Honkai: Star RailSaberBest build, teams and other guides

Saber is a true limited character as part of the Fate collab. She is a Wind Destruction character with an excess Energy mechanic, and is very Ultimate focused. She gains a damage bonus whenever allies use their Ultimates and will start gaining a unique resource called Core Resonance. Each point of Core Resonance will grant a fixed amount of Energy to Saber when consumed by her Skill, visible on the Energy bar as white Energy.  She is a potent DPS character, but is very reliant on the player's skill to fully maximise.

The Fate collab brings with it Saber and Archer, two very well known and beloved characters from that franchise. Saber, much like the name implies, is a swordplay focused individual. Compared to Archer, Saber is relatively more complex; her actual kit itself isn't really that complicated, but making the most of it is something that may prove to be quite difficult for the average player.

Please remember that she is a true limited character; once she's gone, she's gone for good.

Saber's Talent will grant 1 point of Core Resonance when entering battle. This is the cornerstone of her kit, and is referenced elsewhere very often. Whenever allies (including herself) use an Ultimate ability, Saber will gain 60% increased DMG for 2 turns, as well as 3 points of Core Resonance. Each point of Core Resonance will grant a fixed 8 Energy for Saber when consumed.

This is quite an important detail, as Saber's Ultimate has a laughably huge Energy cost of 360, overtaking even the previous highest of 350 belonging to Aglaea, so you're going to need every bit of Energy you can get.

Saber's Skill is a Blast AoE that deals up to 150% ATK to a target enemy and 75% ATK to adjacent foes. Using this Skill will also grant 3 points of Core Resonance.

When Saber has Core Resonance, you'll see a secondary part of the Ultimate gauge glow white. This signifies how much Energy you have stocked in the form of Core Resonance points. If the entire remainder of the Ult gauge is white, this means you have enough Core Resonance points to fully refill your Energy. In this case, using Saber's Skill will add 14% to the ATK multiplier of the Skill for each point of Core Resonance, then consume all Core Resonance to restore Energy for Saber after she attacks.

This can result in you seeing extreme Energy gains off of just a single Skill use when you have a lot of Core Resonance points, not to mention that the ability multiplier can get very out of hand very quickly, especially since there's no upper limit on the amount of Core Resonance that is considered. This also helps to keep up with the otherwise exorbitant Energy requirement of her Ultimate. After playing her for a little while, you’ll start to consider the white part of the Energy gauge as Energy you already have, and this should make it easier to think about.

Speaking of her Ultimate, Saber will unsheathe Excalibur, bringing its full might down on her enemies. She will deal 280% ATK to all enemies on the field, and then deal an additional 10 instances of damage, each being equal to 110% ATK, Bouncing between enemies. This means if a single enemy is the recipient, this Ultimate will deal a colossal 1380% ATK, not to mention the rather absurd Toughness damage that also comes with so many Bounces.

After using the Ultimate, Saber's next Basic ATK will be Enhanced and will lock her out of using her Skill. This Enhanced Basic ATK will be a fully AoE ability, hitting all enemies on the field for 150% ATK, and granting 2 points of Core Resonance. If there are only 2 enemies on the field, the Enhanced Basic deals an extra 150% ATK to both enemies, for a total of 300% ATK. If there is only one foe on the field, the additional damage is increased to 220%, for a total of 370% ATK. This Enhanced Basic restores 30 Energy.

So far, nothing too overly complicated. You get Energy from just doing what you'd be doing anyway, using the team's Ultimates and using Saber's actions, all getting ready for a super powerful Ultimate hit that then gives an Enhanced Basic to kick start the cycle again.

Onto the Bonus Traces. A2 will passively increase Saber's CRIT Rate by 20%. Additionally, when entering battle, and also after using her Enhanced Basic ATK, Saber will gain the Mana Burst effect. While under this effect, if Saber has Core Resonance and her Energy can be fully restored by using her Skill and consuming the Core Resonance, Mana Burst will be consumed in order to restore 1 Skill Point for the team and also immediately take action again.

