Honkai: Star RailJiaoqiuBest build, teams and other guides

Jiaoqiu is a strong debuffing support with decent DoT capabilities. He can continually apply a stacking vulnerability debuff to all enemies on the field and can apply this to enemies entering the field with his Ultimate's Zone. This vulnerability debuff also doubles as his personal DoT, allowing him to contribute a decent amount of damage as well. His Ultimate will also provide an additional vulnerability debuff specifically for all Ultimate DMG received, and he gives enemies a chance to be afflicted with more vuln stacks on their turn, making him a strong and consistent support.

The definitely not aptly-named 'healer', Jiaoqiu, is a good support character from the Path of Nihility. He is capable of boosting the team's damage quite considerably and is able to do it consistently as well, making him a rather strong generalist unit. He is particularly excellent for Acheron teams due to his unparalleled debuff reapplication, and his Damage over Time (DoT) makes him a worthy unit to use in Kafka DoT teams, especially since his debuff increases all damage enemies receive. He won't be winning any stand-out awards for some other teams where other support slots are pretty much locked, but he's solid anywhere and everywhere, and should not be underestimated.

Jiaoqiu's Talent is the source of his debuff. Whenever Jiaoqiu hits an enemy with a Basic, Skill, or Ultimate, he has a 100% base chance to inflict 1 stack of Ashen Roast on them. The first stack of Ashen Roast inflicts up to a 15% DMG vulnerability on them, and each subsequent stack adds an extra 5%. Ashen Roast caps out at 5 stacks, for a total of up to 35% DMG vulnerability. Ashen Roast lasts for 2 turns, but the duration will reset upon reapplication. In addition to this, enemies affected by Ashen Roast will take Fire DoT at the start of their turn, up to 180% ATK (this DoT ignores Burn Immunity).

A 35% vulnerability that can be maintained indefinitely is extremely good. Though the upfront effect is less significant than say a Pela's Ultimate with S5 Pearls, the sheer uptime of it can actually end up being much stronger over the course of a fight. The DoT attached to this is not massively impressive, so you shouldn't count on that damage alone being massively impactful to your fight, but it is a nice extra. In Kafka setups where you're constantly detonating the compounded DoT effects on enemies, this can be very nice to have, especially due to the aforementioned 35% vuln enemies will have once this is stacked.

Jiaoqiu's Skill is a Blast AoE that deals up to 150% ATK to the primary target, and up to 90% ATK to adjacent foes. There's a 100% base chance to apply 1 Ashen Roast to the primary target. This effect stacks with his Talent, meaning that his Skill can apply 2 Ashen Roast stacks to his main foe and 1 stack to adjacent ones, speeding up the process of stacking the debuff. This is also unlikely to be used for its upfront damage, but is invaluable in AoE scenarios, or when you want to speed up the stacking onto a single enemy, so you’ll be using it quite frequently.

His Ultimate will deploy a zone. Inside this zone, all enemy's Ashen Roast stacks will be equal to the highest amount on the field (so if there's an enemy with 5 Ashen Roast stacks, all enemies will now have 5 as well), and this is then followed up by dealing up to 100% ATK to all enemies. Inside the zone, enemies will take up to an additional 15% increase damage from Ultimate DMG. There is also a 60% base chance that enemies will be inflicted with 1 stack of Ashen Roast when taking action, with a limit of 1 application per individual enemy action, and a total application limit of 6 times per Jiaoqiu's Ultimate usage. The zone lasts for 3 of Jiaoqiu's turns. The Ultimate vulnerability is a separate debuff.

This is how he quickly spreads Ashen Roast across the entire battlefield and keeps it at maximum. The extra Ultimate DMG enemies receive is additive with his Ashen Roast's 35% vulnerability, making for a combined 50% vulnerability to Ultimate DMG while his zone is active and at 5 stacks of Ashen Roast. The extra stacks of Ashen Roast on enemy action is actually per individual action, meaning an Elite enemy that acts twice per turn will have two separate chances to get afflicted with the debuff. This Ultimate also has a very low Energy cost of only 100, so it's very possible to have this up permanently and never really need to worry about your Ashen Roast stacks again.

Jiaoqiu's Bonus Ability Traces also help him get ramped up faster. A2 will regenerate 15 Energy at the start of combat, allowing him to get a first turn Ultimate as long as you have some Energy Regeneration Rate, granting a massive boost to the team right out of the gate and without any further shenanigans. A4 will increase Jiaoqiu's ATK based on how much Effect Hit Rate he has that goes beyond 80%; 60% ATK per 15% EHR, for a total of 240% bonus ATK when Jiaoqiu has a total of 140% EHR. Due to his lower base chances, you are already highly incentivised to build Effect Hit Rate to raise his consistency, so this is a nice bonus for doing what you should have already been doing.

His A6 is the really big one, as it will boost his Ultimate's zone; when the zone is up, enemies that enter combat will also be inflicted with Ashen Roast stacks equal to the current maximum on the field, so again if 5 is the max, new enemies entering combat will instantly gain the max stacks. This not only works for the Pure Fiction style of combat where enemies are constantly spawning in, this will actually also work for new waves inside of Memory of Chaos, meaning once Jiaoqiu is set up during the first wave of enemies, he will not ramp down in any way provided his Ultimate is still active when the next wave comes in.

