Tier List | Honkai: Star Rail | Prydwen Institute (2024)

Please keep in mind that Honkai: Star Rail is a game where team building matters most and while our tier list takes the optimal setup into account, a lot of characters can work and do well - even those ranked lower - when you invest into them. Also for story or lower difficulties of Simulated Universe, you don't need to worry about ratings and tiers. You can safely clear that content even with F2P characters as long as you build your team correctly.

These tier lists rate characters based on their average performance in both Memory of Chaos and Pure Fiction regardless of turbulence, whimsicality and cacophony. Characters rated higher will perform well without the need to rely on these and will only benefit more from receiving them. As new mechanics, characters and challenges are introduced each tier list will be updated.

Important! Characters are ordered alphabetically within a tier.

Available tier lists:

• Memory of Chaos (MoC) - how the character performs in the Memory of Chaos. Blast and single target damage are important here while AoE has niche uses against some bosses.
• Pure Fiction (PF) - how the character performs in the Pure Fiction. AoE is king here, followed by Blast while single target damage is mostly useless.

Categories

• Damage Dealer - Characters that focus on dealing direct damage and can perform their role unhindered by enemy type, enemy element or team composition,
• Specialist - Characters that excel under specific circ*mstances carrying a unique role that often requires a different and divergent playstyle,
• Amplifier - Characters that do not focus on dealing damage but instead amplify the damage other teammates deal by granting allies buffs or debuffing enemies,
• Sustain - Characters who are capable of keeping the team alive with their abilities.

Special tags

Tags are split into 3 categories: Pros, Cons and Archetype which represent the most defining features of a character's kit and the current meta archetypes they fit into. Archetype tags indicate a connection between characters with that tag e.g. Acheron requires debuffs to work and Silver Wolf applies them. Here is a full list of all current tags and what they mean:

• Break - the character belongs to the Break archetype focusing on Break Effect and Break Efficiency,
• Debuff - the character belongs to the Debuff archetype applying one or many debuffs or has a kit that directly relies on them to function,
• DoT - the character belongs to the Damage-over-Time archetype specializing in applying and/or amplifying DoT effects,
• FuA - the character belongs to the Follow-up Attack archetype benefitting from, buffing or delivering powerful Follow-Up Attacks.,
• Advance - the character can manipulate the turn order by either action advancing their allies or themselves,
• Buff - the character can apply various Buffs to help their teammates,
• Delay - the character can delay enemies and hinder their actions in battle,
• Energy - the character can recover the teammates energy,
• SP+ - the character is substantially more skill point friendly than other characters in their role.
• SP- - the character is substantially more skill point un-friendly than other characters in their role.

Meta Lines

Meta Lines categorize each section of the tier list into a power bracket. Here are the four brackets:

• Apex Characters (T0 & T0.5) - characters in this bracket are the cream of the crop. They can do outrageous amount of damage, provide massive buffs (or debuffs) or keep the team alive no matter what the enemy throws at them. They simply can achieve the best, most consistent and accessible results in their best teams, allowing you to easily clear MoC and PF,
• Meta Characters (T1, T1.5, T2) - characters in this bracket make clearing MoC and PF a breeze, but compared to the Apex characters they require more work from your side. Either their team options are more restrictive, they require bigger Relic investment or they possess a notable weakness or downside. Still, they are all great and won't disappoint you if you give them what they need to shine,
• Niche Characters (T3 & T4) - characters in this bracket are lacking in one or many fields of their role in MoC or PF. These characters still possess the ability to clear all content with the right build, endgame blessing, team or enemy line-up but have much lower play rates and success rates than Meta and Apex characters,
• The Forgotten Ones (T5) - characters in this bracket struggle. A lot. Either their kits simply don't work in the mode or they require a ton of investment and love to be able to work. Just avoid them unless your husbando or waifu landed here and you believe in the power of love.

Half tiers

To further define the tier list and correctly represent the power level of each character in relation to each other we have added half tiers to the higher tier brackets. Under our previous system a tier rating jump of 1 tier rating made it difficult to position characters accurately, often leading to multiple characters ending up in the same tier despite a clear power and utility difference.

Criteria

• Manual play,
• Using optimal team composition/support characters,
• Character level 80,
• All Major Traces unlocked and skills upgraded to level 8,
• Character equipped with level 80 non-limited 4★ or 5★ Light Cone (including the 'standard' Light Cones),
• Battle Pass Light Cones aren't taken into account because you can't obtain them without spending,
• Character equipped with 5★ upgraded gear with optimal Main Stats and Sub Stats (with 24 desired sub stats out of a possible 54),
• Eidolon level 0 for 5★ characters,
• Eidolon level 0/6 for 4★ characters.

Roles

We compare characters within their role - so damage dealers are compared to other damage dealers and the ratings are adjusted based on their performance within the role. Don't try to compare characters between roles (for example an amplifier with a damage dealer), because their ratings mean different things.

• Damage Dealer - Rating is heavily influenced based on the characters ability to deal enough damage to achieve the 3-star objective, the easier and more quickly achieved the higher the rating,
• Specialist - Rating is heavily influenced based on the damage they provide, defense or efficiency boost created by the unique teams these characters create or the utility they provide against certain encounters,
• Amplifier - Rating is influenced based on the damage amplification abilities of the character and the utility they provide to the team,
• Sustain - Rating is influenced based on the characters ability to keep the team alive and the utility they provide. The more utility and higher the safety, the higher the rating.

Other criteria affecting the ratings

Each tier list rates characters based on their average value in the specific game mode it represents. The higher a character is rated on the tier list the greater their power and more widely they can be used effectively in the mode. We consider:

• Flexibility - how the characters kit functions against various enemy types, amounts of enemies and their ability to perform when not fighting against enemies vulnerable to their element,
• Investment - some characters require specific limited 5★ units, heavy investment in certain relic sets or an abundance of sub-stats in order to function at the highest level. Each of these points impacts the rating in a negative way. - the more the character requires to perform well, the bigger the impact,
• Utility - recently released characters possess abilities that lie beyond their defined role, for example Amplifiers/Sustains that can deal decent damage. The more a character helps the team outside of their role, the bigger positive impact on their rating it has.

09/05/2024

Added Harmony MC to the tier list.

08/05/2024

The tier list has been fully reworked, so we wiped the old changelog as it would only bring confusion.

Damage dealer

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Damage dealer

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Damage dealer

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Damage dealer

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Damage dealer

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