Honkai: Star Rail Tier list (March 2026)

Categories

• DPS - Characters that mainly focus on dealing damage and being the main source of it in the team they are placed in,
• Support DPS - Characters that fall within this category are very rarely played as the primary or sole damage dealer of the team and instead almost always play alongside another character that fills that role instead. Support DPS are still built with the intention to deal damage themselves but also have a kit containing buffs/debuffs to bolster their team's performance and/or have abilities that are directly dependent on others in order to function.
• 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,
• 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-Friendly - the character is substantially more skill point friendly than other characters in their role.
• SP-Unfriendly - the character is substantially more skill point un-friendly than other characters in their role.
• Partner - character relies on being partnered with a small set of specific characters to demonstrate their full potential at their tier list ranking. When played without these characters, this character's ranking will be 1-2 tiers lower.

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 the content,
• Meta Characters (T1, T1.5, T2) - characters in this bracket make clearing the content 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,
• Off-meta Characters (T3 & T4) - characters in this bracket are lacking in one or many fields of their role. 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 10,
• Character equipped with level 80 best in slot 4★ or 5★ Light Cone (including limited Light Cones, but at S1),
• 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 DPS are compared to other DPS 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 DPS), because their ratings mean different things.

• DPS - 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,
• Support DPS - Rating is heavily influenced based on the damage they provide, the buffs and debuffs or efficiency boost 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, helping the players in getting all rewards every cycle. We aren't looking at 0-cycle potential. 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.

Partners Pairings

• 
  The Dahlia → Super Break DPS - The Dahlia is the backbone of modern Super Break teams and a requirement for their meta relevance, without her every break damage dealer performs multiple tiers worse. All high rated Super Break characters rely on her for their placement, because of this each of them also has the partner tag.
• Support DPS Erudition →
  
  The Herta - The characters below have their Support DPS category rating solely determined based on their ability to serve as the secondary Erudition The Herta needs to activate her bonuses. Without this synergy they would either be rated exclusively on the DPS tier list or moved there. This reasoning applies to the following:
• 
  Anaxa
• 
  Argenti
• 
  Serval
• 
  Archer →
  
  Sparkle - Archer requires Sparkle’s additional SP cap as well as SP generation in order to function at the highest level and without this performs notably worse.
• 
  Hysilens &
  
  Kafka → DoT - For the DoT archetype to perform at their listed tier list ranking both Hysilens and Kafka are required. Hysilens is the primary source of damage of the team but without Kafka she fails to deliver it effectively. Black Swan, while viable, requires both in order to achieve her current ranking. Kafka needs Hysilens - Hysilens needs Kafka and Black Swan needs both. Therefore The DoT Partner tag applies to:
• 
  Kafka
• 
  Hysilens
• 
  Black Swan
• 
  Aglaea &
  
  Jing Yuan →
  
  Sunday - Both Aglaea & Jing Yuan gain substantial mechanical advantages from Sunday’s ability to advance their summons, accelerating the amount of actions they and those summons perform in a fight. Without this advantage their placement on the tier list suffers.
• 
  March 7th • Evernight (Support DPS) &
  
  Blade (Support DPS) →
  
  Castorice - Both Evernight’s and Blade’s Support DPS rankings are based solely on their potential as Sub DPS with Castorice. Without this pairing both characters would only exist within the DPS category.
• 
  Rappa →
  
  Tingyun • Fugue - Rappa needs Fugue’s double break ability in order to fuel her energy and charge generation - without it she performs notably worse across the board.
• 
  Cerydra →
  
  Phainon
  
  Anaxa
  
  Mydei
  
  Archer - Cerydra has enough teammates to avoid the Partner tag in theory. But unlike other characters she's close to non-functional outside of these characters, justifying the tag even though she doesn’t specifically fit within its definition. Phainon and Anaxa are the most common beneficiaries of Cerydra’s double skill capabilities, but Archer can also make use of her specifically when aiming at sustainless 3 support compositions. Finally Mydei, post Cyrene, also appreciates Cerydra but only when Cyrene is present. Outside of these scenarios Cerydra’s tier list rating falls dramatically.
• 
  Cyrene → Chrysos Heir - Like Cerydra, Cyrene technically works with a wide range of characters (all the Chrysos Heirs from 3.x) but outside of these she’s completely useless, justifying the Partner tag. In addition to this, for Cyrene to perform she needs to be paired with not just one, but multiple Heirs or her energy generation will suffer, impacting her performance and therefore tier list rating.

12/03/2026

It's time for another tier list update! Let's skip the intro this time and move straight to the juice.

Both

Sparxie

Pure Fiction changes:

• Even though
  
  Kafka received a major buff, the DoT archetype has continued to underperform moving into 4.0 in Pure Fiction coming off the back of 3.8 where they scored incredibly low for most players. Because of this we’re watchlisting
  
  Hysilens
  
  Black Swan and
  
  Kafka to move down if they don’t have a strong showing next phase.
• We kept
  
  Ruan Mei in T0.5 due to her universal nature and ability to be slotted generically into teams outside of Break. However she’s now seeing less use and success in that role moving into 4.0 and is also not comparable in value or power to The Dahlia for the Break archetype. Based on this we’re adjusting her position down for now.

