Kafka is almost out. And I thought I’d put my take on some talking points the community has been discussing, like Crit Kafka and Break Kafka, as well as talk about some important points Kafka mains will be needing to think about for her release and building her and her teams. 

We’ll review her kit real quick and check out her revealed traces, and discuss these new off meta builds people are talking about, as well as other topics. Then, I’ll give out a safe build path and teammates you can prepare for even if she’s only a few days away. 

Quick Kit Overview 

Let’s quickly look at her kit revealed on Hoyolab. 

Her basic attack is nothing special. Her skill is a blast skill and will detonate the central target’s DoT effects. That goes for any ally DoTs and break DoTs. Remember that Freeze, Entanglement and Imprisonment are not DoT effects. 

Her ultimate is an AOE damaging ultimate that will detonate all enemies’ DoT effects, rather than just the target in the middle. It will also apply Shock. And as a 5-star limited unit with a shock on her ultimate, we can assume this Shock will hurt a whole lot. 

Her talent is a follow up when an ally uses a basic attack, and will inflict Shock, too. Just like Serval’s kit shocks, these will not be stacking with each other. 

Her technique is an attacking one, and will also apply a shock equal to the ultimate’s one. 

Her traces make her ultimate detonate all dots, give her energy on enemies being defeated with shock, and give all of her Shock base chances a buff. 

So, Kafka’s main role is a main DPS. And her secondary role is a DoT enabler. Without knowing kit numbers, ultimate and skill will be levelled first, and then talent and then basic. Her first passive is OP, her third is a must get too, and her second is nice. 

Kafka’s Scalings 

So, with her kit, what will she scale on? 

DoTs cannot crit, and she will thus scale primarily on ATK%. She will not need much effect hit rate due to her third trace. And then she will scale heavily on speed because of the nature of her damage. The way her damage will scale on speed is because of the way she double dips in damage. 

Taking more turns is, of course, good for any DPS. If you do a little less damage than usual, but take many more turns, you’ll overall be doing a bunch more damage. 

Kafka follows the same concept. Every turn she takes, she can skill and do some damage. But then, she will also detonate her DoT effects, and any ally dot effects. 

What this means is that speed is even more important for her than usual. Your DoT damage will happen at the start of every enemy turn, but also on your own turns. Getting more instances of those is always good. You also have to, of course, stack ATK%. 

Kritka (Crit Kafka) Discussion

So, that’s two lines in your relics’ possible 4. And that is why people are going to Crit and Break Kafka. If I only need attack and speed, why not add crit. 

The problem is we don’t have infinite substats or possible substat rolls. We need those attack% rolls, and we need those speed rolls. 

If we use my Sampo sheet, and insert 10 crit rate and 10 crit damage subs, and a crit rate chest, his damage naturally comes out ahead versus normal attack%. This is losing effect hit rate, which means a lot less debuffs.

But since we compared with Kafka and Kafka won’t be needing effect hit rate, so we can follow the same concept. 

So, in a solo case, the crit will be doing more damage if you’re just considering a DoT effect, and a damage effect. Then comes in the detonations. 

The DoT scales on ATK%, the kit damage scales on attack%, and the detonations scale on ATK%. Only one of these scales on crit. The more you remove speed for crit on Kafka, the fewer detonations you’ll get. The more you remove ATK% on her for crit, the less damage her overall kit does, before one third of it being multiplied by crit. 

Foregoing speed also means potential allies’ DoTs also suffer, but Crit Kafka would be running stuff like Tingyun and Asta, so that wouldn’t matter. 

Of course, just like Serval is primarily a crit DPS, with a nice DoT, Kafka will be a DoT DPS, with a nice amount of crittable damage. So, you can still run the crit, and it will still work and be viable until MOC gets beefier and beefier. Though the nice part about not running crit, is all those pieces without crit can finally be used.

Breakfa (Break Kafka) Discussion 

As for break Kafka, her break effect scalings were removed from CBT2, which is a bit sad. But breaking is still a ton of damage when you focus in on it. And since she can detonate, going all in on speed and break effect will do decent damage. 

It will need you to be breaking, and/or bringing Serval, and being against Lightning Weak, but it can work. Remember, break shocks stack with normal shocks, and can even stack on other teammates’ break shocks. 

If you’re daring, you can stack Serval and Kafka’s 4 shocks all on one poor boss, with Serval’s ultimate infinitely extending these Shocks. 

At the end of this though, you can ask why bother, and just run attack% and speed. Of course, you can play how you want, and I’m excited to see all three builds post release. They’re all going to be great and will probably be beating the late game Memory of Chaos. 

