The Problem With Light Cones in Honkai: Star Rail

[@danielferrieri7434]

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

[@drm726]

That’s actually something I love in HSR. Everyone, even 4 stars, have a signature light cone. A light cones effect will always be useful to the unit who is on it, even if it’s not their BIS or another unit would actually use it better, their signature will ALWAYS at least be viable.

[@Doctor_Faust17]

All signature LCs that are usually the best in slot for their respective characters have their face on it since it's their memories after all so idk what you re talking

[@6mega]

@@Doctor_Faust17 3star LC and some 4star LC are better than Sigs, depending on situation

[@drm726]

@@Doctor_Faust17 Sadly that’s simply not the case. Any website that has builds for characters based on numbers and sims will tell you. Take Sampo for example. His signature, “Eyes of the Prey” is only his 5th best (According to Game8, which is what I use for builds). “Good Night and Sleep Well” (Pela’s signature) and “Fermata” (Kafka’s 4 star alternative signature) will both produce stronger results if you are looking to play Sampo optimally.

[@Maqso]

it's curious how guinaifen has two cones where she's the main character but who can actually make use of them are the secondary characters (sushang and huohuo), also topaz with trend but aventurine's in the background

[@Hououin818]

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

[@jellomello984]

Like a chalk and a galaxy pig

[@blazingstorm9351]

Pretty much, what's worse is this pro in HSR is now showing the cons for Genshin where if you really want to complete the aesthetic of that character, you either save up or pay. It wasn't a problem with some characters, but when you have someone like Navia or Arlecchino, then the problem is heavily present.

[@jirubyraiden9934]

Or by tossing a fucking hat and chips

[@shadow-faye]

Or your sister's guitar case

[@ahmadrehanalfariz5920]

Its also doesnt gimp characters in some cutscene. Dull blade mc, keqing doesnt even use her sword from arts, etc. Makes characters more distinct aswell rather than equipping just 5 weapon types.

[@mistymarauder]

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

[@kwayke9]

Even 4* lightcones can be pretty insane (hello pearls)

[@VarsII]

Not feel. They *ARE* their own characters.

[@ChenAnPin]

In essence they are, since they carry a fragment of memory of the character(s) depicted within the light cone Though shout out to some of the 4* light cones that do not match the path of the character depicted within like "Trend of the Universal Market"

[@LustLord]

​@@ChenAnPin but trend do have aventurine in the background though so technically its accurate?

[@Indian_gae_boii]

​@@kwayke9 pearls???? Which lc is that

[@therranolleo468]

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

[@someoneinasia]

i mean he did noted that tho.

[@GentleIceZ]

@@someoneinasia He did, but it was visual. I was podcasting this video, so I missed it too the first time around

[@cxrindgo]

also the applying cryo - the dragonspine weapons do just that. he chose the two examples that very much do exist in the game (edit: my bad, just remembered the icicle it’s supposed to summon and misunderstood)

[@princiedv]

​@@cxrindgo This isnt true. I wish it was because during 1.2 I was hyped about Razor being able to do superconduct by himself but the icicles do physical damage lmao

[@xraeynex]

@@cxrindgo the dragonspine weapons don't apply cryo though? they just deal phys dmg when enemies are already affect with cryo

[@saimfaisal6795]

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

[@toohardtothink1113]

What light cones give a visual effect?

[@endermanowa]

​@@toohardtothink1113 the person means that light cones make characters not bound to specific weapon types and therefore allow for more creativity in animations

[@wongo6828]

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.

[@Thivesh_]

Blud can become a literal dps thanks to the def ignore from the new relic set .

[@leylintempest1714]

And plummet again once lingsha drops.

[@apossiblyhereticalalphaleg3595]

@@Thivesh_ gallagher be dropping huge numbers off of HTB's ult, it's not even funny

[@rafi...___]

@@Thivesh_ casually deals 50k of superbreal on each enemy like nobody business.

[@Vindenci]

and thanks to how his kit works he can generate skill points while provinding aoe heals

[@superantoniobro2457]

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

[@aidanjackson5084]

Her face is on a Hunt LC (who has Sushang's face on it who is a Hunt character) and on an Event Abundance LC (who has Huohuo's face on it, who is an Abundance character), so yeah that checks out

[@Vic_Trip]

Her signature is a hunt lc lol It made no sense xD

[@duongnguyen-s1i]

@@aidanjackson5084 maybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee she will become top streamer and change path.

[@jamess359]

​@Vic_Trip Just because her face is on it doesn't mean it's her "Signature" light cone. Yangqin has a 4 LC with his face on it, does that mean it's his Signature LC and not the 5 star version? 🤨

[@eniobiondi2749]

​@@jamess359also Trend of universal market, both topaz and aventurine are on it and aventurine doesn't care about applying dots by being hit.

[@ryldmeh251]

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.

