If you’ve playedHonkai: Star Railfor a little while, you’ve probably already realized the importance of teamwork and using synergistic teammates to get the best out of every DPS unit. With the right support units, you can easily beat the hardest content with even one of the units that has lesser comparative damage.
This usefulness of teammates goes to another level with a five-star Nihility character like Black Swan since even her kit has certain aspects that rely on what your other party members do.
9Asta
One glance at Black Swan’s kit and you’ll already realize that she has a ton of in-built DMG that you can get by simply building Effect Hit Rate. Any more DMG increase and you might start getting diminishing returns, which makes it important to stack as much ATK as you can on her.
This can be done by a support like Asta who gives the entire party an ATK boost based on the Charging stacks she possesses. She also provides the party with a bunch of SPD with her Ultimate, which lets Black Swan stack extra Arcana on the enemies. Finally, the Burn effect from her Basic Attack and Weakness Break is the cherry on top.
8Dr. Ratio
This might not be the most meta combination in Honkai: Star Rail, but it is a synergistic one if you play the right cards. Black Swan has a bunch of in-built debuff applications including her Arcana stacks, DEF shred, and Epiphany. Dr. Ratio’s chances oftriggering a follow-up attackafter using his Skill increase based on the debuffs on the enemy.
He only needs three debuffs to have a 100 percent chance, which is already fulfilled by the first two debuffs from Black Swan and the Effect RES shred from his own kit. However, you need up to six debuffs to get the maximum damage boost, so it’s recommended to use the Resolution Shines as Pearls of Sweat Light cone on her.
7Bronya
The combination of Bronya and Black Swan can be quite tricky, but it’s still a possible one just because of how broken this Harmony character’s kit is. Her Skill can instantly remove a debuff from Black Swan and allow her to take a turn, which will let you stack more Arcana and you won’t need to build as much SPD on her as you normally would.
However, her Skill provides a massive DMG boost while her Ultimate also gives a Crit DMG boost to her team. The first stat can lead to diminishing returns on Black Swan while the latter is completely unnecessary. To counter the massive DMG bonus, it’s recommended to build ATK Percent main stat on almost every piece that you may.
6Fu Xuan
If you’re planning to take on endgame content like Pure Fiction, Memory Of Chaos, orSimulated Universewith Black Swan, you’ll most likely need a sustainer on the team to keep her alive. You have many choices for this spot, but Fu Xuan is arguably one of the best. One of the main reasons for this is her low Skill Point usage.
Fu Xuan only uses a Skill Point once every three turns, while Black Swan essentially needs to use it every turn to maximize her damage output. Moreover, Fu Xuan can prevent her from getting crowd-controlled once with every Skill duration.
5Guinaifen
Black Swan’s kit makes it quite evident that HoYoverse wants you to use at least one other DoT applicator with her, and Guinaifen can fit this role perfectly. Whenever Black Swan’s team member applies a DoT on the enemy during their turn, an Arcana stack is applied with it. This has a maximum of three stacks for each attack, and Guinaifen can make use of all three.
Furthermore, when enemies take damage from her Burn effect, she applies the Firekiss debuff that makes the enemies take extra DMG. This can be great alongside all the DMG bonus from Black Swan. Finally, to take the synergy to the next level, Guinaifen can also trigger her own Burn effect instantly with her Ultimate.
4Sampo
From one DoT applicator to another, Sampo is another phenomenal support choice alongside Black Swan, especially if you have his fourth Eidolon. This eidolon makes it so the enemies with five or more Wind Shear stacks take extra damage from Sampo’s attacks. This goes perfectly when you build him completely on Break Effect.
The idea for this team is to break every enemy’s Weakness with Sampo and then use the high multiplier of the Break Effect DoT to deal staggering damage with his Skill. All of this happens while Black Swan constantly stacks up Arcana stacks and deals the final blow to the enemy when they get a turn.
3Ruan Mei
Ruan Mei’s release was quite a blessing for every DoT-based team out there since her Skill increases the Weakness Break Efficiency of the entire team, which makes it much easier to use your high Break Effect on these units. Moreover, she can provide important stats like RES PEN and SPD with her Ultimate and Talent respectively.
She also delays an enemy’s Weakness recovery when they get a turn, which allows for extra damage from Black Swan. The only not-so-good thing about this combination is the extra DMG boost from her Skill due to the diminishing return, but you’re able to easily circumvent that by building more ATK on Black Swan.
2Tingyun
It seems like Tingyun never fails to stay in the meta even with multiple character releases from various paths, since she’s still arguably the best support you can use with Black Swan. She can give a much-needed ATK boost with her Skill while also providing a DMG boost and a whopping 50 Energy with her Ultimate.
This essentially lets Black Swan use her own Ultimate much more, which in turn prevents Arcana stacks from going away more often. This can give you a substantial DPS increase overall, especially in endgame content like Memory of Chaos where you’re fighting high HP bosses.
1Kafka
Finally, there couldn’t possibly be a DoT-based unit that doesn’t go well with Kafka since she was the reason for DoT to become meta in Honkai: Star Rail. Kafka’s Skill and Ultimate can both trigger every DoT applied on the enemy instantly, and this even includes the Arcana stacks since they essentially work as a separate debuff to trigger Wind Shear.
All of this combined with high Lightning DoT from Kafka herself and massive DEF shred from Black Swan makes for quite a strong duo. You can easily beat anything in the entirety of this stellar universe if you put these two together. However, it’s a misconception that Black Swan is bad without Kafka since she’s stillone of the best DPS unitsby herself.
