Honkai Star Rail: Best support characters, ranked

Honkai: Star Rail players know that a terrific character can make all the difference between a great fight and a massacre. The tendency is to focus on the damage dealers, but there’s a defensive aspect to battle. That component means you also need to consider who will keep your sluggers in fighting shape. Here is our guide ranking the best support characters in Honkai: Star Rail.

Note: We’ll have a Honkai: Star Rail guides and features hub soon, so stay tuned.

Best Honkai Star Rail support characters, ranked

There are numerous factors to consider as you settle on the characters you will improve. Always remember that the best support character for your team is the one that works best alongside the other characters. You need characters who fulfill roles and keep things balanced, plus you need to consider elements. With that said, here’s our ranking in descending order.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

10. Asta (Fire)

If you have one fire character, such as Fire Trailblazer or Himeko, and you want a second one on your team, Asta is a good choice to support that approach. She also can improve general stats. Unfortunately, since your team can only consist of four members, Asta just doesn’t do enough to earn a recommendation on a consistent basis. You’re better off spending resources to develop more versatile characters first, most likely. I gave her a shot, but she never really impressed me.

9. Pela (Ice)

I’m not big on Pela because she uses ice-based skills. That affinity puts her in competition with March 7th and Gepard, who both provide better defensive capabilities for the team. Pela takes a more offensive approach with her support, debuffing enemies so you can hit them harder. But there are better options on that front, as well, meaning she’s never likely to absolutely shine.

8. Tingyun (Lightning)

Unfortunately for Tingyun, there are readily available, powerful characters with lightning attacks (if you put together the best Serval build, for instance, she can be lethal). The ready availability of lightning users means that Tingyun’s offensive capabilities are nothing special. However, she does improve damage output for her allies. That makes her a solid component of any offense-focused team, when someone better like Bronya isn’t available.

7. Natasha (Physical)

If you need a healer and you haven’t secured Bailu for your team, Natasha is an acceptable alternative. She has decent healing capabilities. For me, I kept drawing her, which meant I was also able to improve her Eidolons without really trying. With such enhancements, she can be a strong ally when you face enemies weak to physical damage and don’t want to use the Trailblazer. That situation comes up more often than you might suppose.

6. Trailblazer (Fire)

Depending on how your luck goes, you might not get a useful fire character for some time. When you do, that character might be the Fire Trailblazer. They hit enemies hard with fire damage, plus their taunts draw enemy attacks that might cripple less defensive team members. If you focus on building them into a DEF powerhouse, they can serve as a reliable ally in the battles to come, particularly when farming or diving into some portions of the Simulated Universe.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

5. Welt (Imaginary)

Early in the campaign, you’ll encounter a number of enemies that are weak to imaginary damage. Welt is your option when you want to hit them in that weak point. He’s also terrific at slowing powerful foes long enough that you can hit them for decent damage or perhaps inflict status ailments. Finally, he makes short work of their toughness meter, which is good if you team him with characters who can then rack up a lot of damage in a hurry.

4. Gepard (Ice)

Gepard is basically a better version of March 7th, capable of both shielding his team from area attacks and inflicting powerful ice damage. However, he’s not as readily available, since you have to draw him first, and then draw him again to improve his Eidolons. Unless you’re ready to spend a lot of real-world money, that fact hurts his ranking a bit.

3. Bronya (Wind)

Sometimes, you just want a team that hits hard. Bronya can make that happen. Most of her skills focus on improving ATK, plus she can also tend to status ailments that might get in the way. However, you’ll be better off using a different character (such as Dan Heng) if you need to focus on enemies that are weak to wind attacks.

2. Bailu (Lightning)

If you draw Bailu, you’re in luck. Her Ultimate heals all party members at once. Even her standard ability provides powerful healing to a single ally that may spill over to one or two others. She can take your party from almost dead to perfect health in a single round, and she’s especially useful on difficult deep dives in the Simulated Universe stages. Although she can deal lightning damage, she’s almost purely about support and is good at it even if you haven’t been able to tend to her Eidolons.

1. March 7th (Ice)

This might seem like a controversial pick. But for free-to-play people like me, March 7th is the gift that keeps giving. She blocks one ally at a time from taking damage that might otherwise prove fatal. Then she counter-attacks with ice damage on their behalf. This makes her a solid choice even for players who don’t know how to do follow-up attacks in Honkai: Star Rail. She’ll make them happen by accident. As you level up her Traces, she also removes status ailments from allies. Plus, her Ultimate deals powerful AoE damage that can prevent mobs from chipping away at your life meter. At least until content updates come along and require specialization, March 7th has what it takes to carry your party through everything it might encounter.

Early on, you’ll probably focus on building up four characters who can carry you through the story campaign. You won’t have a lot of reason to focus on more than one or perhaps two support characters. Later, you need to field multiple teams for the Forgotten Hall. Even then, you need to make careful choices about which of the above characters you develop. Always aim for the best team comps in Honkai: Star Rail to spare yourself eventual disappointment.

Honkai: Star Rail is available via its official website.