Sparkle in Honkai: Star Rail Is Great, But Not for Everyone

Sparkle is a five-star Quantum Harmony character in Honkai: Star Rail who has a re-run every once in a while, and she’s a pretty worthy unit to invest in depending on your favored teams. As a classic support who boosts DMG and Crit DMG, as well as offer more SP, Sparkle is fantastic for certain characters, but not as much for others.

To start with, let’s run down Sparkle’s kit. Her Skill can increase a target ally’s Crit DMG by a percentage of hers, as well as Advances Forward the ally’s action. Meanwhile, her passive Talent gives a total of 7 SP to use. Every time a character uses up a Skill Point, everyone’s DMG increases by a percentage that increases based on her Trace level. Finally, her Ultimate recovers 4 Skill Points and temporarily boosts the DMG boost from her Talent. If you read all that and thought, “Wow, she sounds like she’s good for characters like Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae,” you’re absolutely correct! While you don’t need Sparkle in order to use him, she certainly helps with his horrible metabolism when it comes to his SP-hungry Enhanced Basic.

Something else astute players may notice is that Sparkle’s kit is a little similar to Bronya’s. Like Bronya, Sparkle can Advance Forward ally actions and increase their Crit DMG. Sparkle has the advantage of being able to increase the maximum number of SP, as well as restoring it with her Ultimate. That gives her the upper hand over Bronya’s ability to Advance Forward an action by 100%, which almost always means the character she uses her Skill on gets a turn right after her. There are some differences between their scaling depending on things like Trace level and Crit DMG. But I’m willing to bet most players don’t care about the various mathematical differences.

Because Sparkle’s kit is so SP-oriented, she is a lot more SP friendly than Bronya is. Technically speaking, under the most ideal circumstances, Bronya wants to use her Skill every time she gets a turn. That’s just not ideal though, depending on who you run with her. Sparkle can’t exactly use her Skill every turn either, but her passive Talent to increase DMG when someone else uses a Skill can help to boost the party in other ways. In other words, if you want to use someone like Bronya but don’t want to worry about SP as much, Sparkle is a fantastic character to pull for.

On the flipside, because Sparkle is so similar to Bronya, players who are F2P or want to save for another character might want to consider skipping. Sparkle is a must-pull if you’re using characters like Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae or Qingque. As I mentioned in the past, Crit DMG is no longer the end all and be all. Superbreak is a very easy mechanic that can rack up a lot of damage in a short period of time. DoT is also one where Crit stats don’t matter. This means an entire half of Sparkle’s kit has lost its universality. The remaining half, which focuses on SP, is undeniably good. But some teams (such as a classic Firefly Superbreak team) don’t even require that much SP.

In my opinion, as someone who constantly uses Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae, Sparkle is very useful. She’s an excellent support for my personal needs. However, when it comes to other attackers, she might be passed over in favor of characters like Ruan Mei. It’s not to say that she’s bad, of course. She has a lot of things going on for her that make her a better support than Bronya. Like Huohuo’s auto-cleanse and Energy Regeneration, Sparkle’s ability to instantly generate 4 SP can be super useful in time-limited modes. But outside of this unique niche, Sparkle feels like a slightly more premium version of Bronya. Consider how high SP is in your list of priorities when you decide on whether to pull for Sparkle or not in Honkai: Star Rail.

Honkai: Star Rail is readily available on the PS5, Windows PC, and mobile devices. You can pull for Sparkle in Honkai: Star Rail only when the Sparkling Splendor banner is active.