Topic: Honkai Star Rail

So the skip function coming in the next patch has me interested, as does Phainon, I will likely try and play the story quest and see how I get on. I think i'm already one behind.

Ahead of that I spent a few hours abusing the auto-battle feature while watching sport to get as gems from many of the the recent events, and end game modes lile PF, MoC, AS.

I'm not interested in coming back for dailies or weeklies - I've completed so many more games since I dropped HSR and ZZZ, and I want to keep it that way - but logging in periodically like this you can still get a lot of gems in a minimal amount of time. Hopefully I'll stick around for the story at least till the end of Amphoreus.

I wonder if any of my early story predictions will come true?

@Shigurui Well done. I've played Expedition 33, Blue Prince, Doom Dark Ages, Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Metroid Dread, Days Gone, gone back to finish Ghost of Tsushima and a handful of smaller games since I dropped the dailies. It feels great.

Back on HSR. My Phainon pulls were initially and predictably... not great. I went to full pity and pulled... Blade. To be fair I don't have him and with Blade getting a buff I don't mind too much. Especially as I pulled Phainon in the next 20 pulls. Buoyed by that I decided to try and snipe his BiS Sunday and also pulled him in 20 pulls. Further buoyed by that I used up my remaining jades to try and pull Phainon's weapon... no dice after 30ish pulls, but with reruns coming in 3.4 pt 2, I might try and use up any gems I make to get his weapon and/or an eidolon. As I previously mentioned I'm more interested in improving the characters I have or like than getting a massive roster now.

That all said I seem to have a LOT of building to do. Phainon, Sunday, Blade from the ground up. Plus Jingliu needs retooling for HP, Silver Wolf may need some adjusting for less EHR. The advantage of not playing is I have 2000+ reserve Trailblazer power and 60+ reserve Fuel saved for domains. I'm currently sitting at my desk working and pressing triangle every few minutes to "grind" relics on auto battle in the background. It's quite nice to not be time limited and just be able to build characters immediately. I'm no longer interested in grinding to make them as powerful as possible I just need them to be acceptable.

My biggest concern is light cones with Bronya and Sunday wanting the same one, HP Jingliu & Blade also wanting the same one and Phainon porbably wanting to take Firefly's (On the Fall of an Eon) as usual with these games... decisions, decisions.

Who are you pulling for?

@Shigurui Nice! I didn't think about the free Archer LC. I likely made 130+ towards that. Not that I expect the free crossover character to be great. But maybe...

@Shigurui That's nice to hear, I haven't followed any leaks or kits and just assumed the free cross over character would be average. Would be grant if they aren't.

@Shigurui Talking of SP Hungry, Phainon in his BiS team with Sunday and Bronya is very SP hungry even with the SP boost. I need to try him other 4th slot characters.

@Shigurui I did have Rememerance TB but I’m still working on it, need to try other options. I don’t have HuoHuo (she was the first banner I lost right back near the beginining). Finding it really hard to speed tune the team though. Ideally 136 Phainon, 135 Sunday, 134 Bronya. I have Bronya at 134, Sunday 136 and Phainon I don’t even have any SPD boots. So the teams order is all messed up

@Shigurui well done on Phainon and good luck with tuning, it’s a mare.

My biggest issue is trying to get all the buffs up simultaneously before his ult… especially on auto-battle, which I use a lot. I also rolled an ATK stat boots that rolled every substat into crit dmg and rate and the other substats are good too. Yet he wants SPD boots ideally. I’m possibly thinking of running him slow and hyper speeding supports.

Unsure, on paper it’s a massive DPS decrease, but I’m not that interested in grinding to build characters any more I just need them to be good enough to (ideally auto-battle) 33 MoC, 10-12 PF/AS on first try. You lose so little rewards, but gain so much time, and that’s what I’m all about now. I don’t want to play their little game of eternally building characters which keeps you on the hook. No thank you. Just build them to be good enough and move on. End game is bait.

Haven’t played any of the story yet. You?

@Shigurui Great to hear the skip and summary works so well. That will help no end. I'll probably watch the climaxes but skip all the yappiest bits.

@Shigurui Haven't really done any since we last spoke, I've been out at the cricket for the past 4 days, but have been getting Sunday materials when I had a spare moment.

@Shigurui Nice. I suspect I might end up doing the same. Probably try and build him next week, this week is a bit manic.

@Shigurui I don't blame you. I'm not sure I will go that far either with speed tuning I might just go slow Phainon and fast supports I don't care about optimising to the nth degree anymore as long as they are good enough to get most rewards in end-game on Auto.

