In this Honkai Star Rail Blade Build Guide we’re going to be covering the DPS Blade Build. He’s very good at dealing high single-target DPS, as well as AOE splash damage. On top of that, he has Wind-type damage, so upon breaking enemies toughness, he applies Wind Shear DoT. This build focuses on consuming Blade’s own HP, to deal a high amount of damage.

Honkai: Star Rail Blade Build Guide

Limited five-star DPS characters see a lot of contest, from both Limited and Standard Banner characters. So the decision to pull for Blade is a bit harder than pulling for a universal support character. Blade is from the Destruction path, and has the Wind element. So we can compare him directly to other characters from Destruction Path, such as Clara, Arlan, Hook, and the Imbibitor Lunae. This guide is not meant as a comparison, nor a tier list. So I’ll only touch on things that make Blade unique among Destruction characters.

Blade uses his skill to enchant his basic attack for four turns, which saves him a lot of SP. You can use this extra SP on another DPS character, making effective dual DPS teams. That’s his greatest strength, along with his powerful AOE damage. But scaling with HP stat, and consuming his own HP makes the choice of a support character for blade much more restrictive. Basically, his best use is with Bronya, a standard banner five-star that not everyone has. And his best defensive Support is Luocha, who’s a limited five-star character.

Blade builds tend to have a lot of HP, so while he drains his own life force, he’s still tanky enough. But to survive on low HP, he needs a lot of investment in his Relics. His Ultimate requires Blade to be on high HP to deal the most damage, which needs constant strong healing. So overall, he’s a powerful character, with caveats.

Blade Build Guide – Active Skills

Skill leveling Priority: Basic Attack > Skill > Ultimate > Talent

Forest of Swords – Normal/Enhanced Attack

In the ideal scenario, Blade will never use the normal version of his basic attack. His skill enhances his basic attack for 3 turns, plus the initial turn when skill is used. So with one skill point, he uses Enhanced Attack for four turns.

Enhanced Attack consumes 10% of Blade Max HP, and deals damage that scales with both Attack stat (poorly), and HP stat (Greatly). The damage to the main target has insane scaling, up to 100% of HP value before modifiers. Consider how Blade build HP stat that equals to double or triple the Attack stat on other DPS. So single target DPS can scale up to a very high ceiling.

The adjacent target gets hit for 40% of the damage dealt to the main target, which is the standard for splash damage. It increases Blade’s damage potential, especially on floors that have two bosses. It also applies two wind break units to all three targets.

Enhanced Attacks don’t generate Skill Points, so Blade can’t be SP-positive. He stays mostly neutral, or slightly negative, as he consumes only one SP per four turns.

Hellscape – Skill

Blade’s skill is a one-time use, which turns the basic attack to an enhanced version, and applies a buff. This buff is an all-around damage modifier, that applies to his whole kit and scales up to 40% value. It allows you to build Blade with more HP stats, instead of Wind Damage on Sphere for example.

The skill doesn’t generate energy and enters cooldown until the Hellscape buff runs out. However, using the skill doesn’t end Blade’s current turn, so he can use a free enhanced attack immediately after the skill. This bonus attack doesn’t consume turns from Hellscape buff, nor any of allies buffs. So it works as an indirect buff duration extension and can be very powerful with something such as Bronya’s Ultimate.

To utilize this buff extension, you should use Blade’s skill first, then use an ally’s Ultimate. Whether that’s Bronya’s, Asta’s, or Tingyun’s Ultimate. After using an ally’s Ultimate, you can go and do a buffed bonus enhanced attack, and the duration of the buff will stay the same.

Death Sentence – Ultimate

At the cost of 130 energy, Blade will deal massive damage to a single target, and splash damage to adjacent targets. Ultimate damage scale with both Attack stat (poorly), and HP stat (greatly). In addition to that, Blade deals additional damage that scales with HP Blade have lost since the last Ultimate. There’s a cap on the HP lost that converts to damage increase, which is 90% of Max HP. Blade may also lose more than that, but it will not convert to damage.

As Blade has a high energy cost, and his skill duration is long enough, he uses Ultimate once per 4-turn rotation. So he uses 4 Enhanced Attacks, that consume 40% of his HP. That stacks with the damage he takes from enemies, and the damage his Ultimate consumes. Casting Blade’s Ultimate will always set his HP to 50%. So if he has less than 50% HP when using an Ultimate, it works as a heal. And if he has more than 50% HP, it consumes the extra HP, and adds more damage to Ultimate.

