Honkai Star Rail Black Swan build, Light Cone, and Relics

The right Honkai: Star Rail Black Swan build gives your party a strong Nihility character who makes every damage-over-time debuff an important opportunity. Black Swan doesn’t need her signature Light Cone to shine, though it does help, and she doesn’t need a lot of effect hit rate for her most important features to work. That frees you up to focus on one or two more common Relic stats and lessens the grind a little.

Our Star Rail Black Swan build lays out the best Light Cones and Relics with plenty of alternatives that fit every player style.

If you're looking for more Black Swan help, check out our Black Swan kit overview, our picks for the best Black Swan teams, and a rundown of the Black Swan materials you need.

Honkai Star Rail Black Swan

Honkai Star Rail Black Swan build

Black Swan’s pretty self-sufficient, so unlike some Nihility characters, you don’t need to stack effect hit rate to ridiculous levels. Instead, focus on buffing her attack so Arcana stacks deal more damage and, to a lesser extent, speed so she can inflict more Arcana stacks.

Honkai Star Rail Black Swan Light Cone

Black Swan’s best Light Cone is, of course, her signature – Reforged Remembrance. This cone raises the wearer’s effect hit rate by 40 percent and has a special effect tied to damage-over-time attacks. When the wearer attacks an enemy suffering from bleed, burn, wind shear, or shock, they gain a stack of Prophet – one for each DOT on an enemy. Each Prophet stack gives the wearer a five percent attack buff and lets them ignore seven percent of an enemy’s defense.

Since Black Swan’s kit only functions well when you’re attacking foes with DOT, Reforged Remmebrance is a big win for her.

If you have Silver Wolf’s Incessant Rain or Kafka’s Patience is All You Need, both are excellent choices as well.

However, during my time with Star Rail’s 2.0 version, I also had very good results with Fermata and Good Night, Sleep Well. Fermata’s break effect buff is middling on Black Swan, but the cone also buffs damage dealt against enemies suffering from shock and wind shear, which is going to be most enemies Black Swan faces. It’s best at higher Superimposition levels, and since you can get copies of Fermata from the Forgotten Hall’s Light Cone store, that’s an easy goal to reach.

Good Night, Sleep Well increases the user’s damage against foes with debuffs, period, and it stacks up to three times. The downside is that you can only get this one as a random pull from banners.

The new 4-star Light Cone It’s Showtime is another solid pick. It raises the wearer’s damage when they debuff foes and buffs their attack by 20 percent once their effect hit rate reaches 80 percent. Black Swan’s traces make that an easy number to reach, especially if you’re lucky with your relics.

On the 3-star side, your best bet is Void, though only until you can get a good 4-star cone. Void just raises effect hit rate.

Honkai Star Rail Black Swan Relics

Prisoner in Deep Confinement is a natural fit for Black Swan.

• Two-piece effect: Raises wearer’s attack by 12 percent
• Four-piece effect: Wearer ignores six percent of an enemy’s defense for every DOT effect on the target foe. Can stack three times

You could tinker with the new 2.0 set Pioneer Diver of Dead Waters, if you wanted to play around with it.

• Two-piece effect: Increases damage dealt to enemies with debuffs by 12 percent
• Four-piece effect: Increases crit rate by for percent. Wearer deals 8/12 percent more crit damage to enemies with 2 or 3 debuffs. If the wearer inflicts a debuff, the set’s effects increase by 100 percent for one turn.

Honkai Star Rail Black Swan Ornaments

Black Swan’s best-in-slot ornament set is Pan-Galactic Commercial Enterprise. It raises the wearer’s effect hit rate by 10 percent, and it also grants an attack buff equal to 25 percent of the wearer’s total effect hit rate. That buff caps at 25 percent.

Honkai Star Rail Black Swan Relic stats

Here’s what you should aim for with Black Swan’s Relic stats.

• Body: Effect hit rate
• Feet: Speed or attack
• Sphere: Attack
• Rope: Attack

Elemental damage is a popular choice for the sphere Ornament, but Black Swan really doesn’t benefit from it. She deals more damage through Arcana stacks, which scale on her attack.

If you're wondering who else might work with Black Swan, check out our Honkai Star Rail tier list, and head over to our Star Rail codes page for some freebies to help with your next pull.