Honkai: Star Rail - Five Star Character Tier List

You might have many reasons to play Honkai: Star Rail and one of them is probably the wide range of playable characters. Hoyoverse is known for making some of the most beautiful character designs in anime games, and the special part about this game is that it shares some characters with Honkai Impact 3rd.

The game has a set of four-star and five-star characters, and they're divided by their respective paths and combat types. Each path has a specific job in the team, but the characters can still be ranked based on their overall value.

Updated on January 04, 2025, by Sanyam Jain: Right before the Astral Express takes to the skies again to reach its next destination, Amphoreus, HoYoverse has made sure to provide some of the best supports to the players in the form of Sunday and Fugue. These have been added to their rightful position on this list.

Basis Of This Tier List

In Honkai: Star Rail, every character's effectiveness is determined by various factors. Whenever you get a character by summoning them, progressing in the game, or through a limited-time event, they'll already have a set of five Traces (abilities):

Basic Attack	The basic attack of every character can be used both to start the battle and to deal damage to the enemies in battle. During the battle, each character's basic ATK DMG is a percentage of their overall ATK.
Skill	Every character has a unique skill that's usually in line with their path. These abilities consume one skill point to trigger, and you can get skill points by using basic attacks.
Ultimate	You gain Energy by using your basic attacks and skills, or taking damage from the enemies. After getting enough energy, you can use your ultimate. Character ultimates can easily change the outcome of the battle.
Technique	This ability replaces your skill button if you're roaming around in the open world. You can use this before starting a battle to get advantages based on the character you're using.
Talent	Talent is the main passive that connects all of the character's abilities. Apart from the main talent, you can still get three bonus passives on each character after ascending them a certain amount of times.

Apart from the level of a character's Traces, their damage can depend on the Light Cone level, the type of Relics you give them, and the level of your Relics. There's a variety of Light Cones and Relics you can use on each character, and the game gives this freedom to you.

The only thing you have to keep in mind is that a Light Cone's ability only works if it has the same path as your character.

Because of the possible variety, this tier list focuses on a character's value based on their Traces. Moreover, every tier list is subjective, and you might not agree with all the character placements in this one. At the end of the day, you should always try to have the character that you'll have the most fun with.

S Tier Five-Star Characters

The S Tier in this tier list represents the best five-star characters in the game in any given situation. These five stars can easily perform better than the rest of the characters, and they can carry you through the endgame content like the Memory of Chaos or Swarm Disaster.

While there might be the highest amount of entries in this tier, it's only because a lot of characters are viable in Honkai: Star Rail when certain conditions are met for each one.

