Honkai: Star RailMozeBest build, teams and other guides

Moze is a follow-up based Hunt character. He marks an enemy as his Prey, increasing the follow-up damage they take, and automatically dealing additional damage whenever allies attack the marked enemy. Every 3 attacks will have Moze immediately launch a follow-up attack against the Prey, and will reset the Prey status after 3 follow-ups. His Ultimate hits hard and immediately grants a follow-up after the attack. He contributes a lot of damage outside of his turns and ends up being SP-neutral as well. He also has surprisingly high Toughness damage for a character not revolving around Break.

The struggling architect behind the Palace of Alca — uh wait, let me check my notes... Ah, ahem, the Shadow Guard of the Yaoqing, and retainer to Feixiao, is another addition to the ever-growing list of characters in the illustrious 'How the hell is this a 4-star character?' category. He's very formidable and definitely worth your attention, as he's a strong contender to Topaz while being more accessible due to his 4-star status. Even without comparing, he allows for further flexibility within the follow-up team archetype and can allow you to have two fully built teams without having to compromise on performance in one or the other.

His focal point is in his Skill. Moze attacks a single enemy, dealing up to 150% ATK and marking it as Prey. Prey is accompanied by the acquisition of 9 points of Charge. This Prey status is important for his Talent and later his overall game plan with his Bonus Abilities and even Eidolons. It is the most important thing to keep up on targets. Do note that Moze cannot use his Skill if he is the only ally on the team or is the only one alive in a fight.

His Talent expounds upon this status; Moze enters the Departed state when an enemy has Prey. Every time allies attack the Prey, Moze consumes 1 point of Charge and deals up to 30% ATK as an instance of Additional Lightning DMG. Every 3 points of Charge consumed this way will have Moze launch a follow-up attack against the Prey, dealing up to 160% ATK. The actual Skill usage that applies the Prey debuff will also activate the Additional Lightning DMG once without consuming any Charge, and Moze's follow-ups also trigger the bonus DMG instance without consuming Charge. When Charge reaches 0, the Prey state is dispelled and Moze must reapply it via his Skill.

The Departed state makes Moze quite literally vanish into thin air. He won't get another turn until all points of Charge have been consumed or the Prey enemy is defeated, and he also cannot be targeted or hit by allies or enemies, which is just as well given that he's made of literal papier-mâché. It's interesting to note that Moze's follow-up has above average Toughness damage; usually follow-ups like this are half as effective as a Basic ATK, but Moze's is exactly the same Toughness damage as a Basic ATK, though this is to account for the fact that he's too busy chilling in the shadows to use his actual Basic ATK. It is much the same story for the Energy generation of this follow-up, being above average here as well.

The free activations of the Additional DMG also contribute a fair bit to his overall damage; not counting his follow-ups, 9 points of Charge would let him get 270% ATK as Additional DMG from the Prey state, but with the free activations he gets, it's actually closer to 390% ATK, with almost all of that being done outside of his turn. Couple this with his above average Toughness DMG, even when he can't hit enemies with his Basic ATK, and you've got a very strong character.

Moze's Ultimate deals up to 270% ATK to a single enemy, and then immediately launches his Talent's follow-up onto the target. If the enemy was defeated before that, the follow-up will land on a random other enemy. This is a pretty simple Ultimate (for the first time in like a year), and again contributes extra Toughness damage. This follow-up is exactly the one from Talent, meaning this also gets to proc the Additional DMG without consuming Charge. There is not much else to it, but because of the free follow-up, you are encouraged to only use this on enemies that you have previously marked as Prey.

The Ultimate hit itself will consume a point of Charge, so it can result in some funny interactions where Moze just hits back-to-back follow-up attacks, but it also speeds up the process of dealing damage and getting to re-use his Skill faster. The Energy cost of the Ultimate is an average 120, but this is somewhat high considering Moze is unable to act during his Departed state to recover Energy via Basic ATKs — this is offset by the increase Energy gain on his follow-up as mentioned earlier, but it's still something you need to keep in mind, and you may not be able to fire off Ultimates as often as you'd expect.

Moze's Bonus Abilities are integral to unlocking his full potential as a follow-up DPS and support. A2 will allow Moze's Talent follow-up to recover 1 SP when it lands, with a cooldown of 1 turn. This can be triggered off of either his Charge being reduced or from his Ultimate's free usage. This makes Moze completely SP neutral; he spends 1 Skill Point to mark an enemy and Depart the field, and he recovers the Skill Point as soon as he lands a follow-up attack. This is extremely useful and in essence means you only need to factor in the SP consumption of 3 allies instead of 4.

