Honkai: Star Rail Silver Wolf Build Guide
Jun. 9, 2023Honkai: Star Rail Silver Wolf Build Guide
In thisHonkai Star Rail Silver Wolf Build Guidewe’re going to be covering the support debufferSilver WolfBuild. She’s very good at reducing enemies Defense, Resistances, Attack, and Speed, as well as applying a new weakness to them. This build focuses on increasing damage of all allies by making enemies succeptible to more damage.
Silver Wolf is a limited-time five-star character who was featured in a rate-up banner at the start of the 1.1 patch. She is a Quantum character from the Nihility Path, which means she focuses on debuffing enemies rather than buffing allies. Silver Wolf is anOffensive Supportcharacter with a unique kit.
Debuffing has one advantage over buffing: it lasts longer. Most DPS characters benefit from increased speed, a reset on their turns, or an advance on their turns. This means they take turns faster than enemies, and their buffs expire more quickly as a result. Debuffs, on the other hand, count their duration based on enemy turns, so they can easily be made to last longer. This is especially true if you add slow, Quantum Entanglement, or Imaginary Imprisonment by breaking shields. These effects delay enemy turns, allowing debuffs to have a longer duration.
Silver Wolf is the pinnacle of Nihility debuffing. She has two debuffs in her skill lineup, three debuffs as talents, and one more in her ultimate. In addition, she gains an extra debuff from traces when she hits an enemy with three debuffs. Finally, she changes enemy weakness depending on the elements of her allies. This opens up a lot of new team archetypes, which we will discuss in this guide and in future Silver Wolf builds.
Skill leveling Priority:Skill > Talent > Ultimate » Basic Attack
Silver Wolf’s quantum normal attack can proc her talent, which means she can debuff enemies with her normal attacks. Most of the time, Silver Wolf will use her normal attacks instead of her skill, as long as the enemy has the relative weakness. There is no need to spam her skill if the enemy is already weakened. This allows Silver Wolf to generate more SP for the main damage dealer.
Overall, Silver Wolf is SP-positive. Her normal attacks debuff enemies normally by proccing her talent, and her skill and ultimate have good durations. This is a great bonus that not many characters enjoy.
Silver Wolf’s skill has a base chance to apply a weakness to enemies. The weakness is chosen from the pool of the elements of your team, which encourages mono or duo-element teams. The skill randomly selects an element from your team that is not present in the enemy. Therefore, a good way to build a team around Silver Wolf’s skill is to choose allies whose elements match the enemy’s resistances, with only one ally of an element that the enemy is not weak to. This way, Silver Wolf will always have one choice for weakness application, and can force further debuffs.
You can increase the debuff base chance with the “Effect Hit Rate” stat, which you can obtain from Light Cones, Traces, and Relics’ main and sub-stats. At E0, at maximum skill level, Silver Wolf has an 85% base chance. I will spare you the math. All you need is all the “Effect Hit Rate” from Traces, and an additional 52%, to reach 70% “Effect Hit Rate” on the character sheet. This can be obtained from the event-reward Light Cone “Before the Tutorial Mission Starts”, and four or five sub-stats on Relics.
If you secure this Effect Hit Rate, you will always apply the weakness and can safely apply all other debuffs. Silver Wolf’s skill reduces the resistance to the element she applies the weakness to by 20% for 3 turns, and all resistances by an additional 10% for 2 turns. This means you can casually use one skill and two normal attacks, and then repeat.
Lastly, make sure to level Silver Wolf’s skill as high as possible to increase the base chance of landing debuffs.
Her talent is capable of applying 3 kinds of “bugs”, one at a time. She can reduce enemy attack, enemy defense, and enemy speed. Every attack issued has a chance of applying one bug, whether she uses a normal attack, skill, or ultimate.
In this Silver Wolf build, she will have all her bugs on the enemy after three hits on the same target. The bugs last for 4 turns, so she will start reapplying them before they expire. Bugs have a slightly lower base chance to land than the weakness on her skill, so there is a minimal chance to miss once every 15 or 12 hits.
