Honkai: Star RailThe DahliaBest build, teams and other guides

The Dahlia is a powerful new support for the Super Break archetype. She is able to convert Toughness Reduction on enemies into Super Break DMG even while the enemy is not yet Broken, massively increasing the overall power of these teams by shaving off the ramp-up time they previously needed. She also provides extra Weakness Break Efficiency, and even additional DEF reduction to all enemies with her Ultimate. Add in some occasional free SP recovery, and you have a new Best-in-Slot support for Break and Super Break teams.

[Intro]

You know, I have previously called the DoT team the 'forgotten archetype' but that's only ever been half true; Break is truly the forgotten archetype.

I'm a Break enjoyer, anyone who knows me knows that you can pry Boothill from my cold dead hands, but fellas, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it... This archetype kinda sucks bad, and has sucked for quite a while.

Lots of very unpleasant changes to enemy mechanics directly alongside the frankly absurd HP inflation meant Break was already getting heavily pushed aside in favour of... *gestures broadly and indignantly in the direction of Remembrance* THAT.

As if this wasn't enough to do in most of the older teams anyway, enemy Toughness values were inflated to laughably high numbers, such that even with Ruan Mei's Weakness Break Efficiency you were not able to Break enemies very quickly at all. And then of course the cherry on top is inflated enemy SPD meaning that even once you do Break them, they recover in the blink of an eye.

Great archetype!

To rub salt in the wound even more, most of the Amphoreus cast actually has very above-average Toughness damage to compensate for the disparity. Why would you ever play Break when you can play a normal team and still deal damage to enemies before they're Broken, while getting to Break them at more or less the same rate? And so a failed archetype has been granted a reprieve with a band-aid solution in the form of a character who lets you simply ignore the intended mechanics of the archetype so that you can actually play the game and deal damage.

I am not particularly impressed with the direction or the 'solution' if you can even call it that, but at least Constance (that's The Dahlia's name) is actually a formidable unit. The burning question of this release is 'Who is this character for?', and you'll soon see why this is an important thing to ask.

[Abilities]

The centrepiece of Constance's kit is her Talent. When entering combat, The Dahlia gets 35 Energy. She then makes an ally target her Dance Partner when starting combat, either because that ally initiated combat, or they have the highest Break Effect when you can't initiate combat yourself.

When either of the two Dance Partners attacks a Weakness Broken enemy, the Toughness Reduction of that attack is converted to 60% Super Break DMG. It's not particularly impressive on its own, but it's in addition to other Super Break sources, so it's a nice bonus to have, and important to put onto your strongest Break unit.

After an enemy is attacked by the other Partner, The Dahlia will do a Follow-up ATK (once per her turn), Bouncing randomly for 5 instances of DMG equal to 30% ATK. Each instance will also deal 200% Super Break DMG to Weakness Broken enemies. 200% is big, but you must factor in that Super Break DMG heavily depends on the actual Toughness Reduction being dealt, and for this attack it's absolutely pitiful; the 200% Super Break mod is to counteract this and make the Follow-up ATK not completely useless.

Her Skill deploys a Zone for 3 of Dahlia's turns. She also deals 160% ATK in a Blast AoE, but this is functionally more like a 3-target AoE attack, dealing equivalent Toughness DMG to all three foes.

While the Zone is up, she will increase the Weakness Break Efficiency of all allies by 50%, the same as what Ruan Mei provides. What is not the same as Ruan Mei is that while the Zone is up, all Toughness DMG taken by enemies can be converted into Super Break DMG.

Beg your pardon?

Yeah no that's just real now. It reads to be a bit ambiguous at first because it doesn't specify a value for this, but then you realise that it's literally a one-to-one of what you would have done if they were Broken (almost, it doesn't consider the increased DMG from the Broken state).

I'm really not very enamoured by this from a design perspective as it just fully ignores the intended mechanics of Break teams, and now it's basically just another version of regular CRIT teams but without the RNG.

It's also essentially outright stating that the archetype as a whole is a failure and needs to be bailed out by a mechanism like this; the only problem with that is instead of addressing this from an individual character perspective, it's being 'fixed' by way of releasing a brand new unit that will automatically become Best-in-Slot because of said mechanism.

I'll mention why specifically I think this is important later, but for now, just know that this is absurdly powerful for Break as whole and is quite literally irreplaceable if you're a Break enjoyer.

Interestingly enough, it's actually so unique that it could perhaps be possible to utilise Constance with some very avant-garde teams — characters that dealt a lot of Toughness DMG but couldn't justify going for a Break build because their kits didn't support it. I'm just saying, I've already mentioned how many modern DPS deal an unexpected amount of Toughness DMG, so if you suddenly see Super Break Welt or Super Break Anaxa, don't write it off immediately.

