Giving your Character the best Light Cone: 😒 Giving your Character the Light Cone that has their face on it: 😀

I don't really mind lc in terms of visual gameplay because it let the dev make characters use the most wacky shit imaginable as their weapons

> there's no weapon that creates small tornado to group enemies Viridescent Hunt in the corner: "SURE buddy....SUREEEEE"

Some of the newer 5* lightcones feel like their own characters 😭

Loght cones are basically 4.5 star characters, the new ones are so cracked. I remember ppl freaking out about how ratio lc is better than most of his eidolons. Lcs just offer so much Also, i like how lcs let characters use their actual weapons instead if some dull goofy weapon. It a visual treat

I love how Gallagher became a top tier unit now with Break teams on the rise. His value will go up even more once Firefly releases.

Theres also the fact that some 4 stars don't even have a "signature" like Guinaifen. There are no Nihility lightcones with HER face on it

Wait? Can't light cone be equipped by anyone and the path lock on passive is a way to add that "Sword user can only use sword" type balancing? If that's the case asking for a universal light cone passive is like asking for Raiden to be able to use Mistsplitter Reforged

One thing to note is that signature light cones in star rail are MUCH easier to get than signature weapons in Genshin. Star rail is pretty generous with pulls and instead of having two weapons on a single banner we have one banner for each weapon. Add on the 75/25 pity and you can get a signature lightcone for a lot of characters without too much issue. Also a side note on the Acheron topic, while she doesn’t have many light cones that work well for her, they did recently release a four star lightcone that’s made to work for her.

I don't know about other Gacha games, but Light Cones looks and feels so similar to Craft Essence from FGO. But Craft Essense is universal since anyone can use it regardless of their servant class

And that's why KingYuan has no weaknesses. His LC works with almost everyone in his path,

It's so weird that Acheron can't fully utilized Resolution Shines As Pearls of Sweat passive

Feels like they tried to make don-dps LCs for support characters do much more, and much more personalized in terms of stat scaling to get people to pull for them. In genshin basically every support can just equip a favonius weapon and be alright

I knew something was up when I finally got to hertas shop, had enough to purchase a lightcone and looked up guides for characters that these lc could fit and a lot of them seemed so… trivial, for a five star weapon

another thing is that weapons often come with a weird drawback that is specific for the character to overcome, like sparkle can use bronyas light cone but bronya can’t use sparkles because she can’t instantly generate 4 skill points to meet the requirement. The only real caveat to this is the nihility lcs bc of how bypass works and all of kafka, bs and even acheron being able to use kafka lc but for harmony, robins lc gives the buff for one turn which is fine for robin, ruan mei’s only gives the skill point if you have 150 break, sparkle only gives the crit rate is you can generate 4 skill points every 3 turns, to me it’s the lack of universal applicability to these light cones within the path as well that makes them so annoying like Im spending jades either on a character or lc, i want to be able to have a flexible lc

I think the developers are probably very happy with the result since it heavily encourages people to pull not only for the character but ALSO for their light cones, and since they are available at the exact same time you cannot manage your jade expenses over time you have to spend everything at once, which means you probably won't have enough saved up and you will feel the need to buy some, which is Hoyo's end goal. So overall I think the system is very well designed, just not with the enjoyment of the players as the main goal.

My problem with 5* light cones is that they are an entire new relic+ planar set gear combined, which 99% of the time are too broken to not go for them. For example, literally look at Bronya sig lc; it has 4pc healer set sp buff, a 30% dmg buff for the ally acting after her. See the problem? The newer lc nowadays has even more stupidly broken buffs. But I get it since it's a turn based game, and there's nothing much to do with weapons outside of combat.

I personally think it'll be cool if the herta shop would be able to give us a "empty light cone" where we can choose from a variety of options for passives. This will obviously be extremely difficult to implement, and I don't expect it to happen, but it'll still be cool For example, it can cost 20 herta shop tokens, so you can get around three a year, and it can use the superimposition materials already in the shop. It'll have to give a wide range of passives tho, like think about Xueyi with a light cone that "increases Break Effect by 32% (64% S5), Skill deals toughness reducing damage regardless of weakness type" she'll be able to preform her follow up attack WAYY more often all of a sudden

These hyper specific passives is getting out of hand

11:50 Nobody tell him that a 3 stars lc is Boothill second best option and people have managed to clear with him using a Fu Xuan lc of all thing

Imagine if there was an Abudance LC that gives cleanse to your team, not only would that make healing sustainers be more broken than ever but it'd also give incentive to those who don't have any cleanse in their kit whatsoever. Hell if Bailu, for example, has a LC like that, she would most likely go up being one of the best supports. Period.