Silver Wolf’s ultimate costs 110 energy and targets only one enemy. It has a base chance to shred the enemy’s defense for 3 turns and deal high-quantum damage. UnlikePela‘s ultimate, which hits all enemies, Silver Wolf’s ultimate is limited to a single target, which should always be the boss.
With enough investment into energy generation, Silver Wolf can spam her ultimate every three turns. This way, she can keep the defense shred debuff on one enemy at all times, providing a significant damage boost.
Silver Wolf’s technique is overpowered, and you should always aim to use it before battles. It attacks all enemies, ignoring their weakness types, and deals damage to their toughness bar. Any small enemy will have their toughness shield broken in this move, and will be inflicted with Quantum Entanglement from Break. This delays the enemy’s turn and prevents fast enemies from taking a turn before your team.
This will also allow characters who rely on enemies being in broken status to fully utilize this from the first round. Sushang in particular enjoys great bonuses from attacking a broken enemy. In addition, the Quantum Entanglement will accumulate stacks every time an ally attacks the enemy. Each stack makes the enemy take more damage when their turn finally comes and the Entanglement status expires. This damage will be increased further with every debuff Silver Wolf inflicts before the enemy recovers.
Traces are passive skills that characters unlock after leveling up and reaching certain ascension levels. For this Honkai: Star Rail Silver Wolf build, you need to farm and spend resources to unlock Traces, but they give a huge advantage to Silver Wolf. As an offensive support debuffer, Silver Wolf should prioritize all major Traces. For minor Traces, she really needs the “Effect Hit Rate” ones.
This Trace increases the duration of the bugs that Silver Wolf applies with her Talent to 4 turns. Additionally, this Trace enables Silver Wolf to apply another bug when she breaks an enemy.
The increased duration of the bugs helps to sustain the debuffs on enemies with less hassle. And the extra bug on break enables allies to deal more damage when it matters most, such as after breaking the enemy’s toughness shield. This goes well with Silver Wolf’s Technique, which also breaks the enemy’s toughness shield.
The duration of the weakness that Silver Wolf applies with her skill is extended to 3 turns. That’s a huge increase, as it saves a lot of skill points over longer battles. It also extends the Resistance shred that comes with the weakness application, so your team can keep doing top damage for longer.
When Silver Wolf casts her skill, if there are already 3 debuffs on the enemy, this Trace inflicts an additional resistance shred for all types. This stacks with the two resistance shred debuffs from her skill, and procs more often with the A2 and A4 Traces that extend the duration of debuffs.
It’s very easy to proc this A6 Trace, knowing that any DoT from any ally is also considered a debuff.
Silver Wolf gets ten minor stat increases, distributed as the following:
The Effect Hit Rate Traces helps Silver Wolf land her debuffs, so always use them. The Attack and Damage ones are good for late game, when you are done building your main DPS character, and want to squeeze more DPS from Silver Wolf.
For this Honkai: Star Rail Silver Wolf build, gear is a crucial part, and the Light Cone is a major part of gearing. The unique aspect about Silver Wolf is that she needs the highest “Effect Hit Rate” from the Light Cone as possible.
Light Cones are similar to weapons in other games, and while you can equip any Light Cone on any character, only Cones that match the character’s Path can provide full benefits. Silver Wolf is of the “Nihility” Path, which focuses on landing debuffs on enemies as much as possible. Therefore, Silver Wolf’s best Light Cone is very specific, and it is likely free to acquire.
The Light Cone “Before the Tutorial Mission Starts” is a free reward from an event that ran during version 1.1. The event features a companion quest for Silver Wolf, and all side activities in the event related to Silver Wolf. It seems like HoYo wanted to emphasize the connection between this Light Cone and building Silver Wolf. Players could also max out the Light Cone’s Superimpose tier for free during the event.
This Light Cone provides a flat 40% Effect Hit Rate to the wielder, which is a significant increase and fulfills most of Silver Wolf’s Effect Hit Rate requirements. After maximizing her Traces and Skill level, Silver Wolf needs 52% Effect Hit Rate, and this Light Cone alone reduces that to 12%, which is just a few substats. This frees up the Body main stat for more offensive stats and makes Relic choices much easier.
