Topic: Honkai Star Rail

To make it clear too, I'm not disliking this game overall. I remain astounded at the kind of content Hoyo delivers for free, how it doesn't push it's monetisation really at you at all, I really like the story, tone and characters.

I also now have three classes for the protagonist and I think that's a really cool thing to introduce. I went in blind so when this moment happened I didn't know it was coming and it was pure hype!

I also got my first five star in Clara. It does feel a bit like the "when they're a boss versus when they're in your party" meme, but they're okay. Im using Lynx to draw agro towards her while she deals pretty solid damage with the counters.

Current main team is Clara (for now, when I unlock someone new again she'll probably be the first to go), Sampo (he was one of the ones I was talking about earlier. Why would I use Dan and his single targets, when Sampo can apply wind shear to everyone bypassing their shields and dealing mountains of passive damage never needing to care about type advantage or breaks? Maybe it falls off later on, but right now he's so objectively better that Dan seems useless unless there is some secret to his kit I'm missing?), Lynx and Preservation mode protag.

Currently undecided whether to go for Jiaoqiu. I want him for my Acheron team, but the only EHR light cone I have is “Eyes of the Prey” and it’s on Silver Wolf.

Annoyed once again that there was no opportunity to get the Event Exclusive “Before the Tutorial Mission Starts” lightcone that was only available before the game came to PS5.

Might still go for him and will just have to grind relic substats, but not sure, more interested in Adventurine rerun and Acheron’s LC and maybe Feixiao if she is as strong as in the story/lore.

Maybe I’ll see if I can win the 50/50 I’m only a few wishes away…

In my time playing there's been three banner rotations, the first came and went within my first few days so I didn't pull that one at all. Think it was some lady in a hat with a whip? As a new player her mechanics were extremely overwhelming with her like assigning a debt collector or something so I left it alone.

Yunli and Huohuo have been my main banners since I've been playing. I didn't know what I was doing / what I needed so I didnt plan or focus my pulls and just pulled at whatever the game gave me from there.

I ended up with Yunli after basically hitting the soft pity cap, and I also got Clara and Bronya from the standard banner.

Clara and Yunli have basically been my pillars since I got them. Even without her LC, Clara is just a very tanky unit and none of my other characters can put out damage like Yunli can with her counter.

Bronya I've had a harder time finding a use for as I just don't have a lot of the pieces she goes with, when I looked online for inspiration as to what to do with her.

I also did end up focusing my pulls into Huohuo as my lack of depth at healer is a real problem for some of those multi team activities, but I didn't get her before the banner rolled over.

I did however get Sparkle like 15 pulls later and she's incredible, so I must have been pretty darn close on the pity cap on Huohuo and ran out of time.

Right now probably my second strongest team is a dot / debuff team centred around Sampo and Pela, Jiaoqiu compliments that team well, so may focus my pulls into him going towards.

@Pizzamorg nice! It’s always interesting hearing about different players team setups, especially those that joined the game later. Best of luck getting Jiaoqiu.

Jury is definitely still out for me @themightyant on the whole gacha thing. I have certainly felt the strain of the gacha model on HSR harder than I have on ZZZ. While finding team comps that work without the missing pillar pieces can be fun, and characters like Yunli and Sparkle are a blessing that sorta let me brute force a lot of things, I do kinda wish there was a way I could access some pillar characters no longer in rotation even if I had to pay.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate how problematic that is since it risks making things pay to win etc. But there is little feeling worse than waiting a week to finally pull a new character, and then realise the character is borderline unusable cause it also requires three other premium characters to make them work at their fullest.

It also took me probably around 60 hours before I could even really make two teams with different functions and even now, one is very clearly weaker than the other. So having like I dunno, a dot starter pack or something with one S and three fours or something would just be nice to help a player who joined late catch up with everyone else.

And I know everyone is going to have a different experience of this depending on how lucky they are with things, but things have been kinda rough out there for me with HSR at times in terms of long droughts before getting a new character I can really make proper use of.

@Pizzamorg completely agree with all your criticisms. There’s plenty NOT to love about the Gacha model. These are brilliant games that are dragged out to hundreds of hours by the systems trying to keep you engaged.

Part of me wishes it was just a pay once game that cut out all the gacha bs, but in reality I know they could never make a game so large or with so many characters with that business model. Plus a bit of the magic is in experiencing things over a long time. Like a long running tv series, series of books or larger universe films it keeps you sucked into the characters and world for the time you have put in.

Pros and cons.

@Shigurui I lost the 50:50 (of course I did as usual, just one won all year in HSR) but your post makes me feel a bit better about it. At least my next is guaranteed, will have to pick carefully.

This is true as well, in fairness and really not something I had thought about, being honest. By joining late, you are experiencing the game very differently. People on launch didn't have the 150 hours+ worth of content I have now today, so I'm both benefiting from that because I have this absolutely incredibly JRPG experience I can just binge and feast on, but it also means I am moving through content at a pace it probably wasn't really designed to be experienced at. I basically went through three story arcs in one banner rotation, whereas I believe if I had played the game in real time as content was released I would have gone through over 30, which would have made it much easier for me to plan my pulls and flesh out a deep roster.

@Pizzamorg with one of these games I would like to perhaps just wait and play the whole game after all the content is released. It will be a very different experience, missing all the side content and racing through but I would be interested to see whether they still hold up. I suspect the attraction wouldn’t be as deep, but regardless world like to try.