Honestly, I'd love the ability to take lightcones and use them with any path. That would just be so *incredibly* useful. It'd be literally game changing and I can only imagine how powerful it'd be.

The fact that LCs don’t affect any sort of appearance is nice in the sense that the devs can create whatever they want for characters to fight with, but at the same time make them a lot more boring to pull for since they’re all just stat sticks

The Fu Xuan clip is incredibly misleading. If your whole team is dying while running Fu Xuan you’re doing something wrong.

I pulled Seele's sig mainly because even if she got powercrept, everyone likes speed, ult, basics, and or skills right? Then Ratio came out, and then Boothill came out..

Regarding Abundance Characters I feel like Huohuo's signature actually works on every single Abundance character that we have right now in some way or another. It grants all of them off turn healing providing much better sustain power. Even for Gallagher it helps him reach 3 turn ults with an Energy Regen Rope. BUT I do feel like this is attributed to abundance lightcones being very vanilla in their effects right now for some reason. So this may change in the future.

Limited 5* characters don't have to get their LC to be good, their LC just buff their ability and their gameplay by a lot which is how it should be done, unlike with Luocha and Silver Wolf LC where they better of with 4* LC

I'm surprised you didn't atleast mention that lightcones have a 75/25 instead of 50/50's like characters and has a guaranteed after losing only one instead of the two losses in genshin. Also in genshin, correct me if I'm wrong because I've never pulled on the weapon banner in genshin, but can't you like lose 2 50/50's at like 80 pity twice then you could get your guaranteed weapon at 80 pity too? Like after getting the fate points or whatever you could still hit pity right, you don't just get the weapon out right after losing 2 50/50's....? Also the fate points don't carry over......

HSR's lightcones are more character specific but are WAY easier to obtain than genshin's weapons. As an F2P, in genshin I was only able to get one limited 5 star weapon in 3 YEARS because I needed to save enough primos for characters, in HSR I have gotten 4 signature lightcones in one year while also getting every 5 star character I wanted. You also mainly only want dps lightcones, most support lightcones can be substituted with good 4 star ones.

Can i be honest, why does it seem like every time Vars make a video about HSR its always something nitpicky or negative?

Imagine if they make animated lightcones ingame like they do in youtube shorts. Dammmnnnnn

No offense Mr. Vars II but sometimes in your videos I feel like since you whale so much your experiences feel very divorced from those who are free to play or low spenders. I think this is one of those cases.

A minor but possible change could be to allow all characters to use light cones in sim universe if you are currently following that path. So for example. if you are running nihility path, you could put acheron's lightcone on dr ratio to give him more debuffs, or hunt path allowing you to put seele's lightcone on acheron. it wouldn't be so game breaking considering what you could pull off in SU already, but it would be a fun change that gives us more teams to test out

imo, honkai star rail take on weapon ( Lightcone ) is inspired more by honkai impact 3rd, where signature weapon is a very much an integral part of the kit as it is tailor made for that specific character in fact, it is usually advised to not pull for a character if you cannot get their weapon in HI3 and simply save instead for future chars, tho as always it does not apply if don't really care about abyss rank or you are pulling for waifu

I actually appreciate Star Rail's light cone design a lot, especially compared with Genshin. By constraining by path, they are a lot easier to balance. In Genshin, because the same weapon type can be used by characters in all sorts of roles (dps, subdps, support, etc) the design space is constrained because new weapons need to be balanced against all the possible users of it. An average seeming dps weapon might somehow be overpowered for a support. With Star Rail, due to the paths broadly separating characters by team roles, balance can be a lot more focused. This also allows for the light cones to have more overpowered effects, because the effects of it on the rest of the meta is easier to reason about. I think powerful effects make light cones feel rewarding and exciting to use. The problem of having limited options does arise, but i think that's a natural consequence of the developers trying to expand the design space, and it will be alleviated in due time when we have more characters and options. Of course, on the flip side, with the blurring of paths, these advantages are going to be muddied with time, but I'm optimistic the developers will find a good balance. Acheron's light cone is particularly egregious in terms of the advantage it confers, but i think in most other cases, the benefit of the signature light cone is significant but fairly reasonable. New strategies that emerge from the release of new characters also allow other light cone options to come into the spotlight. For instance, I've recently found success using Welt as a main DPS in a super break team using not his signature light cone but instead resolution shines in pearls of sweat. Because break damage doesn't scale with dmg%, but does scale with defence reduction, resolution improves the teams consistency and damage numbers a lot more, albeit at the cost of having welt himself deal a bit less damage on each hit. Dance dance dance is also a powerful staple that is extremely effective in a carefully speed tuned team. I feel that these powerful but niche options encourage creative team building and reward those with an attention for detail who are trying to optimize their setups In summary, i think the design of light cones are easier to balance effectively than genshin weapons and the power levels allow for interesting team building, regardless of whether it's to mitigate not having a character's signature, or to take advantage of a niche effect.

