If you are a Genshin Impact player, then you might already know of miHoYo’s newest game, Honkai: Star Rail. With the release of Honkai: Star Rail, many are making the jump from Genshin Impact to the newest game. Either that, or Genshin players are simply investing their time into another game. However, you will soon find out that while Honkai: Star Rail may differ in some areas, there are elements of Genshin Impact present in the new release. Here’s a guide for Genshin players looking to jump into Honkai: Star Rail.
Leveling Up & Ascension Are Still the Same
The major difference between Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail is that Genshin is a third person, hack and slash RPG, while Star Rail is a turned based action RPG. However, when you actually look deep into the game, you can see elements of Genshin implemented into the game.
If you’re a Genshin player, then you will know what Ascension is. It is still the same as it was from Genshin Impact where you need to level up a character to a certain level before you can perform Ascension. Speaking of leveling up, it is also still the same. Outside of earning XP from battles, you can also use XP books to speed up the leveling process. There are three types of XP books:
- Travel Encounters – Gives 1000 XP, similar to Wanderer’s Advice
- Adventure Log – Gives 5000 XP, similar to Adventurer’s Experience
- Travelers’s Guide – Gives 20,000 XP, similar to Hero’s Wit
Remember to always level up and ascend your characters when you get the chance. That will be explained in a moment.
Talents Are Called Traces
Traces is essentially Genshin Impacts Talent system. This is where you will be getting your skills as you level up your characters. Remember when I said that you need to level up and ascend your characters? Well, that is important to do if you want to unlock more Traces.
There are skills that will remain locked until you reach a certain level. Each skill can also be upgraded multiple times until you reach the maximum upgrade. However, as you continue upgrading your skills, the resources and materials require will increase in quantity and rarity. Think about which characters you want to invest in the most when you start the game. This will help with decision making in the future of upgrading characters and getting skills.
If you want to know which units are worth investing in, you can check out this F2P tier list.
Constellations Are Called Eidolons
Just like in Genshin Impact, and any other gacha game, you will sometimes get the same characters when you do a summon. When this happens, you won’t get the two of the same character (unlike other gacha games), that duplicate character will instead be transformed into a material that will help you make the character you already have become stronger.
Here, we have Eidolons. Genshin players will be familiar with this, as it is similar to Constellations. Now, Eidolons are very important when you want to make a character stronger, as unlocking Eidolons will reward you with passive skills that are completely unique to that character. If you get the chance to unlock an Eidolon, always do so and experiment with the unlocked Eidolon.
Light Cones
Light Cones are where we need to explain a bit more. You see, Genshin allows you to change the weapons of every character you have. In Star Rail, that is not possible. Every character will only have one weapon that they use the entire game. So, if the characters can’t equip weapons, how else can we make them stronger besides leveling up? Light Cones are the answer.
Now it’s not as simple as equipping the strongest Light Cone you have on one character and call it a day. There are some complexities behind trying to use a Light Cone correctly. Each Light Cone will correspond to a Path, like On the Fall of an Aeon’s being The Destruction. Now that we know the path, we need to equip this Light Cone to a character who is also on the Path of The Destruction.
One such character you can equip this Light Cone to is Blade. Once the Light Cone is equipped to Blade, the effects of the Light Cone will be activated. Now, you can technically equip this Light Cone on another character that isn’t on The Destruction Path, but the game will warn you that equipping the Light Cone on that character will have no effect and it will not activate its effects.
Once you have the Light Cone equipped, you can upgrade it just like you upgrade weapons in Genshin Impact, making it stronger than before.
And that’s all you Genshin players need to know about the difference in Star Rail. What do you think? Did we cover all of the important bits to help Genshin players understand Star Rail better? Let us know in the comments below.
READ NEXT: Honkai: Star Rail – Ultimate Combat & Character Progression Guide
