Honkai: Star Rail Tier list (July 2024)

Categories

• Damage Dealer - Characters that focus on dealing direct damage and can perform their role unhindered by enemy type, enemy element or team composition,
• Specialist - Characters that excel under specific circumstances carrying a unique role that often requires a different and divergent playstyle,
• Amplifier - Characters that do not focus on dealing damage but instead amplify the damage other teammates deal by granting allies buffs or debuffing enemies,
• Sustain - Characters who are capable of keeping the team alive with their abilities.

Special tags

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:

• Break - the character belongs to the Break archetype focusing on Break Effect and Break Efficiency,
• Debuff - the character belongs to the Debuff archetype applying one or many debuffs or has a kit that directly relies on them to function,
• DoT - the character belongs to the Damage-over-Time archetype specializing in applying and/or amplifying DoT effects,
• FuA - the character belongs to the Follow-up Attack archetype benefitting from, buffing or delivering powerful Follow-Up Attacks.,
• Advance - the character can manipulate the turn order by either action advancing their allies or themselves,
• Buff - the character can apply various Buffs to help their teammates,
• Delay - the character can delay enemies and hinder their actions in battle,
• Energy - the character can recover the teammates energy,
• SP-Friendly - the character is substantially more skill point friendly than other characters in their role.
• SP-Unfriendly - the character is substantially more skill point un-friendly than other characters in their role.

Meta Lines

Meta Lines categorize each section of the tier list into a power bracket. Here are the four brackets:

• Apex Characters (T0 & T0.5) - characters in this bracket are the cream of the crop. They can do outrageous amount of damage, provide massive buffs (or debuffs) or keep the team alive no matter what the enemy throws at them. They simply can achieve the best, most consistent and accessible results in their best teams, allowing you to easily clear MoC and PF,
• Meta Characters (T1, T1.5, T2) - characters in this bracket make clearing MoC and PF a breeze, but compared to the Apex characters they require more work from your side. Either their team options are more restrictive, they require bigger Relic investment or they possess a notable weakness or downside. Still, they are all great and won't disappoint you if you give them what they need to shine,
• Niche Characters (T3 & T4) - characters in this bracket are lacking in one or many fields of their role in MoC or PF. These characters still possess the ability to clear all content with the right build, endgame blessing, team or enemy line-up but have much lower play rates and success rates than Meta and Apex characters,
• The Forgotten Ones (T5) - characters in this bracket struggle. A lot. Either their kits simply don't work in the mode or they require a ton of investment and love to be able to work. Just avoid them unless your husbando or waifu landed here and you believe in the power of love.

Half tiers

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.

Criteria

• Manual play,
• Using optimal team composition/support characters,
• Character level 80,
• All Major Traces unlocked and skills upgraded to level 8,
• Character equipped with level 80 non-limited 4★ or 5★ Light Cone (including the 'standard' Light Cones),
• Battle Pass Light Cones aren't taken into account because you can't obtain them without spending,
• Character equipped with 5★ upgraded gear with optimal Main Stats and Sub Stats (with 24 desired sub stats out of a possible 54),
• Eidolon level 0 for 5★ characters,
• Eidolon level 0/6 for 4★ characters.

Roles

We compare characters within their role - so damage dealers are compared to other damage dealers 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 damage dealer), because their ratings mean different things.

• Damage Dealer - Rating is heavily influenced based on the characters ability to deal enough damage to achieve the 3-star objective, the easier and more quickly achieved the higher the rating,
• Specialist - Rating is heavily influenced based on the damage they provide, defense or efficiency boost created by the unique teams these characters create or the utility they provide against certain encounters,
• Amplifier - Rating is influenced based on the damage amplification abilities of the character and the utility they provide to the team,
• Sustain - Rating is influenced based on the characters ability to keep the team alive and the utility they provide. The more utility and higher the safety, the higher the rating.

Other criteria affecting the ratings

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. We consider:

• Flexibility - how the characters kit functions against various enemy types, amounts of enemies and their ability to perform when not fighting against enemies vulnerable to their element,
• Investment - some characters require specific limited 5★ units, heavy investment in certain relic sets or an abundance of sub-stats in order to function at the highest level. Each of these points impacts the rating in a negative way. - the more the character requires to perform well, the bigger the impact,
• Utility - recently released characters possess abilities that lie beyond their defined role, for example Amplifiers/Sustains that can deal decent damage. The more a character helps the team outside of their role, the bigger positive impact on their rating it has.