[@SyrFlora]

Still can get shafted.. tbh on genshin on bright side, the signature weapon dps jump is not that huge.. because the alternative is very competitive. U can use other char signature weapons and only lose less than ≈ 10% of the dmg for most of the char. HSR LC, pretty inflexible to be honest. Most other char unable to utilise the passive of other char signature LC because how niche each LC is designed. Sig LC also mostly unlock 20-30% more dps for most of them. On jenshin, the weapon banner literally a skem in worst case scenario, but most of time the urge to pull is lower because U char still functions near max potential with some universal 5* weapon. Some consider pulling after factoring aesthetics as well. On HSR, it literally made u want to pull for most sig LC for the chars because without the char just feel bad. Thou genshin unlikely they change the weapon because people are still pulling to be honest, whale still R5. Even thou it literally skem Banner which most peep avoid. At least u not missing much without it signature.

[@zengceng]

weapon should be guaranteed

[@jamess359]

Wuthering Waves guarantee 5 star weapon. Goes to show you how greedy Hoyo can be.

[@zekkekeipa6521]

​​​​@@firedouble8760 Acheron is not an exception. It started from like the beginning with Blade. His best 4* alternative in 25% worse than signature. And now trend continues with Boothill and very stingy f2p cones choice with 3*(!) as his best alternative and around 25% worse than sig. Despite having 4 5* hunt characters with their respective lightcones prior to him, they are extremely tailor made, so you cant use it even as a stat stick on other characters.

[@zakariamimouni279]

@@zekkekeipa6521 only reason for boothill is because we have no BE% Hunt LC, and I honestly don't mind it for Boothill because he already deals so much dmg he doesn't even need it, most HSR DPSes only get a slight increase, Acheron is the only exception that gets more than just stats from her LC

[@redbone9553]

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

[@overlordshiina]

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

[@justblue576]

Lightcone is like weapons in genshin that's why not everyone can use it😭 But that comes to the cost of characters with more dynamic kits not being able to use most lightcones Like acheron

[@codeaide5069]

Thats a good point but you have to consider that the hsr ‘weapon’ system is very closely linked with their path or role in a team comp. Its a more accurate to say that its like Raiden not being able to use any other weapon thats not a dps or a kokomi not being able to use a weapon that doesnt buff healing (this feature would especially take away from hyperbloom teams)

[@Za-ln8hc]

@@justblue576 imagine having to repeat what was said in the video in a reply bc someone didin't watch and made a question that was already talked about

[@xenoemblem7]

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

[@Selenagiraud2252]

They also feel very similar to mementos from Alchemist Code but mementos were actually worse since everything was locked behind having it equipped on the specific unit it was made for

[@mangasinatanaelpanjaitan3048]

A notable thing with FGO CEs is that there are no Signature one and most damage dealers can work their best with a generic massive boost from CEs like Black Grail. It helps to emphasize that the characters in FGO don't rely on CEs as much as in HSR

[@zaboono]

Fgo doesn’t really have many CE’s that are meant for basically one character (honey lake is one of the only ones I can think of that are pretty niche and work super well with the character the art is based on), most of them are very universal

[@chadachi3970]

@@zaboonoHoney Lake works with any character since burn command codes can be applied to any character, it’s pretty much considered one of the best generalist CEs due to that alone. Though it is basically limited to bossing/CQs.

[@zaboono]

@@chadachi3970 true, it’s just that it’s one of the only examples where something was clearly designed for one servant

[@migueladamo7377]

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.

[@archersterling6726]

Natasha would be Big Boss

[@nonamepasserbya6658]

That wouldn't save either of them. Healers nowadays have to have something other than heal or they bite the dust. Even Luocha fell off since he gives nothing but heals

[@mikonyx7712]

​@@nonamepasserbya6658 Nah, he's fine in that department thanks to his aoe buff removal on enemies. The real problem is that he's squishy af

[@adityawidarma3803]

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

[@Doctor_Apocalypse]

If you equip it on another character she can, but the lightcone itself doesn't do much to her own damage

[@hitoribocchers]

Before I got Acheron's LC I just slapped on Kafka's Lc on her and the erode worked similar to her signature lc debuff, although not as consistent

[@reshmin0672]

​@@hitoribocchers Kafka's lightcone is pretty good on her from what I heard, I think Silver Wolf's is better tho

[@animatedamons470]

These hyper specific passives is getting out of hand

[@archersterling6726]

Every 5star LC feels like a chore to read

[@jamess359]

​@@archersterling6726you just lazy

[@archersterling6726]

@@jamess359 Yes, that's the point

[@jamess359]

@archersterling6726 The point is that you're lazy? Sounds like a personal problem, not a LC problem

[@Krnielk]

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

[@AhaxD-r7g]

i mean in the end we still just slap DDD for supp, now add MoTP for break supp. i kinda regret pulling LC for Sparkle when in the end i wanted to replace it with DDD, like only Robin LC that s good to pull.

[@paulomalley3211]

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

[@JustusWhales]

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.

[@junyaiwase]

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

[@ZeromusNightmare122]

tbh herta shop cones were designed in a "planned obsolenscence" way intentionally. It makes sense, since why make the best weapons in a gacha free? Plus their effects are too general to be great in a broad strokes kind of way. They're great for what they do, and when they apply, but only if you don't have the actual thing they're supposed to use

[@jamess359]

You might as well call them 4.5 star Light cones. Stronger than a 4 star but weaker than limited LC

[@junyaiwase]

@@ZeromusNightmare122 yeah i understand that, but it's very telling when people reccomend 4 stars over them or they straight up do less damage than them despite higher atk stats

[@chadachi3970]

@@junyaiwase Effects mean more than stats but Aeon is generally considered one of the best LCs in the game for any destruction character. Hunt is also really good, 32% crit rate and more Atk when you kill? It's consistency > raw damage output. Yeah Swordplay does more damage, when you hit 1 target and have multi hit skill, switch it up and you're losing dps. Silence is stronger when there are 2 enemies, instantly lose dps if either one of them summons or there are 3 enemies. Herta Hunt is consistent all the time. Nihility is actually seeing a rise with Super Break being a thing, 40% BE is nothing to scoff at when the only stats that matter are BE and Spd. In Super Break no other LC offers anything in comparison, maybe Kafka's for the spd but that's doing too much, it also is good with DoTs which you get a DoT with most elements when you break, so it just fits. Preservation is pretty dog though, it's only good on Fu Xuan who ironically doesn't really work well with other LCs anyways and likes the fat HP shield + Effect Res for Keel. If you have Fu Xuan it's good sub for her sig (her sig is overrated and isn't useful in anything but SU (unless your bad lol)) but otherwise, yeah it's dog. New one coming out is not bad either, great for Pure Fiction and any Erudition character who wants extra Spd, but it is limited by how many enemies there are. Overall they're not top tier but the idea that they're not good is hilariously wrong.

[@ZachPlum]

⁠@@junyaiwasethat’s just not true lmao at least for the two that actually matter

[@Hououin818]

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

[@aceissleeping3298]

Tbf that's because he's a break-oriented dps, he doesn't need crit, dmg bonus or even atk at all. There is no good 4 star break lc yet so you either use his sig or just random lc you want. His numbers mostly come from relics.

[@VarsII]

It's his second best option because there are literally no other options.

[@PrismPupsickle]

@@aceissleeping3298 my friend uses that 4 star Yanqing LC just for the SPD lol

[@Hououin818]

​​​​@@VarsII That's also kinda a good thing tbh because his performance is not entirely depend on them which unironically make him extremely f2p friendly. Although I think they'll release a 4 stars lc for him because Blade encounter the same situation when he first release

[@eniobiondi2749]

Which 3 star?

[@sunnypa7101]

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.

[@luizotavio44]

acheron gains a extra stack to her ultimate which actually makes getting her lc better than going for E2 like her lightcone is actually such a big QoL change

[@roka9963]

bro talking like a 30% dmg buff isnt busted. do you even play games?

[@mayonasepizza]

Yeah i have two of that lc

[@sunnypa7101]

@@roka9963 dude, I'm saying it's busted. That's why it's a problem

[@aarushi2740]

@@roka996330% damage buff isnt that busted since its not a separate multiplier. its a good increase but nothing crazy

[@NintendoFlashShorts]

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

[@Vic_Trip]

Now this would be wild

[@Swellowing]

too broken hoyo probably and definitely wont make that

[@kakyoin5713]

​@@Swellowingfinally grinding something that felt worth it unlike relic farming

[@chadachi3970]

That would require so many extra lines of coding for different options when only like 2 combinations would truly be worth using and you'd feel like dogshit for picking the wrong ones with every CC saying "lol u didn't do this?" Xueyi also doesn't need any new options, Misha LC is literally the perfect LC for her, just roll better. Also those stats are way higher than they'd ever give a free LC even at s5, it'd likely be more like 20-40% BE at most... wait that's exactly what they did with Nihility LC lol

[@SnailSnail-lo4pm]

That's literally acheron's e6, no shot they're giving f2ps that.

[@flippedmasterguardian]

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.

[@Kuddochan]

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

[@huealter3366]

Stat sticks with lores, stories and visual. Each LC tell a story or a part of hsr lore. Many character even debut in LCs like Gui, Hanya, Xueyi, Topaz and even Aventurine

[@Kuddochan]

@@huealter3366 For sure, but none of that is visible in combat, only in the character select screen. Might as well just have been a page in the data bank and it'd have served the same purpose.

[@shinkudo7134]

actually some LC gave U more than stat sticks that improve the character it taller made for (Bronya LC gave more SP, Archeron LC gave 1 more Ult point,...)