Teammate Discussion 

As for teammates, she is a DoT enabler, as her second role. 

Remember, she is foremost a main DPS, and she can therefore run your standard team setups you’ve been building for. 

She doesn’t need those dot friends if you don’t want to build them. She can run your Tingyun, your Bronya, your Yukong if you’re going to Critka. She can be the focus of your team. She doesn’t need Sampo or Serval or Luka to perform, like some people are stating. 

Just like Serval main DPS is doing excellently, and Sampo solo DoT is working, Kafka will be fine just by herself. You can, of course, use those DoT units you’ve been building up, and they’ll be best with her due to her detonation playstyle.

But if you just want to get her and play her cause you love her, then go ahead. You’ll see plenty of showcases within the first week of her popping off as a solo DPS. 

Also Read: Mechanics Explained You Need To Know In Honkai Star Rail! - DOT, Debuff & Break Effect

Safe Relic Build

So for a safe build, 4-piece Band of Sizzling Thunder will, of course, be excellent on Kafka. 

Space Sealing Station for the planar ornaments. Pan Galactic will most likely be a DPS loss due to her third trace. You’ll also be able to run 2 piece combos, such as musketeer, messenger, and the lightning set again. There’s also the possibility of Quantum set. 

For main stats and substats, you’ll want ATK%, SPD, lightning DMG% and ATK%. 

For subs, you’ll be chasing attack% and speed, getting to whatever effect hit rate needs she has, and then plopping the rest into your desired stats. 

Light Cone Discussion 

For Light Cones, her signature will be incredible for her, due to it being stackable with her base kit shock, just like the Resolution light cone defense shred stacks with Pela’s ultimate, since they are two different sources or named debuffs. 

Good Night and Sleep Well is broken and will be amazing for her, too. You’re looking at a permanent 72% damage boost if you have 3 debuffs on the enemy. 

Fermata as a free to play option is nice, and Welt’s light cone works because of its high base ATK%, DMG%, and skill damage buff, which will be boosting her DoTs during the detonation. 

Best Friends And Teams 

Her best sub DPS will be Sampo and Luka, and Serval, and break DPS will also work great with her. 

Her best supports will be Asta, Pela and Silver Wolf. But remember, she can use other harmonies, too. Don’t feel restricted. 

A standard team comp for her will include one of your desired sub DPS, combined with a buffer or debuffer, and then a solo sustain. 

Pick your poison. Triple DoT will be a bit risky to run with lack of survivability, and not best in damage, due to Asta, Pela and Silver Wolf boosting the damage of two DPS a ton. 

I hope that helps for any Kafka wanters. It doesn’t matter if you can’t pull her when Kafka is online, you can directly buy a Honkai Star Rail Account with this character. Hope you all become Kafka havers. 

Kafka was finally revealed to be one of the banner 5-stars for Honkai Star Rail 1.2. So, today I’m going to be going over Kafka’s kit from what we officially know.

Kafka’s Kit Overview & Breakdown

To begin, let’s discuss the basics of Kafka’s kit.

Kafka is a lightning ahility character and Kafka’s skill kit revolves around adding damage over time to enemies, which in her case would be shock.

She also has damage over time detonation. Her skills deal inflicts lightning damage to multiple targets. If the enemy is inflicted with damage over time, then she’s able to do additional damage to the enemy based on the damage over time on the enemy. This will make the enemy take damage from the damage over time infliction during their own turn and when Kafka uses her skill.

Another nice thing about Kafka’s skill is that her dealing the additional damage will not remove the current forms of damage over time on the enemy, which means you can have Bleed when Shear and even Shock sacked on the end enemy. And Kafka's skill will do additional damage without removing any of the current damage over time on the enemy. This is overall just a very nice plus to her skill kit.

Kafka’s kit is able to inflict shock onto enemies and because of that, she’ll be able to trigger the additional damage with her own kit, which is a nice benefit as well since she could take advantage of the extra damage inflicted onto the enemy without the need of another character. This can actually open the door for other team members if her own skill kit is sufficient enough through her own damage over time inflection.

I definitely think her skill has immense potential to do a good amount of damage, depending on her multipliers. But overall, the aspect of her kit looks very nice.

Another thing Kafka can do is a follow-up attack when an ally uses a basic attack, which is likely limited to a certain amount of times per turn. But this is nice for a dish of additional damage. Kafka’s ultimate does lightning damage to all enemies. And she has a chance to inflict shock onto enemies and immediately deals extra damage to those who do get shocked, which is very nice as she could ultimate and then skill to take advantage of her, shocking the enemy to deal the extra damage I mentioned before.

