The best Honkai: Star Rail Herta build

What is the best build for Herta in Honkai: Star Rail? Herta is an easily-obtainable free character in Honkai: Star Rail, unlocked when you complete the technically optional but highly recommended Simulated Universe tutorial missions that become available towards the end of the prologue. These roguelike dungeon crawls are worth participating in for a number of reasons, not least of which is that you get a Herta unit for free early on, after clearing World 2.

Herta isn't the best character in Honkai: Star Rail, but F2P players will want to make the most of those free characters early on. And since there really are no bad units, only sub-optimal builds, it's really just a matter of getting hold of her best equipment. So read on for our best Honkai: Star Rail Herta build advice, including relics, light cones, and more.

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Honkai: Star Rail best Herta build

Herta path and element

Herta follows the path of The Erudition, meaning that she's a multi-target DPS specialist. When you get her at the end of the tutorial, you'll likely be looking to replace the recently-departed trial character Himeko, and Herta is one of the candidates to fill her shoes. (The others are Asta — if you want to stick with Fire-aligned characters — or Serval, for an alternative Erudition follower with the Lightning element.)

Herta's elemental alignment is Ice, which is a pretty nifty element to wield. While most elemental attacks in Honkai: Star Rail deal additional damage over time, Ice instead applies the Freeze debuff, which immobilises enemies completely and can cause them to miss their combat turns. Your starting party will already have an Ice character in March 7th, but if you choose to reshuffle your team(s) and remove March, having Herta there for DPS and utility purposes isn't a bad shout.

Best light cone for Herta: Night on the Milky Way

• 4-star alternative: The Birth of the Self

There are a couple of choices for 5-star Erudition light cones if you're so inclined, and either of them work quite well for Herta's build. Night on the Milky Way perhaps just edges out Before Dawn in her case, though. It takes advantage of her high likelihood to trigger a weakness break on early-game enemies to boost her damage by 30% for the next turn, in addition to granting a base 9% attack boost for every enemy on the field, making her especially well-suited to large battles.

As with many 4-star and starter characters in Honkai: Star Rail, Herta's best 4-star light cone — and arguably the best one overall to really support her ideal build — is simply her canonical equipment. The Birth of the Self increases the damage dealt by Herta's follow-up attacks by 24%, doubled to 48% if it hits an enemy at below half-HP.

Best relics for Herta: Hunter of the Glacial Forest

For Herta's relics, going all-in on a four-piece set of Hunter of the Glacial Forest is the way to go. Ice damage gets a base 10% boost once you equip two pieces, and at four pieces Herta will enjoy a 25% boost to her crit damage for the next two turns every time she uses her ult.

If you're curious to know how Herta stacks up against the (numerous) other Erudtion characters in Honkai: Star Rail, be sure to take a look at our Honkai: Star Rail character tier list.