@Shigurui thanks! Hope you all get who you’re wishing for

@Shigurui Undecided. I just saw a few leaks/previews of Feixiao and, as expected from her strength in the story, she looks like a top tier DPS. I also like her lore and drip, so if she is as good as expected I’ll probably pull for her, especially as I don’t have a solid Wind DPS. Her kit also makes it seem like it’s hard to power creep in future, she should work on many teams for a long time to come. As i’ve also built Sword master March 7th but don’t have a team for her, Feixiao makes sense.

The only trouble is I don’t have Black Swan, Robin or Kafka either and all would benefit my account. Decisions, decisions.

I also want Moze, and E6 Asta, so I will almost certainly pull for someone. (I try and get every 4 star for some reason in these games, even if I don’t use them, may sound silly I know, but it makes me content)

That all said I’m on ZERO pity after losing 50:50 to Jiaoqiu. I’ll probably have to exhaust my wishes to get a 5-star.

The second phase 2.5 banners look less interesting to me Lingsha (Abundance, Fire) and Topaz rerun

I think I am gonna prolly go nuts on these banners to be honest. Joining the game late really kinda ruins the fun of HSR a bit, as I am missing so many of the pillar pieces to so many different flavours of teams. These banners basically have all the pillar pieces in them for the teams I can make with the pieces I already have, so I'll probably pay to at least get some extra pulls on all of them. I probably won't pay to guarantee myself all of them as that will get into some truly crazy money if I did, but just to get a few extra pulls in to increase my chance. I feel like I can justify it to myself given the amount of hours I have played of this game already mostly entirely for free.

@Pizzamorg Good luck with all your pulls. I wouldn't sweat not having all the pillars, it takes a long time to build up many teams. And to be honest I've been playing since Day 1 on PlayStation, almost a year (11th October 2023) which is about 6 months after it appeared on PC/Mobile and I STILL don't have a team for everything. I still don't have a good Wind or Physical DPS, nor many DOT (Damage over time) characters. And my FUA (Follow up attack) team is pretty barebones but i'm working on that. Plus they will add new mechanics and power creep the early characters a bit.

All in all I wouldn't worry about not having all the teams, you don't need them for most content, and some of the toughest end game content is a bit of a con to try and get you to spend more. You don't need to unless you want to.

So I pulled for Feixaio and got her (kinda glad I missed the 50:50 on Jiaoqiu now) I didn't count exactly but I think I went near to full pity. I mostly got a lot of Luka's (who I already had E6) and some 4-star light cones (which is always useful) but I really wanted E6 Asta and E2+ Moze which I didn't get initially. So I used up all my remaining 20 wishes on Robin's banner but got lucky in the end and got both. Now to save again!

Looking forward to building her. Not sure what main team I will use as I don't have Topaz or Robin. Maybe Feixaio, March 7th, Moze and Fu Xuan/Gallagher. But I might try Bronya, Asta & Clara in there too.

Also got another copy of Sleep like the Dead on the standard banner recently. That doesn't work well with Feixiao but instead of Superimposing it (I hate constantly changing gear) I'll give it to Seele and take Cruising the Stellar Sea for Feixaio.

Oh and a new code. No Stellar Jades i'm afraid though.

XRPTL1P7K5H8W

@Shigurui Nice getting Robin. I’m going to keep an eye on who’s on the next banners and if it’s no one I want I’m going to try for Moze Eidolons and hope to get her early as a bonus. Both a long shot but you never know.

@Shigurui Robin is useful in so many teams and the #1 Feixiao teammate. Thanks for the heads up on trying her out, I always forget about that feature.

I had either a nightmare or a dream depending on perspective. I decided to just whale and buy some pulls. Treat this like I was paying for an expansion. I got two S Rank, but they weren't Robin or Feixiao they were... Welt and I don't know how its spelt, the little boy with the ice sword.

So like yay two new S Ranks, but like... Ice sword guy is basically useless as far as I can tell, if an enemy has an AOE his kit just doesn't work? Seems like there are much stronger DPS without such an extremely limiting design.

Welt seems better, but I don't have really any pieces where he would serve a clear purpose in it. Especially as with this new event added, I should be able to get Hunt March to E6, so she just seems better than Welt as an option all around.

I also managed to get Luka like four or five times and Asta like three or four times and not a single Moze. Luka is at least new to me and actually seems quite good.

But its amazing to me I could pull two S-Ranks and like 9 A-Ranks and somehow not get a single new character added with this patch.

@Shigurui I checked the rules and that shouldn't be possible, despite having 4 character banners this patch the pity carries across them all.

Rules from HoyoVerse with my notes in brackets and keywords highlighted

This warp (Indelible Coterie AKA Robin, Kafka or Black Swan) is considered a Character Event Warp. The cumalative Warp count for a guaranteed 5-star character in any Character Event Warp will always be carried over to other Character Event Warps, but is independent of and unaffected by any other types of Warps (e.g. Stellar Warp AKA Standard Banner, or Weapon Banner Warps)

@Pizzamorg Are you sure you were wishing on the right banner? Because what you described shouldn't be possible. If you lose a 50:50 on ANY character banner you are guaranteed the promoted 5-star on the next character banner.

I'd double check where your wishes were made in the history and if you were in the Feixiao and Robin banners or if you accidentally pulled another 5-star. If not contact HoYoVerse because that isn't right. But I think it's unlikely, or there would be reports/complaints all over the net today.

Outside that Welt is pretty good in some teams. I have Yanqing and haven't built him.

Yeah I think I must have just got really lucky and got two S-Ranks really close together, cause I think the pity is shared across the two banners. But within theory the banner S-Rank should be boosted on each banner, so I didn't miss the 50/50 twice so much as just miss the boost twice.