Honkai: Star Rail Tier List: Ranking Every Character for Endgame

Star Rail's roster has gotten genuinely enormous, and version 4.5 keeps shuffling the pecking order. Two summer alt units dropped this patch - Robin Summeretto and Aventurine Waveflair - right after the Fate collaboration emptied a lot of jade reserves. So a tier list you saved three months ago is stale now. This ranking is built around the four endgame modes: Memory of Chaos, Pure Fiction, Apocalyptic Shadow, and Anomaly Arbitration. That's where the Stellar Jade lives, and it's the only content where the gap between a fine character and a great one actually shows up.

One caveat before the names. Sites disagree on exact ordering. Game8 docks points from units that lean on limited teammates or specific light cones, so their top tier skews toward cheap-to-run characters. Other trackers rank raw ceiling instead and let the cost fall where it may. The clusters line up across sources though, and the cluster is what should drive your pull planning.

How the Tier List Accounts for Team Roles

The Paths used to map cleanly onto jobs. Destruction, Hunt, and Erudition meant damage. Harmony meant buffs, Nihility meant debuffs, Preservation and Abundance meant keeping people alive. Version 4.0 broke that tidy picture by adding Elation, and Remembrance had already been blurring lines with its memosprite summoners. Now plenty of characters do two jobs at once.

Mortenax Blade is the clearest case. His personal damage sits in the top bracket, and his kit still hands out Vulnerability, damage buffs, and DEF shred to the rest of the team. Silver Wolf Lv.999 packs True DMG, skill point recovery, Punchline generation, and crowd control immunity into one unit. So a ranking that sorts purely by Path would misprice half the roster.

Instead, endgame tier lists sort by four slots:

| Slot | Job | What raters actually check | |---|---|---| | Main carry | Where your damage comes from | Damage with an ideal build, how consistent it is, damage across a set number of turns | | Amplifier | Buffers and debuffers | Buff and debuff strength, how much they lift total team output, how often they act while still generating SP | | Sustain | Healer or shielder | Healing and shield size, debuff cleanse, anything extra beyond keeping you alive | | Hybrid | Two of the above at once | Whether the combined value beats running two specialists |

The other big factor is team dependency. A carry who only functions with two limited 5-star supports rates lower than one who clears with the standard pool, even if the first one posts bigger numbers on a whale account. That's why you'll see a unit rated highly on one site and mid on another - they're weighting the price tag differently.

Endgame scoring shapes all of it. Memory of Chaos is a two-node boss rush sharing 30 cycles, with star targets at 10 cycles left, 20 cycles left, and no downed characters. That mode wants single-target burst and speed. Pure Fiction is wave-clear where each node caps at 40,000 points (80,000 per stage) and full rewards land at 60,000, so AoE wins there. Apocalyptic Shadow is a race to break a boss's toughness bar. Anomaly Arbitration, which arrived in version 3.6, runs three encounters into a final boss using three separate teams, then gates the hardest stage behind all of it.

A character who's excellent in exactly one of those gets rated on that niche. Jade is the classic example - borderline unfair in Pure Fiction, drops off a cliff in Memory of Chaos and Apocalyptic Shadow. That's not a bad unit. It's a specialist, and specialists get judged by their best mode.

Top DPS Picks for Pure Fiction and Memory of Chaos

Since the two headline modes want different things, the DPS ranking splits. Here's who's actually clearing in 4.5.

Memory of Chaos carries

The top bracket right now clusters around Mortenax Blade, Evanescia, Silver Wolf Lv.999, Himeko - Nova, Sparxie, and Evernight, with Phainon, Archer, and Castorice a half step behind.

Evanescia is the burst queen. Near-permanent ultimate uptime plus heavy burst windows, and at E1S1 her damage already matches the premium Elation and Remembrance cores. If you pulled her back when she debuted, she's still paying rent.

Sparxie is the budget-friendly one of the group. E0S0 gets the team running, and at E2 her damage comfortably handles every current endgame mode. That's a rare profile - most top carries want their signature light cone before they feel finished.

Himeko - Nova handles both single-target and AoE fights without swapping, which is worth a lot when the cycle limit is tight. Her ceiling at very high investment trails the best Elation and Remembrance teams for now, so she's more "always good" than "best at anything."

Archer deserves a specific callout because he's free. The Fate collab gave him out at no cost, and this patch hands out another copy, which effectively puts players at E1. One of the strongest free single-target carries the game has ever handed around. If you skipped him out of collab fatigue, that was a mistake.

Phainon still has strong single-target damage but the build leans hard on E2. Castorice's low-investment edge has faded, though her off-field revive remains one of the best safety nets in the game for the "no downed characters" star target.

