Honkai: Star RailTopaz & NumbyBest build, teams and other guides

Topaz is a unique hybrid of a secondary damage dealer and dedicated support for units with follow-up attacks (emphasis on support). She is capable of significantly increasing the follow-up damage a single enemy can receive indefinitely, with the increase to damage being a separate multiplier in most instances, resulting in an even larger increase. She also contributes fairly decent direct and Toughness damage of her own, and can use SP with a high degree of flexibility, even being able to be fully SP positive. Her biggest downside is that she is exclusively single-target focused and can struggle in even 2 target scenarios. Her personal damage output also relies on enemies getting hit by follow-ups, limiting her usefulness as a secondary damage dealer for non follow-up centric units.

As a tax collector for the IPC, Topaz doesn’t exactly make the best first impression, after all, tax evasion is an obligation (for legal reasons this is a joke). As a playable unit, Topaz is also somewhat intriguing. She is our first dedicated support character for the follow-up mechanic, meaning by design she is already slotting herself into a very specific type of gameplay and with very specific teammates.

I will mention immediately that Topaz is not a particularly flashy character, nor is she really a character that is able to work out of the box as well as other hypercarries - at least as of the initial time of writing this. She is primarily a support character. Outside of her great single-target damage, she also doesn’t tend to contribute as much as other units do for double or triple carry setups that don't rely on follow-up attacks - she really is tailor-made for teams with dedicated characters that can abuse her debuff. Within those follow-up teams, Topaz can elevate both her own and her teammates' damage output quite considerably, and is likely to become a mainstay for units like Jing Yuan, Clara, and maybe even Himeko too. Just know immediately that outside of those specific setups, you should not expect Topaz to be replacing any units you are likely already utilizing in other teams.

With that out of the way, let’s discuss what makes Topaz good in her specific teams. Topaz’s Skill is the most important tool in her kit. It will deal follow-up damage up to 150% of Topaz’s ATK to a single enemy target, and additionally inflict them with a debuff called Proof of Debt, which increases the damage they take from follow-up attacks by up to 50% at max Trace level. This 50% is in most cases a separate multiplier, meaning it takes effect after everything else has been calculated and will result in a significantly higher increase to damage than you may expect. Damage amps like this are incredibly rare and are extremely potent. The Proof of Debt debuff itself lasts indefinitely until either the target enemy is defeated or Topaz uses this Skill on another foe. If no enemy has Proof of Debt when an ally’s turn begins or when they act, Proof of Debt will be randomly applied to one of the remaining enemies.

Her Talent is her pet Trotter, Numby. Numby is very similar to Jing Yuan’s Lightning-Lord in that it is a summoned entity with its own SPD value and turn order, and will disappear if the summoner is downed in combat. On Numby’s turn, it will deal damage up to 150% of Topaz’s ATK to a single enemy that has been afflicted with Proof of Debt. Numby’s SPD is 80 by default, making it fairly slow to act, but whenever enemies afflicted with Proof of Debt receive an ally’s follow-up attack, Numby will have its action Advanced Forward by 50%, resulting in it getting to act far more frequently than you may initially be led to believe. Note, this Advance Forward cannot be triggered on Numby’s own turn, so this effect relies on your team being able to use follow-ups.

Topaz’s Ultimate buffs Numby for 2 turns. Numby enters the Windfall Bonanza! State, exclamation mark included, and its damage multiplier increases by up to 150%. It also benefits from an additional 25% CRIT DMG. Similar to Clara’s Ultimate, Topaz’s Ultimate temporarily lessens the restrictions on her Talent’s Advance Forward activation; while Windfall Bonanza! is active, when enemies with Proof of Debt are hit by ally Basic ATKs, Skills, or Ultimates, Numby will have its action Advanced Forward by 50% as well. This means it’s very easy to have Numby acting nearly back to back during its Enhanced state, as you temporarily do not need to rely on exclusively follow-up attacks to trigger the Advance Forward.

Her Bonus Ability Traces improve her performance quite considerably. Her A2 Bonus Ability will transform her Basic ATK into a follow-up attack, meaning it will now also benefit from Proof of Debt’s damage amp, as well as accelerating Numby’s next attack with the Advance Forward. Her A4 will grant her and Numby 15% increased DMG against all enemies with a Fire Weakness, and her A6 will regenerate an additional 10 Energy for herself when Numby attacks under Windfall Bonanza!, effectively reducing the amount of Energy she needs to use her Ultimate again.

