Honkai: Star Rail Frequently Asked Questions, Answered

Honkai: Starway is a new game from Hoyoverse, the people behind it Genshin Impact And Honkai Impact 3. The game features a fantasy space odyssey storyline with turn-based combat, and you can play it without spending a single dime on gacha.

If you are unfamiliar with mobile gacha games or just confused by the terms Honkai: Starway used, we’re here to help. We’ve compiled some of the questions Polygon staff have had while playing and answer them below.

---

What is the gameplay loop for Honkai: Star Rail?

With a party of four characters, you fight enemies in turn-based battles and progress through main story quests and side quests. In order to strengthen your characters and cones of light (weapons), you must fight certain enemies that drain your Trailblaze Power (stamina that refills over time). It becomes a cycle of logging in, doing a few daily quests, and grinding to power up your characters and give them better gear.

What is the story of Honkai: Star Rail?

The Pathfinder (you) mysteriously awakens after being created with a Stellaron. Stellarons are powerful sources of energy that can cause disasters, but the Trailblazer is able to communicate with them and harness their power without doing anything super horrid (or we’ve seen that so far). You join the Astral Express crew as they fly around the stars in their train and prevent all the catastrophes that are coming due to Stellarons on different planets.

Do I need to spend money in Honkai: Star Rail to be successful?

No. The entire story will be playable with four-star characters, so you don’t have to spend any money to play.

However, advanced content like Simulated Universe and Forgotten Hall will be Easier with five star characters. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t beat it with less rare characters. There are already videos of beta players playing Forgotten Hall with only four-star characters, so it’s not impossible. However, it will be more difficult.

Is Honkai: Star Rail like Genshin Impact or Honkai Impact 3rd?

Many of the similarities between Honkai: Starway, Genshin Impact And Honkai Impact 3 is because of the mobile RPG genre more than any other reason. Honkai: Starway shares many features with mobile games (including Genshin Impact), like stamina-based farming and unlocking characters via gacha.

There are a few things that look almost the same Genshin Impact, like the character screen and other UI elements. If you know your way around genshin already, you will quickly get used to it Honkai: Starway solely thanks to the UI layout.

Image: Hoyoverse via Polygon

The gameplay loop (as mentioned above) is very similar to both Hoyoverse titles, but that should be noted Honkai: Starway is not an open world game and does not have active multiplayer like How Genshin Impact does.

How to find Calyx/Stagnant Shadow/Cavern of Corrosion/Echo of War?

You can find these marked on your map and teleport to them, but since Honkai: Star Rail doesn’t use an open world map, finding exactly what you’re looking for quickly can be a hassle. We recommend simply using the Insterastral Guide’s Survival Index tab, which you can access from the main menu, or by tapping on the rectangle with a ring in the top right corner.

How do I top up Trailblaze Power?

just be patient It takes six minutes to charge one and 18 hours to charge the full set of 180.

You can also use Stellar Jade to refill your resin up to eight times a day. 50 Stellar Jade regenerates 60 Trailblaze Power. You can also use fuel, a reward for completing Battle Pass missions, and other bonuses to charge up 60 Trailblaze Power.

How to charge a technique in Honkai: Star Rail?

You should hit those glowing purple canisters you see on maps to refill your technique points. Each restores two technique points.

Image: Hoyoverse via Polygon

How do I increase my balance level?

At certain Trailblaze levels (your account level), you will be prompted to increase your balance level. This will make the enemies around you a bit tougher, but it also allows you to make your characters stronger. Simply level up your Trailblaze and pay attention to your quest log to unlock higher balance levels.

Specifically, you must be at balance level three to start farming five star relics.

How to cook in Honkai: Star Rail?

As you progress through the early game, Pom-Pom will teach you how to synthesize, that is Honkai: Starway‘s version of cooking. After he teaches you how to cook, you can access the synthesize feature from the in-game menu to cook whenever you want, as long as you have the ingredients.

What is the support character doing in profile?

Instead of using four of your own characters, you can borrow other people’s characters as long as they are set as your support characters. Whoever you set as your support character, other people can borrow from you.

For example, if I have a fully built Bronya, I can set her as my support character and other players can borrow her to use in their own fights.

You cannot use support characters in Forgotten Hall or Simulated Universe.

Do your own characters have weaknesses against certain combat types?

nope Enemies have weaknesses, but your characters don’t, so don’t worry about being countered.

How do I find out a monster’s weakness?

All enemies have their weaknesses displayed above their heads. You can also check enemy weaknesses in the database accessible from the main menu.

Image: Hoyoverse via Polygon

Which character should I level first?

It’s up to you, but most of the characters on your team should level up right away. The launch characters you get are actually pretty useful. The only thing we strongly recommend starting out is to make sure you have either a shield or a healer on your team. March 7th and Natasha are both provided to you free of charge and each fit into these roles.

Should I roll on the beginner gacha warp banner?

The consensus is kind of split on whether or not you should do this. The Beginner Banner is discounted (it costs eight Star Rail Passes instead of 10 for 10 draws). After 50 turns (40 Star Rail Passes) you are guaranteed a random five star character from the regular banner. The regular Warp Banner allows you to choose a standard five-star character once if you make a whopping 300 moves.

Based on personal experience on Hoyoverse games alone, I’d recommend just pulling the beginner’s warp with any Star Rail Passes you’ve been given. Don’t turn your Stellar Jade into extra passes – only use the passes the game actually gives you. After that, you can use any additional Star Rail Passes for the standard warp.

300 moves is a lot, and unless you’re planning on spending money on this game, it might take a while to collect the Star Rail Passes to reach that goal, even with the plentiful starting rewards Hoyoverse doles out.

Ultimately based on Genshin ImpactPower Creep will be plentiful Honkai: Starway. Whatever characters you get out of the beginner or standard warp, they’ll be useful in the beginning, but it’s a question if they’ll be useful six months from now or beyond. That means if you don’t get the strongest character to begin with, maybe the meta will change and they’ll be more useful across the board.

Whether or not you should use the 40 passes that would lead to the default warp on the beginner’s warp is up to you and how much you value certain five-star characters over others. Which brings us to the next question…

Which Honkai: Star Rail characters are the strongest at launch?

Most players point out that Welt and Bronya are the best default warp characters because their debuffs and buffs are extremely useful. However, this may change as more characters are released and the meta changes over time.

As I write this DPS Calculator have Seele and Jing Yuan at the top of the single-target and multi-target charts, respectively. That means you don’t have to search for these characters, as there are four-star characters like Sushang and Serval that can still dish out big numbers if built right. These calculators also rely on specific builds and situations that you may not use.

All in all, this will all change as patches are released, so we don’t recommend betting on a character this early unless you really like them.

---

If you have any other questions, drop them below and we can do our best to answer them based on what we know from the game’s beta.