Lastly, Kafka’s technique deals lightning damage to all enemies. This is nice because if she breaks the enemy with her technique, then she can immediately inflict shock onto the enemy and now she can use her skill to immediately deal extra damage.

Overall, Kafka’s kit looks pretty nice and she can likely do a good amount of damage, especially if you’re able to consistently strike enemies or even inflict other forms of damage over time, which could be Wind Shear, Bleed, and so on.

Also Read: Honkai Star Rail 1.3 Character Revealed! - How To Pull Is The Most Sensible Choice?

Kafka Teams & Ideal Partners

As for team comps or partners that may be good with Kafka, a top Contender can be Sampo due to his abilities to afflict Wind Shear very often. Kafka’s skill can take advantage of this for the extra damage without her having to use her ultimate to shock enemies.

Sampo can also increase how much damage over time and damage enemies take through his ultimate. And since he is on Kafka’s banner, the possibility of getting copies of him also exists. This can also further enhance his Wind Shear.

Another possible partner can be the newly revealed four-star Luka, who has a focus on inflicting bleed onto enemies. And Luka has the potential to do a good amount of damage himself due to him having enhanced attacks through his skill kit him. Inflicting bleed consistently can also assist Kafka’s damage with her skill as well.

As for buffers majority of buffers that we currently have can likely assist Kafka with increasing her attack, speed, hurt rate, crit damage, and so on.

Tingyun may actually be the best pairing though since Tingyun is not very skill points hungry and she can further buff Kafka’s lightning damage. Tingyun can also assist Kafka by increasing her damage and Tingyun’s ultimate can regenerate energy for Kafka’s ultimate, which can lead to more shock inflicted onto enemies.

You’d likely possibly want a team comp with Kafka. Sampo or maybe even Luka are both the most ideal partners. But of course, there are more options, such as Serval, Hook, Himeko and so on. But it’ll ultimately come down to which partner helps Kafka deal the most damage out of the bunch, which will likely be Sampo, but Luka can be a good Contender depending on what he fully does once he’s here.

A buffer would be nice for Kafka, which can be Tingyun, Bronya, Asta, or Yukong. Preferably one that doesn’t use skill points too often may be the best, since Kafka would want to use her skill quite often for the extra damage. But if your team is pretty skill point positive or neutral, the other buffers may be good options as well.

Lastly, you’d want a sustain, which can be Luocha, Gepard, Fire MC, Bailu or Natasha. This ultimately comes down to which the same character you currently have and are currently using.

Overall, I do think these are pretty good options for team members with Kafka. But only if you have these characters in your Honkai Star Rail Account first. For those who have Silver Wolves, this can be pretty nice as well since Silver Wolf debuffs enemy resistances defenses and so on, which can assist Kafka in dealing even more damage to enemies.

Kafka Light Cone Build Recommendations

Now that I’ve gone overpotential team members, let’s discuss potential light cone options.

As for light cones, you may use Good Night and Sleep Well, which increases the damage the wearer deals, depending on how many debuffs are on the enemy. This also includes damage over time. So, depending on your team comp, Kafka can take advantage of this.

You can also use Fermata, which is a light cone all free to play players can get through the Forgotten Hall shop. This light cone increases break effect and damage out to enemies inflicted with Shock or Wind Shear. And this is a nice light cone if you pair Kafka with Sampo.

Another option is Eyes of the Prey to increase kafka’s effect hit rate and damage over time multiplier. I would likely recommend the two other four-star light clones over this one. But this one can be nice to increase your effects hit rate since Kafka has a chance to inflict shock, which means she’ll likely want some effect hit rate depending on what her base chance actually is to inflict shocks. This will allow though for more consistent shocks to her ultimate, which I will go over how much effects hit rate you may want once Kafka is here.

As for 5 stars, the “In the Name of the World” can be great for increasing Kafka’s damage that her skill does and damage against debuffed enemies. Of course, Kafka’s signature light cone will probably be her best in slot. But I thought I’d give recommendations other than her signature for those who are only looking to pull the character and not the light cone.

Final Thoughts

That’ll be all for my thoughts on Kafka, her potential team comps and light cones. I think Kafka has the immense potential to be a great damage dealer with the right builds and synergies. Overall, I’m very excited about her release as the enhanced damage over time play style looks really nice.

Are you looking at guides day in and day out to see who really deserves your pick? Or are you still saving gems for some questionable reason?

