Black Swan is the new 5-Star Wind Nihility character in Honkai: Star Rail. She’s top-notch in damage-over-time teams, but you’ll need to build her right to best take advantage of her kit. This guide covers the best way to build Black Swan for a DoT team in Honkai: Star Rail.
Best Black Swan Build in Honkai: Star Rail
Best Relic Sets for Black Swan in Honkai: Star Rail
Black Swan has a stackable and spreadable DoT effect that she can apply to enemies through her talent and skills. It’s crucial that she has a high Effect Hit Rate % from her Relics so that she’s always able to land the DoT effect. You can then make use of Relic Sets that take advantage of DoTs and a high Effect Hit Rate.
The Prisoner in Deep Confinement 4-piece set is the absolute best set to use with Black Swan. It grants 12% increased Attack, which is the main DPS scaler for DoT characters. It also has the amazing effect that enemies afflicted with DoTs have 6% of their defense ignored, which can apply for up to three DoTs on one enemy. Because of that, the set can help you ignore a lot of defense to deal much more damage on tougher enemies.
Related: When Is the Next Honkai Star Rail Update?
For the Planetary Set, you’ll want to use the Pan-Cosmic Commercial Enterprise 2-piece set. This sets grants you a flat 10% increase to Effect Hit Rate, which is perfect for Black Swan. It also increases your Attack by up to 25% based on how high your Effect Hit Rate is. We’re aiming for a really high Effect Hit Rate in this Black Swan build, so we’ll easily make good use of this bonus.
Best Relic Stats for Black Swan in Honkai: Star Rail
For the primary stats on your Relics you’ll want to go for the following setup:
- Body – Effect Hit Rate %
- Boots – Speed
- Planar Sphere – Wind Damage %
- Link Rope – Attack %
It’s absolutely crucial for most players to ensure you get that Effect Hit Rate % on the Body Relic. In this build, we want to hit a value of 100-120% Effect Hit Rate on Black Swan, which is really hard to achieve in Honkai: Star Rail without it being a main stat on the Body Relic.
For the sub-stats on your relics you’ll want to prioritize the following:
- Effect Hit Rate % – Aim to get enough to help you hit that 100-120 total Effect Hit Rate stat
- Speed – The faster Black Swan is, the easier it will be to stack her DoTs
- Attack % – DoT characters scale their damage mostly off Attack
- Break Effect % – DoT characters are great a breaking enemy shields, so take advantage of the extra Break damage often
Best Light Cone for Black Swan in Honkai: Star Rail
Black Swan’s signature 5-Star Light Cone Reforged Remembrance is by far her best in slot Light Cone option. If you don’t want to spend your hard-earned pulls on it though, she has some excellent 4-Star alternatives. Eyes of Prey is the best 4-Star Light Cone to use with her, closely followed by the brand new It’s Showtime 4-Star Light Cone that was added in Memory of Chaos. Either of these options will be brilliant on Black Swan if you don’t want to spring for her signature Light Cone, which is roughly a 30% damage increase over the 4-Star options.
That covers the best build for Black Swan in Honkai: Star Rail. She’s an incredibly strong damage-over-time character. If you follow this build and happen to have Kafka, make sure to use them together — they are a match made in heaven!
