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Honkai Star Rail Kafka Build Wiki (March 2024)

Here’s our complete Honkai Star Rail Kafka Build guide. Rating the best build, relics, light cones, eidolons & skills for this character.

Wondering how well Kafka compares to other characters in the game? Check out our Honkai Star Rail tier list guide.

Honkai Star Rail Kafka Build Guide

Honkai Star Rail Kafka Story Introduction

Note: Kafka is not currently in the final beta for Honkai Star Rail.

The first character that you will be seen in the main story of Honkai Star Rail, Kafka. As a member of the Stellaron Hunters, Kafka is actually a wanted character for the Interastral Peace Corporation. But due to her mystery and nobody knowing anything about her, the only information from that wanted list is her name and a single sentence that describes her hobby: “Likes collecting coats”. Together with Silver Wolf, Kafka is actually the person that introduced us to Trailblazer, the main character in this game.

Due to her mysterious background and no clue yet about the story behind the Stellaron Hunters or why and how Kafka became a wanter character for the Interastral Peace Corporation, in the beta access we don’t have a lot of clues about her yet. The only clue we have is that Kafka is one of Destiny’s Slave Elio’s most trusted members. Maybe one day we will finally know the background story about the Stellaron Hunter and who is Elio.

Best Honkai Star Rail Kafka Build

Kafka is a playable 5 star lightning character in Honkai: Star Rail, with The Nihility Path. A character with The Nihility Path will apply a debuff to the enemies. For Kafka, her kit revolves around applying shock, a lightning Damage over Time (DoT) that scales of Kafka’s ATK. This way, Kafka can become your main DPS too, or a sub DPS by investing a lot of ATK and Lightning Damage Boost.

With her talent that will also do follow-up attack if your ally attack on a shocked enemy,  investing speed of Kafka would also be a good thing to be considered. Because her talent can only be activated once per turn. If she gets more turns, that also means that she will do follow-up attack more frequently, increasing her attack screen time, and also it will increase her DPS outcome.

Since her kit revolves around the shock debuff, you can pair Kafka together with characters that could benefit from the shock DoT like Serval who will also apply shock debuff to the enemies too, or Jing Yuan that will get higher damage if your Jing Yuan is using 4 piece lightning relics, Band of Sizzling Thunder.

But, it is also fine to pair Kafka with any characters because Kafka’s Ultimate alone will guarantee to apply shock or lightning DoT to all enemies thanks to her AoE attack.

Honkai Star Rail Kafka Best Light Cone

Patience Is All You Need

  • Rarity: 5 Star (The Nihility Path)
  • Effect: The wearer deals 16% more DMG to enemies inflicted with DoT. For every attack, increase the wearer’s SPD by 4%, up to 5 time(s). Meanwhile, enemies receiving attacks take 20% more DoT for 1 turn.

Patience Is All You Need is Kafka’s signature Light Cone. Since Kafka’s kit revolves on applying DoT, the additional damage increase will be very useful for Kafka. That 4% SPD increase that very easily reached 20% increase will also be great for Kafka, because the more turn she gets, the more follow-up attack that she can also trigger from her talent.

Unfortunately, the F2P 3 star light cone from Nihility Path doesn’t suit Kafka because she already have 100% chance of applying DoT from her Ultimate, thus the 3 star light cone Void which only have Effect Hit Rate increase won’t impact Kafka’s DoT rate. The other 3 star light cone, Loop also will only increase damage dealt if the enemy got inflicted with slow, so it would be useless since Kafka did not apply slow from her kit.

Eyes of the Prey

  • Rarity: 4 Star (The Nihility Path)
  • Effect: Increase the Effect Hit Rate of the wearer when attacking by 24%. Increase DoT DMG by 24%.

Eyes of the Prey is actually Sampo’s signature light cone. The effect hit rate is not the bonus that we aim for, but that increase DoT DMG by 24% is actually the reason why this light cone is the 2nd recommended light cone for Kafka too. Because this could potentially be in par with Kafka’s signature light cone Patience is All You Need if you can superimpose it into max, to get up to 48% increase DoT DMG.

Good Night and Sleep Well

  • Rarity: 4 Star (The Nihility Path)
  • Effect: Increase DMG dealt to enemies with Debuffs. For every Debuff the target enemy has, increase DMG by 12%, up to 3 time(s). This effect also applies to DoT DMG.

Good Night and Sleep Well is actually Pela’s signature light cone. Despite the focus of this light cone is for the applied debuff, but the DoT also count, meaning that Kafka can still benefit the damage increase from shock status too. If you pair Kafka with Silver Wolf or Pela, and you can get all 3 stacks, this could also potentially par with Kafka’s signature light cone Patience is All you Need, or even outcome the damage if you can superimpose this into max, because you can get 24% damage increase for the 1 stack, and up to 72% damage increase, which is a big percentage.

Honkai Star Rail Kafka Best Relics

The good thing about Kafka is that her kit is very straightforward, which revolves around DoT all the time. And in Honkai: Star Rail, the lightning relic, Band of Sizzling Thunder fits her role perfectly. Increase damage to enemies that got shock debuff. So, we totally recommend you to use at least 4-piece Band of Sizzling Thunder, but having 4-piece relics would be challenging to build for the early game.