Oh, and it doesn't care if the enemy is Weakness Locked, it'll do its damage no matter what. Yeah it literally just always activates, you don't even need to actually deal the Toughness DMG to deal the Super Break DMG, you merely need the idea of the Toughness DMG you WOULD HAVE dealt, and The Dahlia goes 'Yes, this is a canon event now'. Absurd.

Anyway, snap back to reality, The Dahlia's Ultimate hits all enemies on the field for 300% ATK, distributed evenly, and inflicts the Wilt state for 4 turns. Wilt will reduce the DEF of the affected enemies by 18% and will apply the Weaknesses of both Dance Partners as well.

This means that at a baseline, you're always applying a Fire Weakness, and whatever the Element of your other Dance Partner will follow suit. The DEF reduction is also nothing to scoff at, especially since it lasts a hilarious 4 turns. With her 130 Max Energy, this is pretty much impossible to ever fully drop in combat.

… Well okay, it may be a struggle in something like Pure Fiction with the endlessly respawning adds, but her Energy economy is good enough that at least for when the big tough centre enemy shows up, you can keep them debuffed pretty much permanently as well.

Important to note as well that The Dahlia's Technique will automatically set up her Skill's Zone at the start of combat, but that it's a Special Dimension, so it may conflict with other Zones depending on what sort of crazy shenanigans you're up to (nothing Vonwacq can't fix).

She's nuts. And also strong.

[Bonus Traces]

Upon entering combat, the A2 will provide everyone with increased Break Effect for 1 turn, equal to 24% of The Dahlia's Break Effect plus a flat 50%. This will be reactivated whenever The Dahlia is healed or shielded by an ally, but now will last for 3 turns instead.

While this cannot be triggered repeatedly in the same turn, this is essentially just a free passive increase to Break Effect for the whole team, and it's pretty sizeable to boot. There are plenty of ways to heal or shield without much effort as well, so this is not something you will have to consciously think about.

Granted, this is more to encourage you to not run a sustainless comp as otherwise you'll only benefit from this on the very first turn of combat. Is it enough to actually want to do so? Ehhh, it's hard to say, it'll depend a lot on your own character choices and their investment.

Generally it is stronger to run without a sustain, even with this Bonus Trace. I would say it's the same thing as Phainon's Bonus Trace for healing and shielding; it's not meant to be the primary thing, but it can help offset the damage loss you incur by bringing a sustain.

It's nice to have either way. For Lingsha. It's nice to have either way for Lingsha. Because she can be made into a Break DPS who also has her own sustain, yep.

A4 will allow The Dahlia's Follow-up ATK to recover 1 Skill Point when used. This can be triggered again after every 2 Follow-up ATKs. This is just great passive SP generation, and while you're not suddenly going to be overflowing with SP, it's just about enough to sustain the known Breakers through their usual expected SP expenditure.

Lastly, the A6. When an ally Implants a Weakness to an enemy, that ally's SPD increases by 30% for 2 turns. If an ally Fire character Implants a Weakness when using an attack, an extra fixed 20 Fire Toughness DMG is dealt to every target that was Implanted, and 10% of that ally's Max Energy is restored. The maximum amount of Energy that can be regenerated with this effect is capped at 50% of Max Energy.

The Energy restore is not per enemy, it is a flat value. The cap of 50% Max Energy refers to the point at which you will no longer gain Energy from this effect; if you try to Implant a Weakness to gain the 10% energy, but you're currently sitting at 73% Energy, you get nothing.

Hmm... Now what unit do we know of that is Fire, has constant Fire Weakness Implants, and loves percentage based Energy restores because of a very high Max Energy...

Hey, sure, you can argue that since The Dahlia is also Fire that it's actually just permanent boosts to herself, and that'd be hard to refute... I would however need to make sure you're aware of the very Firefly-shaped object looming above us all in this moment. This is the biggest Firefly shill Trace ever, the only way it could be any more obvious is if they literally named her in the Trace.

And it's really damn good for her too, like this is a permanent SPD boost and literally 1 turn to get back into Firefly's Ultimate, this is a literal dream scenario and not just because we're going back to Penacony.

At least Boothill can also infrequently benefit from the SPD boost...

[Eidolons]

You know what time it is.

Really, the only one I want to talk about directly is The Dahlia's E1, as it's extremely potent and definitely worth considering if you're a true Break aficionado. It's somewhat of a running theme with Break units to be honest.

The E1 does a lot, too. The Super Break DMG multiplier from The Dahlia's Talent (the one for the Dance Partner) is applied to all allies instead, with the Dance Partner specifically getting an additional 40% on top (for a new total of 100%).

When the Dance Partner uses an attack, they will deal an additional fixed amount of Toughness DMG equal to 25% of the enemy target's Max Toughness. This can deal a minimum of 10 Toughness, and go up to a max of 300. This can only trigger once per enemy, with the trigger count resetting for an enemy upon receiving a killing blow.