Sunday	For a long time, Jing Yuan has been quite a useless character. However, Sunday's release brought him back up into the meta while also future-proofing your account if you have him.
Fugue	Fugue is essentially the limited version of Harmony Trailblazer as she can let her allies deal the extra Super Break DMG simply by existing. On top of that, she gives every enemy an extra Toughness bar.
Lingsha	It is an undoubted fact that break-based teams involving Firefly and Boothill are at the top of Honkai: Star Rail's meta, and Lingsha serves as the perfect support for these teams with her consistent Toughness-reducing damage.
Firefly	If you've used Firefly in the game, you won't be surprised with her position on this tier list. She's a Weakness Break-based DPS, which means that you won't get much value from her simply by using her Skills on the enemy.
Imaginary/Harmony Trailblazer	Thankfully, the developers have been taking care of the F2P players by giving units like the Harmony Trailblazer for free. This character's Basic Attack or Skill might not be nearly as prominent, but the Ultimate is where it's at.
Robin	Harmony characters never disappoint in Honkai: Star Rail, and the same can be said for Robin. She's a unique character who can not only increase your party's DMG, ATK, and Crit DMG, but also gives all three allies an instant turn when she uses her Ultimate.
Aventurine	The importance of a good sustainer can be seen quite frequently if you're trying to beat the endgame content of Honkai: Star Rail, and this makes Aventurine invaluable.
Acheron	It's no surprise that one of the most popular characters in various HoYoverse games gets a strong kit in Honkai: Star Rail as well. Apart from being strong, Acheron also has a unique mechanic for her Ultimate, which makes her quite fun to play.
Black Swan	Nihility was already in a decent place, but Black Swan's release allowed it to compete with Destruction because of her free massive damage. She essentially punishes enemies for getting a turn using her Arcana stacks.
Ruan Mei	Ruan Mei has one of the most unique kits in Honkai: Star Rail since it focuses on the weakness break aspect of combat. Her Skill can let her party members break the enemy's Toughness Bar much faster, while the Ultimate makes it harder for them to recover.
Huohuo	Huohuo is the latest healer to be released in the game, and she can do absolutely everything. Apart from having the ability to solo-sustain the team, she can also increase your party's Energy and ATK.
Jingliu	Jingliu is a five-star Ice unit that enters a special state whenever you use her Skill or Ultimate twice. You can only use your buffed Skill in this state, but it destroys everything in its path. However, Jingliu does take quite a bit of skill.
Dan Heng: Imbibitor Lunae	Hoyoverse does a decent job at balancing most of their characters around the same power, but they seem to like Dan Heng's upgraded form a bit too much. This character is undoubtedly the strongest DPS in the game with his third Enhanced Basic Attack.
Fu Xuan	Fu Xuan is the first limited Preservation character in Honkai: Star Rail, and she excels at mitigating her team's damage by taking it herself. She can single-handedly prevent your team from dying and particularly excels against enemies who deal single-target damage.
Kafka	Kafka was one of the most anticipated characters in the game, but she also had a lot of debate around her usefulness due to the lackluster nature of DoT. On release, she shattered all expectations by making this play style one of the best.

S Tier Five-Star Characters

This tier contains all the characters that have a great skill set, and they can work in a lot of teams. Overall, you will benefit from having these characters in your account no matter what. Genshin Impact players might be surprised by the placement of the main character in S-Tier, but the Trailblazer is actually quite strong in Honkai: Star Rail.

Each character's Traces earns their place in this tier:

Rappa	Rappa has received quite a lot of love when it comes to marketing from Honkai: Star Rail, with one of the best character trailers as well. Apart from that, she's also a phenomenal unit to have on your account to get past the endgame modes.
Feixiao	The second general from the Xianzhou fleet, Feixiao is a single-target character who works a lot like Acheron. She doesn't have an energy bar and instead recharges her Ultimate every time her allies attack.
Yunli	Being a five-star limited Destruction character, it's almost surprising to see Yunli in a tier lower than the best one because of how broken this path's characters usually are. However, the requirement of getting enemies to attack her is the reason behind it.
Jade	Jade's high position on this list might be surprising since her damage isn't particularly outstanding, though the utility she brings to the table is the main focus. Jade can apply an effect on an ally, which gives her stacks based on the number of enemies this ally attacks.
Dr. Ratio	Unlike most DPS characters in the game, Dr. Ratio brings in a unique gameplay where you'd want to use debuffers in the team instead of the meat Harmony characters. He relies on the amount of debuffs on the enemy for his DMG.
Sparkle	If you're lucky enough to pull Sparkle in Honkai: Star Rail, your account is likely set to beat any possible endgame content. Her Skill can advance one ally's turn by 50 percent while also giving them a massive Crit DMG bonus.
Fire/Preservation Trailblazer	To unlock the Fire Trailblazer, you'll have to reach close to the end of the main story in Jarilo-VI, which starts after you get past the Herta Space Station. You'll be following the path of Preservation, which specializes in protecting your team from damage.
Silver Wolf	Silver Wolf is one of the most game-changing characters in Honkai: Star Rail and she's also immune to being powercrept. She's a Nihility character who can decrease one opponent's DEF with her Ultimate and implant a new Weakness with her Skill.
Luocha	You can't prevent your characters from taking damage due to the turn-based nature of Honkai: Star Rail. This makes it important to have at least one healer in your party, and Luocha does that job best by automatically healing characters.
Blade	Blade is one of the few characters in the game who can fit in almost every play style. He does high AoE damage with his Enhanced Basic Attack, Follow-up, and Ultimate. He also manages his Skill Points extremely well since he only uses one every three turns.
Gepard	Gepard belongs to the Preservation path, which is supposed to have high defensive capabilities. His ultimate and technique gives a shield to all the allies, and his talent prevents him from being knocked down.
Bronya	Bronya is a five-star character that can be acquired from the beginner and the standard banner. Her kit is entirely based on buffing her teammates. Not only does she provide extra damage to a character with her skill, but also removes one of their debuffs.

