Best DPS In HSR – Honkai: Star Rail

Key Takeaways

• DPS units are crucial in Honkai: Star Rail for fast battles, standing out due to high damage output and unique skills.
• Choose DPS units wisely from a diverse roster in the game for maximum efficiency and tailored gameplay experience.
• New characters in updates bring stronger DPS units, requiring a strategic approach to building a powerful team.

As much as the battle mechanics in Honkai: Star Rail revolve around having Supports to carry the team’s utility, DPS units are the ones that get the job done. Without a DPS, players may spend an eternity in a single battle against hard enemies and bosses.

However, since Honkai: Star Rail has a unique roster of characters, each DPS shines in their own kit while offering their unique specialties and Skills. For players who are looking to build their next DPS unit, here are the best DPS units in Honkai: Star Rail.

Updated on November 2, 2024, by Nahda Nabiilah: DPS units in Honkai: Star Rail are always evolving as the game continues to produce more and more characters. Whether it’s a new DPS or a Support that revives fallen DPS units, there’s always something going on with Honkai’s Meta. Additionally, many new DPS units have different styles and mechanics, adding more fluidity to the game’s combat. With the release of new DPS units, this list will be updated to fix the ranking and include all the new DPS units in Honkai: Star Rail.

20 Yanqing

Overshadowed by Jingliu

Yanqing is a perfect DPS, mainly because of his ability to greatly increase his CRIT Rate and DMG, which is arguably one of the best features in Honkai: Star Rail. Players can easily stack more CRIT DMG and ATK% on Yanqing to help maximize his damage, since his CRIT Rate buff is enough to maintain solid chances to trigger CRIT on each hit. As a Hunt unit, Yanqing is also fast and can easily take down bosses.

19 Welt

Excellent Sub-DPS

Welt is a great damage dealer/sub-DPS/support. His Skill is a bounce type that can hit one enemy multiple times if there’s only one of them (like a boss), which makes him a great Toughness breaker; it also has a chance to slow the target. Meanwhile, Welt’s Ultimate deals AoE damage to all enemies with a 100% chance of Imprisoning them. Imprisoning an enemy reduces their SPD by 10% and delays their action by 32% (at Ultimate level 1).

Being an Imaginary character, Welt’s main feature revolves around SPD reduction and Imprisoned debuff. Afterward, if Welt hits a Slowed enemy, he will deal additional Imaginary damage. Welt’s Technique also Imprisoned and Slowed the enemies, delaying their action by 20%. All in all, Welt is a great damage dealer with great support potential, although not a dedicated DPS like Seele or Dan Heng.

18 Jing Yuan

Wait for his Lightning Lord

Erudition characters are usually underwhelming in single-target scenarios, but if players know how to properly manage Jing Yuan’s stack, they’ll find the Luofu General more than capable of performing his job as a DPS in both AoE and single-target cases. Not only that, but thanks to his Lightning Lord’s multi-hit, Jing Yuan is also great for triggering Weakness Break in Honkai: Star Rail.

Sadly, although his Lightning Lord excels against single-target, the same can’t be said about his Skill and Ultimate. Without a horde of enemies, the damage from these two hits can be rather underwhelming.

17 Seele

Single-target beast

Seele is a single-target one-shot-one-kill kind of character in Honkai: Star Rail. What makes her even better is her ability to get another turn every time she takes an enemy down. With this ability and the damage boost she gets from her buffed state, Seele becomes a monster unit that can be useful anytime, anywhere in Honkai: Star Rail.

16 Clara

Protective and offensive

It’s not enough for Svarog to devastate enemies that attack Clara, it’ll also mark them with the Mark of Counter ability. After that, when players cast Clara’s Skill, Svarog will inflict double the damage to these enemies, truly punishing them for laying hands on Clara. As a Destruction Path unit, Clara is a very defensive unit that can effectively protect her team while dealing decent damage in Honkai: Star Rail.

15 Blade

Incredible self-sustain

Blade is the best example of how a Destruction character should be. He’s an excellent AoE hitter, decent against one enemy, and has mind-blowing survivability. Although Blade’s hits would mostly reduce his HP, his Ultimate and follow-up attacks can easily restore them.

Besides this self-sustain, large HP stat, and decent damage, Blade is also very efficient in terms of Skill Points, only needing one SP every three turns. If that’s not impressive enough, the Stellaron Hunter also works in a random team and doesn’t demand a specific team composition in Honkai: Star Rail.

14 Jingliu

Effortless damage dealing

Jingliu and Seele are both excellent damage dealers, but Jingliu is better in ideal circumstances. Unlike Seele, who performs excellently even in random teams, Jingliu has more demanding set-ups to fulfill. Additionally, since she’s a Destruction character, she’s amazing at AoE damage dealing, unlike Seele who’s exclusively single-target.

13 Himeko

Limited in single-target

The navigator of follow-up attacks, Himeko, is a strong Erudition character in Honkai: Star Rail. Himeko’s Talent allows players to benefit from inflicting Weakness Break on enemies by continuously attacking all enemies and dealing Fire damage. Himeko is also capable of dealing one of the highest AoE damage in Honkai: Star Rail with her Ultimate.

The high scaling on her Ultimate and Talent makes her attacks more deadly, especially considering that Himeko’s Base ATK is one of the highest in Honkai: Star Rail. Sadly, Himeko is not viable in most single-target cases, which makes her a poor choice against most bosses.

12 Black Swan

Not just a debuffer

When Black Swan was announced, most people thought that she’d be an excellent support for Kafka, but Black Swan-havers will tell you that she’s as incredible as Kafka, if not better. Black Swan’s damage is crazy high, in both AoE and single-target cases. Pair her with a DoT trigger like Kafka, and you’ll see chaos from the Emanator of Remembrance.