Memory of Chaos changes:

• 
  Sparkle - Sparkle’s buff has been huge and has resulted in a meteoric rise in her meta relevance which is being reflected in her play rate and performance. As a result we’re moving her straight up to T0.
• 
  Archer - Archer is one of the main benefactors of the huge Sparkle buff and is now performing at a much higher level, allowing him to compete with the powerhouses of T0, so we’re moving him up alongside Sparkle.
• 
  Sunday - While Sparkle is winning, Sunday has lost ground in the meta as she’s taken quite a few of his spots in high end teams. This combined with the fact Phainon - one of his core team niches - isn’t performing as dominantly is enough that we’re dropping Sunday down the list for now.
• 
  Phainon - E0 Phainon has been consistently performing a step behind the current T0 roster in MoC. We’ve maintained is placement for a while but with Archer’s boost and Sparxie’s release that average has shifted even higher in 4.0. Phainon with Eidolons still remains an absolute powerhouse but at as the tier list is based on E0, we’re moving him out of T0 for now.
• 
  Cerydra - With Phainon moving down and Cerydra’s other primary carry Anaxa also being in T0.5 we’re also moving Cerydra down too. It’s true Cerydra is an option for the newly elevated Archer but we don’t feel it’s enough for her to maintain her T0 position currently.
• 
  Trailblazer • Harmony - Despite not having quite as stacked a kit as Fugue, Trailblazer Harmony is seeing strong usage and results thanks to their access to Dance Dance Dance which Fugue cannot use. This Cone alone closes the gap and allows her to compete in scoring, so we’re moving Trailblazer up to be with Fugue.
• 
  Firefly - Firefly’s buff has been announced so unless her dominance in scoring is taken to another level, we’ll be holding off on moving her up until it’s implemented.

13/02/2026

Finally, after the biggest drought in the history of Star Rail, the 4.0 patch is here! With it, comes a new path (Elation), featuring two new characters -

Sparxie

Sparkle

Black Swan

Let's talk about the new path first.

Sparxie

Oh, and also -

The next topic we want to discuss is the Break archetype. Across all three modes, the entire Break is thriving thanks to the release of the

Outside of that, we made A LOT changes to the tier list - in most cases, dropping characters down as the gap between the top performers and the rest grew as we got closer to the end of the 3.x patch. We won't provide a detailed changelog this time, because 70% of the tier list would have arrows that point down. Consider this more of a revamp of the tier list. Still, starting with the next update, the number of changes should be smaller, so detailed changelogs will return.

06/01/2026

Outside of Break, this MoC phase hasn’t seen too much need for adjustments of the tier list, because of this we’re leaving it as is for now.

Apocalyptic Shadow on the other hand has enough movement that we’ll be going through with some non-break changes.

• 
  March 7th • Evernight (DPS) T0.5 T0: Evernight continues to overperform compared to her current T0.5 placement as a solo DPS, so we're raising her ranking to T0 as she’s simply too consistently strong every phase.
• 
  Archer T0 T0.5: Archer had a rough time in 3.7 and has once again struggled in 3.8 as well. T0 requires consistency, and Archer currently isn’t displaying that. We’re moving him to T0.5 until he bounces back and is able to put up convincing clears even when enemies, buffs and weaknesses don’t favor him.
• 
  Saber &
  
  Feixiao - Saber and Feixiao both had a very tough time this AS phase, with the lack of Wind weakness, containing AoE mechanics and Saber specifically being dragged down on side 2 due to energy draining enemies. This patch is possibly just a 'black swan' event so we’ll be watchlisting them for now, but if they falter again we’ll have to consider adjusting their placement next time.
• 
  Himeko T4 T2: Although we’re not making large changes to Break this update, Himeko in AS is an exception as she now has proven results with the Dahlia showing she is at a minimum stronger than her previous rank of T4. Even if her results falter after the break shilling stops, we're confident she's worthy of at least placing her in T2 post The Dahlia’s release.
• 
  March 7th • The Hunt - March 7th Swordmaster is another beneficiary of The Dahlia releasing and is now being played in a new way as a main DPS. We’re not making adjustments to her this time, but are considering splitting her scores into main and support damage and double ranking her in future updates if she continues to see use in other modes and after the shilling stops.
• 
  Topaz & Numby T1 T1.5: Topaz’s previous niche alongside Feixiao has been eroded over time with many Feixiao players opting to play alongside double Harmony or bring one of the newer Follow-Up attackers who provide additional benefit like Tribbie or Cipher. Because of this, Topaz’s use cases have become far fewer resulting in her meta relevance diminishing. Based on this, her recent scores and play rate, we’re adjusting her rating.
• 
  Robin T0 T0.5: Robin, while still strong, is a far more situational support than the majority of top rated amplifiers currently residing in T0 - she has fewer top tier teams she’s best within and her play rate and scores reflect that. We don’t believe Robin has gotten much weaker, but the best DPS no longer consider her their top choice with specialized options like Cyrene and Cerydra taking up the spot Robin used to sit securely within instead.
• 
  Sparkle T0.5 T1: In the current meta Sparkle is primarily used alongside Archer or as a very lower priority pick for Phainon if you don’t have any of his better options. With her main niche being alongside Archer, who has been struggling and is moving down a tier this patch, we’re also adjusting Sparkle’s rating for now as well.