Best Honkai Star Rail Jing Yuan Build, Light Cones, and Relics
Jing Yuan is a mighty warrior and one of the strongest AoE fighters.
UPDATE 11/12/2024: We have updated this Jing Yuan build guide with some additional information on his ascension materials, Traces priority order, and best team compositions.
The best Jing Yuan build in Honkai: Star Rail is pretty straightforward to put together, thanks to a few suitable relic sets. Though, if you want Jing Yuan at his best, you'll need to rely on specific substats.
At early levels, Jing Yuan excels as an attacker who can deal heavy damage to multiple targets several times in one turn, but you shouldn't expect much from his skill and ultimate. Almost all of his utility comes from his follow-up attacks.
Our Honkai Star Rail Jing Yuan build guide explains which Light Cones and Relics are best for Jing Yuan, what materials you need to build him and level his Traces, and how to use him in battle.
Best Honkai Star Rail Jing Yuan Build
Jing Yuan is a 5-Star character that dishes out Lightning damage while belonging to the Path of Erudition in Honkai Star Rail.
Jing Yuan’s setup revolves around the Lightning Lord, an entity who fights alongside Jing Yuan and deals follow-up damage that scales on his attack. You might think any build should focus on buffing Jing Yuan’s attack, along with skill and ultimate damage, but you'd be wrong. Attack is important, but Jing Yuan needs critical rate and critical damage buffs to really shine, since most of his damage comes from his follow-up attacks.
Honkai Star Rail Jing Yuan – Best Light Cone
5-Star Jing Yuan Light Cones
Before Dawn is Jing Yuan’s signature Light Cone, and it’s pretty clear why. It raises the wearer’s critical hit damage by 36-60 percent and boosts skill and ultimate damage by 18-30 percent. The wearer generates a Somnus Corpus when they use their skill or ultimate, which boosts the power of their next follow-up attack by 48-80 percent.
4-Star Jing Yuan Light Cones
The Birth of the Self is another excellent choice, and as a 4-star Light Cone, it’s one you’re more likely to get as well. Birth of the Self increases follow-up attack damage by 24-48 percent, and if the enemy has less than half of their HP, the follow-up damage boost doubles.
Serval’s Make the World Clamor might not affect follow-up attacks, but it’s a strong pick anyway. This one regenerates 20-32 energy for the wearer when a battle starts and buffs their ultimate damage by 32-64 percent. Jing Yuan’s ultimate deals a pretty decent amount of damage this way, but best of all, the energy recharge buff means you can fire off his ultimate - and get its boost for the Lightning Lord - more frequently. That'll also save on skill points, since you won't have to use Jing Yuan's skill as often.
The Seriousness of Breakfast is a nice, easy-to-obtain cone with no special conditions attached. It boosts the wearer's damage and buffs their attack when they defeat an enemy, and you can get it for free in the Forgotten Hall's Light Cone store.
3-Star Jing Yuan Light Cones
Sagacity is a good choice on the 3-star side, as it provides a hefty attack buff after the user unleashes their ultimate. You may also want to try Passkey, which restores energy when the wearer uses their skill.
Honkai Star Rail Jing Yuan Relics
Jing Yuan has a couple of Relic set options, though neither of them affect his critical hit stat. You’ll have to rely on ornaments for that.
The Ashblazing Grand Duke isthe best Relic set for Jing Yuan:
- Two-piece effect: Increases follow-up attack damage by 20 percent.
- Four-piece effect: Increases wearer’s attack by six percent every time a follow-up attack deals damage. Effect stacks eight times and lasts three turns or until the wearer uses another follow-up attack.
That suits Jing Yuan's skillset perfectly, though you could mix it with pieces from the Band of Sizzling Thunder set if you wanted.
- Two-piece effect: Increases lightning damage by 10 percent.
- Four-piece effect: Raises attack by 20 percent for one turn after the wearer uses their skill.
Honkai Star Rail Jing Yuan – Best Ornaments
Jing Yuan has a few strong ornament choices, but Inert Salsotto is our favorite so far. It raises the user’s critical rate by eight percent, and once that rate reaches 50 percent, it buffs their ultimate and follow-up damage by 15 percent.
Alternatively, the Wondrous Bananamusement Park ornaments will increase Jing Yuan's crit. damage by 16% when equipped. Even better, when a target summoned by the wearer is on the field - in this case, Jing Yuan's Lightning Lord - crit. damage gets an additional 32% boost.