His A4 will Action Advance Moze by 20% upon exiting the Departed state, and will Advance him by 30% at the start of each new wave. This brings Moze back into the fray faster, allowing him to reapply Prey quicker and return to the shadows, and since this is essentially his gameplay loop forever, Moze ends up being a deceptively 'fast' unit whenever his face does reappear on the Action Order list. The 30% Advance on a new wave helps Moze to be the first acting ally to apply Prey to a new target, before the team tears into them with blades, chalk, chips, and pigs.

Lastly, his A6 is the most important of the Bonus Abilities. Moze's Prey debuff will now also increase the follow-up DMG taken by the marked enemy by 25%, and his Ultimate is now considered as follow-up DMG. This is where he truly takes off, increasing not just his own damage by a significant amount but also the entire team's assuming they are also follow-up attackers. It is imperative that if you are planning on using Moze at all you activate this Bonus Ability ASAP.

As a 4-star, you are likely to get Eidolons for Moze over time. Luckily for us all, they're quite good and start strong early on. E1 will immediately regenerate 20 Energy for Moze upon starting battle. He will also get 2 Energy every time the Additional Lightning DMG from his Talent is triggered. This is invaluable for maintaining good Energy income, as there is otherwise no way to increase the Energy gains of Moze while he is in the Departed state. This Eidolon alone means that every Skill usage of Moze will recover at the very least 53 Energy if you include the 30 Energy from the Skill itself, with the potential to go slightly higher to 55 if you also manage to get a follow-up from his Ultimate.

E2 will additionally make enemies marked as Prey take an additional 40% CRIT DMG from all ally attacks. This is not exclusive to just follow-up attacks, so is a very generous and generic boost to team damage. Naturally, for follow-up specific setups, this makes Prey one of the strongest persistent debuffs you can apply to enemies, as 25% Vulnerability to follow-ups and +40% CRIT DMG taken is spectacular, made even more ridiculous as Moze is a 4-star. Moze is already very good without this Eidolon, but he truly excels once this is activated. This is the one to shoot for, folks.

His E4 will increase the DMG Moze deals by 30% for 2 turns after he uses his Ultimate. Because of the particular nature of the Departed state, it is quite feasible for Moze to have this bonus up permanently, providing a significant boost to his personal damage. E6 follows this trend by increasing the DMG multiplier of his Talent's follow-up attack by 25%, meaning the new damage his follow-up deals is 201% ATK, accounting for the Trace level increase from E3. All very good things to have.

The actual nature of Moze's kit is very simple, and very easy to make good use of. He's predominantly a support for follow-up teams with some very substantial damage contributions of his own. As such, you should aim to pair him with teams specialising in follow-up DMG, unsurprisingly. Notable options are Feixiao and Dr. Ratio, and he also quite likes sustains like Aventurine who have a follow-up in their kit or fast acting sustains like Gallagher to expedite the consumption of Moze's Charge. Yunli or Clara can also work, but it's a little trickier since their Counter based gameplay can be difficult to account for in AoE scenarios.

Speaking of AoE, Moze doesn't have any, as is expected of a Hunt character. While he is undeniably exceptional in single-target or few-target scenarios, he cannot keep up with the debuff application in AoE, even if he can theoretically keep up with the SP consumption. It's just less efficient than it could be, and there are just better options for dealing with mass AoE content than him.

Moze is probably going to be compared to Topaz a fair bit since they both provide follow-up Vulnerability through their kit. Astonishingly, this is not as unfavourable a comparison as you may think it'd be for Moze — in fact, it's illegal how close Moze can come to Topaz's raw performance, especially when he's at E6. Topaz still holds the edge when it comes to said raw performance, but Moze's Toughness damage is astonishingly high and definitely makes him a worthy consideration when the enemy is weak to Lightning. Additionally, since Moze can vanish from the field, his papier-mâché constitution does not matter in the slightest, a benefit Topaz most assuredly does not share.

They are both fantastic units for follow-up teams, and as I mentioned near the start, having access to both of them can allow you to easily construct two outstanding follow-up teams when it comes to Memory of Chaos or Apocalyptic Shadow. One does not devalue the other, and you can even use them together to great effect if you are lacking the one true follow-up support goddess (it's okay if you don't, not everyone is welcome in her world, it's a skill issue™).

Moze is definitely worth your time. Just don't ask him about the stew Jiaoqiu gave him last night, it’s the only thing deadlier than Moze himself…