As CBT 3 news is confirmed (Jan 24 2023), here are all the things you need to know to understand how Star Rail gameplay works~
【Table of Contents】
Warp ║ Combat
Character ║ Elements ║ Path ║ Light Cones ║ Trace ║ Eidolon ║ Relic
Cocoon ║ Crawling Shadow ║ Past Legacy ║ Echo Of War
It might looked overwhelming, but it's actually similar to Genshin / Honkai mechanic
Just different "terms" -Skyverlash
Warp
Probably where you will get happiness or depression
Warp is where you will pull the gacha for the characters or the light cones
Even in beta I have no luck lol
Combat
1. The Turn Order
|| If you look at the corner left box here, each character's turn are being shown in this hierarchy lists.
|| You can see in the screen right now, Dan Heng is the one having the turn right now.
|| During this phase, it's up to you to use Dan Heng's normal attack (Q) or Dan Heng's Skill (E)
|| *I will explain about the burst later on
2. Normal Attack, Skills and Energy
|| Like I mentioned before, you can use normal attack or skills in this game
|| Normal attack is your default attack
|| While skills requires 1 energy to activate them
|| You can have 5 energy stacked at max limit
|| Use normal attack = recharge 1 energy
|| As you can see in the gif below, Pela's energy from 2 increased into 3 after her turn ends
|| Use Skills = reduce 1 energy
|| Dan Heng's energy got reduced by 1 after his turn ends
|| This means that you can only recharge your energy from using your normal attack
3. Ultimate, Highest Priority For Your Turn
|| How you recharge Ultimate's gauge is similar to Genshin Impact's Burst
|| As you attack the enemies (normal attack / skill), the energy will recharged
|| If you see glowing circle besides your character, that means you can trigger their ultimate
|| You can trigger their ultimate any time you want,
|| The moment you use the ultimate, it will prioritize their turn (you can cut opponent's turn this way too)
|| You can see here, when the opponent's turn are over,
|| I used Natasha's burst (the 3rd character from the left)
|| So instead of Dan Heng's turn, it's her ultimate skill first
|| *Afterwards it's Dan Heng's turn again
|| This is very important because let's say for the next 4 turns, they all are your opponent's turn
|| If in any case you need to use healing, or some of your characters can use their ultimate to manipulate the combat
|| For example in here, I used Natasha's ultimate to heal my team's HP (cutting enemies' turn)
|| You might prevent your team's death because of that ultimate timing that you used
|| Using ultimate during your character's turn will not end their turn
|| After I used Dan Heng's Ultimate, he still have the turn to do normal attack / skills attack
4. Weakness Break
|| Each enemies got their own elemental weaknesses
|| Their weaknesses are shown above their HP Bar
|| The white bar there are the break gauge
Toughness Break
|| What is enemy's Toughness?
|| If you see the bar above the enemy, there are red bars and white bars.
|| Red bar is the enemy's HP.
|| White bar is the enemy's Toughness.
|| If you able to attack them using their elemental weaknesses, this is where you will trigger the weakness break.
Physical Break
Using【Physical Attack】to trigger Weakness Break will deal【Physical DMG】and apply【Bleed effect】dealing【Physical DoT】
Ice Break
Using【Ice attack】to trigger Weakness Break will apply【 Frozen effect】that prevents the enemy from taking action, dealing【Ice DoT】
Wind Break
Using【Wind attack】to trigger Weakness Break will deal【Wind DMG】and apply【Wind Shear effect】dealing【Wind DoT】
Fire Break
Using【Fire attack】to trigger Weakness Break will deal【Fire DMG】and apply【Burn effect】dealing【Fire DoT】
Lightning Break
Using【Lightning attack】to trigger Weakness Break will deal【Lightning DMG】and apply【Shock effect】dealing【Lightning DoT】
Quantum Break
Using【Quantum attack】to trigger Weakness Break will apply【 Entanglement effect】delaying enemy actions and dealing【Quantum DoT】
Imaginary Break
Using【Imaginary attack】to trigger Weakness Break will apply【Imprisonment effect】delaying enemy actions and reducing【Enemy SPD】
Pre Battle Activation
|| Before you activated the battle, you can actually have advantage / disadvantage
|| If you trigger the battle based on enemy's weakness, you got weakness advantage
|| Basically it's like a head start, random enemies will have their break gauge reduced
|| Sometimes the HP bar got depleted a little bit too for random enemies
|| If the enemies attacked you first, you will get disadvantage (known as Ambush)
|| Basically the enemies will get the first turn
Characters
In the character details, (on the left side) you can see the character's level, traces, light cone, eidolon, relics. I will explain this later on.
While on the right side of the picture, you can see the element, the path, the attribute, Basic ATK, Skill, Ultimate, Talent, Technique, and which Light Cone that you equipped.
In the "Combat" section, I have explained this.
But for the brief explanation, you can check this infographic.
Elements
|| In the beta gameplay, there are 7 different elements
|| Physical
|| Fire
|| Ice
|| Lightning
|| Wind
|| Quantum
|| Imaginary
You might think specific elements have fixed weakness or strong against fixed elements.
