Silver Wolf Guide

Updated for Version 1.5

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

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Introduction

Silver Wolf is a 5-Star Quantum-Type Nihility unit in Honkai: Star Rail. With her wide array of debuffs and unique ability to implant Weaknesses in enemies, she can provide significant damage increases and quality-of-life to nearly any team when used properly.

Additionally, if you’re struggling to get good at video games, Silver Wolf can probably help you — although her methods may be less than honest. Take your chances if you dare.

Thanks to her debuff-centric gameplay and interactions with other party members, Silver Wolf has unique gearing, team-building, and gameplay challenges that require the player to think about both her teammates and the enemies she is facing, before and during battle. This guide covers each of these considerations and can help you get the most out of your Silver Wolf.

Infographic

Character Overview

Silver Wolf’s kit revolves around applying many debuffs to one target at a time. She can implant Weaknesses in enemies with her Skill, reduce enemies’ DEF with her Ultimate, and apply multiple small debuffs, called Bugs, with her Talent. These many debuffs all combine to significantly increase the effectiveness of the entire team’s attacks against an enemy.

Silver Wolf’s debuffs can only be applied to one enemy per action, but their large values and sheer quantity can stack up to very significant damage increases. If you’re interested in the exact values, open the section below.

Damage Increases Provided by Silver Wolf’s Debuffs

Playstyles

Debuffer‎

Playing Silver Wolf as a debuffer is fairly simple. She should use her Skill against a high-priority enemy target until implanting the desired Weakness, and then use Basic ATKs until the implanted Weakness expires. If the team has extra Skill Points available, it is also possible, and sometimes beneficial, to maintain a Weakness implant on a second enemy. It is generally an inefficient use of Skill Points to attempt to maintain a Weakness implant on more than two enemies, however, as it requires Silver Wolf to play completely SP negative.

In general, Silver Wolf’s Ultimate should be used before her allies do the bulk of their damage; it provides a potent enough damage increase that it can sometimes be worth delaying a highly damaging ally Ultimate if Silver Wolf nearly has her own Ultimate, especially if the correct Weakness has not been implanted yet. On the flipside, it can sometimes be a good idea to hold Silver Wolf’s Ultimate in order to Weakness Break an enemy, especially if building Break Effect on Silver Wolf.

In addition to her debuffs, Silver Wolf’s significant single-target Toughness damage and ability to implant a Quantum Weakness makes her quite good at breaking enemies on her own. Entanglement is one of the stronger Weakness Break effects in the game, causing significant Action Delay and dealing high damage when stacked. Stacking Break Effect allows Silver Wolf to deal notable personal damage when breaking enemies, and the increased Action Delay can help increase her debuff uptime.

A word of caution, however. When playing Silver Wolf with allies that deal damage on enemy turns, like DoT characters and Clara, Silver Wolf should generally avoid triggering Weakness Break, especially if she has high Break Effect. While all of her debuffs do increase damage dealt by these characters, a Quantum Weakness Break will cause a significant Action Delay that is only further increased by the Break Effect stat. For allies that depend on enemies acting frequently, the significant Action Delay can reduce damage against the enemy nearly as much as Silver Wolf’s debuffs increase it.

Damage Dealer‎

For a unit whose kit is full of supportive utility, Silver Wolf does have fairly high damage multipliers and can fully benefit from all the debuffs she applies. Prior to obtaining her 2nd Eidolon, however, it is generally not effective to build Silver Wolf like a typical damage dealer. Her high Effect Hit Rate requirement and dependence on sources of additional Energy tend to force her into gearing choices that do not support her personal damage.

Her 1st Eidolon alleviates the Energy issue, and her 2nd Eidolon alleviates the Effect Hit Rate issue, which allows her to build more offensive stats and deal fairly decent personal damage. Even at E2, however, she will not be dealing damage at the level of dedicated damage dealers because she lacks the innate CRIT, self-buffs, or means of taking additional actions that they tend to have built into their kit.

It is only at E6 that building Silver Wolf as a damage dealer becomes the top recommendation, as she will deal significantly more damage by investing into ATK and CRIT than she will by investing into Break Effect, while retaining the full breadth of her supportive utility.

Playing Silver Wolf as a damage dealer is even simpler than playing her as a debuffer. As long as she uses her Skill on an enemy (implanting Quantum Weakness if necessary) before targeting it with her Ultimate, she will gain the full benefit from her own debuffs.

Traces

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

Eidolons

Builds

Debuffer

This build is meant to be used along with the Debuffer playstyle. When played this way, Silver Wolf focuses on applying debuffs and Weakness Breaking enemies. As such, her gearing choices will primarily be centered around these two goals.

