Here we go, let’s talk about the new characters brought in Honkai Star Rail 2.4 update, Yunli, Sparkle, Huohuo and Jiaoqiu, and who you should pick! All of these characters have a lot of skills, and we’ll discuss everything you need to know about them in detail in this guide to help you decide which character might be the best choice for you to pick.

Yunli Overview

Let’s start with Yunli, as she will be our first new limited character in the 2.4 update. Yunli will be a Physical Destruction character, who focuses on launching frequent counterattack follow-up attacks on enemies and dealing tremendous damage with counterattacks after entering her ultimate.

Recapping Yunli’s kit, her basic attack will deal a small amount of damage to a single enemy, while her skills will deal physical damage to enemies and adjacent enemies, while also restoring 30% of her attack damage + 200 health at level 10. This is a great way to keep Yunli sustainable, since she’ll be getting attacked a lot and will want to get hit as often as possible.

As for Yunli’s counterattack, let’s look at her talent. Yunli’s counterattack deals damage to the enemy and its adjacent ones. And what’s really great is that when she’s hit by an enemy, she’ll recover an additional 15 energy, which helps her use her ultimate more often.

As for Yunli’s ultimate, she’ll cost 120 energy, but she can actually have up to 240 energy. This allows her to use two ultimates in a row after one trigger, or allows you to effectively schedule when to use her ultimate without worrying too much about overflowing on energy.

And Yunli’s ultimate will put her into a Perry state, which will taunt all enemies until the end of the enemy’s turn or the end of the ally’s turn. Once Perry state ends, Yunli will unleash a large amount of damage. In addition, her ultimate will increase her critical damage to this counterattack by 100%.

Yunli can actually unleash two attacks from her ultimate. The first is Intuit: Cull, which occurs when Yunli is attacked by an enemy target. She will launch a counterattack on the enemy and around her and deal 6 extra damage.

When Yunli is not hit, or assuming you use Ultimate during an ally’s turn and the enemy does not hit Yunli, she will instead release Intuit: Slash. This is similar to Cull, however, you will lose the extra damage output since you will not deal an extra 6 damage.

Yunli’s Demon Quell will allow her to ignore all Crowd Control Debuffs in Perry state of her Ultimate and reduce the damage she takes by 20%. This makes her immune to Crowd Control in Perry state and has extra survivability by reducing the damage she will take.

All in all, she is definitely a very strong physical damage dealer and very valuable to those who lack strong physical DPS. Additionally, since Yunli’s Ultimate counter attack is so powerful, it feels good to use in multiple game modes.

Jiaoqiu Overview

As for the second character in Honkai Star Rail 2.4, we have Jiaoqiu.

Jiaoqiu is a Fire Nihility character that focuses on debuffing enemies with Ashen Roast. Jiaoqiu’s skill will hit one enemy and an adjacent enemy with a chance to inflict Ashen Roast, which increases the damage dealt to enemies by allies.

It seems likely that Ashen Roast stacks will be capped at 5 stacks, as the developer livestream showed the maximum number of stacks.

As for Jiaoqiu’s ultimate, he will be able to set the number of Ashen Roast stacks for all enemies to the highest number present on the battlefield. His ultimate will create a field that increases the ultimate damage taken by enemies, and every time an enemy’s turn starts, they have a chance to take damage from Ashen Roast.

Jiaoqiu will be a great addition to Acheron’s team, as he can help Acheron get ultimate stacks faster, which is valuable for those who main Acheron.

Beyond that, I do feel like you could use a character like Pela or Guinaifen as your regular debuffer, who are 4-star options, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Sparkle & Huohuo Overview

As for our replay characters, we have Sparkle and Huohuo. Both are pretty good choices, depending on what your Honkai Star Rail Account is lacking.

Huohuo

Among them, Huohuo excels at purifying allies, providing good healing, as well as providing energy and attack through her ultimate, which can be very useful for your team to use their ultimate more often, especially when you pair Huohuo with Tingyun.

Huohuo is great for characters and teams that highly value the extra attack damage or energy from their ultimate, such as Damage over Time (DoT) teams. Argenti benefits from energy, as does Yunli, as her high energy cap allows her to recover a lot of energy from Huohuo’s ultimate.

