Kafka has brought some of the biggest twists into the meta.

In this guide, I am going to talk about things that you need to know about her, whether you have her or not, as well as cover 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 with her. Believe me, these teams are amazing and it’s not something you want to miss out on.

1. New Teams

I honestly didn’t think Kafka would be this good because there were a lot of rumors going around that she would end up inferior.

But I am happy to tell you that the woman who gave life to our character is pretty amazing if not broken. So, if you are still struggling to add Kafka to your Honkai Star Rail Account, my answer is yes.

So, let’s take a look at some of the teams that are currently dominating Memory of Chaos.

*First of all, we’ve got an interesting comp made up of Sampo, Bronya, Kafka and a healer.

Now, what’s amazing about this team is the synergy with Kafka and Bronya. Basically, Kafka can trigger DoTs immediately upon using her skill and the Ultimate can also trigger Shock state on the enemies as well. So, Bronya gives Kafka an extra turn and with the massive ATK buff in addition to sometimes having Bronya ATK boost from Ultimate, Kafka will shred enemies to pieces.

And let’s not forget Sampo is also doing a lot of good damage from his DoTs, which will get triggered by Kafka’s skill.

However, there is a big drawback to using this team as well as a few others and that mainly has to do with an extremely high skill point usage. Activating Kafka’s and Bronya’s skill each turn puts a huge pressure on the skill point economy, especially if you’re not using Luocha. Because any other healer might need these skill points to keep the team alive. So, in this case, you will most often use Sampo’s basic attack and this team becomes kind of a single target killer.

But don’t get me wrong, this is probably the most fun team I’ve played with so far and the synergy is really good here.

Also, the pressure on SP becomes lower if you have E1 Bronya since then she has a chance to refund the 1 SP from her skill.

*Now, the next team is a pretty unique. Silver Wolf is yet again showing up here because it’s made up of her, Kafka, Tingyun and Bailu. This Mono Lightning team is amazing when the enemy has Quantum Weakness.

First of all, Silver Wolf can then consistently apply Lightning Weakness on them. But in addition, Tingyun’s ATK boost coming from both skill and ultimate as well as her restoring so much energy to Kafka, means that Kafka can dish out her Ultimate really often.

Although, this team won’t have that many DoTs going on, since Kafka will be the only one here doing the DoT damage. But regardless, it’s a unique comp that you can build if you have Silver Wolf.

Also, one important thing I wanted to mention here is that normally, Kafka’s best in slot relic set is Sizzling Thunder. But with this comp and against Quantum weak enemy, Genius of Brilliant Stars is way better for her. And I am talking about actual personal damage increase you wouldn’t see otherwise in other teams.

Still, keep in mind, this relic set has an extremely niche use-case. But if you do have it, it’s going to be amazing for Kafka in this team.

*Now currently, I am seeing a lot of player reports coming that Sampo, Kafka, Silver Wolf and Luocha is one of her best teams right now, which makes sense since you’re getting a massive DEF shred and RES reduction from Silver Wolf, while Luocha keeps the skill point economy happy and thriving and Sampo is the best or should I say top-tier team mate you can pair with Kafka. So, this team can easily clear the hardest content you’ll go up against.

*But what about Luka? Well, he is also really good with Kafka. You’ve probably seen a team made up of him, Sampo, Kafka and a Healer in other content creator videos. And what I really like about Luka is that the Bleed he applies from his skill scales super well with the enemy’s health, although it does have its limit that’s tied to his ATK.

So, as you can imagine, since Kafka can trigger the DoTs immediately with her skill, this bleed becomes amazing, especially since you don’t actually reduce the remaining turns on the DoTs triggered. So, the enemy will keep bleeding and Kafka will keep smiling.

Still, keep in mind this team is also extremely SP hungry. So, the best healer, unfortunately, is the limited Luocha here. But you can make it work yet again by sometimes not using Sampo’s skill if you have another healer built. And also, Luka’s skill only needs to be triggered seldom, since Bleed lingers around for 3 turns.

I mean, however you look at it, the fact that you can trigger DoT damage that ranges from 30 to 80k is insane and this team is super fun to play. And of course, you could replace Luka with Serval here who, by the way, can have her Shock exist along with Kafka’s.

However, one of the best things about triple DoT team that has Luka is that he can equip on himself Pearls of Sweat Light Cone, which helps him reduce enemies DEF further with his ultimate, while Serval is an Erudition unit, so she can’t even equip this great DEF shred cone.

In fact, if you’re running this triple DoT team, using Before the Tutorial Mission Starts light cone on Kafka, can help her regain energy so fast. Most of the times you will be able to trigger her ultimate every 2 turns, since Luka will be shredding Enemy’s DEF with his ultimate and the Pearls of Sweat light cone.

*Finally, one of the more quirky team comps that is a bit experimental at this point. But it’s made up of Himeko, Asta, Kafka and, of course, a healer.

I’ve been mentioning healers all the time. But you can use a Preservation unit, provided that they can keep the team alive. But I digress. So, this team is pretty funny because both Asta and Himeko can produce Fire DoT on enemies. Of course, Kafka can trigger them with her skill. But in addition, Asta can boost her ATK and increase her SPD, which are both important when building Kafka.