Trace Priority

Silver Wolf’s Skill and Ultimate are the highest priority, as they represent the vast majority of her utility. The Skill is more important than the Ultimate, as it has the lowest base chance of all her necessary debuffs and is primarily responsible for Silver Wolf’s high Effect Hit Rate requirement, although both should be leveled regardless. The Bugs from her Talent have small values, but they do add up and should be leveled at least a few times.

Levels for her Basic ATK are insignificant, so it can be ignored entirely.

Silver Wolf gains three stats from the minor nodes on her Trace tree: ATK%, Effect Hit Rate, and Quantum DMG Boost. For this build, only Effect Hit Rate is relevant, and the others should only be unlocked as a means to reach nodes that grant Effect Hit Rate.

Light Cones

Before the Tutorial Mission Starts	At S5, this Light Cone synergizes perfectly with Silver Wolf’s kit, granting her nearly a Relic main stat’s worth of Effect Hit Rate and providing significant additional Energy generation, nearly always reducing the number of actions needed to recharge her Ultimate. However, since it was only obtainable via an event that ran in Version 1.1, it is unavailable for any players that did not participate.
Incessant Rain	This Light Cone can essentially be considered an upgrade of Resolution Shines as Pearls of Sweat, providing 24% Effect Hit Rate on top of a special Aether Code debuff that adds a 12% multiplier to the relatively uncommon Vulnerability portion of the damage formula. Most teams have an unmodified Vulnerability multiplier, so Aether Code often provides a true 12% DMG increase. However, Aether Code only lasts until the enemy’s next action, so it’s important to time its application properly. The 12% CRIT Rate increase against enemies with three or more debuffs is effectively useless, but the other two passive effects are valuable enough that this Light Cone still takes the second spot.
Patience is All You Need	The DMG increasing portion of this Light Cone’s effect does little for Silver Wolf, but she greatly appreciates the SPD buff and can even take advantage of the Erode DoT, as it counts as a debuff and can help her trigger effects that require multiple debuffs on an enemy, like her A6 Bonus Ability and several of her Eidolons. However, since Silver Wolf has other good options that are more easily obtained, it is probably better used on a Nihility Path damage dealer like Kafka or Welt. Additionally, since this Light Cone provides no Effect Hit Rate, it typically forces Silver Wolf to take an Effect Hit Rate Body.
Resolution Shines as Pearls of Sweat	Since DEF Reduction becomes more powerful as it approaches 100% and Silver Wolf already applies more than 50% DEF Reduction across her Ultimate and Talent, the small Ensnared debuff this Light Cone provides can be surprisingly potent. At lower superimposition levels, the base chance for the debuff is quite low — but Silver Wolf’s three-hit Basic ATK gives it multiple chances to apply, making it more consistent than it may seem. Like the Aether Code debuff from Incessant Rain, Ensnared only lasts until the enemy’s next turn, so its application must be timed properly. Additionally, since this Light Cone provides no Effect Hit Rate, it typically forces Silver Wolf to take an Effect Hit Rate Body.
Eyes of the Prey	While Silver Wolf cannot make use of the increased DoT this Light Cone offers, the 24–40% Effect Hit Rate is very helpful, since Silver Wolf needs high Effect Hit Rate to guarantee her most important debuffs.
Fermata	If you have none of the above options, this is the only free Light Cone aside from the event-exclusive Before the Tutorial Mission Starts that does anything remotely beneficial for Silver Wolf. Even so, the only part of this Light Cone’s passive that benefits her is the 16–32% Break Effect. The increased DMG against enemies affected by Wind Shear or Shock is highly conditional and inconsequential even when active.

For this particular build and playstyle, no other Nihility Light Cone available as of Version 1.5 is useful for Silver Wolf. If you have none of the above Light Cones, use any Light Cone that you already have leveled, including any non-Nihility Light Cones, and upgrade to something on the above list as soon as possible.

