Honkai Star Rail: Best The Herta Build

The Herta is the latest 5-star character to join the Honkai: Star Rail roster, bringing immense AoE damage potential as an Ice Erudition unit. Her playstyle revolves around building stacks of Interpretation, a unique effect that significantly amplifies her damage output based on the number of stacks accumulated.

To maximize The Herta’s potential, understanding how to effectively stack Interpretation and optimize her build is crucial. Below, we’ll break down her best Light Cones, Relics, skill priorities, and team compositions to help you get the most out of her abilities.

The Herta Overview

• Name: The Herta
• Rarity: 5-star
• Element: Ice
• Path: Erudition
• VA (JP): Yamazaki Haruka

Level 80 Stats:
• HP: 1164
• ATK: 679
• DEF: 485
• Speed: 99

The Herta is a high-powered 5-star Ice Erudition unit specializing in burst damage and multi-target combat. Her strength lies in her ability to stack Interpretation, a unique effect that enhances her damage output significantly, making her one of the most efficient AoE damage dealers in the game.

While The Herta is at her best when facing multiple enemies, she remains a strong contender even in single-target battles. She is highly effective in Memory of Chaos but truly shines in Pure Fiction, where Erudition characters thrive. Her self-sufficiency and scaling potential make her a valuable long-term investment, especially for players looking for a powerful and future-proof Ice DPS to dominate challenging content.

Best Light Cones for The Herta

The Herta’s best Light Cone option is undoubtedly her signature Light Cone, Into the Unreachable Veil. It provides all the essential stats she needs, significantly boosting her Ultimate and Skill damage while also restoring a Skill Point if her Ultimate consumes 140 or more Energy. This makes it an excellent mix of both damage amplification and utility, ensuring she remains efficient in combat.

However, if you’re not planning to pull for her signature Light Cone, there are other strong alternatives that can still complement her high burst damage playstyle.

Top Light Cone Choices for The Herta:
1. Into the Unreachable Veil (Best-in-Slot) – Increases CRIT Rate by 12% and significantly boosts Skill and Ultimate damage by 60% for three turns after using an Ultimate. Additionally, restores 1 Skill Point if her Ultimate consumes 140 or more Energy, making it both a powerful offensive and utility choice.
2. Today Is Another Peaceful Day (Great Alternative for High-Energy Builds) – Increases The Herta’s DMG based on her Max Energy, granting 0.2% DMG for every point of Energy, up to a maximum of 160 Energy counted. This makes it a strong alternative for players focusing on energy-heavy builds.
3. Eternal Calculus (Best F2P Option) – Boosts ATK by 8%, with an additional 4% ATK increase per enemy hit, stacking up to 5 times. If The Herta hits three or more enemies, she gains an 8% Speed boost for one turn, making it a decent option for multi-target fights and Pure Fiction content.

While Into the Unreachable Veil remains the ideal Light Cone for The Herta, Today Is Another Peaceful Day is a strong alternative for players who prefer high-energy scaling, and Eternal Calculus is a solid budget option for F2P players looking to enhance her multi-target damage potential.

Best Relics for The Herta

To maximize The Herta’s damage output and efficiency, the Scholar Lost in Erudition set is the ideal choice. This set perfectly aligns with her playstyle, as she can naturally trigger its effects through her standard rotations, making it a seamless and highly effective option.

For Planar Ornaments, the Izumo Gensei and Takama Divine Realm set is the best fit. Since The Herta should always be paired with another Erudition unit to unlock her 80% CRIT DMG team buff, this Planar set becomes an easy way to build up her CRIT stats, ensuring higher burst potential and consistent damage scaling.

Recommended Relic Sets:

Main Relic Set (4-piece Bonus)
• Scholar Lost in Erudition (4-piece) – Enhances The Herta’s damage and consistency, providing strong synergy with her abilities.

Planar Ornament Set (2-piece Bonus)
• Izumo Gensei and Takama Divine Realm (2-piece) – Helps improve CRIT Value, making her scaling more effective when paired with another Erudition unit.

Optimal Main Stats:

Relics:
• Body: CRIT Rate / CRIT DMG%
• Feet: ATK% / Speed

Substat Priority: SPD > CRIT Rate > CRIT DMG > ATK%

Planar Ornaments:
• Planar Sphere: Ice DMG%
• Link Rope: ATK%

Substat Priority: SPD > CRIT Rate > CRIT DMG > ATK%

By focusing on Speed and CRIT scaling, this build ensures The Herta consistently deals high damage while maintaining optimal Interpretation stacks for maximum burst potential.

Skill Priority for The Herta

To maximize The Herta’s damage potential, prioritizing her Talent is essential, as it directly enhances her overall damage scaling and ensures her Interpretation stacks are utilized efficiently. After that, her Skill should be leveled next, as it is her primary ability for dealing damage and generating stacks.

Her Ultimate comes third in priority, as while it contributes significantly to her burst potential, it is less impactful than her Talent and Skill in overall combat flow. Lastly, her Basic Attack is the least important, and you can leave it for last or even avoid leveling it entirely if resources are limited.

Optimal Skill Leveling Order:
1. Talent – The core of her kit, providing the biggest damage boost and enhancing her Interpretation stacks.
2. Skill – Her primary attack, ensuring consistent damage and stack generation.
3. Ultimate – Still valuable, but secondary to Talent and Skill in importance.
4. Basic Attack – Least impactful in her rotation and should be upgraded last.

Major Trace Priority:
1. A4 – Provides the strongest boost to her overall damage output.
2. A2 – A solid second choice, further enhancing her abilities.
3. A6 – While still useful, it offers the least impact compared to A4 and A2.

By following this skill priority, The Herta can consistently stack Interpretation and deliver massive burst damage, ensuring she remains a top-tier Ice Erudition DPS.

Conclusion

The Herta is a powerful Ice Erudition DPS who thrives in multi-target battles while still maintaining strong single-target damage potential. Her Interpretation stacks are the key to maximizing her burst output, making it crucial to build her with the right stats, Light Cones, and team compositions.

Her best build revolves around the Scholar Lost in Erudition relic set and Izumo Gensei and Takama Divine Realm planar ornaments, ensuring she gains consistent CRIT scaling and enhanced damage potential. Her signature Light Cone, Into the Unreachable Veil, further boosts her Ultimate and Skill damage, though alternative options like Today Is Another Peaceful Day provide solid alternatives.

When leveling her abilities, her Talent and Skill take top priority, as they directly impact her damage output and ability to stack Interpretation effectively.

With the right setup, team, and relics, The Herta becomes an exceptional burst damage dealer, making her an ideal pick for Pure Fiction, Memory of Chaos, and high-difficulty encounters. Whether you’re pushing endgame content or looking for a strong Ice AoE DPS, she’s a fantastic long-term investment in Honkai Star Rail.