[@GokaikillerTobi]

​@@shinkudo7134erudition LCs are so universal that each current character of erudition can use them

[@justblue576]

​@@Kuddochanthey can't give characters weapons Since it's a turned base game they were able to be creative with the characters weapons Limiting them to weapons like genshin would defeat the whole purposes

[@Rzra]

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..

[@donnyv4750]

Boothill likes speed and ultimate damage though.

[@Rzra]

@@donnyv4750 It doesn't give speed, and having a lot of speed just gives worthless dmg% bonus. For reference his ult damage deals ~20k on adversarial.

[@tuananhdang7385]

I think you’ll need to wait for 3.x patches for them to at least bring back standard burst hunt characters that utilize skill and ult(dw i have her lc too and am using it on YQ 🤡) Its the same as JY lc. Literally one of the most universal lc out there

[@maevethefox5912]

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.

[@kennethyoung7457]

Characters only unskippable if your current team is underbuilt. Boothill and Fu Xuan are skippable at this point in the game. Jade and Argenti probably most skippable banner yet zero purpose getting units specialized for PF when other units that are great with single target dmg and aoe exist. Firefly and Ruan Mei? skippable you don't even remotely need them in this MOC built specifically for break. This is the easiest MOC in awhile no need to pull for break dps. Just get a few different characters that work well together and than skip the rest. Premium DOT team has cleared every MOC and Pf since release, IPC followup is the new OP team and it clears all the content easy as well at E0S0 using f2p light cones not even gacha 4 star lcs. Acheron with Pela and Silver Wolf also another really good option if you want a universal team. I used to think like you that you need to pull new character all the time especially limited supports and sustains which have game changing mechanics but game is not really like that. Vertical investment is still very viable if you just want to brute force content using same team all the time buts its usually overkill. Good relics, synergistic team, and good strategy is most important thing to clearing content.

[@extrastuffboxofaksakl1k354]

"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.

[@pagholicky]

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

[@himalkanwar77]

also that Kiana herrscher of flamescion weapon is double pistol but in gameplay she uses great sword never uses her pistol and Lunar vow her weapon is cross but uses chainsaw

[@dragonballMS]

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

[@ahlemlora1452]

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.

[@rhianx]

hey not really the topic but how many limited 5* did you get within that time frame?

[@alpaga4820]

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.

[@Selenagiraud2252]

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

[@doriansz3130]

Fu Xuan gets demolished in Swarm Disaster or against enemies that do a lot of DOTs. She is good for fast fights, but for long fights.

[@Selenagiraud2252]

@@doriansz3130 She’s good against single target but weak against AOE. Aventurine is weak against single target but strong against AOE. Two tanks who accomplish different things

[@Eflaene]

The clip doesn't have her Matrix up, so yeah

[@Torinn1X]

⁠@@Selenagiraud2252i disagree aventurine is good both single target (FUA and ult can help contribute to break and deal good damage) and AOE (thick shields and FUA can clear trash mobs)

[@tripplesouth]

​@@Torinn1XI think it was about single/aoe attacks against your team. Not against the enemies.

[@realcanadianRC]

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

[@PizzawurmV1]

"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

[@cman5516]

Favonius and Sac don’t really give new play styles, they make their current playstyles more consistent by making ults/skills faster to use a second time. Viridecent and Amber are fail though, those are adding completely new mechanics with their effects.

[@Elhaque99]

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.

[@Chestyfriend]

Yeah but making a dress that explodes when anyone else uses it is just bad design.

[@zethras5252]

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

[@springod36]

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

[@BestgirlJordanfish]

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.

[@archeri2000]

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.

[@oursaisert]

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)

[@cinnamaricat]

i thought this video would be complaining about "oh this lc only works for this character" when it's literally meant to be pulled for if you have the character i was pleasantly surprised that you're talking about an issue more of us can relate to that being there's not enough lc options for certain characters bc of the kits characters have these days like i love my acheron (i have her on alt) but if i didn't have gnsw i'd have only 1 lc option and it would restrict me to keeping sampo on the team which i don't mind ofc but acheron's team is restrictive enough (that's just an example) also i have dhil (on main) i noticed a big difference in his performance when i got his sig lc which ofc nothing wrong with the sig being so good but compared to the 4* lc i was using prior oh boy i started to see why 4* destruction lcs aren't it

[@joshsolders5543]

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.

[@kurulaguambe6580]

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

[@conejitorosada2326]

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.

[@hilo01]

And even then, the Universality aspect already exists with lower rarity LCs. Dance Dance Dance, Memories of The Past, Quid Pro Quo, Meshing Cogs, etc. That's why I also think it makes sense for Signature LCs to be very specific to a char because well... they're Signature.

[@Skew0443]

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.