This damage increase encourages Blade to use a healer, to constantly recover his HP. Or at the very least, recover his HP to a high percentage before he uses Ultimate.

Shuhu’s Gift – Talent

His Talent is a follow-up attack that hits all enemies with true AOE damage, so all enemies take the same damage. The condition to trigger the follow-up is gaining 5 charges. Blade gets a charge every time an enemy hits him, and a charge when he consumes his own HP. So each Enhanced attack gives one charge, and his Ultimate gives a charge only when you cast while over 50% HP. Also, his Technique, and skill give one extra charge.

In this Honkai Star Rail Blade Build, he has a higher-than-average taunt value, so enemies are more likely to attack him. That’s especially true if no Preservation character is present. Or placing him near another character with high aggro such as another Destruction character, to make Blade get hit by splash damage.

Karma Wind – Technique

Blade’s Technique is a simple attack that initiates combat, deals AOE damage and consumes Blade’s HP. It’s a great way to start battles, deal some damage, and gain charges towards Blade’s talent. It also helps Blade accumulate more “Consumed HP” to increase their Ultimate damage. That’s important in the first cycle, since all characters start at 50% energy, and Blade finds it hard to consume max 90% HP before his first Ultimate, so Technique helps.

Blade – Traces

Traces are passive skills that characters unlock after reaching certain ascension levels. For this Honkai: Star Rail Blade Build, you have to farm and spend resources to unlock Traces, but they give a huge advantage to Blade. As a Destruction damage dealer, he should prioritize all major Traces. All of them are very crucial in making him function as intended, as I will explain below. For minor Traces, he also cares much about them, since both HP and Crit Rate contribute a lot to his DPS.

Vita Infinita – Ascension 2

A dynamic increase in incoming healing Blade receives. If he gets below 50% HP, all healing incoming from all sources will be boosted by 20%. This helps Blade counter the high HP consumption his abilities do. It’s one of the reasons he sustains himself much better than any other unit because a small heal will be bigger on Blade.

This Trace also helps Blade stay above 50% to increase the damage of the Ultimate. So overall, it’s good for both offense and defense, so players must get it as soon as possible.

Neverending Deaths – Ascension 4

Another healing source for Blade is from Neverending Deaths at Ascension 4. Helping him to self sustain, even without a healer present. This Trace allows Blade to heal himself every time he hits a broken enemy. It scales with his own max HP, so it justifies giving Blade more HP stats. It also validates some niche solo builds for him, with full HP and self-sustain.

Cyclone of Destruction – Ascension 6

A6 Trace is a straight-up damage bonus to the follow-up talent. It increases the true AOE damage of talent by 20%, with no conditions. So It helps Blade get much more AOE damage, and makes his talent even more potent than his Ultimate.

Minor Traces

Blade gets ten minor stats increases, distributed as the following:

• HP (five nodes)
• Crit Rate (three nodes)
• Effect Res (two nodes)

These are all very offensive stats, as damage scaling from HP stat is intense, and it double dips on Ultimate. Crit Rate is also very potent and helps meet the condition of Blade’s best planetary Relic Set.

On the other hand, HP and Effect Res are decent defensive stats, for Blade to gain more survivability, and be less susceptible to enemy control. So all traces are worth investing in for Blade.

Blade – Light Cone

For this Honkai: Star Rail Blade Build, gear is a crucial part, and Light Cone is a major part of gearing. Blade scales an overwhelming amount of his damage with HP stat, so he cares about a Light Cone with high HP. He also prefers generic offensive stats, such as Crit, and Damage bonus.

Blade is of the “Destruction” Path, and among Light Cones of this path, there are specifically three light cones worth using.

Mutual Demise – Three Stars

The best free choice for Blade, which you get to Superimpose 5 pretty easily. All three stars Light Cones share the same basic stats, but Mutual Demise has a stronger passive. It increase the Crit Rate by a massive 24%, as long as Blade’s own HP is lower than 80%. And as Blade consume his own HP, he will be under 80% HP the overwhelming majority of the time.

The passive stacks well with Blade’s own Crit Rate from traces, and Relic set bonus. So Blade can reach 100% Crit Rate with Mutual Demise pretty easily, which is a massive increase in damage. Using Mutual Demise gives Crit Damage stat more value, and encourages a player to use it on Body Relic.

A Secret Vow – Four Stars

The best four-star option for Blade, It has the highest base HP among four stars, and very good passive. At Superimpose 1, Blade gets a straight-up 20% damage bonus. And if his HP gets lower than the enemy, he deals an extra 20% damage. But even without the conditional bonus, A Secret Vow is still the second-strongest Light Cone behind his signature.

At Superimposition 5, A Secret Vow gets even stronger, with a 40% damage multiplier, and a conditional extra 40% damage. There is a random chance to obtain this Light Cone from any banner, be it standard, limited, or Light Cone Banner. So over time, you will get several copies, and eventually reach Superimpose 5. It’s kind of a free option, that beats all five star options beside Blade’s own signature Light Cone. Which is a great power for something easy to obtain.

The Unreachable Side – Five Stars

A limited option comes only during Blade’s release and you must spend Jades to obtain it. There’s a 50/50 chance to get it. That’s a lot of spending for an upgrade on a single character. With the same amount of Jades, you could get two five-star characters, some of them might be even stronger than Blade altogether. So I recommend widening your roster of character and counter more enemies, instead of pulling a five star Light Cone.

That said, The Unreachable Side is a mix of the two previous Light Cones. It takes Crit Rate from Mutual Demise, and damage bonus from A Secret Vow, and adds higher base HP than both of them. So it’s an uncontested upgrade for Blade, if you are determined to prioritize vertical investment over widening your roster. This is something some players do after a year or so of pulling various characters and filling various roles.

Honkai: Star Rail Blade Build – Stats

In this Honkai: Star Rail Blade Build we’ll cover all four Relics slots: Head, Gloves, Body, and Feet. As well as the two accessories slots, Sphere and Rope. Head always comes with a Flat HP main stat, and Gloves comes with Flat Attack main stat. Then Body, Feet, Sphere, and Rope come with random stats. So gearing the Head and gloves will lean more towards finding the best sub stats, while other four have to also roll a good main stat.

For Blade, we prioritize “HP” main stat on most pieces if applicable, especially on Rope. That’s the single most impactful stat in Blade’s entire build. But with more HP stats from various sources, the value of more HP stats gets lower, so other offensive stats gets more value. That splits Blade builds into two archetypes: Full HP main stat on all pieces. An optimized Crit Damage, Speed, Wind, and HP stat, on Body, Feet, Sphere, and Rope respectively. In both scenarios, You need HP on Rope, then make a decision on the rest of the pieces as follows:

Speed V.S HP on Feet

Without a Bronya as support, or with a slow Bronya support, you are better with Speed tuning Blade. So you get him to pass one of the recommended speed thresholds, such as 121, or 136. But with super fast Bronya, Speed is much less valuable, and HP% on Feet is better.

The good thing about an HP main stat is how it’s easier to acquire. On average you also get better sub-stats on pieces with an HP main stat, because it’s less rarer than finding Speed on Feet.

Crit Damage V.S HP on Body

Again, Blade gets much higher Crit Damage with Bronya support, than any other support. Especially if she has high Energy Regeneration, and casts her Ultimate more often. So that team comp is much more forgiving, and has HP main stat on Body returning as good damage as Crit Damage.

The good thing about HP main stat is how it’s easier to acquire. On average you also get better sub-stats on pieces with a HP main stat, because it’s less rare than Crit Damage on Body.

On the other hand, most other situations prefer Crit Damage on Body, even with worse sub-stats. Blade has a very high Crit Rate from various sources, and the return of Crit Damage on Blade is higher than on other characters.

Wind Damage V.S HP on Sphere

A similar argument can be raised on using HP main stat versus wind damage main stat. Wind is typically better unless you get a lot of damage modifiers from LC and support characters. Bronya gives a Damage modifier buff on her skill, so if you spam her skill every turn, wind damage becomes less impactful.

A Secret Vow Light Cone also gives similar damage modifiers, so with this LC and Bronya, you find HP’s main stat on Sphere a more reasonable choice. But due to being closer in value, you can comfortably pick whichever piece has better sub-stats.

Sub-stats

You always prefer Crit, % HP, and Speed on sub-stats. Ignore Attack stats, because Blade scales very poorly with attack, like ten times worse than HP.

HP especially doubles as both offensive and defensive stat, and it double dips on Ultimate damage. So don’t underestimate HP sub-stats.

