Are 4-star characters worth it in Honkai Star Rail?

Honkai Star Rail is HoYoverse's latest successful release, where players have been enjoying the Gacha title's anime-styled character designs and addictive combat. Everyone should want to utilize every unit in battle, ranging across seven different Paths and two rarities. The following article is based on 4-stars more than the rare ones, as every Gacha game questions whether standard characters are worth the investment.

While most games advertise their high-rarity characters with severe damage and robust utility, the same is not valid for Honkai Star Rail. Being a turn-based game at its core, each skill, Path, and element is essential to a party, as certain enemies and activities can require a player to bring in all sorts of characters.

Hence, each 4-star is relevant to the endgame, as properly investing in them can provide excellent results.

Disclaimer: This article is subjective and relies solely on the writer's opinion.

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Honkai Star Rail makes 4-star characters worth investing in for endgame

Each 4-star character in Honkai Star Rail has a role to fill. Synergizing their class and elements against an enemy's weakness is the overall mechanic of turn-based combat. However, this shouldn't mean they're all-powerful, as 5-star characters will always be ahead of 4-star units, especially with higher base stats.

4-star team (Image via HoYoverse)

Like any Gacha game, acquiring a 4-star character is relatively more accessible than any 5-star unit. Thus, players are recommended to start building any 4-star character they get in Honkai Star Rail, including March 7th, Dan Heng, Natasha, and more.

But the ones that aren't free or featured as a rate-up in the limited banners can be a little hard to get.

Limited banner (Image via HoYoverse)

For example, 4-star characters such as Tingyun and Sampo aren't featured as rate-up characters in any Gacha banners. This makes it hard for everyone to acquire either of them except for sheer luck.

However, both these characters are currently considered the best-supporting units in the game, with Tingyun being a damage buffer alongside Sampo, specializing in applying DoT (damage over time).

Even after taking both these characters out of the equation, the current endgame in Honkai Star Rail can also be quickly completed with F2P characters. Herta, known for applying AOE damage, can be farmed through various instances of the Simulated Universe.

Herta's Eidolon as a reward for World 4 completion (Image via HoYoverse)

Natasha, who joins the party early in the game, can always keep the entire party alive. Additionally, the fire version of the main character alongside March 7th can lure the enemy's attack and provide a shield to an ally, filling in the tank role very well.

On the other hand, Dan Heng can be used against bosses, while Serval and Qingque are accessible AOE DPS units. The list of free 4-star characters is long, most of whom are potent for endgame content. Hence, the answer to whether 4-star characters are worth the investment in Honkai Star Rail is most definitely a yes.