In this Honkai Star Rail Yanqing Build Guide we’re going to be covering a single target Yanqing build. This build focuses on dispatching bosses and and elite enemies as fast as possible, and doing sustained Ice damage.
Honkai: Star Rail Yanqing Build Guide
Yanqing is a standard banner character, that you get from either the first Departure banner, after spending 50 wishes. Or you get from losing 50:50 chance on rate up banners like Seele – Butterfly on Swordtip banner. He’s a single target, Ice damage dealer from the Hunt path. He can break Ice shields effectively, and freeze enemies. He also come with passives to buff his own critical Rate and Critical damage, and add a follow up attack after his skills use.
Overall, Yanqing is very effective character to carry your account from early game, to the very end. In case you get him on an account, he’s a worth building and investing. His freeze is reliable, to crown control enemies and skip their turns. He come with several free stats, but have one condition to keep these buffs up, and that is to not get damaged by enemies. We can fulfill condition by using a tank support with a taunt, to prevent enemies from targeting him. Or using a shield on Yanqing to prevent him from taking damage. So it’s one of the easier conditions, and mostly guaranteed.
Yanqing Build Guide – Active Skills
Skill leveling Priority: Skill = Ultimate = Talent > Basic Attack
Frost Thorn – Basic Attack
As a main dps, Yanqing doesn’t rely on his normal attacks much, and prefer to use his skill each turn. However, normal attack is not a bad talent for him, as Yanqing buff his entire kit’s Crit rate and Crit Damage. So if things goes out of hand, and you end up without skill points to use skill, normal attacks will continue the dps.
Darting Ironthorn – Skill
A simple and powerful skill, that have Yanqing attack a single enemy with high Ice damage. Then it grants him Soulsteel Sync status for one turn. The Soulsteel Sync is where all of Yanqing extra power come from. With it, he gain extra buff, get a chance for extra follow-up attack, and have high chance to freeze enemies. So in optimal rotation, you need to manage the team resources properly, to ensure Yaqing turn always come while having a skill point available to use.
One With the Sword – Talent
While Yanqing have Soulsteel Sync from using his skill, he gets less aggro from enemies. Meaning they are more likely to ignore him, and choose to attack other character. That’s because if Yanqing takes damage, he lose the Soulsteel Sync buff, so you need to keep enemies from targeting him. In addition to that, he gets extra 15% Crit Rate, and 15% Crit damage. This status apply to his entire kit, so it buff his normal attacks, ultimate, and follow-up attack as well.
After Yanqing attacks and enemy, he have a 50% chance to attack again with a follow up attack. It deal 25% attack damage, and have 65% chance to freeze the enemy, even if enemy have no cold weakness, and didn’t get his toughness shield broken. This effect is very powerful, because it work all the time, without investing into freeze chance from other sources. But also scale up with investment. So you can build Yanqing with pure focus on damage stats, and still have high CC. Or focus on raising his CC to even higher levels, while maintaining good damage.
Additional note here, is that freeze works well in Simulated Universe mode. Since the Simulated Universe have some powerful blessing from “remembrance” that require freezing enemies.
Amidst the Raining Bliss – Ultimate
Ultimate follows the standard theme for this Honkai: Star Rail Yanqing Build, dealing high damage to single target enemy. It increase Crit Rate even further by 60%, which is additive to 15% from Talent, and 5% base. So his ultimate Crit Rate is 80% without any gear. If Soulsteel Sync is active, Yanqing get extra Crit damage for 1 turn as well, which skyrocket his dps.
If you play Yanqing with damage buffer like Bronya or Tingyun, this ultimate can finish even enemies who have no Ice weakness in one hit. And as a ultimate, it can be used in any turn, not necessarily in Yanqing own turn. Sometimes I use it to finish kill an enemy in his own turn, to reduce enemies overall damage.
It costs 140 energy to cast Yanqing ultimate, which is very high. his skill refund 30 energy per turn. And killing Enemy refund 10 energy. While his follow-up Attack give 10 extra energy. Buffing him with Tingyun can also refund more energy, and using her ultimate on him regenerates 50 extra energy. So if you pair Yanqing with Tingyun, you can pretty much spam his ultimate in very short time. Other option is using his with March 7th, and use her shield on him. The shield increase his aggro, while protecting him from damage. And when enemy hits him, Yanqing gets 15 extra energy to increase his ultimate gain. Finally, Bronya can be another great buffer for Yanqing ultimate, by hastening his turn and using his skill more often. That way, he can refund more energy in shorter time, and deal huge damage.
The One True Sword – Technique
Technique is a skill that character can use outside combat, mainly to initiate combat with big advantage. It have a maximum amount of charges, so you can use in every encounter. You can use Yanqing Technique if he’s the active character outside combat, and you press Technique button (same button as ultimate on controller).