Relics

Relic Sets

4-Pc Thief of Shooting Meteor	When Silver Wolf is regularly breaking enemies, this set gives her everything she wants. It just so happens that when playing a one Skill, two Basic rotation with Before the Tutorial Mission Starts, Silver Wolf ends up exactly 3 Energy short of her Ultimate without any additional Energy. If using Tutorial, Thief is an excellent option, providing both extra damage and Action Delay for her Weakness Breaks and giving her the last little bit of Energy she needs. Even without Tutorial, this set is still a good option, as the 32% Break Effect from the 2-Pc and 4-Pc is quite beneficial, and the Energy can still help occasionally.
4-Pc Genius of Brilliant Stars	Since Silver Wolf applies significant DEF Reduction and can implant a Quantum Weakness, she can take full advantage of the 4-Pc Set Effect’s DEF Ignore and its application to Entanglement damage. At very high levels of Break Effect, the DEF Ignore from this set allows it to surpass the Thief of Shooting Meteor set in terms of Entanglement damage. Keep in mind, however, that the higher Break Effect from Thief means more Action Delay on enemies, and that Genius provides no extra Energy upon Weakness Break. If Silver Wolf is using Before the Tutorial Mission Starts and has no other means of getting the last 3 Energy she needs, she will be forced to wait another turn for her Ultimate, or to build Energy Regeneration Rate via a Planar Set or a Link Rope main stat, which can limit her ability to stack Break Effect. If Silver Wolf uses an Energy Regeneration Rate Link Rope instead of a Break Effect Link Rope, Genius falls behind Thief for Entanglement damage.
2-Pc Combos	If Silver Wolf is not building for Break damage, she only has two goals: go fast, and stay alive. Possible 2-Pc sets include Messenger Traversing Hackerspace, Guard of Wuthering Snow, Longevous Disciple, and Knight of Purity Palace.

Planar Ornaments

Penacony, Land of the Dreams	When paired with a Quantum-Type damage dealer, Penacony allows Silver Wolf to provide that damage dealer with 10% DMG at all times. In addition, the 5% Energy Regeneration Rate can sometimes be helpful, especially if Silver Wolf is using Before the Tutorial Mission Starts.
Broken Keel	Broken Keel’s party-wide 10% CRIT DMG bonus is always useful for damage dealers that scale with CRIT. Since Silver Wolf gains no Effect RES from Traces, she will need to make up the missing 20% entirely from substats.
Fleet of the Ageless	If using Silver Wolf in a team with characters whose damage scales with ATK but not CRIT, such as DoT units, Fleet of the Ageless is a good option.
Sprightly Vonwacq	If Silver Wolf is not supporting a Quantum-Type damage dealer but still needs the 5% Energy Regeneration Rate, Sprightly Vonwacq will be slightly more valuable than Penacony, but not enough to make farming a new set worth it.
Talia: Kingdom of Banditry	If Silver Wolf is able to reach the rather high SPD requirement of 145, Talia gives her a total of 36% Break Effect, which can be quite useful for her Break damage. Even with very high Break Effect, however, Silver Wolf will not be dealing a particularly large portion of team damage, so the more supportive sets listed above are generally a better choice.
Pan-Cosmic Commercial Enterprise	While Silver Wolf does need Effect Hit Rate, 10% is a fairly small amount, worth less than 3 Effect Hit Rate substats. Furthermore, the ATK% gained from the secondary effect is almost entirely useless, as Silver Wolf will not deal significant damage with any of her abilities. Greater team damage output can be achieved with any of the above options, and this set should only be used if you are seriously struggling to meet her Effect Hit Rate needs.

Stats

Main Stats

Body	Boots	Sphere	Rope
Effect Hit Rate if needed. else, HP% > DEF%	SPD	HP% > DEF%	Break Effect or Energy Regeneration Rate

Substats

Effect Hit Rate (until Weakness implant is guaranteed) > SPD > Break Effect > Effect Hit Rate (until Entanglement is guaranteed)

Some notes on the above stat recommendations

Since Silver Wolf does not do significant damage with her abilities when used as a debuffer, main stat slots that would otherwise be used for ATK%, CRIT, or DMG% on a damage dealer can instead be used for HP% or DEF%. The loss of those damage-focused stats will not noticeably impact the team’s damage output, but the increase in survivability-focused stats will noticeably increase Silver Wolf’s durability. Of the two, HP% is usually better.

A Break Effect Link Rope is generally optimal if Silver Wolf has her 1st Eidolon or is using Before the Tutorial Mission Starts. If Silver Wolf has neither of these or is not reliably breaking enemies, an Energy Regeneration Rate Link Rope is preferred to increase her Ultimate frequency.

Silver Wolf’s Effect Hit Rate requirements can vary significantly, depending on both Silver Wolf’s own Trace and Eidolon levels, as well as the enemy’s Effect RES and Debuff RES. Most enemies in the game have at most 40% Effect RES and at most 50% Entanglement RES or Control Effects RES. A very small number of enemies have higher values, but they are either entirely immune or can only be fought in the Simulated Universe, where there are multiple Blessings that increase allies’ Effect Hit Rate or reduce enemies’ Effect RES.

