Should you pull for Black Swan in Honkai Star Rail? Pull value and team role explained

The first phase of Honkai Star Rail 2.0 will introduce the brand-new 5-star character Black Swan, who will join the Wind character roster in the game. As a follower of the Path of Nihility, she excels in dealing damage through DoTs (Damage over Time). Black Swan is a unique Nihility character who can place unique DoT debuffs and works well with characters like Kafka.

For those who want to summon Black Swan, this article goes over her kit and role to help you decide whether she is worth pulling in Honkai Star Rail 2.0

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinion.

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Black Swan’s kit and team role in Honkai Star Rail

Black Swan is a DPS character who can deal significant amounts of damage by inflicting DoT-oriented debuffs on her adversaries.

Black Swan’s abilities are as follows:

• Basic Attack: Has a chance to inflict Arcana on a single opponent and deal Wind damage to them simultaneously.
• Skill: Deals Wind damage to adjacent enemies and inflicts an Arcana stack on them.
• Ultimate: Inflicts Epiphany on all adversaries and deals Wind damage to them simultaneously. Opponents affected by this effect will take additional damage in their turn, and the Arcana stack will be considered as Wind Shear, Bleed, Shock, and Burn.
• Passive Talent: At the start of a turn, when an adversary takes DoT (Damage over Time) damage, there is a possibility that they will get inflicted with a stack of Arcana. Arcana produces Wind DoT damage that scales with Black Swan’s ATK and can be stacked up to 50 times.

Black Swan can activate either of the following effects when an opponent has a certain number of Arcana stacks on them:

1. If the adversary has three Arcana stacks, Black Swan launches an attack and inflicts Arcana on adjacent enemies.
2. If the adversary has seven stacks, it allows the ongoing DoT to ignore the target’s and adjacent enemies’ DEF simultaneously.

Explained below is her technique:

• Technique: At the beginning of the fight, Black Swan will inflict a stack of Arcana on all opponents. If an enemy gets inflicted with it, they will receive an additional stack of Arcana.

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Black Swan’s team role in Honkai Star Rail

Black Swan is a wind Nihility character who can produce damage by placing a unique debuff named Arcana on enemies, something that no other characters have.

She produces damage through DoTs (Damage over Time), similar to Kafka, a 5-star Nihility unit also specializing in the same. As Black Swan’s kit is DoT-oriented, she will perform well when placed in a DoT-based team. Players can use Black Swan as the team's main or sub-DPS unit.

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Should you pull for Black Swan in Honkai Star Rail 2.0?

Black Swan (Image via HoYoverse)

In Honkai Star Rail version 2.0, you can summon Black Swan with Stellar Jades if you already have Kafka. As mentioned, Black Swan’s DoT debuffs are unique to herself; therefore, no other characters can trigger it or produce damage from it besides Kafka. The latter can trigger all DoT debuffs, allowing her to synergize well with Black Swan, as together, they can produce an exceptional amount of damage.

If you don’t have Kafka, pulling for Black Swan might be a waste, as her damage will feel mediocre. With that said, you can choose your desired character as long as you overlook the ever-changing meta of Honkai Star Rail.