If you’re short on premium sustain options, Huohuo is an excellent choice. But keep in mind that we’re also getting Lingsha in the 2.5 update, and she’s a new Abundance Character, so if you’re on the fence about Huohuo, that’ll be something to consider.

Sparkle

As for our second replay, that would be Quantum Harmony character, Sparkle. Sparkle is excellent at making Hypercarry-oriented characters more powerful, as you can easily use Attack Boots on your main DPS, and Sparkle will have them push forward, as she will be the fast character on the team.

Sparkle can provide huge critical damage to her skills and can also allow allies to push forward. Critical damage makes character creation easier, as now you can focus more on getting high critical hits, benefiting from the huge critical damage Sparkle can provide to team characters. What’s more, the buff will last until the start of the ally’s next turn, meaning that subsequent characters can still receive the critical damage buff from Sparkle Kit.

Sparkle can also provide more skill points to the team with her ultimate skill. She can increase the damage dealt by team characters to enemies and enhance the attack power of Quantum character on the team.

Sparkle is a very good support character that can provide great utility to the crit-based DPS characters in your account. I will say, though, that if you already have other high-level sustains like Robin or Ruan Mei and are lacking a damage dealer, then your need for Sparkle isn’t as high as it should be since you have great alternatives to use.

As for which option is best, honestly, it depends a lot on what your account has or lacks. If you don’t have a good physical DPS, I highly recommend Yunli because she feels really good to play and is very powerful. In my opinion, she’s one of the stronger DPS options you could consider, especially if you use her ultimate correctly.

Overall, I think there's a pretty good variety of characters you can choose from, and ultimately it depends on what your account might be lacking. I’d love to hear which character you guys are going to pick, or if you’re planning on skipping Honkai Star Rail 2.4!

Personally, I’m looking forward to Yunli the most because she’s super fun to play and is super powerful once you use her ultimate! See you in-game!

It’s not as a simple as it seems when looking at the 1.1 banners and this is the best time to investigate the whole situation with these 5 considerations.

1. Debuff Dilemma

Let’s first talk about Silver Wolf and the current state of the game when it comes to buffing versus debuffing. Basically, we’ve got 2 staple buffers in the game that are used almost by everyone who wants to clear Memory of Chaos, and that’s Bronya with Tingyun.

Now, during the livestream, it was made pretty clear that Silver Wolf can apply debuffs in several ways. Her skill can literally make an enemy gain a new elemental weakness they don’t have. For example, if you have a Physical team mate and the enemy doesn’t have a Physical Weakness, after Silver Wolf uses the skill and attacks, they now have a Physical Weakness.

The other big debuff comes from her ultimate. It’s a single target attack that has a chance to reduce the enemy’s DEF. And finally, any of Silver Wolf’s attacks can debuff an enemy with either ATK, DEF or SPD reduction.

So, a lot of negative effects you can apply to enemies. But the thing is assuming her purpose is to let another hyper carry utilize those debuffs, since that’s how we are building the teams for now, there’s actually a chance this plan might not work out.

You see, you probably noticed enemies resisting debuffs from time to time, and that’s not an ideal situation compared to Tingyun or Bronya. Their buffs work 100% of the time. They will never miss and you can carry out your plans without assuming failure at some point, whereas with Silver Wolf. Even if we assume she has a high base chance to apply these debuffs, they can still be resisted.

I mean, it’s no secret Welt and Pela sees less play in Memory of Chaos. Even if Welt is really good at reducing enemy speed, but the simple fact is that buffers always work compared to debuffers. You’re basically you’re gambling with each of their debuffs. So, it’s not a really fair playing field.

And I know I am comparing Harmony against Nihility characters here. But at the end of the day, all of these characters are here to serve the support role for the team. Still, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying Silver Wolf will be bad, however I do think you will definitely want to approach her with a different mindset than you’re used to.

I am, of course, talking about Effect Hit Rate stat, which has been neglected since the game’s launch. You can even spot it sometimes showing up on the Body Relic pieces. And now that HoYoverse has revealed the free 4-Star Nihility Light Cone, we can also see at 1st Superimposition it boosts Effect Hit Rate by 24% and that’s not a coincidence. This might become an important stat for her, which, of course, means sacrificing other offensive stats, lowering her overall damage. But in exchange, you get a better guarantee at applying those debuffs.

How true this is going to be, we will only find out after her release. But it’s important to remember that as amazing as her kit sounds for improving the team’s overall damage, especially for a hyper carry damage dealer. Her debuffs can still be resisted and we might need Effect Hit Rate to fix this problem, which is not something we need to care about when using Bronya, Tingyun or even Yukong, who is the new upcoming Imaginary buffer. But this shouldn’t discourage you from pulling for her, but instead, give you an idea of what to expect from her and how you can prepare for this situation if needed.

2. Healer Scarcity

Right now, you cannot clear Memory of Chaos without having 2 healers. I can already raise all characters to level 80 and the last stage still delivers a ton of damage that you won’t survive without having a healer on each team.

This is where Luocha comes into the picture. He is the new upcoming imaginary healer, and he has a couple of interesting ways to keep the team alive. However, I won’t go too much into details about how he works since we already saw his kit during the live stream and instead, I want to talk about his pull value.

First of all, there’s a lot of you who don’t have a Bailu. We can see from this poll my viewers voted on, only 30% of you have Bailu and are without her. You cannot complete Memory of Chaos as of now. The good news is, I know a way to get Bailu. That is you can purchase an Honkai Star Rail Account with 5-Star Bailu directly on this website. Some players may think that we still have a 5-star selector. So, you could get Bailu from there, right?

Unfortunately, even after a month has passed, almost 90% of players are still not even close to reaching the 300 summons you need to do on the standard banner, which means you are literally left at the mercy of losing a 50/50 and getting Bailu sooner. So, this brings me to the Luocha situation.

You can get him from the upcoming featured banner. And this way, you can have 2 healers. But I am not sure if it’s worth pulling for him if you don’t care about Memory of Chaos. Sure, you can get a good amount of bi-weekly rewards by doing this challenge. But I don’t want to recommend pulling for him, if you don’t enjoy his playstyle or design, or at least you want to pull for someone else.

Eventually, you will be able to raise 2 teams after a few months and clear this challenge, although we know for a fact that 1.2 also won’t have new healers. So again, you need to decide for yourself if you value getting a 2nd healer if you don’t have Bailu.

Also, when you lose a 50/50, you might still get her. And the thing is – at least in Closed Beta Test, all of Luocha’s heals scaled with ATK, which on paper sounds amazing, since he can be an offensive healer as we already saw his ultimate deals with AoE damage. But also remember, he will not be as tanky as Natasha or Bailu. Because that HP not only helps with heals but also improves their max health, which helps a lot when it comes to surviving the final stages of Memory of Chaos.

And you need your healers to be tanky and prioritize keeping the DPS alive. This especially becomes true in the last stage here, where the incoming enemy damage becomes insane. Still, Luocha having damage potential is going to be amazing for late game stages, when everyone is at max level and can withstand enemy damage. So, think of him having good late game potential, especially if it turns out his ultimate deals decent damage as well.

But regardless of the situation, it’s pretty clear that currently, if you want to clear Memory of Chaos, it’s a bit of an unfair playing field since you need a healer on both teams and Luocha can help with that if you don’t have Bailu.

3. Four-Star Eidolons

Probably, the most surprising thing about the 1.1 livestream is that Hoyoverse actually revealed all 4-Star characters that we can pull for – something you won’t see happen until a few days before the banners go live, if you play Genshin.

What’s interesting is that 5 of these 4-Stars are F2P. It’s been confirmed we will get Yukong for free in 1.2 update, so that leaves with Pela, who needs to be obtained from the gacha. But seeing so many people pull for Seele, most of you probably ended up with her as well, which leaves us with the question of who’s Eidolons is worth pulling for.

And the truth is – most of these characters have decent Eidolons and only two of them have serious upgrades but they are pretty hard to get. If you’re going to pull on the Silver Wolf banner, then Asta’s 4th and 6th eidolons are huge improvements for her. Her whole schtick is that she can boost everyone’s ATK with her charging stacks and also improve the speed with her Ultimate.

