March 7th is Honkai Star Rail’s poster girl, and amazingly so, she shines brilliance and positivity, and is a treat to watch in the story.
Not only is she amazing, she is the second free character, and an excellent unit. She is a 4-star Ice character that follows the Preservation path, a path dedicated to protecting allies.
In this guide, I will do an overview of her stats, abilities, traces, and eidolons first. Then, I will recommend the best builds for her, and finish by discussing her role and rotation.
Stats Overview
At level 80, March 7th’s stats are the following:
- HP 1058
- Attack 511
- Defense 573
- Speed 101
- Taunt 150
Her health is middle of the pack, but her Defense is the third highest in the game, just below the two 5-star Preservation units.
Her attack doesn’t matter and is one of the lowest.
Her speed is solid and puts her ahead of her Preservation competition in that regard.
Her energy cost is 120, which is above average, but she has her ways of compensating for it.
Her taunt value of 150 makes her the likeliest to be attacked in your team.
Basic Attack
March 7th’s basic attacks, “Frigid Cold Arrow” will deal Ice damage to a single enemy. It will do 1 Break Unit every hit.
It isn’t recommended to focus on her basic attack damage, as they are single target and she is a tank. The Ice element’s break effect is nice, and will not scale based on her damage.
Skill & Trace 1 And 2
March 7th’s skill, “The Power of Cuteness”, will provide a single ally with a 3 turn shield that absorbs damage, scaling with March’s Defense stat. If they are healthy enough, these shields will also amplify their taunt value, making them likelier to be hit.
Upon unlocking her first Trace passive, “Purify”, this shield will remove one debuff from an ally, giving her incredible utility.
Upon unlocking her second Trace passive, “Reinforce”, March’s shield will last for an extra turn, turning her already potent shield to a 4 turn long shield.
Ultimate & Trace 3
March 7th’s ultimate, “Glacial Cascade”, will deal ice damage to all enemies, with a 50% base chance to Freeze them for one turn.
When enemies are frozen, they won’t be able to take action that turn, and will receive damage over time based on March’s attack stat. It will deal 2 Break Units to all enemies. It is an incredibly strong crowd controlling ultimate that can change the tide of the fight.
This 50% base chance can be increased through unlocking her third Trace passive, “Ice Spell”, which increases its base chance to 65%. It can also be increased through the effect hit rate stat.
Talent
Her talent is the glue that fuses her kit together.
“Girl Power”, makes her Counter any time a Shielded ally is attacked by an enemy, be it from her shields or other means.
This counter has two triggers per turn and deals Ice damage to the target based on March’s attack stat. It will deal 1 Break Unit every counter. This talent is what makes March so great.
Not only does it provide her with a bunch more energy to cycle back into her incredibly strong ultimate, it also provides some extra team damage, as well as toughness bar damage.
Technique
March 7th’s Technique, “Freezing Beauty”, will attack the enemy.
Upon entering battle, a random enemy has a 100% base chance to be Frozen for 1 turn. It will not be able to take action on its next turn and will receive a damage over time effect based on March’s attack.
It is a nice Technique, whiich is good for getting toughness bar damage in or freezing a strong foe.
Trace Bonuses
Her trace passives have already been discussed, and her trace stat bonuses give her ice damage%, effect resistance, and defense%, an okay offensive stat as well as two great defensive ones.
Eidolons
Her first eidolon will regenerate 6 Energy for every enemy frozen by her ultimate. This is a very good first eidolon, and will help her energy immensely. Ultimates already refund 5 energy, so she can possibly start at 35 energy after ulting if in the right circumstances.
Her second eidolon will grant a 3 turn shield to the ally with the lowest HP% upon entering battle. It scales on her defense, but is weaker than her normal shields. This is a nice quality of life eidolon for scary situations.
Her fourth eidolon allows her to Counter a third time per turn, and gives extra damage scaling to her Counters that increase with her defense. It’s a really great and cool eidolon, allowing her to pump out some damage now, and a third counter per turn gives her more Energy and toughness break capability.
Her final eidolon gives any ally protected by her shield healing that scales on their max health. It’s another interesting eidolon.
With her shield lasting 4 turns, this can amount to 16% max health scaling on top of all the other insane utility it has. You should never be upset seeing a March 7th dupe from pulls until E7 and higher, of course.
