It’s the eternal conundrum of playing a gacha game like Honkai: Star Rail if you’re free-to-play or a low spender: do you pull for more characters or give them their best-in-slot Light Cone? With your premium currency limited without paying real money, should you build your roster or go all-in on a single character?
Why You Should Always Pull for New Characters in Honkai: Star Rail
In my view, pulling for a character’s Signature Light Cone is a luxury. You should always focus on getting new characters over new Light Cones. They’re stat sticks first and foremost, and Signatures are made almost entirely for their keyed character and no one else. They can be used on other characters of the same path, but there are tons of solid free or low-cost options available.
A new character can open up new team compositions or create opportunities for new playstyles in existing ones. Kafka, for instance, almost single-handedly transformed DoT teams from a niche, low-tier setup to meta overnight. Black Swan, complicated though her kit is, made Kafka teams infinitely better in an equally short amount of time.
Follow-up attacks were similarly slept on without much representation beyond Clara, March 7th, or Herta. The situation was dire enough that when Topaz first released, almost no one, myself included, gave her even a passing time of day. “A single-target attacker who buffs FuAs? What good is she?” we all asked. Then Dr. Ratio came out, and the flurry of follow-up attack specialists who followed him showed so many HSR players the error of their ways.
Then we saw what Robin could do for follow-up attack teams, and the whole Star Rail world shook. And that was after Sparkle powercrept Bronya, who seemed too busted to outdo. That Bronya was still so strong meant that those who pulled for Sparkle and had a Bronya in their back pocket could suddenly make two endgame-ready teams without needing to spend the additional Passes getting Sparkle’s signature.
I could go on. The long and short of it is, if you can afford a Signature Light Cone for a character, either because you’ve been saving for a long time or because the character is on rerun, go for it. However, I’ve never found a reason to spend up to 36,000 Stellar Jade to outfit a single character when building a team around them tended to be a better use of my time.
Why You Should Pull a Character’s Signature Light Cone in Honkai: Star Rail
Short of repeating myself, I’ll say that there are a couple of reasons to get a character’s signature Light Cone. The first is if their overall effectiveness takes a massive hit without it. That usually only applies to DPS characters like Acheron, Feixiao, and others, though there have been arguments that Aventurine is much less powerful without his signature.
In cases where the math shows having a signature and not is higher than 15%, having that signature can turn an already god-tier character like Aventurine into something altogether more terrifying. The same is true for Acheron (without Jiaoqiu) and likely for Feixiao as well. The discrepancy in their output with and without their personal Light Cone is massive, and Acheron is the only time I’ve forgone another character to make the best DPS character in the game better.
The second reason to get a character’s signature LC is that you have the currency to do so, and there’s not a character coming up in the next patch or two that you really care about. If you plan to spend a lot of real money on Honkai: Star Rail, this suggestion is mostly moot, but if you plan to stay F2P or be a low-spender, your resources will always be much more limited. Pulling for a signature LC can cost just as much as a character, so you should only do it if you don’t have something you’re saving for in the future.
You should always pull for characters you like over how they could influence how good or meta-defining a character is. And if you really vibe with a particular character and want them to be the best they can be, their signature will always be the best way to give them that power. Other characters on the same path might also get value, though not as much as with their personal LC.
I can’t tell you how to spend your Stellar Jade or real-world money, of course, and you should make the the choice that feels best for you and is within your means to make. If you’re F2P, that will depend on how much time you have to save up Jade. If you only want to spend a little, the same is basically true, though you’ll have a bit more to work with. Just don’t get sucked into the money pit that Honkai: Star Rail wants you to, because you can get everything you want — and complete all of the game’s content — without spending a dime.
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Published: Sep 16, 2024 12:29 am