Honkai: Star Rail Blade Build – Relic Sets

There are many options for Relic Sets in this Honkai Star Rail Blade build. We aim to give players the best choice, and the most efficient alternatives. Relic sets come from farming Caverns of Corrosion, and Planetary Relic Sets come from the Simulated Universe. These domains drop two sets each, so the most effective way to farm, is picking a domain that drops two good sets, to equip Blade and another character or two. This lowers the Trailblazer Power cost to gear up your team.

Longevous Disciple – Relic Set

The newest Relic Set, introduced in version 1.2, along with Blade himself. It’s his signature Set, and synergize perfectly with him. With 12% HP bonus on two pieces, and a conditional 16% Crit Rate bonus on four pieces. The condition to get the Crit rate is having wearer consume their HP, or get hit. Blade is one of the most consistent character to trigger this bonus. With him having a higher chance of being attacked and consuming his HP constantly.

The overall stats from this set are higher than any other set. So it’s the best four pieces you can use on Blade without a doubt. It helps Blade get a Crit rate near 100%, and allow him to use Crit Damage Body, to increase his damage a lot.

But that said, it’s not the sole option for Blade, as some hybrid comps can come close to its performance especially when mixing two pieces. Two pieces from two different sets yield better sub-stats overall.

2x Longevous Disciple + 2x Messenger Traversing Hackerspace – Relic Set

Using two pieces with an HP bonus, and two pieces with a speed bonus is a comfortable choice. These two sets come from the same Cavern of Corrosion, so you can get this up and running easily. It takes much less Trailblazer power and can be used as a step towards endgame.

2x Longevous Disciple + 2x Eagle of Twilight Line – Relic Set

Another hybrid option is to use the two pieces of HP and two pieces of Wind damage. That’s usually a good combo, that deals the second-highest damage after full 4x Longevous Disciple.

It requires pieces from two different Caverns of Corrosion, and one of them is not typically worth farming for blade. The wind set has been more suitable for support characters, such as Bronya. But since version 1.2, the speed set became a better replacement. So farming wind set nowadays is only worth it if you have characters to utilize the other set dropped in the same Cavern of Corrosion, which is an Ice Set.

Overall, I recommend farming the new domain, with speed and HP sets. You can equip Blade and several other characters with pieces from it.

Rutilant Arena – Planetary Ornament

This set is the best for Blade, especially in endgame where you can easily achieve over 70% Crit Rate. This set gives an 8% extra Crit Rate, and a conditional 20% damage increase to a normal attack. The overwhelming majority of Blade’s damage comes from his normal (enhanced) attacks; So this set is uncontested best in slot, assuming Blade meets the high Crit Rate condition.

Inert Salsotto – Planetary Ornament

This set is very similar to Rutilant Arena, but boosts ultimate and follow-up damage. It has lesser damage potential but can be used temporarily if Blade has a Crit Rate over 50%, and can’t reach 70% (with the bonus of Longevous Disciple counted for).

But usually, there are other characters who are better suited to use Inert Salsotto, rather than Blade.

Honkai: Star Rail Blade Build – Team Composition

Due to unique design, and scaling damage on HP stat, rather than attack, Blade is not a flexible character. A lot of the support characters don’t buff him, so he needs very specific characters to pair with, such as Bronya. However, he consumes a lot less SP than other DPS characters, so he can use a secondary DPS on the team, instead of ineffective buffers.

For the defensive support slot, Blade doesn’t really need shielders and needs a healer. And among healers, Blade doesn’t cope with an accessible four star option such as Natasha. Instead, he highly prefers Luocha. So between Blade, Luocha, and Bronya, that’s three characters with five-star rarity! The fourth best character is either Silver Wolf, or a five-star character again. This makes Blade effectively the most expensive character to build, and the hardest to maximize for a F2P player.

But whether, you are lucky and got all these five stars. Or you like Blade and don’t care about dealing the highest damage, I’ll explain to you in the next section how to build a team for Blade, and use accessible and valid alternatives if possible.

A competent Healer from Abundance Path

Blade outright consumes his own HP, and on top of that, encourages enemies to attack him. So he will lose HP fast, really fast. Due to having high total HP, his abilities consume a larger amount of HP. So after a couple of attacks, you find yourself in dire need of a healer to recover all this HP lost.

