Summary
If you’ve been in theHonkai: Star Railcommunity for a little while, you likely already know how everyone feels about the Erudition path. Ever since the game’s launch, this has been one of the least famouspaths alongside The Hunt, and most of it was due to the lack of good characters.
However, as more characters got released to the game, there were frequent indirect updates to some of these Erudition characters, bringing them back into the meta. Here are the best Erudition characters that you can upgrade to get long-term use.
Updated on June 20, 2025, by Sanyam Jain:The Erudition path was already slightly returning to the meta with Jade’s release, but it was truly brought in with The Herta during the Version 3.0 update. She’s not only the best character from this path, but also one of the best DPS characters to use in the game overall.
9Serval
Serval was one of the main characters during the story of Belobog, and she was also quite a phenomenal character to upgrade during the early game due to her high AoE damage. However, as more characters got released in the game, she slowly took a back seat and ended up being quite a forgotten character.
Everything that Serval can do, there’s a character out there who can do it better. For example, Kafka is significantly better at applying and triggering the DoT on the enemies, while there are various Lightning characters like Acheron who excel at dealing AoE Lightning damage with much more ease.
8Himeko
During the launch of Honkai: Star Rail, Himeko was considered one of the worst characters even after you get abunch of Eidolons and a great Light Cone on her. This was mainly due to the lack of overall damage and the difficulty in triggering her follow-up attack, especially during late-game content with high Toughness on the enemies.
However, this slowly changed as characters like Ruan Mei or Harmony Trailblazer were released into the game alongside the Pure Fiction game mode. All of these made Himeko a decent character to build, and while she’s still not the best, she can at least help you clear the content with multiple enemies easily.
7Qingque
Qingque has been quite a fan-favorite character from the start as she allows you to gacha infinitely for free. You can use her Skill multiple times in one turn, up until you get all four tiles of the same type. The number of times you use your Skill and the number of similar tiles decides the damage of your next Basic Attack.
If you’re in need of a Quantum DPS and don’t have one of the five-star options, Qingque can be a phenomenal choice, especially if you have her Eidolons since they add to the gacha by giving her a chance to trigger a follow-up attack with every basic attack.
6Herta
Herta is one of the geniuses hailing from her own station, and she was labeled as one of the least valuable characters during the early days of the game. With that in mind, her growth and return to the meta has been almost surprising, as she’s one of the top characters to get for Pure Fiction game mode.
This game mode is usually centered around follow-up attacks and has Ice weakness, making it the perfect playing field for Herta. To add even more synergy, the mode usually features a bunch of smaller enemies that you’re able to easily get to 50 percent HP or lower to trigger her follow-up attack.
While Herta is amazing and likely S-tier in Pure Fiction, she’s stillnearly useless in every other content.
5Jing Yuan
The beautifully designed General of the Luofu has seen a roller coaster ride when it comes to his position in Honkai: Star Rail. Starting from being one of the most popular characters at launch, he quickly climbed down the meta because of how long it took toactivate his follow-upsince the damage dealt didn’t justify the time.
However, with characters like Sparkle and Jade being added to the game, he had some value added to his kit. Of course, he’s still not the best character without these specific supports, though you may take him to great lengths with them.
4Argenti
Talking about the characters who need specific supports in their team, Argenti is probably the worst offender of that. HoYoverse gave him quite an interesting kit with the ability to stack his Ultimate up to two times, which gave players an option to either use it with one stack or save it for much higher damage.
Unfortunately, he has some glaring Energy Regeneration problems specifically due to the existence of supports like Tingyun or Huohuo. you’re able to see Argenti reach great heights with these characters, but he’s mediocre without them. You can also attempt to build him with an action-advancing character like Sparkle or Bronya.
3Jade
This beautiful character from the IPC has not only taken one of the top spots on this list, but also brought a lot of other Erudition characters higher into the meta. She can apply a Debt Collector effect on an ally, and she can get charge stacks based on the number of enemies attacked by this ally.
Of course, this makes it the best-case scenario to apply the effect to an AoE unit like Argenti or Herta. The best part about Jade is that she’ll only get better with time since there will always be AoE units being released in the game.
2Rappa
Rappa’s high position here shouldn’t come as a surprise given that her main play style is Break-based, one of the game’s top play styles. It not only allows you to consistently break the enemy’s Toughness, rendering them unable to attack, but also lets you deal various instances of Super Break DMG with free supports like the Harmony Trailblazer.
Rappa’s Ultimate is an important part of her kit since it lets her deal multiple special Basic Attacks, each one reducing the enemy’s Toughness by a significant amount. As long as the main enemy on the field has Imaginary Weakness, this character can easily win you the battle in very few turns.
1The Herta
Herta, one of the first characters you meet as Trailblazer in Honkai: Star Rail, was revealed to be an Emanator of Erudition. With that information, it’d be surprising if her real version didn’t top this list. But the gap between her damage and the damage of the second position is what’s truly surprising.
The Herta can easily deal over 200,000 damage on a normal skill, over 500,000 on her Ultimate, and over a million with her buffed skill even with an F2P build and team composition. This damage gets multiplied as you add her signature Light Cone or best team members to the equation, making her easily able to delete everything.
