Honkai: Star RailTribbieBest build, teams and other guides

Tribbie is a powerful HP-scaling Harmony character, and a hybrid between a support and an AoE damage dealer. She provides easy access to All-Type RES PEN and DMG Vulnerability. Like Robin, she provides additional utility in directly damaging the enemy whenever allies attack during Tribbie's Ultimate, but Tribbie can inflict the additional damage on all enemies hit, making AoE attacks particularly potent. Tribbie will also automatically launch an AoE follow-up attack whenever allies use their Ultimates, resulting in a very impressive amount of damage contribution, especially for a Harmony character.

My genuine reaction any time a powerful new Harmony character gets released: ‘Hey I’ve seen this one! I’ve seen this one — this is a classic’. Harmony gets another fantastic addition in this patch with Tribbie. Truly this Path is the favourite child, since every new character it’s gotten has been outstanding. With the way she functions, Tribbie is an excellent universal support, and perfectly complements many of the strongest DPS characters.

Tribbie's Basic ATK is a Blast AoE that deals 30% of Tribbie's Max HP to the main target and 15% to adjacent targets. This is the second time a character has had a Blast AoE Basic ATK, the first being Jade. More interestingly, this indicates that Tribbie is a HP-scaler when it comes to dealing damage.

Her Skill will grant the Numinosity buff to herself. While this is active, all ally targets' All-Type RES PEN will be increased by up to 24%. This is one of the higher values of RES PEN we've gotten, and having access to this effect so easily is very strong. The duration of this buff only ticks down on the start of Tribbie's turn, so extremely fast acting units, or ones with self Action Advance, won't need to worry about losing the benefits of Numinosity early.

A reminder that RES PEN is particularly rare and powerful, and is something that becomes more effective against targets with higher resistances. Due to the abundance of more standard damage amplifying effects like ATK% and DMG%, it also means you can eke out slightly more total damage by adding in an undiluted amplification.

Tribbie's Ultimate deals up to 30% Tribbie's Max HP to all enemies and creates a Zone. While the Zone is up, all enemy targets have their DMG Taken increased by up to 30%. Whenever an ally target attacks, for every 1 enemy hit, there will be an additional instance of Quantum DMG equal to 12% of Tribbie's Max HP to the enemy with the highest HP among the targets you hit. The Zone lasts for 2 of Tribbie's turns.

This means if you use an AoE attack and hit 5 enemies, there will be 5 instances of the additional DMG being dealt to the enemy with the highest HP. This allows you to efficiently weaponise AoE attacks against high HP priority targets, something most Erudition units not named Madam Herta struggle to deal with.

With Tribbie herself, due to her innately Blast AoE Basic ATK, you can proc the Ultimate’s effects quite well and you may actually end up being quite surprised by the damage she can end up doing. While the Ultimate Zone only lasts for 2 turns, it only has an Energy cost of 120 for such a strong effect, and Tribbie has plenty of ways to ensure this Ultimate is readily available.

Tribbie's Talent allows her to automatically launch a follow-up attack when other ally characters use their Ultimates, dealing up to 18% Tribbie's Max HP to all enemies on the field. This can be triggered once per character, and using her Ultimate will reset the count for other characters. If the target is defeated before the follow-up attack is done, Tribbie will launch it against new enemy targets entering the field.

This provides Tribbie even more damage, and also maximises the Additional DMG dealt from her Ultimate's Zone, leading to, you guessed it, yet more damage. She really puts the 'Harm' in 'Harmony'. This follow-up contributes some significant Energy towards the next Ultimate usage. It's also quite significant for triggering ally On-hit effects, such as Big Herta's Energy regeneration, or Feixiao's follow-up.

If you're thinking 'but that's not enough damage for my Harmony support character to be dealing', you'll enjoy the Bonus Ability Traces. Tribbie's A2 will increase her DMG% by 72% whenever she uses her Talent's follow-up attack. This is impressive, yes, but what about if it could stack up to 3 times, for a total of a 216% DMG boost? Because it does. This boost lasts for 3 turns, and maintaining this is trivial in practice.

A4 will increase Tribbie's Max HP by 9% of the sum of all ally characters' Max HP for the duration of the Ultimate's Zone. This is a nice albeit small bonus that'll improve Tribbie's DMG output further. Do note that this specifically says 'ally characters' and not 'ally targets', meaning this explicitly does not include Memosprites in the calculation.

