Honkai: Star Rail – Blade build and ascension guide

Check out the best Light Cones and Relics for Blade in Honkai: Star Rail
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The best Honkai: Star Rail Blade build cuts both ways, optimizing this edgy character’s damage output by boosting his ATK and HP. Blade is a tragic man – one who seeks death, but has the ability to regenerate his health even after suffering the most grievous injuries. He’s following the Path of The Destruction and deals Wind DMG. 

Blade’s Skill, Hellscape, consumes his own HP to allow him to enter the Hellscape state. This increases his damage and transforms his Basic Attack into the Forest of Swords, changing it from a single-target attack to a blast attack. Forest of Swords also consumes a little of Blade’s HP with every attack, adding damage based on his Max HP.

His Ultimate, Death Sentence, sets Blade’s HP to 50% of his Max HP – meaning it’s a heal if his previous HP amount is lower at the time – and deals more damage based on his ATK, Max HP, and how much HP he’s lost over the course of this battle. This value is capped to 90% of his Max  HP and is reset after each use of his Ultimate.

Blade’s Talent, Shuhu’s Gift, allows him to gain one stack of Charge whenever he is attacked or consumes his own HP. Once he has five Charge stacks, he immediately consumes them and launches a follow-up attack on every enemy based on his ATK and Max HP. This heals him for a percentage value of his Max HP as well.

Blade’s Eidolon Levels, which can be obtained by pulling multiple copies of him, are pretty sweet as well, boosting his Ultimate DMG (Level 1) and CRIT Rate in the Hellscape state (Level 2). Level 4 offers the amazing boon of increasing his Max HP by 20% when his HP drops below 50%, which stacks two times. Best of all, Level 6 reduces the number of Charge stacks Blade can have to four, meaning you’ll get more frequent follow-up attacks and heals. As a cherry on top, they’ll do more damage as well.

Honkai: Star Rail – Blade: best Light Cones

Blade is best served with his signature Light Cone, The Unreachable Side. It increases the wearer’s CRIT Rate and their Max HP. It further boosts the wearer’s damage whenever they are attacked or consume their own HP. This effect resets after the wielder’s next attack.

Best Light Cones for Blade:

  • The Unreachable Side (5-Star)
  • Something Irreplaceable (5-Star)
  • Dance at Sunset (5-Star)
  • On the Fall of an Aeon (5-Star)
  • Ninja Record: Sound Hunt (4-Star)
  • Nowhere to Run (4-Star)
  • Under the Blue Sky (4-Star)
  • Flames Afar (4-Star)
Honkai: Star Rail trailer screenshot of Blade.
Driven by revenge and the will to die, Blade is highly unstable. / HoYoverse

Honkai: Star Rail – Blade: best Relics

Alongside the usual offensive stats a damage dealer wants to boost – ATK, CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, and SPD – Blade will naturally want to increase his Max HP as much as possible, since it’s a potent source of damage for him. More HP will allow him to consume his life more often as well without getting into dangerous one-hit territory.

Best Relic Sets for Blade:

  • Longevous Disciple (4) – +12% Max HP, +8% CRIT Rate (stacks two times) for two turns when the wearer is hit or has their HP consumed by an ally.
  • Eagle of the Twilight Line (4) – +10% Wind DMG, wearer’s next action is advanced forward by 25% after their Ultimate.

Best Planar Ornaments for Blade:

  • Rutilant Arena (2) – +8% CRIT Rate, +20% Basic Attack and Skill DMG when the wearer’s CRIT Rate reaches 70%.

