Honkai Star Rail Tier List for April 2024

Here is our complete Honkai Star Rail tier list, rating every character in the game. We rate the best 4-star and 5-star characters in the game.

Honkai Star Rail has a lot of great characters to choose from for your main team. Unfortunately, you can’t use them all at the same time! That’s where our Honkai Star Rail tier list comes in handy. It will give you a great overview of which characters are currently the best overall for each situation.

However, remember that Honkai Star Rail is largely a game that revolves around building a good team and not just one character. With that said, it’s only natural to want to know which character is the best, and this Honkai Star Rail tier list will explain how good each one is and where they stand in the current meta.

I should also note that while the gacha system isn’t really very F2P friendly in Star Rail, most of the “bad” characters can clear the content just fine. You do not need the absolute meta-defining teams just to beat the game.

Need Free Stellar Jade & Credits? Check out our Honkai Star Rail Codes page.

Guide Contents

Honkai Star Rail Tier List

Here is our Honkai Star Rail tier list. You can filter characters between Rarity, Path, Element, and Role. You can also click/tap on each character for their recommended build and general guide.

ST = Single-target damage (bosses, etc.)
AoE = Area of Effect, damage dealt to 3+ enemies.

Character	ST	Blast	AoE	Rarity	Path	Element	Role
Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae	S+	S+	S+	5-Star	Destruction	Imaginary	Damage Dealer
Jingliu	S+	S+	S+	5-Star	Destruction	Ice	Damage Dealer
Luocha	S+	S+	S+	5-Star	Abundance	Imaginary	Sustain
Seele	S+	S+	S+	5-Star	Hunt	Quantum	Damage Dealer
Bronya	S+	S+	S+	5-Star	Harmony	Wind	Amplifier
Tingyun	S+	S+	S+	4-Star	Harmony	Lightning	Amplifier
Fu Xuan	S+	S+	S+	5-Star	Preservation	Quantum	Sustain
Silver Wolf	S+	S+	S	5-Star	Nihility	Quantum	Debuffer
Pela	S	S+	S+	4-Star	Nihility	Ice	Debuffer
Kafka	S	S	S	5-Star	Nihility	Lightning	Damage Dealer
Blade	S	S	S	5-Star	Destruction	Wind	Damage Dealer
Lynx	S	S	S	4-Star	Abundance	Quantum	Sustain
Asta	S	S	S	4-Star	Harmony	Fire	Amplifier
Gepard	S	S	S	5-Star	Preservation	Ice	Sustain
Qingque	S	S	A	5-Star	Erudition	Quantum	Damage Dealer
Clara	B	S	S+	5-Star	Destruction	Physical	Damage Dealer
Jing Yuan	A	A	S	5-Star	Erudition	Lightning	Damage Dealer
Bailu	A	A	A	5-Star	Abundance	Lightning	Sustain
Welt	A	A	A	4-Star	Nihility	Imaginary	Debuffer
Yukong	A	A	A	4-Star	Harmony	Imaginary	Amplifier
Luka	A	B	D	4-Star	Nihility	Physical	Debuffer
Natasha	B	B	B	4-Star	Abundance	Physical	Sustain
Trailblazer (Fire)	B	B	B	5-Star	Preservation	Fire	Sustain
March 7th	B	B	B	4-Star	Preservation	Ice	Sustain
Sampo	B	B	B	4-Star	Nihility	Wind	Debuffer
Yanqing	B	C	C	5-Star	Hunt	Ice	Damage Dealer
Serval	C	B	B	4-Star	Erudition	Lightning	Damage Dealer
Himeko	C	B	B	5-Star	Erudition	Fire	Damage Dealer
Sushang	B	C	C	4-Star	Hunt	Physical	Damage Dealer
Herta	D	C	B	4-Star	The Erudition	Ice	Damage Dealer
Dan Heng	C	C	C	4-Star	Hunt	Wind	Damage Dealer
Hook	C	C	C	4-Star	Destruction	Fire	Damage Dealer
Arlan	D	D	D	4-Star	Destruction	Lightning	Damage Dealer
Trailblazer (Physical)	D	D	D	5-Star	Destruction	Physical	Damage Dealer

Honkai Star Rail Tier List: Character Evaluation

You’ve seen the ratings, and now get to know the characters a bit more! Here are summaries for each character featured in the Honkai Star Rail tier list.

Read our Honkai Star Rail characters guide for the full information about each character.

