Honkai Star Rail: Beginners Guide

Here is a complete beginner’s guide to HoYoverse’s next release Honkai Star Rail along with everything that beginners need to know about the game.

Contents

The Honkai: StarRail role-playing game is the fourth and final installment of the Honkai series, developed by HoYoverse. The graphical quality of this game and those of another HoYoverse blockbuster game, Genshin Impact, are remarkably comparable to one another. Both versions of the game have several gameplay aspects in common as well.

Honkai Star Rail is not very challenging to become good at. Because both the game’s gameplay mechanics and its fighting system are rather straightforward, everyone will have an easier time learning them and will be able to do it more quickly.

Even though it is a simple game to pick up and play, Honkai Star Rail offers a wealth of details for players just starting out. If a person has previous experience with playing any of the other Honkai games, then everything will make a lot more sense to them. In this article, we will cover everything that is necessary for beginners to understand Honkai Star Rail.

Honkai Star Rail: Gameplay Details

The gameplay principles of Honkai Star Rail are very similar to those of Genshin Impact in many respects. The game includes characters of different paths, and each character is placed into a category according to how rare they are. It utilizes gacha concepts very similar to those seen in Genshin Impact, allowing players to randomly choose characters with varying rarities according to the in-game elements that they are using at the time of character selection.

The fighting system in Honkai Star Rail is based on turn-based mechanics. Players have access to a variety of attacks, depending on the talents they have at their disposal and the capabilities of the characters they choose to utilize. Because enemies will also do a significant amount of harm to the characters, the level of strength possessed by these characters is an important factor in this combat method.

A unique and one-of-a-kind method of character advancement is included in Honkai Star Rail as well. It comes with a variety of various pieces of equipment, such as Relics and Light Cones, each of which has a certain role to play in the game.

Honkai Star Rail: Paths and Characters

Path functions in Honkai Star Rail much the same way as character classes do. The Honkai Star Rail game has a total of 14 various paths. At the moment, only seven of them may be played.

Abundance

Characters from this Path can heal wounded allies, making them indispensable in long battles. Characters of this class are:

Bailu
Luocha
Natasha

Destruction

Characters of this Path excel at attacking from the front. They are the strongest when fighting alone in battle. Characters of this class are:

Arlan
Blade
Clara
Hook

Erudition

Characters of this Path have exceptional multi-target, AoE damage. Use their abilities at the right time to turn the tide of battle. Characters of this class are:

Herta
Himeko
Jing Yuan
Qingque
Serval

Harmony

Characters of this Path provide buffs to their allies and cooperate with allies to boost the party’s overall battle power. Characters of this class are:

Asta
Bronya
Tingyun

Hunt

Characters of this Path have extraordinary single-target damage, which is critical in blitz battles. Characters of this class are:

Dan Heng
Seele
Sushang
Yanqing

Nihility

Characters from this Path will debuff their enemies and gain an advantage by reducing the enemy’s overall battle power. Characters of this class are:

Kafka
Pela
Sampo
Silver Wolf
Welt

Preservation

Characters from this Path have powerful defensive capabilities, which can protect allies in many ways. Characters of this class are:

Fu Xuan
Gepard
March 7th

The other non-playable Paths are:

Beauty
Elation
Enigmata
Propagator
Remembrance
Trailblaze
Voracity

Honkai Star Rail: Elements

Each character in Honkai Star Rail is categorized using elements as well just like Genshin Impact. There are seven available elements in Honkai Star Rail.

Physical
Fire
Ice
Lightning
Wind
Quantum
Imaginary

Honkai Star Rail: Combat Mechanism

Players have a variety of options available to them to choose from while engaged in turn-based combat. In the beginning, they can do damage to enemies by using primary attacks, but later on, they may also employ more powerful skill abilities.

However, in order to use these skills, you will need skill points, which you may get by performing basic strikes while engaged in combat. Up to five skill points may be held by each player, and these points are distributed among the members of the team. Players won’t be able to make use of their skill talents if they don’t have enough skill points.

honkai star rail combat — Credit: HoYoverse

Players also have access to ultimate powers, which cause enormous damage to foes and are used at the end of a battle. It is in the player’s best interest to make use of these abilities only when they have reached their maximum charge. However, if a player uses their ultimate powers when it is not their turn, those skills will become active as soon as the current round concludes.

Players have the option of employing numerous ultimate powers at once in order to maximize their effect; however, doing so costs energy. Players may get energy by utilizing their skill abilities and basic attacks, beating foes, and collecting light cones and character effects. They can also gain energy by devouring opponents. Enhancing a character’s energy restoration rate stats might also result in an increase in the quantity of energy the character earns.

Types of Attacks

Normal Attack

Normal attacks are the basic attacks of the characters. There are no cooldowns on this attack, which gives the players a chance to use Normal Attack whenever they want.

Skill Attack

Skill Attack is one of the most powerful attacks of each character. Each character possesses a certain skill. According to their type, players can use the skills of these characters to contribute to the fullest during any battle.

Ultimate Attack

This is the strongest attack of each character. When activated during turns, characters can use their ultimate attacks to deal a serious amount of damage to the enemies. With every basic attack, the ultimate attack also gets refilled.

Honkai Star Rail: Elemental Weaknesses

Enemies in Honkai Star Rail are weak against a few elements. Before heading out to the battle, players must learn about their enemies and their weaknesses in order to win the battles. Here are all the elements and enemy weaknesses against the elements.

Element	Weakness
Physical	Deals Physical damage. Applies Bleed, dealing Physical damage over time.
Fire	Deals Fire damage. Applies Burn, dealing Fire damage over time.
Wind	Deals Wind damage. Applies the Wind Shear effect, dealing Wind damage over time.
Lightning	Deals Lightning damage. Applies Shock, dealing Lightning damage over time.
Ice	Deals Ice damage. Applies the Frozen effect, thereby immobilizing the enemy and dealing Ice damage over time.
Quantum	Deals Quantum damage. Applies Entanglement, delaying the opponent’s turn and dealing Quantum damage over time.
Imaginary	Deals Imaginary damage. Applies Imprisonment, reducing the opponent’s speed and causing action delays.

Honkai Star Rail: Character Progression

Traces

Each character has a skill upgrade tree which is called the Trace. Players can unlock the nodes of this tree-like structure to unlock several stat bonuses, extra passive abilities, and enhancements for the skills of each character.

Traces need to be upgraded by using certain materials. These materials can be found in Cocoon of Distortion, mission rewards, or purchased in the shop. However, how many traces can be upgraded depends on the ascension level of each character. So make sure you have ascended your character to a specific level before upgrading traces.

Eidolons

Eidolons can be used to enhance the abilities of the characters in Honkai Star Rail by providing them with unique passive abilities. Every character has six Eidolons, and each of these can be enhanced using materials.

Eidolon upgrades can be unlocked by obtaining duplicate copies of the character from the gacha system or through in-game missions and events. This process is different in the case of the main Trailblazer character, who can be upgraded fully through the Account Level upgrade.

Light Cones

Light Cones are equivalent to weapons in Honkai Star Rail. These cards can be equipped to the characters to unlock stats boost and extra passive upgrade. Each light cone is associated with its own unique path.

All light cones can be equipped by every character. However, only the characters associated with the light cone’s path will experience the effect. Light Cones can also be further upgraded for bonus stats boost by using materials.