[@huealter3366]

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

[@Violet70725]

That is why people look for new information about new character. People who are f2p and low spender prefer friendly build characters. Meanwhile, whale/f2p and old players get more options.

[@guyonyoutube501]

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.

[@WalnutWife]

I think what infuriates me the most between genshin and hsr is the weapon vs LC banner chance ratio. I love pulling for signature weapon / LC but genshin almost always scamms me into losing 2 50/50s so I stopped rolling for them mid Fontaine. HSR feels way more generous. ☹️

[@bleh491]

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

[@Eflaene]

I feel you. He has done neutral/positive videos in the past but I guess it's easier to highlight/take into words issues that you have with a game rather than things you like (what you like becomes expected, the "norm" so what you dislike sticks out more). But yeah, dunno how I feel too much about his vids recently. Kinda miss the new characters videos but then they weren't as informative as a full guide so kinda unnecessary.

[@VarsII]

People when I make positive/happy videos: zzzzzzz so boring not gonna watch People when I make negative/critical videos: smh such a hater I can't win. You just happened to conveniently ignore that the last two vids I made on HSR were on how follow up characters are some of the most future proof in the game, and the top five strongest characters. Then you ask me why my videos are so "negative" lol.

[@Dennis_Renaldi]

this. and it's literally not even a huge issue. he's describing hsr to be this pay to win game where every single character gets powercrept constantly and 4* can never clear any content (they do), where it's just very far from the truth. every single limited 5* at e0s0 CAN clear every content. I'm af2p player myself, and I always full clears MoC and mostly pure fiction as well I wouldn't be surprised if he makes a video like this for eidolons, saying it's extremely necessary or something

[@california_wang8078]

@@VarsII ya know, you could start a conversation without being nitpicky tho, like guide for players to deal with powercrept, you did a vid about it but didnt expand out some of the possible solutions like farming for versatile sets, namely quantum and dead waters. You could do genuent critiques too but this "oh no signature and 2nd best option has a huge difference" and im like... they're called signature for a reason yes? and they cost the same type of resource, albeit less, to get em, they better be good or else why would i spent .8 of a 5 star character pull for a best weapon when i could just get the alternative in memory store for basically free. Also, get this 8:25 outta here, they play nothing alike

[@yu-gi-noob9656]

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.

[@No-Ink]

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.

[@kain1799]

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

[@drakingp2119]

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.

[@Crusttisuu]

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.

[@UncannyCreative8128]

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

[@nickn5419]

Overreaction for sure. Comparing a turned based weapon system to an arpg does not carry any weight. 5 star limited weapons are suppose to be that, an op weapon that makes that 5 star character more op. HSR is not the only game that does this. The real problem HSR has is lack of 4 star options. Most paths only have 1 good 4 star lc option outside of their 5 star weapon.

[@normalostrich6250]

Adding agnostic Light cones that are just lines of stats would really help with more niche characters: Add in a 4 star craftable 60% BE at max would help with at least 2 characters without their LC A herta shop LC that buffs that buffs effect hit rate and boosts damage dealt during allies turns (helps Robin, BS, March, Gepard, Jade, Tingyun, and even Yunli) A 4 star gacha that gives a 20 speed boost and self 12% action advance at the end of your turn (Most characters could use this but especially supports but not as good as signatures) And then a shop LC that's just a 80% CD and once per turn regen 8 energy on crit (good for sparkle, bronya, Acheron can use it, Topaz can use to lower er req, Ratio, March, and most dps)

[@ashprime3747]

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

[@cloveangel]

im going to be honest, i REALLY don’t see this as an issue????? Even for acheron, they made a 4* lightcone for her in literally the NEXT PATCH, and even though the SU lightcones aren’t as good as signatures, i’d be scared if they WERE as good! This isn’t a hate comment, and I’ve also been annoyed seeing the difference between one lightcone and another for a character, but it’s really not an issue. Take Boothill for an example: He can’t use any hunt lightcone as of now, yet the 3* lightcone that gives him speed is literally amazing for him. As long as he has break effect, the lightcone doesn’t matter. My harmony trailblazer is on meshing cogs, yet at only 156% break she can deal like 120k damage no shot. This isn’t that big of an issue, Acheron was the only real *exception* for this - and they gave her a perfect lightcone in robin’s banner anyways. Again, NOT a hate comment, but my opinion.

[@VarsII]

The point of the boothill segment was to stress that light cones being path locked make it so you have to settle for suboptimal choices if you can't get the character's signature weapon. The 3* light cone is only "amazing" on him because there are *literally* no other options for break hunt light cones except for his own. He can't even equip a harmony light cone like ruan mei's just for the break effect because the path locking straight up doesn't allow him to. Yes, break characters only care about break effect, but there's a difference between relative efficiency and objective efficiency. Objectively boothill can still succeed with a 3 star light cone but relative to his own signature weapon (or if he could use say... Misha's light cone hypothetically), it's so much worse. You have no choice though since that's all you have. Regarding the Acheron 4 star light cone coming out for her next patch. That's still kind of a dick move in my opinion. A lot of people were pressured to pull for her signature light cone because they DIDN'T know there was a 4 star one coming out. It should've come out the same patch.