Not only that, this Light Cone provides 8 energy back every time Silver Wolf hits an enemy affected by Defense reduction. Silver Wolf herself has two sources of Defense reduction: her Ultimate, which lasts for three turns, and her Talent, which lasts for four turns. As a result, enemies will have Defense reduction 99% of the time, and Silver Wolf will be able to recover 8 energy with each attack. This energy bonus applies to normal attacks, skills, and ultimates, so it helps Silver Wolf recover a lot of energy and allows her to spam her Ultimate on cooldown.
Overall, the best and only light cone she needs. It’s even better than her Five Star signature one.
In this Honkai: Star Rail Silver Wolf build, we will cover all four Relics slots: Head, Gloves, Body, and Feet. As well as the two accessories slots, Sphere and Rope. The Head relic always comes with a Flat HP main stat, and the Gloves always come with a Flat Attack main stat. The Body, Feet, Sphere, and Rope come with random stats. Therefore, gearing the Head and Gloves will lean more towards finding the best substats, while the other four slots must also roll a good main stat.
For Silver Wolf, we prioritize good main stats because they are more impactful to a support role. In the early game, we need “Effect Hit Rate” on the Body, until we build our Traces and level up our Skill. Later on, we can change the Body piece into more offensive Crit or Attack main stats.
For the Feet, we can pick Speed, which is usually the best stat for supports. Then we get Break Effect on the Rope, to exploit the weakness break that Silver Wolf often does. Finally, we can get either Quantum damage on the Sphere, or pick a defensive stat for survivability instead.
The substats that we desire are always Effect Hit Rate, with other stats being useful but not necessary, such as Speed, Break Effect, and Crit stats. Therefore, gearing Silver Wolf is much less strict, and we can get decent pieces for her faster than DPS characters.
The standard relic set for Break Effect is a good and easy pick for Silver Wolf. Quantum Break causes enemies to delay their actions, and increasing Break Effect causes enemies to delay even further. The four-piece bonus also gives energy upon breaking enemy toughness, which Silver Wolf does to a lot of enemies at the start of battle using her Technique. This set helps Silver Wolf use her ultimate more often and have better crowd control.
In addition, Break Effect causes enemies to take more damage when they finally recover from the break. This damage is multiplied by all the debuffs on enemies, and by the Break Effect stat. So even if Silver Wolf has no offensive stats, Break Effect is a cheap way to get some serious damage from her.
The Quantum Set is a relic set that provides Quantum damage on the 2-piece bonus and Ignore Def on the 4-piece bonus. Ignore Def is a modifier that multiplies with Def reduction to further increase damage dealt. The set offers a massive 20% Ignore Def against enemies with Quantum weakness, which Silver Wolf can easily inflict.
This set is more of a DPS set, and not all Silver Wolf players fully utilize it. Without high Effect Hit Rate and fully optimized substats, the direct damage Silver Wolf inflicts is not that great. Therefore, I do not recommend the Quantum set for early game or endgame. It is only potent with maximum investment and mono Quantum teams.
If you absolutely have no stamina to spare for farming, you can quickly put together a hybrid set. With some Break Effect and some Quantum damage, you can get started and focus on getting main stats and substats. Silver Wolf can do her role perfectly fine with any relic set, so you can use the stamina to farm for your main DPS instead.
As always, any support character who does not want to carry the team’s DPS can use the Fleet of the Ageless relic set. This set requires 120 Speed, which Silver Wolf can easily achieve, and grants the entire team a permanent 8% Attack boost. It is easily the best set for Silver Wolf, and you should farm it from World 3 in Simulated Universe whenever possible.
Silver Wolf is faster than your average character, and with five-star Speed Boots, she can easily exceed 120 Speed.
An alternative to Fleet of the Ageless, this set buffs Silver Wolf’s stats instead of the team. It is a good upgrade when you want to min-max Silver Wolf to do both damage and apply debuffs at the very endgame. The extra effect hit rate from this set makes it easier to build Silver Wolf, and allows her to go full offensive on Relics. At the same time, she gets a good Attack value from reaching high effect hit rate.
For this set to be better than a team-wide buff, you have to invest heavily in Silver Wolf to squeeze a lot of personal damage from her.
