Honkai: Star Rail Beginner Guide

In This Guide

• What to Do in Your First Week
• What to Do Every Day
• Trailblaze Power: What to Spend It On First
• The Currencies That Matter Most
• Turn-Based Combat Basics
• How to Build a 4-Person Team
• Should You Reroll?
• What Are Eidolons and Do You Need Them?
• Frequently Asked Questions

What to Do in Your First Week

Good news first: starting in 2026 is not too late. You can skip parts of the story to progress faster and still follow the plot, rewards are generous, and the main content is clearable without spending money. In your first week, go roughly in this order:

1. Finish the tutorialYou start out playing as Kafka, one of the Stellaron Hunters. Take your time and get used to moving and fighting instead of clicking through.
2. Do the Strategic TrainingThe Interastral Peace Guide menu has Strategic Training lessons that each teach one mechanic. They help you learn the game and pay out EXP, upgrade materials and Stellar Jade.
3. Push the story and side missionsStory and side missions are your main source of Trailblaze EXP, which raises your Trailblaze Level. Each new level opens up more game modes and features.
4. Explore every corner of the mapsMaps hide Treasure Chests with upgrade items. Fight the tough-looking enemies there too, since they drop better rewards than regular ones.
5. Pull on the beginner bannerOnce Warps unlock, start with the Departure Warp. Its pulls are discounted and it guarantees a 5-star character.
6. Join the eventsEvents open once you are far enough into the Trailblaze Missions. They give items, cosmetics and Stellar Jade, so don’t skip them.
7. Chase achievementsAchievements are milestones for doing certain things in the game, and each one pays Stellar Jade.

What to Do Every Day

These small tasks add up to a lot of resources if you do them daily:

• Daily Training: small missions worth points based on difficulty. Reach 500 points to claim all of the day’s rewards: Trailblaze EXP, Stellar Jade, Credits and materials. On a busy day, do this first, because a skipped day is that day’s Stellar Jade gone.
• Spend your Trailblaze Power: run material stages for your main team every day so they grow steadily. The next section covers where to spend it.
• Assignments: send characters out for character EXP, Synthesis Materials and Credits. Picking the recommended characters gets you more.
• Daily check-in: a small gift each day that adds up if you play regularly.

Trailblaze Power: What to Spend It On First

Trailblaze Power is the game’s stamina, and you pay it to claim rewards from material stages. It refills slowly over time, or instantly with Fuel (a Trailblaze Level reward) or Stellar Jade. The main places to spend it:

Priority Order for New Players

1. Your main DPS comes firstPut your Trailblaze Power into Ascension and Trace materials for your main DPS. They raise stats directly, strengthen skills and unlock unique passives, so they come first.
2. Clear Echo of War every weekWeekly bosses only give rewards 3 times per week, then you wait for the reset. They are your source of advanced Trace materials, so a skipped week is lost.
3. Level Light Cones for your main teamLight Cones work like weapons. Beyond the stats, a Light Cone’s passive only works if it shares a Path with its wearer, so don’t equip them at random.
4. Leave Relics for laterThink about Relics once enemies start to feel hard. Even then, don’t waste EXP on stopgap Relics you will replace anyway. Save it for 5-star Relics with good stats. See the Relics and stats guide.

The Ascension Planner works out how many materials a character needs in total, and the Materials page shows where each item drops.

The Currencies That Matter Most

These currencies matter most, and they are the ones you will regret spending badly:

Before your first limited pull, read the Stellar Jade and pity guide.

Turn-Based Combat Basics

Combat is turn-based: both sides take turns, in order of SPD. On each character’s turn you pick what they do, so take your time. Every character has three kinds of abilities in battle, plus a Technique used on the map:

Weakness and Toughness

The white bar above an enemy’s HP is Toughness. Each enemy is weak to certain Types, and hitting it with a matching Type drains Toughness fast. When it breaks (Weakness Break), the enemy takes much more damage, gets its action delayed and sometimes loses the attack it was charging.

That is why you should build a few characters of different Types instead of pouring everything into one: whatever you run into, someone can hit its Weakness. Check Weaknesses before a fight and pick your team to match. The Break and Super Break guide goes deeper.

Keep Your Skill Points Balanced

Skill Points are shared by the whole team: a Skill usually spends 1, a Basic ATK gives 1 back. If your main DPS wants to Skill every turn, the others should Basic ATK more to leave points for them. When building a team, pair Skill Point eaters with savers.

How to Build a 4-Person Team

The two common layouts both have 1 main DPS (your main damage dealer) and 1 sustain (someone who heals, shields or reduces damage taken). The other two slots go one of two ways:

Hypercarry is usually stronger since both supports pour their buffs and debuffs into one character, but some DPS pairs work very well. Teams with no sustain exist too, but they need the right investment and careful SPD tuning, so skip that for now.

Hypercarry Team Examples

Dual DPS Pairs That Work

• Kafka with Black Swan, Hysilens, Guinaifen, Luka or Sampo.
• Castorice with Evernight, Blade or Mydei.
• Feixiao with Ashveil, Cipher, Moze, Topaz & Numby or March 7th (The Hunt).
• The Herta with Anaxa, Argenti, Herta or Serval.
• Silver Wolf LV.999 with Sparxie.
• Himeko with Herta, but only for Pure Fiction and Calyx farming.

Paths Tell You the Role

Build a Team in 5 Steps

1. Pick your main DPSThe character who ends fights. Most are Destruction, The Hunt or Erudition, with some in Nihility, Remembrance and Elation.
2. Read their TracesSee which stats make them stronger, what kind of damage they deal, whether they need a teammate of a certain Path, and how hungry they are for Skill Points.
3. Add 2 supports or sub-DPSLook for characters who buff the stat your DPS needs, debuff enemies, restore Energy or advance your DPS’s turn.
4. Add 1 sustainThey keep the team alive. Some DPS benefit from getting hit, so pick a sustain that fits that style.
5. Build the whole teamLevel up, Ascend, and equip Light Cones and Relics. The character pages have suggested builds.

Should You Reroll?

Rerolling means making new accounts until you pull a character you want. Short answer: not worth it, especially for casual players. Here’s why:

• There are no guest accounts, so every attempt needs a new email address.
• You play through a fairly long opening before Warps unlock, so each attempt takes a lot of time.
• The 5-star rate per pull is very low, so you can try again and again and still get nothing.
• The Departure Warp already guarantees a 5-star character just from normal play.

What Are Eidolons and Do You Need Them?

Eidolons are upgrade levels unique to each character, unlocked by getting extra copies of that character. Each one makes them stronger. There are three ways to get them:

• Pull extra copies on Warp banners.
• Buy character copies at the Starlight Exchange with Undying Starlight.
• For the Trailblazer only: Eidolons come from Trailblaze Missions and World Shops on the maps, no pulling needed.

As a new player, put your Stellar Jade into new characters before Eidolons. You need several Types to hit enemy Weaknesses, and enough characters to build teams for different modes.

The character pages have an Eidolon Priority section showing which ones are worth it if you invest deeper later. To see when a character had banners before, check Banner History.

Frequently Asked Questions

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