I used Phainon in SU and he SLAPS hard there. Like a better Acheron insta-killing enemies making runs faster, but better. I also forgot I was in SU and my jaw dropped as he was hitting for over 5 million DMG... then I remembered the crazy multipliers. Anyway i like him, at least in that mode, and decided to get his lightcone, won the 75:25 and have 19 wished to get Archers LC, I'll wish for something in the next banner.

Talking of Archer i've been logging in to build him and Sunday and a few others etc. but have my first major annoyance about dropping the game for a period. I'm almost out of Tracks of Destiny, these are the little orbs needed to upgrade Ascension skills A4 + A6 and Talent, Skill, Ultimate for Lv 9 & 10. Up to 8 per character, but I only have 10 left. It seems I only missed a few from limited event rewards and the weekly ones for Simulated Universe rewards.

This is yet another PURPOSEFULLY design economy to try and keep you playing and honestly I was a bit pissed off and ALMOST deleted the game again. But for now I go on. Looking forward to playing the story perhaps next week and abusing the SKIP button!

Happy gaming!

@Shigurui wow that’s some luck. Can’t be too disappointed after all those wins.

Battle pass is an idea, I forgot about that, but I’ll see how I get on. Thanks

@Shigurui Not really. I am logging in to complete dailies but that's about it. I plan on finishing the Amphoreus story line quest but might drop it entirely after that. I'm just not finding enough time to play many other games at the moment, and i'd rather attack my backlog.

Talking of the questline I did do 2 story quests a month or two ago and as predicted about 6-8 months ago Phainon was Flame Reaver all along. I also definitely preferred stacking story quests rather than finishing and having to wait 6-12 weeks for the next one.

I think I am 1 or 2 story quests behind still. have they been any good?

How are you getting on with the game? Are you playing any other F2Ps?

@Shigurui Work has been pretty intense last couple of months so I barley have time to do even dailies once or twice a week. My Expedition 33 journey has also come to a halt as just no time to indulge and I had just reached the "Paintress".
I barely know what's happening in HSR anymore cause I went to town on the skip button lol. All I've mostly seen are the fully rendered cut-scenes but as they are so few and far apart It's difficult to know what's happening. I really did enjoy this game a lot in the beginning

I haven’t been playing much, mostly just dailies and building a few characters (Evernight & DH). Yes DH seems super strong, I don’t even have good relics on him but he seems to survive most things.

I realised there was a new end-game mode but it required 36 starring MoC & 12 starring both AS and PF. I also realised I had never 12 starred PF but I managed it with a little effort. Then got pretty obliterated in the new end game. I think I only just finished 1 or 2 of the 4 fights. Seems like rewards for whales. Not that interested, it’s just deliberately tanky to get you to spend. Not fun.

I was miles behind in the story again but tried to catch up the other day. Unfortunately the Fate/Night questline was mandatory, thank the heavens for skip. After that I have just started the Cerydra storyline. I had tried to get her for Phainon but lost the 50:50 again. Other than that not a lot to report.

Hope you are all well.

@Shigurui I built him quite a bit but missed out on his LC. He pretty much survives everything so much so I'm thinking of duo dps teams again like the early days.

@z0d15g0d Evernight & Castorice have been working well for me as dual DPS / sub-DPS team.

@Shigurui I chipped away a bit more at the story last night, but Christ is it awful. I skip some bits, but I have paid attention up to now so it seems a little silly to skip it all. Thankfully the recap bit when you try and skip usually alerts you to if it's important. It's likely an all time low for the writing. I probably should just quit again rather than investing more time when I'm not enjoying it, but I do want to see the resolution of Amphoreus, I don't like to leave things unfinished. But I will likely quit again after that.

@Shigurui I mainly wanted it so I could have him on team to heal Evernight or Castorice.

I finally caught up with the story, just before the latest update, and was hoping there would be some great pay off... While that may come it was pretty disappointing. They tired at this huge Avengers like moment with all the characters having a word alongside some stirring bombastic music... but it just fell flat imo. I was begging for it to end.

It's such a shame, I like the general HSR vibe, and overarching worldbuilding, I enjoy some of the gameplay and other bits, but there's so much to dislike recently. And while skip is useful, what's the point of playing an RPG if you skip the whole story? (Grumble grumble)

@Shigurui @z0d15g0d Yes Castorice needs to take damage and heal to maximise her own DPS so healers not shielders are the best fit.