Honkai: Star RailJingliuBest build, teams and other guides

Jingliu's buffs are more of a full on rework. She has been changed to be fully HP scaling, completely pivoting from her original ATK multipliers. Jingliu's Spectral Transmigration now grants an insane amount of CRIT DMG instead of ATK whenever Jingliu launches an attack. She will gain additional stacks of Syzygy after allies receive DMG or consume HP a certain number of times. Her overall Energy Economy is vastly improved, and it is actually possible to stay in Spectral Transmigration for almost the full duration of the fight.

Jingliu was once the shining star against which all were compared. She released just after Imbibitor Lunae, the previous prince of potencies, and floored everyone with her immense damage output. Intriguing that she aged arguably the worst out of the four characters that were buffed this patch. But now with a newly revamped kit, Jingliu can once again re-enter the moonbeam spotlight.

Jingliu still revolves around her Spectral Transmigration state granted by her Talent. When Jingliu has at least 2 stacks of Syzygy, she will enter the Spectral Transmigration state. Upon entering this state, Jingliu gets a 100% Action Advance and will gain a persisting 50% CRIT Rate while she is Enhanced. Her Skill becomes Enhanced and is the only non Ultimate ability she can use. Jingliu will also immediately gain an additional stack of Syzygy upon entering Spectral Transmigration. Syzygy can stack up to 4 times.

When Jingliu attacks in this Enhanced state, either with her Enhanced Skill or her Ultimate, she will syphon 5% of the respective Max HP from all other allies. When allies lose HP while Jingliu is in Spectral Transmigration, Jingliu gains a stack of Moonlight, increasing her CRIT DMG by 44% per stack, up to 5 stacks.

Looks familiar, but something's definitely different. Now, Jingliu can hold up to 4 stacks of Syzygy by default, and best of all will immediately gain a third stack of Syzygy as soon as she enters Spectral Transmigration. This is essentially one half of what her old E6 used to do, so this is an absolutely mega buff to the sustainability of Spectral Transmigration.

The stacks of Moonlight are new, and function as a replacement to the old ATK buff that was based on the amount of ally HP syphoned by her attacks. These stacks are persistent for the duration of Spectral Transmigration, making this a straight upgrade even if it hadn't changed to be CRIT DMG. The full 5 stacks of Moonlight will be providing a dizzying 220% CRIT DMG buff. Alongside the native 50% CRIT Rate boost that Spectral Transmigration provides by default, and Jingliu is somehow even more of a stat monster than she used to be.

Not only this, but yet another new thing has been added to this Talent. When ally targets receive DMG or consume HP a total of 20 times, Jingliu will instantly gain 1 stack of Syzygy. This can take effect a maximum of one time per attack per ally target, but otherwise has no limit on the number of times it can activate in a fight. Oh, and Jingliu herself counts for this, as do memosprites.

Jingliu's normal Skill deals 150% Max HP against a single enemy, and grants her 1 stack of Syzygy. This used to be a particularly unimpressive Skill as it dealt low damage, only hit one enemy, and didn't even restore the expected amount of Energy, being limited to 20 Energy instead of the usual 30 that Skills restore. This is... still the case for all but the Energy, but that's spoilers for a new Bonus Trace.

The Enhanced Skill is considerably more impressive. It is a Blast AoE that deals 150% Max HP to the main target and 75% Max HP to adjacent foes. This can only be used when Jingliu is in the Spectral Transmigration state, and using this will cost 1 stack of Syzygy, but will not cost you any Skill Points. This Enhanced Skill restores the expected 30 Energy, and serves as the primary source of damage for Jingliu when she is in her Enhanced State.

Jingliu's Ultimate deals 180% Max HP to the primary target, and 90% Max HP to adjacent foes. After the attack ends, Jingliu will get 1 stack of Syzygy. This is both a very strong attack by default but is also a key way to extend the duration of the Spectral Transmigration state once you're already in it. This was the case before as well.

It's rather important to see that Jingliu's newfound HP multipliers are strictly better than her old ATK multipliers, even though it may seem like it was a strange decision to be making. Especially when we consider that Jingliu has one of the highest base ATK values in the game, it seems like a rather big waste to leave that behind.

Except for one thing: Jingliu has the 4th highest base HP in the game, surpassed only by Castorice, Mydei, and a very angry master diviner. This is not new, this is actually how it's always been, and her base ATK value is surpassed by far more characters, comparatively. This is a big deal, and it means that she's gaining even more damage than it may initially seem like.

But wait, there's more! The Bonus Traces have been completely remade as well.

Her new A2 is her old A2 and her old A6 smushed together. While in the Spectral Transmigration state, Jingliu will gain 35% Effect RES, and he Ultimate's damage will be increased by 20%. A good solid boost to her while she's in her Enhanced state.

Jingliu's A4 has ditched the old pointless 10% Action Advance upon using her normal non-Enhanced Skill in favour of a brand new effect. After using her normal non-Enhanced Skill, Jingliu will regenerate an additional 15 Energy. After using her Enhanced Skill during Spectral Transmigration, Jingliu will regenerate an additional 8 Energy.

This is extremely substantial. This means that Jingliu is restoring 35 Energy with her regular Skill, and 38 Energy with her Enhanced Skill. That is some extraordinary Energy economy for a character whose Ultimate costs only 140 Energy to use. With this Bonus Trace, Jingliu can use her Ultimate far more frequently, dealing more damage, sure, but more importantly gaining even more stacks of Syzygy to maintain her Enhanced state for longer.

