Fu Xuan Build Guide, Abilities, and Best Teams - Honkai: Star Rail Guide - IGN (2024)

Fu Xuan, one of Honkai: Star Rail's 5-star Preservation characters, will quite literally catch a bullet for you. Even though this charming Master Diviner of the Xianzhou Luofu's Divination Commission doesn't do shields, she'll protect the team with her life - and deals pretty good Quantum damage on the side.

If you'd like to learn more about her abilities, or if you're looking for the best Fu Xuan build in Honkai: Star Rail, this guide can help you out.

How to Get Fu Xuan

Fu Xuan is joining the roster of playable Honkai: Star Rail characters in phase two of version 1.3. As a 5-star character, she’s only obtainable when she’s featured on a Character Event Warp banner, which means you can spend special star rail passes on her banner for a chance to obtain her. If you don’t manage to get Fu Xuan in the weeks following her release, you’ll have to wait for a Fu Xuan banner rerun in the future.

Fu Xuan Stats

Fu Xuan Abilities

• Basic Attack: Deals Quantum DMG equal to 25% of Fu Xuan's Max HP to a single enemy.
• Skill: Activates Matrix of Prescience, through which other team members will distribute 65% of the DMG they receive (before this DMG is mitigated by any Shields) to Fu Xuan for 3 turns. While affected by Matrix of Prescience, all allies gain the Knowledge effect, which increases their respective Max HP by 3% of Fu Xuan's Max HP, and increases their CRIT Rate by 6% (this effect ends when Fu Xuan is knocked down).
• Ultimate: Deals Quantum DMG equal to 60% of Fu Xuan's Max HP to all enemies and obtains 1 trigger count for the HP Restore effect - Fu Xuan's Talent.
• Talent: While Fu Xuan is active in battle (not downed), Misfortune Avoidance is applied to the entire team, causing allies to take 10% less DMG. When Fu Xuan’s HP falls to 50% or less of her Max HP, this will trigger HP Restore, which restores her HP by 80% of the amount of HP she is currently missing. This effect has 1 trigger count by default, and can have 2 trigger counts at maximum. It can’t be triggered if Fu Xuan receives a killing blow.
• Technique: After the Technique is used, all team members receive a 20-second Barrier which blocks all enemy attacks and prevents the team from entering battle when attacked. Entering battle while the Barrier is active will automatically activate Matrix of Prescience at the start of the battle, which lasts for 2 turns.

Fu Xuan’s Path is Preservation, which may seem a bit odd considering her lack of shield abilities. However, rather than casting a shield on her allies, Fu Xuan’s role is to redirect incoming damage to herself using her Skill – basically, Fu Xuan is the shield. Beware that her allies only distribute 65% of the incoming damage to Fu Xuan, and this amount can’t be increased through upgrades. That said, Fu Xuan’s Skill also improves her allies max HP and Critical Rate. The latter grants up to a 15% Critical Rate boost at upgrade level 9, which is extremely helpful for most DPS allies.

Fu Xuan’s Talent is also used to protect the team, namely by decreasing the amount of incoming damage for all allies. Furthermore, her Talent plays a very important role in keeping her alive, restoring her HP whenever it falls below the 50% threshold.

This effect requires a “trigger count”, which can be obtained through Fu Xuan’s Ultimate. Beware that the Ultimate requires 135 Energy, so you may have to rely on Energy Regeneration in your Fu Xuan build. Her Ultimate attack also deals a high amount of Quantum damage to all enemies, making this her most powerful attack. As you would expect, the damage scales with her max HP.

Finally, don’t underestimate Fu Xuan’s Basic Attack, which scales with her HP rather than her attack power. As her HP needs to be as high as possible anyway, you can use her Basic Attack to deal decent damage and recover Skill Points for the team. Just make sure the Skill’s effect, Matrix of Prescience, is always active.