I think the lightcone system isn’t as bad as you make it out to be, as a F2P i think it makes me think more about which lightcone is more optimal for this character since i don’t have any of the top tier character specific ones. It gets me to think more, instead of just whatever one has the biggest number in a random video i found.

"Character acting different from their path" was issue since day one. Ahem, ahem, Serval. If Serval had exact same as her kit but her path become nihility, she would be so powerful.

Its called SIGNATURE lightcone for a reason. Its like you use a dress tailor made for you by a dress maker. They make it of you sizes and even more into it like skin tone, face, etc. Can any other people use it? Yes, as long as you have similiar size (same path in HSR). But would it be the same as when you use it? Ofcourse not. It is premium priced exactly because its made for you.

I don't think it's that bad in HSR. The weapon banner is much better than in Genshin, since it doesn't have the terrible fate point system. There's also no fashion impact with light cones, like what happens in Genshin.

I really think that FOMO is just the biggest driver in HSR design. No character feels skippable, and no character really feels complete without their LC. Granted, it's way fewer pulls on average to get an LC than a Genshin signature, but it's brutal how unfinished characters like Boothill feel without them. I think I'd feel okay with it if the game wasn't continuously rebalancing itself around the newest character. If I could take like four 5-star units, vertically invest in them, fill their teams out with 4-stars, and comfortably handle everything, that'd be grand. But the game leaves you feeling like you can't skip any character AND those characters feel like they need their signatures, AND there aren't really functional 4-star stand ins for most of them... For me at least, who had been a low but consistent spender, it felt like my choice was go full Whale or just drop to F2P and stop caring so hard, and absolutely I picked the latter.

I’ve been using boothill a lot I used to use final victor light cone as boothills multi hit effect works well with it and it’s easy to get him at a good crit rate/ crit dmg but every since I switched to his signature it was huge that extra break effect makes a massive difference

That's exaclty what i feel after pulling Boothill, i just can't pull for hunt units, i already got Seele, Dr Ration and Topaz, and the Light Cones are so hard to get and so specific, i feel like getting another hunt unit would just be a waste without their signature, but that means pulling even more. What a great marketing strategy

I can't help but think that this is just a throwback for the weapon banners being easier to pull. On Sparkle's banner, I got both characters and their respective lcs in an incredible low amount of warps, which made me think how could that absurdly rare event have translated to genshin(fate points). Now, it's Alhaitham banner and I saved a guaranteed since Yae's banner, but I was on the infamous 37% chance of getting the desired weapon at 50 pity. Gave my shot... got Clorinde's. In genshin, tis way more complex to get a 5 star weapon than in hsr. And altho this might not be true, I still think that making lcs working for characters with specific requirements was a planned move. Feel free to prove me wrong

"There is no weapon that adds something new to characters in Genshin" Meanwhile: Favonius Set --> enables battery role Viridecent Hunt --> enables grouping Sacrafical Set --> enables like a billion new ways to play characters Prototype Amber --> enables healer role If you dont have every 5 star character and 5 star weapon in the game there are plenty of insentives to let a character do something else by giving them a specific weapon

Personally, I agree with what the video says overall but I wouldn't say that it's a "problem" for the most part, while it is true that the characters who completely defy what they're meant to do in the path they're advertised with basically face this problem more than the rest (biggest example being Blade, without his signature lightcone, your only choice is Secret Vow which is miles worse than the former), the better way I can describe it as in my opinion is just the whole mechanic being unstable and competent dependent on what Hoyoverse plans with it. Characters who has gameplay that strays away from the path they reside in don't appear very frequently, and whenever they do, it's either made up by them working just fine with the inferior alternatives or work fine WITHOUT a lightcone passive at all (only boothill fits this description for now). As for the lightcones that are personally tailored to suit their intended wearer, you can pretty much just consider the lightcone as a somewhat cheaper eidolon that you pull for if you want to invest in said character more, rather than expecting it as something you can maybe swap into future characters. I feel as if that's the point.. considering unlike weapons which are tools that can be passed around to anyone and use as long as they're compatible with it, lightcones explicitly show a piece of a memory from the character (5 star ones being alot more personal, as in to show that it quite literally is meant for the character shown in the art). As for why I think this mechanic is unstable either way, this was extremely close to being an issue before they added the second batch of free 4 star lightcones in Penacony's release, in which their passives all seem to differ from the first batch, being intended to be used in more complex characters rather than the conventional ones. It all depends on what easily accessible lightcones they would be releasing overtime and what characters they plan to release, which ideally should atleast be able to perform just fine without the extreme need of a lightcone passive, or they'd be able to use one of the lightcones the majority of the players are expected to have or have a way of obtaining without gacha currency. TLDR: the current set of characters we have aren't exactly pitiful without their self tailored lightcone, I personally think the lightcone mechanic stays okay as long as Hoyoverse keeps releasing accessible lightcones with varying passives and characters that can use them as alternatives. (Also offtopic but Fu Xuan can personally sustain a team by herself better than most even without her signature lightcone as long as she's built right smh dont diss her like that!!!)