Prioritize the following Relic and Planar Ornament stats for Blade:

  • Head – HP (Primary), CRIT Rate, HP %, CRIT DMG, SPD
  • Hands – ATK (Primary), CRIT Rate, HP %, CRIT DMG, SPD
  • Body – CRIT Rate (Primary), HP %, CRIT DMG, SPD, ATK %
  • Feet – SPD (Primary), CRIT Rate, HP %, CRIT DMG, ATK %
  • Planar Sphere – Wind DMG (Primary), CRIT Rate, HP %, CRIT DMG, SPD
  • Link Rope – HP % (Primary), CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, SPD, ATK %
Honkai: Star Rail screenshot showing Blade and Kafka.
Kafka keeps Blade from falling to insanity with her Spirit Whisper ability. / HoYoverse

Honkai: Star Rail – Blade: best teams

Blade can be a team’s Main DPS or Sub DPS and requires a healer to accompany him despite his own regeneration abilities – his own HP consumption will likely far outstrip his self-healing ability. Depending on which enemies you’re expecting, you can add buffers and debuffers of different types into the mix.

  • Blade (Main DPS), Bronya (Support), Tingyun (Support), Luocha (Support)

In this team, Blade’s offensive prowess is boosted by Tingyun and Bronya, who can even help him to get his attacks out quicker thanks to her Skill. Modern support characters like Ruan Mei are fitting into the picture just fine as well – it’s all about super-charging Blade here.

Finally, a healer like Luocha or Huohuo can keep Blade’s health up – remember, unlike Arlan, who thrives when he’s low HP, Blade doesn’t need to stay in dangerous low HP territory to deal lots of damage. You want his HP to be nice and high so he can repeatedly consume his life force.

  • Jade (Main DPS), Blade (Sub DPS), Bronya (Support), Lingsha (Support)

Characters like Jade and Jingliu offer the opportunity to use Blade as a Sub DPS. Both of them come with abilities that consume the HP of their party members, helping Blade’s damage. He’s particularly good at Jade’s side, since most of his attacks can hit several enemies, which gets Jade’s own follow-up attack counter up much more quickly. Bronya is a strong general support for the team, while Lingsha, Luocha, or Huohuo can act as healers.

Honkai: Star Rail trailer screenshot showing Blade's old self.
Blade was once part of the High-Cloud Quintet. / HoYoverse

Honkai: Star Rail – Blade: ascension materials

Here’s everything you need to know to get Blade ascended to the maximum level and upgrade all of his talents.

Blade requires the following ascension materials to get to level 80 in addition to the necessary XP:

  • Credits x308,000
  • Immortal Scionette x15
  • Immortal Aeroblossom x15
  • Immortal Lumintwig x15
  • Ascendant Debris x65

You can collect Immortal Scionettes, Aeroblossoms, and Lumintwigs from enemies on the Xianzhou Luofu as well as in the Simulated Universe. You can create or exchange them through the Omni-Synthesizer on the Astral Express, too. Immortal Scionettes are one of the materials you can easily farm through the Daily Assignments to your characters, making for a steady income of the material. 

Ascendant Debris can be obtained by defeating the Stagnant Shadow (Shape of Celestial). The best source of Credits are the Golden Calyxes found on several worlds.

Blade requires the following materials to upgrade his combat abilities and Traces:

  • Credits x3,000,000
  • Immortal Scionette x41
  • Immortal Aeroblossom x56
  • Immortal Lumintwig x58
  • Shattered Blade x18
  • Lifeless Blade x69
  • Worldbreaker Blade x139
  • Regret of Infinite Ochema x12
  • Tracks of Destiny x8

For the materials already mentioned, check above. Shattered, Lifeless, and Worldbreaker Blades can be farmed in the Crimson Calyx (Storage Zone) on Herta Space Station. As usual, you can create the high-level materials by using up lower-level materials in the Omni-Synthesizer on the Astral Express.

Regret of Infinite Ochema is gained from the Echo of War (Scalegorge Waterscape) on the Xianzhou Luofu pitting you against Phantylia the Undying, while Tracks of Destiny can be obtained during time-limited events, the Embers Exchange, the Nameless Honor, or as a Simulated Universe Points Reward.


Published |Modified
Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg