How to Level and Ascend Characters in Honkai: Star Rail

To combat difficult battles and various challenges in Honkai: Star Rail, you have to ensure your characters are well prepared to succeed. This guide will cover how to improve your characters' general performance, such as upgrading their Light Cones and Relics, as well as how to obtain any required Character Materials.

The following features should be prioritized to make your characters stronger:

1. Ascending and Leveling
2. Leveling Up Light Cone
3. Leveling Up Traces
4. Leveling Up Relics
5. Getting More Eidolons

Each of these are covered in their own sections below.

If you want a more accessible resource, there is an in-game feature called the Build Guide. This feature can be accessed from the top-right of the Character menu, or the Interastral Peace Guide's Survival Index menu.

The Build Guide sets a character to be the Current Build Target, allowing you to prioritize what Materials and Relics you need. If a character does not need all of their traces maximized, the Build Guide can set the minimum amounts needed for Recommended Traces only.

Once set, you can navigate directly to what the Current Build Target needs under the Survival Index tab. If you are browsing the other tabs, you can also see the character's icon, which indicates that is what the character wants.

If you have obtained the character already, you can also see Recommended Light Cones and Relic Loadout References. This information is sourced from the player database, where the system will determine the average usage rate and your current relic rating score.

You can obtain new characters, or Eidolons for characters you already own, through the Warp system in Honkai: Star Rail. This is the primary method, though you can also get 4-Star Characters and their respective Eidolons through limited-time events in the Travel Log as well.

To Warp, you will need Star Rail Special Passes for the limited-time Character Event Warps and Light Cone Event Warps; or Star Rail Passes for the Regular Warp instead.

In the Character Event Warp and Light Cone Event Warp, you can obtain limited-time 5-Star Characters and Light Cones. The Regular Warp will have the permanent 5-Star Characters and Light Cones available. The permanent Characters and Light Cones are available on any Event Warp.

The Character Event Warp also has a unique feature called the Celestial Invitation, where you can cycle through a select number of characters to obtain (if you do not get the featured 5-Star Character).

Another way is through the Exchange Shop. You can exchange Undying Starlights for 4-Star Characters, which will rotate on a monthly basis. If you have any Golden Companion Spirits, you can exchange them for a 5-Star Character at Stellar Convergence in the Store. The list of available 5-Star Characters is expected to grow over time.

If you already own the character, the next time you obtain them, you will obtain an Eidolon of the character instead. Each character has up to 6 Eidolons available.

This is a very subjective answer that will vary depending on which character you are talking about. Some characters will work mostly fine without Eidolons (also known as E0S0), while others might find the Quality-of-Life additions necessary to their gameplay.

At the end of the day, a character's Eidolons are all intended to improve their gameplay in some way. In most cases, getting the most Eidolons available for a character will make your game significantly easier (or faster) to play.

However, even at the hardest difficulty, you can clear content just fine without investing into Eidolons. The most significant improvements to a character will generally come from their Levels, Traces, Light Cones, and Relics.

Also, getting Eidolons often cost a lot of time, Stellar Jades, and/or real-life currency, so the most common recommendation is "only get as many Eidolons as you can afford". This includes other characters you want to build as well.

Honkai: Star Rail is a team-based game, and allocating your resources across several characters will have a much larger impact than just investing in one character alone. For a better idea on how many Eidolons a specific character wants, check out any of our character guides available.

Players can ascend their characters up to a maximum level of 80. If you have not reached Equilibrium Level 6, your characters will also be unable to level past the corresponding level cap. In order to reach Equilibrium Level 6, your Trailblaze Level needs to be 65. In addition, you must complete the Trial of Equilibrium mission available.

For more information on the Equilibrium Level unlocks, as well as how to complete the Trials of Equilibrium, see our guide below:

Once you have completed the Trailblaze Mission "Silent Galaxy" in Jarilo-VI, you will gain access to the Stagnant Shadow feature. This feature allows you to fight specific Elite Enemies and obtain Ascension Materials.

Ascension Materials are unique to each Combat Type. In addition, there are also distinctions between characters with the same Combat Type. For example, across two Ascension Materials for Ice characters:

So if you were building both Herta and The Herta, you would need both sufficient Horn of Snow and Dream Fridge items respectively.

If you have an excess of Ascension Materials you no longer need, you can also convert them through the Omni-Synthesizer - Material Exchange menu.

To upgrade Light Cones, you can Ascend and level them up with Light Cone EXP Materials, or Superimpose with multiple copies of the same Light Cone.

Whenever you ascend and level-up the Light Cone, the base stats of the Light Cone will increase. In addition, the Light Cone ascension can also be locked based on your Equilibrium Level. This is the same as leveling your characters: if your Equilibrium Level is not 6, your Light Cones will have a temporary level cap below 80.

