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Kafka might be a decent unit on her own, but she truly shines the most when partnered with the right characters inHonkai: Star Rail. As a Nihility character whose main focus is applying and triggering damage-over-time effects, players can get a lot of value out of Kafka by grouping her together with other Nihility characters that can get her engines roaring with excitement.
The cast ofsupport characters inHonkai: Star Railcontinues to grow together with the game itself. The following is a guide on how to choose the best battle buddies for Kafka according to the roster available at the time. Should more suitable characters appear in future patches, we’ll be sure to keep this guide updated so Kafka fans can get the most out of this playable unit.
Updated June 06, 2025 by Marc Santos: With the release of Penacony, Honkai: Star Rail also saw the addition of Black Swan, one of the strongest damage dealers in the Nihility roster so far. Kafka naturally plays well with DoT-based characters, and she works exceptionally well with Black Swan and her stacking Arcana mechanic. This guide has been updated to create a sort of hypercarry team with Kafka focusing on working together with Guinaifen and Black Swan. The synergy between the three allows players to stack multiple damage-boosting debuffs and DoT effects to create some truly explosive results during and after their turns.
Best Team Compositions for Kafka
Kafka’s main strength is her ability to inflict and manually trigger DoT effects. This drastically improves the clear speeds of DoT-heavy teams, essentially making her an enabler for all characters who rely on inflicting damage via Shock, Bleed, Wind Shear, and other similar effects.
The best Kafka team comps will have one or more characters who play well with her strengths. Because of her niche abilities, she’ll be somewhat limited to DoT-heavy teams. Players don’t have to restrict themselves to these teams, but these are by far the best ones she can be in.
Balanced F2P Team
This team composition features non-limited characters that players can get in all the gacha banners at any time.
Sampo is great for fighting bosses inHonkai: Star Railsince his main Skill, Ricochet Love, can hit the same target multiple times. His Ultimate also increases the damage enemies take from DoT effects, making him a no-brainer when it comes to a Kafka comp.
However, Luka can easily take his spot when fighting against enemies that are weak to Physical damage. The math behind the Bleed effect inflicted by Luka’s Skill is a little finicky, but according to the language used in the game, every proc will deal the smaller number between 24% of an enemy’s max HP and 156% of Luka’s ATK damage. Either way, Kafka will be able to trigger this effect on her turn and make fights shorter than usual.
Due to the diminishing returns of ATK% scaling, Pela is the best option for increasing Kafka’s damage output. She can shred resistances and remove debuffs, making her invaluable in almost any team composition.
As for the team’s tank, it’s up to the players to decide who to use. However, it may be a good idea to use theTrend of the Universal MarketLight Cone on them since it has a chance to apply Burn onto enemies, giving Kafka one more DoT effect to trigger. A healer can also work well for this slot as long as they can sustain the entire team.
The Stellaron Hunters
In contrast to the team above, this one is very expensive to run as it requires a full team of 5-star units (despite one of them being available for free). It does shy away from Kafka’s main role as a DoT enabler, but the entire team works well enough together to make the missed opportunity irrelevant.
Coincidence or not, the Stellaron Hunters have amazing synergy with each other. Silver Wolf can nullify an enemy’s elemental resistances while Blade and Kafka work together to bring targets down.Blade’s empowered attacks inHonkai: Star Raildeal massive Wind DMG and trigger Kafka’s follow-up attacks. At the same time, enemies can get Shocked when hit by Kafka’s machine pistols, priming them for detonation during her turn.
Fire Trailblazer is here not just for the sake of the team’s theme. They’re still one of the best tanks in the game, and they can also inflict Burn if they have theTrend of the Universal MarketLight Cone equipped.
Triple Nihility Burst Team
The initial Penacony patch introduced Black Swan, a 5-star Nihility character who synergizes extremely well with Kafka and other DoT-based characters. She’s all about stacking her unique Arcana DoT, which she can do surprisingly well as long as her enemies are already afflicted by Shock, Bleed, Wind Shear, or Burn.
Allmembers ofStar Rail’sNihility castbenefit from each other’s skills, and these three are no exception. Guinaifen increases the damage enemies take from all DMG with herFirekissdebuff, while Kafka applies Shock and detonates existing DoTs with her kit. If one of these characters has thePrisoner of Deep SpaceRelic set equipped, the team will have one extra debuff that shreds the enemy’s DEF every time DoT damage is inflicted.
As for the fourth party slot, feel free to use your favorite Preservation or Abundance character. Treat this like a hypercarry team, but with three different damage dealers.
