Honkai: Star Rail Sampo Build Guide – In this Honkai: Star Rail Sampo Build Guide, I’m going to share my Sampo Build, one who takes on the role of a Wind damage dealer in combat. More often than not, he’s better off being grouped with another DPS to maximize the team’s output to efficiently crush enemies. I’ll also be discussing the Stats and Skills you should pay attention to, the Light Cones and Relics to strive for, and the Companions to pick in order to make Sampo more effective in combat. If you’re looking for an early game Level 40 Sampo Build, then this Guide is for you!

Honkai: Star Rail Sampo Build Guide

Sampo is a 4-star character, whom you can obtain from the Warp. He specializes in dealing Wind Damage against multiple enemies as well as inflicting the Wind Shear Status Effect to deal damage over time (DoT). Although it’s not as potent as Gepard’s freeze condition, this allows the team to quickly deplete their targets’ HP because of the sustained damage taken for several turns. What’s more, is that Sampo has the ability to blind them, thereby pushing them further down the Action Order. As such, you and your teammates will be able to attack first.

However, Sampo’s weaknesses lie in his low HP and Defense Stats, making it imperative to pair him with Natasha, at the very least, if Gepard isn’t available. Alongside her are decent damage dealers such as Asta and Serval unless you manage to pull Welt or Seele, who are excellent characters. 

Honkai: Star Rail Sampo Build Guide – Stats

Sampo follows the Nihility Path, which means that he’s skilled at applying debuffs to enemies to lower their effectiveness in combat. As a damage dealer, he’ll need to primarily increase his Crit Rate, Crit Damage, and Attack the most to deal better burst Wind Damage. 

Next, you’ll want to raise Sampo’s Effect Hit Rate. Effect Hit Rate here increases the chances of inflicting the Wind Shear effect and in doing so, dealing Wind DoT. These allow him to efficiently weaken strong targets who have high HP. You should also consider boosting Sampo’s Speed as this helps charge his Ultimate Ability faster since his Max Energy is larger by +20 compared to Gepard’s. As such, it would take longer to trigger the respective ability unless you heavily invest in this stat.

Meanwhile, you’ll likewise want to check out Break Effect. Break Effect refers to how much Wind Damage you continue to deal when their Toughness hits 0 as well as how much additional Wind DoT they’ll take soon after. Unlike Gepard’s Freeze condition, Sampo won’t be able to immobilize enemies although he can blind them to delay their actions at the start of encounters.

In terms of Eidolons in the long run, pulling 6 more Sampos (although this would constitute a very high luck rate for you) will significantly improve his performance. The reason for this is Increased Spending at Level 6 and The Deeper the Love, the Stronger the Hate at Level 4. Both will amplify the Wind Shear Damage taken by the target.

Honkai: Star Rail Sampo Build Guide – Skills And Traces

In this section, we’ll talk about Sampo’s Skills and Traces together with what you should prioritize in combat.

• Windtorn Dagger (Talent) – This passive provides Sampo with a higher chance to inflict Wind Shear. To push through, his Effect Hit Rate needs to be higher than the target’s Effect Resistance. Moreover, investing in the following Traces should help Sampo in more ways than one – Effect Hit Rate Boost, Trap Ability, Spice Up Ability, and Effect RES Boost. Effect Hit Rate Boost is self-explanatory whereas Trap lengthens the duration of this status effect, making it last for 4 turns instead of 3. Note that Wind Shear can stack up to at most 5x, meaning the Wind DoT they take is multiplied by this amount. Next, Spice Up reduces the damage dealt to Sampo for enemies affected by the Wind Shear condition, allowing him to live longer in combat. This is a massive plus to his build since he’s not resilient so any improvement to his damage reduction is certainly welcome. And lastly, to further enhance his resistance against any debuff, you’ll need to allocate points into Effect RES Boost.

• Shining Bright (Technique) – This is an active impair technique where Sampo gets to  inflict Blind in an AoE. Shining Bright is very useful because you’ll always end up increasing the Action Value of affected targets, which means that their actions will be delayed. If they’re not weak against Wind Damage, you can still use Shining Bright and then swap to a character whose element they’re weak against to additionally reduce their HP when the encounter starts.

• Dazzling Blades (Basic ATK) – This is Sampo’s regular attack where he approaches enemies to slash them with dual daggers. It’s a straightforward move that deals average Wind Damage and can even deal Critical Damage from time to time.
• Ricochet Love (Skill) – This is a good skill because it affects multiple targets at once with the same Wind Damage based on Sampo’s Attack %. With Ricochet Love, you can choose your primary target to throw your blades at and then these will randomly bounce off of the other enemies. To amplify Wind Damage, which scales with Attack, be sure to invest in the Attack Boost Ability. 

• Surprise Present (Ultimate) – This is the best way to deal great Wind Damage to all enemies while considerably increasing their DoT for 2 turns. Here, Sampo uses a Smoke Bomb to distract their attention, only to stealthily attack them multiple times using his blades. Surprise Present works hand-in-hand with the Defensive Position Ability, which immediately replenishes 10 energy once it has been triggered. 

Honkai: Star Rail Sampo Build Guide – Light Cones

When it comes to Light Cones, the ones that fit Sampo’s kit very well are Void, Fermata, and In the Name of the World. Void is a 3-star Light Cone, which can be ascended up to Level 20. Although it only benefits him at the start of combat for up to 3 turns, there’s already a lot that can be done. This significantly boosts his Effect Hit Rate, and as such works very well with the Windtorn Dagger Talent. The earlier you inflict Wind Shear, the better in order to consistently lower your target’s HP when it’s their turn to act in combat. 