Something about equipping a character’s signature light cone is so satisfying to me. My Fu Xuan is stuck with a f2p light cone, and it hurts me to click on her equip screen.

This video ignores one specific detail... Acheron's lightcone is a boost because she has a very specific use case in her path. Is it a problem that Boothill's lightcone is best in slot on him because he is the only break scaling hunt character in the game so far? There is the distinct possibility that like with Bronya's lightcone, other characters will come out with similar mechanics in the future and use them. The only thing that Genshin has over HSR is that it has 2 more years of weapons and characters Plus Genshin rarely if ever bothers with unique scaling. Most if not all characters are ATK or HP scaling with one or two using EM, two most recently with BoL, one with ER and a few Def scalers, but most people ignore those since they are all Geo. Genshin doesn't have a specialized stat scaling problem because almost nothing has specialized scaling. HSR is actually being ambitious with its characters and designs, so since they are trying to create a diverse set of characters, there has to be a first. Ultimately, this is a problem only if you want to buy generic characters that do the exact same thing as other characters... but are newer and have higher multipliers.

I think there needs to be more quantities of upgrade material from farming them that's for sure especially since you also need to upgrade artifacts

I personally like how LCs are made as it really makes you think what to use for which characters and on what you need more of. Furthermore it actually makes going for them worth it as LCs cost the same as a 5* Character so they better be worth going for. Universality would be good for a gameplay aspect but in terms of Gacha and 'worth' of a LC it's a good exchange.

I think LC thematically and narratively is incredible. So much storytelling packed with each one. But oh my god they should not have to be as hard to get as limited character banners, and should have more freedom to push characters in directions without being such absolute game changers. I think it could be a cool system down the road where you use any LC outside of path, but limited to one of these swaps per party, or it reduces the LC stats by 10 levels or something. Still could be playful in design. Lastly, I think they could play with more LC design, fashion hunter style. An LC that adds a cosmetic flair later like an aura or extra fx around UI or attacks could be fun flavor blasting. Lastly, I think they can release character *exclusive* LC, just to buff characters that got hardcore power crept, released in small packages every year as an event. Like physical MC, dan heng, march. Then arlan, asta, hook, or something. Could be fun.

I think a good solution is making more of those free event LCs and have them be generally be designed around a mechanic. Like a Hunt LC based on break effect and damage; that way people with Boothill and not have his sig LC can have something to work with him along with any future break effect Hunt character.

This and the relic system is a lot of the reason why I quit HSR in the second half of 2.0 With how it really feels *necessary* to have these lc's for newer characters, I had long gotten to the point that without their sigs I just was not able to clear endgame content like I used too, and I'm a day 1 player, I was maxing out MoC like no ones business starting from 1.2 until MoC11 and 12 came out, in which I was getting my ass beat so hard because trying to survive on second half without Fu or HuoHuo just *was not working*. But without the most meta characters and *especially* their light cones to help out with them (How much easier things would've been with Blade's, Bronya's and Topaz's lc's....) and the fact that relic sets themselves do so little so you have to rely on getting amazing subs with them (Which, I could not, my relic luck was trash, especially planar luck) It makes the game far, far more grindy and luck dependent than Genshin to be able to max out MoC and Pure Fiction, especially without anything like a cheap 4* only all purpose team like Hyperbloom that doesn't need good artifacts to be able to do very well (Hell, my hyperboom team in genshin uses Ayato and C2 Candace for hydro, the hydro really doesn't matter that much) (There is also just the issue of planars in general being THE WORST thing to try and grind given the fact ti's 20-30 minutes to get 6 shitty relics you'll never use without Archeron. I think it took me like an entire month just to get *a* attack rope on IS from constant world 6 grinding for my Clara, it was BAD) So yeah, that's my take on it. Doubt it'll get seen but just putting my thoughts out there.