11 Kafka

Explodes all the DoT

Kafka is a Honkai: Star Rail character that plays around DoT. Her main feature lies in her Skill where she can detonate DoTs on enemies without removing the effect, allowing people to abuse it to deal massive damage easily.

However, despite her large damage potential, Kafka is not the easiest character to use. Players must know how to manage Skill Points and properly adjust her SPD on top of having other characters apply DoT to the enemies. Kafka can’t be the only DoT enabler as it ruins her entire kit.

10 Topaz and Numby

Follow-up DPS and support

Unlike Himeko, Jing Yuan, and Dr. Ratio who are dedicated DPS, Topaz actually doubles as a follow-up attack support. With her Trotter, Numby, Topaz can place a debuff on an enemy, which causes them to take more follow-up attack damage. This even extends to her Light Cone, where she plants a debuff that causes the opponent to take more damage (not just for a follow-up attack). Although the damage Topaz and Numby deal may seem underwhelming, if players consider how often the duo hits, Topaz’s damage is actually decent enough to make her a viable DPS.

9 Dr. Ratio

Reliable follow-up attacker

Dr. Ratio may be another free character in Honkai: Star Rail, but that doesn’t mean that he’s underwhelming in his kit. With the correct team composition, Dr. Ratio can continuously trigger his follow-up attack, dealing large damage without players even noticing it.

8 Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae

SP-hungry, but worth it

Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae is easily one of the best DPS in Honkai: Star Rail. He’s an excellent AoE unit that still works amazingly in single-target cases, but he demands a lot of Skill Points and his team must be built around him. If he has the correct supports in the party, Imbibitor Lunae will prove himself to be worth all the hassle.

However, although he’s a Destruction character in Honkai: Star Rail, he lacks the survivability his peers have. So, on top of supporting his mechanics with characters that grant damage bonuses and Energy, he still needs a healer or shielder to survive.

7 Argenti

Fill up his Ultimate

Argenti has a special Ultimate system where he has two versions of it. He can use his signature move when he has at least half of his max Energy and also when his Energy is full. However, of course, the damage he dealt is different, where his full Ultimate does better than the half-Energy version.

Nevertheless, Argenti has the flexibility to choose whether he wants to perform a full-power Ultimate or do a weaker one to finish off small enemies. In his team, Energy-restoring units like Huohuo and Tingyun are important to ensure he can always do his Ult.

6 Yunli

Clara without a robot guardian

Yunli’s kit is very similar to Clara’s in Honkai: Star Rail with some needed improvements. She has better Ultimate management since she can rely on herself to fill her Ultimate. She’s also immune to CC, which is very important for a character that heavily relies on being attacked to deal DMG.

On the other hand, Yunli’s DPS falls greatly if she’s going against enemies and bosses who don’t attack her frequently. While she’s a strong DPS, it’s important to wisely choose where to place Yunli in Honkai: Star Rail.

5 Rappa

Dazzling Ninja

Rappa is a strong Break DPS who is capable of handling Memory of Chaos as well as she handles Pure Fiction in Honkai: Star Rail. With Rappa’s ability to ignore enemies’ Toughness, she can take on any enemy, regardless of their weakness, making her a useful ally to any team because of how useful the Imaginary Break effect can be.

Although Rappa has a built-in Super Break DMG, she still suffers to hit hard in that department without Supports. She needs characters like the Imaginary Trailblazer to be able to take full advantage of the Super Break DMG in Honkai: Star Rail.

4 Boothill

Space Cowboy

Boothill suffers from two niches in his kit. Yet, that doesn’t stop him from being one of the best DPS in Honkai: Star Rail. Being a single-target Break DPS should not be this strong and effective during combat. If you want an Apocalyptic Shadow beast, always go for Boothill in Honkai: Star Rail.

Without a doubt, Boothill is a boss killer. Put him against a boss, and he will take the fun away from that boss and keep it Toughness broken until defeat. There’s nothing wrong with Boothill’s kit as his greatest feature is his greatest weakness. As he significantly excels at killing single targets, he greatly falls against multiples.

3 Firefly

AKA SAM, AKA AR-26710

Firefly quickly raised the bar for DPS units on her release as she powercrept the entire Honkai: Star Rail roster. Her ability to deal an insane amount of DMG in any game mode, whether it’s single-target or AoE, makes her a reliable Fire DPS to have in Honkai: Star Rail.

Firefly can be deadly in combat but she consumes many Skill Points and that can be hurtful to her team. For that, she needs a team that can balance the SP usage and help her shine as a main Break DPS in Honkai: Star Rail.

2 Feixiao

Single-target follow-up DPS

Feixiao quickly established herself as one of the best Follow-up DPS in Honkai: Star Rail. Her ability to deal great DMG with her Follow-up attacks and cast her Ultimate makes her a top-tier DPS during combat.

While she’s one of the best, she still suffers from some drawbacks like needing some characters in her team to fill her Ultimate. She also mostly shines in single-target situations like in Memory of Chaos and Apocalyptic Shadow but fails when AoE hits are needed like in Pure Fiction.

1 Acheron

Incredible with the right investment

Acheron surprises the community as, before her release, there was massive skepticism regarding her kit, and plenty of fanatics compared her to the Lightning Lord wielder, Jing Yuan. Acheron proves herself to be an excellent DPS in Honkai: Star Rail, being able to dish out an insane amount of damage as long as her team can build up her Ultimate. The downside of Acheron, other than her demanding team composition, is that she’s reliant on either her Light Cone or her E2. She’s also not F2P-friendly.