Next is Fermata, which is a 4-star Light Cone that can be acquired from Lauder, the Grocery Store Worker, in Jarilo-VI as part of his rewards upon spending 2,600 Shield. This Light Cone is a good substitute if you’re unable to pull Eyes of the Prey because it raises both Sampo’s Break Effect, his overall damage against targets afflicted with Wind Shear, and their corresponding DoT.

Essentially, Fermata makes it so that enemies become extremely vulnerable to the point that you’ll be able to eliminate them from the fight much quicker the moment you break their Toughness. As such, this Light Cone is ideal when you’re intending to build Sampo as a secondary or sub DPS that can consistently aid the main damage dealer.

In case you get lucky and pull the 5-star Light Cone known as In the Name of the World, it can turn Sampo into a killing machine because of the amount of damage he’ll be able to deal. Not only do debuffed targets take greater damage but those hit by Ricochet Love have a higher chance of receiving the Wind Shear effect while soaking in similar damage numbers as the debuffed targets. In the Name of the World raises the probability of affecting all enemies with Wind Shear, thereby boosting Sampo’s effectiveness on the battlefield.

Honkai: Star Rail Sampo Build Guide – Relics

In terms of Relics, it’s important to remember that for the Head and Hands, your character gets a flat HP and Attack bonus, respectively. This isn’t the case for the Body and Feet, which are comprised of random stats such as Effect Hit Rate and Speed. Ideally, you’d want to equip 4-star Relics since they provide 2-3 substats in addition to their main stat. But remember that regardless of the rating, enhancing them for every 3 levels will yield a random substat. For a Level 40 Sampo, it’s enough to level up his Relics to a maximum of +6 for 4-star gear until you get their 5-star versions to reserve enough resources by then.

For Sampo’s Relics, you’ll only be choosing two sets, namely Musketeer of Wild Wheat and Eagle of Twilight Line. Musketeer of Wild Wheat is a set you’ll get acquainted with pretty early in the game. Wearing all four pieces will benefit Sampo in terms of raising his Attack as well as his Speed, especially if you don’t have Asta who can continually boost this stat for him. 

Later on, however, you can farm the Eagle of Twilight Line from the Caverns of Corrosion. Equipping at most two of these pieces will notably amplify your Wind Damage, which compounds further when you wear two pieces from the Musketeer of Wild Wheat due to your increased Attack. Remember to prioritize Crit Rate, Crit Damage, or Effect Hit Rate together with Speed. The secondary stats you should focus on would be Attack and Break Effect, which should hold you in good stead.

Team Composition

In Honkai: Star Rail, you’ll have all four characters available while combat is ongoing so you won’t be swapping from one to the next. There also won’t be elemental pools left behind. Instead, you’ll focus on the enemy’s weaknesses to deplete their Toughness and HP accordingly. For this Sampo Guide, I’ll be sharing the best characters to go with him and how effective their skills are for this build.

Natasha who follows the Abundance Path is the first character you’ll need for Sampo’s team, and I mean NEED because of his low Defense. She’s an exceptional healer if you haven’t managed to get ahold of Bailu just yet. What will most likely happen here is she’ll support the party 90-95% of the time to restore the HP of all allies using the Love, Heal, and Choose Skill and Gift of Rebirth Ultimate. If you don’t have Gepard in the team, you’ll need to trigger Natasha’s Ultimate more often because Shields won’t be available to you.

Asta of the Harmony Path is a good second character to select mainly due to her Astral Blessing Ultimate. This ability allows her to boost the Speed of all allies by a considerable number, thereby allowing them to attack sooner and more frequently in combat. Asta is also an incredible damage dealer, which means that her Meteor Storm Skill lets her deal massive Fire Damage, making her a versatile ally to have.

Last but not least is Serval who follows the Erudition Path while specializing in dealing Lightning Damage. In this setup, Sampo, Asta, and Serval will be your core damage dealers with the latter primarily focusing on clearing mobs by activating Here Comes the Mechanical Fever Ultimate. The team will be spread out to stack multiple debuffs against different enemies.

Final Tips

Sampo is a decent 4-star character for those of you who want to experiment with multiple damage dealers in the team consisting of various elemental specializations. For skill rotation, you’ll want to start with Shining Bright to make sure that the enemies you face will become blind. You can then follow through with Natasha’s Hypnosis Research to initiate combat. This technique is very effective in either breaking or weakening their Toughness. Next, Sampo’s goal is to alternate between Surprise Present and Ricochet Love to damage multiple enemies as well as bosses.

You can opt to change your team composition by making Sampo take on the role of a sub DPS with either Welt or Seele fulfilling the main DPS role since they deal impeccable damage against any enemy type, particularly Seele who gains an extra action when she kills one of them. But note that you’ll still retain Asta to continually boost everyone’s Speed Stat together with Natasha so she can keep supporting the team. 

When you unlock Planetary Ornaments, you’ll want to seek out the Pan-Galactic Commercial Enterprise 2-set piece to boost your Effect Hit Rate as well as your Attack. This synergizes effectively with the Eyes of the Prey Light Cone, which also significantly improves your Effect Hit Rate even at Superimposition 1. So the higher this stat is, the greater Sampo’s Wind Damage will be.

---

Stay tuned for more Honkai: Star Rail Character Guides and be sure to drop by our Twitch Channel if you have questions about the game. For more Honkai: Star Rail content, check out Yanqing Guide, Gepard Guide, Honkai: Star Rail Guide – F2P Characters Overview, Honkai: Star Rail Beginner Guide, and Honkai: Star Rail Gameplay Overview (F2P Turn-Based RPG).