Lynx Guide

Updated for Version 1.4

Note that the information given may change if new discoveries are made. More extensive testing is in progress.

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Introduction

Lynx is a 4★ Quantum character following the Path of Abundance. She is the third Landau to be introduced as a playable character, the first 4★ Abundance character since 1.0, and the first instance of a character with a Path-specific interaction.

Though she has specific interactions with characters on the Path of Destruction and Preservation, Lynx’s general healing capabilities and great overall utility make her a fantastic sustain option for virtually any team.

Infographic

Mechanics

When Lynx uses her Skill on an ally, she grants a buff that increases their Max HP. If the ally follows the Path of Preservation or Destruction, this buff additionally increases the likelihood for that ally to be attacked. This allows her to designate a durable character to draw enemies’ aggro and help mitigate enemy single-target damage. Characters whose kits incentivize getting hit, such as Blade or Clara, can also benefit greatly from this.

Teammates affected by Lynx’s Skill will also have a significantly improved heal rate from Lynx’s Talent, so Destruction or Preservation teammates who have increased aggro are also more able to stave off the higher amounts of damage they will be receiving.

Lynx’s Basic ATKs also scale off of her Max HP rather than her ATK, but the damage value is small and she has no other sources of damage or damage increases, so it’s insignificant.

Trace Priority

> ≥ >

Talent > Skill ≥ Ultimate > Basic ATK

It is advised to prioritize leveling up her Talent first as it is the most significant source of healing in Lynx’s kit, especially over the course of an encounter. If using Lynx with Destruction or Preservation characters, her Skill should come next to improve the Max HP increase it provides, as well as the upfront healing.

If not strictly using Lynx with Destruction or Preservation characters, there is not much difference in prioritizing either Skill or Ultimate first before the other.

Traces

Note: Trace levels shown are 1/10/12 (Basic ATK 1/6/7).

Eidolons

Playstyles

Lynx is overall a straightforward character to build, but how you play her depends on whether or not her aggro increase is being utilized. There are two distinct ways of playing Lynx depending on whether or not the team utilizes her aggro buff.

Aggro Support

In a team where she wants to increase the aggro of a teammate, such as Blade, she will want to use her Skill on that character every two turns that ally takes to keep uptime on her aggro increase.

You should account for the extra SP that Lynx will be using to maintain the “Survival Response” buff on allies. This can result in much higher Energy gains for Lynx over time due to the increased Skill usage as well as the extra Energy provided by her A2 Bonus Ability.

SP Farmer

In other teams where her aggro increase is not important, she should only Basic ATK unless her Skill is needed to heal allies in an emergency. In this playstyle, she will be able to continuously generate SP for the entire team while minimally consuming it herself.

Her Ultimate should be used frequently to maintain uptime on her Talent’s healing over time. Alternatively, it may be held for when you either need the extra healing or to remove debilitating effects from your team as needed.

Build

Regardless of what team Lynx is used in, she is going to want the same equipment and stats, generally benefitting from any sets that increase her HP.

Relics

Relic Sets

4-Pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud	An excellent option if the additional SP is appreciated. Lynx is not as SP-positive as other sustain units, and does not lose much for running 4-Pc Passerby instead of an additional 2-Pc.
2-Pc Longevous Disciple + 2-Pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud	This pair provides the highest healing numbers and Max HP buff. You can’t go wrong with this combination.
2-Pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud + 2-Pc Messenger Traversing Hackerspace	Gives up a little healing and tankiness in exchange for marginally more SPD. Can beat out 2-Pc Longevous Disciple/2-Pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud if it has superior HP substats.
4-Pc Messenger Traversing Hackerspace	Not recommended. While a teamwide SPD buff may sound appealing, it is a very small increase for only 1 turn. Lynx’s healing is not strong enough without HP%/Outgoing Healing Boost stats, and the lack of them makes a large difference. Greater benefits can be found through using a different set, and 2-Pc/2-Pc combos allow for better substats.

Planar Ornaments

Broken Keel	Lynx gets 10% Effect RES from Traces, and 10% Effect RES from the set itself. This means she only really needs about 3 substat rolls to get the Set Effect. As Lynx’s debuff cleanse hinges upon her being able to act, Effect RES is absolutely essential and should be built anyways. Good supportive option.
Fleet of the Ageless	An additional 8% ATK is generally a less potent buff than 10% CRIT DMG, but it depends on the team. Fleet also provides HP% for slightly better healing and survivability when compared to Broken Keel.

