Honkai: Star RailDan Heng • Imbibitor LunaeBest build, teams and other guides

Imbibitor Lunae is a powerful damage dealer in both single-target and Blast scenarios. His upfront damage multipliers are great and he also deals increased Toughness damage. Imbibitor Lunae has intrinsic DMG% and CRIT buffs as well, making him very self-sufficient in terms of damage output. The cost of this is up to 3 SP on every one of his turns, as well as a lot of forethought, careful gameplay, and quite demanding team management.

Dan Heng’s secret form, revealed at last. The majestic visage of his true Vidyadhara state brings with it hitherto unmatched damage output and a gameplay style reminiscent of that of Qingque. While Imbibitor Lunae does not need to roll the dice like Qingque does, much like Qingque he too can consume extra SP on his turn to substantially boost his own performance. The cost of this is equally similar, requiring a healthy and persistent flow of SP to him, and this can bring quite the headache to players who are not prepared for the foresight and strategy required to utilize Imbibitor Lunae’s power to its fullest.

Imbibitor Lunae’s Skill is where the fun is. Each use of his Skill will Enhance his Basic ATK, up to 3 times in total. At x1, his Enhanced Basic hits 3 times and deals 260% of his ATK to a single target. At x2, his Enhanced Basic hits 5 times and deals 380% to a single target, with the final two hits also dealing 60% to adjacent foes. Finally, at x3 his Enhanced Basic hits 7 times, dealing 500% to a single target, with the last four hits also dealing 180% to adjacent foes.

Yes, you are reading that correctly. A x3 boosted Enhanced Basic deals up to 500% ATK at max Trace level, with 180% to adjacent targets, meaning that this one attack is dealing the equivalent of 860% ATK, and if you’re able to hold onto enough SP between turns, Imbibitor Lunae can be casually dishing this out on every single one of his turns. Keeping this amount of SP available is difficult, but it’s highly worthwhile since the damage increase per SP spent is very large, meaning that for every enhancement used, each SP used is also retroactively worth more.

Important to note as well, each tier of Enhancement will also increase the amount of Energy and Toughness damage brought by each attack; x1 is 30 Energy and 60 Toughness, x2 is 35 Energy and 90 Toughness, and x3 is 40 Energy and a ridiculous 120 Toughness damage. That’s the highest single instance of Toughness damage we’ve yet seen. The extra Energy gains also mean that it’s easier for Imbibitor Lunae to regain his high 140 cost Ultimate quickly.

His Ultimate hits 3 times and deals up to 300% ATK to a single target and 140% to adjacent foes at max Trace level. His Ultimate then grants him 2 stacks of a buff called Squama Sacrosancta, and he can have up to 3 of these at any time. You can consume these in place of Skill Points when using Imbibitor Lunae’s Skill Enhancement, greatly reducing the strain on your team’s SP for his next turn. Because of the increased Energy gain on Enhanced Basics, the more of them you can use, the faster you can regain his Ultimate to continue the cycle. 

You may have noticed that I’ve been mentioning how many hits each attack of his deals, and that has to do with Imbibitor Lunae’s Talent. He will gain 1 stack of Righteous Heart after each hit unleashed during an attack, meaning that the more hits an attack deals, the more stacks you will gain. This effect stacks up to 6 times and each stack grants up to 10% increased DMG at max Trace level, lasting until the end of his turn. His Skill also has an extra passive only for a x2 or x3 Enhanced Basic, where starting from the fourth hit onward, before every hit he will gain a stack of Outroar up to 4 stacks, with each stack increasing Imbibitor Lunae’s CRIT DMG by up to 12% at max Skill Trace level. These also last until the end of his turn.

What this ends up amounting to is a lot of extra damage entirely for free, and there’s really no extra thought required for this. A minor optimization could be made if the situation arises where you can transfer these powerful buffs to Imbibitor Lunae’s Ultimate by using it after your Enhanced Basic but before the turn ends, much like how Qingque can transfer her Skill buffs to her Ultimate as well. However, because of the large Energy returns on Enhanced Basics, this should only be considered if using the Enhanced Basic will grant you enough Energy for the Ultimate on that turn.

Imbibitor Lunae’s Bonus Traces provide passive benefits that just improve his performance; A2 grants 15 Energy upon entering battle, while A4 grants a significant 35% chance to resist Crowd Control debuffs. A6 makes Imbibitor Lunae even more adept at dispatching Imaginary weak foes, granting him a persistent 24% increased CRIT DMG when dealing damage to them.

Because Imbibitor Lunae is already somewhat overkill for most things, his Eidolons are even more so unnecessary for him to be strong. E1 increases the maximum Talent stacks by 4, up to a new total of 10, and doubles the stacks gained per hit. E2 grants 1 extra Squama Sacrosancta for a new total of 3, and also advances his turn forward by 100%. This makes it so that he can instantly act again and get a full x3 Enhanced Basic for free, which is absolutely ridiculous. For spenders, this is the recommended stopping point, as neither E4 nor E6 have anywhere close to as much impact as E2 does.

With this much power under his belt already, finding teammates for Imbibitor Lunae is as simple as enabling him to deal this damage as often as possible… with the added challenge of not taking away any of his owed SP. How this is achieved depends on how you choose to play him. If you’re aiming to utilize his x3 Enhanced Basic on every single one of his turns (all-in), then you’re going to need the other three teammates to be completely SP-positive (or have 2 SP-Positive and 1 SP-Neutral). Well, three teammates or Sparkle as she's tailor-made for Imbibitor Lunae. Not only she brings all the buffs he wants, action advance but most importantly a lot of Skill Points. She's that good for him, the alternatives just pale in comparison and it feels like playing a different character if you don't have ber.

If you're lacking Sparkle, you can also play Imbibitor Lunae by only using his x3 Enhanced Basic every other turn, and regular Basic ATKs in between (alternating). This substantially lowers his SP requirements, especially when factoring in the ‘free’ Skill Point usage his Ultimate gives him, and this allows him to have more flexible team comps. Obviously, this method of playing him deals less damage than the former method, but it’s far less SP and brain-intensive, and personal comfort is also a valid reason to switch things up. That said, this alternative playstyle still offers extremely competitive damage output when compared to other top damage dealers, so don’t feel forced into using the all-in playstyle to see success.

Yukong is also a remarkably powerful support option here, especially due to her A4 granting a permanent 12% Imaginary DMG boost to the team. Her CRIT buffs are undeniably powerful, but she is incapable of sustaining these benefits indefinitely onto an all-in Imbibitor Lunae. An alternating Imbibitor Lunae would allow Yukong more freedom to utilize her buffs without completely draining the SP tank in the process. However, the SPD issue is far more pronounced for Yukong than for Bronya, as Yukong does not have any natural Turn Advance in her kit, neither for herself nor allies. Using her with Imbibitor Lunae will demand very strict SPD tuning to ensure that Yukong is always acting at least 2 turns before Imbibitor Lunae does, else her presence is entirely wasted on that team. E6 for Yukong can significantly alleviate this issue, but even then it’s still extremely difficult to use her.

If you don’t want to deal with all that hassle, just use Tingyun and Sparkle as the duo is the best for Imbibitor Lunae, making him much stronger and easier to play.

Imbibitor Lunae might be an SP-consuming fiend, but his damage output and somewhat flexible playstyle make him a great choice for MoC and Apo Shadow. While nowadays, Firefly, Acheron, or Feixiao do outdamage him, he still holds strong and sits just below them on the damage dealer ladder.