So today I will introduce the next three roles, Kafka, Luocha, Blade. We’ll discuss what new things they’re bringing to Honkai Star Rail, and how they’re going to change the meta.

What Does Luocha Do? & Why To Pull Him?

Luocha is our next 5-star character, arriving on June 28th. He is an Imaginary Abundance unit. He can heal allies or deal AOE Imaginary damage. What he brings to Honkai Star Rail is a whole new kind of treatment.

Natasha and Bailu are outside of their ults and only heal when it’s their turn. But Luocha will heal, as long as you have his Talent. Luocha can heal with his skills, and any ally’s attack will heal your team a little. Just like Fire Trailblazer, this means you can plug in an ally’s Ultimate to heal your entire team.

Your DPS one shooting abilities will provide team utility when Luocha is on the field. And of course, his healing skills are powerful, too. And he also offers Cleansing, which Bailu doesn’t.

His Ultimate also has the best AOE buff removal in the game, and it is twice as high as Pela’s single-target buff removal. He offers massive utility on top of massive healing. His healing also scales with his attacks, meaning he can pack a little DPS on top of the rest.

If you lack Bailu or Gepard, then I would recommend you to choose Luocha. His pull value is very high. Even with Bailu, he brought a lot of things that she couldn’t.

Also, Imaginary units are very rare. It’s great that Luocha has that option compared to other Imaginary-Weak characters, and Imaginary Break can be very useful in delaying enemies and slowing them down.

For those strong enemy damage buffs, his extra Imaginary Break, Cleansing, and enemy buff removal should allow your team to survive tough content pretty well.

What Does Kafka Do? & Why To Pull Her?

Next, let’s discuss Kafka. She is a Lightning Nihility unit. What she brings to Honkai Star Rail is a DoT detonation, which means she can trigger damage over time effects that deal damage instantly. This will solve a major problem for DoT teams.

With Kafka, their damage takes effect on every turn of Kafka. She also provides her own damage over time, at a very high rate.

Finally, she has strong Toughness damage, and her gear is purely damage-based with some follow-through. She’s definitely going to shake up the meta, as having her can introduce more team changes by enabling any current and future DoT characters.

If you don’t like DoT style of play, then Kafka might not be for you. But since she changed how DoTs work, you might like having her DoTs on your roster.

If you really like DoT, then she is a must pull. She’s going to make these teams more fun and very dynamic. She’s not a standard hypercarry like Seele or Jing Yuan, but a strong DPS. She can deliver insane damage depending on your teammates.

She will also appear alongside Luka. We expect Luka to provide some physical DoT effects as a Physical Nihility unit. Remember Break DoT can also be detonated by Kafka. As the game progresses, Kafka will get better and better. Because any future OP DoT characters or Break Characters will expand with her.

What Does Blade Do? & Why To Pull Him?

Finally came Blade. What he brings to Honkai Star Rail is a new form of DPS. Clara can counter it and even heal it with some Light Cones.

Blade will voluntarily sacrifice his health, then deal some baffling damage, and accumulate charges to restore all health. His damage will be the first HP scaling damage. His gear will revolve around enhancing his base attacks through his skills and draining HP. A tank hit at the same time gives the enemy another round of slashing.

His abilities boost his base attack for a few turns, meaning his skill points are highly efficient. Even he can be a secondary DPS that can heal himself without taking almost any SP for the primary DPS.

He can also be a main DPS, so he’s pretty versatile already. Blade will enable the new Destruction team Archetypes. In this Archetype, you don’t do any protection, just tank damage and have a healer by your side.

This technically means that Preservation units work against him, and he does no damage. So if you don’t like an adventurous playstyle, his value may be reduced. If you already have a Hypercarry, the new DPS pull value is also reduced.

But he offers strong coverage of Wind element, and will be the most powerful DPS as well. So he can fill the role of Clara, as a character who can deal a lot of damage.

Small Summary On Their Value

All in all, Luocha is the most versatile healer. If you want to challenge Memory of Chaos and Bailu or Gepard pull him. However, he still thrives with them on your Honkai Star Rail Account.

Kafka will enable a whole new type of teams, DoT teams, by solving their fundamental problems. She’ll provide a lot of DPS on her own, but her damage will really come from the teammates you bring in. If you like DoTs or Kafka, or want some DPS, she’s a great pick.

In the end, Blade has the least pull value, as most of us probably pulled Seele or Jing Yuan. However, he can thrive in team combinations without preservation units and has versatility.

He can also be used to run enemy stages solo if you like. Don’t forget him if you want a whole new type of DPS.