Honkai Star Rail Beginner Tips: Progression, Combat, & More

Honkai Star Rail is a jaw-dropping turn-based RPG developed by HoYoverse. With tons of unique characters, exciting areas to explore, and powerful enemies to take down, there are hours of fun to be had while playing Honkai Star Rail. However, as an RPG, there are several mechanics players will need to wrap their heads around before they can fully immerse themselves in the game world. 

That's where we come in! This article will cover everything a new player needs to know when picking up Honkai Star Rail. We will break down several tips and tricks relating to progression, combat, team building, and more!

Best Honkai Star Rail Beginner Tips

Here are several tips that new players may want to consider when starting their journey on the Astral Express in Honkai Star Rail! 

1. Horde Resources

Gacha games often have a finite amount of resources for players to utilize without restarting their entire account. Therefore, it becomes very important to optimize your playthrough and resources accordingly so as not to waste any rare items. 

This is not to say that players should never spend their currency or enhancement materials. Because Honkai Star Rail has no kind of PVP, there is less pressure to build optimal units, and you can enjoy playing with the characters you like. However, by trying to build everyone or summon on every banner, you'll eventually find yourself with no resources left. 

2. Do Your Dailies

This should be obvious for any live-service game aficionado, but daily missions are integral to account progression. This small subset of missions will refresh daily, and if you don't complete them, they will not stack, meaning you've missed out on potential EXP and currency. 

Make sure you are logging in daily, even if this is just to complete your daily missions and nothing else. The main story mission will always be available, but dailies will be gone in 24 hours. 

3. Always Use Techniques To Initiate Combat

In Honkai Star Rail, it is possible to initiate combat in one of two ways. The first is just by walking into an enemy. However, the second involves attacking them in the overworld before transitioning into the turn-based system. By doing this, you can put the enemy into a weakened state right from the get-go! Make sure you use the right character's Technique chosen from your party of four. 

4. Understand Elements & Paths

Like with most gacha games, elements play a vital role in determining combat. Enemies will have certain weaknesses to certain elements, so players should optimize their teams to take on specific encounters. Additionally, it is important to know the Path of a character before you start building them. Paths are similar to classes, and while there are no enemies weak to specific Paths, knowing what kind of unit you have will help you understand how they should be built. 

5. Speed > Percent Chance > Flat Stats

Typically, in games like Honkai Star Rail, Epic Seven, and Summoner's War, percent chance on your gear stats has far greater value than flat rates. It is recommended, wherever possible, to acquire percent chance main stats and percent chance substats. That being said, in games where Speed is a factor, this stat will likely be king. Thankfully, there is no PVP here, so you will not have to worry about facing off against insanely fast units. Just make sure you have enough to outspeed enemy bosses. 

Good luck out there, Trailblazers!