Honkai Star Rail Jingliu build, Light Cone, and Relics

The best Honkai: Star Rail Jingliu build bumps up the icy Destruction warrior's critical hit potential and gives your team one of the strongest characters in the RPG to date. Jingliu's kit centers on a special mechanic that changes her skill and potential under the right circumstances, and unlike other Destruction characters, she won't burn herself and your skill points out.

She'll just knock the rest of your party out, so make sure you've got a good healer on hand.

Honkai Star Rail Jingliu

Honkai Star Rail Jingliu build basics

Jingliu is skill point positive sometimes, which means she doesn’t soak up all your points for her most powerful attacks, unlike Imbibitor Lunae. Her enhanced skill uses no points, but it does require Syzygy, which Jingliu gains from her basic skill and ultimate. She’s your standard DPS in the sense that attack and critical hits are really all you need to focus on in your build, which gives you quite a few Light Cone options aside from her signature one.

Honkai Star Rail Jingliu build – Best Light Cone

I Shall Be My Own Sword, Jingliu’s signature Light Cone, is the best fit on every front. It increases the wearer’s critical damage by a substantial amount – 20 percent at the base level – and it has several bonus effects when the user’s HP drops. When they lose HP from a skill or from enemy attacks, they gain one Eclipse stack and can carry three stacks total. Each increases the wearer’s attack by 14 percent, and once they hit three stacks, their next attack ignores at least 12 percent of the enemy’s defense.

Jingliu’s talent occasionally reduces her HP, so between that and taking enemy hits, she’ll have a nice little attack bonus from this effect.

On the Fall of an Aeon is another solid choice, especially since you can get it at Herta’s store. It raises the user’s attack by eight percent every time they hit an enemy and stacks four times, and then when they inflict weakness break, they get a 12 percent damage boost. The downside with this one is that the second effect won’t trigger unless you’re facing enemies with an ice weakness.

On the 4-star side, The Moles Welcome You fits well with Jingliu’s abilities. Every attack earns the wearer a stack of Mischievous, and each stack gives them a 12 percent damage boost.

Under the Blue Sky grants the wearer a 12 percent damage boost outright and buffs their critical hit rate by 12 percent when they defeat an enemy.

If you’re just getting started in the game and only have 3-star Light Cones to choose from, Mutual Demise works nicely for Jingliu. It buffs the wearer’s critical hit rate by 12 percent if their HP is lower than 80 percent.

Just make sure she’s not shielded, so she can get the full effect.

Honkai Star Rail Jingliu build – Best Relics

As of version 1.4, there’s really only one Relic set that works well for Jingliu: Hunter of Glacial Forest.

• Two-piece effect: Increases ice damage by 10 percent
• Four-piece effect: Increases critical damage by 25 percent after the wearer uses their ultimate

Some players are opting for Genius of Brilliant Stars instead, as the four-piece effect lets the wearer ignore 10 percent of the enemy’s defense. I prefer the double bonus of ice buffs and critical damage buffs, but if you want something different and have spare Brilliant Stars around, it’s definitely worth trying.

Jingliu Relic stats

Jingliu’s offensive focus gives you a bit of flexibility with some of your Relic stats.

• Body: Crit rate, crit damage, or attack
• Feet: Attack
• Sphere: Ice damage, attack
• Rope: Attack, defense

All of those make for good substats to aim for, if you have the patience to grind Relic Calyxes.

Honkai Star Rail Jingliu kit overview

Jingliu’s kit centers on a rhythm of gaining Syzygy stacks and dealing heavy damage to enemies in a wide area. Her basic attack does the usual piddly amount of damage. Jingliu’s skill in its normal state deals a moderate amount of ice damage to one enemy and generates a stack of Syzygy, and her ultimate hits one target with 180 percent of Jingliu’s attack and adjacent targets with 90 percent of her attack. It also grants one stack of Syzygy.

When Jingliu gains two stacks of Syzygy, she enters the Spectral Transmigration state, which does a few things. She instantly acts again and gains a 40 percent buff to her critical hit rate, and her skill turns into Moon on Glacial River. This enhanced version of her skill hits harder and affects enemies adjacent to her target. It also uses no skill points.

The tricky part is that Jingliu absorbs HP from the whole party, four percent of their total max HP. It can’t knock them out, but if anyone’s health is low, it’ll put them in a bit of danger. The absorbed HP boosts Jingliu’s attack by up to 90 percent of her base attack stat for her next strike.

Using Jingliu well involves finding a rhythm of getting her Syzygy as often as possible and letting her unleash her full power before doing it all again. Someone like Bronya, Asta, or Tingyun would work well with Jingliu to help speed her up or refill her energy.

Jingliu's technique is also an important part of her kit. It creates a field that freezes enemies for one turn and gives Jingliu one Syzygy stack when she enters combat.

Should I pull for Jingliu?

Star Rail is hardly short on powerful characters, especially after Blade, Kafka, and Lunae. It is, however, fairly bereft of strong ice characters. Yanqing is the only ice DPS as of version 1.4, and while his Soulsync state is an interesting mechanic to play around with, Jingliu is easier to set up.

Still, ice is just one element in Star Rail. If you have a Destruction or powerful Hunt character already, you’d be fine to save your Jade for another day.

Check out our Honkai Star Rail tier list to see who else might be a good fit in your Blade party.