The issue is that sometimes the 5* cone is so grossly stacked but sometimes the signature LC feels like a luxury. For example, Cogs is such a universally good 3* cone because you basically get energy whenever you attack or are attacked. Which is something a lot of signature cones don’t do. But then you have characters who are so mechanically unique like Robin. But then you have Firefly where the Herta cone is literally her second bis because of her unique trace converting attack into more BE. In fact an early version of her was nerfed because Fall’s attack scaling conversion was BETTER than her signature.

i dont mind lightcones in HSR being powerful because of how easy they are to obtain compared to genshin. of my 2 years playing genshin i have only pulled for weapons 3 times. 2 of which were before i realized how much of a scam the banner is. in HSR, i havent spent any money and i've gotten 3 signature LC's while still being able to get the characters i like. i do agree with certain LC's getting rid of character weaknesses.

I wouldn't say you're completely wrong but usually a patch or so later there will be a pretty good ir not intended secondary personal light cone essentially. Not ror every character but a good amount

The weapons aren't comparable to lightcones as the gameplay is balanced in a totally different way. On top of that, 5* weapons in Genshin are MUCH harder to get than 5* Lightcones in HSR. No competing Lightcones on banners, 75/25 instead of the convoluted mess of the epitomized path, it's a very different system. I don't whale, but I have several limited 5* Lightcones at this point, I have a bunch of e1's also.

I think that a somewhat of a solution would be to allow all units to use any LC but if their path is not the same, then they get a reduced effect on the passives, but that also has its problems

Losing on the light cone banner 3 times in a row when it’s literally 75/25 is bad game design (real and true)

I feel like Signature LCs only feel so restrictive at the moment because of how early into the game's life we are. The devs have done a pretty good job making every new DPS pretty unique in how they function, but eventually there's going to start being overlap between new units and old units.

HSR is more generous than Genshin for a reason

Yes, lc is indeed WEIRD, but its not a "weapon" its a part of a character, so its reasonable to say, there are signatures that only good for 1 character I don't think its a bad system

As a Boothill with LC enjoyer, I feel like including him here in this vid is misplacing him. He's a unique case where he doesn't need many options, just running him with Adversarial, team building and relic farming you already have to do, will have him doing equivalent LC dmg. Buying his LC only lessens the burden on actually building other units. In fact its probably better that he doesn't need more LCs. Because subscribe for more would likely make him just the strongest unit in the game hands down as it gives him a nearly 100% dmg increase. If anything, on the surface it's more frustrating to see that you only have one options, but is it so bad if that 1 option is a thee star you will have at S5 just from pulling him? Which i feel that speaks more to his make up than badly designed LCs especially because he's so unique in his build. They built a hunt who doesn't need crit, when hunts are some of the crit hungriest units.

It’s half past midnight for me, so I can’t watch the video now, but I look forward to watching it properly tomorrow! :D

I think this issue is a byproduct of the game being new, like the issue with boothill isn't so much that the lightcone is the best for him by far, it's that it's the only one with break, if they added in 4 star light cones then it wouldn't be a problem

I mean, lightcones cost 160 pulls max vs 240 in genshin, and hsr hands out 105 pulls per patch vs genshin's 75 (by hsr and genshin bookkeeping), so I really don't see the problem here edit: not to mention the 75% win rate vs genshin's 50%... lightcones are just far easier to get, so unlike in genshin, they're far more accessible for f2ps (unless you literally want every single character in the game, in which case you shouldn't be playing gachas in the first place)

Sig LC does so many things for being a "weapon." For Dps, they give them that last mileage of crit value/damage bonus/break effect, etc, everything related to damage dealing, which quite literally bypasses their breakpoint along with their signature buffs tell me this isn't overkill. For supports, their Sig lc are nothing short of a fifth character in the team; Sparkle lc give shit tons of crit buffs, Ruan mei lc gives energy, sp, dmg buff, that lc alone could just be another character. For sustains, let's just say with their Sig lcs you can never ever die outside of su dlcs. That's how much of the amount of unnecessary sustain they provide. Now, in hindsight, this may seem like enhancing your gameplay, but trust me, it's not. Teams with e0s1 can quite literally throw strategy outside the window and go bruteforce everything in the game. I like lcs because they give that last amount of stat boost needed for your characters, but where I cross the line is when certain core aspects the characters kit is locked behind their lcs(looking at you acheron), which: 1. Really is scummy. 2. After you get their lcs, they give even more value beyond the characters kit. This is exactly why I think a lot of fomo exists in hsr. Everything is so good that you're missing out on a lot if you don't pull. The only way to get by this is to get near perfect relics because, let's be honest, no one has or will ever have perfect relics. If perfect relics exist, you can literally not use your lc and still get perfect results. TL;DR: Lcs are too good to be considered a good gameplay aspect. Because they're too good, missing out on your character's Sig lc really sucks.

