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Honkai Star Rail, unlike Genshin Impact, has a turn-based combat system. In Honkai Star Rail fights are slower and involve more strategy. There are basic things that affect how many turns you get and in what order they are decided. This can have a huge impact on how the battle turns out. Let us look at how stats like AV (Action Values), Speed and others change this. Here is how turn based combat works in Honkai Star Rail.
Turn-based combat in Honkai Star Rail: The basics
The turn-based combat in Honkai Star Rail works similar to other RPGs where players and enemies wait and take turns performing actions. You begin combat by approaching an enemy and attacking them. When in a battle, each character can perform an action when it is their turn, including attacking, healing or using their ultimate.
Look at the left side of the screen to look at the order and see who will perform the next action. You can combo various abilities and effects to optimize your characters’ turns. For example, your healer can restore HP while March 7th freezes the next enemy in the order, while someone like Luka can apply Bleed before your DPS attacks again. The game decides which order your characters and enemies get a turn based on AV or Action Values. Action Values are displayed on the left side of the screen. You can enable this feature by going to the ‘Other Settings’ tab under ‘Settings’ and choose where to display this.
Generally, the lower a unit’s AV, the sooner they act, affecting your speed. Once your action is complete, the AV resets to their Base AV amount. The game then decreases all units’ AV equally until a unit reaches 0 AV, at which point it is their turn. Lower downtime between turns means taking more turns.
Here are a few important things to consider while understanding turn based combat in Honkai Star Rail in Honkai Star Rail:
Normal attacks can be done by pressing the default ‘Q’ key. This is a weak attack but it increases your skill points.
Skill points are your characters’ signature attacks and apply unique stats like multi-hit, shields, heals, effects like bleed etc. You may only cast skills if you have skill points remaining.
Keep a track of elemental weaknesses and shields. Each enemy type in the game has at least one elemental weakness. You can use a character which matches the enemy element to decrease these shields faster. This will activate the ‘break’ status where they suffer an added effect based on the element.
Bursts are independent of character turn. The burst meter fills when your characters use their attacks skills or take damage. You can also chain your burst with your normal action within the round.
Don’t hesitate to use escape, which is available in most encounters if your current level isn’t high enough to fight certain enemies. You can always come back and retry.