13/07/2024

• We have updated the Pure Fiction tier list to include our post-Jade testing, the meta trends in the last 3 phases and the community feedback:
• [Argenti] T1 T0.5. While in the past, Argenti struggled in phases where Physical-weak enemies were sparse, things have changed recently - he consistently scores 30k points regardless of the enemy setup and buffs, and even reaches 35k when everything goes his away. This combined with the fact that he isn't reliant on other limited characters to perform well (though they do improve his performance even more) as he can be paired with 4-star supports like Hanya and Tingyun is enough for us to raise him from the Meta bracket to the Apex bracket. We will continue observing him and his best teams in the next phases to see if another upgrade will be required.
• [Clara] T1.5 T1. Clara's performance is really stable and she rarely drops below 30k points regardless of the buff and enemy setup. She also is very flexible, working well in multiple setups - whether it's double DPS or hypercarry teams - and on top of that, she can be played without any limited characters. Because of that we've raising her to T1 and similar to Argenti, we will continue observing her as she has potential to jump to the Apex bracket.
• [Topaz] T3 T1.5. Despite being a completely single target Follow-Up character, Topaz has proven herself to be an asset to multiple of the top Pure Fiction Damage Dealers namely Himeko, Herta and Clara. Topaz sees particularly strong performance during Pure Fiction cycles with buffs related to Follow-Up’s thanks to the sheer frequency of Numby’s attacks when partnered with another Follow-up attacker. But she also earns respectable scores during non-follow-up phases, thanks to her supportive kit and reasonable single target damage. Topaz assists the top carries of the mode in different ways - she helps Himeko kill and break elite/fire weak enemies making churning through the waves with her talent smoother. She assists Herta with single target and getting initial 50% hp triggers to start her follow-up chains and finally majorly boosts Clara’s single target damage against the tougher enemies of the mode. Topaz has proven herself time and time again and we feel her move up the ranks is long overdue as such we’re moving her two tiers at once to what we think is her rightful place.
• [Asta] T2 T1.5. Asta consistently scores above 30k points and she's featured in a plethora of teams - often replacing Ruan Mei for those who don't have the crazy scientist or use her on the other side. Despite the fact that Asta is the second choice, she carries her weight and performs really well which is enough for us to raise her one tier up.
• [Hanya] T3 T2. Hanya's performance in the last 2 phases exceeded our expectations. While her usage rate remains at the lower end (though it's slowly climbing), she is often paired with Argenti and works really well with him - even reaching the points of Argenti+Sparkle teams. That's enough for us to raise her from the Niche bracket, but because she's nearly exclusively paired with Argenti, we're only upgrading her by 1 tier.
• [Acheron] T0.5 T1. Acheron's performance dropped in recent phases when you look at teams that aren't part of the 'Dotcheron' team archetype - honestly, it's the only team where she shines nowadays in Pure Fiction. When you look at her performance without Black Swan and/or Kafka, she barely reaches 25k points on average as neither the FUA or DoT buffs help with her Ultimate-oriented playstyle. Still, the Dotcheron team is one of the two best teams to use during the DoT phase while still being competitive in the FUA phase - easily scoring 30k points then but because of Acheron's reliance on the limited Nihility duo, we're dropping her from the Apex bracket as we expect the characters there to be able to brute-force the content regardless of the current buffs and without relying on being carried by others.
• [Boothill] T4 T5. Sadly, the space cowboy struggles a lot in Pure Fiction - even more than we anticipated on his release - and we're dropping him down a tier to the Forgotten bracket, because honestly we also struggled to find a niche scenario where you would use him in Pure Fiction.
• [Physical MC] T4 T5. Now that the Imaginary MC took the meta by storm, there's really no reason to use the 'original' version of the MC and we're dropping them to the Forgotten tier.
• [Yukong] T4 T5. While Yukong can still be used with Cooler Daniel in other modes, in Pure Fiction he struggles really hard and this impacts Yukong's usage rates and performance. Because of that we're dropping her to the Forgotten tier.
• [Natasha] T4 T5. Not only in Pure Fiction healers have a rougher time as you don't really need them, she brings nothing else to the table compared to other Sustain options so we're dropping her to the Forgotten tier. Poor Natasha - you served us well.
• We're also looking into [Gallagher] as he has the potential to jump to the T0 tier, but we want to wait one more phase to see how he compares to Aventurine performance-wise before pulling the trigger.