The problem is that she loses charging stacks rapidly when she takes her turn. But E6 fixes this problem by a lot, now helping you maintain the ATK buff for the team consistently, while E4 helps her with Energy Issues she has by allowing her to obtain 15% ER when she has 2 charging stacks. Both of these eidolons work well together and you will already notice a major upgrade when she gets to E4.

Now, the second character who sees a massive performance increase with Eidolons is Qingque. But there’s a catch. While her eidolons are all decent, the best one is E6, which is not an easy goal to achieve. Her biggest issue is that she eats up those skill points like nothing when she’s fishing for those 4 of a kind tiles and E6 gets rid of this problem almost entirely.

But is it realistic you will be able to get Eidolon 6 QQ and E4 or E6 Asta? Not really, especially because pulling for 4-Star is just not a great way to spend Jades. So instead, if you decide to go for either Silver Wolf or Luocha, keep in mind that there are 2 characters who get great power boosts with their Eidolons, but they aren’t easy to get.

Still, most of these characters get quite better even with the first or second eidolon unlocked. And it’s a good idea to plan around this and come to a conclusion on which banner you want to pull for.

4. Relying On CBT

If you follow Star Rail’s drip marketing, then you know Kafka, Blade and Luka are the next characters coming in 1.2 update.

While we don’t know much about Luka, we do have some gameplay footage of Kafka and Blade from previous Closed Beta Tests. However, if there’s one thing we learned from this game, then it would be the fact we shouldn’t rely on CBT info and expect to see the characters have the same stats or functionality.

Even Jing Yuan sort of got nerfed compared to his CBT performance and Silver Wolf didn’t look the same as she had before. So, I really recommend just waiting for the official livestream that happens during the 2nd phase of every update, to get actual info that helps you with making a decision. But no matter how she turns out, I am still pulling for Kafka, regardless.

Also Read: A Brief Overview Of Upcoming Honkai Star Rail 1.1 Update - Five New Features

5. Banner Showdown

As a final note, when it comes to comparing the Silver Wolf banner against Luocha’s, the most important thing to consider would be the actual 5-Star and then to see if any of the 4-Stars or their Eidolons seem worthwhile to you.

The game right now is obviously skewed towards having 2 healers, but only if you care about Memory of Chaos. However, as time goes on, more healers will come out, so while grabbing Luocha in 1.1 (if you don’t have Bailu) can be a great way to start clearing Memory of Chaos.

We also don’t know what the next cycle is going to be like. Maybe Hoyoverse will change the enemy lineups and who knows. Maybe shielding will become more impactful or DPS is going to have an even greater importance, or perhaps debuffing will become super valuable for the next Memory Turbulence buff.

Either way, I hope you pull for a character that you want to get. Most importantly, please be mindful of your spending. Don’t put yourself into a bad financial situation over some fictional characters.

Honkai Star Rail is in full swing, and since the game is fairly new, today I’m going to show you some tips and tricks. If you can master these skills, you can cruise the game, especially in the ancient game.

Re-rolling

Re-rolling is one of the best ways to get off to the best start in a gacha game. But in Honkai Star Rail, this process can become very painful, because a re-rolling takes up to 30-40 minutes.

But fortunately, with the help of BlueStacks Multi-Instance Manager, the processing time of re-rolling can be greatly reduced. Because you can use multiple accounts at the same time, if you want to access this function, you need to press CTRL+SHIFT+8, and Multi-Instance Panel will pop up.

From here, you can create as many BlueStacks instances as you want by pressing the + Instance button in the lower left corner. With it, you can have as many instances as you want, re-rolling all of them at the same time until you get the hero you want!

Combat Tips

You need to build the character you get from scratch. This includes leveling up, Eidolon Insertions, and Light Cone Insertions. We can provide great tips about Light Cone and how to use it.

Light cones have a specific path associated with them, just like characters. When a character with Path of Destruction is paired with a Light Cone with Path of Destruction, it will significantly match and enhance its effect.

An important tip when fighting any boss in Honkai Star Rail is to check their elemental weaknesses. The boss’s Toughness bar can crash if you hit them with a character that has an elemental advantage over them. Enemies elemental weaknesses can be seen above their heads. It can be multiple elements or a single element, again depending on the difficulty of the stage.

Upgrade Your Heroes

You need to make sure you keep upgrading your heroes as you progress. Not only do you get copies of the relevant characters, but you also unlock their Eidolons. It’s one of the best ways to guarantee strength and build capacity.

A strong tip is that if you encounter a powerful enemy and are barely able to defeat them, chances are your hero is injured and low on HP. Make sure to retreat for a while and heal them with HP before starting another match.

Gain Trailblazer Levels

Note that Trailblazer levels are set on a premise that the main story missions are locked behind your current Trailblazer level or player level for ease of use. This is also at the overall level of your account.

Raising this level can help you unlock more main story missions and increase your character’s level cap. Sadly, it’s not easy to gain more experience faster. But you can through Daily Training, Companion and Adventure Missions, and Open-World Exploration, you can gain experience and speed up the process.

Understanding The Roles

Just like there are different classes in a MMORPG, all characters in Honkai Star Rail have different paths. No one path can be called the best because each of them does something different.

At the global launch of Honkai Star Rail, there are 7 different paths, each with a different focus, such as Healing, Tanking, Assassination, Support, DPS, and more. You can think of them as characters you can play in battle.

I strongly recommended that you can play Honkai Star Rail on a larger PC screen, which will give you a better visual experience. Plus, you can get some new Honkai Star Rail Accounts to try out a new character and find the one that best suits your playstyle.

Today we will discuss whether the game Honkai Star Rail is worth trying. First off, I’ve been playing Honkai Star Rail for a few days now, and I have to say, I’m having a blast. However, this only applies to the first part of the game where you get the protagonist’s first element.

Intro

Just like in Genshin Impact, we will take advantage of getting unique elements to change our main character “Trailblazer”, as new characters with each extra element may be included in future major updates of the game.

This means that there may be some factors or issues that only arise in endgame, so I may have a follow-up review in the future. With that being said, let’s get started.

Game Performance

First, let’s talk about the performance. I played this game on PC, and I have to say, the performance is actually pretty good. I didn’t experience any snags or any moments of lag. However, I run into a bug where there was no background music, but I was able to fix it by restarting the game.

Regarding the gameplay, the game feels and plays very well. And it’s a free turn-based RPG. Free characters are not junk, they allow you to actually have fun while playing for free.

Currently, I haven’t spent money on this game, but if I continue to enjoy it, I may get a battle pass or Blessing of Welkin Moon equivalent, or a new Honkai: Star Rail Accounts, experience a Brand new character.

The game is also far from easy later in the game, as the challenge areas can really stress your team to the limit if you want to do a tough challenge. The game exudes a Persona like feel when it comes to combat, which is a welcome change for me after playing Genshin Impact for so long.

You can also speed up the animations during combat and have auto-combat to make combat easier, which again gives me the same character vibe.

Quality Of Life Changes

Other quality of life updates are here as well, which shows that Hoyoverse is actually working on these things, since they’re changes we’ve been asking for in Genshin Impact, and they’re available here.

For example, you can automatically adjust character and artifact levels, and it will use the correct amount of XP items so they don’t go to waste. Also, your main character has a really cool ultimate animation. There is no stamina in the game, so you can run as long as you want. However, there’s no jump button here, which I’ve heard many people complain about.

Due to the turn-based RPG nature of the game, this wasn’t much of an issue for me. I also like the fact that the character’s lip sync is dynamic and adapts to whatever language you set it to.

Finally, multiplayer in Honkai Star Rail is pretty much non-existent, but there is a support system where you can lend a character to any of your friends, which they can use on certain quests and aspects of the game.

Excellent Picture Quality

Moving on to the game’s graphics, I have to say, it’s stunning. The game has a beautiful art style similar to Genshin Impact, but with its own unique style. The game world is immersive, and the animations are smooth and well-crafted.

The combat system is turn-based, which is an agreeable change of pace from the action-based combat in Hoyoverse’s current games. I found the combat system fun and intuitive, with plenty of strategy involved.

The world building and exploration is also very good. All characters have Hoyoverse Japanese anime-inspired personalities. In the game, you basically wake up with amnesia, don’t know who you are, and realize you have an ancient bomb inside you.

