The lead researcher of the Herta Space Station is more than an office-bound genius. She's also an incredibly wealthy scion of an intergalactic corporation and, more importantly, a valuable team member of the Astral Express crew in Honkai Star Rail. Asta is the first Harmony unit players get in the game, and she can be terrifyingly effective if used properly.
Asta is primarily a support unit like Bronya, and much like her 5-star counterpart, she can increase the damage output of everyone on the team while also speeding everyone up. If built correctly, Asta can extend damage windows by tilting turn orders in favor of her team while simultaneously dealing respectable DPS herself. Here's a guide on the best Relics and synergies for this character in Honkai Star Rail.
Honkai Star Rail Asta Build
As a support character, Asta should focus on getting her buffs online so that the rest of the team can take advantage of them. However, due to the nature of her primary skill, she can effectively fill the role of a secondary damage unit. Before diving into that, here are her recommended Relics, stat priorities, and Light Cones:
- Core Stat Priorities: CRIT Rate/DMG, ATK%, Speed
- Planar Ornament Stat Priorities: Fire DMG, Energy Regen
- Relic Sets: Thief of Shooting Meteor (4PC), Kingdom of Banditry (2PC)
- Light Cones: The Battle Isn't Over (5-star), Memories of the Past (4-star), Meditation (3-Star)
Asta deals surprising amounts of damage with her skill, Meteor Storm. By default, it randomly targets enemies on the field. However, if there's only one enemy left, every hit from the skill will be directed at that one target. This means Asta can shred Toughness bars extremely well, which explains the damage-oriented stats and Light Cones above.
Asta's Talent, Astrometry, gives everyone in the party one stack of Charging every time Asta hits a different enemy. Each stack buffs the damage of affected characters up to five times in total. Three stacks expire the moment Asta begins her next turn. This pairs nicely with her ultimate, Astral Blessing, which gives everyone in the team a nice Speed buff.
This character, despite being classified as a support unit, is all about attacking. Much of her value comes from Meteor Storm's damage and Astral Blessing's ability to let her cast more Meteor Storms in a shorter span of time. The more Asta attacks, the more Charging stacks she can generate, and the quicker she can burn through enemy Toughness bars.
Asta Trace Leveling Order
Level the following traces up in order when building Asta:
- Meteor Storm (Skill)
- Astrometry (Talent)
- Astral Blessing (Ultimate)
- Basic attack
Take her Ascension skills and passive Fire DMG and CRIT Rate nodes whenever they become available.
Players who want to use Asta as a pure support character should build her with Speed and Effect Hit Rate instead. Her basic attack can inflict Burn on enemies once Sparks is online, making her a great Skill Point generator.
Asta can work with team comps that use a Hunt character as its main source of damage. She is especially useful in a team that uses Dan Heng and Welt. When the three use their skills together, they can keep the team on top of the turn order almost indefinitely through combined Speed and Slow effects.
Eidolons aren't necessary to make Asta useful, but her E2 bonus can massively increase her viability as a supporting character by making her Charging stacks persist between turns. This Eidolon bonus can let Asta keep her teamwide damage buff up indefinitely so long as she keeps attacking.
Honkai: Star Rail is now available on Android, iOS, and PC. A PlayStation version is in development.