Eidolons are not necessary for Topaz, and while they’re not really that bad at all, they’re also not really worth chasing extra copies of Topaz to get. E1 is good value if you’re really adamant about going for Eidolons, as it can increase the CRIT DMG of follow-ups against Proof of Debt debuffed enemies by 25%, stacking up to 2 times.

The gameplay plan becomes fairly simple: afflict the primary enemy target, usually a Boss or Elite, with the Proof of Debt debuff, and then pelt them with as many follow-up attacks as possible to get Numby to sic ‘em as often as possible. Rather surprisingly, this is in fact as easy as it sounds as far as Topaz herself is concerned. Her Skill counts as a follow-up attack, and with her first Bonus Ability, her Basic ATK also functions as a follow-up attack, so every time Topaz acts, it’s going to be Advancing Forward Numby’s turn.

This Advance Forward mechanic is the reason why Topaz benefits greatly from allies with follow-up attacks in their kit as well, as it can even further increase the number of times Numby will attack, creating a sort of feedback loop wherein Topaz buffs the ally follow-up attacks and gets increased personal damage output in the process. Even with the more infrequent follow-ups like from Jing Yuan’s Lightning-Lord, the difference in Topaz’s personal damage output is quite noticeable.

She can use SP however you need once an enemy is afflicted with Proof of Debt; using Skill will consume 1 SP but will give greater damage, Energy gain, and Toughness damage, but using Basic ATK will deal only slightly less of each while recovering 1 SP instead. Since both count as follow-up attacks, Numby is always benefitting. Numby itself is also doing good Toughness damage every time it attacks, meaning together with Topaz, the amount of Toughness damage being dealt to a single foe is actually really quite high. It is not uncommon to be breaking extremely frequently with Topaz in the party as long as the enemy is Fire weak.

As mentioned early on, Topaz is exclusively single-target focused, as is tradition for Hunt characters. With the climate of the game being extremely focused on Blast and AoE scenarios, this is quite a heavy limitation to be faced with, and is somewhat circumvented by pairing her with her intended follow-up heavy teammates, as their follow-ups are all AoE. This way, Topaz can safely mark the main Elite or Boss and have the ally follow-up attacks clear the field of trash adds. Attempting to utilise Topaz as a secondary damage source in teams without follow-ups, or as a solo hypercarry, will result in subpar performance compared to other damage dealers who can attack more than one target at the same time.

Topaz is meant for follow-up teams, buffing other characters who also have follow-up attacks. By herself, Topaz is not comparable to most other dedicated damage dealers, to say nothing of the likes of Imbibitor Lunae or Jingliu. She does not have the types of intrinsic stat boosts or damage amps that many of those sorts of characters have, and so becomes incredibly reliant on having definitively good gear and Relics. Since many of her teams involve 2 damage dealers and a sustain option, it limits her access to buffs making good gear even more important, potentially even raising the quality requirement from good to great.

Do not make the mistake of seeing the Hunt symbol and thinking she is comparable to the likes of Seele. Topaz is a support first, damage dealer second. If you do not already have the follow-up characters that work well with her, you should not reasonably expect her to perform to her best. If you are banking on getting Clara, or to a lesser extent Himeko, from the Regular Warp or its 300 pull guarantee, or are waiting for a Jing Yuan rerun to occur to guarantee him, then Topaz is a very solid investment, as those teams will likely have Topaz remain as a staple choice indefinitely from this point on. If you already have these characters, then you’re set to benefit greatly from Topaz.

If none of that applies to you, then really you should be asking yourself for what reason you’re pulling for Topaz. If it’s just because you like her character, design, or aesthetic, then hey, I get it, you do you. But if your reasoning is because of some hypothetical future characters that might benefit from what Topaz offers, then that may not be a compelling enough reason, especially if that decision involves a conversation about real-life spending. As the Trailblazer themselves say, ‘When there is the chance to make a choice, make one that you know you won’t regret’.

For the rest of us who have teams ready for her, Topaz herself is likely to continue to improve over time, especially seeing as she has a very rare and powerful debuff, but as was said with Kafka, the character’s strength must be evaluated based on what they can do now. If something changes and Topaz gets verifiably better, you can trust me to keep this review updated.

Oh and she powercreeps Simulated Universe. Small chance to obtain a whole damn Curio after defeating enemies with her Technique active? Sheeesh.