Ever since you set foot in the land of Amphoreus in Honkai: Star Rail, you’ve met quite a few Chrysos Heirs, with each one having a huge part to play in the future of the planet. Their role in the story has made the Chrysos Heirs one of the most valuable characters to pull for, and Cipher is no different.
Cipher is a five-star Quantum character ing the path of Nihility, but she has a very specific role in the team that is quite rare. Essentially, she can only perform as a sub-DPS because of how her kit works, and you’ll have to build her in the right way to get the most value.
Best Cipher Light Cones
Once you pull for a character in Honkai: Star Rail, the first thing you have to do is head over to their character menu and switch to the light cone screen. You can generally place any light cone on your characters, but you’ll only get the passive effect if it belongs to the same path as Cipher, which is Nihility.
Unfortunately, the Nihility path consists of three types of characters: support debuffers, DPS, and DoT units. This leads to the light cone pool being very diluted, with limited choices for her play style. Of course, Cipher’s best weapon is her signature called Lies Dance on the Breeze, and here are all the other choices that you have:
|
Name |
Rarity |
Synergy With Cipher |
|---|---|---|
|
Lies Dance on the Breeze |
Five-Star |
As Cipher’s signature weapon, Lies Dance on the Breeze largely gives her every stat she needs. It instantly gives her 18 percent SPD after being equipped and up to 24 percent DEF shred on the enemy. The DEF shred stays at 16 percent unless you have 170 SPD on her. However, one of Cipher’s passive require you to have that amount of SPD, making it a perfect synergy. |
|
Along the Passing Shore |
Five-Star |
This serves as her second-best weapon since she can get a massive 36 percent Crit DMG boost along with a 24 percent general DMG and 24 percent Ultimate DMG bonus on the enemies she attacks during her turn. Since she can attack multiple enemies with every turn, it works out perfectly and sets you up for a high damage whenever you trigger the Ultimate. |
|
Patience Is All You Need |
Five-Star |
Kafka’s signature light cone is also a decent choice for Cipher as it gives her a direct 24 percent DMG boost after being equipped. Other than that, it can give her up to 14.4 percent SPD, which is nearly as much as her signature. Outside of that, the last part of this light cone’s passive isn’t as useful for Cipher. |
|
Incessant Rain |
Five-Star |
This light cone works surprisingly well with Cipher’s kit as she can use everything it provides. Firstly, the Effect Hit Rate will help her apply the debuffs from her Skill and this light cone with much more regularity. You can also get a 12 percent Crit Rate bonus and have the enemies take an additional 12 percent increased damage, which stacks with her passive. |
|
Resolution Shines As Pearls of Sweat |
Four-Star |
This is a great four-star choice for Cipher since she’s a sub-DPS, and the Ensnared effect applied by it helps both her and the main DPS. However, using it will make it much harder to get the right stats from your relics. |
|
Boundless Choreo (situational) |
Four-Star |
Finally, if you have a character that can apply DEF shred on the enemies either through the above light cone or their abilities like Pela or Silver Wolf, you can use this light cone on Cipher to get some decent buffs. |
Best Cipher Relics And Planar Ornaments
Outside of the lack of F2P light cones for Cipher, she also doesn’t get a tailor-made relic or planar ornament set for her. Thankfully, there are quite a few decent existing choices:
Best Relics For Cipher
|
Rank |
Name |
Synergy With Cipher |
|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Pioneer Diver of Dead Waters |
Much like one of her best teammates, Cipher also works the best with the Pioneer set as she can fully utilize it in the right team. This set lets her deal 12 percent increased damage to enemies with debuffs. With four pieces, it also increases your Crit Rate by four percent and Crit DMG by 24 percent since she automatically applies a debuff with her Skill. |
|
2 |
The Wind-Soaring Valorous |
This is yet another set that serves as the perfect substitute for Cipher due to its ATK bonus, Crit Rate, and a whopping 36 percent increased Ultimate damage. |
|
3 |
Genius of Brilliant Stars |
Finally, being a Quantum character, this set is a staple for her for early game players as it allows you to ignore an additional 20 percent DEF from the enemies, which can stack with her signature light cone. |
Best Planar Ornaments For Cipher
|
Rank |
Name |
Synergy With Cipher |
|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Firmament Frontline: Glamoth |
Since Cipher will already have 170 SPD once you build her, she can fully utilize the 12 percent ATK and 18 percent DMG bonus from this set. |
|
2 |
Izumo Gensei and Takama Divine Realm |
This can be a decent substitute for Cipher with its 12 percent ATK and 12 percent Crit Rate. However, you might overcap on Crit Rate with this. |
|
3 |
Inert Salsotto |
Finally, for early game players, Inert Salsotto can be a great choice as it gives her both Ultimate and -up attack damage, outside of the eight percent Crit Rate. |
Cipher Stat Priority
|
Body |
Crit DMG |
|---|---|
|
Feet |
SPD |
|
Sphere |
Quantum DMG Bonus / ATK Percent |
|
Rope |
ATK Percent |
|
Sub-Stats |
SPD > Effect Hit Rate > Crit DMG > Crit Rate > ATK Percent |
Cipher can get a ton of DMG bonus from her best in slot relics and planar ornaments, which might give you marginally high numbers with an ATK Percent sphere.