Light Cones

Post-Op Conversation	With a 5★ ERR% Rope, Post-Op Conversation can allow Lynx to use her Ultimate every 3 turns, instead of every 4. Before S4, this requires Lynx’s A2 to trigger 1–2 times. This Light Cone is recommended if you need the extra burst healing or debuff cleanse from Lynx’s Ultimate more frequently. Do note that individual heals will be weaker compared to other builds, as you trade an HP% Rope for ERR%.
Multiplication	An accessible option for Lynx that helps her to generate more SP. Highly competitive in teams where she does not need or want to use her Skill frequently. Despite being a 3★ Light Cone, its Base HP is the same as most other 4★ Light Cones, so it does not lower her healing.
Perfect Timing	In conjunction with her A4 Bonus Ability and Effect RES from Relics, Perfect Timing makes Lynx significantly more resistant to Crowd Control debuffs that would prevent her from using her Ultimate to cleanse allies when needed, as well as providing a decent amount of Outgoing Healing Boost.
Quid Pro Quo	An accessible F2P option for Lynx that can be incredibly strong when the Ability triggers, but since the Energy is not consistent, it doesn’t improve Lynx’s healing or survivability, and does not provide increased SP generation through more actions. It is generally worse than the above options.
Shared Feeling	In teams where Lynx will want to use her Skill semi-consistently, the Energy Shared Feeling provides can be valuable, but is generally less useful compared to other options.
Time Waits for No One	Offers a large amount of HP, and a decent amount of Outgoing Healing%. Time Waits for No One offers the largest Max HP buff for Lynx, but lacks the utility provided by the above options. The damage it provides is negligible, and can only be dealt once every turn Lynx takes.
Warmth Shortens Cold Nights	Despite having her face on it, Warmth Shortens Cold Nights is one of Lynx’s worst options. It provides no utility and is only recommended for its slightly higher Base HP compared to other 4★ options and the small HP% increase. Additionally, the small extra healing upon using a Basic ATK or Skill is inconsequential, even at high superimpositions.

Stats

Body	Boots	Sphere	Rope
Outgoing Healing Boost or HP%	SPD	HP%	HP% or Energy Regeneration Rate

An Energy Regeneration Rate Link Rope moves her from a 5-Basic Ultimate to 4-Basic Ultimate. This does not make much of a difference for her healing during a reasonable timeframe, but it does result in higher frequency cleanses for your team.

An HP% Body can be considered if a higher HP buff is desired, but it does result in lower healing than an Outgoing Healing Boost Body.

Substats

HP% > SPD > Effect RES> DEF%

As both her healing and HP buffs scale on her Max HP, HP% is her most desired stat. SPD follows closely behind, as it allows her to refresh her Skill more often and generate more Energy for Ultimate uptime.

Effect RES is a valuable stat that can help Lynx avoid debilitating Crowd Control debuffs — ones that may prevent her from using her Ultimate at critical moments.

DEF% is a good substat to roll, even if it should not be prioritized, as it will notably decrease the damage she takes.

Character Comparisons

Sustain characters are the bread and butter of Honkai: Star Rail. As the most accessible new addition to our roster of sustain units, Lynx prompts comparison to many other sustain characters.

Natasha

Both Lynx and Natasha are 4★ Abundance options with ally debuff cleanse in their kits. 

Lynx provides more healing over time compared to Natasha due to Lynx’s frequent Talent application through her Skill and Ultimate. However, Lynx lacks the strong emergency healing Natasha has through her Talent’s Outgoing Healing Boost for low-HP allies, which further increases with her E2. 

When playing the SP Farmer playstyle where characters only Basic ATK, Lynx will far outpace Natasha. Even if Natasha is able to get more frequent Ultimates due to her lower Energy Cost and/or her E4, Lynx will still outpace her. 

Having her cleanse tied to her Ultimate also makes it far easier for Lynx to deal with pesky Crowd Control Effects affecting the team simultaneously, though there may be scenarios in which having an on-demand cleanse on a Skill is more necessary — something that Natasha is capable of accommodating. Due to not being reliant on her Skill to cleanse or heal, and being able to play with Basic ATKs only, Lynx will generate more SP than Natasha, especially when content requires frequent cleanses. 

Source: Lynx vs. Natasha Healing Comparison by EdisonsMathsClub and skylarke

March 7th

With both characters possessing the ability to cleanse debuffs and increase the aggro of characters, a comparison is inevitable. 

Lynx provides significantly more direct sustain for her team, and is able to cleanse allies outside of their turn, meaning Lynx is able to cleanse an incapacitated ally before they lose a turn to the debuff. March provides different utility in the form of her Freeze-inflicting Ultimate, and can increase the aggro of a character of any path for up to 4 turns instead of 2, provided her Shield lasts.