Jing Yuan isn't fussy to build, unless you want to go all the way with his substats. Substats you should look out for, for both your relics and ornaments, are as follows:
- Body: Crit rate or crit damage
- Feet: Attack or speed
- Sphere: Attack or lighting damage
- Rope: Attack or energy regeneration
Speed works for the feet piece if you're having trouble getting the Lightning Lord's count up each round. If not, or if you have high energy regeneration, aim for attack instead.
Although it's a pain, you really want to try aiming for crit rate or crit damage in your substats as often as you can.
Jing Yuan Traces Priority
With Jing Yuan on the field, your most-used and most important attacks are actually his follow-up attacks which are dished out by his summon, Lightning Lord. As a result, you'll want to prioritise Jing Yuan's Talent from the get go, and later down the line, his Ultimate, which dishes out damage while increasing the amount of hits the Lightning Lord can complete per action.
Jing Yuan's basic attack is one part of his kit that we won't be relying on, so you can make that your last priority.
Jing Yuan's Traces and the order in which you should prioritise them, from highest to lowest priority, are as follows:
- Talent
- Ultimate
- Skill
- Basic Attack
Jing Yuan Ascension Materials
To get Jing Yuan from Level 1 all the way to Level 80 in Honkai Star Rail, you will need the following Ascension Materials for him:
- 15x Immortal Scionette
- 15x Immortal Aeroblossom
- 15x Immortal Lumintwig
- 65x Shape Shifter's Lightning Staff
- 308000x Credits
Best Jing Yuan Teams
Jing Yuan is quite a versatile attacker in Honkai Star Rail, and will benefit from having an array of different characters on his team. New to the 2.7 Version, Sunday, is amongst one of the best characters to team Jing Yuan up with, capable of consistently providing the Lightning-attacker with plenty of Energy, additional damage, and more crit. rate and damage.
Sunday's skill, Benison of Paper and Bliss, allows a chosen ally - let's say Jing Yuan - to immediately take action while increasing their outgoing damage by 21% (at Skill Level 5). If the chosen ally has a summon, which Jing Yuan does with the Lightning Lord, their damage is buffed by an additional 35% for two turns. This is huge for Jing Yuan, and this isn't even all of the benefits he'll reap from having Sunday on his team.
Other characters that can help amplify Jing Yuan's kit are Tingyun, Sparkle, and Robin. For more free-to-play friendly options, you could even consider Pela, Sampo, or Asta on your Jing Yuan team. Just make sure at least one of your buff/debuff characters, if you opt to bring two, is capable of dishing out some damage to help mop up whoever’s left after Jing Yuan's AoE attacks.
For the fourth member of your team, you want someone who can heal and sustain your party. Huohuo and Aventurine are solid options, but you could also consider the likes of Lingsha, Fu Xuan, or Bailu. If you need a free-to-play friendly option, there's also Natasha and Gallagher to give a whirl.
Is Jing Yuan good in Star Rail?
Jing Yuan is an excellent choice for teams who need an area-of-effect attacker in Honkai Star Rail. His follow-up attacks hit more often than Himeko’s, and while he doesn’t inflict shock as often as Serval, his ultimate is slightly stronger. The Lightning Lord’s attacks also make up for Shock damage, and his traces raise his damage even further.
Jing Yuan’s basic attack is the same as pretty much every other basic attack. It deals lightning damage equal to 50 percent of his attack to one enemy. His skill damages all enemies, and while it’s fairly weak – also 50 percent of Jing Yuan’s attack – it gives the Lightning Lord two more hits per action. It also hits twice, so you end up dealing a fair amount of damage, even with low multipliers.
His ultimate deals lightning damage equal to 120 percent of his attack to all enemies and gives the Lightning Lord three more hits per action.
The Lightning Lord is where most of Jing Yuan’s power comes from. The lord takes up a slot on the action bar like a playable character and starts a battle with three hits per action, which means his attacks damage enemies three times. He gains two hits per action when Jing Yuan uses his skill and three when he uses his ultimate, and the Lightning Lord’s attacks also inflict shock.
The short version is that between the two of them, it’s very easy to shred enemy health, especially if you have a debuffer in your party.
Should I pull for Jing Yuan?
There really isn’t a powerful Erudition or multi-target character who can match Jing Yuan in Honkai Star Rail, though Rappa isn't too bad. That said, Jing Yuan is not necessary for completing the story, but if you want an exceptionally strong fighter who makes very short work of any mob, whether they’re weak to lightning or not, then you should definitely pull for Jing Yuan.
If you miss out, just bear in mind that there will be rerun banners in the future, and Jing Yuan will appear again!
Don’t forget to increase your Equilibrium Level and tackle the Simulated Universe for some extra rewards and a deep dive into Honkai Star Rail's lore.