Best Characters for Ashblazing Grand Duke Relic Set in Honkai: Star Rail

The Ashblazing Grand Duke Relic set was introduced in Honkai: Star Rail 1.5 version as a much-needed set custom-tailored for follow-up attack users. Now, it has become the go-to option for many characters in the game, and here are its best users.

Best Characters for Ashblazing Grand Duke in Honkai: Star Rail

The Ashblazing Grand Duke set can be obtained in the Cavern of Corrosion: Path of Darkness located at the Fyxestroll Garden. The Prisoner in Deep Confiment Relic set is obtained in the same cavern. Its effects are the following:

The four-piece effect can be somewhat confusing. Its effects are cleared right before the user unleashes a follow-up attack, but will last consistently for three turns before they use it again. This means that the follow-up attack never benefits from the 4-piece bonus. But everything else does.

The implications here make these relics more restrictive than expected, but there are still some good users for the full set.

1 – Jing Yuan

The undisputed biggest winner with this set. The Lightning Lord’s direct damage is increased by the two-piece set, and if it always hits at least seven times (as it usually does in regular rotations), this means a 42% ATK bonus for his other hits. And it scales up to 48% if you manage to do a 10-hit Lightning Lord turn.

The overall boost is stronger than the 4-piece Sizzling Thunder set’s 10% Lightning DMG and 25% ATK increases, so you might consider rebuilding your Jing Yuan with this new set.

2 – Topaz

Despite our initial thoughts, it was later discovered that Archduke is actually the best choice for Topaz. 2-pc Follow-up and 2-pc Fire DMG is a good combination, but 4-pc Archduke’s effect actually snapshots Numby’s biggest numbers, which are centered at the last portion of his attacks.

And since Numby is her biggest source of direct damage, it’s actually worth farming a full set for her, especially if your Topaz isn’t quite fully built yet. Stronger pieces still outdamage set effects, so if your Fire/Atk% pieces on her are actually insane, it might be better to keep using them instead.

3- Himeko

The standard banner Pyro character is all about follow-up attacks, but her Ultimate and Skill should not be overlooked. Giving those an extra boost is quite valuable, so she might consider using this set. But even so, this might not be the best choice as Himeko can only get eight stacks from the 4-piece effect when facing two or more enemies.

The effect is still amazing for quick Calyx farming and similar situations in which Himeko really shines. Many fire-weak bosses like Cocolia also summon minions constantly, but a safer option would be to use 2-pc Fire DMG% + 2-pc Follow-up DMG% Relics on Himeko. It still boosts her unconditionally and might be easier to farm if you already have a 4-piece Firesmith of Lava-Forging set on her.

4 – Herta

Herta works very similar to Himeko but her follow-up attack conditions are harder to achieve, especially in high-end content. Due to this inconsistency, the 4-piece effect takes a little bit longer to kick it. And even when it does, it requires various enemies to be brought down to below 50% HP to make the full effect worth it.

It’s also great if you enjoy using her for quick Calyx clears, but it’s even less reliable than it is for Himeko, so 2-piece Ice DMG% + 2-piece Follow-up DMG% might be the best way to go.

5 – Kafka

An unexpected entry, but this can be a pretty useful set for Queen DoT herself as her follow-up attack is fairly easy to trigger, which means a permanent 36% ATK boost for her. All you need is to have a single ally to give a basic hit before her Shock triggers.

But this is more of a niche set than anything and shouldn’t be your first choice, especially since you can farm for her new BiS set on the same domain. The 4-piece investment is also quite harsh, so while it’s not bad for her, it’s not the most efficient thing on the menu either.

What About Clara?

The white-haired girl (and her huge robot dad) is all about follow-up attacks, but she cannot benefit from the 4-piece effect at all. The huge majority of Clara’s damage is centered around follow-ups, which will never receive a boost. And even if the effect was cleared on her next turn beginning, Svarog’s counter only deals one instance of damage per attack, which isn’t nearly enough to make the 4-piece set worth farming.

That doesn’t mean that she should completely avoid this set as the 2-piece effect is now an incredibly good choice for her. 4-piece Champion of Streetwise Boxing is tailor-made for Clara’s playstyle, but 2-piece Physical DMG% + 2-piece Follow-up DMG% might be just as good, if not even better for her in certain cases where the battle ends so quickly that you can’t proc the 4-piece Champion effect entirely.

So Clara should get the 2-piece but stay as far as they can from the 4-piece. It’s sadly not worth it, no matter how you look at it.

Who Else Can Use Ashblazing Grand Duke?

While many other characters have access to follow-up hits, there are currently no other characters in which you’ll get a significant boost by changing their pieces to Ashblazing Fire Duke. Blade, Yanqing, and March 7th all have follow-ups, but none can truly benefit from this set more than they already benefit from anything else. There’s also Bronya’s follow-up attack, but that’s locked behind an E4. And I don’t think you should build her around that either.

Regardless of an unexpected 4-piece effect, this is a very solid set that increases even further some of the most powerful characters in the game. And the fact that you farm it alongside another busted set makes it hugely efficient to get, so you can’t go wrong with it. Except by using 4-pieces in most cases, of course.