I think the simpleset solution would be to make more LCs to cover and catch up with all of the different playstyles. They seem to be doing that with the 4 star lcs that are new to warp every patch but they really should add like 2-3 to fix the ratio

For Boothill i actually started to use the 4 star Den Heng one. Having higher crit rate, if less units are on the field, is kinda his playstyle. He is specifically single target and he usually has to clear the trash mobs before the boss, to stack his medals.

A arguement can be made why they made LC more specialized unlike genshin's, we don't have to win a 25% chance everytime we want a character weapon. Its so bad that summoning for a released characters' weapon is almost never worth it unless you can reach hard pity through path as getting that other featured weapon can really brick your account. Like what am i suppose to do with 2 baizhu weapons ;c

id really like to see vars talk about fomo in genshin and hsr like in genshin theres 7 sword characters with hp somewhere in their kit (idk about chlorinde) and theres 3 weapons that have hp% on them with 2 of them being 5* and the last one needing u to pull on weapon banner when its there and hsr releasing 2 characters per patch with 2 reruns at a time may seem alright but that’ll make them need a chronicled banner even sooner than genshin did genshin did it once in the second half of v4 for hsr by v4 we’ll need a chronicled banner every patch that lasts for idk a patch and a half

One of the reason it's especially important for genshin's weapon tto work on multiple is character is that 5050 is really unforgiving and you very realistically might end up with one (or god forbid two) copy of a weapon you never even wanted in the first case. HSR's 75/25 is not only more forgiving, the weapon's you get if you lose are the standard banner one's so you most likely will have a use for them since you most likely DO have the character to go with. Also 5* LC aren't the only ones with unique playstyle altering effect, you mentioned acheron being rough without her LC but that could be alleviated with trend (yes you can stack both but i remember some calculations showing one is enough). On top of that most characters are top tier even without their LC so it feels nice to be able to offer the ones you really like a significant power boost without having to go and pull copies. I'd compate star rail's LC to genshin C1/C2 that have become more and more significant without necessarily being required. Anyways, yeah it could always be better but HSR is so generous with pulls that I really never feel forced or pressured into pulling for anything. We have a lot of endgame content but we also have a lot of free shit that's really really good (ie pure fiction having a "free side" with himeko and herta)

Its not badly design its actual perfectly designed to be predatory. Im far from being a f2p in Genshin and Hsr, however ive spent more per prach on hsr then genshin even though im a day 1 genshin player. Ive only pulled 3 limited weapons in 3.5 years and 2 Sig LC in 1 year. The pain is real. In genshin i choose between events, BP, 4 stars or standard 5 weapons before resorting to limited, but in hsr i only got 4 star +forgotten hall, and 1 event (i miss tutorial) and 5 star standard.

If we could use cross-path LCs on characters i reckon they could keep it balanced by allowing you to keep the effect but lose the hp, atk and def stats. That way, LCs would be more flexible but with a penalty on stats for using the wrong path.

I do agree that lc is very exclusive to their intended character compared to the limited weapons in genshin,but comparing it to genshin is just unfair. Hsr has free 5 star in su , while genshin does not give any 5 star for free. Moreover, one 5 star lc in hsr is 80 pulls with a 75% you get the featured lc in the banner. genshin 5 star weapon cost way much, although also 80 pulls (not sure), there are two features weapons in the same banner, with a 50/50 ratio to get a standard weapon, even you get a featured one, you still have to win one more 50/50 to get the one you desire. If you failed the first time, the second 5 star you get will be a featured weapon, but you also have to win one more 50/50 between the two featured weapon. You can only get a guarantee after this. A five star weapon in genshin is way more costly than a 5 star lc. Not mentioning this is just unfair comparison.

I know from a player standpoint its not really optimal, but from a thematic view, light cones are very nice. They're essentailly memories and some memories mean more to certain people. But some people cam share a memory and still benefit even if it wasn't originally theirs. I think that's cool.

I think a good way to improve the light cone system is to add something like a sup path to characters making them able to use light cone from said sup-path for example lets give acheron a sup-path of destruction she then will be able to use destruction light cones (Sup-paths are baked into the characters and can’t change) (the sup- path will be treated differently from the main path and will not activate any special effect requiring main paths like SU and some traces and artifacts) That way there will be much more options to customize our characters and we won’t any issue with miss matching paths and kits

Honestly they should have a mechanic like Rivens from Warframe for light cones that have the same terrible RNG of relics but you may be able to get a super broken custom light cone with the right pairing of passives

My first mihoyo experience was HI3, where making new personal weapons was how they made some past 5 stars characters meta relevant again, and you could get them garunteed in 100 pulls rather than a 50/50. That said, Star Rail has yet to release a new personal light cone to make any past unit top tier again. Herta and Himeko became top tier again simply from new endgame content.