Here are the relics option that you can choose for Kafka:

  1. 5 Piece Band of Sizzling Thunder
  2. 4 Piece Band of Sizzling Thunder + 2 Piece +15% ATK
  3. 2 Piece Band of Sizzling Thunder + 4 Piece Hunter of Glacial Forest
  4. 2 Piece Band of Sizzling Thunder + 4 Piece Musketeer of Wild Wheat
  5. 2 Piece Band of Sizzling Thunder + 2 Piece +15% ATK + 2 Piece +15% ATK

Band of Sizzling Thunder

  • 2 Piece: Increases Lightning DMG by 12%.
  • 4 Piece: Enemy receives 40% more Shock DMG from the wearer. The wearer deals 18% more DMG to enemies inflicted with Shock.
  • 5 Piece: Increases Lightning DMG by 12%.

Hunter of Glacial Forest

  • 2 Piece: Increases ATK by 15%.
  • 4 Piece: When the current HP of the wearer is above 50% of Max HP, increases the wearer’s Skill DMG by 30%.
  • 5 Piece: Increases ATK by 15%.

Musketeer of Wild Wheat

  • 2 Piece: Increases ATK by 15%.
  • 4 Piece: When the wearer uses Basic ATK, increases the wearer’s ATK by 20% and SPD by 10 for 1 turn.
  • 5 Piece: Increases ATK by 15%.

Honkai Star Rail Kafka Best Main Stats

For the main stats, here are the recommended relics build for Kafka:

  • Feet: ATK / SPD
  • Neck: Lightning Damage Boost
  • Article: Crit Rate / Crit Damage

Honkai Star Rail Kafka Best Sub-Stats

Here are the sub stats that you should aim for:

  • Crit Damage
  • Crit Rate, Speed
  • ATK
  • Energy Restoration

You can invest SPD with higher priority compared to ATK if you use ATK main stats for the feet relics. For the Crit Rate and Crit Damage ratio, you can go with 1:2 scaling.

Honkai Star Rail Kafka Skills

Normal Attack: “Midnight Tumult”

  • Deals 50% of Kafka’s ATK as Lightning DMG to a target enemy

Skill: “Caressing Moonlight”

  • Deals 70% of Kafka’s ATK as Lightning DMG to a target enemy and 25% of Kafka’s ATK as Lightning DMG to enemies adjacent to the target. If the target enemy is already taking DOT, immediately deals DMG equal to 100% of all current DoT effects the enemy has.

Ultimate: “Twilight Trill”

  • Deals 36% of Kafka’s ATK as Lightning DMG to all enemies. There is a 100% base chance for enemies hit to be Shocked and immediately take DMG equal to 80% of the received DMG. Shock lasts for 3 turn(s). When Shocked. enemies receive 60% of Kafka’s ATK as Lightning DoT at the start of their turn.

Talent: “Gentle but Cruel”

  • After an ally uses Basic ATK on a Shocked enemy. Kafka immediately deals 75% of her ATK as Lightning DMG to that enemy. This effect can only be triggered once per turn.

Technique: “Mercy Is Not Forgiveness”

  • Immediately attacks the enemy. After entering battle, deals 50% of Kafka’s ATK as Lightning DMG to a random enemy. In addition, all enemies have a 100% base chance to be Shocked for 3 turn(s). While Shocked, enemies will take 50% of Kafka’s ATK as Lightning DoT at the start of each turn.

Honkai Star Rail Kafka Eidolon

E1: “Recitativo”

  • After being hit, if the attacker is not currently Shocked, there is a 100% base chance of inflicting Ultimate’s Shock effect on them.

E2: “Leggiero”

  • Talent can trigger 2 time(s) each turn.

E3: “Fantasia”

  • Ultimate Lv. +3, up to a maximum of Lv. 15. Basic ATK Lv. +1, up to a maximum of Lv. 10.

E4: “Da Capo”

  • When using Ultimate, enemies go from immediately receiving the current Shock DMG, to immediately receiving DMG from all current DoT effects.

E5: “Doloroso”

  • Skill Lv. +3, up to a maximum of Lv. 15. Basic ATK Lv. +1, up to a maximum of Lv. 10.

E6: “Fortississimo”

  • When Talent is triggered for the first time each battle, its DMG dealt is increased by 120%. and immediately deals DMG equal to 100% of the current Shock DMG.

Kafka’s Recommended Eidolon

For Honkai: Star Rail Kafka eidolon recommendation, we recommend you to aim for E1, E2 and E4. Additional follow up attack from Kafka would be a game changer if you use high speed build Kafka, since the difference would be very noticeable if you play the combat for a long match. 

E1 will basically make Kafka your constant DoTer. Very recommended since Kafka can only apply DoT from her Ultimate if you only have E0, but with E1, you can now apply lightning DoT more frequently.

E2 is a game changer for your Kafka. It won’t feel that significant if the battle is a quick one, but imagine you have like 8 turns in the battle, instead of only giving 8 follow-up attack from Kafka, you can now deliver 16 follow-up attack, and if your Kafka has high Speed, it can even go up into like 24 or 32 follow-up attack in just 8 turns. For a long match, like fighting a boss, this will definitely be very useful.

E4 will feel like instead of applying a ticking bomb from that shock effect, it now feels like detonating the bomb immediately. Of course, the damage would be higher too, so this is why it’s recommended to aim for E4.

E6 is basically the upgrade from E2, but this time it will deal higher damage.

Summary

After reading this page, we hope that you now understand about how to get the best build for Kafka. For the build, it’s ideal to have a lot of SPD for your Kafka, but you can also focus on ATK and Lightning Damage Boost first, depending on your taste. For the relics, it’s quite straightforward since Kafka revolves around applying shock to the enemies, so you can equip at least 4 piece Band of Sizzling Thunder and call it a day. You can also pair Kafka with Jing Yuan or Silver Wolf to utilize that shock effect to the fullest. As for the eidolon, we totally recommend you to go for E2 and E4.

Visit the official HSR website here for more information about the game!