Blade is probably one of the biggest surprises when it comes to the meta. So, here, I am going to talk about his place in the meta, things that you need to know about him, whether you have him or not, as well as cover some important questions, like how game-changing some of the build decisions are. And most importantly, I will showcase the most insane teams you can build him.

New Teams

Let’s first talk about some amazing teams you can build with Blade and how unique some of them are.

Now initially, you might think that Blade has access to limited amount of team mates he can utilize. But surprisingly enough, quite a few characters work well with him.

*So, the first team that’s really strong is made up of Welt, Dan Heng, Blade and one of the healers. What’s great about this comp is that Welt boosts Dan Heng’s damage by consistently applying Speed debuff. Dan Heng can do that himself by using his skill, but it might not land due to the enemy’s effect resistance. So, it’s easier to apply Speed debuff with Welt since you build him with Effect Hit Rate.

But not only this, Welt can also equip on himself Pearls of Sweat and reduce the enemy’s defense in addition to increasing the damage they take by 12% thanks to his Ultimate’s trace. So, both Dan Heng and Blade can dish out some nice damage.

And what’s even better, you only need to use Blade’s skill every 3 turns. You literally cannot use it until the buff runs out. So, it’s easy to manage the skill points in this team.

*Now, the next team is an F2P variation. Pela, Natasha and Fire Trailblazer or any damage dealer is the way to go here. Pela works as an excellent DEF debuffer, so Blade can hit for big damage, while Natasha puts in the work as a freeby unit to keep Bladie alive.

But you might be wondering: Why use Fire Trailblazer? Isn’t he a shielder and that works directly against Blade’s whole purpose of losing HP against enemy attacks and building up his talent to deal damage?

The thing is, Trailblazer’s shields are paper thin, so even if Blade gets hit, he will very likely get damaged as well. So, someadditional damage mitigation won’t hurt him, since you do need to consistently keep an eye on his health.

But either way, you can just replace the main character with any other damage dealer or even support. The purpose here is to utilize an F2P team. However, we did get the final Eidolon for the fire version and it gives a nice 30% DEF boost, which works both for shielding and damage.

*Next, let’s talk about his top meta team, which is made up of Luocha, Silver Wolf and Bronya. Obviously, Luocha is the best healer for him due to how the auto heal works if Blade drops below 50%, which is convenient when he uses his ultimate.

But the character I wanna talk about here is Bronya. No joke, this team is disgusting when it comes to clearing hardest challenges and Bronya helps here big time. By himself and using my build, which I’ll talk about in a moment, Blade hits for 62k damage with his ultimate, 67k with follow-up from the talent and 30k with Enhanced Basic Attack. Really amazing numbers considering he is unbuffed. But when you plug in Bronya, his damage increases from 40% to all the way to 70%. That’s insane if you think about it.

But the irony here is that Bronya is Blade’s best Harmony support because the majority of his damage scales with HP. So, Bronya’s DMG boost works super well for him, unlike other damage boosters.

For example, if I use Tingyun instead of Bronya, she is nowhere close to the Guardian of Belobog. Bronya ends up as a better booster than Tingyun by almost 25% on average. In fact, Tingyun’s skill boost is really weak on Blade. Unless I am missing something here, it boosts by like 10%.

But the number is kinda inflated because all of my damage comparisons so far have been tested against 3 targets, which is the ideal amount for Blade. And it only gets worse with a single target. However, her Ultimate boost is great for him but it’s not consistent compared to Bronya’s skill.

So, while Bronya is the best Harmony buffer for Blade, Tingyun kinda works, same for Yukong, who can boost Blade’s Crit values.

And as for Asta, she’s just not worth it for him, unless you have no other better option. But, this meta team with limited 5-star units is insane although we’re obviously looking at a premium comp here.

However, the thing that I love most about Blade, aside from his edgy approach to life, would be the fact that he works as an amazing sub-damage dealer for any team. If you have no idea who could fill the last slot when building a team, you can just add Blade and put him to work.

I think that’s the best-selling point about him. He has a pretty self-contained playstyle. He doesn’t ask for too many skill points and he delivers amazing AoE damage.

Also Read: Honkai Star Rail: Everything You Need To Know About E0 Blade - Relics, Planar Ornaments, Light Cones & More

Meta Analysis

So, Blade is a strong and versatile damage dealer. What about his place in the meta?

First of all, we have to look at the upcoming Memory of Turbulence changes. The first one that’s coming up will make Blade pretty tanky and after each cycle he will unload damage. The stacks he gains here will require him to get hit or consume HP. So, without a doubt, this next Memory of Chaos cycle is going to be tailor made for him.

Afterwards, later in August, when using follow-up attacks, all resistance of the hit enemies will be reduced by 30%, which is huge and Blade’s damage will increase significantly, helping you end the fights with more cycles left.

