Steller Shimmer is yet another Honkai Star Rail event that pits you against some challenging enemies with some unique buffs to your team. To take advantage of how these events work, you will want to build the best possible team for each event level.
Complete guide to the Steller Shimmer in Honkai Star Rail
The basic idea behind this event is that Researcher Grumpy from the space station has asked you to help with some sort of experiment. You need to take down eight challenges, and one new one unlocks daily. This article will be updated as new challenges drop in this event.
Each of these stages has two separate events; one is called a Dwarf Star, which is like a tutorial for you to test out the Trail characters and see in real-time how the buffs will work out, and the other is called Supergiant Star, which is the actual main event of each stage. You need to complete the Dwarf Star first to get to the Supergiant Star.
Day 1: Vanguard Breaker
Vanguard Breaker is all about weakness-breaking enemies. The trial characters are Firefly and Harmony Trailblazer, which are two characters focused on break. The best two characters to add to this team are Ruan Mei and Gallagher, as you will need a Sustain and a Support. If you are missing either of these characters, you can sub in any Sustain for Gallagher. You can also replace Ruan Mei with a well-built Himeko or Asta (Asta is Skill Point-heavy, but the team will be generating SP well enough to keep her going).
Once the fight has begun, you will need to push Firefly into Combustion mode, then have her aim for breaking creatures one at a time. The Trial Firefly has 282% break effect, so you should have no trouble smashing the break bars to dust even without your own Firefly. Use Ruan Mei's Skill, if you have her, and Harmony Trailblazer's Ultimate before Firefly's Combustion. If you can't break any of the creatures on the stage in the first go, use Gallagher to deal additional fire damage, since all these enemies are weak against fire. Try not to break enemies with Harmony Trailblazer to make sure Firefly gets all those sweet, sweet extra turns.
Choose your targets in a way that prioritizes generating as many additional turns through weakness breaking. This will be instead of breaking multiple enemies at the same time, which will only give one additional turn. If you have the choice between breaking three enemies or breaking one based on which enemy you target, break only one at a time.
The hardest part of the waves will be the fights against Argenti. He will summon an add called The Shield, which will create a shield to block damage on Argenti. Prioritize killing The Shields first, then use a basic attack or clip Argenti with a different attack to remove The Shield's buff from Argenti before going all out on him. Argenti will have another add called a Speartip, and this thing will deal a fairly large AOE of physical break damage around it, so aim for that add last.
Day 2: Cycle of Suffering
Day 2 gives you a trial Acheron and Silver Wolf; you will need to add one Sustain unit and one Nihility unit. Without a third Nihility unit, Acheron will not properly be able to work her magic. I chose to use Kafka, since my Kafka is pretty beefy, but you could sub in any Nihility unit you have like Black Swan, Guinaifen, or even Pella. Kafka is also great because she has a cleave and everything you fight is already weak to lightning.
As for your Sustain, Aventurine is the best choice, as he deals the right kind of damage. However, if you don't have him, Gallagher is a good choice since he deals fire damage and also dishes out debuffs. If you don't have Aventurine or Gallagher, you can use any Sustain you have available, as all the others are about the same.
In this round of enemies, you'll notice that all the enemies share one HP pool, which makes Bronya a challenging end boss you'll have to take down twice. In the non-Bronya fights, focus on a single enemy, stacking Ultimate Vulnerability up on them as much as possible. Also, keep Aventurine's shields up at all times. You will want to use Acheron's Ultimate as often as possible.
For those unfamiliar with the way Acheron works, you will see a number next to a flower below her nameplate in the lower left-hand part of the screen. She needs 10 of these flowers to do her Ultimate once, and she can hold up to 30 of these at a time. Once she hits three held Ultimates, however, you will lose any further generated flowers, so make sure to use her Ultimate before you start missing flower drops.
When Bronya is up, you will want to focus on her. Since Bronya can cleanse her adds of debuffs but not herself, and you can't break her unless her adds are dead but they all share the same pool of HP, there is no reason to target anyone except Bronya in these fights.
Day 3: Surprise Party
Surprise Party is a much simpler round of battles. You will have Robin and Topaz, and you want to focus on follow-ups. The Giftbox, which is the main buff of Surprise Party, all the enemies will be weakness broken, leading to follow-ups from all the characters who can follow up. The Trail Robin and Topaz are both fairly well-built, so you should be able to use them without worrying about not getting all the rewards. Good additions to this team are a Sustain, and the best follow-up Sustain is Aventurine. If you don't have him, you can sub in Gallagher or Bailu. Fu Xuan is also okay as she can allow you to avoid Freezing.
For the fourth in the party, you should use Himeko. She deals fire damage, and the Giftbox will trigger her follow-ups. She works best if she has her signature light cone. If you want to use your Dr. Ratio, you will need to make sure your Aventurine and Topaz have at least an E1 or S1 between them. If you don't, you will not have enough debuffs to trigger Ratio's follow-up.
Now that you have a team, you need to prioritize every follow-up you can get. Use Robin's Ultimate in battle to manipulate the turn order so you can take as many turns as possible while Giftbox is active, which will boost the number of follow-ups you will get.
Day 4: Skin of Their Teeth
Skin of Their Teeth gives you Dan Heng - Imbibitor Lunae and Sparkle. You won't need a Sustain unit for this team because the enemies are designed to kill your characters every turn. So instead, you want to pick those who have great Ultimates to either boost Dan Heung or deal damage on their own. Great teammates would be Argenti, Bronya, Tingyun, or Hanya. I chose the Trail Dan Heng, Sparkle, Tingyun, and Hanya. Acheron is a bad choice for this one, mainly because she doesn't use energy. The most important things to do in this fight are to make sure you don't waste energy and to make sure you have Sparkle and Dan Heng in the center spots so they take the most hits.
