Honkai: Star RailSilver WolfBest build, teams and other guides

Out of the four characters receiving buffs in 3.4, Silver Wolf is near unquestionably getting the most substantial increase. Her consistency has been vastly improved, alongside base chance increases and having her Ultimate become a fully AoE attack that retains its original DMG multiplier. Her supportive and debuffing capabilities are now firmly among the best in the game, and she is an exceptional asset to any team.

Apparently, everyone's favourite hacker decided to up her numbers herself... Else, this must be part of the grand design or some such. Whatever the reason for it, I for one could not be happier, and I personally know at least three other people who are probably even happier. These buffs cannot be overstated, this is a considerable leap in both usability and output.

Right off the bat, this is very gladdening to see. Silver Wolf is now not only yet another powerful, universal, and accessible support option in the current era of the game, but more importantly this shows that the buffs older characters may receive are not merely for token appeasement.

Silver Wolf's iconic Skill has been updated. This Skill still deals up to 196% ATK to the target enemy, but the base chance to add 1 Weakness of an on-field character's Type has been increased to 120% from its original 85%, an IMMENSE difference. In addition to this, the Weakness Implant will now prioritise the Type of the character in the 1st deployment slot, so no more rolling the dice praying for the correct Implant when using a team with many Types.

The Weakness Implant itself now lasts for 3 turns by default, and continues to provide a 20% RES Down to the Implanted Weakness. Each enemy can have one Implant at a time and using it again will overwrite the first one. There is 100% base chance to further reduce the affected target's All-Type RES by 13% for 2 turns, up from the previous 10%.

Silver Wolf's Ultimate used to be a single-target ability that dealt 380% ATK and had a 100% base chance to reduce the target's DEF by 45% for 3 turns. Now, it has become a fully AoE attack that has a 120% base chance of reducing all enemies' DEF by 45%, and somehow has retained its original 380% ATK multiplier.

This is, uhh, quite a bit of damage in AoE scenarios — a potential attack dealing 1900% ATK if 5 enemies are present. Naturally, being able to reduce every enemy's DEF instead of just one's is also fantastic for being able to deal with AoE encounters, something that Silver Wolf had quite a bit of trouble dealing with previously. The Toughness damage has gone down to compensate, but this is still an absolutely ridiculous ability to have IN GENERAL, let alone on a support character.

Her Talent creates Bugs in the enemies. These come in three different debuffing flavours, able to reduce enemies' ATK, SPD, and DEF. The ATK and SPD reductions are unchanged at 10% and 6% respectively, but the DEF reduction has increased from 8% to 12%, a very notable increase given how DEF reduction works and stacks.

Silver Wolf has a 100% base chance of inflicting a random Bug on the attacked enemies, lasting for 3 turns, vastly improved from the original 72% base chance. Additionally, there is now a secondary function to the Talent that allows for the automatic transferral of an Implanted Weakness to a surviving enemy after the initial Implanted enemy is defeated. Even better is this will prioritise Elites and above, so this also solves a rather big issue Silver Wolf had in AoE circumstances (and also helps to save on Skill Points generally).

The original Bonus Traces for Silver Wolf were also definitely showing their age, so they have all been updated as well.

The A2 will extend the duration of Bugs by 1 turn. When an enemy becomes Weakness Broken, there is a 100% base chance to automatically implant a random Bug in that enemy. The base chance increase from the original 65% is appreciated and this can offer a way to accelerate the accumulation of debuffs onto an important target, especially if using Silver Wolf on a team with high Toughness damage.

Her A4 and A6 have been completely revamped since their original functionalities were merged into the base kit. Her A4 now provides Silver Wolf 20 Energy immediately upon entering battle, and a further 5 Energy at the start of every turn for her.

Her A6 is now a modern stat conversion Trace; for every 10% Effect Hit Rate Silver Wolf has, she will additionally increase her ATK by 10%, up to a max of 50%. While the upper limit may seem low, this is a ridiculous amount of efficiency for a stat conversion Trace, meaning that for the first 50% EHR, you literally get the same amount of ATK for free. 

“After all, I deserve the best, no?”

… Okay, you are not allowed to hijack the review. But yes, she's right, this is a very good Trace, and with the vastly improved base chances across Silver Wolf's entire kit, Silver Wolf only needs a modest amount of EHR — especially compared to the absurd amounts you needed previously if you wanted to guarantee Bug debuffs. You are likely to be going to the standard 67% EHR for 100% base chances to be consistent anyway.

Silver Wolf is quite clearly a top contender now. She can reduce enemies' DEF by 57% literally by herself without even factoring in any other effects. Her damage output in AoE scenarios is extremely impressive with her Ultimate, and she now has far greater access to said Ultimate due to her passive Energy regeneration passive — which then leads to finally having far more flexible Light Cone options that aren't just Before the Tutorial Mission Starts.

A most impactful and relatively accessible option is Resolution Shines as Pearls of Sweat for the crazy DEF reduction stacking, and you're going to have more than enough EHR for it to be consistent anyway. Other limited Nihility Light Cones are also surprisingly good, so if you've got a spare lying around for whatever reason, feel free to have at it.

Tutorial is still good just so you're aware, and is easily the most accessible option for both the EHR and the Energy, and can be a surprisingly good option in Pure Fiction if you're looking to maximise Silver Wolf's personal damage.

This is all coming at an especially good time, since there are quite a few strong DPS during the 3.x saga who are all fighting over the same supports each time. Cipher may be the fastest woman alive, and Tribbie may be one of three, but neither of these two units can be omnipresent and having to settle for whatever your next best support option is can feel quite unpleasant, especially if you were already struggling in the endgame.

Silver Wolf has decided she's had enough of being one of those lesser support options and has stepped up to the plate. Now she is a very competitive option for this specific amplifier spot. Better still is that she's not that SP intensive anymore, so the teambuilding including Silver Wolf is very plug-n-play, with little foresight or thinking required.

Her consistency in applying Weakness Implants means that you can very easily take your strongest team against (almost) any foe and find great success. Her DEF reduction is absurdly high and only works better with more sources of it. She even does good damage with her Ultimate.

However, she does come with a pretty unfortunate caveat that the aforementioned Amphoreus Heirs don't suffer from, and that is debuff reapplication; Silver Wolf's incredible amplifying capabilities are only effective once the debuffs have actually been applied to the enemies. This means that should new enemies come in, either through a new wave or through being summoned in, they will need to be directly debuffed before they can start taking real damage.

Cipher and Tribbie do this passively, and new incoming waves of enemies will not alter their efficacy in the slightest. Worst of all is that Boss phase transitions will wipe their debuffs away INCLUDING Silver Wolf's Bugs and Weakness Implant, which is honestly just rude. In the event that you do need to reapply Silver Wolf's debuffs manually, you'd best be prepared to pay the price both in Skill Points and in Action Value.

Even still, Silver Wolf is right up there with them for the amount of damage she can extract from any team, and especially for the older players who've been waiting for a chance to use Silver Wolf again, this presents a very strong opportunity to make use of what is now an excellent and universal support.

Hackerwoman™ really is just that good now.