Honkai Star Rail Beginner Guide
Apr. 25, 2023Honkai Star Rail Beginner Guide
Honkai: Star Rail Beginner Guide– In this Honkai: Star Rail Beginner Guide, we’re going to talk about the tips and tricks you can do early on to make the most out of your time in the game. If you’re searching for a guide that focuses on the free-to-play aspect of the content to optimize your experience without having to spend real money, then this article is for you!
Honkai: Star Rail has a lot of features that may be confusing for players, particularly those who aren’t familiar with similar systems inGenshin Impact. In this guide, we’ll focus on four essential things you’ll need to master right from the very start. We’ll discuss ways to level up your account efficiently, how to build a better team, what it means to succeed in combat, and what the different currencies are for. Without further ado, let’s begin!
Honkai: Star Rail features several activities that players will need to participate in to increase their Trailblaze Level effectively. This pertains to your Account level, which can hinder you from progressing in the game and unlocking various content if it’s too low. When you log into the game, I recommend doing the following activities in this order – Daily Training, Calyx Challenges, Missions, Treasure Hunts, Simulated Universe, and Operation Briefing.
Daily Training consists of 5 missions per day, which you’ll need to complete to gain 100-200 Activity Points. These are simple quests such as completing a Daily Mission and leveling up any Relic so you can do this alongside your main and side missions. A total of 500 Activity Points are needed to unlock rewards. As long as you complete this, you’ll be able to gather a total of 1,150 Trailblaze XP per day.
Next are Calyx Challenges where you’ll be defeating waves of enemies. To participate in a single wave, you’ll need to spend 10 Trailblaze Power, which is the Resin equivalent in Genshin Impact. The tricky part about this is it only regenerates 1x for every 6 minutes at a cap of 180 so there’s going to be a bit of a wait time. But for every finished Calyx, you’ll earn 50 Trailblaze XP. If you only do these challenges, you’ll receive 900 Trailblaze XP upon fully depleting the Trailblaze Power. Remember to trigger Auto-Battle when facing weak to average enemies and to speed up encounters so you can breeze through them.
Once you reach midgame though, you’re going to want to reevaluate how you wish to spend your Trailblaze Power since you’ll also unlock other activities that require it such as the Stagnant Shadow and Echo of War.
Another way to gain XP is by participating in main and side missions. They usually grant about 100-300 Trailblaze XP. Oftentimes, they’re given by characters who send messages to you but in case you hit a wall and run out of them, you’ll need to check the zones you’ve unlocked so far to see if there are new side quests available. While you’re at it, you’ll notice Treasure Chest icons on the Map. Opening these will also grant approximately 30 Trailblaze XP.
Next is the Simulated Universe, which is a roguelike mode where you’ll be pitted against random enemies and bosses. Every time you win these encounters, you’ll receive Blessings to boost your characters. When you complete a World for the first time, you instantly gain 600 Trailblaze XP in addition to the 300 XP since this is considered a mission.
And finally, you’ll gain 500 XP by claiming all Operation Briefing rewards. You can think of these as one-off bounties that once completed, will no longer be refreshed on the following day.
In Honkai: Star Rail, there are multiple Paths, which determine the playstyle of a character whether they’re more single-target or AoE focused in terms of dealing damage or if they can heal the party or not. Alongside this is a single element each one of them specializes in. It’s very important to remember that having way too many damage-dealing characters in your team would be detrimental to your success because oftentimes, they don’t have a high defense to survive longer in combat.
As such, there are three key points you’ll need to consider when building your team at the start. First is your Main Character, the Trailblazer, specifically the Destruction Path that specializes in dealing Physical Damage. The Destruction Path is an excellent all-rounder DPS that can inflict damage against single and multiple enemies. They’re also relatively resilient, meaning you won’t have to babysit them as often. Furthermore, you’re going to encounter a lot of enemies who are weak against the Physical Element during the early game, allowing you to effectively reduce their Toughness to zero and stagger them in the process.
The second point is Support or a character who generates a Shield to absorb damage or one who heals lost HP. This role is going to be very important in making sure that your team survives in combat, particularly for continuous activities where you’ll need to hop from one encounter to the next such as the Simulated Universe. The 4-star characters you’ll want to build in this section are March 7th or Natasha.
March 7th conjures a Shield based on her Defense Stat. She can also attack multiple enemies with her barrage of arrows to potentially freeze them in combat. Now, Ice is a very strong element in the game because when targets are frozen, they potentially lose their turn in combat. This will be helpful against bosses as well as mobs.
Next is Natasha who is an expert healer and deals Physical Damage against a single target on the side. She’s a nice alternative to March 7th, especially if the HP of your damage-dealing characters can barely keep up. But because her Elemental Type is Physical, you’ll need to make sure that the succeeding characters you select are going to be vastly different to cater to the enemy’s weaknesses.
The third point in building a good team is Synergy. With the DPS and Support characters mentioned above, you’ll want to add two more who will fit well in terms of their element and role. Here, you’ll want to consider picking Dan Heng, Herta, or Asta to serve as your secondary damage dealers. Dan Heng follows the Hunt Path so he’s great at dealing massive single-target Wind Damage, especially against bosses and regular enemies who are weak against this element.