After using his Technique, Yanqing will deal 30% more damage for first two turns, to enemies above 50% health. So it’s a good dps increase, if you don’t need another utility Technique such as March 7th freeze, or Serval’s shock for example.
Honkai: Star Rail Yanqing Build – Traces
Traces are passive skills that character unlock after leveling, and reaching certain ascension levels. You need to farm and spend resources to unlock traces, but they give powerful enchantments to your character. For a main dps such as Yanqing, you should prioritize leveling and getting his Traces as soon as possible.
Icing on the Kick – Major – Ascension 2
Additional Ice damage instance on enemies weak to Ice. This Trace enable Yanqing to add more instances of damage to hasten the break of shields weak to Ice. Also deal slightly more damage.
Frost Favors the Brave – Major – Ascension 4
Adds resistance to negative effects while Soulsteel Sync is active. So it’s basically a mean to reduce the chance enemies freeze or stun or disable Yanqing, so he keep up dealing damage.
Gentle Blade – Major – Ascension 6
Increase speed for two turns upon dealing Crit hit. It’s another powerful buff in Yanqing kit, because speed is very important in turn based game. With this buff, and certain team setup, you can get in front of enemy turns. Which results in overall increase in the times Yanqing attack and deal damage.
Minor Traces
Yanqing gets ten minor stats increases, distributed as the following
- Attack (Five nodes)
- Ice damage (Three Nodes)
- Max HP (two Nodes)
Honkai: Star Rail Yanqing Build – Light Cone
Gear is a curial part of building characters in Honkai Star Rail, and usually require some testing with various teams and setups to get the highest performance. In this section, I’ll go through the recommended Light Cone for Yanqing, to fulfill his dps role.
Light Cone are similar to weapons in other games, and while you can equip any light cone on any character, only cones matching the character path can provide full benefits. Yanqing is of “The Hunt” Path, which focus on dealing damage and buffing offensive stats. You can get cones from in-game rewards, or randomly from wishing on various banners. And I’ll go through some of free and gacha options for Yanqing.
Darting Arrows – Three Stars
A decent starter Light Cone, that give Yanqing very good attack buff. As a three star option, you will it to high Superimpose tier easily, which will increase the passive attack buff. Th condition to get this buff is killing an enemy, which Yanqing will be doing all the time. The buff lasts for three turns, and have no cooldown, so you will have it up most of the time after first one or two turns.
River Flow In Spring – Four Stars
This four star Light Cone seems like Yanqing signature Light Cone. It have his image, and his lore on it. The stats on it is also well tailored for Yanqing, with a buff to speed and and damage multiplier. The condition to meet to keep this powerful buff is to not get damaged. It’s the same condition to get benefits from his Talent, and will be effective if your team give Yanqing a shield.
You can get River Flow In Spring from either gacha pull on banner, or buy from “Light Cone Manifest” shop from the Messenger on the Astral Express.
Sleep Like the Dead – Five Star
While not all stats on it is ideal for Yanqing, Sleep Like the Dead have higher base attack from being a five star, and the critical damage stat synergies very well with Yanqing higher than usual Crit Rate. The extra conditional critical rate is not bad as well.
You have a chance to get this weapon from standard banner, when you lose 50:50 chance to get a five star character. It’s a nice upgrade over four star options, but nothing to go crazy about.
Honkai: Star Rail Yanqing Build – Relics
Relics works similar to artifacts in Genshin Impact. You have four slots, Head, Gloves, Body, and Feet. Then two other slots that unlock at higher levels. Head always come with Flat HP stat, Gloves comes with Flat Attack. Then Body and Feet comes with random stats. So gearing the Head and gloves would lean more towards finding the best sub stats, while Body and Feet need need to also roll a good main stat.
For Yanqing, we have wide variety of offensive stats to aim for. Such as Speed, Crit Rate, Crit damage, Attack, and effect hit rate. Usually, investing into Critical stats in early game is not the easiest way to scale up damage. Because critical is more effective if you maintain balanced ratio of 1:2 Crit Rate : Crit Damage. However, in Yanqing case, he start off with massive critical buffs, and can easily reach 100% Crit Rate with his ultimate with minimum investment. That make critical stats more valuable to him, and you should consider using them over attack stats where applicable.
The standard Ratio Yanqing have on his skill before gear is 20% Crit Rate : 65% Crit Damage. While his Ultimate and next Skill after Ultimate have 80% Crit rate : 125% Crit Damage at highest level. So we need to give him extra 20% Crit Rate, and the rest in Crit damage to avoid overcapping Crit rate.
Hunter of Glacial Forest
For Relic sets, Yanqing is definitely better with an Ice set. Hunter of Glacial Forest give very nice Ice damage on two pieces bonus, but also more Critical Damage on four set bonus. It goes well with any Light Cone Yanqing can equip, and give straight up stats with no conditions to meet.