Brotherman, this is some crazy... stuff. This jump-starts the Break gameplay loop significantly by shaving off a colossal chunk of Toughness right from the get-go, not to mention the damage you can deal thanks to The Dahlia's Skill Zone.

The reset condition also means that you can get this off once per Boss Phase as well, so you can benefit from this up to three times in a big encounter, and good lord is it noticeable.

You should absolutely consider getting her E1 in addition to her base if you're looking to keep Break relevant for a long while, because this is a very sizeable performance increase (though a pain to try and sim). The Dahlia's E1 is a luxury option, but it is undoubtedly strong.

Let's not think about the implications of a 300 Toughness DMG cap on it though. 1200 Toughness enemy? I'd rather die, thanks.

You may be wondering 'if I can deal Super Break DMG whenever, why would I need a way to Break enemies faster?', and that is a good question. The answer is a bit curt: the old Break DPS aren't very good and have conditions that can only be satisfied by actually Breaking enemies.

This is much more relevant for the two Galaxy Rangers than the Orbital Frame, as both Rappa and Boothill increase their damage quite significantly when they're able to actually Break the enemies. For Boothill especially, pretty much his whole gameplan is non-functional if you can't Break the enemy at least a few times, but at least for him it's never been the primary issue.

Oh and E2 is pretty okay if you're planning on benching Ruan Mei indefinitely. 20% All-Type RES PEN permanently is pretty good, and the other part of it is even better for alleviating that one annoyance in Pure Fiction. The E2 will also automatically inflict Wilt onto enemies entering the field for 3 turns. Now you should absolutely never ever let this DEF reducing debuff drop on enemies. Ever.

These are really good Eidolons, I won't lie, but do consider that this is coming pretty much right before a major update — a whole new planet. I'm not sure it's necessarily worth all of this right now just before a new planet, but you do you.

[The Rest]

Before doing my usual stuff, I really have to mention her Signature Light Cone for giving the extremely rare Break DMG Dealt increase. This is almost non-existent except for like Fugue's E4 and whatever that recent Battle Pass Harmony cone is. This is a cracked Light Cone option, and sure, every character ideally wants their Signature. This one justifies itself a fair bit more, I'd say.

Back to the regularly scheduled yap... W-where is it? What do you mean there's not much to say? How am I meant to fill out this section then?

Yeah it turns out that when the character kit doesn't take two to three business days to read it's not too complicated to see why it's good or useful. If you like Break, you should get The Dahlia, and if you don't care, then don't I guess.

Sigh. Alas, there is something to mention, and that's the little pin I put earlier. The burning question from the beginning: 'Who is this character for?'.

This is more than just a character unit question, it factors in the player themselves. The Dahlia is unquestionably an extremely valuable unit for Break teams, with her whole gimmick straight up nullifying and ignoring the primary weakness of Break teams. To say otherwise is simply incorrect.

A similarly incorrect statement would be 'Break is not strong enough with this' because testing shows that uh, yeah, it is, and it has a really good matchup into a lot of things, especially since the Toughness DMG to Super Break conversion from The Dahlia's Skill ignores Weakness Locked enemies, so even that can't stop you from dealing damage.

The reason to consider this question is that our current roster of Break units is... from the past.

Stay with me here; The Dahlia is a character that exists because of the problem that arose from the Break archetype that the existing Break characters were unable to address in any meaningful way, and that poses a longevity problem. Even with the help of The Dahlia, how strong these units will remain (without any future buffs) is somewhat nebulous, yes?

This is not the case for the vertically invested Break units. Those Eidolons can make the addition of The Dahlia send the team into the stratosphere, killing off damn near anything in front of you, and this goes for both of the Galaxy Rangers as well as the Glamoth trooper. Hell even the incense dealer fits into this category.

But... What if you don't have these Break units already? What if you weren't able to pick them up back when they came out, and therefore do not have anything to base your Break team on?

In this regard, The Dahlia is surprisingly like Cyrene, in that you kinda need to have the units she's meant for already ready and built. If you don't have any actual Break DPS, what use is The Dahlia going to have for you, exactly?

I mean sure, there's reruns coming alongside her, so the opportunity is there TECHNICALLY, but are you really prepared to splurge so very much to get all of these myriad units to construct a brand new team from scratch, with the bones of characters from over almost two planets ago? I am not sure I would want to do that, especially because of the potentially better-designed Break characters to come, and ESPECIALLY because of whatever craziness awaits us in 4.0.

But as always, these are your choices to make. To me, The Dahlia seems very much catered to the players who already had well-built Break teams from the 2.X saga and are looking for a singular, extremely potent and absurd, upgrade. That is my answer to the question of 'Who is she for'.

[Wrap up]

So, in conclusion: She's hot and you should get her.