Star Rail – Best DPS Characters, Ranked

Highlights

• 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 DPSunits in Honkai: Star Rail.

Updated April 3, 2024, by Nahda Nabiilah: Honkai: Star Rail may do a great job in keeping 4-star characters around the same power, but the same can’t be said about the DPS in the game, given the best continuously get powercreeped by a better. For instance, Imbibitor Lunae may seem like the peak of DPS in Honkai: Star Rail, but HoYoverse managed to come up with a unit that’s easier to use yet deals comparable damage to Dan Heng IL. With the amount of new DPS available in the game, this article is now updated to include some of the best additions. Note that some of them are incredibly close to each other in terms of performance, such as the top four on the list.

15 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.

14 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.

13 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.

12 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.

11 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 DPS is actually decent enough to make her a viable DPS.

10 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.

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 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.

7 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.

6 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.

5 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.

4 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.

3 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.

2 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.

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.