So, these are the teams that have had the most success with her. And there’s definitely a lot of variations you could go for. For example, instead of Silver Wolf, you could use Pela in a team with Sampo and Healer. So, keep in mind these teams are not set in stone.

Also Read: Honkai Star Rail 1.2: The Newest 5-Star Lightning Nihility Unit Is Coming! - Kafka Pre-Release Analysis & Builds

2. Build Considerations

Now, when it comes to Kafka’s build considerations, they aren’t that super complex, but there are some major things you need to be aware of.

Basically, you want to build her with ATK Body and either ATK or SPD boots. If you have her signature light cone, going with ATK boots is fine, but for the most part, there are certain breakpoints that allow her to take more turns as you can see here:

• 121 SPD Extra Turn Every 2ND Cycle of New Enemy Wave
• 134 SPD Extra Turn Every 1ST and 4TH Cycle of New Enemy Wave
• 161 SPD Extra Turn Every 1ST, 2ND and 4TH Cycle of New Enemy Wave

So, you can aim for these thresholds as long as you can hit them.

Just keep in mind that if you play her with Sampo or other DoT character, make sure she has at least 1 less speed than them, so they can take their turn first and then she can trigger their DoTs with her skill.

Now, as for the main relic set, obviously, Sizzling Thunder 4-set is amazing for her. But if you don’t have it, you can go with two pieces Hacker/Sizzling or Sizzling and Musketeer.

As for Planar Ornaments, it’s super simple. You can choose Lightning DMG Sphere and ATK% Rope. You can go with Break Effect instead, but it’s not always easy to guarantee Kafka will be the one breaking the enemy toughness. So, ATK% remains far more reliable.

And honestly, there’s not much to the sets themselves. Space Sealing Station is by far her best in the slot, although again if you want to go with that Break Effect build, then Talia: Kingdom of Banditry is a good choice.

And as for the overall build, you can see the overview here:

SPD> ATK%> EHR Substats

Just focus on SPD, then ATK% substats, while picking up some Effect Hit Rate won’t hurt you along the way.

Now luckily, even if she applies status conditions on enemies, you don’t need much Effect Hit Rate. In fact, you only need 10% from substats because the other 18% comes from her traces, which is perfectly enough to land her Shock DoTs consistently.

But here’s where a bit of complexity comes in. So, there’s a lot of good light cones for our mommy character. But which one you should go for?

Well, truth be told, if you haven’t got the signature cone or Good Night Sleep Well 4-star gacha cone, then her best choice is going to be Fermata, which you can easily obtain from the Forgotten Hall shop.

In fact, I would argue Fermata is really strong on her because at max superimposition, she will consistently deal 32% more damage and even when she breaks enemies, she will have 32% more Break Effect.

Although, Good Night Sleep Well does outperform it when using her in a team with other Nihility debuff characters. But I wouldn’t sweat it too much. Because the only sweat you do need to care about has to do with the Pearls and that usually goes on to Sampo or Luka.

But everything else shown here would be her best and recommended cones:

• Patience Is All You Need
• Good Night Sleep Well
• Fermata
• Eyes Of The Prey
• In The Name Of The World
• Incessant Rain
• Resolution Shines As The Pearls Of Sweat
• Before The Tutorial Mission Starts

But keep in mind, only the signature light cone comes out on top. But even then, I would say her selection of light cones is super flexible. So, you don’t have to worry which one is best for her because the selection process is pretty easy.

3. Eidolons & Opinion

So, I think in terms of the so-called Meta that’s honestly kinda similar to Genshin Impact’s, I would say Kafka is a pretty strong unit. But the biggest thing about her has to be her ability to enable multiple new teams, which in my opinion, is the most exciting aspect of any new character.

She deals good damage. I often would see her ultimate ranging from 70 to 110 thousand. And then afterwards, enemies would take 30 to 50 thousand DoT damage depending on the team comp, which in my opinion is pretty impressive, not to mention the fact it’s funny to watch my foes die before they can take their turn.

And what’s amazing here is that I have some of the worst relics equipped on her. So, imagine how much better she would be with proper stats.

Still, if I had one minor complaint, then it would be the Skill Point problems that you’ll run into unless you’re using Luocha. I will admit it. Initially, I thought Luocha was only good because of the enemy lineups we had when he first came out. But now it’s pretty clear that the best-selling point about him is the auto-healing that doesn’t require that many skill points.

With any other healer, you will quickly notice how you will run out of SP pretty fast, especially in the triple DoT team with Sampo and Luka or the Bronya comp I showcased earlier. So, you need to resort to things like Sampo only using his basic attack, to preserve some of that SP.

And I am not sure if Kafka’s at fault here. Maybe once we get a new DoT character who isn’t skill point hungry, then we can see teams that are more flexible with healers other than Luocha. Or maybe we get a healer who is similar to the coffin guy and can heal without using that much SP.

Also, when it comes to her Eidolons, her 1st one is seriously busted. It’s a bit specific and requires more Effect Hit Rate than usual to make it work all the time. But she gets about 19% DMG increase, which you won’t see happen again until E6.

And her second eidolon is literally made for DoT teams. But that would be pushing too hard if you’re F2P and if you still enjoy her using, maybe on her rerun you can go for E2.

But overall, I think Kafka is a great character that has a fun new playstyle, enables fun new teams, and I can finally have her look at me like I am not worthy of her.