Sampo is one of the most interesting characters in Honkai: Star Rail from both lore and gameplay perspectives. There's clearly more going on with him apart from just being a Wildfire associate, and as far as combat is concerned, he's more than capable of providing his teammates with some much-needed support.
Love him or hate him, it's hard to deny that Sampo is a strong unit in Honkai: Star Rail. He has amazing ST damage potential, and his ability to stack DoTs makes him a great boss killer. However, players still need to get all the right stat and gear combinations for this mysterious mercenary if they want to squeeze as much value out of him as they can.
Honkai: Star Rail Sampo Build
Sampo is a Nihility character who focuses on DoT effects. Apart from making everyone else's DoT effects stronger, he can spread Wind Shear to random enemies on the field or shred a single target's Toughness bar with a single attack. Players should focus on improving the consistency of Sampo's DoTs if they want to make the most out of his kit.
- Core Stat Priorities: ATK%, Effect Hit Rate, SPD
- Planar Ornaments Stat Priorities: Wind DMG, ATK%
- Relic Sets: Musketeer of Wild Wheat (4PC), Space Sealing Station (2PC)
- Light Cones: In The Name of The World (5-Star), Good Night and Sleep Well (4-Star), Fermata (4-Star), Eyes of the Prey (4-Star)
Despite being a DoT-centric unit, Sampo doesn't necessarily need to build as much Effect Hit Rate as someone like Serval—more on this in the section below.
Musketeer of Wild Wheat's set bonus helps Sampo reach the SPD threshold needed to activate the DMG bonus from Space Sealing Station. If players find this unnecessary, swap the 4-piece set for a 2-piece Wild Wheat and Eagle of Twilight Line combo for DPS.
In The Name of the World is the best Light Cone for almost all Nihility characters as of Honkai: Star Rail 1.0—its bonuses simply make it a no-brainer. Players who don't have this can opt for Good Night and Sleep Well instead, as it is essentially a 4-star version of the former.
Eyes of the Prey instead since it boosts Sampo's Effect Hit Rate and the damage dealt by the Wind Shear he inflicts. Fermata is a good F2P alternative to all of these since players can farm for five copies of it from boss fights.
Sampo Abilities and Trace Leveling Order
When building Sampo up, focus on leveling his skills in this order:
- Surprise Present (Ultimate)
- Ricochet Love (Skill)
- Windtorn Dagger (Talent)
- Basic attack
Sampo's Ultimate offers the most value out of all his abilities. It damages and debuffs targets, making them take more DoT damage from all sources (including his own), so always level this up as soon as it becomes available. On the other hand, Ricochet Love and Windtorn Dagger should be leveled equally. The former is great for exploiting enemy Weaknesses, while the latter improves the damage of Sampo's Wind Shear effects.
On the matter of Effect Hit Rate—Sampo doesn't need to prioritize this stat much because Surprise Present already has a 100% base debuff chance. This doesn't guarantee that the ultimate's effect will always trigger, but it's high enough to make it useful against the majority of enemies. On the other hand, players can work around WIndtorn Dagger's 65% base chance to inflict Wind Shear by spamming Ricochet Love, which can hit up to four times (five with Sampo's E1 bonus).
With that said, Sampo is best built with ATK% and SPD. The former boosts his DMG, while the latter grants him more opportunities to stack Wind Shear.
Honkai: Star Rail is available on PC and mobile devices. PS4 and PS5 versions are in development.