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Hi gamers, yesterday I got my first 30 star MOC clear and thus I am fully qualified to make this guide. 
But seriously, I’ve been 36 starring Genshin abyss for a long time so I’m no stranger to Hoyo games 
and now that I’ve competed the MOC struggle, I’ve learned a lot and am ready to share this knowledge with all of you! 

At the start of star rail, there was quite a bit of bad advice going around, for example, 
people said to run an ER rope on Jing Yuan simply because he has a 130 energy cost ult. 
That aged like fine milk. I remember this so clearly because it was the reason I used a 
self modeling resin to make an inert salsotto ER rope for him specifically. Never again. 

So, let’s get started. 

SPEED
Why do we hear we need speed so often? What are the thresholds for speed that we should aim to hit and why? 
I’m going to give the following opinions based on MOC gameplay and clearing. 

So first, the threshold to get 2 turns for a character in the first cycle is to have a minimum of 134 speed. 
The other one being 120 for moving 3 times in the first 2 cycles as well as the 2 ornament sets SSS and Fleet of Ageless. 
Now, who needs speed and why? 

Let’s tackle Bronya first since she has the most complex speed tuning of all supports thus far. 
I personally am using slow Bronya since it fits so well with my Blade. 
The other version of her, fast Bronya, wants at least 150 speed. 
The idea with fast Bronya is so she can use her basic attack, put herself behind your DPS, 
then use her skill to give them a second action. 
This is also paired with the 4 piece eagle set so when she uses her ult, 
she will be advanced forward to keep up this cycle. 
This setup also gives her more energy since she can act more often. 

Now I will explain why I will most likely never run fast Bronya. 
Bronya requires a CDMG chest piece, this matters because that’s a piece I won’t be able to run HP or DEF on, 
making her squishier. I don’t want to to run 4 piece eagle either since I would rather she survive
 (not to mention it would also mess up my rotation) so I run 2 piece dmg reduction and 
am working towards a 2 piece def set. If you’ve made it to the 2nd half of stage 10, 
you know how annoying it can be to get combo’d by the disciple and Kafka. 

The other reason is viability. How easy is it to get the needed speed?
 The payoff for fast and squishy Bronya is NOT worth the effort for me personally. 
Now I know I have her LC, I got very lucky on the standard banner. 
However, this will be achievable for everyone since we can buy her LC from the shop! 
And many people will have enough by now if they haven’t been spending their shop currency. 

Now, you may have caught on that I am building my characters the easiest and most versatile way. 

So we all know we should be running SPEED boots for our supports no matter what. 
This is so they can do their job before our DPS acts. Whether or not they hit 134 is 
not important in the beginning, only that they are faster than our DPS. 
End game builds should aim for hitting the 134 speed threshold so they can get extra 
energy before the next cycle and help generate skill points.

DPSes will differ based on who they want as supports and what their base speed is. 
For someone like Seele, she doesn’t need speed boots since she has innate speed boosting mechanics as a Hunt character, 
as does Sushang and Dan Heng. My Sushang is not running speed boots, 
and she can move plenty to do enough dmg even without Asta. 

However, for Erudition and Destruction characters, it’s a bit different. 
We all know Blade and Jing Yuan have low base speeds, but since Blade is skill point efficient, 
he can run HP boots so Bronya can use her skill every single time to give him a second turn.

An early build Jing Yuan will want speed boots as well to hit the 120 speed mark, 
and you really don’t want to drop below this since he will want the extra turn to give more stacks to LL. 
Even running him with Asta, I will keep his speed at a minimum of 120, 
but I won’t bother trying for 134 because that will cause me to sacrifice too many offensive stats and is not worth it. 
As long as he has 7 or 8 stacks of LL so that his passive is triggered, I’m happy.

An end game Jing Yuan may still use speed boots, but ideally to min max him you would run ATK boots 
and just get enough speed on substats or rely on Asta. 
Getting those subs will probably be difficult to do for a long time, so just running speed and 
getting ATK% subs also work. Aim to hit at least 2.5k ATK for any DPS.

Hook is in the same boat as Jing Yuan, but she is even slower, with a base speed of 94 so she will always have speed boots. 

So now that we’re well acquainted with speed, I’m sure you know how to determine 
whether or not to run speed boots on any character. Quiz time! Does Clara want speed boots? 
The answer is no, she wants her supports to move first, buff her, then let the enemies move so they can hit her and she can counter. 

Does Himeko or Herta want speed boots? Hint: these two are AOE and have follow-up attacks. 
The answer is no. Their follow up attacks help generate energy in the first place so it’s not like
 they want to move fast to constantly generate energy. Their dmg also benefits far more from offensive stats
 to have harder hits and clear a cycle rather than lose a cycle because you wanted them to move one more turn every few cycles. 
This is especially important in the first cycle of MOC. 
Are you really going to sacrifice offensive stats to get 134 speed when supports like Asta exists 
and can give her all the speed she needs? Same thing with Herta.