For example, "In most game, Fire is strong against Ice, Ice against Lightning, etc"
But THAT DOESN'T WORK IN HSR
In HSR, every enemies have different elemental weaknesses
*I have explained this in the "Combat" section called: [WEAKNESS]
Paths
|| Paths might be a new concept to you,
|| But if you played some turn based game or some JRPG games,
|| You might be familiar with the term "Class** or Job Level"
|| Yes, paths in HSR is your character's class** / job level
Destruction
|| "Characters of this Path excel at attacking from the front. They are the strongest when fighting alone in battle."
|| You can imagine Destruction as the front liner or berserker
Hunt
|| "Characters of this Path have extraordinary single-target damage, which is critical in blitz battles."
|| As the description described it, Hunt is your single-targer DPS
Erudition
|| "Characters of this Path have exceptional multi-target, AoE damage. Use their abilities at the right time to turn the tide of battle."
|| If Hunt is single nuker, Erudition are AoE attacker
Harmony
|| "Characters of this Path provide buffs to their allies and cooperate with allies to boost the party's overall battle power."
|| This will be your support / buff character
Nihility
|| "Characters from this Path will debuff their enemies and gain an advantage by reducing the enemy's overall battle power."
|| Instead of buffing your team, Nihility is more about debuffing the enemies
Preservation
|| "Characters from this Path have powerful defensive capabilities, which can protect allies in many ways."
|| You can imagine this character as the defender support
A*****nce
|| Characters from this Path can heal wounded allies, making them indispensable in long battles.
|| The healer of your team
Light Cones
Basically the "weapon" of your characters
|| Remember how every character have their own path?
|| In HSR, Light Cones' ability also sync with specific path
|| For example here, this Light Cone [ In The Night" ] will only activate its passive (ability) if the character that used this light cone also have "Hunt" as their path
|| This light cone for example, is meant to be equipped by "Nihility" Path character
|| But you can see in the light cone ability, the text are grayed out instead of glowing green
|| This means that the character that equipped this light cone is not from Nihility Path
Trace
Trace is literally "talent" in Genshin Impact
If you upgrade the character's trace, they will get stronger
This is the example of what trace looked like
Trace
|| When you haven't ascended your character at all, you can't upgrade the trace yet
|| Once you ascended your character to at least lv 1, you can start to upgrade the trace too
|| The one that you unlocked first will always be the Basic ATK, Skill, Talent, Technique and Ultimate trace
|| The outer trace that got locked in here, basically it's either increase the character's attribute like ATK, DEF, CRIT, or their special combat passive
Eidolon
Literally constellation (when you got duplicate character, you can upgrade your character to become more stronger)
You can see where my luck are going to xD
Relics
"The artifact system in Genshin, but now you need to farm 6 types of relics instead of 5"
Relic
|| There are 6 types of relics in HSR
|| Head, Hands, Body, Feet, Neck, and lastly Article (from left to right)
|| Head = Main stats will always be Flat HP
|| Hands = Main stats will always be Flat ATK
|| Body = Main stats will always be Flat DEF
|| Feet = Main stats can be either %ATK / %DEF / %HP / Speed
|| Neck = Main stats can be either %ATK / %DEF / %HP / Elemental Damage Bonus
|| Article = Main stats can be either %ATK / %DEF / %HP / %Crit Rate / %Crit Damage / Outgoing Healing Boost / Effect Hit Rate
|| For the bonus set, either you collect 2pc, 4pc or 5pc of the same relic
Cocoon
If you play Genshin Impact, Cocoon is similar to Ley Line for farming Mora & EXP, but also talent materials
Cocoon I
|| Cocoon I is where you can get Character EXP materials, Light cone EXP materials, and Credits
|| The first cocoon that you will unlocked is the one in【Jarilo-VI; Southern Snow Plains】
|| Just complete the main story normally, and eventually you'll unlocked cocoon.
|| You can pick either you want to get the【Character EXP book】(to level up your characters)
|| 【Light Cone EXP】(to level up your light cone, A.K.A. your weapon)
|| Or【Trailblaze EXP】(your player lv, some main story requires you to reach specific level to unlock them)
Cocoon II
|| Cocoon II is where you can get【Trace Materials】(to level up your character's trace level)
|| Every character's traces materials are based on their paths
|| Cocoon II Schedule
|| Mon, Thu, Sun: 【Erudition】【Harmony】
|| Tue, Fri, Sun: 【Hunt】【Nihility】
|| Wed, Sat, Sun: 【Destruction】【Preservation】【A*****nce】
Ascension
"The place where you can farm character ascension materials is called Crawling Shadow"
Once you reached Trailblazer Lv 20, you can finally increase your Difficulty Level to Lv 1 and farm Characters Ascension Materials
All you need to do is fight specific boss for specific characters ascension material elements
They always open everyday
Past Legacy
Past Legacy is the term of the place where you can farm relics
Once you reached Trailblazer Lv 25, you can finally grind relics for the rest of your life
Echo of War
Echo of War is the term of the place where you can do the "weekly boss"
You will need the materials to upgrade your talents further
There's also chance to get relics and light cones here
My Guides Archive (Genshin) [Click Me]
≿—═ | ༻✧༺ | ═—≾
In-Depth - Thorough - Clean
≿—═ | ༺❀༻ | ═—≾
Here's a huggie for you
And that's it! I truly hope you find this guide useful
My job's done here~
I'm Skyverlash, and I really appreciate all the likes and comment!
You can follow me on my youtube channel, discord server and hoyolab too
