The best follow-up attack characters in Honkai: Star Rail

Honkai: Star Rail's turn-based combat system involves building a team of up to four characters, each with their own abilities that they can unleash when it's their turn. In some cases, however, you don't always have to follow the turn system, such as when using characters' ultimates, as well as launching follow-up attacks.

Follow-up attacks are attacks that can be triggered automatically when turn order is ignored, and are an integral part of some characters' kits. With the release of supports that significantly strengthen follow-up attacks like Topaz, Sparkle, and Robin, you may want to consider building these follow-up attack-based characters.

Updated by Sanyam Jain on December 01, 2024: With more characters released in Honkai: Star Rail, the developers have made their vision for follow-up characters quite clear. You may not get much value from these characters by themselves, but when placed in a cohesive team, these units can surprise you.

12 Xueyi

• Rarity: four stars
• Type: quantum
• route: destruction

Xueyi's playstyle involves gaining Karma stacks for her talent, Karmic Perpetuation, which can be gained when she or her allies lower the toughness of enemies. As the hardness decreases, more stacks of Karma are added, and after gaining eight stacks, she immediately consumes them all to launch a follow-up attack.

What makes Xueyi low on this list is because her follow-up attacks aren't her main source of DMG, as both her Skill and Ultimate deal a lot of DMG, with her Ultimate also ignoring weaknesses. Furthermore, it takes a really long time to get stacks for his follow-up attack which makes it not worth focusing on.

11 blade

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: the wind
• route: destruction

The silent swordsman Blade is a member of the Stellaron Hunters who possesses self-healing abilities in both his lore and in-game. His playstyle revolves around sacrificing his HP to both deal DMG with his abilities and charge his talents, Shuhu's gifts:

• Whenever a blade receives DMG or consumes its own HP, it gains a stack, up to a maximum of five.
• At max stacks, immediately launches a follow-up attack on all enemies and restores his HP.

Unlike the previous characters on this list, Blade's follow-up attack contributes a significant portion of his DMG and can damage all enemies on the field. You can easily stack it as Blade can already get three stacks in just one turn using his ultimate, skill, and enhanced basic attack.

10 Aventurine

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: imaginary
• route: Protection

Aventurine is a durable character who can summon stackable shields for his entire team with his skills and follow-up attacks. With his talent, Shot Loaded Right, he gains the following effects:

• When shielded allies are attacked, Blind gains a stack of bets.
• After reaching seven stacks of Blind Bet, random enemies consume seven stacks to launch a multi-hit follow-up attack and create a shield for all allies after unlocking their third bonus ability, Bingo!

Depending on how you choose to build him, Aventurine's follow-up attack can turn him into a critical sub-DMG dealer, or a reliable sustainer with his never-ending shields. The best part is that you can choose to run him without using any skill points, and he will still be able to protect your team.

9 Herta

• Rarity: four stars
• Type: the ice
• route: the knowledge

Herta was promoted as one of the weakest characters in the game and was only good for farming weak mobs on auto mode. However, with the addition of Pure Fiction, a game mode focusing on AoE DMG, Herta and her swirling follow-up attacks began to see the spotlight once again.

With her talent, Well, I'll Do It Myself When an ally's attack drops an enemy below 50 percent HP, Herta will launch a follow-up attack and deal DMG to all enemies. What's great about her follow-up attack is that it can be triggered multiple times in a single action, making Herta spin non-stop and devastate AoE phases.

8 Jade

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: quantum
• route: the knowledge

While most of the combat in Honkai: Star Rail is AoE-based, Erudition has long suffered as a route. This is mainly due to the fact that units from this path have a lot of constraints on the amount of damage they can take. Argenti is a perfect example of needing great supports like Tingyun and Huohuo for his ultimates.

However, Jade's release significantly improved Erudition's situation as she can buff a specific ally while the buffed ally also deals a ton of extra damage based on the number of attacking units. This makes him act as both a sub-DPS and a buffer, making him a great pairing for most AoE units.

