Summary
Whenever you play a game that has combat based around various types likeHonkai: Star Rail, the Physical type is usually the last one you’d probably want since it can be quite boring in front of the likes of Fire or Lightning. However, the situation is a bit different when it comes to this game.
Characters can unleash attacks of various types, but they don’t necessarily react with each other. Instead, the role of types is to lower the enemy' Toughness bar and make them vulnerable, which makes each one equally important.
Updated on July 25, 2025, by Sanyam Jain:During the first half of the Version 2.4 update, Yunli was released as a playable five-star Destruction Physical character, and as you’d expect from a unit from this path, she quickly shot up the list of all Physical characters to become one of the best choices in the game.
10Sushang
The Hunt
Sushang was a four-star launch character in Honkai: Star Rail, and quite a popular one because of her chicken summoning attack. However, when it comes to the meta, she’s quite low in the ranks since she can only focus on one enemy at a time, which is usually not good for endgame content.
However, Sushang has quite a lot of Toughness damage on the enemies and can give herself some extra turns and damage when you get her Eidolons. Overall, this character can help you beat most of the early content, but she suffers when it comes to high-level enemies.
9Physical Trailblazer
Destruction
Physical Trailblazer is the first unit you’ll acquire as soon as you start playing Honkai: Star Rail, and they’re also one of the easiest units to understand. Normally, you can deal single-target damage with their Basic Attack and AoE DMG if you use the Skill, but this damage gets enhanced when you use their Ultimate.
This version of the Trailblazer will feel quite good during the early game, but the overall damage ends up not being nearly enough as you level up and face tough opponents. Thankfully, resources spent to upgrade them aren’t wasted as their level is shared between every type of Trailblazer.
8Hanya
Harmony
When Hanya was first released in Honkai: Star Rail, a lot of people were suffering from the lack of Skill Points, especially with characterslike Dan Heng: Imbibitor Lunae. This character made the Skill Point management a lot easier as you could use her Skill to apply an effect on the enemy, which would return a total of two Skill Points with time.
She was quite a popular character on her release due to this effect and her beautiful animations, but it quickly went down as people learned how to manage their Skill Points and better characters like Sparkle got released. She’s still a viable four-star support, but there are far better options.
7Natasha
Abundance
No matter when you start playing the game, Natasha will likely be one of your most used characters during the early game since she’s given to everyone for free and is the only healer you’re able to get for free in the game. Her Skill can provide some instant healing to a single character while also giving some follow-up healing on their turn.
Moreover, her Ultimate can instantly restore a bunch of HP to the entire party. Even with all this healing, you might not be able to use Natasha as a solo sustainer at the highest level of the game’s combat, but she’s a decent choice for most of the other situations.
6Luka
Nihility
It’s a bad idea to mess with the Boxing Champion of Jarilo-VI, and Luka makes this pretty clear to anyone who faces him in combat, as long as they have Physical Weakness. This character is quite phenomenal at breaking the enemy’s Weakness and applying the Bleed effect on them even without that.
However, he truly shines because of the buffed Basic Attack that can trigger all his Bleed instances instantly. Ideally, you’d want to build Luka stacked with Break Effect so that you cangive enemies the Break DoTwith him and then consistently trigger it with the enhanced basic attacks.
5Clara
Clara, or more like Svarog, can be quite a phenomenal DPS in Honkai: Star Rail as they can attack back whenever an enemy targets Clara. This counter-attack can also trigger when any member of her team is attacked once you trigger her Ultimate, which makes it an important part of her kit.
However, the main problem with Clara is that she doesn’t have the ability to taunt the enemies. She does increase the chances of her getting attacked, which can be further increased with the likes of March 7th and Lynx, but you’ll still have to deal with some RNG.
4Argenti
Erudition
Erudition has been one of the least used paths in the game ever since its launch, but Argenti brought it up just by a bit on his release. This character deals damage to every enemy on the field with his Skill, but the main part of his kit is the Ultimate, which can have up to two stacks at 90 and 180 Energy respectively.
You deal much higher damage if you trigger this with the second stack, but you can also use it with just one stack against smaller enemies. However, the main issue with Argenti is that he takes a lot of time to deal big damage unless you have specific supports like Tingyun and Huohuo on the team.
3Robin
Robin was one of the most anticipated characters ever since the first Penacony trailer where the entire cast was revealed. One of her main contributions to the game is arguably the different songs you can listen to in specific areas or cutscenes, but she can also be a phenomenal party member in specific teams.
Robin provides a ton of DMG, ATK, and Crit DMG boost to her party, while also giving everyone an instant turn upon activating her Ultimate. During this Ultimate, she deals extra damage whenever one of your characters attacks the enemy, making her a perfect fit in a follow-up team with a lot of damage instances.
2Boothill
While it might be surprising to see a characterfrom The Hunt Pathso high of this list, Boothill’s special kit and the lack of overall usability with other Physical units allow him to be here. Boothill has a duel-style combat where he can only attack a specific enemy until their Weakness is broken or they’re defeated.
However, his kit mostly relies on breaking the enemy’s Toughness, which is also the reason for him having high Toughness DMG and the ability to apply Physical Weakness on an enemy. Even though he’s a single-target character, Boothill can easily help you clear all the endgame content as long as at least a few enemies have Physical Weakness.
1Yunli
Whenever a new five-star limited Destruction character is released to Honkai: Star Rail, it’s common to see them find the top spot in the meta, and it’s no different for Yunli. She’s essentially a better version of Clara with a kit that incentivizes you to get the enemies to hit her, which fits perfectly with the Destruction path because of its high aggro rate.
Whenever an enemy attacks Yunli, she launches a counter-attack, damaging the enemy that attacked and two enemies adjacent to it. This attack can be buffed using her Ultimate at the right time, which is fairly easy to get, and you also have the ability to stack it up to two times just like Argenti.
