Last updated: 02/07/2025
Please keep in mind that Honkai: Star Rail is a game where team building matters most and while our tier list takes the optimal setup into account, a lot of characters can work and do well - even those ranked lower - when you invest into them. Also for story or lower difficulties of Simulated Universe, you don't need to worry about ratings and tiers. You can safely clear that content even with F2P characters as long as you build your team correctly.
These tier lists rate characters based on their average performance in Memory of Chaos, Pure Fiction and Apocalyptic Shadow regardless of turbulence, whimsicality and cacophony (last 3 phases specifically). Characters rated higher will perform well without the need to rely on these and will only benefit more from receiving them. As new mechanics, characters and challenges are introduced each tier list will be updated.
Important! Characters are ordered alphabetically within a tier.
Available tier lists:
About the ratings:
To decide the ratings we use a combination of the data we gather for every mode (the Analytics for every mode you can find in the left menu), our own testing that's done inline with the criteria (check below) and the last element is community feedback we receive - either from Reddit, YouTube or our own Discord.
Tags are split into 3 categories: Pros, Cons and Archetype which represent the most defining features of a character's kit and the current meta archetypes they fit into. Archetype tags indicate a connection between characters with that tag e.g. Acheron requires debuffs to work and Silver Wolf applies them. Here is a full list of all current tags and what they mean:
Meta Lines categorize each section of the tier list into a power bracket. Here are the four brackets:
To further define the tier list and correctly represent the power level of each character in relation to each other we have added half tiers to the higher tier brackets. Under our previous system a tier rating jump of 1 tier rating made it difficult to position characters accurately, often leading to multiple characters ending up in the same tier despite a clear power and utility difference.
We compare characters within their role - so DPS are compared to other DPS and the ratings are adjusted based on their performance within the role. Don't try to compare characters between roles (for example an Amplifier with a DPS), because their ratings mean different things.
Each tier list rates characters based on their average value in the specific game mode it represents. The higher a character is rated on the tier list the greater their power and more widely they can be used effectively in the mode, helping the players in getting all rewards every cycle. We aren't looking at 0-cycle potential. We consider:
Patch 3.4’s arrival brings us
We’ve tested each of the four newly buffed characters in endgame but as they’re the first of their kind we’re placing watchlists on all of them to indicate their placements may move up or, while unlikely, possibly down as well.
MoC Update: