Apart from a beautifully designed open world, Honkai: Star Rail features a huge cast of characters that players can use. Each character has their own paths and elements, which determine their role in a team. To get most of these characters, you'll have to rely on the gacha system in the game.

After playing the game for a little while, you'll meet Asta in the main story, and the gacha system will unlock after talking to her. The game also gives you one free pull where you're guaranteed to get Asta for free, which is quite convenient.

Updated on October 10, 2023, by Sanyam Jain: From the Version 1.4 update, Honkai: Star Rail is starting double banners at the same time. The article has been updated to reflect how the pity system works in these banners.

Departure Warp Banner Guide

Departure Warp is the starter banner that permanently unlocks for every player once you talk to Asta. You'll be using Star Rail Passes or Stellar Jades to pull on this banner, but the special thing about it is that you get a 20 percent discount on your pulls. This means that you can do a ten-pull with just eight tickets.

If you don't have enough tickets when you click on the warp button, the game will ask you if you want to use Jades for the rest.

It's recommended not to use Jades on the Departure or Stellar Warp banner since they're not limited.

This banner stays in the game until you make up to 50 pulls on it, and you're guaranteed to get one of the seven five-star characters on the 50th summon. Moreover, you're also guaranteed to get at least one four-star Light Cone or character every ten pulls. There are also plenty of three-star characters that you'll get while summoning.

Here are all the characters you can get from this banner:

Apart from that, you can also get up to 21 four-star and three-star Light Cones randomly.

These Light Cones can be used with any character with the same path, which makes them worth it.

Some parts of the gacha system are shared between all the banners except the Light Cone Event Banner like:

• There's a 0.600 percent chance of summoning a five-star whenever you do a single pull on the banner. You can also get a five-star on the tenth pull that's supposed to guarantee a four-star.
• Other than the hard pity, there's a 5.100 percent chance of getting a four-star character on Light Cone on each pull.
• You'll get 40 Undying Starlight for every five-star Light Cone, eight Undying Starlight for every four-star Light Cone, and 20 Undying Embers for every three-star Light Cone pulled on any banner.
• When you get a five-star character more than once, you'll get one of their Eidolon and 40 Undying Starlight. Getting the same character eight times or more will give you 100 Undying Starlight instead since you'll be on maximum Eidolon.
• Getting a four-star character two times or more will give you their Eidolon and eight Undying Starlight. Similarly, you'll get 20 Undying Starlight if you get the character eight times or more.

You can use Undying Starlight and Embers in the store to get more summons, characters, Light Cones, or upgrade items.

Stellar Warp Banner Guide

The Stellar Warp banner is the standard banner of Honkai: Star Rail that permanently stays in the game. You can get the same five-star characters, four-star characters, four-star Light Cones, and three-star Light Cones in this banner as well. Though there are a few massive differences:

• This banner includes up to seven five-star Light Cones that you can get whenever you pull a five-star while wishing. There's no guarantee of getting a five-star character so you could pull multiple five-star Light Cones before you get a character here.
• The pity for the four-star item is the same, but the pity for a five-star is increased to 90 in this banner.

Apart from these differences, there's also an "Additional Rewards" section that you'll be able to see on the banner. This section tracks the total pulls you've done on it, and you can choose any five-star you want when you make a total of 300 summons.

Even though the characters and Light Cones you can get from Stellar and Departure Banners are almost the same, they don't share pity.

This means that the summons made on these banners will count separately, even though they use the same passes.

Character Event Warp Banner Guide

This is the main attraction in the gacha system of Honkai: Star Rail. The character event warp banner features one limited five-star character that can only be acquired from this banner. Each character's banner lasts for 21 days, and there are two character event banner cycles in each update.

Sometimes, Hoyoverse reduces the length of an update, which leads to the limited-time banners being reduced in days as well.

Moreover, if there's any new four-star character in the event banner, they get added to the other banners after the update that they were featured in ends.

The pity and chances of getting a five-star or four-star in this banner are the same as the standard banner, but there are a few differences:

• You can only get five-star characters in the Character Event Warp, and there are no five-star Light Cones.
• The first time you get a five-star character, there's a 50 percent chance that it's going to be the featured character. If you don't get a featured character as the first five-star, the next five-star is guaranteed to be that character. The process repeats once you get the featured five-star.

The pity and 50 percent chance for multiple Character Event Warps are shared. This means that if you pull 50 times on a certain banner and it goes away, you'll still have 50 pity on the next banner. Similarly, if you lose your 50:50 on a certain banner, you're guaranteed to get the featured five-star on the consecutive banners as well.

If there are two or more banners at the same time, your pity and 50:50 chance are shared between them. For example, if you're zero into pity and pull ten times on one of the limited Character banners active at the same time, you're guaranteed to get a five-star in the next 80 pulls even on the other banner.

This is the perfect type of banner to spend your Stellar Jades on. Though it's recommended to save up your Jades and passes until you have enough for a pity unless you need one of the featured four-star characters. Unlike the two banners mentioned above, Character and Light Cone Event banners consume Star Rail Special Passes.

Other than the hard pity of 90, the standard and Character Event banners also have a soft pity starting after 75.

This isn't mentioned in the game, but you have a 50 percent chance to get a five-star in your 76th-80th pull.

Light Cone Event Warp Banner Guide

If you've played Genshin Impact, you might be scared of the Light Cone Event banner in Star Rail. Thankfully, the system is much better in this game. There is only one featured five-star Light Cone that belongs to the respective featured character, and there are three featured four-star Light Cones as well.

The Light Cone Event banner has some stark differences from every other banner in the game:

• You have a 0.800 and 6.600 percent chance of getting a five-star and four-star respectively each time you pull. Moreover, you can only get five-star Light Cones in this banner but you can still get four-star characters and Light Cones.
• The pity for getting a five-star goes down to 80 on this banner, and the soft pity starts at the 65th wish.
• There's a 75 percent chance of your first five-star to be the featured Light Cone on the banner. Moreover, you're guaranteed to get the featured Light Cone on your second five-star if you don't get it on the first one.

Much like Character Event Warp, the pity between different Weapon Event Warp is shared. Although, if you're a low-spending or F2P player, you might not want to go for the weapon banner at the start of the game. The character's signature weapon can boost their abilities, but it's more important to get plenty of characters first.

When you get to the late game, you won't be able to use the same team in every battle because of the Weakness system. This is why you need a wide range of characters from different paths and elements.

If there are multiple Character Event banners at the same time, you'll also see the same number of Light Cone Event banners.

The featured Light Cones will always correspond to the current Character Event banners.

NEXT: Honkai: Star Rail - Beginner Tips