Though they may have similar effects in their kits, they have different strengths that are appreciated by different styles of teams and do not compete for the same team slots. Even with March at E6, March’s healing is not substantial enough to be compared to a true healer unit.

Luocha

Lynx is surprisingly similar to Luocha in terms of their method of healing. Both characters provide healing via their Talent on the turns of other party members. Both characters can maintain their background healing almost indefinitely, which deals with chip damage and enemy DoT. 

Luocha’s only source of emergency healing is from his Skill’s passive effect which triggers once every 2 turns when an ally drops to or below 50% of their Max HP. Meanwhile, Lynx provides an unconditional party-wide burst of healing with her Ultimate.

Luocha’s cleanse is also tied to his Skill, which isn’t as bad for him compared to Natasha due to his Skill’s emergency heal passive, but it’s still single-target, meaning it can be difficult to cleanse multiple allies quickly. Lynx has an AoE cleanse tied to her Ultimate, which makes it more on-demand, but since it’s tied to an Ultimate, it cannot be used as frequently.

Both units also offer unique extra utility that the other doesn’t. Lynx improves aggro values of Destruction and Preservation units, while Luocha is able to dispel enemy buffs. Depending on the team and enemy content, either of these abilities could be essential, and must be considered carefully when picking a team.

Bailu

Bailu and Lynx both apply an effect to allies for sustained healing, Invigoration and “Survival Response” respectively. They also both increase their team’s Max HP, increasing overall survivability and potency of healing. However, Bailu’s healing is far more powerful and reactive than Lynx’s, although more inconsistent, while Lynx has a large amount of additional utility outside of healing. 

Bailu has no method of defending against debilitating Crowd Control debuffs, such as Enrage, Freeze, and Imprison, which is especially apparent next to Lynx’s readily available cleanse on her Ultimate. However, Bailu has potentially greater emergency survivability through her bouncing heal and one-time revive. 

While Lynx improves survival through both healing and reducing debuffs, Bailu’s sustain is mainly through healing and reducing damage taken. If choosing between the two, Lynx will be the superior choice if her utility effects are needed, but if not, Bailu will be much better at sustaining the team. 

Fu Xuan

Fu Xuan is in some ways the opposite of Lynx; Lynx has both passive and reactive healing and cleanses, while Fu Xuan provides direct damage mitigation and Crowd Control debuff prevention instead. 

While Fu Xuan can allow a character to resist a Crowd Control debuff in the first place, her A6 Crowd Control debuff resistance applies only once and cannot stop multiple Crowd Control debuffs in quick succession. Lynx cannot prevent Crowd Control debuffs, but can immediately remove them once applied, as long as she does not also get hit by one. Characters with sensitive SPD tuning that do not want the debuff to be applied in the first place would prefer Fu Xuan to prevent interference to the party order, while content that requires consistent use of a cleanse would prefer Lynx. A reminder that as Lynx’s cleanse hinges on her not being under a Crowd Control debuff herself, Effect RES is a very valuable stat for her.

Lynx’s primary advantage over Fu Xuan is her additional utility when paired with a Destruction or Preservation character who appreciates being attacked, like Clara and Blade. Despite this, Fu Xuan will undeniably be the superior defensive choice overall due to her much more effective defensive damage share, and unlike Fu Xuan, Lynx cannot prevent one-shots.

Gepard

Both characters are Landaus.

But really, their utility has zero overlap. Don’t compare them.

Notable Synergies

Damage Dealers

There are some standout picks that can benefit greatly from Lynx’s unique Skill, but Lynx is still generally applicable elsewhere as well due to the flexible and consistent healing from her Ultimate and Talent.

