The standard 5-star characters in Honkai: Star Rail might not be as effective as they were when the game launched, but most of them can still be a significant boon to your account, and with the Express Gift event, you can get one of them completely free. Which you choose will depend on what your account needs, but a few stand above the rest.
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There are also characters in the Express Gift 5-star selector you should stay well away from thanks to massive powercreep and general lack of utility in the current meta. We’ll go over everything you need to know here.
The Best Express Gift Character: Bronya
Some standard banner 5-star characters have remained relevant since Honkai: Star Rail’s launch, while others have seen their stars shine brighter with the addition of new modes requiring different skill sets. Still, others have only become less and less valuable over time.
The first and best choice out of all the 5-star characters to pull from the Express Gift is Broyna. There are almost too many reasons to list, but here’s the short version:
- Bronya’s Skill allows any character to act immediately, regardless of their default place in the action order.
- Bronya’s Skill also cleanses one debuff from the character it’s used on, helping ensure they can act quicker and less burdened by crowd control effects.
- Bronya’s Ultimate is a blanket Crit. Damage bonus to the entire team and is one of the easiest to get.
- Bronya fits into almost any team, with only specific exceptions for specialized kits like Firefly’s or Rappa’s.
- Bronya is incredibly hard to power creep. Even though Sunday does everything she does a bit better, she can still be a massive boon to your account as a second-team support.
Bronya’s kit also makes her valuable in every game mode because her buffs are (mostly) damage-type agnostic, and 100% action forward is unbelievably powerful.
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The Other Best Express Gift Character: Himeko
If you already have Bronya, though, who else on the selector is worth your time? Himeko. While she’s not nearly as universal a character as Bronya, she helps trivialize the Pure Fiction game mode, especially when paired with Herta.
Himeko also fits well into both Break and Follow-up Attack teams, as her kit relies heavily on both to function at 100%. There are a few additional reasons why you might want to add Himeko to your roster:
- She will only get more valuable with new Erudition characters like The Herta, building on her already superb abilities in Pure Fiction.
- Her Break-centric kit is a solid option for the Apocalyptic Shadow game mode.
- Characters like Fugue will make building Himeko purely for Break damage a much better option.
Pure Fiction can be a tricky mode to build for if you don’t have many characters who specialize in AoE damage, but adding Himeko instantly and permanently changes that.
The Rest Of The Express Gift Characters
The remaining characters you can choose from in the Express Gift are far less valuable than they once were, as there have been so many limited 5-star options that do their jobs better in almost every way. If you’re a newer player lucky enough to have both Himeko and Bronya, adding almost any of the following characters can be helpful.
|
Character |
Path |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Clara |
Destruction |
Clara is probably the best third option on Express gift, as her counter-attack-focused kit still holds up — so much so that Star Rail revisited and revised her kit with Yunli. She’s a solid choice across all the endgame modes, especially Pure Fiction, where she can act infinitely, provided she gets every enemy turn. |
|
Gepard |
Preservation |
Gepard’s greatest weaknesses are his shields being locked behind his Ultimate and Aventurine existing. If you haven’t pulled Aventurine, though, Gepard is a workable sustain, if clunky by the standards set by later-released characters. |
|
Welt |
Nihility |
Welt found himself in an odd spot not long after his release. While his ability to delay enemy actions is beneficial, it paled in comparison to giving your own team additional actions the way Bronya can, so adding him to your teams now is more a matter of preference than a meta choice. |
|
Bailu |
Abundance |
Like Welt, Bailu has become less and less worth your time as Honkai: Star Rail has evolved. Her ability to revive a character from being downed is powerful, sure, but her healing is inconsistent, lacks a valuable debuff cleanse, and doesn’t have many of the other tools healers released after her do. |
|
Yanqing |
Hunt |
Yanqing has rarely been the best DPS, even at 1.0 launch when Seele was in her prime. His damage is acceptable, but nothing that competed with the damage dealers that would come just a few updates later. He’s also a bit squishy, so much so that even adding Aventurine to his teams only goes so far. |
If you have all the standard 5-star characters Honkai: Star Rail has to offer, Express Gift allows you to pick up one of their Eidolons for free. As with the rest of the possible choices, you’ll only want to pick between Bronya, Himeko, and maybe Clara’s Eidolons:
- Bronya’s E1 and E2 both provide massive boosts to her effectiveness. E1 helps with her Skill Point economy, granting a 50 percent chance to recover the points she spent using her Skill. E2 increases the Speed of the character she used her Skill on by 30 percent for 1 turn, which futzes with any Speed tuning but is otherwise very powerful.
- Himeko’s E1 is a 20 percent Speed bonus after every Victory Rush, and E2 increases her damage against half-health and below enemies by 15 percent.
- Clara’s E1 is a great option, as using her Skill will no longer cost a Mark of Counter, and her E2 is a flat 30 percent damage boost to her Ultimate for two turns.
One final note: if Eidolons and meta choices aren’t your style and there’s a character you’re either missing or just like more than the others, there’s no shame in picking up a character based on preference alone. You might not have the most optimal team for endgame content because of it, but that should never stop you from adding your favorite style of character to your team.
Picking up a character because you don’t have them also has its benefits. If you pull them on the standard banner later or lose a 50/50 on a limited banner, having them already unlocked provides some free Undying Starlight, which you can turn into additional pulls later.
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