Earning Currency Is Easy

As for the game’s gacha system, it’s pretty standard. You can earn in-game currency that you can exchange for new characters or items. At present, it has to be said that the game is quite generous in the distribution of game currency, and there will be no money pressure.

It mostly depends on how the game is developed or how they plan to manage metadata and difficulty. But for now, that remains to be seen.

So, should you play Honkai Star Rail? I have to say that Honkai Star Rail is definitely worth a try because it’s free and the gaming experience is not bad. The game is a lot of fun, with a lot of stories and side content to enjoy and immerse yourself in for hours, and the gameplay is really fun. Try it out now. Hope you have a pleasant gaming experience.

You boot up Star Rail for the first time and tell yourself: “It’s just a turn-based RPG, how hard can it be?” “I’m already a seasoned Honkai Impact and Genshin Impact player, surely the combat can’t be that complicated.” That’s wrong. At least, when you first start out.

Looking at the various UI can be daunting to new players and the combat itself has a slightly different feel and different mechanics compared to other turn-based RPGs. And that’s why today I’d like to clear up any confusion you have about Honkai: Star Rail. This guide will cover everything you need to know regarding basic combat mechanics and new in-game terms regarding your characters.

Character Types & Paths

Before you worry about actual battles, there’s a lot of information about your characters that the game sort of throws at you with a bunch of different tabs on the character menu. Let’s introduce some crucial in-game terms that will set you up for success when you start to enter your first battles.

Beginning in the main details tab when you first enter the character menu, you’ll want to pay attention to the area around your character’s name, which outlines their combat type and path if you click on the exclamation point. Each character has a type, which can be Physical, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Quantum, or Imaginary.

There are no elemental reactions in Honkai: Star Rail, but building a team with the right combination of elements is extremely important due to a mechanic called Weakness Break, which we’ll cover later.

As for combat paths, characters are divided into paths based on what their general role is in battle. The seven different paths include The Hunt, Destruction, Erudition, Harmony, Nihility, Preservation, and Abundance.

Light Cones

The reason why paths are important is because of the second tab in the character menu labeled Light Cones.

Light Cones are the equivalent of weapons in Genshin Impact or Honkai Impact, and are most often obtained through the gacha system. In Star Rail, all Light Cones offer attack, HP, and defense stats regardless of the wielder.

What sets Star Rail’s weapon system apart from Hoyoverse’s other games is that weapons only activate their passives when equipped by a character of a certain path. For example, Himeko’s signature 5-Star Light Cone requires the wielder to be a part of the Erudition path, which means I can equip it on Herta, who also is classified as Erudition.

You’ll know if the effect is active if the text in the Light Cone ability section turns green. If I try to equip the same Light Cone onto Sushang, who specializes in single target damage and is a part of The Hunt path, the passive will not activate and the character only gets the base stats offered by the Light Cone. You’ll see that the Light Cone ability now reads “Character is not of the path of Erudition. Effects cannot be activated” in red text.

In addition to Light Cones, here is also the Relic system, which is very similar to Genshin’s artifact system with 2-set and 4-set bonuses. Relics are also farmed with the game’s stamina system, so these two equippables are your main ways to upgrade your characters stats outside of ascensions.

Traces

The third tab to visit is the Traces tab, which is essentially a skill tree similar to many other turn-based RPGs. Here, you can upgrade your character’s talents, unlock bonus effects for your characters, and get slight stat boosts.

The main thing to note for the purpose of this guide is that each character has a basic attack, one skill, one talent, a technique, and their ultimate ability. Basic attacks and ultimates are pretty self explanatory, but you might be wondering: what’s the difference between a skill, talent, and technique?

Simply put, your skill represents your active abilities during your fights, your talent is a passive effect that is usually gated behind a condition in battle, and your technique is an overword ability that you can use when initiating a battle.

Speaking of initiating a battle, that should be everything you need to understand regarding character terms. So, let’s jump into what to expect from actual combat now.

Ambush & Techniques

Before you even enter battle, you can already gain an advantage by ambushing enemies. More often than not, the player will initiate battles themselves by basically attacking an enemy wandering around, instead of waiting for enemies to notice them. You can take this one step further by basically attacking overword enemies with the correct elemental weakness to help you work towards a Weakness Break, which we’ll discuss right after this.