Fu Xuan Traces

• Taiyi, the Macrocosmic (bonus ability Ascension 2): When Matrix of Prescience is active, Fu Xuan will regenerate 20 Energy extra when she uses her Skill.
• Dunjia, the Metamystic (bonus ability Ascension 4): When Fu Xuan's Ultimate is used, it heals all other allies by an amount equal to 5% of Fu Xuan's Max HP plus 133.
• Liuren, the Sexagenary (bonus ability Ascension 6): If a target enemy applies Crowd Control debuffs to allies while the Matrix of Prescience effect is active, all allies will resist all Crowd Control debuffs applied by the enemy target during the current action. This effect can only be triggered once. When Matrix of Prescience is activated again, the number of times this effect can be triggered will reset.

Fu Xuan can unlock up to three additional passive Trace abilities, as listed above. The first one allows you to trigger her Ultimate a bit more often, which is certainly helpful. The second and third are much more powerful though: Dunjia, the Metamystic grants Fu Xuan a healing ability which, considering her high HP count, should make a big difference in the team’s survival chances. Liuren, the Sexagenary, resists crowd control effects from an enemy attack if the Skill effect is active, which is a massive help if you’re fighting against bosses with highly damaging status effects.

As for Fu Xuan’s remaining ability Trace upgrades, prioritize her Talent to greatly decrease incoming damage. Go for her Skill next (mostly to improve the Critical Rate boost), followed by her Ultimate and Basic Attack. While you should always try to unlock Fu Xuan’s HP% and Effect Resistance stat bonuses, the Critical Rate boost isn't that important.

If you're eager to improve Fu Xuan's Trace abilities, our Fu Xuan materials guide will show you which materials you need to farm.

Fu Xuan Eidolon Levels

Although it’s hard to improve Eidolon levels on a 5-star character, Fu Xuan’s Eidolon level 1 would make a big improvement. As long as you keep up the Skill effect, all allies will receive a 30% Critical Damage boost, which is equal to half the maximum stat on a 5-star Relic. That said, beware that Fu Xuan has a signature Light Cone – if you don’t have a suitable 5-star Light Cone for her yet, getting this weapon instead of Eidolon level 1 is probably the best course of action.

Eidolon Level 2 provides a safety net for the team, but you do not need it if your current protection is strong enough. Eidolon level 4 is much more useful as the Energy regeneration not only benefits Fu Xuan’s damage output, but also her self-healing ability. And last but not least, Eidolon level 6 offers a huge Ultimate damage boost, but it’s not a requirement for Fu Xuan to fulfill her combat role.

Best Fu Xuan Build

Here’s an overview of the best Light Cones, Relics, and Planar Ornaments for your Fu Xuan build.

Best Light Cones

The best Light Cone for your Fu Xuan build is her signature weapon; She Already Shut Her Eyes. As long as Fu Xuan keeps her Skill effect active, she’s bound to receive damage, thus triggering the damage bonus for her team. This 5-star Light Cone will also restore a huge chunk of HP for every team member at the start of each wave, thereby greatly improving the team’s survival chances.

Another amazing 5-star Light Cone for Fu Xuan, is Texture of Memories. It grants her a shield and decreases incoming damage, which will help to fulfill her role as a tank. Unlike "She Already Shut Her Eyes" though, this Light Cone doesn’t offer any team buffs, so if your current Fu Xuan build is already able to handle all incoming damage, it may not be the optimal choice.

Although most 4-star Preservation Light Cones would work on Fu Xuan, Landau’s Choice stands out for its taunt ability and damage reduction. Of course, Fu Xuan’s Skill already redirects damage dealt against allies, but only 65%. If your allies are still struggling to manage their health, this taunt ability will make a difference.

Before you pick a 5-star or 4-star Light Cone, however, beware that there’s an amazing 3-star option too: Defense. Having little to do with the defense stat, this Light Cone recovers Fu Xuan’s HP every time she uses her Ultimate. In other words, your tank will be taking damage while constantly healing herself, thus making her as good as indestructible.

Best Relics

You can go two different ways while choosing Fu Xuan's Relics: either improve her strength as a tank or try to improve her damage output. If you choose the latter, go for the Genius of Brilliant Stars set with Critical Rate and Quantum damage main stats - but beware that Fu Xuan won't be as good as specialized DPS characters.