It is at this point that I must reiterate that Jiaoqiu is a SUPPORT. He may deal some damage, but he is not a 'damage dealer', so please do not treat him as such. It can be easy to compare Jiaoqiu to some of our already existing Nihility support units and not take away the correct impression of him. Pela has her AoE DEF Shred on her Ultimate, Silver Wolf has massive single-target debuffing and DEF Shred, and Guinaifen is pretty much the same unit as him if you choose to ignore Jiaoqiu’s massively improved debuff application, duration of said debuffs, and even debuff strength. To say this is to show you've not been paying attention, and it all comes back to a specific word mentioned earlier in the review: uptime. Specifically on his team benefits.

Jiaoqiu ramps up fast and never ramps down again, he is permanently providing his maximum bonuses and that's irrespective of his other teammates or what enemies he is against. 35% all DMG vulnerability and a 50% Ultimate DMG vulnerability is nothing to scoff at, and the time you would have lost attacking non-debuffed enemies with other supports is refunded and amplified further with Jiaoqiu. Calling him a '5-star Guinaifen' is not wholly inaccurate (especially since they clearly shop at the same place), but it is deliberately ignoring the sweeping benefits Jiaoqiu has over many other supports, not just Guinaifen. Even then, calling anyone similar to Guinaifen is pretty high praise in my eyes — everyone's favourite in-universe streamer is quite powerful and still quite underrated.

Aside from the fact that Jiaoqiu is kerchow-ing with his debuff application, and even ignoring that he has 100% uptime on all his team benefits... The man is easy. He's just easy. He is not hard to build, he is not hard to play, and he doesn't really have much at all that he can optimise, excluding some cases with the Resolution Shines as Pearls of Sweat Light Cone and some optional micro-managing of the debuff from his Signature Light Cone. He provides maximum reward for minimal effort, and it is absolutely a huge selling point, I'd say. Not needing to time things to make sure your allies hit hardest, or accidentally fat-fingering an Ultimate when you didn't mean to — none of this matters with Jiaoqiu. Both forced and unforced errors are completely meaningless for Jiaoqiu; the former doesn't reduce his efficacy, and the latter simply can't happen unless you DIE.

Which brings me to the big synergy he's got: Acheron. Because of his Ultimate's debuff application on enemy action, he is able to provide Acheron so very many more points of Slashed Dream for her Ultimate, more than any other character in the game, and not by a small margin; every Jiaoqiu Ultimate alone will be giving Acheron 6 points of Slashed Dream, and this is without even considering Jiaoqiu's own turns with his Skill or Basic, or the rest of the team's debuff application either. Include enemies that spawn in, and it goes sky high.

It's like a turbo-charged version of the Trend of the Universal Market setup that also allowed Acheron to gain points of Slashed Dream during the enemy turns, only now it's 100% consistent and does not require you to run a sub-optimal setup with the Preservation Trailblazer. Ashen Roast's Vulnerability is something that Acheron teams lack along with DEF Shred, but the difference in damage between the two is not very large, and the vastly increased Ultimate uptime that Jiaoqiu provides Acheron more than makes up for the paltry difference. Then you just pair Jiaoqiu with either Pela or Silver Wolf depending on what you're against, be it AoE or single-target respectively, and you're golden.

Jiaoqiu is also quite potent for Dr. Ratio, providing 2 permanent debuffs all by himself (3 with his Signature Light Cone) and allowing Ratio to hit the 100% guarantee on his Skill’s follow-up without any other units considered. It's undoubtedly weaker than if you were to put Robin with Dr. Ratio in his optimal team, but it's vastly more viable for E0S0 holders of these characters, as without signature Light Cones for Topaz and Aventurine, Dr. Ratio is struggling to even meet the requirements for a 100% follow-up chance on his Skill, and Jiaoqiu remedies this.

Really, you can put Jiaoqiu pretty much anywhere you'd put Pela and you'll see similar if not better results, with more consistency to boot. The issue may come when you start comparing him to Harmony supports, as that becomes a lot less favourable very quickly. I mentioned it near the start but there's quite a few teams whose support slots are 'locked' to specific units with little room for it to change. Jiaoqiu is great, but he ain't Robin or Ruan Mei. Only one of each of those exist. However this goes both ways, since if those powerful Harmony supports are already occupied, Jiaoqiu makes for an excellent substitute, so he's especially useful if you only have the supports for one really strong team. While he's a wonderful generalist unit outside of his undisputed locked spot in Acheron teams, if players have the means to specialise their teams then their efforts are ultimately better spent elsewhere — for now, at least.

Jiaoqiu's Eidolons are decent but unnecessary, though they can be a nice boost to players looking to vertically invest (you should go for his Light Cone first). E1 will let allies have a 40% DMG bonus against enemies afflicted by Ashen Roast and will increase the number of stacks his Talent applies by 1. E2 increases the DMG multiplier of his Ashen Roast DoT to 480% ATK. E4 reduces enemy ATK by 15% while his Ultimate's Zone exists (10/10 Eidolon). E6 will let Ashen Roast stacks automatically transfer from a defeated enemy to a new enemy with the lowest stacks; Ashen Roast has its stack limit raised to 9, and each stack additionally reduces the enemy's All-Type RES by 3%. This means at E6, 9 stacks of Ashen Roast are providing 60.5% DMG vulnerability (because of the prior Eidolons), 27% All-Type RES Down, and a 480% ATK DoT.

All in all, Jiaoqiu is a very solid character with good potential to improve later down the line. More and more, we're gaining many team compositions to serve as alternatives to the typical hypercarry setup of old. That sort of world is exactly the kind that Jiaoqiu could thrive in. As of right now, he's still got quite the competition, and with many appealing units having already been revealed to us, it's definitely put players into quite the predicament.