To learn more about the Equilibrium Level unlocks, and how to complete the Trials of Equilibrium, see our guide below:

Light Cones can also be superimposed up to five times (also known as the five in E0S5). When superimposed, the Light Cone's Path Effect will have its multipliers or formula values increased. However, for most 5-Star Light Cones, the cost of obtaining them is often very high due to its rarity.

As such, players are only recommended to superimpose if they do not anticipate using the Light Cone for other characters, or if they have enough copies to build another one.

A character's traces are very important to level up, as they are directly tied to how much your characters will deal damage. For example, through Traces, you can level up a character's Basic ATK, Skill, Talent, and Ultimate. As well, you can also unlock various Stat Bonuses and Bonus Abilities.

Bonus Abilities provide additional effects to a character's current kit. For Remembrance characters, they also have Memosprite Skills and Talents that need to be upgraded to perform better.

Not all Traces need to be upgraded entirely, as the multiplier scaling or use of the skill may be undesirable. For example, if a character is recommended to use their Skill every turn but not their Basic ATK, spending resources to upgrade the Basic ATK may be too costly.

If you are unsure on what traces to level up for a character, you can either check out their character guide, or refer to the in-game Trace Recommendation feature. The Trace Recommendation feature will provide recommendations based on upgrade priority.

See the Resource Table Summary section for a full list of where to obtain certain resources. For Trace Materials, the two most difficult materials to obtain are Tracks of Destiny and resources from Echo of War.

Tracks of Destiny are required to unlock higher Traces or levels. In addition, their sources typically only reward less than a handful each time. There is no possible way to farm them at your leisure. As such, whenever you have the ability to obtain more Tracks of Destiny, it is highly recommended to try and prioritize them.

The resources from Echo of War are very similar to Character Ascension Materials, but for Traces instead. Echo of War materials are specific to each Boss Enemy. You can only obtain these materials from Echo of War; they cannot be exchanged through the Omni-Synthesizer, nor made readily available after the weekly reward limit has been reached.

Upgrading your Relic Sets is always a tricky one to answer: this can either be as simple as ensuring each piece is the highest level possible; or as difficult as re-farming the Relic pieces in another Cavern of Corrosion or Simulated Universe World.

The Subsidiary Stats (also known as substats) on a Relic piece are generally randomized. They cannot be the same stat as the Relic's Main Stat, and they also have various values they can start with and upgrade into.

This also applies to the SPD substat, which is known to have decimal values not visible in-game. That is why sometimes, when you add up the bonus SPD stats altogether, it may be off by 1 SPD on the Character stat page.

If subsidiary stats are randomized, how can we tell if they are any good or not? An effective subsidiary stat is one that the character can use. This is typically highlighted whenever you select a relic piece to equip. The more effective subsidiary stats your character has, the better quality the relic pieces will be.

Upgrading Relics is often the main use of your Trailblaze Power in Caverns of Corrosion. However, you can also create your own Relic pieces through the Omni-Synthesizer - Relic Crafting menu. These pieces will require Relic Remains to craft, which are obtained from salvaging Relics you no longer want.

In addition, you can also further customize a crafted Relic piece by selecting its Main Stat and Subsidiary Stats (up to 2 stats). These add-ons require a Self-Modeling Resin and Wishful Resin(s), which are obtained through the Nameless Honor feature.

You can also exchange Self-Modeling Resins and Relic Remains for Wishful Resins. In doing so, you can Reroll one of your current Relic pieces, which randomizes the distribution of Subsidiary Stats again. After rerolling, you can opt to save the new substats, or keep your previous substats.

Rerolling requires Variable Dice, which are only available through the Nameless Honor feature. You can also exchange Self-Modeling Resins at the Omni-Synthesizer instead, but this is a costly transaction, so keep that in mind.

Under the Build Guide feature, you can also follow the Recommended Relic Loadouts available for each character. This feature is only available for characters you currently own. The loadouts are filtered based on player usage rates, so you can see what other players are using.

Do note that there are typically other relic set combinations available that are "close enough" performance-wise. If the substats are really good, the possible performance loss can be minimized within decimal percentages.

As such, there is no correct answer on "best Relic Sets to use". The most realistic answer is, "any Relic pieces that have the stats you want, and have a Set Effect the character can use".

In summary, to upgrade a character completely, players will need to collect the following resources for each character:

The table above does not consider how many Self-Modeling Resins, Wishful Resins, Relic Remains, nor Variable Dies you may need to upgrade your relics.

Piyo

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Piyo is possibly recovering from a gambling addiction, but that does not stop her from playing gacha games. If you like her content, feel free to check her Twitch streams for more Honkai: Star Rail and other games. Praise Madam Herta!