Honkai: Star Rail Blade Guide

Honkai: Star Rail’s version 1.2 is up and with it is the arrival the game’s first featured character, the Stellaron Hunter Blade. Here’s our guide on how to effectively use this character.

Blade is a Wind Destruction character that when invested properly can prove to be one of Honkai Star Rail’s highest-damaging AOE dealers that is definitely worthy of a slot in your 4-hero roster.

Overview

In a nutshell Blade delivers a decent amount on single target damage but the highlight of his kit really is his more than extraordinary area of effect damage which is at par or more with some of the the best 5-star characters in the game. What’s also great about this character is he is very skill point efficient meaning with the right team composition (spoiler: Luocha!), you can divert those all-important SP to your other characters. What he does consume though is his life points as he scales off HP instead of attack which may sound scary at first, again with the right team comp this drawback is mostly mitigated.

Talent and Skill

Like I mentioned Blade’s kit is directed towards HP and taking a lot of damage as he possibly can, whether from others or from his own doing. With that knowledge in mind when building him you would most certainly want to focus most of your stats to HP rather than attack as much as possible.

His talent, called Shulu’s Gift is what makes the character special as it gives him a special buff that stacks every single time his HP is reduced during fights – this includes damage coming from enemies and even from your own skill. He really reminds me of the Ninja (Grey Fox) in Metal Gear Solid especially with his line “hurt me more!” Shulu’s Gift is really an integral part of his kit.

Blade’s skill, Hellscape might surprise you as it really doesn’t provide any damage to enemies but instead gives a self-buff which changes the way you run your character. Aside from the expected 1 skill point usage, it also deals 30% of Blade’s HP. As you might think, by activating this skill it also grants 1 charge for Shulu’s Gift, so they really go hand-in-hand. You really want to keep this buff from the skill active as much as you can to maximize his damaging potential.

With that in mind, a good tip is before using his basic attack, check first if the Hellscape buff is active as to maximize the enhanced version of his basic, called Forest of Swords (blast) which not only enhances his attack, providing a significant damage to a single target and a decent chunk to adjacent enemies, it also provides a significant boost in energy regeneration. Using Forest of Swords also takes out 10% of Blade’s HP but you guessed it – provides an additional stack for Shulu’s Gift.

Techinque and Ultimate

Blade’s technique – Karma Wind is your typical tech attack that you can initiate prior to entering combat. The important thing to note here is that the technique also consumes 20% of Blade’s HP which as you would have figured out by now, gives another stack for Shulu’s Gift.

Blade’s ultimate – Death Sentence is the apotheosis of this characters kit. It costs 130 energy and is blast AOE attack. It deals 2 break units of toughness to the intended target and 1 unit to each adjacent enemy. The most important thing to note here though are the other bells and whistles that his ult provides. Death Sentence scales this attack from his max life which is similar to his other actions and passives. If you think that’s not enough it also has an additional effect which scales to how much Blade has taken damage before using his ult. This has a cap of 90% damage taken so for those who like living on the edge, consider taking a considerable damage first before activating his ultimate.

You might wonder, with all that life lost how can Blade cope in the event a support hero already used up his turn (or if you have just a few skill points). Luckily when using his ultimate it also has somewhat of a life steal effect that sets Blade’s HP to 50% of his maximum life. Talk about a whew! moment.

Trace Priority

Prioritize on his Basic Attack first then you can build up on levelling his Talent and Ultimate at the same time, followed by his Skill as the last priority.

Trace Priority (Major Traces)

For the other nodes in his trace tree, once it is active get Cyclone of Destruction first, followed by Neverending Deaths and lastly, Vita Infinita.

Relic Set

His best relic set hands-down is Longevous Disciple which is a new set that became available to farm in the Cavern of Corrosion: Path of Elixir Seekers for version 1.2. When completed, it increases Blade’s Max HP by 12% (2-set) and when the wearer is hit or has their HP consumed by an ally or themselves, their CRIT Rate increases by 8% for 2 turn(s) and up to 2 stacks (4-set).

Relic Main Stats

Here’s the stats you need to look out for when farming for a specific piece:

Body: CRIT DMG

Feet: Speed

For the other relic parts, the substats to consider prioritizing are as follows: CRIT Rate = CRIT DMG > Speed > HP%

Planar Sphere and Link Rope

The best and easiest set to farm (because probably you have this already) is Inert Salsotto. When you have these bear in mind the following stats:

Planar Sphere: Wind DMG

Link Rope: HP%

Light Cones

As expected, his signature light cone called The Unreachable Side is by far the best for him and there really is no competition. For free to play a great alternative is On the Fall of an Aeon considering that you superimposed it to level 5. But when using this you need to assume that Blade does his weakness breaks after using his ultimate.

Best Team Composition

His best team composition unfortunately makes up of all 5-star characters. Bronya feels like she is really made for Blade (sorry Seele shippers) because of the huge buffs she can give at the same time bumps up the action priority for him because of her skill. Silver Wolf on the other hand generates a lot of debuffs on the enemy while also giving the chance to place an elemental weakness that Blade can capitalize on. For this lineup though the most crucial character that absolutely needs to be included is Luocha, who is by far the best support healer in the game. Not only can he heal without spending any life points, his Circle of Life talent gives everyone a pseudo life steal ability which keeps our team topped-up in the HP department. This is a very skill point efficient team as 2 out of the 4 characters (Blade, Luocha) really don’t consume a lot of SP so this resource can be diverted to both Bronya and Silver Wolf.

Best Team Composition (Free to Play)

On the free to play side you can’t go wrong with 4-star characters like Natasha and Pela. Pela can be a great replacement for Silver Wolf because of her defense shred and Natasha is a good all-around healer that you get for free. Bronya is really essential in this lineup but if she didn’t come home yet, you can use Tingyun for her attack buff as an alternative substitute.

Thank you so much for reading this guide for Blade! Are you pulling for him or are you eagerly waiting for mommy Kafka? Let us know in the comments below and as always, keep on gaming!

Honkai: Star Rail is available to download for free now for PC, Android and iOS devices.