Honkai: Star RailTopaz & NumbyBest build, teams and other guides

Topaz is a unique hybrid of a secondary damage dealer and dedicated support for units with Follow-Up attacks. She is capable of significantly increasing the Follow-Up damage a single enemy can receive indefinitely, with the increase to damage being a separate multiplier in most instances, resulting in an even larger increase. She also contributes fairly decent direct and Toughness damage of her own, and can use SP with a high degree of flexibility, even being able to be fully SP positive. Her biggest downside is that she is exclusively single-target focused and can struggle in even 2 target scenarios, but with how many attacks are flying toward the enemies in FUA teams, this isn't that big of an issue.

As a tax collector for the IPC, Topaz doesn’t exactly make the best first impression, after all, tax evasion is an obligation (for legal reasons this is a joke). As a playable unit, Topaz is also somewhat intriguing. She is a dedicated support character for the follow-up mechanic, meaning by design she is already slotting herself into a very specific type of gameplay and with very specific teammates.

As mentioned earlier, Topaz is the primary choice of a 'Support' for the current meta follow-up teams. Within those follow-up teams, Topaz can elevate both her own and her teammates' damage output quite considerably and is likely to become a mainstay for units like Dr. Ratio and Feixiao (our best FUA damage dealers). Just know immediately that outside of FUA-oriented setups, you should not expect Topaz to be replacing any units you are likely already utilizing in other teams.

With that out of the way, let’s discuss what makes Topaz good in her best teams. Topaz’s Skill is the most important tool in her kit. It will deal follow-up damage up to 150% of Topaz’s ATK to a single enemy target, and additionally inflict them with a debuff called Proof of Debt, which increases the damage they take from follow-up attacks by up to 50% at max Trace level. This 50% is in most cases a separate multiplier, meaning it takes effect after everything else has been calculated and will result in a significantly higher increase to damage than you may expect. Damage amps like this are incredibly rare and are extremely potent. The Proof of Debt debuff itself lasts indefinitely until either the target enemy is defeated or Topaz uses this Skill on another foe. If no enemy has Proof of Debt when an ally’s turn begins or when they act, Proof of Debt will be randomly applied to one of the remaining enemies.

Her Talent is her pet Trotter, Numby. Numby is very similar to Jing Yuan’s Lightning-Lord in that it is a summoned entity with its own SPD value and turn order, and will disappear if the summoner is downed in combat. On Numby’s turn, it will deal damage up to 150% of Topaz’s ATK to a single enemy that has been afflicted with Proof of Debt. Numby’s SPD is 80 by default, making it fairly slow to act, but whenever enemies afflicted with Proof of Debt receive an ally’s follow-up attack, Numby will have its action Advanced Forward by 50%, resulting in it getting to act far more frequently than you may initially be led to believe. Note, this Advance Forward cannot be triggered on Numby’s own turn, so this effect relies on your team being able to use follow-ups.

Topaz’s Ultimate buffs Numby for 2 turns. Numby enters the Windfall Bonanza! State, exclamation mark included, and its damage multiplier increases by up to 150%. It also benefits from an additional 25% CRIT DMG. Similar to Clara’s Ultimate, Topaz’s Ultimate temporarily lessens the restrictions on her Talent’s Advance Forward activation; while Windfall Bonanza! is active, when enemies with Proof of Debt are hit by ally Basic ATKs, Skills, or Ultimates, Numby will have its action Advanced Forward by 50% as well. This means it’s very easy to have Numby acting nearly back to back during its Enhanced state, as you temporarily do not need to rely on exclusively follow-up attacks to trigger the Advance Forward.

Her Bonus Ability Traces improve her performance quite considerably. Her A2 Bonus Ability will transform her Basic ATK into a follow-up attack, meaning it will now also benefit from Proof of Debt’s damage amp, as well as accelerating Numby’s next attack with the Advance Forward. Her A4 will grant her and Numby 15% increased DMG against all enemies with a Fire Weakness, and her A6 will regenerate an additional 10 Energy for herself when Numby attacks under Windfall Bonanza!, effectively reducing the amount of Energy she needs to use her Ultimate again.

Eidolons are not necessary for Topaz, and while they’re not really that bad at all, they’re also not really worth chasing extra copies of Topaz to get. E1 is good value if you’re really adamant about going for Eidolons, as it can increase the CRIT DMG of follow-ups against Proof of Debt debuffed enemies by 25%, stacking up to 2 times.

The gameplay plan becomes fairly simple: afflict the primary enemy target, usually a Boss or Elite, with the Proof of Debt debuff, and then pelt them with as many follow-up attacks as possible to get Numby to sic ‘em as often as possible. Rather surprisingly, this is in fact as easy as it sounds as far as Topaz herself is concerned. Her Skill counts as a follow-up attack, and with her first Bonus Ability, her Basic ATK also functions as a follow-up attack, so every time Topaz acts, it’s going to be Advancing Forward Numby’s turn.

This Advance Forward mechanic is the reason why Topaz benefits greatly from allies with follow-up attacks in their kit as well, as it can even further increase the number of times Numby will attack, creating a sort of feedback loop wherein Topaz buffs the ally follow-up attacks and gets increased personal damage output in the process. Even with the more infrequent follow-ups like from Jing Yuan’s Lightning-Lord, the difference in Topaz’s personal damage output is quite noticeable.

She can use SP however you need once an enemy is afflicted with Proof of Debt; using Skill will consume 1 SP but will give greater damage, Energy gain, and Toughness damage, but using Basic ATK will deal only slightly less of each while recovering 1 SP instead. Since both count as follow-up attacks, Numby is always benefitting. Numby itself is also doing good Toughness damage every time it attacks, meaning together with Topaz, the amount of Toughness damage being dealt to a single foe is actually really quite high. It is not uncommon to be breaking extremely frequently with Topaz in the party as long as the enemy is Fire weak.

As mentioned early on, Topaz is exclusively single-target focused, as is tradition for Hunt characters. Attempting to utilise Topaz as a secondary damage source in teams without follow-ups, or as a solo hypercarry, will result in subpar performance compared to other damage dealers who can attack more than one target at the same time.

Topaz is meant for follow-up teams, buffing other characters who also have follow-up attacks. By herself, Topaz is not comparable to most other dedicated damage dealers. She does not have the types of intrinsic stat boosts or damage amps that many of those sorts of characters have, and so becomes incredibly reliant on having definitively good gear and Relics. Since many of her teams involve 2 damage dealers and a sustain option, it limits her access to buffs making good gear even more important, potentially even raising the quality requirement from good to great.

Do not make the mistake of seeing the Hunt symbol and thinking she is comparable to the likes of Seele. Topaz is a support first - damage dealer second. If you do not already have the follow-up characters that work well with her, you should not reasonably expect her to perform to her best. But when you pair her with Feixiao or Dr. Ratio and gather the rest of the FUA gang (Robin and Aventurine), you will find Topaz to be an outstanding DPS/Support hybrid who elevates the whole team to new levels.