10/07/2024

• [Jade] was added to the tier list,
• [Himeko] T0.5 T0 in Pure Fiction. Himeko has been incredibly close to T0 for a while now and the release of Jade is more than enough to push her firmly across the line as the two pair very well together completely dominating the mode - it's not that Himeko needs Jade to perform well as she works very well with Herta or other DPS, but Jade gives her another option when it comes to team building, allowing for even more flexibility.
• [Blade] T2 T1.5 in Pure Fiction. Although Blade isn't Jade's best teammate, when played alongside her he receives an incredible power boost - primarily thanks to Jade's damage assistance and the increased frequency of his Follow-up attacks. As Blade has a new best team and it's performance is impressive, it only makes sense to raise him up a tier.
• [Black Swan] T0 T0.5 in Pure Fiction. Jade sets a baseline of power for the Specialist category in Pure Fiction and as such our previous reigning powerhouse, Black Swan, will be moving down to make room for her (as she is much closer in power level to Kafka than Jade).
• EDIT! [Argenti] and [Acheron] ratings weren't touched with Jade's release because we're waiting for the latest Pure Fiction data before deciding what to do with them. Argenti is definitely on the rise performance-wise, even in phases that don't suit him well, while the opposite can be said about Acheron (outside of Dotcheron teams she kinda struggles and that team requires multiple limited characters), but we want to check the data before moving either of them.

28/06/2024

The "Super Break Team Core" is a squad of 3 units that absolutely obliterates Apocalyptic Shadow and it consists of Harmony Trailblazer, Ruan Mei and Gallagher. It’s no exaggeration that these 3 units can be played alongside almost any damage dealer with reasonable Toughness damage against the enemies vulnerabilities and achieve a 3-star score. We’ve seen this team dominate in Apocalyptic Shadow across the board but most commonly alongside Himeko, Argenti, Boothill, Firefly, Clara, Dr Ratio, Xueyi and Sushang. There are even more examples but the point is clear - this team completely smashes the mode.

The existence of this team presents an interesting problem as it allows many characters to perform far above their usual station - should they be evaluated with this best team or on their next best option? Part of our initial assessment of characters included whether or not they could function with or without this team or even a portion of it. Team flexibility outside of the Super Break Team Core is important and the community has pointed out alternatives for some characters leading to a need to raise them up on the Apocalyptic Shadow tier list. Here are the changes we made:

• [Harmony Trailblazer] T0.5 T0 in AS. We’re raising Harmony Trailblazer to Tier 0. Whether played in the same team or not, Ruan Mei and HMC completely dominate Apocalyptic Shadow and while there is an argument to be made that Ruan Mei is more generic, Harmony Trailblazer is still a unit you’ll almost always be making use of on one side or another and is a huge damage amplifier for many of the top characters. Harmony Trailblazer is closer to power than Ruan Mei than they are to Silver Wolf so we feel it’s correct to place them together for now.
• [Himeko] T1.5 T1 in AS. Our initial placement for Himeko on the tier list was a conservative one. Himeko is one of the biggest abusers of the Super Break Team Core, takes excellent advantage of the first set of Apocalyptic Shadow buffs and has a good match up against the Fire-weak enemy Argenti. Our team had some concerns about Himeko’s performance outside of Super Break after the favorable enemy and buffs pass, but after evaluating community feedback, suggestions and discussion we've done further testing and agree Himeko deserves a higher spot on the tier list. Himeko can still find success outside of Super Break teams in follow-up attack compositions (albeit they are certainly weaker) but also as a supportive AoE breaker in other break compositions such as Firefly teams. This flexibility gives us confidence Himeko will continue to be a strong pick even without relying on the Super Break team and even allows her to free up Ruan Mei in Firefly's Super Break team under certain conditions, offering tremendous value on that front. As always we appreciate the communities feedback!
• [Xueyi] T1.5 T1 in AS. The community feels Xueyi is rated to low on the tier list as while yes she is incredible at abusing the Super Break Team Core (Ruan, Harmony Trailblazer, Gallagher), she also has incredible performance when played in Mono Quantum, meaning she can thrive even without monopolizing the best units for the mode. As a Break-scaling character, the current set of buffs is incredible for Xueyi but despite this, having access to multiple teams, great Toughness damage and the ability to hit enemies that aren't Quantum-weak, gives us enough confidence she'll continue to thrive even without it. We’re raising her up a tier because of that.
• [Qingque] T2 T1.5 in AS. We've rated Qingque based on her average performance in Apocalyptic Shadow but the community has found Qingque's high variance demands a higher tier placement. When on the cusp of attaining 3-stars, Qingque holds an advantage over other characters as on a lucky run she can overperform, getting you over the edge in this incredibly tricky mode. Thanks to her power to edge out a win when it might not be possible otherwise we’re raising her up a tier.
• [Luka] T3 T2 in AS. Luka of course can be played in the Super Break team albeit not as a top pick leading to low play rates. Despite his low play rate, some players are seeing success with Luka in Physical Break teams including Sushang or Boothill. Based on this success we’re raising him up a tier and will continue to keep an eye on him moving forward to see if he needs further placement gains.
• [Asta] T2 T1.5 in AS. Asta isn’t the Best In Slot support anymore but in Apocalyptic Shadow she is a close contender when it comes to 2nd or 3rd spot - which in some teams or for players without the strongest unit compositions can be invaluable. Asta’s Speed buff is great when it’s available, her break is meaningful and in many teams she can serve as a pseudo replacement for Ruan Mei, freeing her for your other team or just filling the slot if you don’t have her. This flexibility and value is enough for us to recognize she’s placed too low and raise her up a tier.