Blade	Blade appreciates both the increased Max HP and increased aggro provided by “Survival Response.” Since his damage scales on Max HP, “Survival Response” raises his raw damage as well as his survivability. The increased aggro also makes him much more likely to get hit for his Talent stacks, as he otherwise lacks intrinsic aggro bonuses in his kit, and Lynx can even benefit from this as well due to her A2 Bonus Ability. If you are using Bronya with Blade, however, watch out — since Bronya gives Blade more turns, she will also make “Survival Response” expire more quickly, requiring Lynx to use her Skill more often. Without ways of decreasing this team’s SP consumption, either Lynx or Bronya will have to use their Basic ATK sometimes.
Clara	Increasing Clara’s aggro directly increases Clara’s personal damage, as the more she gets hit, the more she Counters. Lynx is particularly synergistic with Clara when she has low Ultimate uptime, increasing her aggro when she can’t do it herself.
Jing Yuan	Jing Yuan’s Lightning-Lord is a powerful summoned entity that cannot act if Jing Yuan is affected by Crowd Control debuffs. Lynx’s Ultimate being an out-of-turn cleanse can be very valuable in removing Crowd Control debuffs from Jing Yuan before Lightning-Lord’s turn, ensuring it can act when its turn comes.
Jingliu	Lynx’s healing over time counteracts Jingliu’s team HP drain well. Her aggro increase can also be conditionally useful for Energy generation, as Jingliu usually requires getting hit or killing an enemy to charge her Ultimate in five Skills instead of six. In scenarios with few or slow-attacking enemies, Lynx’s aggro buff more than doubles the chance of Jingliu being targeted and almost guarantees getting her Ultimate back in a timely manner. However, when facing enemies with strong single-target hits, Lynx’s aggro increase can negatively affect Jingliu’s survivability.

Supports

Silver Wolf

As a Quantum healer, Lynx makes Silver Wolf’s Weakness implant more consistent while being more readily available than Fu Xuan, the other Quantum defensive option currently available.

Defensive Options

Preservation Characters

In double-defensive unit team comps, Lynx increasing Preservation characters’ aggro values increases the survivability of the entire team by directing damage towards tankier characters. This is most efficient with damage dealers that do not follow the Path of Destruction. However, keep in mind all the pitfalls of double-defensive comps, particularly the emphasis upon heavier investment necessary on damage-dealing units.

Notable Anti-Synergies

Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae	While Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae follows the Path of Destruction, he has no innate benefits from being attacked, and is relatively fragile. This means having his aggro increased via “Survival Response” is much more likely to result in his death than any tangible benefit.
Arlan	Similar to Imbibitor Lunae, Arlan does not appreciate being hit, and vastly prefers a Shield to keep his Talent as strong as possible.
Physical Trailblazer and Hook	Physical Trailblazer and Hook, while possessing some self-sustain options, do not particularly benefit from being hit, aside from extra Energy generation. Unlike the above two units, in these cases it is mostly an inconvenience rather than instant death.

Teams

Aggro Increase

Lynx’s aggro buff can be utilized by Destruction or Preservation units. This works best when there is only one unit of those two Paths in the team. In these teams, Lynx must use her Skill frequently to maintain uptime. 

Example Teams

Blade Hypercarry

Lynx is an excellent pairing for Blade, due to her HP buffs, CC resist, and aggro buff improving both of their Energy requirements. As mentioned before, Bronya can make “Survival Response” expire more quickly, so this team will have to manage SP and buff uptime carefully. For optimal buff uptime, the team’s action order should be Blade > Bronya > Lynx (with Pela acting at any time). This ensures that Lynx is able to reapply “Survival Response” as soon as possible after it expires.

Clara Hypercarry

Even though Clara has access to an aggro increase via her own Ultimate, she still appreciates Lynx’s aggro increase when Clara’s Ultimate is not active. Individually, Lynx does not provide as much of a damage and Ultimate uptime increase as Tingyun, but her contribution is still significant. Additionally, if not buffing Clara with Tingyun, Lynx is incredibly valuable to give Clara reasonable Ultimate uptime and damage outside of her Ultimate.

Furthermore, while Clara has the ability to cleanse debuffs from herself with her A2 Bonus Ability and can resist some outright with her A4 Bonus Ability, both effects are chance-based and will not always trigger, so Clara still benefits from the on-demand cleanse Lynx provides.

Defensive Flex

Lynx is rather flexible, and can easily slot in as a solo sustain option on most teams. As long as her teammates like healing and don’t dislike her aggro buff, she can work well with a variety of units.

Example Teams

F2P

An accessible team, arranged by lowest aggro values on the left, and highest on the right. Aggro will tend to fall towards Lynx herself. 

Kafka-Sampo DoT

A standard Kafka team. Although no characters are affected by Lynx’s aggro buff, this team still functions well. 

Jing Yuan Hypercarry

Jing Yuan greatly appreciates Lynx’s controllable cleanses, because if Jing Yuan is under a Crowd Control debuff and the Lightning-Lord’s turn comes, its action is skipped. 

Credits

jas
Ley
Myst
Skylarke
Soul Fish 
spphrs
Sushou

References

Energy Calculations by Soul Fish
Lynx vs Natasha Healing Comparison by EdisonsMathsClub and skylarke

Changelog

• 07 November 2023 – Published for v1.4
• 29 November 2023 – Infographic added for v1.4