Tier list revamp and DPS Ranking changes - Prydwen Institute Blog (2024)

With the release of the 1.3 Honkai: Star Rail patch we have decided to make a few important changes on the website – and they will impact the Tier List, the DPS Ranking, and the character profile the most.

Tier list revamp

We’ve listened to a lot of feedback from various communities and we have decided to improve a few things about the Tier List. The biggest change will affect the three categories by which we rate the characters. Previously, those categories were General, Single Target and 3-Target. The categories were picked because they felt like the best split back when the game launched, but with our current knowledge – especially about how MoC works – they no longer are valid.

With the way the waves are set up in the MoC, you always start with a wave that contains 3-5 enemies who are on the weaker side and you need to quickly deal with them. The second wave type consists of 1 elite-type enemy who is accompanied by 1-2 weaker enemies. The third wave type consists of 2 elite-type enemies that you have to fight at the same time – here you usually focus on killing one of them fast, to make the fight easier as dealing with both elite-tier mechanics is usually annoying and hard.

When it comes to the current teambuilding meta, you usually run a single DPS who you pair with 2 offensive supports and 1 defensive support. This means that the DPS character you choose matters a lot and there’s a very small number of DPS characters who are good at dealing with all 3 of the above scenarios AND also match the elements the monsters are weak too (usually it only matters for the last wave, so double elite).

This is why the tier list has been reworked and now we rate each of the characters by how they perform in those 3 exact scenarios:

• Single target– how a character performs when fighting against a single enemy, but also when you need to focus a target to kill it fast (so priority killing),
• Blast– how a character performs when fighting against 3 enemies (so main target + two smaller ones),
• AoE– how a character performs when fighting against 4 and 5 enemies. This measures their potential to quickly deal with large groups of weaker enemies.

With the way the Paths in the game split the damage dealers, we feel that the new split will be able to better showcase the strengths of each of the characters so you can pick the best one to deal with the MoC stages. Also, we’ve made a new addition above the tier list that is more visual and can be used to quickly switch between the tier list categories:

The second change we are introducing revolves around expanding the criteria we use to rate the characters and we’re hoping this will players better understand our ratings:

• Manual play,
• Using optimal team composition/support characters,
• Character level 80,
• All Major Traces unlocked and skills upgraded to level 8,
• Character equipped with level 80 Light Cone (4★ and 5★, but only those available to F2P players),
• Character equipped with 5★ upgraded gear with optimal Main Stats and Sub Stats (24 out of 54),
• Eidolon level 0 for 5★ characters,
• Eidolon level 4 for 4★ characters (Eidolon level 6 will be introduced with patch 1.4),
• Support characters while receiving ratings in all 3 categories (Single target, Blast, AoE) are rated according to how much they help the team and they receive one unified rating.

We could also add a feature to enable the Signature Light Cone to showcase how the tier list would change by including it. If you like the idea, leave a comment here!

Considering the adjustments made, most of the DPS characters’ ratings have changed while the supports (defensive and offensive) remained mostly the same as they don’t really care about the enemies that much.

You can find the tier list by going here.

DPS Ranking

The DPS Ranking won’t be updated with Imbibitor Lunae and we are suspending any updates on it indefinitely – it will also be removed in the future. Here are the reasons behind this:

Misusage of the graph

This is the first reason. A lot of players are screenshotting the DPS comparison graph available on the page and then sharing it with others. While we actually don’t have anything against people sharing the information found on the website in any possible way – since our aim is to spread knowledge about the game – the graph itself, without the Rules and Disclaimers available on the page causes more harm than good. Why is that?

Honkai: Star Rail combat system is very complicated and it takes a few days per character to actually calculate their damage output for all Eidolons and Light Cones – because we need to do that to find what’s the best.That’s why our simulations are governed by a set of rules and restrictions and they should be used only to supplement the player’s knowledge –the numbers found on this page are only the first layer that showcases the ‘floor’ of the character which then you can scale using proper supports and better gear. Basically, extrapolate from our data to fulfill your needs.

Sadly, some players used it instead to spread hate.

Powercreep

This is the second reason. With the current trajectory of character releases each seems to be increasing in power – to some extent –creating a scenario in which the damage ranking’s top position is constantly changing(Kafka was an exception as she expands the current roster horizontally by introducing some alternative playstyles and kudos to Mihoyo – please continue releasing more characters like her). Because of this, the characters players pulled for (and invested in) are moving down in positions on the ranking, stirring community concerns – and in some cases anger despite the characters in the game’s power level not changing and the difficulty of the game not increasing.

As mentioned above some community members also take the opportunity for characters being overtaken on the damage ranking to spread hate, making others feel bad about a character they have invested in and or enjoy.Prydwen does not support the use of the damage ranking to bash characters and in the current state of endgame, even entirely 4-star teams are completely viable in the endgame.

Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae

Imbibitor Lunae was the primary catalyst for what’s happening with the DPS Ranking and is the culmination of the issues with comparing units without full teams as a definitive resource. Lunae is most accurately calculated using many more Skill Points than other characters as that’s exactly how you play him in the game. Calculating him without this feature would be wildly inaccurate and unhelpful as it would go against his realistic playstyle.

This is an issue as Lunae’s solo calculations are much higher than other characters.

The reason for this is his solo calculations consume – compared to other characters – far more of the team’s resources, putting our team in an impossible situation. We either could misrepresent the character with a rotation no one will use to put him on the level of other characters or add him with his full rotation that consumes most of the teams’ resources which is unfair in a separate way.

Unfortunately, this issue is not exclusive to Lunae and has popped up a few times which our team has done its best to listen to feedback on, but Lunae unfortunately has no solution we can spot, being the final push behind this decision.

That’s why we were worried that some players would just look at the graph, pull for him, and then regret it. Why?He requires a very specific team built around him combined with a very specific playstyle which is caused by his massive Skill Points consumption. Furthermore, he is more challenging to play on auto due to the AI stealing his much desired SP and granting them to other characters e.g. Pela a character a player would use the basic on might use the skill. This can lead to underwhelming DHIL auto results.

Basically, playing Imbibitor Lunae looks like this:

If you want to learn more about this character, check our Should you pull guide for Imbibitor Lunae.

Moving forward

While the DPS Ranking will be removed in some time, our calculations aren’t going anywhere!

We are currently working ona massive overhaul of our character profilethat will make it easier to navigate and contain way more information – the calculations for each character will actually be moved there, so you can still check how they’re performing. We’re simply removing the easy way to screenshot the graph and spread it without the necessary explanations.

Here’s a list of new features/changes that will be added to each character profile within the next 6 weeks:

• Making a visual overhaul to improve readability,
• Adding a slider to the skills, so you can easily check values for each level (this is probably the most requested feature),
• Adding the damage number graphs for each Eidolon – both in Single Target and Blast scenarios,
• Adding an introduction section that gives an overview of the character, their pros and cons etc,
• Incorporating the MoC Analytics data into the profile so you can not only browse the most popular teams used there, but also check the cycle clear time, relics, and all the plethora of information we have on the MoC Analytics page!

Also, we will be investigating the ability to add team-based simulation information to the website, but they will never be directly compared like we were comparing the Solo simulations.