This is a 100% Action Advance for her, so buffs will tick down from this. What this means is that if Saber uses an action that restores her Energy, and it puts her Energy into the threshold to be refilled by her next Skill use, she gets to do that immediately instead of waiting for her next natural turn.

Saber's A4 will allow her to accumulate up to 120 excess Energy, shown on the buff bar as a numeric value. After she uses her Ultimate, the excess Energy is cleared and returned as Energy. Additionally, when entering a battle, if Saber's Energy is below 60%, it will be set to 60%.

This is immensely useful for not wasting precious Energy, especially from consuming a large amount of Core Resonance all at once. Without this Trace, a significant portion of that Energy would be lost, but getting to keep up to 120 in excess means you can actually also hold off on using her Ultimate without losing out (up to a point) if it'd be more beneficial to wait in the battle.

Lastly, her A6 will grant Saber passive stat benefits. When using her Skill, she will gain 50% CRIT DMG for 2 turns. In addition to this, each point of Core Resonance that Saber gains will increase her CRIT DMG by 4%, stacking up to 8 times. This benefit lasts for the duration of the battle, and the total CRIT DMG provided by this Trace is 82% after gaining 8 points of Core Resonance.

These are really impactful Bonus Traces, but the A2 in particular can create quite the headache to play around. Having the ability to Action Advance yourself means you get to put out more damage, and since it also refunds a Skill Point, you're not at too much risk by doing so, but actually getting to make use of it consistently is quite challenging and is not something that is easily controllable once you factor in enemy actions and RNG sources of Energy.

It's not too big of a deal generally speaking, but the A2 can also be triggered off of a Basic ATK, so you can do some really funky optimisation with it if you're paying attention to how close you are to the Core Resonance Energy threshold. By far the most impactful thing is the excess Energy you can store now, and this comes into why Saber can be really challenging to pilot, and how quite a lot of her power can be wasted by poor play (or Auto).

Due to her extreme Energy cost, and even with all these methods of accelerating her Energy gains, Saber is very reliant on good Ultimates to put out competitive damage; wasting Ultimates as soon as you get them without any regard for what's happening on-screen or for what buffs you have on you will result in you losing a potentially a colossal amount of damage.

Careful consideration of when you should use the Ultimate can have big performance swings. It creates quite a rewarding gameplay loop, but it's definitely not for everyone, especially compared to the rather simple plug-and-play style of many of our existing top tier DPS. When piloted well, the performance is rather comparable, and definitely competitive, but Saber's difficulty is more akin to that of Yunli, Boothill, and Cipher — units you wouldn't dream of playing on Auto.

When considering supports, Saber's absurd Energy cost means that everyone's favourite Chicken-boy is impossible to ignore. Sunday's percentage based Energy restore on his Ultimate means that he is pretty much the number 1 support option for Saber by default, restoring an astounding 72 Energy when he uses it. He gives her all the stats she'd want, with plenty of damage boosts on top of everything, and even high SP efficiency due to how his own Ultimate works, refunding SP whenever he uses his Skill on whoever he Beatifies.

Pair this with his 100% Action Advance resulting in even more actions and Energy for Saber, and it's pretty inarguable that this is someone you should absolutely seek to use with Saber. Sunday really gets no breaks at all in the current meta as almost everyone either wants him outright or can make great use of him. Saber is no exception, and in a -1 SPD setup, Sunday is virtually uncontested as Saber's best support.

Do note, however, that the 100% Action Advance from Saber's A2 can come at inopportune times due to it forcefully activating when the criteria is reached. Ordinarily you'd want to use Sunday's Ultimate on his turn to maximise the buff uptime, but there are cases where doing so would automatically push Saber up to 0 AV due to the Energy restoration from Sunday's Ultimate activating Saber's A2, meaning the 100% Action Advance from the subsequent Sunday Skill is wasted.

