each, respectively, attainable at a maximum Break Effect of 300%. This also updates dynamically, so you can achieve this through external buffs during combat.The other two Bonus Abilities are very good, but this one is just exceptional levels of bait for those who are prone to stop reading after the first few lines.

Boothill does indeed have ATK multipliers, and they can indeed deal damage, especially if they crit. However, consider the following: everything in this kit is screaming at you to build him full Break and not care about the rest. It's literally giving you a free pass to ignore the usually exorbitant build requirements that CRIT DPS have to go through to even start dealing damage. This Bonus Ability gives you a nice bonus for specifically building into one of the only two stats Boothill actually cares about, and lets him deal better damage while he's still whittling down an enemy's Toughness bar. It is NOT a free pass to build him as a CRIT DPS, and if you try to do this, then really what happens next is your own fault.

His A4 makes it so that when Boothill is in Standoff with a target enemy, he will have 30% DMG Reduction against all other enemies not in Standoff with him, giving him a wonderful amount of survivability. Especially since he's got a lot of ways to stop his target from acting against him, everyone else he's not currently got in his sights will be dealing significantly less damage to him. Especially if you go for defensive stats on the Chest and Planar Sphere, you may be surprised to see that this cyborg is actually as tanky as his appearance should imply.

Finally, his A6 is what really solves his Energy problems. While in Standoff, whenever he gains a stack of Pocket Trickshot he will also gain 10 Energy. This happens even if you're already capped, so you can very quickly and easily regain a large sum of Energy for just doing what you were already going to be doing, and this contributes to his Ultimate uptime. Without this particular Bonus Ability, Boothill can often be left at very awkward amounts of Energy, either barely not enough to Ult, or overcapping by more than you're comfortable with. This Trace solves that.

Eidolons are never necessary for limited 5-stars, but for those interested, his Eidolons are pretty good. E1 will grant him a stack of Pocket Trickshot right at the start of combat, and all DMG Boothill deals will ignore 16% of targets' DEF. E2 refunds a Skill Point whenever he obtains Pocket Trickshot and grants 30% BE for 2 turns (this also works when overcapping but you can only trigger this once per turn). E4 gives enemies in Standoff a DMG Vulnerability of 12% when attacked by Boothill, and Boothill himself only takes 3% more DMG instead of 15% from the duelled target. Finally, E6 will let his Talent Break DMG deal an additional instance of Break DMG equal to 40% of the original amount, and also lets 70% of the original damage splash to adjacent targets, turning his finger guns finisher into Blast AoE.

As mentioned earlier, Boothill only cares about two stats, the first being Break Effect, and the second being SPD. All that matters is getting his Break DMG as sky-high as you can and being fast enough to expedite the loop of Breaking and shooting fools. Because of this, you really don't need to care about stats like CRIT or ATK since they're not relevant to increasing his damage, and this makes Boothill quite a bit easier to build overall, especially since it lets you utilise previously doomed mainstat Chest and Planar Sphere pieces that have DEF%.

This does come with an interesting new issue though: what Light Cone do I even use? As a Hunt character, the currently available Light Cone options are unsurprisingly tailored towards CRIT DPS like Seele and Dr. Ratio, which for a Break-focused character like Boothill… Not terribly useful. The only Hunt Light Cone that's tailored for Break is unsurprisingly Boothill's signature, so what should free-to-play players do?

The solutions are either River Flows in Spring, the 4-star fully free Light Cone, or Adversarial. Yes, the 3-star Light Cone. Yes, really. Defeating an enemy gives you up to 18% SPD for 2 turns. You don't need to care about the low base ATK because it's not relevant for the damage he deals. The base HP and base DEF definitely do hurt, but you can mitigate this with defensive stats on Relics. River Flows in Spring is also good for a more consistent 12% SPD boost at S5, and has better defensive base stats than Adversarial.

These are astonishingly good choices for casual players, but their conditions are quite steep. I wouldn't advise just anyone to try to make these work because it can lead to quite a frustrating experience; Adversarial stops working against big Bosses or Elites that don't summon adds to kill, and River Flows in Spring stops functioning for 2 turns if you take DMG. Of these two, River Flows in Spring is a clear winner if you're using Boothill alongside a Shielder like Aventurine, since the criteria for voiding the passive is specifically taking DMG; you can get hit so long as it doesn't go through the shield. It's unlikely you’ll be using Aventurine here, since Gallagher is pretty much the best-in-slot sustain character for Boothill, but it is an option.