Because of her weakness change ability, Silver Wolf can fit in literally every existing team Build currently in Honkai Star Rail. Not only that, but she also enable new teams that wasn’t viable before her release. For this reason, one single guide is not enough to go through all possible team comps of Silver Wolf.
I’ll be going lightly on Silver Wolf team composition, giving an easy example, before dedicating full guides for each new team build archetype she brought to Honkai Star Rail.
Due to this character’s ability to change weaknesses, Silver Wolf can fit into literally every existing team build in Honkai Star Rail. Not only that, but she also enables new teams that weren’t viable before her release. For this reason, one single guide is not enough to cover all possible team compositions for Silver Wolf.
I will be going lightly on Silver Wolf team composition in this guide, giving a simple solution as an example. I will dedicate full guides to each new team build archetype that she has brought to Honkai Star Rail in the future. In the meantime, let’s go over an example team that fits well.
Silver Wolf’s debuffs allow her to support any type of damage dealer, whether they are AoE DPS from Erudition, such as Jing Yuan, or a single-target Hunt character such asYanqing. She can even support DoT characters from Nihility, such as Kafka orSampo.
The characters who best utilize Silver Wolf’s debuffs are the fast ones, who take several turns before the debuff on the enemy runs out. And with Silver Wolf able to inflict any weakness, she can support any character with any element. However,Seele,Yanqing,Himeko, andSushangin particular gain the most out of Silver Wolf.
Seele benefits greatly from Silver Wolf because the Quantum Break set has a defense ignore bonus against enemies weak to Quantum. Yanqing also deals additional damage against enemies weak to Ice through his A2. Sushang gains all sorts of bonuses against enemies with broken shields, and even refunds her own skill points. Himeko, on the other hand, needs enemies to have their toughness broken frequently to trigger her follow-up attack, deal more damage, and break more shields.
You can build a mono-fire team, mono-quantum team,mono-ice team, or mono-physical team. Each one is a separate archetype that focuses on different aspect
As Silver Wolf herself works as a debuffer and enables shield breaking, a buffer is more suited to the team. A buffer adds buffs to the DPS characters, such as attack increase, critical damage increase, or damage multiplier. These are not the same modifiers that Silver Wolf grants, so they do not get added together, but multiplied instead. Therefore, a buffer + one debuffer is usually the best way to fill support roles for a hyper carry team such as Seele.
On the other hand, a character who does not consume a lot of SP, such asSushang, can use another DPS. Sushang pairs very well withClaraand Silver Wolf, since Clara is also physical, and Silver Wolf forces physical weakness. Clara can play tank and AoE DPS, and both she and Sushang will benefit from Silver Wolf’s debuffs. This makes a great duo.
To round out a Silver Wolf team, you need either a tank or a healer. I do not recommend using both a shielder and a healer with Silver Wolf because Silver Wolf enables the team to break shields effortlessly. Quantum Break delays enemies, and if you use mono-ice, you also have freeze. It is better to go more offensive with Silver Wolf and kill enemies before they kill you, so onedefensive supportis enough.
Typically, you want to match a character’s element to your team’s element or the enemy’s element. For example, you could matchNatashawith Sushang and Clara,MarchwithYanqing, or Bailu with enemies who are already weak to lightning. This will help Silver Wolf choose the correct element weakness to inflict all the time.
Silver Wolf is the best Nihility debuffer in Honkai Star Rail, and second only to Bronya in the entire roster. She manipulates a fundamental core mechanic of the game by changing enemy weaknesses. Silver Wolf can be paired with certain elements of enemies and allies to eliminate any RNG from her kit. She can also build enough Effect Hit Rate to make all of her debuffs guaranteed.
She is the best long-term addition to any account, and she enables so many teams. Even if you add her to a team with the correct elements for the enemies, she still provides very solid debuffs. Silver Wolf can also break shields effectively on her own, and can deal a lot of damage through Break Effect.
Stay tuned for more Honkai: Star Rail Guides. For more Honkai: Star Rail content, check ourHonkai Star Rail Guide: 5 Best Eidolons, as well as our Tier lists forDefensive Supports,Offensive Supports,AOE DPS, andSingle Target DPS. And the full list of ourcharacters Build guides.
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