Honkai: Star RailLukaBuild and Guide

Luka is a single target, DoT-based Nihility character. Luka efficiently dispatches his foes by inflicting Bleed with his Skill, dealing damage equal to 24% of the enemy’s Max HP but no more than 338% of Luka’s ATK, and increasing the DMG they receive with his Ultimate by up to 20%.

The reigning Fight Club champ with a heart of gold and a fist full of steel, Luka’s got plenty of tricks up his singular sleeve to deal extremely consistent damage and even amplify his team’s damage.

His Skill is the focal point. He attacks a single target and deals up to 120% of his ATK, and additionally inflicts a powerful Bleed DoT onto his target, making them take 24% of their Max HP as Physical damage at the start of each turn for 3 turns. This would be too absurd on its own, so there is an upper limit attached to this, where the Bleed DoT cannot exceed more than 338% of Luka’s ATK at max Trace level.

Ordinarily, Bleed is a powerful DoT to use against high Max HP foes, as its Weakness Break counterpart also deals a percentage of the enemy’s Max HP at the start of every turn, but the upper limit for that depends on your Break Effect%. This means that against particularly high-health enemies (especially level 90 and in Memory of Chaos), Break Bleed can do astounding damage. With the upper limit on Luka’s Skill, it’s harder to reach those kinds of damage amounts without copious amounts of ATK boosts, and even then beyond a certain point, Break Bleed will exceed those values.

However, Luka is in fact a Physical character. You can absolutely have both DoTs active if Luka is the one to Weakness Break the enemy, and this means that Luka can contribute a colossal amount of Max HP damage by himself. This is compounded further by his Ultimate.

Luka’s Ultimate deals up to 330% of Luka’s ATK to a single target and has a 100% base chance to increase the DMG they take by up to 20% for a whopping 3 turns. Important to note, this is the same kind of rare damage amplification that Welt possesses on his Ultimate, and it goes a long way to increasing the damage of Luka’s Bleeds, as well as the overall damage of the entire team. Especially in DoT-based setups or instances of high single-hit damage, this damage amp is invaluable.

Luka’s Talent is the beans to the toast of his Skill. Using his Basic ATK or Skill will grant him 1 stack of Fighting Will, up to 4 total. Using his Ultimate will instantly grant 2 stacks. When he has at least 2 stacks, Luka’s Basic ATK will be Enhanced, consuming 2 stacks to deal 3 hits of up to 20% ATK followed by a final blow dealing up to 80% at max Basic ATK Trace level. It doesn’t sound too impressive on its own, but that’s because the Talent has another effect.

After hitting a Bleeding foe with Luka’s Enhanced Basic ATK, the Bleed status will immediately deal DMG equal to up to 85% of its original DMG to the target, meaning Luka can force proc the Bleed effects that an enemy has. This pushes the already strong Max HP% damage forward, compounding his damage contribution even further still.

Luka’s Bonus Traces are good. A2 gives his Skill a dispel effect, making him extremely useful against foes that have pesky self-buffs like the Mara Struck or the Searing Prowler. A4 grants 3 energy every time he obtains a stack of Fighting Will, and A6 has a 50% fixed chance to make the small hits of his Enhanced Basic ATK hit an extra time, though this doesn’t apply to any of the hits that count as extras, meaning he can hit up to 6 times before the uppercut instead of just 3.

In terms of Eidolons, E1, and E6 are the most impactful, with E1 granting a 2 turn 15% DMG bonus if Luka attacks a Bleeding enemy, and E6 adding additional forced Bleed procs on every small hit of his Enhanced Basic ATK, 8% per hit for a maximum total of 48% of the original Bleed being dealt before the uppercut deals the Talent amount of 85%. They’re not necessary for Luka to see success, but are instead ‘win more’ upgrades.

Because of his DoT-centric gameplay, Luka doesn’t care for CRIT stats at all. He wants to stack as much ATK and SPD as possible so that he can continue to smack the enemy around and force Bleed damage as often as possible. This has the unfortunate side effect of meaning that many of the best support options lose a great deal of value when paired with Luka exclusively; Bronya and Yukong in particular have their CRIT buffs almost entirely wasted and would be better spent on a more directly damaging character.

As such, Luka is better used as a supplementary damage dealer, one that only infrequently needs to use his Skill to apply Bleed and can spend the remainder of his time using Basic ATKs, Enhanced or otherwise. Especially due to his damage amplification and dispel capabilities, Luka makes for an excellent hybrid of single target support and damage dealer, with a big benefit of his being a very consistent damage output, and a damage amplification effect that interfaces with an entirely different portion of the DMG formula when compared to DEF Reduction.

Again, while he is very good at what he does, he is not really capable of matching the raw output of other dedicated damage dealers. Luka gets stronger as the enemy gains more health, but due to the upper limit on his Skill’s Bleed, there will still come a point where he can’t go any further on his own. Being exclusively single target is also something that is becoming increasingly problematic when it comes to end-game content like Memory of Chaos, and so Luka is likely best suited for pursuing high HP Elites or Bosses while supporting the team with his Ultimate’s debuff.

Now all I need to do is think of a clever nickname for him to end this review on. “Single Strike Dude”? No… maybe “Lone Hit Person”? There has to be something catchier than that, surely…