Honkai Star Rail Beginner Tips & Tricks

Honkai: Star Rail is a turn-based RPG developed by HoYoverse, and it’s easily one of the biggest and most exciting game releases of 2023. It’s a fairly easy game to pick up, but you’ll want to make sure to hit the ground running and give yourself the best possible start. Here are some key beginner tips and tricks to help you succeed in Honkai: Star Rail.

Level Up Your Characters Wisely

Like any other free-to-play gacha game, Honkai: Star Rail showers you with tons of resources when you’re first getting started, but you’ll find that they dry up pretty quickly as you continue playing. It can be tempting to pour all your leveling resources and materials into whatever new character comes your way, but do practice some restraint.

Leveling resources are scarce, and you’ll want to get in some playtime with each character you unlock to see how they fit into your party formation and if you even like their play style in the first place before you invest in them. Increasing their Eidolon levels via dupes can also be a huge factor in determining whether you should level them up, so make sure you spend some time studying each new character before spending those precious resources.

Upgrade Your Light Cones

Unlike characters, Light Cones are almost always worth investing in, especially since they can be equipped on virtually any character in the game. Of course, do make sure to pay attention to the perks on each Light Cone, as some of them have abilities and benefits that only get activated when equipped on certain characters.

There are two ways to upgrade your Light Cones: by leveling them regularly, or by Superimposing them with dupes. Superimposing a Light Cone will enhance the abilities, while leveling them requires you to consume other Light Cones (they don’t have to be duplicates) to increase their raw power.

Create Relic Sets

Just like in Genshin Impact, you can also farm for various Relics in Honkai: Star Rail. The main sets come with four pieces for the head, body, arms, and feet. And as you might expect, creating a complete set (getting two or four pieces) will give you a set bonus and enhance its performance in combat.

Aside from getting a matching set, you’ll also want to pay attention to the main stats on each piece, and this is where things can get a little granular. While the head and arms pieces will always have the same main stats, the body piece can have HP, defense, attack, crit damage, crit rate, outgoing healing boost, and effect hit rate as a main stat. Similarly, the feet pieces can have HP, attack, defense, speed, or break effect as a main stat.

Keep the possible stat rolls in mind as you start farming for Relics, especially if you’re trying to min-max your characters.

Spend Your Stamina

Honkai: Star Rail isn’t quite as stamina-dependent as other gacha games, but there is still a stamina system you need to be aware of. There are three different types of dungeons you can spend your stamina on: Calyx Golden, Calyx Crimson, and Stagnant Shadow.

Calyx Golden is where you can get leveling materials, while Crimson is where you’ll get Trace upgrade materials. Finally, Stagnant Shadow is where you’ll get character ascension materials. We don’t recommend spending your stamina on the Golden dungeon, as you’ll be able to get more experience and leveling materials from playing through the game, so try to spend them on the other two dungeons instead.

Your stamina will replenish over time, but try to make sure you’re never sitting at the cap for too long to maximize your resources.

Run the Simulated Universe

The Simulated Universe in Honkai: Star Rail’s version of a labyrinth mode, with minor rogue-lite elements to help keep each run feeling fresh and distinct from the last one. These are fairly easy to clear, and we recommend running them regular each week to hit the 10,000 point cap.

With all these points accummulated, you can then spend them to purchase various items and resources to help with account progression. Simulated Universe runs can take a while when you’re first getting started, but you’ll eventually get into the groove of things and you’ll be able to clear them fairly quickly, especially as your characters get stronger.