There are seven Paths and Elements in Honkai: Star Rail, each with its own signature features and strengths. For example, characters from the Harmony Path are buffer units, while those with Ice Element can Freeze the enemy, taking their turn away. Among the available Elements in Honkai: Star Rail, one of them is Lightning.
Lightning units can apply the Shock debuff, which deals Dot damage at the start of the affected character's turn. Of course, there are various characters from different Paths that have this Element. For instance, Tingyun is a Harmony unit, while Serval and Jing Yuan are both Erudition. If players are trying to raise a unit of this Element for battle, they may be interested to know the best Lightning character in Honkai: Star Rail.
5 Arlan
So far, there are no weak characters in Honkai: Star Rail. Arlan has a unique Skill set that helps him deal a great amount of raw damage; no Dots or extra effects, just straight damage on every attack he has. Since using his Skill consume his HP, Arlan’s talent becomes extremely useful for his kit because it adds damage to his attacks based on lost HP. As a 4-star character in Honkai: Star Rail, it’s easy to get Arlan’s Eidolons, which grants him a huge boost of power. His second and fourth Eidolons grant Arlan the ability to cleanse himself from debuffs and protect him from falling. His first adds a slight damage boost, but his last is an amazing Eidolon that takes his damage to another level, considering he now hits all enemies with the same amount of damage he dealt against single targets.
From his Traces, Arlan’s A2 passive, Revival, keeps healing him when he defeats enemies. That creates a synergy between his Skill and Trace’s passive. His A4 and A6 passives also increase his survivability, which makes all his Traces lean more toward the defensive side, giving Arlan a better performance as a Destruction unit.
4 Serval
For a 4-star character, Serval has one of the highest Base ATK in Honkai: Star Rail. She follows the path of Erudition that grants her the ability to damage all enemies. But that’s not enough for her, Serval’s Skill has a high chance to apply a Lightning Dot on all enemies she hits that scales with her total ATK. That effect becomes a 100% chance to shock enemies when players unlock her A2 Trace. Players also shouldn’t sleep on Serval Ultimate’s low scaling since her Talent passive notably increases its damage against shocked enemies. Not to mention, her Ultimate has a useful effect to increase her Dots turns by 2, which allows Serval to passively keep damaging enemies.
As a unit that constantly needs to use her Ultimate, players have to build Serval with more Energy Regeneration Rate. That’s what makes her A4 Trace very useful. Upon entering battle, Serval immediately regenerates 15 Energy and that allows her to use her frequently use her Ultimate. Serval’s Eidolons further improve her performance as an Erudition unit and a shocker. She gets more chances to Shock enemies with her Ultimates and increase her DMG against shocked enemies.
3 Bailu
Bailu is easily one of the best healers in Honkai: Star Rail. Everything from this young lady of the Vidyadhara race is about healing. Bailu can heal multiple friendly units randomly in addition to the target ally based on her Max HP. The amount of healing can fully heal allies since Bailu’s Base HP is among the highest in Honkai: Star Rail.
Bailu can also grant her team the Invigoration buff when using her Elemental Burst or Technique, and when they get hit, they passively get Bailu’s healing. However, what makes her unique from other healers is her ability to revive a fallen ally without losing any of their buffs or momentum. It’s a great ability to have, considering how hard some of Honkai: Star Rail early content is. Finally, Bailu’s Traces further increase her team's survivability by increasing their Max HP and buffing her Invigoration effect to reduce damage taken by 10%, in addition to adding one more trigger on the Invigoration buff.
2 Tingyun
One of the best things about Tingyun is her incredible Base SPD in Honkai: Star Rail. It’s an important stat to have for every Harmony character since they need to start the battle to buff their team. With Tingyun’s Skill, she’s able to grant one of her team members with the Benediction buff that increases their ATK and allows them to deal Lightning damage on their attacks. Not only that, when Tingyun attacks an enemy with her Basic ATK, the buffed ally will the Benediction buff will immediately deal Lightning DMG to the same target. Tingyun’s great abilities as a buffer don’t stop here as when after her Ultimate, the target ally will regenerate Energy and gets a great damage buff.
While she’s mainly a buffer, Tingyun also gains passives that are useful to her from her Traces. Her A2 grants her extra SPD, A4 regenerates 5 Energy every turn, and A6 increases her Basic ATK by 40%, which is a strike she needs to trigger her Talent’s passive. Finally, Tingyun’s Eidolons further enhance her team performance by granting them useful buffs like extra SPD from her first Eidolon.
1 Jing Yuan
Jing Yuan is currently unreleased, but in the final CBT, he was an excellent Lightning-Erudition character in Honkai: Star Rail. His playstyle primarily revolves around the follow-up attack his Lightning-Lord performs, which automatically occurs and players can keep track of it on the turn sequence bar on the top-left. The base SPD for the Lightning-Lord is low at 60, which means it’ll take a while for it to hit. Fortunately, players can add 10 SPD for each stack of Lightning-Lord hits stack that Jing Yuan has.
Other than boosting SPD, the stack also adds the number of hits the Lightning-Lord will perform. The base number is three stacks, and it’ll increase by two stacks when Jing Yuan uses his Skill, and three upon casting Ultimate. The Lightning-Lord can own up to 10 stacks, which means it’s capped at 130 SPD and 10 hits. Of course, all the stacks reset after the Lightning-Lord attacks, which means it’s necessary to keep stacking after it hits.
Not only does the follow-up attack deal AoE damage, but the multiple hits Jing Yuan does also make him an excellent character to break an enemy’s Lightning Toughness. This is most apparent when fighting a difficult boss like Cocolia in the Simulated Universe.
Honkai: Star Rail is now available on Android, iOS, and PC. A PlayStation version is in development.