Honkai Star Rail: Best Team Builds

The best team builds in Honkai Star Rail are few, and though crowning one the greatest depends on the situation, two stand out in the deep endgame. The bosses you’re fighting in Memory of Chaos and Simulated Universe matter and dictate who you’ll choose. That isn’t saying you can make an incredibly strong team outside of the parameters laid out here, but there are only a few top-tier choices for sheer efficiency.

Best Team Builds in Honkai Star Rail Table of Contents

In our guide below, we’ll cover the best team builds in Honkai Star Rail, including:

• The best Hypercarry team.
  • Important Hypercarry Light Cones.
  • Important Hypercarry Relics.
  • Important Hypercarry Traces.
• The best Free-to-Play teams.
  • Team 1.
  • Team 2.

The Best Hypercarry Team

This is the best team build in Honkai Star Rail:

• DPS: Seele/Yanqing, Welt, or Clara, if you missed Seele’s banner
• Buff/Debuff: Bronya, Tingyun/Silver Wolf
• Support: Luocha/Bailu

A “hypercarry” team is a team that revolves around buffing a single character to their maximum possible potential and heavily debuffing any enemies that main DPS will attack. There have been some serious upgrades to a solid hypercarry team since Honkai: Star Rail‘s release, and the one I’m showcasing in this guide is almost too strong.

Seele remains the queen of single-target DPS in almost every situation. While you can build four-star characters to be comparable, you usually need advanced Eidolons to do so. Seele doesn’t. She’s a monster straight out of the box. If you didn’t grab Seele during her initial banner, Welt and Clara can be solid substitutes, though you’ll need to build them slightly differently, with Yanqing occupying the same slot as Seele for Light Cones.

Bronya is your best possible buff, and adding Silver Wolf gives you access to a bevy of debuffs that can turn even the toughest enemies into paper; her ability to add Weaknesses and bugs that reduce enemy Attack, Defense, and apply slow are key. Her Ult also applies a massive Defense reduction on top of solid Quantum damage.

And for healing, the only top-tier choice in the current meta is Luocha (can personally confirm). He might lack Bailu’s revive, but his healing output is higher, he can remove debuffs from the team and remove buffs from enemies, and he can use his Skill automatically for free. If you missed his banner, you can still use Bailu, as she remains a solid option.

Related: Best Natasha Build, Relics, and Light Cones in HSR

Hypercarry Team Light Cones

• Seele/Yanqing will want either Seele’s five-star Light Cone, In the Night, or Yanqing’s five-star, Sleep Like the Dead. Cruising in the Stellar Sea from Simulated Universe is a good third five-star choice. Four-star options include Subscribe for More and Only Silence Remains.
• Buff characters, especially Bronya, will benefit most from her signature five-star called But the Battle Isn’t Over, with the four-star Past and Future or Dance! Dance! Dance! Cones being good alts.
• Healers should use the five-star Light Cones Echoes of the Coffin or Time Waits for No One. If you don’t have those, the four-star Cones Post-Op Conversation and Shared Feeling are good subs. If you build around it, Perfect Timing is also a good choice.

Hypercarry Team Relics

All characters should have Relics that increase their relevant stats:

• Seele should focus on Crit%, Crit Damage, and Quantum Damage Increase. Some Break Effect will only make her more effective.
• Bronya needs Crit Damage to increase the buff her Ultimate provides, plus HP and Defense for survivability.
• Silver Wolf lives and dies by her Effect Hit Rate, but if you put money into her Eidolons, Quantum Damage and Attack are also useful.
• Luocha needs Attack, HP, Break Effect, and Defense, as his healing relies on the first, and the other three provide survivability and utility.

Hypercarry Team Traces

The same is true for Traces for this best team build. Don’t level up any Trace that doesn’t benefit a character’s purpose. For instance, improving Bronya’s Basic Attack is a waste of materials. Depending on your weakness break needs, you can swap out Bronya in this grouping for a debuff character like Welt or Pela.

The Best Free-to-Play Team Builds

If you don’t want to spend a cent on Honkai: Star Rail (I don’t, and through a bit of luck and a reroll, I managed to get the hypercarry team outlined above), you don’t have to. Not a single five-star is required to make some of the best teams in Honkai Star Rail, and plenty of them can take on the highest-level content.

Best Honkai: Star Rail Free to Play Team Build 1

• DPS: Sushang/Yanqing
• AoE/Debuff: Serval/Jing Yuan, Pela/Tingyun
• Support: Natasha/Bailu

This first F2P team build is a bit all-purpose. Sushang and Yanqing offers solid single-target DPS, and Serval and Pela provide AoE and DoT damage, respectively. Pela pulls double duty as a debuff via her Ultimate and her ability to remove buffs from enemies. Serval or Jing Yuan are great for AoE and supplemental damage, and Tingyun is never a bad choice if you have her — even at E0 — as any DPS benefits from having her on the team. Natasha is and will always be a workhorse healer, despite occupying a lower tier than both Luocha and Bailu. If you happened to get Bailu, then definitely add her to your comp, but she’s not required.

F2P Team Build 1 Light Cones

• The Light Cones for this team are similar to the Hypercarry team, with Sushang or Yanqing and Tingyun getting the same four-star ones as Seele and Bronya.
• Serval can use either The Seriousness of Breakfast or Genius’s Repose.

F2P Team Build 1 Relics

• Sushang would do well with the Champion of Streetwise Boxing set as a physical attacker, thanks to its Physical Damage bonus and the stacking damage buff with four pieces equipped.
• Yanqing can use the Hunter of Glacial Forest or the Muskateer of Wild Wheat.
• Serval, Pela, and Asta can use the Thief of Shooting Meteor set.
• March 7th would do well with the Knight of Purity Palace set.

Honkai: Star Rail Best Free-to-Play Team 2

• DPS: Qingque
• Buff/Debuff: Tingyun, Pela
• Support: Natasha

You’d be surprised how effective Qingque can be if you build into her. Or maybe not, if you’ve seen some of the wild challenges she’s made seem trivial. She’s pretty skill point heavy, but with Tingyun and Pela on your squad, you can afford to spend a bit more freely making this team a more cost effective hypercarry. Tingyun’s buffs are as potent as ever, and Pela’s there to provide Ice coverage and debuffs as usual.

F2P Team Build 2 Light Cones

• Light Cone choices for this second team remain essentially the same, save for Qingque, who needs the likes of Make the World Clamor, Today is Another Peaceful Day, and Genius’s Repose.
• Tingyun gets Bronya’s four-star options as usual, with Nat taking her standards as well.

F2P Team Build 2 Relics

• Qingque relies primarily on her Attack stat to fuel her damage potential, so Muskateer of Wild Wheat can be your go-to, as can Genius of Brilliant Stars with Attack as its main stat.
• The rest of the team gets their standard loadouts.

And those are the best team builds in Honkai: Star Rail. Which you pick depends on the characters you have available and how much you’re willing to spend on the game/how long you’ve been playing for access to certain characters. The game’s highest-difficulty content requires eight fully-geared characters, so feel free to experiment to find a team that works best for you. For additional help HoYoverse’s latest, we have guides to all the upcoming characters, our character tier list, and a beginner’s guide for new players over in our HSR guides hub.