Kit Summary And Opinion
She has a really nice kit that saves her allies in more ways than one. She has great crowd control, and toughness breaking, as well as some okay damage. All in all, she is an awesome unit and a must build for anyone.
If you pulled Gepard, and with everyone having Fire MC, she has less value, but she provides some different things than them, and so can be used, regardless. And who knows if anyone will be using Fire MC when we get their next paths…...
Relics
For her build, we will boost her shields, as well as her freezing capabilities. We can’t make her a pure shielder without abandoning her freeze potential, so we will focus on the freeze and use that to scale her defensive stats.
Luckily, HoYoverse designed a set just for that. We will first use the Relic Set, “Knight of Purity Palace”, which will increase her defense% as well as the damage that can be absorbed by shields created by the wearer, a unique and strong buff. This is a very strong set for her and other preservation units.
When we get to the suitable rank for farming, I’d recommend farming this set early on, and it shares its domain with the lightning DPS set, which is pretty strong too. We got some nice free copies of the set for now.
For the Planar Ornament set, the “Belobog of the Architects” set is a must. It allows March to get up to 30% extra Defense if she gets to 50% effect hit rate. Since that’s a stat we will be prioritizing, and since a 5-star body piece gives us 43%, this will be easily obtainable, and combining these two sets will result in a huge power spike in both her shields and freezing powers.
For Body piece, go effect hit rate. 100% effect hit rate gives you a freeze effect chance of 90% at early levels. When you’ve unlocked her third trace and fight against level 100s, this drops down to 84.5%, which is still quite a high chance.
Some bosses, like the icy ones, are immune to freeze though, so be aware.
For boots, Speed to enable her to cycle ultimates, shields, and counters even more.
For Planar Sphere, go DEF%.
For Link Rope, opt into DEF% for bigger shields, or Energy Regen for better ultimate uptime. I personally recommend Energy Regen.
Light Cones
Preservation has a wide array of great Light Cones.
Texture of Memories is a free 5* and okay on her, providing herself with a free shield.
Moment of Victory is better though, providing immense Defense% as well as the coveted effect hit rate. If you don’t have the light cone, you might as well buy a Honkai Star Rail Account with the light cone directly. You can also use this method if you encounter some characters or items that are very difficult to get.
The 4-star options are just as strong, however. Day One of My New Life and We are Wildfire are both very strong damage resistance light cones. If you want some great fun with damage, Trend of the Universal Market and This is Me! can give March some new defense% damage scaling, but wouldn’t be best in the slot.
For 3 stars, Amber is best.
Roles And Rotations
March can adopt two roles, a skill Neutral Supportive Shielder, or a Hyper Defensive Shielder.
If you want to remain skill neutral, you will cycle between basic attack and shield. By shielding an ally, taking a hit, and performing two counters per turn, you can get your ultimate back up in two turns.
To relax the conditions, you can expect to get her ultimate back up every three turns, by basic attacking or shielding on your third turn. If you want to shield every turn and be super defensive, you only need to counter twice per turn to cycle back to your ultimate.
Her energy regeneration and ultimate cycling become even better at E1. If she manages to freeze one enemy in the first rotation, she will get her ult back up before her turn.
At E4, she can counter an extra time per turn and can thus gain an extra 10 to 20 energy per turn.
Teambuilding
She will take up the Preservation slot in a team, so in easy content your only defensive unit, and in harder content, one of the two potential defensive units, alongside an Abundance unit.
At E6, she can heal enough to potentially bring two Preservation units. With her you can bring a damage carry and then a flex consisting of a debuffer, another damage carry, or a buffer. No more of that starter free to play team, we are past that.
A better free to play team would consist of March 7th, Natasha for the second defensive unit, Dan Heng for solo damage carrying, and Serval for extra damage and another element. This team covers 4 elements, and was basically my main team that carried me through worlds 3 to 6 of Simulated Universe, though I used Fire MC.
You can replace Natasha with Bailu, or a flex slot in case of easier content like Overworld. Serval may be replaced by Herta or Qing Que for AOE damage, or a debuffer like Pela, or a buffer like Tingyun or Asta if you want your damage carry to excel.
March 7th will take care of any shield related business, and will control the enemies really well. You should bring her if you want a tank and see Ice weakness on the enemy list.
