The Best Nihility Characters In Honkai: Star Rail, Ranked

Whenever HoYoverse introduces a new playable character in Honkai: Star Rail, the first thing you’d want to know is their path since it’s the most important aspect of a character’s kit in the game. Each character’s role in battle is based on the path provided, but they can still have a few elements from other paths.

Nihility is one of the seven paths you can get, and it includes both debuffers and DoT-based DPS characters. This is one of the meta paths if you’re trying to clear endgame content, but not all characters from it can perform equally well.

Updated on January 01, 2025, by Sanyam Jain: After a long wait, HoYoverse is finally starting to release some more Nihility characters, albeit with niche uses. Both Jiaoqiu and Fugue serve a good purpose in this path, and this list has been updated with their entries.

11

Sampo

When Honkai: Star Rail was first launched, Sampo was the only DPS unit that relied on DoT for most of his damage. DoT is a debuff that you apply on an enemy through various means, and enemies take some damage at the start of their turn based on the multipliers and the type of DoT applied. For Sampo, this DoT is known as Wind Shear.

His kit essentially allows you to have constant five stacks of Wind Shear on the enemy, especially in scenarios when you only have one or two enemies on the field. However, the overall damage coming out of this isn’t high enough for the meta. Although, it is important to mention that Sampo can perform much better with certain teammates.

10

Welt

Welt is one of the Standard Banner units that was quite popular at launch, which was because he’s a phenomenal character for the early game. However, as you get to the endgame and start fighting Memory of Chaos or Simulated Universe, his value decreases significantly when compared to other Nihility units.

Welt’s kit is based around slowing enemies and delaying their turn while dealing a bit of damage. He’s also great at shredding the enemy’s Weakness bar if they have an Imaginary weakness. However, the lack of both DPS and damage-increasing debuffs for other team members holds him back.

9

Luka

Luka’s release was around the time when DoT started rising the ranks in Honkai: Star Rail. He can apply a Bleed effect on the enemies with his Skill or by breaking their shield, and this effect can remove up to 24 percent of their HP if Luka’s ATK is high enough. He can also trigger his DoT on command using the enhanced Basic Attack.

If you build Luka fully on Break Effect and constantly break enemy shields with him, you can see some staggering damage when the enemies get a turn or when you use his enhanced Basic Attack. If you combine this with the Weakness recovery delay from a character like Ruan Mei, you can see some broken synergy.

8

Guinaifen

Guinaifen is another DoT-based four-star unit, but her kit allows her to be used as a general debuffer as well. She can apply Burn on an enemy with her Basic Attack and up to three enemies with her Skill. Moreover, she can trigger all the Burn instances on an enemy on command whenever her Ultimate is used.

But the best part about Guinaifen’s kit comes from her talent where she can apply the Firekiss effect on enemies, which makes them take up to 21 percent increased DMG from all attacks. This can go up to 28 percent if you get her final Eidolon, making her good for both sub-DPS and support.

7

Silver Wolf

The entire community got excited when Silver Wolf was initially released since her kit had something that could make the game significantly easier. Whenever you use her Skill on an enemy, she can implant one Weakness in them, which belongs to one of your characters in the party. This also decreases the enemy’s DMG RES from that combat type’s attacks.

While this was phenomenal for the early game since there were only a few DPS units, she slowly climbed down the meta ranks as more characters got introduced. The game now also has characters that can reduce enemy Weaknesses regardless of their combat type like Xueyi, making Silver Wolf even harder to use properly.

6

Kafka

We’re now entering the territory of characters who are essentially the reason for the Nihility path to be in the meta. DoT-based teams were considered one of the worst teams until Kafka was released. This Stellaron Hunter has the ability to trigger all DoTs applied on an enemy using both her Skill and Ultimate, which is quite massive.

Once you build a proper team around Kafka, not only will the enemies take massive damage when she uses her Skill or Ultimate, but also when they get a turn. Ideally, you’d want to use a second DoT character with her and build them on Break Effect so that you can get the most out of her instant DoT triggers.

5

Black Swan

Black Swan was the first five-star character released to Honkai: Star Rail from the region of Penacony in the Version 2.0 update, and she instantly climbed the ranks of the best DPS units. She can apply Arcana stacks on the enemy whenever she uses her Skill, Basic Attack, or when the enemy has any interaction with DoT from other characters.

These Arcana stacks get triggered at the start of an enemy’s turn dealing massive damage, but you can also trigger them instantly if you use a teammate like Kafka with her. The main thing about Black Swan that secures her in the first position is that most enemies will get defeated before you can even trigger her Arcana on them.

4

Jiaoqiu

Jiaoqiu is arguably one of the best characters introduced during a continuance mission lore-wise, and he’s also one of the best Nihility characters in general. His main highlight is the application of debuffs on enemies whenever they get a turn, which not only suits Acheron perfectly, but also goes well with some other characters.

He can also significantly increase the Ultimate DMG dealt by his party members. Jiaoqiu might feel a little niche in the current meta, but he’s a future-proof character who will rise every time an Ultimate-based DPS comes to the game.

3

Pela

Pela is another Nihility character who was in the game from the very start, and she has been a staple for many teams. She has the ability to massively reduce all enemies’ DEF using her Ultimate while also removing a buff with her Skill. You can also get her Ultimate back quite fast because of one of the Bonus Abilities.

There aren’t a lot of mechanics that let you reduce the enemy DEF in Honkai: Star Rail, which makes Pela quite valuable. Moreover, if you break the enemy’s Weakness using her attacks, you can freeze them, which essentially forces them to skip a turn and protects your characters for a bit.

2

Fugue

As if the Break-based play style wasn’t already meta enough in Honkai: Star Rail, the developers decided to release another broken character to take it further. Fugue has a special mechanic that gives all the enemies an extra Toughness bar, allowing your allies to deal an extra instance of high Break DMG.

Moreover, just like Harmony Trailblazer, she lets all her allies deal a significant amount of Super Break DMG with their attacks to Weakness Broken enemies. Finally, she can also deal a decent bit of damage herself with the Ultimate and buffed basic attack.

1

Acheron

While there have been various beautifully designed DPS characters in the Nihility path, most of them have been based on DoT. However, along with the version 2.1 update, Acheron became the first Nihility DPS character requiring a Crit-based build. She’s also gained the crown of the best Nihility character quite fast.

This is because of the staggering numbers you can see whenever you trigger her Ultimate properly. This character needs some specific teammates though, especially if you have her on zero eidolons. However, once you build a decent team for her, she can easily take down opponents that don’t even have Lightning Weakness.