Pure Fiction carries

The Herta is still excellent here, full stop. Her problem is everywhere else - current Memory of Chaos and Apocalyptic Shadow matchups expose her much more often. Build her anyway if Pure Fiction points are what you're missing.

Hysilens is the newer story. Paired with Kafka and Black Swan she dragged the whole DoT archetype back into a strong endgame spot. Black Swan's Arcana stacks now build twice as fast and overflow converts into extra damage, and Kafka got stronger AoE plus faster teamwide detonation. That trio plus a sustain is a legitimately competitive team again after a long stretch of DoT being mediocre.

Jade remains the specialist. Clearest niche in the game, sharp dropoff outside it. Argenti barely gets favorable matchups even in Pure Fiction anymore - his setup is too slow for current stages.

| Mode | What wins | Top picks | |---|---|---| | Memory of Chaos | Single-target burst, speed | Mortenax Blade, Evanescia, Silver Wolf Lv.999, Himeko - Nova, Sparxie, Evernight | | Pure Fiction | AoE, wave clear | The Herta, Hysilens + Kafka + Black Swan, Jade, Herta (budget) | | Apocalyptic Shadow | Break race, burst timing | Depends heavily on the boss's weakness and gimmick each cycle | | Anomaly Arbitration | Roster depth, three teams | Whoever's left after your two best cores are locked in |

That last row is the real kicker. Anomaly Arbitration doesn't care who your single best carry is. It cares who your sixth, seventh, and eighth best characters are, because you need three functional teams to get through it. Deep benches beat one whale team there.

Best Sustain and Amplifier Support Characters

Supports age slower than carries, but 4.5 still shuffled this tier quite a bit.

Sustains

Hyacine is the top of the pile right now. Fast, safe, easy to slot anywhere, with a teamwide cleanse plus steady healing. She fits Remembrance teams and HP-scaling carries particularly well, which covers a lot of the current meta.

Huohuo got improved protection and better ultimate resource generation, which earned her a spot in several current teams including the Himeko - Nova shell. Energy refund plus an ATK buff on the ult is still a strong combo.

Dan Heng - Permansor Terrae is the surprise. Massive teamwide shields make him the safe pick for modern follow-up attack teams, and he slots straight into Ashveil comps when you need a body. His arrival is a big part of why Aventurine dropped - DHPT just does the shielding job better for the teams that matter now.

On the way down: Aventurine has little room left in his own archetype. Lingsha still works in Break teams but her healing feels strained in the latest high-pressure fights. Fu Xuan has a harder time keeping teams alive than she used to. Gallagher can fill the Break sustain slot as a budget substitute, and that's about it now.

Amplifiers

Robin Summeretto landed at the top of the support rankings in her debut. At E0 she brings DEF shred, ATK and CRIT DMG buffs, Vulnerability, action advance, and Energy support. That's five different jobs in one kit, which is why she fits so many comps - though her pull value still depends on what your roster already covers.

Yao Guang is the Elation engine. She raises team Elation, generates Punchline, and gives Aha another turn, which accelerates the whole rotation. If you're running an Elation team she's close to mandatory.

Tribbie is strong but priced oddly - at E0 she's less universal than Mortenax Blade, while E1 gives her top-tier support value in teams built around her kit. Cyrene buffs every Chrysos Heir with a unique effect, E2 is her major breakpoint, and E6 matters for the zero-cycle chase crowd.

Sparkle is back to being a reliable pick. Her rework fixed the old skill point problem with better SP recovery and overflow storage, so she's the default action-advance buffer again. The Dahlia enables Super Break damage before enemies are even broken, plus weakness implant and DEF shred, and contributes damage on top. Fugue's Exo-Toughness keeps her relevant across Break teams even after the newer supports arrived.

For newer accounts, Welt is the sneaky value pick. His ultimate now applies 40% DEF shred, which makes him one of the better standard-pool investments in the game, and at E4+ he fills a support slot in Himeko - Nova teams. You can pull him off the standard banner for free.

Hypercarry Versus Hypercarry-less Team Archetypes

This is the actual decision that shapes an account, more than any single character pick.

The hypercarry shape

One damage dealer, two amplifiers, one sustain, everything pointed at making one character's turn hit as hard as possible. The current model is Himeko - Nova with Sparkle, Tribbie, and Dan Heng - Permansor Terrae - Sparkle provides the action advance, Tribbie adds Vulnerability, and DHPT holds the Astral Express slot plus sustain.

Evernight still runs this shape well in Remembrance setups. Aglaea with Cyrene, Sunday, and Hyacine works the same way - Cyrene buffs the memosprite, Sunday provides action advance and Energy, and the whole team exists to feed one carry.

