Honkai Star Rail: Pro Tips For Playing As Black Swan

Summary

• Black Swan is a top-tier Nihility character in Honkai: Star Rail, excelling in DoT damage and Arcana stacking.
• Utilize her unique Arcana debuff and DoTs to maximize her damage output, focusing on building teams with consistent DoT application.
• Use Black Swan's Ultimate strategically to extend Arcana's duration and increase DMG, while prioritizing Effect Hit Rate in her build.

Black Swan is a five-star Wind-Type character in Honkai: Star Rail who follows the Path of Nihility. In the lore, she’s a Memokeeper from the Garden of Recollection who can divine other people’s fate through her tarot cards. In-game, she’s a broken DMG dealer who makes use of a unique type of DoT.

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Rather than dealing huge DMG up front, DoT characters rely on dealing Damage-over-Time, which appear as small ticks of individual DMG during the start of an enemy’s turn, but can stack up and quickly deplete their HP. DoTs also cannot deal CRIT hits, which makes it easier to build and use DoT-based characters, as is the case for Black Swan.

6 Understand Her Arcana Debuff

Black Swan’s entire kit revolves around a unique mechanic called Arcana, which is a type of DoT exclusive only to her. Black Swan can apply Arcana using her Basic ATK, Skill, and Technique, each with a certain chance of applying it:

• Basic ATK (Percipience, Silent Dawn): 50 percent to 68 percent base chance of inflicting one stack of Arcana to a single target enemy.
• Skill (Decadence, False Twilight): 100 percent base chance of inflicting one stack of Arcana to a target enemy and adjacent targets.
• Technique (From Façade to Vérité): 150 percent base chance of inflicting one stack of Arcana to each enemy at the start of the battle.

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When enemies are affected by Arcana, they receive Wind DoT at the start of their turn. Arcana can be stacked up to 50 times, and it will reset to one stack after it’s triggered.

5 Utilize DoTs To Apply More Arcana Stacks

With Black Swan’s Talent, every time an enemy target receives DoT at the start of their turn, there is a 50 percent to 68 percent base chance for it be inflicted with Arcana. Aside from that, DoTs can also apply additional stacks of Arcana through her Traces:

• After unlocking her first Major Trace, Viscera’s Disquet, after using her Skill to hit an enemy affected by Wind Shear, Bleed, Burn, or Shock, each individual debuff will have a 65 percent base chance of inflicting one extra stack of Arcana on top of the stacks gained from her Talent.
• After unlocking her second Major Trace, Goblet’s Dredges, there is a 65 percent base chance to inflict one stack of Arcana when a target enters battle. Every time an enemy target receives DoT during a single attack by an ally, there is a 65 percent base chance for the target to be inflicted with one stack of Arcana, which can stack up to three times during one single attack.

Utilizing DoTs in your team is an effective way to gain more Arcana stacks in order to deal more DMG. You should pair Black Swan with one or two characters who can consistently apply DoTs in order to take advantage of her Talent and Trace, such as Kafka, Sampo, Guinaifen, and Luka.

4 Get As Many Arcana Stacks As You Can

Aside from dealing Wind DoT, each stack of Arcana will increase its DoT DMG multiplier by 4.8 percent to 13.2 percent. Additionally, Black Swan will also trigger additional effects whenever Arcana deals DMG at the start of an enemy target’s turn:

• Three or more Arcana stacks: Arcana will deal Wind DoT to enemies adjacent to the inflicted enemy target, and has a 50 percent to 68 percent base chance of inflicting one stack of Arcana on those adjacent targets.
• Seven or more Arcana stacks: The current DoT will ignore 20 percent of the target’s and adjacent target’s DEF.

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This mechanic turns Black Swan into both an effective DoT support as well as a viable DPS, as she can increase the DMG output of DoT, as well as deal AoE DMG, in contrast to DoTs being restricted to the enemy that they’re applied to. Try to apply as much DoT and Arcana stacks as you can to make the most out of Black Swan’s DMG.

3 Use Her Ultimate To Extend Arcana’s Duration

Using Black Swan’s Ultimate, Bliss of Otherworld’s Embrace, will deal Wind DMG to all enemy targets and apply the Epiphany status to them for two turns. Enemies affected by Epiphany will take increased DMG, up to 15 percent to 27 percent, and their Arcana effect will be regarded as Wind Sheer, Bleed, Burn, and Shock effects all at the same time.

Additionally, while enemies are affected by Epiphany, their Arcana stacks will not reset after Arcana deals DMG at the start of their turn. This effect can only be triggered once, and can be replenished when Epiphany is applied again.

Black Swan’s Ultimate allows you to apply more stacks of Arcana to enemies, as it preserves the previous amount of Arcana stacks they have for one cycle, on top of the new stacks that you apply. Use her Ultimate as often as you can to deal more DMG with Arcana.

2 Use Her Technique To Start With More Arcana Stacks

After using Black Swan’s Technique, there is a 150 percent base chance for each enemy to be inflicted with one stack of Arcana at the start of the battle. If Arcana is successfully applied on a target enemy, another stack of Arcana will be applied.

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Each successive application of Arcana on a target will reduce the base chance of success to half of the base chance of the previous Arcana. This process will go on until Arcana fails to be inflicted on the target. Using this technique at the beginning of the battle will allow you to start with significantly more Arcana stacks.

1 Build Her With Effect Hit Rate

After unlocking her third Major Trace, Candleflame’s Portent, her DMG will be increased based on 60 percent of her Effect Hit Rate, up to a maximum of 72 percent DMG increase. Building her with Effect Hit Rate on her light cone, Relics, and Planar Ornament set will not only increase the base chance of applying Arcana, but also her DMG.

You’ll need a total of 120 percent Effect Hit Rate to fully maximize her Trace’s DMG increase. Make sure to upgrade her minor traces in order to gain ten percent Effect Hit Rate for free.

Effect Hit Rate will also increase the base chance of successfully applying debuffs to enemies, such as Arcana. Building high Effect Hit Rate allows your characters to ignore enemies' Effect RES depending on how much Effect Hit Rate they have.

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