[@cloveangel]

@@VarsII Thats true, but honestly it’s not as big of a problem as people doom post it to be. Sure, as the game develops the signature cones will become more.. signature! But I don’t see it as CRAZY cause as a f2p I’m not struggling, only the crazy meta people are. I can 3* MoC 10 so I see my account as solid. You’re DEFINITELY right that the Acheron lc was a dick move, specially cause Robin/Topaz and Acheron do NOT mesh well together, but there’s still GNSW! Yes the damage is SIGNIFICANTLY less and less accessible, but I have friends with s1 gnsw who can still do crazy Acheron damage. The lightcone argument IS valid, but not to the point that the game is useless if you don’t have signatures imo. Hell, the moc lightcones are enough tbh :/ Still see your points as valid though

[@kikilocket]

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.

[@ahamedabozg6978]

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

[@GagleDan]

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

[@FireflySupremacy]

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!!!)

[@grimsdol4665]

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

[@toukoenriaze9870]

think they are adding a new break lightcone to SU

[@xraeynex]

@@toukoenriaze9870 The next one to be added should be for Eruditon

[@brycecai4700]

Well there is a new one 4 star LC for Archean that increase crit and crit damage, but you still have to pull 5 copies of it, so if the lightcone cannot be obtained for free then the problem still remains

[@chadachi3970]

@@brycecai4700 Just pull better 🗿

[@eniobiondi2749]

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)

[@spoons2275]

I’m happy to say HSR has gotten better at making sure niches have a 4 star light cone they can use

[@AirDavy01]

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.

[@sunnypa7101]

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.

[@Ugotsomemilk]

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.

[@Blackoutdmc]

Something to note is that they do go back every now and again to introduce 4 star lightcones to help fill in the gaps for units that require strange synergies. For example, releasing the 4 star Acheron lightocne that would make a brilliant alternative to GNSW, As well as introducing What is Real? for Gallagher at the beginning of penacony, as well as the 4 star Break Destruction lightcone that would be good on Firefly, and Xueyi. As well as giving us a good generic HP healer lightcone during the Huo Huo event. So it's not as thought they're leaving players to completely fend for themselves here, they're consistently giving us options to use, and as long as they continue doing that, I have no qualms about the lightcone system at the moment.

[@bonkadork]

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......

[@mormegil84]

Pretty much. Weapon banner in Genshin is brutal.

[@yuuya3639]

Wait I thought the 75/25 was exclusive for when you first pulling on the weapon banner after that it'll be back to 50/50

[@bonkadork]

@@yuuya3639 I just checked and it's still 75/25 and I just got Boothill's lightcone so it doesn't revert to 50/50 after you pull the banner 5* lightcone.

[@Marc-rw3dd]

​@@yuuya3639No, it's permanent. Everyone said not to pull for lightcones but that generous rate plus the fact that they are so busted now, too good to pass up

[@carlos2villalobos276]

In hsr every dps needs a new lightcone, thats the point of the video, in genshin you pull one skyward atlas and you have a weapon for fishcl, tartaglia, yelan, kujou sara, even venti can use it and get good numbers with it, in hsr you pull seeles light cone, and only seele can use it cause of how especific it is

[@PotatoGurlSasha]

I literally describe HSR as, Honkai Name and some characters, Genshin's UI, and Tears of Themis' cards.

[@mormegil84]

Related to the end of the video, yeah, I've definitely spent more money on HSR in one year than I have on Genshin in three years. Recent characters are so strong too. Firefly and Ruan Mei banners are especially going to drain my wallet again. Thanks to slight powercreep, and that the three endgames require so many different types of characters, it feels necessary to pull for so many, if not all, characters. Along with Eidolons and LCs, especially for dps, Acheron being the most drastic example.

[@jadedanielgallemit6320]

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.

[@Pinglen]

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

[@joemamma2326]

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

[@utsubyo]

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

[@jsh9048]

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

[@MinniMaster]

It's very interesting to compare HSR's Light Cones and FGO's Craft Essences considering their conceptual similarities, especially in regards to personal ones. Where HSR characters' BiS will always be their personal LC, there are very few cases where a Bond 10 CE will be the best option for an FGO servant outside of Herc or supports, and even then there may still be better options for the latter. A vast majority of Bond 10 CEs are just so undertuned despite the fact that they're typically designed with the servant's personal traits in mind, especially since they also come with the restriction that you can't use them on any other servant at all. Herc's CE will seemingly remain the only one comparable to the likes of personal LCs.