After considering the community's response there is a number of characters we’re waiting for additional data on or a new buff to make changes to on the tier list. The characters we’re currently watching closely are Dr. Ratio, Seele, Jingliu, Himeko (even after the move to T1 as she has the potential to move higher), Sushang, Misha, Robin and Lynx. As always thanks to the community for the valuable feedback and suggestions!

27/06/2024

• We have added the Apocalyptic Shadow tier list. Since we only had one phase available to us and it's heavily skewed toward Break characters, it was hard for us to create the ratings (we based them both on the data gathered by us and manual testing done for every characters). Once the next phase starts and the theme for it will be revealed, the tier list will become more accurate.

19/06/2024

New additions:

• [Firefly] has been added to T0 in MoC and T1 in PF. Firefly’s release sees her skyrocket to the top of the Break damage meta when it comes to the carries.
• Firefly's best team deals some of the most damage of any team in the game while also almost completely ignoring the weakness inherent to her Break archetype thanks to her kit. Firefly can implant her own Weaknesses, amplify her own toughness damage, has multiple ways to scale her Break damage, has strong multi-target capabilities thanks to her Speed and cleave and has a full team of incredibly synergistic characters to play alongside her. It's just too much.
• We rank Firefly as the best Break carry, and one of the best overall damage dealers in the game thanks to her all encompassing kit eliminating many of the weaknesses of her archetype. As a Breaker, we’re placing her in the Specialist category alongside her closest peer Boothill.
• We’re ranking her at Tier 0 in MoC as she crushes the mode, but Tier 1 in Pure Fiction as her cleave-only kit and pure Break damage causes her to require the assistance of a more AoE inclined character such as Himeko to excel.

Changes:

• [Ruan Mei] T0.5 T0 in MoC. Ruan Mei is one of the most flexible, most used and strongest supports in the game. Our team was waiting for one of the top 3 amplifiers of Ruan Mei, Sparkle and Robin to break away from the pack and show they are worthy to move above the rest. As of 2.3 and the release of Firefly we feel Ruan Mei now absolutely deserves the top spot. Ruan can be played in almost every team in the game to some success but also possess many top tier teams where she has no comparable replacement (Boothill / Firefly / Superbreak teams) thanks to her incredible break capabilities. For these reasons Ruan Mei is moving to Tier 0 in MoC.
• [Harmony MC E6] T1 T0.5 in MoC and T1.5 T1 in PF. With the release of Firefly, Imaginary Trailblazer finds a close to irreplaceable position in one of the best teams in the entire game and also gains access to their long awaited E6 raising the power level of the character by a significant amount. After testing Imaginary Trailblazer with Firefly and also observing how their position in the Break meta has developed we’re updating their role and position on the tier list - as we’re adjusting Trailblazer’s role from Specialist to Amplifier. The reason for this is that in Firefly’s teams Trailblazer's main home they primarily contribute through their buffs and not their own personal damage - we’ve also found this to be the case in many other break teams. While their damage can be significant it’s their buffs that secure them a position on most teams. Due to Trailblazer’s reasonable performance throughout 2.2 and new top tier team composition with Firefly in 2.3 we’re also raising them up to Tier 0.5 in MoC and Tier 1 in Pure Fiction.
• [Gallagher E6] T1 T0.5 in MoC and T1 T0.5 in PF. As a completely Break-focused sustain with debuffing capabilities, Gallagher is by far one of the biggest winners of the Penacony patches overall. Gallagher finds himself as one of if not the best sustains for multiple of the best teams in the game - the latest of which is of course the tremendously powerful Firefly Break team. When discussing Gallagher and his position on Tier Lists, it’s almost easier to try to justify why he wouldn't be top tier. Gallagher is currently the uncontested best sustain in the Firefly’s team (one of the best teams in the game), a top option in Acheron’s team and also competes for a top position in Boothill’s best team as well (also a very strong team). Outside of this, he can also be used in other teams - but holding just these positions in our eyes justifies makes it hard not to move him up the list, for this reason we’re moving him up to Tier 0.5 in both MoC and PF.
• [Himeko] T4 T3 in MoC. Himeko's performance in the most recent MoC exceeded all expectations, but that's because all stars aligned for her. Still, we are raising her one tier up and we will continue to monitor her in the next phase.
• [Fu Xuan] T0 T0.5 in MoC. Fu Xuan has stood at the top of the MoC tier list for a long time thanks to her great offensive buffs, break potential, fantastic damage mitigation and protection abilities. Though, after much internal discussion and with input from the community, we have decided to move Fu Xuan down half a tier. The driving force behind community sentiment and our decision is Aventurine and his universally dominant kit. He has proven he is invaluable in some of the most powerful teams in the game but also is at the very least the 2nd best option in most others. Fu Xuan still has her own best team’s and has her highly valued CRIT RATE buff but Aventurine is more flexible thanks to his overpowered Shielding, skill point positive kit and single target break capabilities.

29/05/2024

• [Boothill] has been added to the tier list,
• Boothill is the new king of single target and absolutely dominates the niche when set-up correctly, routinely blasting enemies for 100’s of thousands of damage like it’s absolutely nothing thanks to his incredible mostly non-gear reliant Break-focused damage profile.
• We’ve ranked Boothill as a Specialist due to the majority of his damage being contingent on enemies being broken by his attacks or already broken - both of which require some form of interaction with Toughness. Boothill’s reliance on breaking enemies means he cares about enemy weaknesses and also enemies that can lock their toughness from being depleted, the first of which can slow down his clear times by varying degrees but the second of which can render him completely helpless against that enemy.
• There is no doubt that Boothill is more comfortable, easy and far more powerful against enemies that are Physical weak. This fact is the main driving force behind our categorization of him. We acknowledge Boothill is more than capable of brute forcing non-physical weak fights thanks to his Ultimate but in our tests those fights were harder required more planning and in many cases slower pushing him closer to his more Break-focused brethren like Luka.
• Boothill’s potential is incredible especially in the hands of a knowledgeable player with the gear and roster to support him, but as per our criteria event limited Signature Light Cones are no allowed so we’ve had to penalize Boothill’s ranking slightly as his Light Cone is a substantial damage increase for him (~30%).
• [Pela] T2 T1.5 in MoC. Based on overwhelming community support and recommendation we're raising Pela to T1.5 alongside Silver Wolf. A strong consensus has been reached that while Pela isn't a best in slot support for many or even any characters in the ultra endgame, she can be played in almost any team giving her supreme flexibility. On top of this while she might be behind in some compositions such as Jingliu's losing out to Ruan Mei it's not by enough to knock her variants of each team out of viability with many of them only being slightly behind. We agree with both these points and feel raising her is appropriate.
• [Gallagher] T1.5 T1 in MoC. Gallagher continues to find his way into more and more characters' best team compositions thanks to his Break-focused kit. Boothill being one such Break character of course absolutely loves Gallagher and has him present in many of his top teams. While Gallagher’s sustain may be harder to manage than other characters, his Break and offensive capabilities are undeniable in the team’s where he thrives and with another top tier team composition under his belt we’ll be raising him up a tier.
• [Ruan Mei] - With the Release of Boothill, Ruan Mei receives another top tier team while her closest competitors Sparkle and Robin maintain similar positions. We absolutely have our eye on Ruan and we will revisit her position after further testing.

09/05/2024

Added Harmony MC to the tier list.

08/05/2024

The tier list has been fully reworked, so we wiped the old changelog as it would only bring confusion.