7 of snow

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: the fire
• route: the knowledge

Another “underhelming” version is that of the 1.0 character Hime, who accidentally formed an auto follow-up combo with Herta, allowing an endless cycle of follow-up attacks between the two. Like Herta, the release of Pure Fiction allowed her to shine once again, as her follow-up attack is extremely easy to trigger and extremely effective against groups of enemies.

With her talent, Victory Rush, when an enemy weakness is broken, Himeko gains one stack of charge and will launch a follow-up attack after gaining three stacks. This attack deals DMG to all enemies in the area and is great for combining with other follow-up attack-based characters, such as Hurta, Xueyi, and Topaz.

6 Clara

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: physical
• route: destruction

Clara is the first character in the game whose main source of DMG is focused on her follow-up attacks. With her talent, We Are Family, enemies attacking Clara will immediately receive a counter from her friend Mr. Svarog, allowing her to deal DMG to all enemies as long as she is attacked.

With his ultimate, he increases the chance of being attacked by enemies in turn two, and his counter will also DMG enemies close to the target, increasing his AoE. Additionally, while her Ultimate is active, allies that enemies attack will also trigger her counter.

5 Yunli

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: physical
• route: destruction

When Yunli was first released in the game, the community was unsure about her. This was mainly due to Kit's reliance on being attacked, even though he looked good on his own. Essentially, whenever she is attacked, Yunli launches a counter-attack, dealing AoE DMG to the attacking enemy.

This attack can be buffed with her ultimate, for which she can have two stacks. If you have the right supports like March 7th or Lynx that can increase Yunli's attack chances, she can easily surprise you with her damage in battle.

4 Jing Yuan

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: lightning
• route: the knowledge

Jing Yuan was used as the premier follow-up raid character for a while, despite being an Irudiction character capable of dealing Hunt-level DMG against single-target bosses. Like Clara, his main source of DMG revolves around his follow-up attacks, and with the constant release of strong support characters for him, he keeps getting stronger.

With his talent, Life Interrupted, he summons Lightning-Lord at the start of the battle, which has its own turn in the action sequence and its base spd. When Jingyuan uses his Skill or Ultimate, Lightning-Lord's SPD and Hits per Action will increase and descend to destroy enemies when it's his turn.

3 Topaz and Nambi

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: the fire
• route: hunting

Topaz and Nambi are meant to be follow-up attack characters, with every part of their kit being treated as a follow-up attack. A large part of their play style is their skill, “Difficulty paying?” comes from, which has the following effects:

• Affects a single target enemy with Proof of Debt status, taking DMG by 25% from follow-up attacks by 55%.
• Nambi deals Fire DMG to the target and the attack is treated as a follow-up attack.

At first glance, Topaz and Numby may seem like regular DPS, but they shine when used as support for other follow-up attack characters. Additionally, when allies' follow-up attacks hit the enemy with evidence of a debt position, Nambi's action is advanced forward, allowing it to attack quickly.

2 Dr. Ratio

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: imaginary
• route: hunting

Dr. Ratio is another Hunt unit, excellent at dishing out high single-target DMG. He needs to debuff enemies to successfully trigger the passive effect of his skill, Cogito, Ergo Sum:

• Using his skills, Dr. Ratio once has a 40 percent fixed chance of launching a follow-up attack against its target.
• For each debuff the target enemy has, the fixed chance to launch a follow-up attack increases by 20 percent, capping at four debuffs.

With his ultimate, he applies Wiseman's Folly to a single enemy target. When allies attack that target, Dr. Ratio will automatically launch its follow-up attack, allowing you to wipe out all your enemies with an endless barrage of follow-up attacks.

1 Feixiao

• Rarity: five stars
• Type: the wind
• route: hunting

While the developers took various steps to buff follow-up-based teams and bring them into the meta, Feixiao served as the icing on the cake with his phenomenal kit. Despite being the character of The Hunt, which is not a good route to take on AoE-based enemies, Feixiao still finds her place.

This is essentially due to her being able to launch continuous follow-up attacks and having a special ultimate, which also counts as a follow-up attack. This means the Ultimate gets buffed by both the Ultimate and the follow-up DMG bonus, making him a complete damage machine.