YouTuber Borkono Gaming offers tips on the worst mistakes to steer clear of in the upcoming Honkai Star Rail.
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Having played the Honkai Star Rail beta, Borkono Gaming offered his thoughts on what players should avoid when playing — namely ways to avoid wasting resources, or making the game unnecessarily grind-heavy.
To start, Borkono discusses Trailblaze Power and Fuel. The latter can be used to replenish Trailblaze Power, and Borkono recommends against hoarding Power. Spend it as needed, especially if it will help players level up characters.
Even so, Borkono warned against leveling up certain Light Cones- weapons in Honkai Star Rail. Specifically, three-star or less Light Cones aren’t worth leveling up unless absolutely needed, as the game offers plenty of four-star Light Cones via quests. So, the resources players would have spent on the three-stars can be given to four-stars and elsewhere.
Likewise, Borkono later discourages leveling up three-star or less Relics, demanding more grinding, as well as spending time and resources that can be put to better use elsewhere. As an aside, Borkono recommends putting Relics onto Body and Feet equipment, as they provide a percentage increase for stats, while Head and Hands only offer a flat improvement on HP and Attack.
To maximize resources, Borkono promotes that every battle is worth fighting. We’ve all had moments in RPGs when we figure we’ll run away from battles to save some time. However, foes will drop resources, and have a timer on when they will respawn. To prevent players from having to come back later and grind resources to level up their characters, Borkono eloquently says, “Kill every one of those mother f’ers.”
While players can get regional currencies, these are limited at this time. As such, using them for the rather underwhelming relics they offer is an absolute no-no. Instead, Borkono insists that their intended and better purpose is to buy resources and level up Traces — the game’s character abilities . He also compared it to the “trap” in Genshin Impact of pursuing artifacts and grinding for gear.
Rather than warn players what not to do, Borkono gave some guidance on where players can focus their efforts — that is to say, leveling up characters, their Traces, and the aforementioned four and five-star Light Cones. These give steady progress, as oppose to other luck-based methods to improve characters, allowing players to spend Fuel on others things later on.
While the above can help growing characters easier, players should refrain from building too many; a maximum of two, or even three, characters should suffice — especially while they are still on the space station and first major city. Only then, players should work on building up a dedicated party of four. This prevents resources being spread too thin.
Later Borkono adds that players can look into leveling other characters once their party of four are around level 70, or even 80.
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Further, Borkono highlights how raising too many characters can make things more difficult. Equilibrium is the level of foes, and this also improves what they drop — allowing players to upgrade characters to new heights.
To raise the player’s own Equilibrium, they need to beat the Equilibrium Trials — which is unlocked when their Trailblaze Level is high enough. Suffice to say, this is easier when the player pours resources into four characters rather than spreading it out any wider.
Unlike miHoYo’s Genshin Impact, enemies in Honkai Star Rail can have multiple elemental weaknesses. As abusing their weaknesses cause a Weakness Break, players should build their party to have three to four elements. Considering the free characters that can be obtained in initial events, players will have access to at least six different elements — including physical.
During the end game, players can focus on less elements, as character synergies means they can tank more damage, and Weakness Breaks aren’t as essential to pull off.
Regarding the gacha side of Honkai Star Rail, Borkono vouches for restraint. Those who reroll for a new character more than two or three days are likely to miss out of weekly quests, granting the resources that are better spent on improving what they have (alongside daily quests for a smaller gain).
In fact, Borkono recommends not trying to neither increase Trailblaze level too high nor thirst after five-star characters. The game can be beaten with four-star characters who, in some rare cases, can outperform five-star characters of the same element/function in combat. Natasha and Clara were touted as good four-star characters but Borkono encourages viewers not to “sleep on anyone.”
Players will notably have 80 free pulls through various events at launch, so periodically checking menus and inboxes is a must.
After reiterating some points, Borkono added that players should take their time with Honkai Star Rail — not rushing the content and fully exploring. Despite his initial advice on Trailblaze Power, refreshing it with Fuel should only be done about once or twice a day. Likewise, players won’t get enough free currency to be able to get the “pity pull” on Seele focused banner on launch.
Regardless, even tier-lists on launch should be ignored, as there is a lot going on with the game behind the scenes that hasn’t been fully mastered or understood yet. Echoing his earlier comments on four-star characters being just as good, Borkono insists the “best” characters ultimately don’t matter, as players can win with a well leveled party if they spend both their time and resources in the right way.
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