Bronya

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: S+

Bronya can advance the turn of 1 character in your team, buff their DMG outcome, and not to mention her ultimate that increases ATK and CRIT DMG for two turns. Bronya is one of the best buffers in Honkai: Star Rail. Need your main DPS to skip a turn and potentially kill the boss, or do you need your healer to heal you? Bronya will be the answer that could change the tide of the battle. Bronya stands in the S+ tier right now because she’s the only one who can continuously advance your ally’s turn from the skill and the only one that buffs your team’s CRIT DMG.

Tingyun

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: S+

Tingyun is the silver tongue fox lady that will buff her ally’s ATK based on her ATK, and deal additional DMG based on the percentage of the target ally’s ATK. But the bread and butter of Tingyun’s kit lies in her Ultimate, which will increase the target ally’s energy by 50 and increase their attack damage. Due to this unique useful energy manipulation, you can take this advantage to the fullest, especially for your main DPS character like Seele, Dan Heng, Jing Yuan, Yanqing and many more that will deal massive attack damage from their Ultimate. Potentially making them able to cast their Ultimate much more frequently than normal.

Bailu

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: A

Bailu is a reliable healer that can heal not only a single target ally but also another 2 more allies in 1 turn. With her Ultimate that will heals all allies, she will also “invigorates” your entire allies. When the enemy attacks the invigorated ally, Bailu will automatically heals them, which this will only trigger up to 2 times. But the real icing on the cake is Bailu’s secret talent that lets her to revive one character. This life and death passive could potentially help you survive the tough battle, which is very crucial in a turn-based game. Thus, Bailu is also belong to the S tier rank due to her marvelous healing and one-time revive skill.

Seele

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: S

The best of the best DPS. What’s better than 1 buff? 2 buffs! Activating Seele’s skill will buff her SPD by 25%, and if she is able to defeat 1 enemy, she’ll gain an additional turn and she’ll gain an additional DMG buff too. Not only that, her ultimate’s damage is actually one of the biggest damage dealers in entire Honkai: Star Rail characters history. Either early game, mid game, or even end game, Seele will definitely hook you once you see her damage numbers. Pair her with Bronya for more damage buff, you will probably see not only 5 digits damage number, but probably even a 6 or 7 digits number. This is why Seele instantly become one of the S tier characters because it will be quite challenging to compete with Seele’s nuke damage.

Trailblazer (Fire)

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: B

Fire Trailblazer is a great F2P character that’s very versatile. He can provide an AoE taunt and excels at shielding his allies in battle. He’s also a good weakness unit for fire and is very useful in Simulated Universe and Forgotten Hall.

High tier, with the best of the best characters. The most recommended characters that we will suggest if there is a chance that you can get them. Their role has the best kit that HSR has to offer.

Himeko

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: B

The mommy of Honkai: Star Rail. Himeko’s skill will deliver fire attacks to the adjacent enemies, and her ultimate will dish out big fire damage to all enemies. Not only that, once Himeko fully charge (3 stacks) her passive, which is stackable every time enemy’s weakness is broken, then she will deliver an AoE fire attack to all of the enemies too. Isn’t it lovely to see big damage everywhere while Himeko just casually sips a cup of tea?

Pela

]Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: S+

Pela is the ATK reduction debuffer for a single enemy from her skill and AoE defense break debuff from her ultimate, Pela’s role shines upon giving debuff to the enemies. Pela can’t shine alone as her damage outcome is relatively low, and the defense break will not give significant results if your DPS cannot deliver high damage yet.

Gepard

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: S

Gepard is your trusty defender. As a sub-dps tank, Gepard’s kit revolves around coating your entire team with his shield and a high chance of freezing one enemy from his skill. His shield only comes from his ultimate, meaning you need to keep recharging energy to make sure Gepard can protect your team from his shield, which is scaled on his DEF. Thus, timing and energy management are really important if you want to use Gepard in this team. Near the mid-game and above progression, his shield is actually quite reliable.

Sushang

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: C

The description of rapid attack suits Sushang because her kit revolves around RNG, which will make her attack the enemy multiple times. Sushang is a single-target physical DPS where the skill will deal massive damage to one enemy and ⅓ chance to deal additional physical attacks to the enemy. What makes Sushang’s kit very useful is that her ultimate will deal high physical damage to a single target, advance her own action so she has additional turns, and her chance of triggering additional hits increased two times again. After activating her ultimate, she will also get the attack buff.

Welt

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: A

Welt is your slow debuffer with the Imaginary element. His skill deals an attack to a random target that has a ⅔ chance to slow them, and his ultimate will attack all enemies, which will imprison them, delaying their action by 41% and slowing their speed by 15%. In a turn-based game, slowing the enemies could have a significant impact because your team will have more turns compared to your enemies.