Now another cool thing that was added in 1.2 update is the new Forgotten Hall made up of 6 stages. Two most prominent bosses here are Yanqing, who has a weakness to Wind and summons a lot of these annoying but squishy swords.

So, Blade can easily take care of them while in the last stage, Kafka who is also weak to Wind, has 2 of these enemies that keep respawing. But 3 targets total, the most perfect amount for Blade to unload all of his damage.

Basically, the new Forgotten Hall is going to be super easy with Blade, while the next two upcoming Turbulence changes are going to help him big time in clearing Memory of Chaos.

Right now, if you care about his pull value and you are still in the process of building a 2nd team, he is perfect for clearing the hardest content.

Build Considerations

Now, one more thing I wanna talk about would be Blade’s build considerations. I won’t delve deep here and instead.

Maybe you’ve noticed that he has dual scales with both ATK and Health. The thing is ATK is much more inferior compared to HP. And so, when it comes to picking a Rope, hands down HP mainstat is his best option.

And as for the rest of the relics, there’s a lot of talks going on whether it’s better to go for HP or SPD boots. And the truth is, if you have SPD boots, use them, and try to aim for 134 Speed, which is the breakpoint against the current highest level enemies in Memory of Chaos. And this allows Blade to act twice quite often, assuming he doesn’t get debuffed or frozen.

However, HP boot isn’t that far off from SPD boots. They provide a sizeable damage increase. So, if you don’t have SPD, then definitely go for HP.

And as for the rest of the stats, you can see them here:

• Body: Crit Rate / DMG
• Boots: SPD / HP
• Sphere: Ele DMG
• Rope: HP

Substats: Crit Value > SPD > HP% > ATK%

However, what I really wanna talk about would be the new relic set. I honestly didn’t expect it to be so good for him because essentially Blade can easily maintain the 16% Critical Rate from the new set and it’s literally achievable on turn 1. It’s by far his best relic set and everything else wane’s in comparison.

However, you still need to farm for it. In the meantime, Musketeer or the Wind sets, whether 4-sets or double 2-sets are good substitutes. Like, I have a pretty mediocre build here due to how much unluck loves me and it still works out super well for him.

Still, not everything is sunshine and rainbows with this guy. Unfortunately, Blade has some of the worst Light Cone options. I mean, it’s not that they are bad, but only a few are worth mentioning. Mutual Demise, a 3-star cone is a great option if you need a ton of Critical Rate, although he needs to stay below 80%, which isn’t always easy to utilize.

Then, there’s Herta’s shop 5-star cone. But since ATK isn’t that valuable to him and weakness break takes time to inflict, it’s a good but not an outstanding option.

But here’s where things get interesting. His best 4-star light cone has to be A Secret Vow, already at Superimposition 1. It catches up to S5 Herta’s shop light cone, assuming the enemy has more HP than Blade. But at S5, this light cone is by far the strongest thing you can equip on him. That is, until you get his signature cone, which outperforms S5 Secret Vow, although by not that much. So, if you have the 4-star Secret Vow, you’re good to go with just that, since eventually at some point you will get more copies of it.

But don’t take my word for it. I’ve heard some people haven’t managed to get a 2nd copy of Sacrificial Sword since Genshin’s launch. Still, these are basically the standout light cones. Everything else falls either below or somewhere close to these. But keep in mind, Secret Vow and the signature light cone are basically the best options to have.

Initial Thoughts

So, what do I think about Blade?

He is hands down the strongest damage dealer when it comes to 3-targets scenario. He easily outdamages Jing Yuan, which makes me feel kinda sad since I didn’t expect the power creep to show up so soon. And the fact that with 1.2, he also got an insanely good relic set is just a cherry on top.

Now, while he does have a simple playstyle, he only consumes a skill point every 3 turns, which is a godsend when it comes to managing them. And so, he becomes a really good sub-damage dealer whenever you need to fill out that last spot for any team.

Still, he does suck at early game because keeping him alive is a burden that will befall one of the healers and his best team is really limited. Like literally, you need 2 limited 5-stars and Bronya. It also doesn’t help he has a weak selection of Light Cone options.

Also, I mentioned that he only consumes 1 Skill Point. But at the same time, his enhanced basic attack does not recover SP, which was a bit of a surprise to me. But it’s not the end of the world, truth be told.

All in all, Blade is an exciting damage dealer to say the least. If you have a character like him on your Honkai Star Rail Account, that’s great! I am actually surprised that a big amount of his damage comes from the follow-up attack, which is his talent. So more than anything, make sure not to use tanks like Gepard and March 7th with him, since you want this guy to lose health and use that talent as often as possible.

But otherwise, I am satisfied the way he turned out, although I kinda wish he can get another damage booster similar to Bronya because she does improve his damage massively.