So the classic playstyle of using Natasha, keeping her as a Normal attack spammer, and occasionally using her Ultimate to AOE heal the team is not suitable for Blade. He not only loses HP faster, and is near death. He also loses damage if his HP is not over 50% when he casts an Ultimate. Therefore, Blade highly recommended having a five-star healer such as Bailu, or Luocha on the team. The latter being much more dependable because he auto-heals when Blade’s HP goes below 50%.

Luocha is a perfect fit for the Blade team, because he has the strongest heal, on top of generating excessive SP. You can either use the SP for Luocha himself to heal in tight situations. Otherwise, use SP on a support such as Bronya to give Blade double the number of turns. Or just use a secondary DPS to boost team damage.

On the other hand, Bailu provides strong burst healing, as well as reactive healing when allies lose HP. So she will be able to sustain Blade’s HP, on top of giving him an HP buff to increase his damage.

Finally, Lynx releasing in version 1.3 might be a reasonable pick, depending on how competent her heal is.

A specific offensive support from Harmony Path

When it comes to buffing Blade’s damage, you will find a hard time getting much out of most attack buffers. His attack stat scales very poorly, and there are no HP buffers in Harmony Path. So he has to rely on generic Crit and Damage buffs. Bronya is the perfect match with Blade, she’s the best support he can use. At the same time, Blade is the only character that can fully utilize her skill, since his attacks don’t consume SP 75% of the time.

Bronya buffs Crit damage with ultimate, buff character damage and advances their turn with skill. Also add another damage buff from her A6, by merely being in the team and alive. Blade can utilize all these buffs to the full extent, especially the Crit Damage buff since he can reach 100% Crit Damage.

Bronya and Blade share the same wind element, so they are a good match for mono-wind teams, but that’s a niche team for another guide. For the standard play, Bronya can spam her skill every turn, to double Blade’s turns.

On the other hand, a pure attack buffer, such as Tingyun, is a very bad match for Blade. While a speed buffer such as Asta is somewhere in the middle, as her Attack buffs go to waste, her speed can help Blade squeeze even more turns in a small number of cycles.

There’s a case to be made for Yukong, but she’s still not ideal pick. But since Bronya is a five-star character from the standard banner, which not everyone has, you can cope with Yukong, and use a secondary DPS. So Yukong buffs two characters, instead of one.

Silverwolf, or a secondary dps from Erudition or Destruction Path

Being a debuffer from Nihility Path, Silver Wolf’s abilities don’t interact with allies, but enemies instead. She reduces enemy Def, reduces enemy resistance, and reduces their speed and Attack. These debuffs affect all damage enemies receive, regardless of source, elemental type, or which stat it scales on. So Silver Wolf is always a brilliant choice to increase the damage of any character.

On top of that, Silverwolf applies Elemental weakness matching team elements. So she will enable Blade to cause windbreak, on enemies that don’t have wind weakness initially. Then Silver Wolf herself can inflict the breaking hit, for a Quantum break, which deals a lot of damage in a delayed manner.

If you don’t have Silver Wolf or don’t have much investment in Blade to play as a hyper-carry, you can use a secondary DPS instead. I prefer pairing Blade with another AOE DPS, for the endgame stages that have two bosses. Himeko is a great option to pair with Blade, since Blade causes a lot of Breaks to trigger her follow-up attack.

Another alternative to Himeko is Herta, but she needs a lot of investment and deals less damage. But you can also use Serval, or Clara.

Final Tips

Blade is a great pick, if your account is stacked with proper five-star supports, and good Light Cones. To get the best out of him, you need a highly invested team. His full potential is not yet unlocked, so keep an eye out for future characters that either help drain team HP or buff team HP.

Wind Break can stack Wind Shear DoT several times, so there’s value in pairing Blade with another Wind damage dealer. The standard suggestion is Sampo, especially if you have Silver Wolf to force wind weakness on every enemy. However, since this Honkai Star Rail Blade build doesn’t have access to a Defensive Support with Wind or the Quantum Element, a mono Wind team is a bit harder to pull off. It will make Silver Wolf’s weakness infliction more random, and based on RNG.

The best thing in Blade’s entire kit is saving SP, so you can either utilize Bronya’s skill every turn, or use a secondary DPS. So there are some unique comps you can come up with, depending on the enemy lineup, and status of your account.

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Stay tuned for more Honkai: Star Rail Guides. For more Honkai: Star Rail content, check our Honkai Star Rail Guide: 5 Best Eidolons, as well as our Honkai Star Rail Guide: Best Relics To Farm. For more team builds, check out our Yukong Mono Imaginary Team Guide.