Honkai: Star Rail – Yanqing Build Guide

Yanqing is a powerful character in Honkai: Star Rail, possessing a 5-star rating and capable of dealing massive amounts of damage. He is classified as a DPS carry, making it easy for him to clear difficult floors like the Forgotten Hall and Memory of Chaos. Yanqing is a versatile unit that can be used as a single-target damage dealer in various team compositions.

What makes Yanqing unique is his kit's simplicity, which makes it easy to develop. He can passively increase his stats to execute his powerful damage output. However, players should take care when developing Yanqing so that they don't waste any stats. To help with this, a guide has been created that covers how to properly build this character.

Yanqing Character Review

Yanqing is a potent attacker who can deal massive damage to a single target thanks to his impressive set of free stats, which also allow him to Freeze his targets frequently. However, the catch is that he must remain untouched to keep these bonuses, which can be quite difficult in a turn-based game.

Yanqing's talent is the centerpiece of his kit, but it's important to understand the activation conditions of his skill first. His skill inflicts modest damage on a single target and activates Soulsteel Sync for one turn. However, with his talent active, Yanqing becomes a powerhouse.

Soulsteel Sync is what allows Yanqing to boost his own performance dramatically. While it's active, he gains a crit rate and crit damage bonus, and his aggro decreases. Moreover, he can launch a follow-up attack with a fixed 60% chance after attacking an enemy, dealing up to 50% of his ATK and having a base 65% chance to freeze the enemy for one turn.

This is a massive boost to Yanqing's overall damage, particularly since it's of the crit variety, which makes him scale exceptionally well into the late game. However, the downside of this talent is that if Yanqing takes any damage, Soulsteel Sync will disappear. It's crucial to build a team around Yanqing to ensure that he remains unscathed, particularly since his damage output can be underwhelming without this talent active.

Honkai: Star Rail Yanqing Build

Yanqing is a character from the Ice Hunt group and is an excellent option for battling opponents with high health. Although he has low single-target damage output, players must be careful when developing Yanqing, especially during the leveling up process.

Core Stat Priorities: CRIT DMG, ATK%, CRIT Rate, SPD
Planar Ornament Stats: Ice DMG, ATK%
Relic Sets: Hunter of Glacial Forest (4PC), Space Sealing Station (2PC), OR Celestial Differentiator (2PC)
Light Cones: Sleep Like the Dead (5-star), Swordplay (4-star), Only Silence Remains (4-star)

One crucial thing to note is that Yanqing receives many free CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG bonuses from his kit. As a result, players can prioritize ATK% and SPD in their stat priorities list, particularly when Yanqing's Trace levels are not yet high enough to provide the necessary CRIT stats. Aim for at least a 20% CRIT Rate from Relic substats and let Yanqing's passive bonuses provide the rest.

The Hunter of Glacial Forest 4-piece bonus complements Yanqing's playstyle because he depends on his Ultimate for damage output and CRIT buffs. However, players can use Musketeer of Wild Wheat's 2-piece bonus for more consistent damage when Yanqing's Ultimate isn't available or when the enemy's Toughness bars are broken.

For Yanqing, Space Sealing Station is the best Planar Ornament set because he requires as much ATK as possible to make his CRIT buffs worthwhile. Celestial Differentiator might be a better option for general play or when grinding easier content because it enables Yanqing to assassinate a priority target during the first turn of a fight.

Once Yanqing's Traces have been leveled up, players can safely disregard Light Cones that provide CRIT Rate and focus on those that offer ATK% or CRIT DMG for more significant benefits in the long run.

Yanqing Abilities and Trace Leveling Order

Yanqing heavily relies on having his Traces leveled up to access his CRIT buffs. Although he may not appear impressive initially, once his abilities are upgraded to Level 50 or 60, he can unleash high burst damage.

Amidst the Raining Bliss (Ultimate)
Darting Ironthorn (Skill)
One With the Sword (Talent)
Basic attack

While Yanqing's free CRIT stats come from One With the Sword, it is still important to prioritize leveling up his other abilities for increased damage. The raw damage output should be boosted first since CRIT stats rely on it heavily. However, Amidst the Raining Bliss has a base 60% critical strike chance, which can increase up to 75% with the Soulsteel Sync from Darting Ironthorn at Trace Level 1.

Yanqing In Honkai Star Rail — Yanqing splash art

Players should acquire the floating stat Traces when needed and take Yanqing's first and third Ascension passives when they become available. The second Ascension passive can be skipped unless players encounter difficulty with incoming enemy effects and debuffs.

To benefit from Yanqing's free stats, he needs to continuously use Darting Ironthorn. As a result, he requires a lot of SP and players must form the right team to ensure they can use his abilities without running out of SP.