On the other hand, Herta is an AoE Ice Damage Dealer. She’s an amazing character to start fights with because of her increased Ice Damage. Lastly is Asta. Not only can she effectively deal AoE Fire Damage but she can also boost the Speed stat of all allies using her Ultimate, allowing them to attack more often in combat.
Combat in Honkai: Star Rail generally starts out slow but as you progress, you’re going to have a tough time getting out alive. This is especially true in challenging activities such as the Simulated Universe where all of your characters must survive until the end to increase your chances of slaying the boss. Regardless of the game mode you’ve chosen, you’re going to want to familiarize yourself with the combat tips below in order to constantly win.
First, you’ll want to make use of Technique stacking. Doing so will give you a distinct advantage in combat from the very beginning. You can do this by activating passive Techniques first followed by an active Technique, which will allow you to immediately attack your target. For instance, Herta and Dan Heng have passives in which both of them can boost their attack power by almost 50% in their first few turns. As long as you have enough Technique points, you can opt to hit the enemy with an active Technique soon after. Such is the case with March 7th who has a 100% chance to freeze a random target once the encounter starts.
Second is related to the Speed stat of characters, which refers to their turn or Action Order in combat. To know how soon they’ll attack, be sure to set the “Whether to display the character’s action value during a battle” option to Display. The lower the corresponding Action Value is, the sooner their turn is. Now when you unlock Relics in the game, the default set you’re going to get is the Musketeer of Wild Wheat. It’s going to be important that your DPS characters wear all 4 Relics to boost their Speed stat by a certain percentage. This together with a Speed buff should increase the chances of you attacking more frequently than your enemies.
Last but not least is determining the right time to break the Toughness of bosses. Bosses have seemingly drawn-out moves that will take 2-3 turns to execute. One example is the lock-in or charge-on state where they pre-emptively target you in preparation for a devastating attack in the next turn. If you don’t have the opportunity to stagger them yet, then it’s best to conjure a Shield for that character and attempt to freeze the boss. But if their Toughness bar is very low and you have a Skill Point left or your Ultimate is ready, then it’s time to make use of them. As a result, you’ll break and stagger the target while canceling out their action entirely.
What’s more, is that their Action Value goes down as well so it will take some time before they can attack your team again. Remember that when you use your Ultimate during your turn, you’re still able to execute a Basic Attack or Skill so make sure to stack all of these.
Honkai: Star Rail follows a similar system to Genshin Impact so you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the currencies available in order to spend them wisely. For starters, you have the most common currency in the form of Credits that you’ll spend to level up and ascend your characters and Light Cones, respectively.
Next is the Stellar Jade, which is a premium in-game currency that you earn by playing and claiming rewards. This is an important currency because it’s what you primarily use to purchase the Star Rail Special Pass and Star Rail Pass. Each of these costs 160 Stellar Jades. Stellar Jades are obtained from rewards like Achievements, Operation Briefing, and Treasure Chests. You can even obtain 80 of them at a time by unlocking a set number of Blessings on top of first World clears in the Simulation Universe.
Although Stellar Jades can be traded to gain additional Trailblaze Power in order to run more Calyxs, I would dissuade you from doing so even if they’re abundant at the start. You’re going to want to save as many Passes as possible to gain stronger characters and Light Cones.
Star Rail Special Pass is spent on time-limited Event Warps while Star Rail Pass is best used for the Starter Warp. The most generous Warp out of all of these is the Starter Warp in which you’re guaranteed to receive a 5-star character within 50 pulls. If you’re lucky enough and you get the character way before doing all pulls, you can now move on to Event Warps since these are only available for a certain duration. Additionally, the Starter Warp itself will disappear.
Since this is a gacha game, you’ll often pull duplicate characters and Light Cones in the process. Doing so will yield Undying Starlight and Undying Ember. You can spend these currencies via the Store Menu on your phone. For instance, you can buy more Passes, specific characters, and Light Cones, which you can then use to improve their Eidolons and to Superimpose passive abilities, respectively.
Next are Herta Bonds, which you get from the Simulated Universe. This currency will allow you to purchase 5-star Light Cones from Herta’s Store. And last but not least is Hertareum that’s obtained from Adventure Missions. You can use them to buy the Shadow of Destruction to upgrade the Eidolon of your Main Character as well as some 4-star Relics. Spending a certain amount of Hertareum in the World Shop every time will also yield rewards such as Stellar Jade, Adventure Log to raise character XP, and Condensed Aether to increase Light Cone XP.
Stay tuned for more Honkai: Star Rail Guides, and be sure to drop by ourTwitch Channelif you have questions about the game. What are your thoughts about Honkai: Star Rail? Will you jump into the game on day 1? Which character are you going to fully level up first? Let us know in the comments below! For other content, check outJagged Alliance 3 Preview (Turn-Based RPG)andElder Scrolls Online Necrom Preview – Arcanist Class and More!.
Reiku
Writer at Fextralife. I enjoy playing RPGs, narrative-driven games, and platformers. Outside of gaming, I like watching meaningful movies and reading sci-fi and dystopian books.
