There are many factors that will affect your experience in Honkai: Star Rail. Grinding for relics in this game is the equivalent of artifact grinding in Genshin Impact. You can already imagine the sheer hell it can be when it comes to relics. They play a huge role in making your characters the best relics to make them a better support, DPS, or both.
How to Level Relics Efficiently
Let’s clarify this from the start: Relics is a lot of gambling. We don’t want you to feel like you did something wrong with your relics runs or you’re not grinding enough. It’s all about luck and sometimes you hit the jackpot, sometimes you have to settle with what you have. But what we can do is make sure you’re not spreading your resources too thin.
We’ll talk about the in-game features that’ll help such as the ‘sort’ function, auto-adds, etc., followed by how to pick your relics, and how to roll for them. Finally, tips and tricks for grinding for relics, such as when should you start investing heavily on them and how much is too much. All of these will help you figure out which one you need to level and how to be efficient with your resources.
In-game Functions You Should Know
Honkai: Star Rail learned a lot from its predecessors, especially Genshin Impact, when it comes to in-game functions that makes certain process less tedious. The first two are sorting and comparing.
Sorting will show you relics with the status that you prioritize on top. You can also sort from which relics have higher levels.
Comparing is a function that allows you to compare the stats of different relics without having to jumping through multiple relics. Just click the Compare button and you can look through your catalogue to compare the stats with the current one you’re wearing.
Now to another very important function is Synthesize. Genshin Impact lacks this function which will soon become your favorite function. You can craft any relic and add “Self-Modeling Resin” to pick the main stats. This process will cut down a lot of your time trying to get that one final piece of the set. You get one for free when you reach level 40 in the Nameless Honor.
Picking Main & Substats
Generally speaking, you don’t “pick” your main and substats unless you’re synthesizing them. Whether or not you’ll get a good stat is complete RNG, but here are some rules on Relics and Planar Ornaments to you need to know:
- Head relics will always have HP as the main stat
- Hands relics will always have ATK as the main stat
- Planar Ornamets, Body and Feet can have HP, ATK, and DEF as the main stat
- Only Body can have Healing Boost, Effect Hit Rate, CRIT DMG & CRIT RATE as the main stat
- Only Feet can have Break Effect & SPD as the main stat
- Only Planar Sphere has Elemental Dmg Boost
- Only Link Rope has Break Effect and Energy Regen
Why are these important? Because you need to know which one you can use as fodder for your relics. Knowing that Head and Hands relics, for example, will always have the same main stats, you can freely use them as fodders to level up your relics.
There are more rules regarding to the substats too:
- Substats can never be the same as the main stat (For example, your CRIT DMG Body relic will never have CRIT DMG substat)
- Substats are upgraded every 3 levels (or added on +3 if the relic has only 3 substats)
Strategy On Leveling Your Relics
Relics’ main stat is important, but just as important are the substats of those relics. For example, a SPD Boot for your Tingyun that comes with ATK will affect the ATK buff cap of her skill. But if the substats rolled into DEF and Effect Res, they’re pretty much useless on her skillset.
Because of this, you want to keep roll your relics only to every +3 and stop to see if it’s worth investing more on it. Generally, and this is very generally speaking, your main DPS like Jing Yuan rolls should go to CRIT DMG, CRIT RATE, and ATK. While you want your support to get SPD substats and then whatever their skill scales on, like HP for Natasha and DEF for March 7th.
There will be very bad rolls on your relics, but they’re not completely useless. Bad rolls turn into EXPs and to some degree, Honkai: Star Rail feels a little more forgiving. The EXP penalty from using the same relic is a lot less and the highest level is 15 instead of 20.
Are Purple Relics Worth It?
If you’re not at Equilibrium 4 yet, you’re probably struggling with getting five-star relics. You will have to settle for four-stars and yes, they’re worth at least investing until +9. In fact, you’re more likely to find four-stars with great substats than a useful five-star. I benched my 5-star body for Trailblazer because it has ATK main stat vs DEF main stat on the purple one.
But at that equilibrium, you’re better off focusing your resources in Traces and Light Cones. It’s also worth investing in character EXPs and ascending 5 to 6 of them for Forgotten Hall. The stats scale from simply leveling up and upgrading Traces will get you pretty far, paired with decent artifacts.
Should I Salvage My Relics?
It’s not worth it, especially in the early game when you’re basically scrapping at anything to level up your relics. You need a ton of relics to be sacrificed to make a single relic that might not have substats that you want.
At endgame stage, you can start salvaging relics that you really don’t need if your main characters are well geared-up.
ALSO READ: Honkai Star Rail: Top Stamina Farms For Level 50-60 Trailblaze Progression