[@colorlessguard]

10:14 “Xiangling can use Nilou’s weapon” i think you meant Cyno here lol??

[@MelficeCyrum]

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.

[@tjstyles1659]

HSR is more generous than Genshin for a reason

[@Doctor_Apocalypse]

Ye the generosity gets canceled out by the costs of gearing up the characters

[@VeliaOwO]

Maybe they give more free rewards, yeah, but characters get powercrept all the time which means you need to constantly pull for new ones if you want to keep up. And if you really want to make your new shiny character top tier you need their lightcone which isn’t very affordable for F2P. You maybe get more free pulls, but you also need to spend much more. Honkai Starrail also has to be that generous because of all the other turn-based gacha games out there while Genshin Impact doesn’t really have a competitor except Wuthering Waves atm. As a bonus you also get a lot of rewards by just simply exploring the open world in Genshin

[@anristellariza9036]

​@@VeliaOwO you'd think that after an entire year of this argument being used you'd realize how wrong it is--but really, no. Guess all the Jingyuan clears with 4* supports don't exist. Guess all the 4* only MoC12 clears don't exist. It's really not that hard to find them, unless you specifically DIDN'T look for them so you continue putting up this ridiculous argument. HSR--despite being generous--is literally competing neck and neck with Genshin on revenue charts, swapping depending whether hype release comes out, or a dead patch.

[@archersterling6726]

​@@Doctor_ApocalypseStarted HSR like a month ago a jeeezz, the artifact system here is such BS

[@mosquitowing]

​@@archersterling6726 no buddy, you just don't know how to actually play it, being lazy as you mentioned in another comment.

[@crosssroads]

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 .

[@thenecromancer9879]

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

[@FlashKillerX]

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

[@kernelscout3077]

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.

[@matthewglenn3081]

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.

[@memesix5440]

I mean to be fair, the game will simply get harder as time progresses. Not being able to beat moc at 1.2 doesn’t make sense if you were “destroying” 1.0 and 1.1 lol, the enemies didn’t really jump that hard in difficulty, especially compared to the current patch in which Gepard s health has doubled to 1 million, the most in the games history. I feel the relic pain, but self modelling should help alleviate that. Plus MANY and I mean MANY 4 star light cones are broken. But yeah without good artifacts, I could definitely see how you would have trouble, especially if you don’t have well built sustains. I feel the game is generous enough to let you get good lc and characters imo

[@matthewglenn3081]

@@memesix5440 I was actually doing like, really well in the 1.2-1.3-1.4 moc's, like, 5 cycling MoC10, eventually dropping off to 8 cycles which I was fine with MoC11 and 12 blew that away and I couldn't 3* MoC11 at all and half the time couldn't even 2* because someone would just die The games difficulty was ramping up faster than my shitty relic luck could keep up, and it's not like I didn't try to make do with it, most of the characters I used are 6/10/10/10, or just 10 in anything important, to make up for the lack of good relics, but when you go months into the game with no real improvements to more than like 2 characters builds, adding 2 new floors to MoC AND adding pure fiction on top of that, the resources were stretched so thin to where I could not get characters in a good enough build fast enough to compete with the new *extremely difficult* endgame content, especially without pulling for IL, Jingliu, Fu Xuan or HuoHuo, since i was never really into any of the super meta characters and didn't really want them at the time, bit me in the ass even harder since I also had exactly 1 limited signature ever for Dr. Ratio since I figured why not, and even then without good relics to back it up, Ratio even with Topaz wasn't cutting it to let me clear MoC11 all that fast, and couldn't translate at all to pure fiction That's why for me these systems suck, where if you don't get the meta, for the characters you do get you basically need their personal lc's to keep up, *especially* if RNG decides to give you a middle finger For as much as Genshin's artifact system sucks, the freedom of off pieces and not needing perfect subs, as well as a very ftp accessible team that can easily clear endgame content for *cheap*, makes Genshin a lot more bearable, and lets you fall back on stuff more and not feel pressured into pulling for every single new character or their weapons

[@memesix5440]

@@matthewglenn3081 I mean thats fair to be honest, but I feel that the game is pretty reasonable. They provide much more rewards than genshin along with their sig weapon being infinitely easier to get for each character. I do agree with the relic stuff again, it is rough, but I feel that beating floor 12 shouldn't be easy, especially since you describe yourself not having any good limited characters or good artifacts. You also get self modelling resin which should help somewhat (I know not much but its something). I don't see how having these two limitations should get you to beat the "hardest" content in the game personally. Theres a youtuber who 36 stars the abyss every patch with a completely free to play team (no wishing on standard or even limited) banner every cycle, which is pretty cool. I understand getting burnt out, especially with limited resources and terrible relic luck, hopefully they get better if you decide to make a come back.

[@briannajohnson7157]

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.

[@casumycapy6155]

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.