Lastly, A6 will provide Tribbie with an additional 30 Energy at the start of combat. Additionally, after other ally targets (now including Memosprites again) attack, Tribbie will recover 1.5 Energy for each target hit. This is absurdly good for Energy generation, and thus it is very important you gain access to this as soon as possible. Hitting 5 enemies grants Tribbie 7.5 Energy, and this Energy is affected by Energy Regeneration Rate.

As for Eidolons, as usual it's not something you need for the character to function, but can be nice to have should you choose to go for them. E1 creates an additional instance of True DMG equal to 24% of the total DMG dealt by this attack to enemies who have been dealt the Additional DMG by the Ultimate's Zone.

It's a very large potential damage increase because it considers the AoE component of the ally attack in the same way as the Zone does; if you hit one enemy, the highest HP foe takes 24% extra True DMG, but if you hit 5 enemies, the highest HP foe takes 120% extra True DMG. The smart-cleave can splash all that extra True DMG onto the boss for a massive gain, so keep in mind this is usually stronger than the description alone lets on.

E2 will increase the Additional DMG of the Zone to 120% of the original, and when the Zone deals Additional DMG, there will be an additional instance of it. E4 will improve Numinosity to also allow allies to ignore 18% of the enemies' DEF when dealing damage. E6 will allow Tribbie to activate her Talent with her own Ultimate, granting an extra follow-up attack per Ultimate, as well as increasing the Talent's follow-up DMG by... let me check my notes... 729%. Yeah.

Tribbie's just kinda good, and she fits in with all the greats we've currently got, and the potential greats we've yet to get. While she doesn't have particularly notable mechanic-altering effects or archetype-enabling functions, her buffs make her an excellent addition to almost any team that just wants more damage (which is most of them).

She specifically benefits teams looking to maximise the number of hits (for the purpose of On-hit effects), or for those looking for extra undiluted damage amplification — the most obvious examples being The Herta and Feixiao, two characters that already get more than enough of the standard DMG% type buffs and that would greatly appreciate the addition of DMG Vulnerability and RES PEN, which Tribbie just so happens to provide.

Even better is that Tribbie is really quite a simple character to play and build around, meaning you don't need to bend over backwards just to gain functionality. Because she is so offensively oriented, your relic stats may be quite different from ordinary Harmony characters, and considerably harder to maximise, but the trade off is worth it when you see what Tribbie can do.

Truly, the only negative to speak of is how Tribbie's unique nature as a damage dealing Harmony makes her investment requirement really rather high; you need to treat the process of building her as though it’s for an actual DPS, meaning good substats and actually getting all the possible Traces as quickly as possible.

In addition to that, Tribbie does specifically favour more AoE-centric teams, as this will maximise the value the team can obtain from her Ultimate. Of course, follow-up teams (mostly Feixiao) are still able to drive potent effects such as Robin's Ultimate, and now also Tribbie's Ultimate, through sheer volume of attacks, but if you’re lacking even that, Tribbie’s Ultimate can become less useful than it ought to be.

Madam Herta isn't the only shining exemplar (even though she is the best example if you ask me), plenty of other AoE driven characters are excellent pairs with Tribbie. Jade, Argenti, and Serval get to double-dip essentially as they are frequently paired with The Herta anyway, so the team as a whole gets to reach unspeakable heights, and the Remembrance Trailblazer is much the same.

Aglaea's teams generally lack the kind of AoE that can really abuse Tribbie's Ultimate, but Aglaea herself becomes so laughably speedy that it doesn't really matter, and Tribbie ends up being a very potent addition to Aglaea's teams also. Tribbie probably isn’t going to be the absolute best-in-slot for Aglaea, but like with Big Herta, Aglaea also appreciates the undiluted buffs that Tribbie can provide.

Perhaps most significant of all is that Tribbie helps to free Robin from quite a few teams; because there is a notable overlap in the way that both Tribbie and Robin provide damage to the party, they are usable in quite a lot of situations. Robin still takes the cake in follow-up teams, and her ability to 100% Action Advance the party is still invaluable, but Tribbie is pretty much the same thing outside of that — perhaps even better, depending on who you ask.

As of the writing of this we know that Mydei will also be a HP-scaling DPS, and it seems like we can expect more of this from Amphoreus characters. There are very few truly good options for characters of that nature, and Tribbie providing strong generic buffs that do not depend on super specific stats is extremely useful. It is uncertain if this trend will continue, but either way Tribbie will be an excellent pickup.

One thing is for certain.

This Path is not beating the favouritism allegations.