Honkai: Star Rail is a turn-based RPG created by Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse. As a new player, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the playable characters, missions, combat style, and warps—although it can be overwhelming. Seeing a person struggling to deal with all these intricate gameplay systems is pretty common. But don’t worry; this Honkai: Star Rail Beginner’s Guide will help you get started!
Do Your Quests
For new players, it is recommended to focus on completing Trailblaze Missions, which are the main quests. These missions unlock new gameplay features like the Simulated Universe and the Forgotten Hall. It is the goals or objectives of the game.
Additionally, completing Daily Missions is also important as they refresh every day and award 200 Activity Points which can be claimed in the Guide menu. Daily Missions offer an easy source of Trailblaze Experience, Stellar Jade, and Credits.
Combat Basics
One thing you should know about Star Rail is its turn-based combat system. It’s not like Genshin Impact or Honkai Impact 3 where you’re free to button smash the normal attacks and skills. Each character and enemy will take turns in performing an action, where you can choose whether to perform a Normal Attack or activate a Skill.
You’ll be running a team of four characters and rarely encounter solo enemies. So make sure that you have both single- and multi-target characters in your roster to be prepared for any encounter.
The only time when you won’t have to wait for your turn is when you activate a character’s Ultimate. Once you see the circle icon beside the character light up, press the corresponding button to activate their Ultimates. Even if it’s the enemy’s turn, you can still pop an Ultimate and interfere, immediately turning the tides in your favor.
Elements and Paths
In Honkai: Star Rail, each character belongs to a specific Element and Path type—a common trope of RPGs. The former is as straightforward as it gets. It determines the character’s elemental attack type and resistance.
While the latter determines their role in battle. With it, you can quickly tell whether a character is best suited for dealing damage or providing support.
The Elements are as follows:
- Physical
- Fire
- Wind
- Lightning
- Ice
- Quantum
- Imaginary
Meanwhile, the Paths are the following:
- The Destruction: DPS
- The Hunt: single-target DPS
- The Erudition: multi-target DPS
- The Harmony: buffer
- The Preservation: debuffer
- The Abundance: healer
Create Your Starter Team
Choosing a suitable team composition is crucial to winning battles in Honkai: Star Rail. If you know the weaknesses of your enemies, choose the Elements of your team members accordingly. If not, it’s best to deploy four different Elements.
Selecting the right Paths requires less knowledge of your opponents. In most cases, it’s recommended to include the following Path types:
- One or more Destruction, Hunt, or Erudition characters for maximum damage.
- One Preservation or Abundance character to protect your teammates and give them healing whenever needed.
- One or more Nihility or Harmony characters to buff your team or debuff the enemies.
When you begin the game, you will receive four characters for free: Trailblazer (the main character), March 7th, Dan Heng, and Asta. This team fulfills all the criteria mentioned earlier, making it an excellent choice for beginners! If you want to get more characters, you will need to use the Warp system.
Level Up Your Characters
Since you’re just starting out in the game, you need to level up your characters and ascend them to improve their base stats. You’d see this tip in almost all beginner’s guide articles like this. Here are some of the upgrade materials that you need to get:
- Stellar Jade
- Trailblaze EXP
- Character EXP
- Light Cone EXP
- Relic EXP
- Trace and Ascension Materials
Make sure all your characters have Light Cones and Relics equipped; you can unlock the latter when you reach Trailblazer Level 14. The Light Cones will serve as the character’s weapon, while the Relics are their equipment—it gives your characters a boost in stats and set effects.
Other In-Game Content
Aside from the plethora of quests, there are also other in-game activities that you can do in Honkai: Star Rail. They are as follows:
- Calyx Challenge
- Players enter a combat challenge in exchange for Trailblaze Power. If you’re successful, you gain Trailblazer EXP, Character EXP, Light Cone EXP, and Credits.
- Simulated Universe
- Players enter a combat challenge with various stages. This universe regularly resets, and you can repeatedly take this challenge on. Do note that you can only unlock this on Trailblaze Level 23 and when you complete the quest “Universe in a Nutshell.”
- Forgotten Hall
- Players enter a combat challenge with various stages. You can only unlock this after completing the quest “Fleeting Lights.” This mode has two stage types: “Memory” and “Memory of Chaos.” The first one has stages that will unlock the further you progress, while the second one has higher difficulty with content and better rewards.
- Time-Limited Events
- These are similar to those in Genshin Impact. You must complete the event within a certain time to get all rewards.
- Assignments
- This doesn’t need your active participation. Think of the exploration in Genshin Impact; it’s similar to that. You can send your characters on Assignments and get a variety of rewards that can help you upgrade and ascend.
Beginner’s Guide Final Takeaways
There are also riddles and puzzles scattered across the planets that you visit—which is to be expected with HoYoverse given their love for puzzles. Solve puzzles and spend time looking for chests in wide-open areas. This is the most effective way to get useful loot or Stellar Jades. As a general rule, check every nook and cranny of every area you come across with.
Once you complete the available story content in Honkai: Star Rail, the game loop primarily revolves around spending your stamina to grind for better gear and upgrades for your characters. While you can simply play the story and wait for new content to be released, a significant portion of your time in the game will be spent completing daily tasks, so it’s important to keep that in mind.
And that’s all for our Beginner’s Guide to Honkai: Star Rail. Do you have any other tips for a fellow beginner? Feel free to comment your thoughts in the comments section below.