[@TheStormcrow8]

Light cones are indeed incredibly powerful, and like you mentioned, it's hard to make them universally good and still retain the feeling of being a "signature weapon", or something you'd want to pull at all. In your Gerard lightcone example, there are actually other light cones that also provide a taunt effect, such as the 4 star Landau's Choice. I kind of have the understanding that if I can't or am not willing to invest money in the BiS LC, my character will be less than optimal. In an ideal world, I'd love to have a 100% BiS character just from playing the game. But not only is it not a competitive game, gacha games aren't really motivated to give us that avenue anyways. So long as we can theoretically clear all the content with what resources we are provided, they're probably gonna call it a day. I do like the idea of LC's being unbound to paths, but that opens up alot of potential balance issues. Maybe have a 20% reduction in stats or effect if the wrong path is using it? 🤔

[@Angie_OwOb]

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.

[@cyruslastiwka2390]

Quick fix, every light cone has 2 types associated to it. So say one that heals a character every time they basic attack can be used both on abundance OR destruction.

[@Cpecosongs]

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

[@reincarnatedtobuildaharem]

I didn't really think about that. I just get the LC if I really like the character and settle for what I have if I didn't. I just got Boothill's and was using River Flows in Spring. It's still decent but that's fair as you did pull for it and got lucky.

[@HotMokha]

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.

[@MomentaryPixels]

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.

[@Laserstormelpies]

A Destruction character scaling on healing bonus? Ayo? That sounds so much fun :D I hope we get that at some point. Thanks to Harmony Trailblazer, my Abundance Gallagher at least becomes a Destruction unit with Super Break dealing 40-50k despite him being built for healing as the main factor. :)

[@polarroars68]

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

[@beambreaker300]

I feel like Light Cones should be live2D and have their flavour text additionally attached as an audio button, voiced by the respective characters

[@takataks1123]

I remember all the calculations of Acheron when her LC was being discussed, thank god winers win and I got her and her light cone, if I didn't get it I would probably not enjoy her as much as I do. The point I'm trying to make is, characters that don't have good 4star LC's feel SOOO bad, unless they realease a LC on an event later or something, a friend of mine just started playing and got boothill, and asked me for a LC, and I was like, yeah, just whatever has more attack

[@Skew0443]

I wouldn’t say relics aren’t nearly as game altering then in genshin, i struggled my ass off trying to fight the first fight before phantiliya and then phantiliya herself and couldn’t even make it to the 2nd fight. I leveled up all my relics as much as i could, tried the fight again WITH THE SAME TEAM, beat it with all 3 characters taking hardly any damage.

[@Skew0443]

Not a very useful team i should mention, Welt as DPS pela for support, Natasha for healing, fire trailblazer for sustain. Im a F2P if you couldn’t tell from the team lmao.

[@МрачныйДом-н5е]

He's talking about set effects only. Which is true. Leveling up relics matters A LOT in both games.

[@nightshadesu2963]

he’s talking about set effects; using his example of thundering fury artifact set-the 4 pc effect not only buffs all electro related reactions, but also completely changes the rotation of your team, essentially changing how you play the character on the other hand, star rails relics are generally meant to increase damage or utility for the relic holder or the entire team

[@This_Origami]

leveling relics vs getting help from their set bonus. You're going off on a different tangent.

[@JeSt4m]

We're talking about relic set here. To put it simply the bonus set is mostly useless to the point that rainbow is extremely common as long as they have the correct stat and sub-stat. Not to mention finding a set is EXTREMELY hard and it might not matters based on the unit. Let me put things into perspective with my account : My only non-rainbow perfect set is Seele, she have the full quantum set + rutilant with 2900k ATK, 78-190 CR/CD + SU 5* LC. To reach that point I need to farm exclusively for her in like 4 months for the base set and another 4-5 months of not-so intensive grind for the rest. Meanwhile my DHIL easily compete with her even tho his not donning a full set and only 55-212 CR/CD ratio, not to mention now Acheron which again have shitty stat compared to my Seele (3k+ atk, 55-109 CR/CD). Not to mention I can't really clear most endgame content comfortably because I don't have Ruan Mei and Sparkle. Now I don't mean to brag but my Seele is probably almost as good as F2P seele can ever get right? However I still can't 0 Cycle or even 1 cycle anything even with every F2P harmony unit leveled including Bronya. What's the differences between my Seele and a 0 cycle Seele you see on YT? that's right LC. The differences of signature LC is 2-3 turns clear which is EXTREMELY significant. Moral of the story? 1. Unit powercreep is real. A mid build new unit will be equal to fine tuned old unit 2. LC gatekeep is real. Even if you have the best possible build you won't be hitting the real potential without signature LC. For most unit signature LC is like 30% of the unit potential (read : Even with the best build at E6 you're capped at 70% of unit true potential), some unit like Acheron even have nearly 50% of her potential behind LC.