Day 1 HSR player: I have never pulled on a signature LC. You just don't need to. There's no point in pulling for them. The only one that has ever tempted me has been FX's - and not bc she needs it, but bc I just really like her as a character. No single 5* needs their signature weapon. You can clear the game without pulling on any banner at all, and that's not going to change. If you're struggling to clear content, then it's time to re-evaluate your team composition and your relics. Are sig lightcones great? Yes. They will significantly boost your character and make them easier to build. But with a good build, what even are you boosting for? There's no point. Especially when most characters have great ftp options. If you do decide to go for one, know that your odds of getting it are significantly better than pulling on Genshin's weapon banner. 75-25 instead of 37/37/25

I think the primary difference between HSR and Genshin is that Light Cones are designed for their path/role and can't be swapped out, whereas Genshin has support/DPS characters/weapons all mixed together. There is no dedicated DPS weapon type, no dedicated support weapon type. Not many weird scalings, and even if there are, they're made to function on their own (i.e. Yelan scaling off HP but not necessarily needing an HP weapon to function, unlike Blade who basically has no options to choose from). In HSR, if you have a new character that scales off some weird stat, you really only have LCs in that path to choose from, and very often the options are going to be limited to 4* LCs that have very one-dimensional stat lines (like the aforementioned Blade only using Secret Vow because all the other LCs scale with ATK). Supports in HSR still have some leeway, since most of them work with ERR, speed and defensive stats anyway, but the same can't be said for DPS characters. It translates to relics too, and it makes it feel like every relic could potentially be a good one eventually because you get all these weird hyper-specific stat combinations that no other character uses, but is insanely good on that one specific character, but at the same time that relic is completely useless on every single other character. It also kind of ruins any creativity that people might have. Take the Abundance BP LC for example. It could've been a really good LC, but since it's locked to Abundance characters, it feels very lackluster. Meanwhile Genshin has Prototype Amber, which allows people to run teams without a healer even in content where they're expected to take some damage. In HSR you can kind of do this with certain characters (like Welt or Fire MC), but most of the LCs are completely locked to the role their path is supposed to fulfill, even with all the weirdly specific combinations of stats they have (as long as you ignore 4* Preservation LCs, seriously, why do nearly all of them seem like they boost the user's damage?). Luckily, as I've been saying since patch 1.0, HSR gives more pulls so that you have more freedom to pull for characters and LCs, and the LC banner is a lot more forgiving than Genshin's weapon banner. The premise for pulling is different between the 2 games. HSR gives out more pulls exactly BECAUSE you're expected to pull more, so the pain of having to pull for a signature LC sometimes is greatly alleviated.

I thought going into Star Rail that the light cones would be a lot like the craft essences of Fate/Grand order, as in generally splashable additions to characters stats/abilities. Instead, what light cones seem to be the same thing people complain about regarding DLC, in that they're traits/coverages/etc that should've been included in the character's kit, especially since each specialist light cone is tailor made for one user. It just feels like you're not playing the character in some instances unless you have their specific light cone.

I appreciate that HSR's lightcone banner isnt an absolute scam like Genshin's weapon banner but I will admit that Lightcones are really restrictive. I have an inventory full of lightcones, some 4* fully refined that Im NEVER going to use. I have so many upgrade materials, too because there's no point in testing out different lightcones when each character only really needs one with no alternatives

I wouldn't mind light cones, if it wasn't for the 75/25 being absolutely cancerous beyond reason :) Hitting the 25 is fucking devastating.

Ah yes, the classic Honkai system of using images in gear for additional visual storytelling. Glad they kept up with this iconic narrative element in Star Rail.

Aditionally, topaz and aventurine's Lc make teams with robin ratio viable because you would have 3 constant debuffs (aventurine also becomes more synergistic with acheron too)

I feel like Genshin signature weapons are mostly for show. They doubled down on that recently with Arle's scythe. Meanwhile it's single digits ahead of the standard PJWS in the damage calcs. In Star Rail it almost feels mandatory to get the LC at least when you're pulling a DPS. But 75% chance and a soft pity of 65 really helps with accessibility. It's important for Genshin players who also play HSR to take note of that difference. A signature in Genshin is usually a lot more expensive than a constellation, where as it's the exact opposite in HSR. Getting only characters and no sig LCs is going to hamstring your account a lot, even as f2p. As for if it's a bad system? Nah, I think it's fine. With Genshin's fate point system it would have been catastrophic, but with how generous it is it's perfectly reasonable.