Clara

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: S

Clara acts as the punching bag in your team, literally. Her ultimate will provoke the enemies, a higher chance for the enemies to attack Clara instead of your other allies. With a damage reduction kit and AoE physical attack on all enemies, Clara can act as your tank Sub-DPS. You need to invest great build on her so that she can truly shine. And if you don’t have a solid healer, Clara’s ultimate could backfire on you since Clara doesn’t have the skill to heal herself, only provoking the enemies to attack her.

March 7th

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: B

March 7th is one of the main characters in Honkai: Star Rail, besides Dan Heng and Trailblazer. With her skill that will create a shield to an ally, an additional higher chance of the enemy to hit them if they have above 30% HP, and her ultimate that deals AoE ice attack to the enemies, March 7th’s shield could be a dual-edge sword. Because if her shield is not strong enough, and it indeed provoked the enemies to hit that ally, it could be a drawback to your team instead. March 7th’s Defense is relatively low on early game progression. Thus, the shield’s strength is not that ideal.

Yanqing

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: C

Yanqing is an ice five-star Hunt character that can self-buff his own CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG whenever he uses his skill and even bigger CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG when he casts his Ultimate. With another passive kit where he will have a chance to do a follow-up attack either from his own Basic ATK, Skill, or Ultimate that will also potentially freeze the enemy. So not only will Yanqing sweep up big damage toward the enemy, but he also has a chance to freeze them, which will be very useful especially if you are dealing with annoying enemies or bosses. Thanks to his self-buff CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG, you will also have a good time building your Relics and Planar Ornaments for Yanqing. Especially no need to worry too much about investing in CRIT Rate because his Ultimate lowkey almost guarantees him to always trigger a critical hit.

Dan Heng

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: C

Dan Heng is the person that almost kissed you in the story intro. If only he kissed the main character, then it’s an auto S tier list for Dan Heng. But joking aside, Dan Heng’s skill will apply a slow debuff, enhancing his ultimate damage to the enemy. If his ally applies their skill on him (heal, buff, etc), then his passive chance to apply Wind RES PEN to the enemy will be higher, thus resulting in higher damage. That is why Dan Heng can also be your trusty main DPS single target unit. Not to mention, since you will get Dan Heng earlier in the story, Dan Heng can help you with your early game progression.

Asta

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: S

Asta is your team’s ATK and SPD buffer. Her skill delivers “weak” fire damage to the enemy target and additional four times to random target enemies, which will increase her stack for every different enemy hit. Her stack will buff the team’s ATK from 6% and up to 30%. Her ultimate will buff all allies’ SPD by 45 for two turns. This buff is relatively good, but Asta’s stack relies on RNG. Sometimes you will get a high ATK buff, and sometimes it will be lower. Thus, it’s not really reliable to use Asta’s role to buff your team’s ATK.

Natasha

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: B

Natasha is the healer that could boost your early game progress because she could potentially prevent your team’s death. She will heal a single target from her skill and heal all allies from her ultimate. Once you reach mid-game progression, where your team’s attribute will have higher HP, and you’ll meet stronger enemies, Natasha’s healing rate is actually quite lackluster, thus it will be hard to maintain your team’s HP if you meet a strong enemy that could deal big damage to your team. But for early game, she’s very useful. So you can temporarily use her even when facing the boss in your main story.

Hook

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: C

Hook is your fire DOTer that will frequently apply burn DoT to a single enemy. This DoT chance is 100%. Thus, it will be a guarantee to apply burn to a single enemy target using Hook’s skill. She will also deal higher damage to the target with the burn DoT. Hook’s ultimate will deal big fire damage to a single enemy and enhance Hook’s skill, so she will deal higher enemy and, this time, attacks the adjacent enemy too. Unfortunately, despite the DoT mechanic being really useful and reliable, the damage outcome is not as big as you would hope.

Sampo

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: B

Sampo is a main character that could have a significant impact on the story progression in the main story quest. His skill will deal wind damage to the target, and it will bounce randomly to the enemies up to four times. His ultimate will deal AoE wind attack to all enemies and an additional chance to increase the DoT damage by 20% for two turns. With Sampo’s passive that has 65% to deliver wind shear from his attack, which deals wind DoT to the enemies, this DoT could stack up to five times. Unfortunately, the damage scalings are relatively low. Thus this could be a drawback if you plan to invest in a great build on Sampo.