It's therefore better to continue the path to immortality with a combination of the Guard of Wuthering Snow and Longevous Disciple sets. Doing so will keep your Fu Xuan alive even against the toughest opponents. Combining this with either the Broken Keel or Fleet of the Ageless Planar Ornament set will greatly improve Fu Xuan's support role.

Fleet of the Ageless is usually the best Planar Ornament for Fu Xuan as you don't need to stack up on Effect Resistance, but use Broken Keel if your teammates are in need of extra Critical Damage.

Best Stats

• Body: HP%
• Feet: Speed, HP%
• Planar Sphere: HP%
• Link Rope: Energy Regeneration, HP%
• Sub stats: HP%, Speed, Critical Rate, DEF%

Since all her abilities scale with HP, HP% is Fu Xuan's most important stat. In fact, you'll create a perfectly fine Fu Xuan build if you use HP% on every Relic slot that allows it (so four HP% main stats in total). That said, using an Energy Regeneration Relic on the Link Rope slot is even better, as it not only allows Fu Xuan to deal more damage with her Ultimate, but also gains more HP Restore stacks to ensure her survival.

It's also recommended to use Speed rather than HP% on the Feet slot, but keep in mind that a faster Fu Xuan rotation means a faster Matric of Prescience expiry. The reason why Speed is still worth it, is because it allows Fu Xuan to use her Basic Attack more often, which generates Skill Points for the team. Of course, more Basic Attack and Skill use will also improve her Energy Regeneration which, if you've unlocked the "Dunjia, the Metamystic" Trace ability, leads to better team healing.

Finally, let's address the option of building Fu Xuan as a DPS. Given the Critical Rate stat bonuses (her Traces) she already has, you can capitalize on that by further building her Critical Rate and perhaps even giving her Critical Damage. This, however, won't give you a very strong DPS character, as Fu Xuan's damage output simply isn't as high as that of a specialized DPS. To get the best possible Fu Xuan build, it's better to forget about Critical Rate and focus on her role as a supportive tank instead.

Best Teams for Fu Xuan

Fu Xuan works best with characters who benefit from her max HP or Critical Rate bonus. She can play an important role in teams with a “glass cannon” DPS, such as Jing Yuan, Imbibitor Lunae, or Seele.

Beware of pairings with characters who benefit from HP loss, such as Blade. At first glance, Fu Xuan may seem to be the perfect ally to keep Blade from losing too much HP, but a problem may occur when Fu Xuan prevents him from reaching his full damage potential - she'll keep him from losing HP at the start of the battle and won't be able to do some quick healing later on when things get dire.

Although you may be considering a Fu Xuan team with an additional shield or HP support, it's more efficient if she's the only survival support. While a team with a healer like Lynx would be extremely resilient (and is certainly an option for early-game teams), it takes a spot away from DPS characters, buff supports, and debuff supports.

The Fu Xuan Quantum Team

The "almost full-Quantum team" uses Silver Wolf's ability to ensure that your opponents are Weak to Quantum damage. Silver Wolf also decreases the enemy's Defense, allowing Seele, the main DPS, to deal devastating damage. Fu Xuan keeps everyone alive and provides Seele with a Critical Rate boost. Since there's no Quantum buff support at the moment of writing, Tingyun is used to further boost Seele's damage.

The Fu Xuan Multi-Element Team

If you don't have Silver Wolf, here's an example of an amazing multi-Element Fu Xuan team. Jing Yuan, the team's main DPS, can't use his Ultimate is he's crowd-controlled, so he'll greatly benefit from Fu Xuan's "Liuren, the Sexagenary" Trace effect. Bronya will buff Jing Yuan's attack while Pela debuffs the enemy. If you don't have these characters, you can easily replace them with similar ones - Fu Xuan isn't picky!

Need more characters to build the best Fu Xuan teams? Take a look at our Honkai: Star Rail Warp guide for more info on the Warp system and the current character banners.