 I’m not going to address Yukong in detail because by now we are able to determine how much speed a character needs, 
if they need it at all, based on their role and when we want them to move. 
But if you’re still having trouble, no worries, it’s not that difficult with Yukong, 
it can just be difficult to slot her into any random team and have her work exactly as intended. 
What that means is before her E6, you speed tune her for one DPS at a time, 
just check where she moves in the rotation before starting. 
So it’ll look like this (1 - 2 - Yukong - DPS) or (1 - Yukong - 3 - DPS) 
that’s not their placement in the party setup but when they will move based on their speed. 

SUPPORTS
Moving on to how to build any support. 
I’ve seen people make units like Tingyun and Pela hit quite hard, 
and even heard people say that because Pela’s multipliers are good and she can do dmg, she should be built as such. 
I don’t agree with this. 
Every single one of your supports should be running as many defensive stats as possible. 
I’m sure that as I say this, someone somewhere is building a DPS Pela.

Ask yourself this, what are the requirements to get 3 stars in MOC? 
One of them is to not have a single character die. 
The Harmony and Nihility paths have medium taunt, with Erudition and Hunt being the lowest. 

150: Preservation
125: Destruction & Abundance
100: Harmony & Nihility
75: Hunt & Erudition

This means they are more likely to get hit over your DPS. 
I’m leaving Destruction out of this since very few people use Hook or Arlan, and honestly, for good reason, 
they don’t feel good to use for what you get. 
But if you do use them, protect them at all costs since they both hate living in their own way.

The only variance you’ll see is in what relic sets supports will use. For Asta, 4 piece messenger is a no brainer. 
But could you use it on Bronya? Yes, however Bronya’s speed tuning can actually get messed up 
by the 4 piece Messenger effect since her base speed is higher than that of some DPSes like Blade, Hook, or Himeko. 

Tingyun is the same as Bronya, she should be running one ATK% piece, 
whether it be on the body piece or orb depends on what you have. 
She’ll then need both the 2 DMG reduction set and 2 DEF set with another defensive piece. 
It’s not worth running 4 Musketeer set on her hoping for godtier DEF and HP substat rolls, but if you happen to have those, grats!

Pela can take advantage of a set effect such as the Break Effect set if you so choose, 
but based on my experience in MOC, it’s still better to run her completely defensively. 

Please, forget about DPS Pela, just let her live.

Remember, your supports are running SPEED boots and an ER rope, 
so it’s really only 2 pieces max that they can use to become tankier, and only 1 piece for Tingyun, 
hence, the importance of the 2 defensive sets I’ve been recommending. 

(HP - ATK - HP%/DEF% - SPEED) + (HP%/DEF% - ERR)

But what about Yukong again! She has great dmg multipliers and I’ve seen her do crazy dmg! 
I’d ask the same question, what role does she need to fulfill in your team right now? 
What’s going with it? Do you lack dmg and are surviving fine, 
or are you dying too often without even getting the chance to do dmg?

HEALERS!
They’re very similar to supports. 

First, what does their healing scale off? 
So far we have ATK and HP, so use whatever 2 piece relic that fits that, then run either DEF or DMG reduction if you need it. 
They will also need the SPEED boot and ER Rope duo.

For Natasha and Bailu, it’s quite straightforward to go HP for the body and orb piece, but for an ATK scaling unit like Luocha? 

As someone who owns a Luocha, his healing at lvl 7 talent with 2.4k ATK is more than enough. 
Luocha very easily overheals and doesn’t need to go full ATK so use defensive pieces for his last 2 slots. 
He only has 100 cost ult and his reaction healing generated energy so he doesn’t need an ER rope. 
As Abundance, he has a high chance to get hit and if you’re not using him with a Destruction DPS, 
he will have the highest taunt on the team. 

PRESERVATION
For our 3 tanks available, they all have one thing in common, debuffing. 
That’s right, Gepard and March can freeze, and MC’s Taunt skill is actually a debuff, relying on Effect Hit Rate to work.

Does that mean you should give them EHR chest pieces? 

We will ask ourselves the same question as before; what is going on with the team? 
What do you need? 
Do you absolutely need Gepard or March to land their freeze, 
does your MC’s Taunt keep failing? What is killing your run? 

For me, Gepard freezing or not freezing the witches in the 3rd wave of MOC10 was not the issue, 
but him getting imprisoned was. 
He had 50% Effect RES but still got CC’d from time to time so during that time I had to hope his lingering shield could hold out.