Since the Herta Hunt Light Cone, Cruising in the Stellar Sea, is omnipresent and in extremely high demand for a lot of Hunt DPS, it's quite likely that if you've been playing for even a small amount of time, you'll already have units who are contesting this free 5-star Light Cone. Having said that, if nobody else needs it, Cruising provides the most consistent baseline performance, and is a very good option for players not going for Boothill's signature Light Cone. This is especially true for players who do not wish to gamble on the inconsistency of the alternative free options, however good they may be.

In terms of teammates, Boothill actually has a lot of options because of his self-contained kit, but there are unsurprising victors when it comes to his best choices. Bronya in particular is a great support for him because more Actions for Boothill significantly increases his damage output, and will also facilitate his absurd Toughness damage to get enemies primed for maximum damage more quickly. Ruan Mei also achieves a similar effect through her Weakness Break Efficiency, albeit at slightly less overall impact, since Ruan Mei's SPD boost is far lower than the effective SPD Bronya can provide with her 100% Action Advance, and two turns of 150 Toughness each is more than a single turn of 225. Bronya is more SP intensive but Boothill's natural SP efficiency can counteract that.

Neither of the generic DMG or CRIT buffs these supports provide meaningfully impact Boothill's damage output, and it is their secondary effects that make them extremely worth taking. One support who does significantly impact Boothill's damage while also contributing their own is the recently attained Harmony Trailblazer. The Break Effect they provide directly increases the DMG Boothill's Talent deals, and the Super Break the Trailblazer's Ultimate provides will let Boothill decimate his foes even more quickly. It doesn't necessarily make the process of Breaking enemies any easier like with Bronya or Ruan Mei, but the payoff for the slightly longer wait is pure TNT dynamite.

Supports that affect enemy DEF or RES are also very good for Boothill. This is another point for Ruan Mei thanks to her Ultimate, but it also includes the likes of Pela and Silver Wolf. Both of these Nihility debuffers can reduce enemy DEF quite easily and consistently, greatly improving the Break DMG Boothill can do, but I want to put particular attention on Silver Wolf; she is entirely single-target focused, but since Boothill is too, it's not that big of a deal, and Silver Wolf provides a greater DEF shred than Pela does. The other benefit is that Silver Wolf can also implant Weaknesses onto enemies, Physical for Boothill while he waits for his Ultimate to come back, or Quantum to enable Boothill to fully utilise the 4 piece benefits of the Genius of Brilliant Stars Relic set. Especially if you are looking to erase Bosses, Silver Wolf is a great pick if you have her.

Lastly, the absolute best choices for a sustain for a Boothill team are the aforementioned Gallagher and Aventurine. Gallagher's Talent just straight-up increases the team's Break DMG by up to 12%, and the only cost of this is doing what you were already going to be doing. Gallagher himself also deals a silly amount of Toughness damage, so especially if the enemy is weak to Fire, he's a great pick, and he's a 4-star character, so he's quite accessible. Aventurine is pretty universally good but you're more likely to be using him with Boothill if you're looking to maximise the benefits of River Flows in Spring (the Light Cone from before).

The other notable benefits of both Gallagher and Aventurine is that they have no trouble sustaining the entire team while being completely SP positive, and that they contribute a huge amount of Toughness damage themselves. The SP is not something you need to worry about for Boothill himself, but something that is of extreme value when you consider that Boothill’s best amplifying support options are quite SP hungry themselves (Bronya, Harmony Trailblazer). The Toughness damage also means that especially if enemies are weak to both Physical and either of the elements of the two sustains mentioned, it just makes Boothill even more easy to pilot. You can use any sustain you want, but these two are leagues ahead of the rest for the Galaxy Ranger.

Beyond that, there's not much else to say. Boothill is just a really damn good character, and because of his Break-heavy focus, he's likely to stay relevant for a very long time, especially thanks to his guaranteed Weakness Implant and forced Break DMG against Broken enemies.

Though his charm is infectious, do not forget that he's seen his fair share of the universe. Take him with you wherever you travel and he's gonna carry that weight.

See you, Space Cowboy.