The flipside is also true, however, and it's possible to trigger Saber's A2 Advance with Sunday's Ultimate outside of either character's turn; you can use Sunday's Skill to Advance Saber, have her attack with a Basic ATK for example (in the case that using the Skill would trigger the A2), and then Ult her with Sunday, restoring enough Energy to trigger Saber's A2 and giving her another action immediately. This way you can avoid losing out on Energy and Action Advances (do you see why this Trace is a headache yet).

In much the same vein only from the sustain slot instead, Huohuo is also an excellent pick that should be considered due to her also having a percent Energy restore on her Ultimate. Huohuo's actual sustaining capabilities are maybe struggling a little bit against certain enemies, but her supportive buffs are often enough to offset that, especially as her Energy restore is teamwide, meaning the other two supports you have in Saber's team can also benefit from this, and due to Saber's Talent, more Ultimates for the team mean more Ultimates for Saber. Plus she can use Quid Pro Quo to great effect.

Tingyun is an acceptable and accessible alternative when it comes to Energy restoration. A flat 50 (60 at E6 Tingyun) from her Ultimate is still very much appreciated, and the bonuses from her Skill buff and the DMG boost from the Ultimate itself are also both good. Definitely a fantastic F2P Energy funnel for Saber, and as always an excellent holder for Dance Dance Dance.

For Action Advancers, Bronya is as always still incredibly strong for any character that wants more turns, but is lesser than Sunday in this instance, again due to Saber's inherent personal Action Advance. Bronya's Skill buff always only lasts for a single turn by default, so having it be on Saber when you want the damage buff is very tricky, and having the buff affect Saber on her Mana Burst turn is literally impossible without E6 Bronya. Couple that with a longer time to regenerate her Ultimate and much more SP negativity than Sunday, and Bronya can be very difficult to use with Saber, however strong the pairing is.

Even still, putting a -1 SPD Bronya with Saber is still very powerful, and should absolutely be the go-to pick if you do not have Sunday available for her instead. The listed downsides still need to be played around, but they do not detract from the power of the setup.

The Remembrance Trailblazer is actually also pretty good. The rate of Action Advances is a lot lower compared to either Sunday or Bronya, but the extra True DMG from Mem's Support is extremely strong and is actually easily fully maxed out due to Saber's crazy Max Energy, making this a very impactful damage buff. Additionally, precisely because of Saber's Energy cost, Saber has a pretty good time fuelling Mem's Ultimate, meaning you'll hopefully be getting enough Mem's Support opportunities to offset the sketchy buff uptime from Saber's Mana Burst turn.

Last out of the Action Advancers is of course the other half of the Charmony duo, Robin. A teamwide Action Advance means vastly more Energy and Ultimates get to be thrown out, and though it can be tricky to work around a Mana Burst turn when trying to use Robin's Ultimate, and Robin won’t be using her Ultimate as much as other supports so won’t generate as much Core Resonance, her overall damage buffs and contribution mean that she's also a fantastic go-to option for Saber.

Lastly, the generic great support options of Tribbie, Silver Wolf (for off-element), and... not Cipher? It’s complicated. Cipher is a rare case of a character that doesn't really want to be using their Ultimate as soon as it's available, and without any other way to contribute to Core Resonance generation, Cipher's damage amplification, while still very good, is usually better spent elsewhere.

However, due to Cipher’s extreme SP positivity, if you are willing to spam Cipher’s Ultimate much more frequently to take advantage of the vast Core Resonance it can generate, she becomes a more compelling support option (even though you are still wasting the purpose of Cipher’s damage accumulating Ultimate nuke).

Tribbie on the other hand is perfect. Her frequent Ultimates means she's constantly generating Core Resonance for Saber, and all of Tribbie's buffs are tied to her own turns, so it's impossible for Saber to out-speed the benefits Tribbie can provide. Throw in a Dance Dance Dance in there and you are positively schmooving, friends.

If you are able to predict and play around Saber's Mana Burst turn, you can do some absolutely insane damage and wreak havoc, but Saber's gameplay and making the most of her kit is most certainly not for the faint of heart.

Very fitting, for only they who are worthy may unsheathe the Sword from the Stone. Are you up to the challenge?