Having 170 SPD on Cipher is the highest priority since she can get 50 percent Crit Rate for free with it. Once you achieve that, you can focus on as much Crit DMG and ATK as possible while also getting some Effect Hit Rate rolls.
Best Cipher Team Members
|
Cipher Best Team |
Cipher, Acheron, Aventurine, Jiaoqiu |
|---|---|
|
Cipher Alternate Team |
Cipher, Feixiao, Robin, Aventurine |
|
Cipher F2P Team |
Cipher, DPS, Asta/Pela, Gallagher |
Unlike the rest of Cipher’s build, at least her team section has a lot more flexibility. Being a sub-DPS, you can use Cipher with almost any team as long as you have a main DPS, a support, and a sustainer outside of her. This generally serves as the template for her F2P team, with the DPS preferably being someone with the highest damage output possible.
Outside of the DPS, you can either use Asta or Pela as the support. The former will help you get extra SPD if you can’t quite reach 170 on Cipher, while the latter is the better choice if you can. Pela works especially well with Cipher if you’re using the Boundless Choreo light cone since she has DEF shred for enemies in her kit.
As long as Pela has enough Energy Regeneration, she can keep the DEF shred on the enemies throughout the battle.
Once you start getting more five stars, the best team for Cipher involves Acheron, Aventurine, and Jiaoqiu. Acheron has some of the highest AoE damage in the game without the requirement of specific supports, and she can dish out enough damage for Cipher to get a ton of stacks. Moreover, Jiaoqiu can massively buff both her and Acheron’s Ultimate damage.
Other than that, you can also use Cipher with Feixiao, Robin, and Aventurine if you want to target one enemy at a time. Feixiao excels at dealing over 500,000 damage to a single enemy even with an F2P build. In both of these teams, it’s important to have Aventurine in the middle of the roster so that he can get more stacks, especially against enemies with AoE attacks.
Cipher Overview And Trace Priority
|
Rarity |
Five-Star |
|---|---|---|
|
Path |
Nihility |
|
|
Combat Type |
Quantum |
|
|
Overworld Rating |
A Tier |
|
|
Memory of Chaos Rating |
A Tier |
|
|
Pure Fiction Rating |
A- Tier |
|
|
Apocalyptic Shadow Rating |
A Tier |
For most Honkai: Star Rail players who are pulling Cipher, you’ll likely have one copy of the character with a potential signature light cone. However, with these two things, Cipher doesn’t have the greatest place in the current meta. However, she can still be used in her best team to beat the endgame content quite easily.
Here’s everything you need to know about her kit:
- Cipher applies the Patron effect on the enemy with the highest HP after entering battle. You can switch this effect to a different enemy by making them the main target of your Skill. Outside of that, your Skill simply deals damage to the main and adjacent enemies. She also decreases the damage dealt by them while increasing her own ATK.
- Whenever the Patron is attacked by an ally, Cipher can trigger a -up attack dealing damage to them once each turn, which refreshes when her next turn starts.
- Whenever the Patron is attacked, Cipher saves 12 percent of all the non-true DMG and non-Overflow damage as stacks, which you can see beside her portrait on the bottom of her screen. This goes up to 24 percent if you have 170 SPD and the Empyrean Strides passive activated.
- When you trigger her Ultimate, Cipher first deals normal Quantum DMG and an additional 25 percent of the saved damage as True DMG to the main target. After that, she deals some more damage to the main and adjacent target and distributes the other 75 percent of the stored damage as True DMG equally among the targets.
- You can increase the damage recorded by her stacks, the damage of her -up attack, and the general damage taken by the enemies if you unlock her bonus abilities.
Cipher Trace Priority
As you can see, Cipher does most of her damage through the Ultimate, making it the upgrade priority when you start leveling her up. After that, you can upgrade her Skill by the Talent. You can ignore her basic attack and unlock her bonus abilities and side nodes as soon as possible.
