If you want to play Honkai: Star Rail efficiently, you’ll constantly need to build characters from different paths and combat types because of the endgame modes. These modes reset once every two weeks, and the enemies you face in them change constantly. You can’t ignore these as they give you five pulls every time they reset.
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Out of all the combat types in the game, Ice has been quite a wild card as this one was in the meta during the beginning, but it slowly faded away until The Herta’s release during the Version 3.0 update.
10
Misha
- Rarity: Four Star
- Path: Destruction
Misha was one of the most important characters in the story of Penacony. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said when it comes to the game’s meta as he’s a four-star with quite a niche kit. This is mainly because of his abilities not having a clear play style, which is quite important in the current meta.
His Ultimate can deal various hits to the enemies that shred their Toughness bar quite fast and also has a chance of freezing them. However, he fully scales on ATK so you can’t have a ton of Break Effect on him to take advantage of the constant breaks.
9
Preservation March 7th
- Rarity: Four Star
- Path: Preservation
When you first start playing Honkai: Star Rail, Preservation March 7th is the first character you acquire after the Trailblazer themself. She’s a shielding character who can only put the white shield bar on one ally at a time, but she also increases the chances of this ally getting attacked.
You can heavily benefit from this part of her kit when using characters like Yunli or Blade who benefit a ton when they get attacked. However, most of the enemies in the game deal AoE damage, and the single-target shields don’t do much against them.
8
Yanqing
- Rarity: Standard Five Star
- Path: The Hunt
Yanqing has been one of the most unlucky characters in this game, and I’m not just talking about the story. Apart from being a Standard characters that are relatively weak even after being five-star, he also has The Hunt as his path, which essentially means that he can only deal damage to one enemy at a time.
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If you’ve been taking part in combat, you already know that there are very few enemies that you can fight with single-target damage since most of them summon extra enemies. Two out of the three endgame modes require AoE damage while the third one is usually a wild card.
7
Gepard
- Rarity: Standard Five Star
- Path: Preservation
Sustainers have been one of the most valuable characters ever since the beginning of Honkai: Star Rail, and that’s still the case, which makes Gepard a worthy character to upgrade in a few situations. The main thing you have to check before upgrading this character is that you don’t have a better sustainer that you can build.
Most healers and shielders are quite flexible and can be used with nearly every team. If you have the likes of Fu Xuan, Aventurine, Lingsha, Luocha, or Huohuo on your account, Gepard falls behind as the value he provides is a lot less.
6
Herta
- Rarity: Four Star
- Path: Erudition
If we were still in the early days of the game’s launch, Herta would be a lot lower on this list. She was left behind for a long time due to her lack of damage and overall usability. However, things changed as more follow-up characters got released, and mini Herta came back into the meta fully after The Herta’s release.
It started looking up for this character ever since the Pure Fiction game mode was released as this mode relied on characters who can deal consistent damage in a large AoE. Herta outshined even the strongest DPS units in that regard, making her worth building.
5
Jingliu
- Rarity: Limited Five Star
- Path: Destruction
When Jingliu was first released, she made massive waves in the community as she broke all the records. Not only did she deal the highest possible numbers in the game, but she outshined the second-best DPS by a wide margin at the time. However, a few updates after her release, she started falling off.
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Not only did we get characters that could deal more damage at a regular rate, but also the meta shift towards follow-up and Break units. This led to a situation where Jingliu didn’t have a position even with her staggering damage as there was always someone better.
4
Pela
- Rarity: Four Star
- Path: Nihility
There are very few characters that have been in the game since launch and have stood the test of time to still have a position in the meta, and Pela is one of them. She can heavily reduce the DEF of all enemies at the same time with her Ultimate, and you can easily have a 100 percent uptime on this.
Apart from the strong debuff ability, another reason for Pela to stay in the meta is the sheer lack of debuffers in the game. Other than her, Silver Wolf and Jiaoqiu are the only suitable choices, with the former being single-target, which doesn’t work well.
3
Ruan Mei
- Rarity: Limited Five Star
- Path: Harmony
Harmony has been one of the most broken paths ever since the beginning of Honkai: Star Rail. Even at launch, one of the best units to build was Bronya, who is the Harmony character on the Standard banner. With all this in mind, it’s not surprising to see the Harmony character from this combat type in such a high position.
Not only does Ruan Mei have the unique ability to shred enemy Toughness much faster, but she also provides the team with phenomenal buffs like ATK and RES PEN. She’s one of the most important units for Break-based teams, but can be used even outside of those.
2
Remembrance Trailblazer
- Rarity: Free Five Star
- Path: Remembrance
During the Version 3.0 update, the Trailblazer was the first character to be released from the Remembrance path in the game. The sheer power that this unit had surprised everyone since you can bring her to Eidolon Six for free. The main gimmick with her is the ability to deal extra True DMG when an ally attacks.
This True DMG scales on the damage dealt by the ally you target with Mem, which means that the higher the DPS of your target, the higher will be your True DMG. You can see some staggering numbers with this character in your party, and you don’t even have to upgrade them separately if you’ve upgraded Trailblazer before.
1
The Herta
- Rarity: Limited Five Star
- Path: Erudition
Finally, the reason for the return of the Erudition path in the meta is also undoubtedly one of the best Ice characters to build in Honkai: Star Rail. The Herta is a genius hailing from the Herta Space Station, and she’s also an Emanator, which should already tell you a lot about her power level if you pay attention to the lore.
She can already deal over 100k damage whenever she uses her Skill, but this turns into a million when you use the buffed Skill after her Ultimate with the right buffs. Even with an F2P build, you can easily clear all the endgame content with The Herta.
- Released
-
April 26, 2023
- Engine
-
Unity
- ESRB
-
T for Teen
- How Long To Beat
-
24hours
- Steam Deck Compatibility
-
yes
- OpenCritic Rating
-
Strong
- Cross Save
-
yes
- Cross-Platform Play
-
Yes, Honkai Star Rail does have cross progression on PS5