The appeal is simplicity. One damage dealer means one set of crit relics to farm, one signature light cone to save for, and speed tuning that's mostly about making sure your buffers move before the carry does. Sparkle makes the skill point math forgiving. When it works it feels clean and repeatable.

The ceiling is the catch. Double-action-advance setups (two buffers both pushing the carry forward) score higher than single, and pushing past that means eidolons. A finished hypercarry core is expensive, and some damage-reduction mechanics just ignore your one big turn.

The shared-damage shapes

Everything else spreads damage across multiple characters, and that's where the current top teams live.

Follow-up chains. Mortenax Blade, Ashveil, Tribbie, Hyacine. Ally attacks trigger Ashveil's extra follow-ups, so the whole team chains constantly and Tribbie amps all of it. This is the number one rated core right now.

Dual carry. Archer with Rin Tohsaka, plus Sparkle and Huohuo. Rin turns skill point changes into a team damage buff and her AoE covers Archer's weak matchups. Strong single-target burst, but the speed tuning is fussy and manual play matters a lot more than most comps.

Break. Firefly, Fugue, The Dahlia, Lingsha. Firefly breaks things, The Dahlia lets the team deal Super Break damage before the break even lands, Fugue adds more break support, and Lingsha keeps everyone standing. Stable across most fights. The catch is that the full premium core is expensive to assemble.

DoT. Hysilens, Kafka, Black Swan, plus a sustain. Ramps slowly and depends more on enemy turns than the other archetypes, which makes it a little inconsistent cycle to cycle. When it lines up it's cheap damage from mostly older units.

Elation. Evanescia, Yao Guang, Elation Trailblazer, Huohuo. Elation is the newest Path in the game, and it's built around Punchline - a team-shared stat that powers Aha Instant damage, with the Aeon Aha themself fighting alongside you as an extra body. Because the damage is team-shared by design, it's inherently hypercarry-less. Fast and safe, though certain damage-reduction mechanics cut into the output. There's also the Silver Wolf Lv.999 variant with Sparxie and Yao Guang, which trades some of that for better low-target burst but spreads thin against bigger waves.

Which shape should you build

Hypercarry if your relics are scattered and you'd rather perfect one character than build six. Shared-damage if you're pushing Pure Fiction points or the higher Apocalyptic Shadow tiers, because AoE and constant tagging both reward spread teams.

The honest answer for most accounts is one of each. Memory of Chaos wants two teams anyway with no character overlap allowed, and Anomaly Arbitration wants three. A hypercarry core plus a follow-up or Break shell covers more cycles than two hypercarries fighting over the same supports.

Underrated Characters Worth Building Anyway

The bottom half of every tier list hides units who solve specific problems cheaply. Some picks that outperform their ranking:

Welt. Forty percent DEF shred on his ultimate, standard pool, useful in current Himeko - Nova teams. Probably the best "free" amplifier for an account that missed the limited Harmony banners.

Archer, again. Free, and effectively E1 after the 4.5 handout. Free single-target damage at this level is unusual. Build him even if he's not your favorite design.

Seele. Quietly fixed. Her multipliers got doubled and low-HP enemies now let her act immediately, so the reset loop finally has the damage behind it to matter again. She's not top bracket, but she's way better than her reputation from the 2.x era.

Trailblazer (Elation) and Trailblazer (Remembrance). Both free. The Elation version speeds up the opener, generates Punchline and Certified Banger, cleanses crowd control, and adds some damage. The Remembrance version's action advance and damage buffs pair with Himeko - Nova for a genuinely strong low-investment team. Free units filling real slots in current meta comps is not normal - take it.

Pela and Tingyun. Both dated, both still fine. Pela's teamwide DEF shred and fast ultimate cycling still help when you're short a limited support. Tingyun's ATK buff and Energy support make her a practical early bridge for a hypercarry. Neither is a long-term plan, and both will hold a slot while you get there.

Gallagher. Only a budget pick now, but if your Break team needs a body and Lingsha didn't come home, he does the job.

Herta. The four-star version, not The Herta. Free, easy to build, and still the cheapest way to put up Pure Fiction points on a new account. Her ceiling is low - don't sink weeks of relic farming into her - but as a bridge she's kind of a pain to beat.

Going the other way, a couple of names get overrated by affection: Mydei is still playable but his forced-auto rotation and falling damage mean he's no longer a priority, and Jing Yuan needs Sunday's help to make the Lightning-Lord act often enough to matter, and even then the team falls short of newer carries.

The cheapest wins on most accounts right now aren't banner units at all. Build the free Archer, grab Welt if the standard banner coughs him up, and check whether sustain is your actual bottleneck before pulling another carry - Dan Heng - Permansor Terrae's shields alone moved several follow-up teams up a full tier this patch.