Thief of Shooting Meteor
This set is one of the two starter sets that you get at early game. It boost break effect rather than offensive stats, and that’s exactly what you need in early game. You encounter a lot of enemies with Ice weakness, in early game. And breaking their toughness shield is usually the best way to deal massive damage early on. Beside that, the other alternative set at start is not that appealing, because it buff only the normal attacks. Yanqing uses his skill in majority of time.
Honkai: Star Rail Yanqing Build – Team Composition
Team consists of four characters in Honkai Star Rail, where you usually seek to fill several roles, such as single target dps, AOE dps, shield breakers, and both defensive and offensive supports. The combat system prevent you from using one character to break all shields, since shield break only if you attack it with the elements it’s weak against. Therefore, the game still encourage player to build very diverse team, with four different elements, or at the very least three elements.
In this section, I’ll go through some of the recommended team members that goes well with Yanqing. Note that Yanqing have the Hunt Path, so he fulfill the single target dps role perfectly. We will never pair him with another character from the Hunt such as Don Hang, Sushang, or Seele.
Shielder from Preservation Path
This is the most obvious and easiest choice in terms of Yanqing team building. Yanqing lose a lot of his buffs upon taking damage, and shielders prevent damage. At game launch, there are only three characters from Preservation Path in game. These are Gepard, Fire Trailblazer, and March 7th. With Gepard being the only five star among them, and other two are guaranteed characters.
While March 7th have Ice element similar to Yanqing, she’s still worth running from early game. Her shield is very tanky, and last long. But she forces you to keep changing the other two supports with different encounters, to meet the enemies weakness.
Fire Trailblazer comes later after you finish the story quests in Jarilo-VI. And it ease up the team composition a lot, because it have fire element. The Trailblazer doesn’t have the strongest of shields, but they are very effective at keeping aggro to themselves. So Yanqing will only get hit by AOE. You should place Trailblazer furthest away from Yanqing, so the small AOE from enemies don’t hit Yanqing.
AOE breaker from Erudition Path
I straight up prefer using Serval in this slot. She brings AOE lightning element, along with strong damage over time. All of her kit enable her to hit enemies multiple times, and that’s exactly what you need to break their toughness. She also cover up for Yanqing lack of AOE.
Erudition characters in general can use some Light Cones that help them generate energy. And this increases their ultimate usage, and breaking ability.
An upgrade to Serval, would be the five star Himeko, but she’s not accessible to most players
Healer from Abundance Path, or buffer from Harmony?
This choice can be a little tricky, because against most enemies, you would prefer survivability over damage buff. Honkai Star Rail is not very forgiving, and enemies can do a lot of damage. So it’s natural to use a healer like Natasha on top of your shielder, even if fight takes more turns.
Natasha is natural fit in this team, because she’s physical character. She can skip using her skill in several turns, as long as shields stay intact, and team’s HP doesn’t drop low. She also enable team to start with extra skill point, and with Traces, she can cleanse.
However, she brings nothing else beside healing, and she prevent you from using strong buffers such as Asta, Tingyun, or Bronya. Any of those three can improve your team clear speed by a lot, and help you do “Forgotten Hall” with ease, but you have to either sacrifice a healer, or an AOE shield breaker. So pick your poison.
Final Tips
Yanqing is mutually exclusive Single target dps. And while he can carry the entire account in virtually all game modes, you can’t use him with any other single target dps. So if you are pulling the rate up character, Seele, you will find very few reasons to use Yanqing with her. That’s the drawback of Yanqing in early game, because resources are very scarce, and you don’t have the luxury to build a lot dps characters in same role.
However, in endgame, you will need two teams to clear ” the Forgotten Hall” mode, and that’s where Yanqing become so relevant, even if you have other single target dps.
To Maintain good rotation with Yanqin, you should aim to use his skill in every turn. That forces the team to use more natural characters, that only use their normal attacks to generate skill points. The problem with using normal attacks on supports is that they lack AOE, so you have to use the skill of a third character for AOE. This way, you need another natural character that uses only normal attacks to refund more skill points. That’s why Serval is a good character to pair with Yanqing.
Serval leave Shock DoT on enemies, so in following turns, she can resort to use her normal attacks, while she’s still doing AOE damage. from her DoT.
Bronya is also very good pick alongside Yaqing, because she alternate between her skill and normal attack each turn. And Natasha also give team extra skill point at first turn.
Lastly, when you manage to unlock Planetary Ornaments, you can go for Inert Salsotto set. This gives extra crit rate, and with the condition of reaching 50% Crit Rate, you can get extra ultimate and follow up attack damage.
Stay tuned for more Honkai: Star Rail Character Guides and be sure to drop by our Twitch Channel if you have questions about the game. And check out Honkai: Star Rail Gepard Guide. For more Honkai: Star Rail content, check out Honkai: Star Rail Guide – F2P Characters Overview, Honkai: Star Rail Beginner Guide, and Honkai: Star Rail Gameplay Overview (F2P Turn-Based RPG).
