Honkai: Star Rail tier list for the best characters

You could argue that it's a bit early to declare a definitive Honkai: Star Rail tier list since players are still levelling their chosen characters, unlocking bonus abilities, and accessing new Equilibriums to play higher level content. It'll be a while before the meta is entirely established, but some characters are already clear frontrunners for their roles.

Honkai: Star Rail characters are far more clear-cut than those in Genshin Impact, mainly due to the path system, which defines each squadmate's specific role and what their suite of abilities makes them good at. Building an Erudition path character to try and deal lots of damage to single targets, for example, would be pointless when you can just use a Hunt character for it.

Star Rail is the kind of game that wants you to level lots of characters, so you can have different party comps to deal with challenging battles and specific boss weaknesses. But, as ever, the best characters are those that you like and choose to invest in. As with Genshin, any character can be strong for their given role if you're willing to invest in building them and unlocking their Eidolon special abilities by acquiring further copies of them. That said, here's what we think of the Star Rail characters so far and how good they are, though these rankings will likely change over time.

The best Honkai: Star Rail characters

S-tier

A-tier

B-tier

C-tier

Honkai: Star Rail free characters

Besides Trailblazer, there are six free characters in Honkai: Star Rail. Here's who they are and how to get them: 

• March 7th: On Herta Space Station after you complete the Kafka section.
• Dan Heng: On Herta Space Station after you complete the Kafka section.
• Asta: Your first Warp just after you arrive at Asta on the station.
• Herta: Obtained after completing "Simulated Universe: First Closed Beta" mission.
• Natasha: Obtained after completing the "Lying in Rust" mission.
• Qingque: Obtained after completing Memory Stage 3 of The Forgotten Hall.

Honkai: Star Rail pity system

There is a pity system in Honkai: Star Rail that guarantees specific character or Light Cone drops after a certain number of warps on each banner. Here's how it works:

There's also an extra pity system on the standard banner that guarantees a five-star of your choice after 300 warps.