Image: Honkai Star Rail Tier List, Tiermaker
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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
All characters in Honkai: Star Rail belong to one of seven different paths. These paths can be viewed as a class system and can hint at a certain character’s kit and role within a team. The path of Preservation consists of characters that excel at protecting themselves and their allies with powerful defensive abilities. Characters that walk the path of Preservation can be seen as the tanks of the game who help sustain the team through different forms of shields and damage reduction to ensure their allies survive. It’s also a great idea to pair up a Preservation character with a Harmony character for a perfect synergistic team composition!
Fu Xuan (S-Tier)
Fu Xuan does everything you would expect a typical tank character to do, and then proceeds to go even further beyond. Fu Xuan excels at mitigating the amount of damage taken by her and her allies while simultaneously restoring some of that lost health. Since she scales off of HP, she should easily have more than enough health to be able to take a beating when built properly. She is widely known for her skill which takes a portion of the DMG taken by allies and redirects it all to Fu Xuan while also providing HP and crit rate to her allies when her skill is active.
On top of that, her trace makes all allies immune to crowd control when her skill is active. This is considered her bread-and-butter and is what makes her a fantastic solo sustain unit to put on any team. Then when Fu Xuan’s HP falls to 50% or below, it will trigger her to restore 90% of the HP she is currently missing. This passive HP restore will innately have 1 trigger count when entering battle but can hold up to 2 counts which can be obtained when Fu Xuan uses her ultimate.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| DMG mitigation for whole team | Not entirely skill point positive |
| Provies HP and Crit rate buffs for team | Requires high investment for best results |
| Crowd Control immunity with skill | |
| Likely to be relevant for a while (not likely to get powercrept soon) |
Gepard (A-Tier)
- Rarity: 5-Star
- Element: Ice
- Path: Preservation
You can tell this unit is a tank from taking even just one look at him. Gepard’s attacks have a relatively decent chance to freeze enemies but that’s not what everyone wants him for. His ultimate provides a shield for himself and his allies based on a portion of his DEF so you’ll want to build this unit with plenty of DEF to get maximum value from his ultimate’s shield. Gepard’s shield can be extremely beefy on its own but he doesn’t really have a way to fully sustain a team by himself as he can only really provide shields.
It’s best to pair him with a healer of some sort to be able to fully sustain a team in terms of preventing damage they take and also being able to recover any damage that they do take. Gepard’s talent acts as a second wind for him as he will be revived after losing all of his health, effectively giving him two lives. You can use this to your advantage if you have a way to increase the chances of enemies attacking Gepard such as pairing him with someone like Lynx.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Giant teamwide shield | May be struggle to solo sustain in harder content |
| Skill point positive | Not targetable from standard banner |
| Energy efficient | |
| Potential to freeze |
Fire Trailblazer (B-Tier)
- Rarity: 5-Star
- Element: Fire
- Path: Preservation
Here we have another free character that is not to be underestimated. Seen as being very clearly superior to the Destruction variant, the Preservation Trailblazer can fill a support role in a team. Right off the bat, every action that Fire Trailblazer takes will put a small shield on all allies that scales with DEF. So while the shield may not be huge, it will be reapplied whenever Fire Trailblazer does literally anything.
On top of that, when Fire Trailblazer gets hit, they get a stack of Magma Will and at 4 stacks, will gain enhanced attacks. Fire Trailblazer’s skill increases the Trailblazer’s DMG reduction and also taunts all enemies for 1 turn while gaining a stack of Magma Will. Fire Trailblazer’s ultimate deals damage to all enemies with pretty good ATK% and DEF% multipliers, making for a support unit that also packs a pretty solid punch.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| AoE taunt skill | Significantly weaker shields than other Preservation units |
| Unlocks eidolons just by playing the game’s campaign | May be struggle to solo sustain in harder content |
| Decent at shielding, damage, and breaking | |
| Versatile |
March 7th (B-Tier at E6/ C-Tier at E0)
- Rarity: 4-Star
- Element: Ice
- Path: Preservation
Some people might think that since she was a free character, that means March 7th isn’t a good or viable unit, but that isn’t the case at all. Because she is a 4-star unit, it is not out of the realm of possibility to get multiple copies of her which only makes her an even better unit. Her talent allows her to counter-attack when a shielded ally gets attacked, which is great because it ends up being free damage for her but she can only counter-attack twice in between her own turns. Her skill puts a sizable shield on a single ally for 3 turns and if that ally is over 30% HP, they are more likely to be attacked with the shield on.
Her ultimate is also nothing to scoff at as it attacks all enemies with a 50% chance to freeze an enemy and goes up to 65% with her traces. This mean you don’t want skimp out on her effect hit rate stat since she already has a pretty high chance of crowd controlling multiple enemies with her ultimate which can be extremely strong. Again, ideally pair her with a healer even though her E6 allows her to pseudo solo sustain as she will be healing allies with the shield on them.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Giant single-target shield | Rough against freeze resistant enemies |
| Cleanse with her skill | May be struggle to solo sustain in harder content |
| Ultimate has AoE freeze potential | |
| Easier to get eidolons since she is 4-star |
Honkai: Star Rail Navigation
- Best Dan Heng Build in Honkai: Star Rail
- Best Asta Build in Honkai: Star Rail
- Honkai: Star Rail – Best Silver Wolf Build Guide & Teams
- Honkai: Star Rail – Best Jing Yuan Build
- Honkai: Star Rail – Best Fire Preservation Trailblazer Build
- Honkai: Star Rail – Best Physical Destruction Trailblazer Build
- Honkai: Star Rail – Best Paths for Simulated Universe
- Honkai: Star Rail – Best Consumables (Guide & List)
- Honkai: Star Rail – The Best Light Cones for Every Character
- Honkai: Star Rail – World & Boss Walkthrough Guide
- Honkai: Star Rail – Best Ways to Level Up Fast
- Honkai: Star Rail – Best Relics & Tier List
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