It only makes sense when an Element like Ice in Honkai: Star Rail can grant a freeze debuff. This is nothing new and can be seen in plenty of other turn-based games, even Honkai: Star Rail's own sibling, Genshin Impact. However, unlike in Genshin Impact where a combination of Hydro and Cryo is required to create a freeze, the debuff can be granted in Honkai: Star Rail solely by relying on Ice units. Other than freezing, many Ice characters in the game also have the ability to perform follow-up attacks. For example, March 7th, Herta, and Yanqing all have this feature in their kit.
Among all the other available Elements in Honkai: Star Rail, Ice is the only one that occupies two spots in the Standard Banner, while Quantum has no Standard representative. With the higher chance of obtaining an Ice character in the game, players may be interested in knowing how each of them fares in the tier list of Honkai: Star Rail.
5 Herta
Herta is a free character in Honkai: Star Rail since players can get many of her copies from the Simulated Universe. As an Erudition unit, Herta is supposed to be able to inflict a high amount of damage against multiple enemies. She suffers from low Base ATK alongside low scaling on her Skill and Talent, but players shouldn’t let that trick them into thinking she’s bad. Instead, her low scaling comes with the fact she can hit all enemies with her Skill and Talent instead of three targets like most Erudition units. Her Ultimate, on the other hand, scales better with her ATK and deals a decent amount of damage to all enemies as well.
Herta’s effectiveness as an AoE hitter doesn’t stop here, her Traces and Eidolons slightly increase her damage when some conditions are met. For example, Herta’s A4 Trace increases her Ultimate damage by 20% against Frozen enemies. E1 Herta deals more damage against enemies under 50% HP, while E4 is a straight 10% increase on her Talent follow-up attacks in Honkai: Star Rail. Her main weakness is the fact that her talent only triggers in specific circumstances, where most enemies will only reach 50% or below once. Meanwhile, against a boss, Herta is really niche where she's only viable against a boss that summons smaller minions, allowing her to do follow-up attacks more frequently.
4 March 7th
March 7th is a great 4-star Support unit in Honkai: Star Rail. Players can depend on her Skill to shield one of her allies while cleansing them from one debuff with her A2 Trace. March’s Eidolons are able to boost her performance where she shines the most. Her Ultimate will regenerate Energy faster on her E1 while her shielding ability and Talent will perform better with the rest of her Eidolons.
However, it's worth noting that March's weakness-break ability is slightly below average. Even with her counter, she only removes a small amount of Toughness from the enemy, and relying on her Ultimate can be tough considering the limited Skill Points to recharge her Energy.
3 Gepard
With his crazy Base HP and decent Base DEF, Gepard is one of the tankiest characters in Honkai: Star Rail. All that sturdiness doesn’t go to waste with Gepard as he is able to withstand large numbers thrown at him while shielding and defending his team. As simple as it sounds, it’s still a great ability to have, and enough to make Gepard a very useful unit to have in most of Honkai: Star Rail content.
As a tank, Gepard can still deal some minor damage when players unlock his A6 Trace since it adds 35% of his DEF to his ATK stat, allowing him to scale better with his Skill and Basic ATK. Not to mention, Gepard’s Skill has a chance to freeze an enemy, which proves to be extremely useful against enemy bosses (provided the boss isn't immune to the debuff). Of course, a tank isn’t worth anything if enemies didn’t attack him; his A2 Trace comes in handy here as it allows him to have a higher chance of getting attacked.
However, in the early game, playing Gepard may not be as practical as March 7th since his shield is summoned via Ultimate, meaning players need to keep regaining his Energy to protect the team. This also means it's hard to play Gepard with a turn-granter like Bronya as it's easy to deplete the turn-count if a character continuously gets a turn, like the case with Seele.
2 Pela
Pela is easily one of the best 4-star characters in Honkai: Star Rail. She possesses one of the rarest abilities on her Skill where she can strip enemies from their buffs, which is handy against bosses who continuously buff themselves, like the Doomsday Beast. Pela can also greatly reduce all enemies’ DEF with her Ultimate and Technique, allowing DPS units in her team to shine.
As an Ice user, Pela can help other DPS that use the same Elements by reducing enemies' resistance to Ice with her E4 effect. All in all, as a stripper and strong debuffer, Pela is a strong unit that definitely can help in most Honkai: Star Rail situations.
1 Yanqing
Yanqing is definitely an underrated character as a Hunt unit. Most players are overwhelmed by how good Seele is in Honkai: Star Rail, to the point where Yanqing's great damage mostly goes unnoticed. Yanqing is an easy-to-build DPS that is capable to inflict some large damage. What gives him that advantage is his Ultimate and Talent which greatly buff his CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG. That’s not all, when using his Technique before starting any battle, Yanqing gets 30% extra damage, which is massive considering his damage is already superb.
Finally, a big number isn’t the only thing Yanqing is capable of doing. Players can also rely on him to freeze enemies from the follow-up attack he gets from his Talent effect. Just remember that both the follow-up and the freezing have to rely on RNG, so don't rely on it too much.
Honkai: Star Rail is now available on Android, iOS, and PC. A PlayStation version is in development.