Techniques are your character’s overword ability to give advantages before entering battle. Some characters have buffing techniques that don’t initiate a battle like Bronya who enhances the attack of allies by 15% for the next battle, while other characters have pure damage techniques, like Asta, who can use her technique to initiate battle and deal fire damage to all enemies at the start. These techniques have 3 charges, as you can see with the three purple dots in the UI, and charges are easily replenishable with purple destructible objects around in the overworld.

Weakness Break

When you enter battle after ambushing with a basic attack or technique, you’ll be met with an entirely different battle UI.

To start off, the game should give you a tutorial about how the red bar is the enemy’s HP, the white bar is the enemy’s toughness, and the elements above the toughness bar signal which elements the enemies are weak to.

Depleting the white toughness bar requires hitting enemies with the correct elements they are weak to and once the entire toughness bar is depleted, the enemy enters an effect called Weakness Break until they take an action again.

Weakness Break is arguably one of the most important battle mechanics in Star Rail because under the weakness state, enemies will take more damage from any element and will be pushed back in the turn order.

For those who like numbers, the toughness multiplier is 90%, meaning your calculated damage output is multiplied by 0.9 when the enemy isn’t weakness broken. When the enemy is weakness broken, the toughness multiplier turns into 100% and as a result, your calculated damage is not reduced because we’re multiplying by one instead of 0.9.

Since there is no super effective damage or resisted damage like many other turn-based RPGs, depleting enemies’ toughness bars down to 0 is going to be the main way to set up big damage windows for your team.

For example, when I break the toughness of these enemies with March 7th’s ultimate, not only can my Sushang deal more damage but she also gets to move twice before the enemies get one turn and recover their toughness bar. Additionally, depending on which element triggers the Weakness Break, the enemy will have different debuffs.

Again, the various effects will be listed on screen and most of them are pretty self explanatory. The only extra mechanic that I really need to point out with Weakness Break is that for some reason with frozen enemies, when they thaw out of the freeze effect, they actually don’t recover their toughness bar, which gives you more effective turns for your DPS window.

Skill Points

With a turn-based system, your character’s skills can’t be tied to a timer like action-based combat games. Instead, Hoyoverse has decided to limit your skill usage in battle through a skill point system.

Next to the skill and basic attack buttons at the bottom left of the battle UI, your team shares up to a maximum of five skill points. Basic attacking an enemy with any character will restore one of these points and of course using a skill costs one of these points, so it's best to pay attention to who needs to use their skills and who can afford to replenish skill points for the team.

Ultimates

No matter if your character basic attacks or uses their skill, energy can be generated by landing hits on the enemy. I would probably say it’s pretty hard to miss the giant energy sphere next to the portrait of your characters. So, once you notice that this sphere is full, that’s how you’ll know your ultimate is ready.

What makes ultimates so powerful and what makes Star Rail into such a unique turn-based RPG is that ultimates can be used at any time. You can interrupt your teammates or interrupt your enemies and immediately cast your ultimate after the current target finishes their move. This mechanic opens up the floodgates to infinite amounts of strategy when it comes to turn order.

For example, if my Sushang is a fast DPS and my March 7th is a slightly slower support, I can use March 7th’s AoE ultimate to trigger Weakness Break on enemies to set up for Sushang’s turn.

You can also use this mechanic to break the toughness of an enemy that’s about to move to delay their action, only if one of your characters is set to move right after them. You might be able to buy time to heal, setup defensive buffs, or just kill the enemy outright if the next character up has enough damage. If you need to know who moves next to plan out your ultimates, then the left side of your screen will outline the battle’s turn order, where a lower number means that a unit is closer to moving next.

Typically, weakness breaking an enemy increases their turn order value by around the range of 20 to 30, so the enemy has a turn value of 10 and your other characters have turn values of 60, don’t expect to move next despite applying weakness break.

One more thing to note is that if you’re ever confused about what enemies do or you can’t keep track of all the effects that you and the enemies have, you can always click on the character tab at the bottom left of your screen or the enemy tab at the top.

By the way, if you want to experience all 5-Star characters or weapons, then getting Honkai Star Rail Accounts will be your good choice!