Jingliu's biggest issue was always that her downtime after Spectral Transmigration ended was very painful and long; whatever crazy damage she could deal in her Enhanced state was rendered meaningless when she went back to hitting a single enemy for a floppy pool noodle's worth of damage. Now with this Bonus Trace as well as the improved functionality of the Talent, Jingliu not only has no issue getting back into Spectral Transmigration, she can potentially stay in it indefinitely, though you would want some external assistance to make it guaranteed.

Lastly, her new A6 even accommodates for this possibility. When gaining Syzygy while at the max stacks of 4, Jingliu's next attack will ignore 25% of the target's DEF. This is somewhat unlikely to be active at all times (read: extraordinarily unlikely in regular gameplay at low vertical investment), but when it does proc, you will be dealing a very heavy hit indeed.

Jingliu's Eidolons have also received some updates to allow for the new HP scaling. In particular the E1 is now in an 'always on' state, no longer requiring you to be facing off against only a single enemy to get the vastly improved main-target damage increase; she will deal an extra instance of damage against the main target of her Enhanced Skill or Ultimate, dealing 80% Max HP damage. It's a very substantial increase for an E1, and feels right at home with the more modern E1s.

So what exactly is the verdict on her now after the buffs? Well, she still has some pretty ridiculous self-buff saturation, to an almost comical degree. Being a stat monster is all well and good, but it comes with the cost of not taking to ally buffs as well due to already having a lot of the buffs inherently. She's still very SP efficient, and still struggles in big AoE content.

Now, to address the dromas in the room: yes, you will need to farm relics for Jingliu all over again due to her new HP scaling. I promise you it's worth it, and you actually have some weird options that are actually quite good for her, precisely because of her status as a stat monster. HP% for the body is actually a pretty good option since she already gets a crazy amount of CRIT stats natively, and her new best set is something many of us have already been farming (Scholar Lost in Erudition), so make sure to check your inventories for hidden gold.

Support options are vast and varied. Cipher and Tribbie naturally work very well due to their buffs not being saturated at all; damage Vulnerability and damage tallying for Cipher, and RES PEN and additional damage for Tribbie. They work very well and can patch up some of the holes that are still left in Jingliu's offense — Cipher in particular is very good in the event that you lose Spectral Transmigration, or if you're really pushing for fast clears and want whatever sucker you're fighting DEAD.

Sunday and Bronya are great as Action Advancers, and although they do play into Jingliu's already very saturated CRIT buffs, their -1 SPD setups remain extremely potent — still pretty much doubling Jingliu’s damage by themselves. Sunday in particular is a tantalising pick because of his ability to give Energy on his Ultimate, leading to even better uptime for Jingliu. Either way, more actions is almost never a bad thing, and both of these supports provide a very impressive amount of DMG% as well, something that Jingliu doesn't have any of in her kit by default.

The Remembrance Trailblazer can also be a very good option precisely because Jingliu has so many self buffs; the True DMG bonus that the Trailblazer can provide can be taken very, very far, and the periodic Action Advance from Mem is also very appreciated, though at a much lower rate than from either Bronya or Sunday. As an additional bonus, Mem being present means that Jingliu has an extra target to syphon HP from, further accelerating the gaining of Syzygy from her Talent.

Now that the dromas has moved on, we can address the portly Pegasus in the room. Hyacine, especially with her Signature Light Cone, is an unreasonably good sustain option for the team. Not only is she able to contribute plenty of damage all on her own, but with her Signature Light Cone in tow, Hyacine will be able to syphon HP from all allies herself as well. This plays perfectly into the new effect of Jingliu's Talent, providing a surplus of Syzygy stacks and getting to make use of the new A6's DEF ignore very frequently. Also memosprite HP draining.

It's honestly almost annoying just how good this Light Cone is, even separate from Hyacine herself, because it also interacts very favourably with the newly buffed Blade, for the exact same reason. Blade himself is actually still an option to pair with Jingliu if you want to run a dual DPS setup, and it's actually quite improved compared to before since it's no longer a one-sided relationship where only Blade benefits. Now Jingliu gets to have more Talent stacks as well.

Also from the pool of newly buffed characters, Silver Wolf is also a very good option, especially since stacking DEF reduction on top of the DEF ignore that Jingliu can get results in laughably high damage, and due to Jingliu's relatively high (and actually improved) SP efficiency, Silver Wolf can use those Skill Points herself to great effect. This is especially good against off-element fights, or in encounters where only half of the foes are weak to Ice.

Ruan Mei is also, as ever, an excellent final pick if you're out of other options, as her buffs are still greatly appreciated by all. This is also a very notable pick if you plan on bringing buffed Jingliu to Apocalyptic Shadow, as the Weakness Break Efficiency that Ruan Mei provides is incredibly appreciated for getting through the pesky Safeguard mechanic there.

Jingliu can even be run with Castorice if you feel like it, as the constant back and forth HP draining is benefitting everyone in that team including Jingliu herself. This is potentially quite understated, but is definitely still niche. At the very least, Castorice herself has far better partners than Jingliu, but this can be a viable team in a pinch.

Jingliu is able to shine after an extended overcast season. The new buffs may not propel her to the comical heights of Madam Herta or some of our other top contenders, but Jingliu is definitively strong, and most assuredly worth your time yet again.

And most of you still can't pronounce 'Syzygy'.