The first round is between your team and a Guardian Shadow and Silvermane Lieutenant. You want to deal damage to them equally, which will force both of them into their retaliation modes. The second round features a fire enemy and an ice enemy. Focus on the fire enemy first; the ice enemy has an on-death AOE that is guaranteed to kill your whole team so you have energy for the boss battle.
The boss, which is a Memory Zone Meme, will cast Go Into That Good Night on its second turn, which will create a cage out of the next two characters to do anything at all after it is cast. Make sure you don't get Dan Heng caught in the Meme's cage, as it will brick your ability to deal damage and get your characters out of those cages.
Day 5: Fatal Weakness
It's break effect 2.0, but this time, it's tailored around Boothill rather than Firefly. Since this doesn't specify Super Break, Firefly can be used here, but Trial Boothill will be best despite his low break effect percentage. Feel free to run your own Boothill if you have a better-built one than the Trial. Ruan Mei is also great here, and her Trial is fairly well put together.
You will need to add a Sustain to this team. For your Sustain, the best choice is Gallagher because he is a Break Effect character as well, but any Sustain can be used here. Aventurine is a good choice as the enemies you will encounter are weak to Imaginary damage. But anyone will work here in a pinch. As for the fourth, an E4-or-higher Harmony Trailblazer is a great choice. You could also use Bronya or Sparkle to give Boothill more turns. If you don't have any of these, Xueyi is also a good choice for a fourth.
To win, you will want to build up Pocket Trickshot for Boothill by killing and breaking enemies. He will use them when in Standoff mode to deal additional Break damage to enemies. You will need to take down Geopard, so make sure Ruan Mei's skill is being used every three turns to keep everyone boosted for this challenging battle.
Day 6: Unending Finality
In Unending Finality, you will get a Trial Argenti and Huohuo. This one will be all about getting your characters to Ultimate as many times as possible. The buff for this map refills the Ultimate every time you perform an Ultimate three times, and everyone's Ultimate stacks a damage buff.
For additional team members, I used Tingyun as she refills Ultimates. You can also use Sparkle as a battery for Argenti. Another great team member for this fight would be Pela with a Before the Tutorial Mission Starts light cone, since she can Ultimate every two turns when built correctly. If you don't have any of the characters above, you want to prioritize using characters that can work as an energy battery for Argenti or anyone who has fast and cheap Ultimates.
When in battle, make sure to use Argenti's level 1 Ultimate when it comes up. With the added buff and the refill mechanic, the level 1 Ultimate will give you so much more damage than waiting for a higher-level version to refill. Also, make sure to preserve your energy where you can. When Present Inebriated in Revelry hits the field, preemptively use Huohuo to prevent the Present Inebriated in Revelry from debuffing the team. Huohuo's skill and Ultimate both give energy to your team, which will ramp up Argenti pretty quickly to his Ult over and over again.
Day 7: Incremental Repetition
For day 7, Jade is available, so she is front and center for this challenge. You also get a Trial Herta. The shtick for this one is that every hit to every enemy gives your team stacks of a damage buff. For every 10 stacks, you deal damage to enemies to help you get even more stacks. Herta will be great for this since all the enemies are weak to ice and she attacks all the enemies on the field at once. So you will be putting Jade's skill on Herta every time it's available; make sure it never falls off Herta. If you have a well-built Himeko, you can replace Herta with her, but I would keep Herta in this team otherwise.
As for other teammates, you should use Aventurine since he is a strong follow-up Sustain. If you don't have him, Fu Xian is great for several reasons: she boosts crit damage, has a damaging Ultimate, and gives crowd control similar to Aventurine. If you don't have either of these, use a Sustain that deals damage with their Ultimates, like Luocha or Gallagher.
Ideal Supports would be Robin or Ruan Mei. Robin will pump the follow-ups, as will Ruan Mei. Sparkle is also a good choice to give you more turns for Herta and boosts crit damage. If your other teammates are skill-point-positive, you can also use Bronya here.
When the battle with the Ebon deer starts, you will want to make sure to take out the Twig of Wintry Wind first. It gives Outrage, which automatically makes that character use their basic, which is bad if it hits Herta or Jade. Once the Wintry Winds are down, focus damage on the Twig of Glorious Blooms because it has a heal that will slow your damage down.
Day 8: Plague of Misfortune
Kafka and Black Swan are the trial characters for this one; you will want to build a great DoT team for this round. The Trail's Black Swan should be replaced with your own Black Swan if you have her well-built since some of her stats are a little low. You will want to add a Sustain with an offensive Ultimate and the ability to cleanse like Luocha or Fu Xuan. For your Support unit, I would recommend Robin or Ruan Mei. If you have a Pela with The Secret Strategy for her, she can also be good to help boost the Trial Black Swan. Guinaifen is also a good choice for this as well.
If you choose to run triple DoTs, your team will be quite Skill Point intense, so just make sure to keep an eye on those. Since the biggest damage from DoTs come during enemies' turns, make sure to allow the enemy to go in between your turns. Use skills, then use an Ultimate, forcing the enemy into taking a turn and give them a whole bunch of damage.
For more Honkai Star Rail, check out All Treasure Chest Locations in Honkai Star Rail on Pro Game Guides.
Mina Smith is freelance writer from Richmond, VA who specializes in video game articles, mostly how-to guides. She has been writing about video games full time since 2019, but started part-time in this career almost a decade. Her number one passion has been video games since the 1990s, and her favorites are FF1, Baten Kaitos, and Viewfinder. In the past five years, Mina has written more than 2,500 articles and has garnered about a quarter of a billion views from audiences all over the world.