There is an interesting solution that they made for the gist of the issue with LC’s being that each patch actually gives enough to get both a lc and the character f2p with my experience being an example. For the past 5 months since december, I have been able to get both the lightcone and the character (tbf i have been lucky) but the shot is there and with the lc banner being a 75/25 in your favor instead of a 33/33/33 in genshin, although not a complete fix, it does help.

Tbh I think its more so overreacting cause some of the stuff that for certain lightcones its still quite good not gonna lie, the Herta Shop lightcones although are good for certain characters such as the Preservation one for Fu Xuan, the hunt lightcone for Dr. Ratio, the Nihility one for Herta, the Destruction lightcone for well any of the destruction units XD True the signature lightcones are mostly the BIS but it really doesn't matter really sense the fact its just versitle that the fact a lightcone gives so much for the right character is insane

Once again what seems like a design issue is actually just a gatcha issue. One might wonder the purpose of all these strong, specific character designed light cones if they were more accessible, but the only actual issue is that trying to get them is really really expensive.

To me star rails light cones feel a lot worse than genshins weapons not having signatures in star rail often feels bad especially for conventional dps units as it often means you lack significant amounts of crit, in genshin stuff like the fav/sac weps being so good for a lot of support/sub dps units feels great and if I want crit for a dps I can just grab a bp wep I often only go for a 5 star wep because I love the character and want a boost, in star rail it often feels like you only got 66-75% of the character unless you get their lightcone

Worst part of the cones for me is that they are tailor made for one character. And no one else will be able to get in that suit and look good. You will lose out on a lot of atk if you use Sparkle's cone on Bronya cuz she doesn't regenerates sp. Not a single character will use Fu Xuan's cone except for maybe fire mc. This problem might even be worse than in genshin, since passives still can grant something for others. Even for more niche weapons.

it's not nearly as big of a difference as you claim i love how you give an example of Jingliu's signature and free 5* LC and say "the difference is HUGE" and when you look at numbers right next to the LC the difference is 12% XD i just looked through prydwen and i found 3, literally just 3 characters for which signature LC is more than 15% better than alternative options, majority of characters have other lightcone options that are in 10% range difference, a few of them are in 10-15% range, only 3 go beyond that, those being Blade, Boothil and Acheron which is kind of understandable since they stand out- hp scaling/break scaling/crit dps as nihility, 0-15% difference is very much in line with what you can see in genshin meanwhile you're acting as if in hsr the issue is much worse, it's not btw fuxuan can no problem sustain a team in pure fiction even without her lc, she has a heal on her ult you know that right? it's not a big heal but healing for ~500hp every ult when team takes only 35% of the damage reduced by another 16% and possibly another 8-12% with day one LC, thats equivalent to healing/shielding for 1850-1950HP with each ult, if you struggle with that then you're just taking way too long in fights and it's a dps issue, she's a top tier sustain even without her LC

Wait, wasn't it obvious that they giving free 5 star weapons will absolutely mean they will make new lightcones way stronger down the line? And they making it easier to acquire them double down on this projection. Wuwa is going down that line too, even now they have already powercrept 3 star weapons with 4 star day 1.

I like that you use Wretched Weaponry from Nier as intro/outtro music

Is this a bad thing, though? I really liked Kokomi, so I of course pulled for her signature weapon. However, Kokomi's main role is as a support and not a main DPS, despite her signature weapon buffing her damage. It feels bad that I want to get a character's signature weapon because I like that character, knowing that it's a marginal increase, or worse, outclassed. While it is true that a character is significantly worse without his light cone and therefore, you're punished for not getting it, you could also look at it the other way: you're rewarded for choosing to get it.

lcs have become so specific with the characters kit in mind that we haven’t had much flexibility with them. damage increase like jinglius aren’t my concern but rather qol and mechanical lcs like acherons, kafkas or topaz’s that make them much more important to own to utilize the characters kit .

I think it would be fun for HSR to make Neutral LCs that are weaker than Path specific LCs but can be used for all Paths. Or they could take inspiration from their own SimUni game modes by taking a LC that is suitable for 2 paths, like a Destruction/Hunt LC that's suitable for both paths

I don't think "badly designed" is the word for it, it's an expertly crafted predatory system imo. As long as enemies don't scale to where you can't clear without lightcones though, it's not an issue

the first that I felt that HARD was with Robin, literally only her signature LC and the event one are good for her, cuz every other harmony LC has really low atk which really reduces her potential since she scales out of atk.

When Genshin's weapon banners weren't annoying enough: