Guide to Late Game Character Building
Character Stats and Why They’re Important
ERR (Energy Regeneration Rate)
This stat affects how much Energy a character regens when taking an action, being hit, or triggering a special effect. ERR% affects all incoming sources of Energy.
Many characters are very ult-reliant. Therefore, increasing the rate at which they can ult will increase their usefulness and help them do their job.
All Support characters and many Sustain characters use ERR% rope relics.
Some light cones give flat Energy or ERR%.
EHR (Effect Hit Rate)
When characters want to apply debuffs or status effects on enemies, EHR increases the chance of a successful application.
Just because a character ability says “100% base chance” to apply, it does NOT mean that it’s a 100% guaranteed chance. Many enemies have Debuff Resistance that brings down that 100% to a lower actual chance.
By stacking enough EHR on your character, you can guarantee that they can debuff most enemies.
It’s worth guaranteeing debuff applications because often you only use debuff characters for their debuffs anyway, so they must do their job.
Crit Rate and Crit Damage
In HSR, crit ratio is extremely important for most DPS, and by endgame, you aim to have a very high crit ratio.
- When building crit, you want to aim to have a “1:2” ratio.
- This means a 1% crit rate for every 2% crit damage.
- This ratio provides the most consistent damage and produces more damage on average than an unbalanced ratio.
For those wanting to seriously tackle endgame content, a 70/140 crit ratio is a recommended starting point for crit-based DPS. Good builds will hover around 80/160. Very good builds will exceed that, but requires long term farming.
Speed
Speed is a very important and underrated stat by the average player. Speed is a complicated topic, so it will have its own section below
Typically, you do NOT need to worry about speed until late game because speed needs to be farmed with relics. If you can get sources of speed before late game (speed boots relic, light cones, buffs, etc), then great.
Speed and Why You Should Care
TL;DR just tell me what to do:
- Most Supports: 134-161+ speed
- Most Sustain: 134-161+ speed
- Crit-based DPS: 134 speed. Very rarely, specific DPS need no speed
- DOT DPS: 134-161+ speed
Yes, 161 speed sounds like a lot. Yes, it is very possible. There are benefits to beyond 161 speed, but generally for the average player it is not worth grinding for it.
Understanding Speed
Speed affects how many extra turns a character gets to act in a cycle and what order they can attack in.
Think of it like a race on a circular track field. The faster your Speed is, the more laps you run in a certain amount of time. You can be so fast that you even out-lap people slower than you!
A Turn is whenever a character can make a Basic attack or Skill action. Ultimates are not considered a turn.
A Cycle contains multiple turns and has a set number of action values (AV). The first cycle always has 150 AV and cycles after that are 100 AV each. You don’t need to memorize this, just know that the first cycle is longer.
Why do I care? Many challenges and endgame content in HSR will ask you to defeat an enemy within “X number of Cycles”. This is where Speed matters a lot because it can grant you extra turns that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Speed ALSO matters outside of content with cycles, because you still get the extra turns. Ever see a boss move 2-4 times before you can? Its because of your low speed.
Benefits of speed are:
- Granting extra turns to attack/defend/heal/buff
- Generate SP by basic attacking
- Regenerating energy and gaining Ult back faster
- These benefits help you tackle harder endgame content.
What’s wrong with being slow?
If a character is too slow, they can fail to heal, shield, or attack often enough to win a battle. Their Ult will also take a long time to refill again.
Without the extra SP generated from extra turns, your DPS output might be lowered.
For example, a slow Gepard gets very few turns (and therefore has fewer turns to regenerate Energy) and will take forever to get his Ult back. Meanwhile, his team might be dying while they’re waiting for him to finally use Ult again. A very fast Gepard gets his Ult back quickly to reapply his shield and on top of that, he can produce extra SP with his extra turns.
My character has an ability that expires in X number of turns. Wouldn’t speed make the ability expire too fast?
Nope! Because your character is built fast, they can reapply an expired ability just as fast, while still reaping the benefits of getting more opportunities to attack/defend, produce SP, or regenerate their Ult.
You still need speed’s extra turn to regenerate your Ult.
There are some exceptions. Some characters do not need extra Speed.
Okay. So how do I get extra turns?
In general: Aiming for specific speed breakpoints aren’t recommended unless trying to optimize for MOC/PF. Instead, we recommend investing in as many speed stats as possible as a general rule instead of breakpoints.
For the nerds: Let’s look at the Speed Chart below. On the left is the character’s speed, on the right is how many bonus actions (turns) that the character will get if they have that speed. In the middle, it shows when the character will get that extra turn.
Almost all characters in the game use Speed boots, with the exception of a handful.
But often, Speed boots alone are not enough for a character to do their job or excel at their role. Thus, you will want to farm Relics with speed substats and try to get pieces with a lot of extra speed.
Relic Stats Drop Rate
Self Modeling Resin Advice
Self Modeling Resin allows you to customize 1 relic piece. You can choose the relic set, the specific relic piece, the Main stat, but the substats will be randomized.
What is the best use of Self Modeling Resin?
Because the substats are randomized, the character using this relic should not care about the substats too much.
Therefore, self-modeling resins should generally be used for Sustain or Support characters. DPS characters are too focused on building crit rate, crit damage, attack, or speed and you are very likely to get a relic with unwanted substats.
- In rare cases, you can use it for DPS pieces, but generally not advised.
- In the end, it’s your choice.
Okay, what should I make?
- Top Recommendation: ERR% Rope.
- This is because ERR% rope is rare and difficult to get.
- All Supports and many Sustains need ERR% rope.
Alternatives, but lower value:
- Speed boots for non-DPS.
- Crit Rate or Crit Damage chests for DPS, if desperate.
- Elemental Orbs for DPS, if desperate.
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