Is your March’s shield breaking instantly? 
Or are you going up against multiple enemies and they keep staying unfrozen? 
Since her shield is skill based, you could potentially drop the ER rope for DEF and go for EHR chest piece.

Fire MC needs to land their Taunt, so some EHR is needed. 
Otherwise, if the boss is ends up resisting the Taunt and goes for someone else, 
even with the DMG reduction from their kit, that could kill your run. 

This is assuming ofc you’re running the standard 1 sustain 2 supports 1 DPS team. 
2 sustains tends to slow the run too much to be able to clear within 20 cycles, I would know, I tried using Natasha with Gepard.

We also have an upcoming Preservation character, Fu Xuan. 
Now, I won’t mention leaks, but when she does come out we’ll be able to ask ourselves the same questions 
to figure out how to build her to best suit our acc needs. 
Will she also have a debuffing part in her kit? Will she be able to do any dmg? 
How can we build her to solo-sustain a team? 
Remember, the job of a Preservation character is to keep the entire team alive, not just themselves. 

DPS time!

And also the shortest part! 

We have 3 types of damage dealers so far, the standard, the Blade special, and the DOT teams.

Standard DPSes use the holy trinity of ATK CRIT & ELE ORB, get those as high as you can with around 120 speed. Done.

Blade is the same just with HP instead of ATK. 
I gave him his own category because he also functions as the tank, like, a true tank 
and not the weird spot Hook or Arlan are in also being Destruction 
but unable to take dmg unless unaliving themselves is the goal.

Kafka’s DOT teams will focus primarily on high ATK, and for Kafka herself, 
high speed so she can use her skill more often to trigger the applied DOTs, 
give herself more energy to ult and also trigger DOTs. 
It’s fine to build crit on her, but that should be an afterthought. 
Go for main stat first on the right set and save the tearjerking substat hunting for later.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

In general, we want our supports to survive and move before our DPS if their job is to buff us or debuff the enemy. 
Bronya is the only exception thus far moving behind our DPS to give them a second turn.

We want our sustains to be fast enough to keep up with our team so the enemy doesn’t take too many turns 
hitting the team without them being able to do anything about it.
 And they should also have high Effect RES to not get CC’d because that could end a run. 
If a support gets CC’d that slows a run but doesn’t necessarily end it.

Aside from getting CC’d, some really nasty debuffs that could be placed on your team include, 
DEF reduction to the point where you have near 0 DEF. 
Speed reduction up to 36% (so far). 
10 stacks of bleed.
 So keep an eye on the status of your team in MOC and adjust accordingly to it.

For example, the current MOC 10 has the ice frog dude that does the 36% speed reduction. 
When that hits, I switch from prioritizing Tingyun’s skill to using Asta’s more so she can ult consistently 
and keep up the speed buff to counter the debuff. 

Did a character get a bunch of stacks of windshear and you weren’t paying attention? 
Or against that Svarog fight the mech applied a bunch of bleed? 

Along with paying attention to your status, pay close attention to the turn order and turn action values if you haven’t. 
You don’t have to worry about those exact values and what they mean, 
but for learning purposes it’s useful to have it on at all times to get used to seeing it. 

One way I got around not getting combo’d by Kafka was using Welt’s ult in between her attacks, 
so after her first hit but cutting in before the second one. 
This also prevented anyone from getting dominated. 
At this point I was just trying to have the team stay alive so I started using Bronya’s basic attack for skill points
 if I needed to do extra healing with Luocha.

This just means, don’t get greedy for dmg. Do what you need to survive first, then do dmg. 

If a single character dies, there goes your 3 stars.

I hope this guide to helped you by simplifying things. 

No complicated jargon or too many numbers.
 In-depth guides will always exist, but not everything they say will necessarily be true or useful to your situation. 
Just look at early guides telling us to use ER rope on Jing Yuan. 

It’s important to develop enough knowledge and confidence to make our own calls. 

I’ll give an example for us Genshin players.
In Genshin, whenever someone gave tips on how to build Raiden, they always say just use the Catch, 
never once mentioning the Wavebreaker, another 4 star polearm that is literally her 2nd best in slot
 after her signature weapon. 
At R3 it outdamages R1 Homa by a good amount. 
But why is it never recommended? 
You only need around 200ER on Raiden anyway. 
You get 20% from the set, 51% from the sands and 32% from her ascension for a total of 183% ER.
 I’m not saying everyone should have the Wavebreaker, just that guide makers always overlook it. 
It’s like we’re in this echo-chamber sometimes repeating the same information 
when there are better choices we can make. 

To end off, Aquila Favonia Bennett is the dumbest Bennett I’ve ever seen 
and he should have fav sword at all times with ATK sands and CR circlet, goodbye.