If you don’t want to go through the math yourself, here’s a good general rule:

• At Skill Level 6, Silver Wolf needs 108.3% Effect Hit Rate to guarantee a Weakness implant against an enemy with 40% Effect RES. Every additional Skill level reduces the required Effect Hit Rate by about 3%, coming down to 96.1% Effect Hit Rate at Skill Level 10.
• Against enemies with 40% Effect RES and 50% Entanglement RES or Control Effects RES, Silver Wolf needs 122.2% Effect Hit Rate to guarantee Entanglement. It is impractical to attempt to guarantee Entanglement on enemies with higher RES in either category.

See Soul Fish’s Silver Wolf Energy and Effect Hit Rate sheet for full details on Silver Wolf’s Energy and Effect Hit Rate breakpoints.

Damage Dealer

This build is meant to be used along with the Damage Dealer playstyle.

Some of you are going to do this. We cannot stop you, but we can at least tell you the best way to do it and help you manage your expectations when you are inevitably disappointed.

To view the build recommendations in this section, please agree to the following waiver:

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I, the reader, acknowledge that KQM:HSR, its staff, and its affiliates have no responsibility for pain, suffering, and disappointment incurred by following the recommendations in this section. I assume all risks associated with building Silver Wolf as a damage dealer, including broken dreams, subpar damage, high levels of Copium, and any other dangers inherent to the nature of this build.

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E1 or S1?

Silver Wolf’s 1st Eidolon provides her up to 35 extra Energy when she uses her Ultimate, allowing her to recharge her Ultimate in one less turn than she would otherwise require, giving her better debuff uptime and much more flexibility during battle. At S1, Her signature Light Cone Incessant Rain provides 24% Effect Hit Rate, a one-turn single-target 12% Vulnerability debuff, and 12% conditional CRIT Rate — all useful stats that add to various parts of her utility.

Unfortunately, Incessant Rain simply fails to provide enough to match the value of the Energy that Silver Wolf’s 1st Eidolon brings. If you have Before the Tutorial Mission Starts at S5, it is arguably more valuable to get all six of Silver Wolf’s Eidolons before obtaining Incessant Rain, as it is a downgrade to Tutorial in most cases and a sidegrade at best.

However, if you enjoy playing Welt and don’t have a good Light Cone for him, Incessant Rain might still be a good pickup. Check out the Welt Guide for more details on Welt’s best Light Cones.

Character Comparisons

Pela

Silver Wolf and Pela both serve effectively the same role in most teams: SP-positive debuffers that increase the damage enemies take from all allies. Both reduce enemy DEF with their Ultimates; Silver Wolf applies a stronger and longer-lasting debuff on a single target, while Pela applies a weaker debuff on all targets.

Silver Wolf can implant Weaknesses in enemies at the cost of Skill Points, which enables unique team compositions and characters that would not normally have an advantage against the enemy content. Pela can dispel enemy buffs with her own Skill, making her a good pick against enemies with troublesome buffs. If you need either of these particular things, there’s no real choice; you take the one you need.

It’s worth noting that Pela can deliver the entirety of her damage-increasing utility without using any Skill Points; this allows her to be a completely universal support that works in any and every team. Silver Wolf can still deliver all her utility while remaining SP positive, but does need to use her Skill occasionally to implant Weaknesses, limiting her synergy with some SP-hungry characters. However, Silver Wolf does have the ability to implant Weaknesses on multiple enemies at once if SP allows, further increasing team damage and her own Ultimate frequency; since Pela’s only damage increase comes from her Ultimate, she has no such option to further debuff enemies without her E4, even if surplus SP is available.

Silver Wolf and Pela don’t always compete for a team slot; since DEF Reduction becomes better as it approaches 100%, Silver Wolf and Pela actually amplify one another’s damage increases. Assuming Trace Level 10, characters at Level 80, and enemies at Level 95:

• Pela’s Ultimate increases damage against an enemy by ~27.2%.
• Silver Wolf’s Ultimate and DEF-reducing Bug increase damage against an enemy by ~39.6%.
• All three debuffs together increase damage against an enemy by ~99.0%.

See the graph below for an illustration (credit: skylarke):

When Silver Wolf’s and Pela’s DEF Reduction is combined, the resulting damage increase is stronger than two independent damage-increasing buffs of the same respective magnitudes that are multiplied together. Far from competing for a team slot, Silver Wolf and Pela actually complement one another quite well.

They do, however, compete for Light Cones. To learn more about Pela’s gear recommendations, check out the Pela Guide.

Notable Synergies

Other Sources of DEF Reduction / DEF Ignore	As shown in the Damage Increases section at the beginning of the guide, DEF Reduction gets stronger as it approaches 100%. This means additional sources of DEF Reduction and/or DEF Ignore, which works just like DEF Reduction in the damage formula, but as a character buff instead of an enemy debuff, only make Silver Wolf’s own DEF Reduction more impactful. DEF Reduction caps at 100%, however, so there is such a thing as too much.
Single-Target Damage Dealers	Because Silver Wolf applies all her debuffs to one target at a time, single-target damage dealers that attack the same enemy multiple times in a row take full advantage of her utility.
Quantum-Type Characters	Silver Wolf’s Weakness implant depends on the Combat Types of the characters in the party, and other Quantum-Type characters such as Fu Xuan, Lynx, and Seele can increase the chances of the correct Weakness implant by reducing the number of other Types in the team. A Quantum-Type sustain and/or support unit can allow Silver Wolf to enable an ally of any Type against any enemy with Quantum Weakness, because she will always implant that ally’s Type. On the flipside, Silver Wolf can always enable a Quantum-Type damage dealer against any enemy without Quantum Weakness, as long as you have teammates that do match the enemy’s Weakness. In fact, one can even run a “Mono Quantum” team consisting of Silver Wolf and three other Quantum-Type characters, which always guarantees a Quantum Weakness implant. However, such a team is almost always less effective than substituting a more appropriate support whose Type matches the enemy’s Weakness.

Notable Anti-Synergies

Silver Wolf has no notable anti-synergies because her utility is entirely dependent on debuffing enemies and she is capable of doing so while remaining SP positive (one enemy) or SP neutral (two enemies).

Because she cannot deliver the entirety of her utility without using Skill Points and her debuffs are all single-target, she can be less valuable alongside SP-hungry characters or AoE-only damage dealers, but this alone is not enough to create an anti-synergy.

Teams

How to Build Teams with Silver Wolf

Silver Wolf is somewhat unique in that she has no particularly strong synergies or anti-synergies with any specific units, and instead is best used as a deliberate counter to certain enemy content. Because of this, there are no fixed team archetypes for Silver Wolf, and her team compositions depend entirely on what characters you have available to you and what enemies you are facing. In order to illustrate how teambuilding with Silver Wolf should typically proceed, the example teams in this section will come with a particular enemy or set of enemies that Silver Wolf is being used to counter.

Silver Wolf is most beneficial in a team if the enemy you are facing does not have a Weakness Type that matches the Combat Type of the character or characters you wish to use. This could be for one of several reasons:

• You don’t have a damage dealer or breaker that matches the Weakness of the enemy you’re facing, and you need that to successfully or comfortably defeat the enemy.
• You want to use a character that has specific desirable interactions with Weakness Break, but their Type does not match the enemy’s Weakness.
• You simply want to use a particular character over others, and that character’s Type does not match the enemy’s Weakness.

Silver Wolf can also be used as a generic single-target debuffer even against enemies that already have Weakness to your damage dealer’s Type, but this ignores a large part of her utility and damage amplification, often to such a degree that bringing a Harmony unit or a second damage dealer would be a better choice.

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Once you’ve decided Silver Wolf is an appropriate choice against a particular enemy lineup, there is one general rule you should try to follow when crafting a team.

An ideal Silver Wolf team will match every Weakness on the enemy except one; this guarantees a specific implanted Weakness as long as her Weakness implant succeeds. If the team has more than one damage Type that does not match the enemy’s Weaknesses, Silver Wolf is not guaranteed to implant the desired Weakness Type, and you will be at the mercy of randomness. That doesn’t mean such a team is necessarily bad — it just means there will be more variance between battles, and you need to have a backup plan in case Silver Wolf implants the wrong Weakness.

In cases where the desired Weakness implant is not guaranteed, team SP flexibility can be valuable, allowing Silver Wolf more SP to retry a Weakness implant until the correct one lands. Additionally, against content like Memory of Chaos, you can retry a battle until the right Weakness is implanted, but this won’t work within the Simulated Universe.

Teambuilding examples follow.

Quantum-Weak enemies

Example Teams

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Example Teams

Decaying Shadow

Example Teams

Shape Shifter

Example Teams

Gepard

Example Teams

Cocolia and Bronya

Quantum / Physical / (Fire)

Quantum / Imaginary / (Fire)

Quantum / Fire

Credits

References

Silver Wolf Debuff Damage Increases by jas
Silver Wolf Energy and Effect Hit Rate by Soul Fish

Changelog

• 06 December 2023 – Published for v1.5