A Tier Five-Star Characters

The A-tier includes both the characters that barely missed getting into the S-tier and the characters that give significantly less value than the S-tier characters. Most of these characters are a part of the standard banner, so you can get them at any point.

Jiaoqiu	He might've been one of the best characters in the Xianzhou continuance quests, but he's not quite as good during the battle with a few exceptions. Simply put, if you have Acheron, Jiaoqiu becomes S tier for your account.
Boothill	You can see some of the highest damage numbers while playing Boothill in Honkai: Star Rail, but the requirements for that are also relatively high. Firstly, to get the most damage out of him, you'll have to use Harmony Trailblazer in the team.
Argenti	Erudition has been suffering as a path in Honkai: Star Rail, but Argenti picked it up a little by being able to deal big damage if you get his second Ultimate. However, you need quite a setup if you want to use this character.
Topaz & Numby	This duo was the first Hunt character who was mainly a support for follow-up-based characters in the game. However, there aren't a lot of reasons to use follow-up units at the moment since they can be a little irregular.
Seele	During the early game, Seele felt quite amazing to play as the mobs had relatively low health, and it was easy to get use out of her Talent. However, this has become increasingly difficult with time since even the smaller mobs have a ton of HP.
Bailu	At release, Bailu was one of the two healers in the game. Healers are heavily rated in Honkai: Star Rail during the mid to late game, but you get one healer for free during the story. Much like Bailu, Natasha can also heal characters through her Skill and Ultimate.
Physical/Destruction Trailblazer	The best part about Trailblazer is that they're given to every player for free. They belong to the path of Destruction, which means that they're self-sufficient. The damage output from the Trailblazer is quite huge from the very start of the game.
Yanqing	Yanqing is one of the characters that barely missed an entry into the S-tier. The outshining part about this character is that he's self-sufficient when it comes to damage. He can increase his own Crit Rate, Crit DMG, and overall DMG just by using his abilities.
Welt	Welt is one of the standard characters that you can acquire both from the starter banner and the Stellar Warp banner. He was the only Imaginary character at launch, which gave him the Imprisonment effect.
Clara	Clara is an adorable Destruction character in the game. It might not look like Clara has a lot going for her, but the main damage from her kit comes from Svarog whenever she or her allies take damage. She also takes ten percent less damage from the enemies.
Jing Yuan	Jing Yuan looked quite promising when he was released for the first time since Lightning Lord dealt a ton of damage to everyone on the field. Unfortunately, with newer characters coming into play, he might not be the best when it comes to damage per second.

B Tier Five-Star Characters

Unfortunately, there's only one character in the B-tier in Honkai: Star Rail, which is the lowest tier. Himeko has a phenomenal set of abilities and ultimate animations, but other characters easily outshine her in almost every way.

Both her skill and ultimate deal damage to a group of enemies, but it doesn't quite feel enough. Moreover, the game gives you Asta for free, which is another great Fire character. A bunch of things come together to make Himeko not as strong. However, that doesn't mean that she's not viable.

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