Traces in Honkai Star Rail essentially function as the Characters 'Skill Tree'. They're a menu where players can invest resources to buff the stats of their character or unlock new passive/active abilities. And, these 'major' Traces that unlock passives or actives are usually locked behind different Ascension Levels.
With that in mind, let's take a look at all the Traces Honkai: Star Rail players will be able to unlock after reaching Ascension 6 with that character (AKA at least Trailblaze Level 60) to figure out which ones are worth grinding for first.
11 Sushang
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
Vanquisher | After using a Basic Attack or Skill, if there are enemies on the field with Weakness Break, Sushang's action is Advanced Forward by 15 percent. |
Sushang's whole kit is built around her Sword Stance, getting it to trigger as often as possible, whether that's by using her Skill to Weakness Break or using her Ultimate to increase the chances of it triggering for the next two turns.
So, Sushang wants to go as often as she can to both trigger Sword Stance and also to activate her Ascension 4 Trace, Riposte. There's already her standard combo of using her Skill, then her Ultimate, then her Skill again, but with this Trace she can add a Basic Attack/Skill usage to the start of that combo to make it even longer.
10 Asta
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
Constellation | Asta's defense increases by 6 percent for every current Charging stack she possesses. |
Asta is already an incredible support character (AKA a Harmony character) in Honkai: Star Rail. Her Charging mechanic is easy to build up, easy to keep track of, and buffs any team comp thanks to it being just a nice little attack buff. The only category Asta falls a bit short in is survivability, but with the Constellation Trace that will become much less of a problem, since it can increase her Defense up to 30 percent total, allowing players to build her for maximum buffs instead of survivability.
9 Welt
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
Punishment | Deal 20 percent more damage to enemies inflicted with Weakness Break. |
Welt is one of those HSR characters that feels like he's split between two roles. His damage is a bit too low overall to be a DPS but Slows and the occasional Imprisonment isn't quite enough to make him a support character either. On one hand, this makes him a fantastic Nihility character, on the other, it can make him feel a bit awkward to use. But, with the Punishment Trace, Welt deals quite a bit more damage overall, since he's usually all about inflicting Slows on enemies and isn't the one that causes the Weakness Break, so he'll take advantage of this effect pretty often.
8 Seele
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
Rippling Waves | After using a Basic Attack, Seele's next action will be Advanced Forward by 20 percent. |
As if Seele needed anything else to make her any stronger, she's still sitting comfy at the very tippy top of all the tier lists for Honkai: Star Rail, even in Version 1.2. That said, that's only with the proper build and it only gets ridiculous once she enters a flow state with her 'buffed' status. If players are struggling to keep their buffed state active, the Rippling Waves Trace will allow her to Basic Attack to kill an almost-dead enemy, enter her buffed state, and then the Advancement forward will usually let her unleash her Skill before the enemies even have time to respond, just as a Hunt Path character should.
7 Dan Heng
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
High Gale | Basic Attack deals 40 percent more damage to Slowed enemies. |
Let's be honest, most people playing HSR are really only leveling and investing resources into Dan Heng because he's the only 'real' Wind-damage DPS in the game currently. So, more often than not, he's not in a party because he's the favorite or anything, and he doesn't get first dibs on the Skill Points all that often.
Thankfully, with this Trace, he'll still do some pretty sizeable damage, even if he's only using his Basic Attack. This Trace also works exceptionally well in a team with someone like Welt or one of the leaked upcoming characters who also Slows enemies.
6 March 7th
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
Ice Spell | Increases Ultimate's base chance to Freeze enemies by 15 percent. |
Moving on to the last of the Astral Express' three musketeers, it's March 7th. Anyone who routinely uses March 7th in their team knows just how much she ends up freezing the enemies, primarily through her Glacial Cascade Ultimate, as she gets to use it so often in a fight. So, grabbing the Trace that increases the base chance for the Ultimate to freeze enemies each time by a whole 15 percent is well worth the resources.
5 Preservation Trailblazer (Fire)
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
Action Beats Overthinking | When the Trailblazer is protected by a Shield at the beginning of the turn, increases their attack by 15 percent and regenerates 5 Energy until the action is over. |
There's an argument to be made that the Fire/Preservation Trailblazer is the best tank currently in the game. At the very least, it's the most accessible one given that the other two primary options, Gepard and Clara, are 5-Stars players will need to roll for.
And, there will be plenty of turns where the Trailblazer has a shield active at the start, especially if a player also uses March 7th or Gepard as well (though that would probably be overkill) which means their Action Beats Overthinking Trace essentially functions as a flat 15 percent attack increase.
4 Bailu
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
Aquatic Benediction | Characters with Invigoration receive 10 percent less damage. |
Bailu's main gimmick as a healer is her Invigoration buff that she puts on allies. Essentially, with Invigoration active, allies will regain some health back after being hit, sometimes even more health than the hit made them lose. And, with some of the endgame content in HSR, it can be really tough to keep everyone standing, even with the newest character (at the time of writing this) Luocha in the team comp
So, her Aquatic Benediction Trace essentially gives the whole team a 10 percent damage reduction buff since she'll always keep it active, making this another easy Trace to grab as soon as it's available.
3 Gepard
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
Fighting Spirit | Gepard's attack increases by 35 percent of his current defense. This effect will refresh at the start of each turn. |
If the three main tanks in HSR were to be described in one word, Clara's would 'Counters', the Trailblazer's would be 'Taunts', and Gepard's would be 'Shields'. But, out of the three, Gepard probably does the least amount of damage overall, which is why his Fighting Spirit Trace will make such a big difference.
Not only that, but it scales off his defense stat, which means the tankier Gepard is, the more damage he does, and that's just every tank's dream.
2 Clara
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
revenge | Increases Svarog's Counter damage by 30 percent. |
For the last of the three 'tanks', it's Clara and Svarog. Though technically on the Destruction Path rather than the Preservation one, Clara is still absolutely a tank. Now, with the right build, the sheer amount of tanking and damage Clara does is honestly staggering. There have been clips posted by the community of Clara solo'ing bosses entirely by herself (not including Svarog). So, grabbing a Trace that literally increases her main source of damage, that being Svarog's Mark of Counter follow-up attacks, is a no-brainer worth investing in.
1 Bronya
Ascension Name | Description |
|---|---|
Military Might | When Bronya is on the field, all allies deal 10 percent more damage. |
The final Trace and best one on here is sadly a bit boring compared to some of the effects the other character's Traces provide, but it's just that useful. With the Military Might Ascension 6 Trace, Bronya gives everyone a 10 percent damage increase while she's on the field.
Stack that on top of the 33 percent damage increase when she uses her skill on an ally and the additional 33 percent increase if she uses her Belobog March Ultimate right after (as well as a crit damage increase), and Bronya can buff an ally's attack by 76 percent overall for one turn.
Honkai: Star Rail is available now for PC and mobile devices with a PS5 version releasing in Q4 2023.