Honkai Star Rail Preservation character tier list (December 2024)

Honkai Star Rail offers several roles or classes for each character in its massive roster. Preservation is one of the many classes in the game. Units in this path have their kit focused on helping the team survive by blocking incoming attacks with shields or diverting the damage towards themselves. These characters are quite useful against bosses and when tackling Honkai Star Rail's endgame challenges.

Tier lists show players how each character performs in the ever-changing meta of Honkai Star Rail. You'll need a character to help you survive the gauntlet of this challenging content, and knowing the ones at the top can help you utilize limited resources or even pull for them in a future rerun banner.

Without further ado, let's start ranking the Preservation characters from the best to those falling behind in the current meta.

Note: Tier lists are subjective and reflect the author's opinions.

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Tier list for Honkai Star Rail's Preservation characters as of December 2024

The tier list of all the characters in this class (Image via Tier maker)

This tier list shows how each character does in the game's meta. While following the meta to have an enjoyable session is not necessary, it sheds light on the top Honkai Star Rail characters and lets you easily get through the most challenging content. The highest rating, SS, represents the best Preservation units on this list, while the lowest score is B.

Remember that all these units have been considered at E0 or without Eidolons.

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SS Tier

Aventurine is the only Preservation character in Honkai Star Rail who deserves the top spot since his base kit has everything to make him shine during combat. He can provide shields to all allies on command by activating his Skill, something old tanks are lacking.

Additionally, his stackable barrier is impenetrable. Just build him with sufficient defense stats to secure complete protection from incoming attacks. Unless stunned or trapped by crowd control, Aventurine can single-handedly keep a team alive in the end-game contents.

Speaking of crowd controls, this Preservation 5-star gains Effect Res from the passive, so resisting debuffs is a breeze. Lastly, his follow-ups are a great source of Imaginary DMG. He can activate it frequently to generate Ultimate, which also increases the CRIT DMG received by the target.

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S Tier

Fu Xuan is a great character who you should definitely pull for in a rerun banner (Image via Hoyoverse)

Fu Xuan, the 5-star limited Preservation character in Honkai Star Rail, takes the second-leading spot in the list. The Master Diviner of Xianzhou Luofu has incredible tanking potential and can rival Aventurine, thanks to a few tricks up her sleeve.

She absorbs the incoming damage from her teammates, acting almost like a sponge to ensure the other characters are well-protected throughout the fight. Fu Xuan also has self-healing abilities that aid her survival. She is the perfect companion for characters that scale on HP, as she is equipped with the ability to increase the health of other Preservation or Destruction units. Fu Xuan can also boost a team's Effect Res and Critical Rate, which are useful bonuses to have.

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A Tier

If you do not own him, you can pick Gepard up after 300 Standard Warps (Image via Hoyoverse)

Gepard, once regarded as the best tank in Honkai Star Rail, was dethroned when Fu Xuan was launched. Nonetheless, he is the second-best Preservation character in the game and one of the top picks from the Standard Warp.

His shields are immense, and he is an Ice character, which means that if he breaks an enemy's weakness, they will be frozen, and their turn will be pushed down the turn order.

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B Tier

The B-tier is reserved for Honkai Star Rail characters that are either underpowered or have no usage in the current meta when players have superior counterparts. That said, these are the units you should avoid building unless you like their playstyle.

• Trailblazer (Preservation)
• March 7th

The community's favorite Raccoon made it to the list (Image via Hoyoverse)

The Preservation Trailblazer can provide a lot of sustain to the squad, but only if the stars align. They can taunt foes and divert attacks away from your allies, but given the random nature of enemy targeting, this will not always be the case.

Their ultimate shields the entire squad while dealing fire damage to enemies. However, the shield is weaker. They are ranked second to last since they can still be employed in the endgame content if you have trouble surviving it.

Buff March 7th! (Image via Hoyoverse)

March 7th is last on the list. She is an invaluable teammate early in the game, but her value starts dropping once you obtain the free healer, Natasha.

Her shields are subpar, and she can shield only one character. Her shields also require her to use skill, which might prove inefficient during Simulated Universe or Memory of Chaos. Unlike other characters sharing her element, her ultimate also does low Ice damage.