Serval

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: B

Shocking the enemies are part of Serval’s kit. With her skill that will deal lightning damage to the target enemy and additional attack to the enemies adjacent to the target, Serval has ⅘ chance to apply shock DoT to the enemies. Unfortunately, her ultimate will deal AoE lightning damage to all enemies, but it will not have the chance to apply shock DoT to them too, but only extend the shock DoT on the enemies for two turns. This is unfortunate because Serval’s kit also relies on the shock DoT that got applied to the enemies because, at the end of the turn, Serval will do a follow-up attack that will attack all enemies that have shock DoT. But back again, the multiplier for the damage is relatively low, so you really need to invest a lot of great build for her before she can truly shine. Pairing her with characters that could apply shock, like Kafka (unreleased) is a good idea.

Characters that are still useful, but you would want to consider switching them during the mid-game progress. Despite being B-tier rank, these characters are still great and will help you during the early game.

Qingque

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: S

Qingque is a quantum four-star character that can change her single target attack into an AoE attack if you can stack up four same tiles. She is only in the B tier rank because of her RNG tiles, and her skill will only be able to switch one tile at a time, and it’s not a guarantee that you will get the tiles that you wanted to proc the AoE attack. Despite using her skill will buff her Basic ATK, the damage from the Basic ATK itself is quite lackluster but still tolerable due to her four-star character rarity. Thus, you must invest in a strong Light Cone and Relics to let her shine.

Physical Trailblazer

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: D

The game’s main character is the first version of Trailblazer that you’ll get to play. Physical Trailblazer is a decent all-rounder attacker that’s very versatile. He mainly shines early on but starts to drop off later on. He can play different roles in the Simulated Universe and will sometimes be needed on certain levels of the Forgotten Hall.

Arlan

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: D

Arlan is the single target lightning DPS character that will sacrifice his own HP to deal higher damage to the enemy. With 15% max HP depletion every time Arlan used his skill, and not his current HP, this could be a big drawback if Arlan’s HP starts to get low. His ultimate will deal big lightning damage to one enemy and additional attacks to the enemies adjacent to the target. His kit is relatively lackluster and he doesn’t have the ability to heal himself. Thus you need to pair Arlan with the healer, which require more investment again if you only have Natasha as your healer.

Herta

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Rank: D

Kuru Kuru! Every time the enemy’s HP falls below 50%, Herta will deal an AoE ice attack to all enemies. Unfortunately, this damage only deals 25% of Herta’s attack, thus the damage is not that significant. With AoE ice damage to all enemies on both her skill and ultimate, Herta is the character that will attack entire enemies. Her damage is not that significant, even in AoE character caliber. If you really want to use Herta, you really need to invest strong relics into her.

Honkai Star Rail Paths

In Honkai Star Rail, each character has their own path. The path plays a role in determining what each character would do during the battle. Some act as the main DPS, Sub DPS, support, and many more.

Here are all seven paths that exist in Honkai Star Rail:

The Destruction

The Destruction path is the all-rounder character that will act as the damage dealer. The characters on this path are Arlan, Blade, Clara, Hook, and Trailblazer.

The Hunt

You probably want to consider having at least one character of The Hunt, because they are your single target main DPS. They can dish out big damage if you build them properly. The characters on this path are Dan Heng, Seele, and Sushang.

The Erudition

Unlike The Hunt, which targets a single enemy only, The Erudition is another DPS character that will deal AoE damage to the enemies. The characters on this path are: Herta, Himeko, Jing Yuan, and Serval.

The Harmony

Instead of dealing big damage, The Harmony acts as your team support. They are the character that has the buff skill to help you in the battle. The characters on this path are Asta and Bronya.

The Nihility

The Nihility is the opposite of the Harmony path; they give debuffs to the enemies instead of buffing your team. The characters on this path are Kafka, Pela, Sampo, Silver Wolf, and Welt.

The Preservation

If Destruction, Hunt, and Erudition excel in dealing damage, then The Preservation path excels in increasing Defense for your team. The characters on this path are Gepard and March 7th.

The Abundance

The Abundance is the healer role. Probably the role that you would use when facing harder enemies. The characters on this path are Luocha and Natasha.

Honkai Star Rail Tier List Summary

And that’s all we’ve got for our Honkai Star Rail tier list. In the future, HoYoverse will likely release more playable characters, and there might be some character modifications to balance the gameplay experience. When that happens, we’ll update the Honkai Star Rail tier list with the up-to-date meta ratings and the latest characters.

Of course, regardless of the Honkai Star Rail tier list, you can still progress the game event with the C-Tier characters instead of the S-tier characters. But having an S-tier unit would certainly help you progress your game faster. Thus, we recommend you aim to obtain S-tier or at least A-tier characters to make your game easier to complete. Ultimately, go with the characters you enjoy the most because what matters the most is you enjoy what you do.

If you’re interested in more HSR content, we also have the following:

More Tier Lists:

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