As for Honkai Star Rail, support characters have a definite role to get more effectiveness of a team, by boosting the damage, healing, putting debuffs, and providing utility.
By November 2024, there have in fact been changes to the support tier list as some characters are virtually a necessity in certain team strategies.
The knowledge of the pros and cons of each support is crucial for bringing together proper teams to fight through some of the most challenging content. For a comprehensive guide, check out the Honkai Star Rail tier list to see where each character ranks.
Top Support Characters (SS Tier)
Support characters within the SS-tier provide skills the likes of which would be hard to attain naturally and are therefore fundamental to have. They usually introduce unique benefits or maluses that have the potential to turn the tide on any fight. In this tier, top characters are also noticed, for example Ruan Mei and Aventurine are two of the most skilled characters. For example there is Ruan Mei who gives buffs that are based on defense penetration also base on Break DMG which makes her suitable specially for higher level enemies. Aventurineβs trigger that allows him to stack shields and raise the CRIT DMG inflicted on enemies, guarantees he can boost damage and support the team.
Other team-fighting SS-tiers supports are Robin and Sparkle with the mobility of the entire team and buffs respectively. They excel in high stress situations, which means that they perform very well in end game mechanics where durability and threat per second meter is incredibly important.
Key S-Tier Supports
Of course, S-tier supports arenβt as utility wise diverse as SS-tier characters but they are nonetheless valuable assets in any team composition. Just like Jiaoqiu and Huohuo have increased support skills that have the potential to give the team that game changing moment, especially when theyβd be with the right DPS teammates. For example, Pela is famous for her abilities to CC enemies and remove their benefits, which makes her the most valuable asset for teams that like to rely on heir burst damage. Bronya and Fu Xuan are also belong to S-tier, because they have especial buffs or debuffs skills to control the fight pace.
These supports need more money as it pertains to gear and Eidolons which will be useful from the correct building because they bolster a group that comprises of offense and defense in contrasted teams.
A-Tier Support Characters
Utility provided by A-tier characters such as Luocha and Gepard actually stands as quite powerful but their performance will heavily depend on more particular team compositions or the investment in Eidolons. Luocha has full abilities to heal the team but lacks the same strong cards as the other Epic heroes to enhance the DPS capacity making him unpopular among high DPS heroes. Another example of the A-tier support is Gallagher; even though he is strong in Break teams, he needs more than one Eidolon to unleash their potential, including powerful de-buff clearing.
These characters are relatively balanced, but they wonβt shine as brightly as you may have seen in characters at higher tiers. However, as pretrained, high quality A-tier supports can be invaluable to balance, team cohesiveness, and viability.
B-Tier Supports and Their Role
B-tier supports may be less effective than the respective Higher Ranks. S-tier supports can be either less skilled or rely on team composition. Such characters as Luka can be referred to this category of anime characters such as Nakazawa Nobita. As such, despite this, they offer limited use on the battlefield and their damage efficacy decreases in the absence of Eidolon enhancements or other teammates. These characters can still be quite useful in right now, or low-level content, but they are absolutely horrible for end-game play, according to the Honkai Star Rail tier list.