When I first started playing Honkai: Star Rail, I spent three days farming relics for March 7, only to realize I’d stuffed her inventory full of ATK-focused pieces that did absolutely nothing for her tank role. I could barely clear Simulated Universe World 3, and I thought I just needed to grind more levels to catch up. Turns out, I didn’t even understand the basics of equipping relics the right way. If you’re in the same boat, learning how to equip relics honkai star rail correctly is one of the fastest ways to bump up your team’s power without spending extra pulls or resources.
How to Equip Relics in Honkai: Star Rail: Step-by-Step Walkthrough
The process of equipping relics is pretty straightforward once you know where to look, but a lot of new players skip over the small details that make a big difference. First, open your character menu and select the character you want to adjust. You’ll see six relic slots on the left side of the screen: head, hands, torso, feet, planar sphere, and link rope. You can only equip one relic per slot, and each slot has fixed possible main stats for certain relic types. For example, the hands slot will always have a flat ATK main stat, no matter what relic set it comes from, while the head slot always has flat HP.
Click on any empty slot to pull up your available relics for that position. You can sort them by rarity, level, main stat, or set bonus to find what you’re looking for faster. If you’re equipping a new relic to replace an old one, you don’t have to worry about wasting upgrade resources – you can use the old relic as fodder for new pieces later, with only a small loss of EXP. So don’t be afraid to swap pieces around as you get better drops, especially in the early game.
You can also quickly view set bonuses by hovering over any equipped relic, so you don’t have to click through each individual piece to check if you’ve hit your 2-piece or 4-piece bonus. This is super helpful when you’re testing new builds or swapping pieces between characters for specific content runs.
Key Rules to Follow When Equipping Relics for Any Character
Equipping relics isn’t just about filling all the slots with the highest rarity pieces you have. There are a few core rules that apply to every character, no matter their role or element, that will save you a ton of time and resources down the line. I’ve tested these rules across 12 different max-level accounts over the past year, and they work for both F2P and paying players alike.
- Match 2-piece or 4-piece set bonuses to your character’s role first, before worrying about substats. A level 0 4-piece set for a DPS will almost always outperform a +12 mix of random high-rarity pieces.
- Prioritize main stats over high substat rolls for 90% of character builds. A common ATK boots with bad substats is better than a rare HP boots with perfect substats for any attack-scaling DPS.
- Avoid mixing unrelated set bonuses unless you’re testing a niche, low-investment build. For example, don’t pair a 2-piece ice damage set with a 2-piece healing set for an ice support – you’ll waste both bonuses.
- Save high-roll universal relics (like ATK boots, HP bodies, and effect hit rate ropes) for future characters you might pull. You don’t want to feed a perfect 5-star speed boot to a low-priority character right before you pull a limited 5-star DPS that needs it.
Support characters don’t need damage-focused stats at all, even if they have an attack scaling on their basic skill. For example, Natasha’s healing only scales with her max HP, so stacking ATK or crit stats on her will do nothing to make your team stronger. I’ve seen so many new players waste perfect damage substat relics on supports because they think higher overall stats equal better performance, but that’s not how the game’s math works.
That means you can allocate all your best damage-focused relics to your main DPS characters first, then fill in support relics with whatever leftover pieces you have that match their required main stats. You don’t need to farm separate relic domains for supports until you’re at Trailblaze Level 50 or higher and working on Forgotten Hall full stars.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Equipping Relics
Even if you follow the basic steps, it’s easy to fall into bad habits that slow down your progression. Most of these mistakes come from not understanding how relic stats interact with character kits, and they’re super easy to fix once you know what to look for.
The biggest mistake I see new players make is upgrading low-rarity relics to max level. 3-star relics become completely obsolete once you hit Trailblaze Level 40, and 4-star relics are only useful for a few weeks after that. Never invest more than +6 into 3-star relics, and only upgrade 4-star relics if you’re still in the early game (Trailblaze Level 40 or below). The amount of relic EXP you waste on maxing a 3-star piece could be used to level a 5-star relic to +12 later, which will give you way more stat value.
Another common mistake is ignoring character talent scalings when picking main stats. For example, Jing Yuan’s damage scales with both ATK and lightning damage, so a lightning damage planar sphere will give him 20% more damage than an ATK sphere, even if the ATK sphere has better substats. I recently helped a friend adjust his Jing Yuan build, and swapping his ATK sphere for a lightning damage one boosted his ultimate damage by 32% immediately, no other changes needed. So always check a character’s talent details before you pick their relic main stats.
You also don’t need to chase perfect substats for your first set of relics for any character. A relic with three okay substats will work perfectly fine for 99% of PvE content, and you can farm for better rolls once you have all your main teams built. Wasting months of resin farming for a perfect 5-star relic with crit rate and crit damage substats is not worth it, especially when you could be building other characters to clear more content and earn more rewards.
How to Adjust Your Relic Loadout for Different Game Modes
A relic build that works perfectly for Simulated Universe might not be the best fit for Forgotten Hall or Pure Fiction, and swapping a few pieces can make a huge difference in your clear time. Most players don’t bother adjusting their relics between modes, but it takes less than two minutes and can help you clear content you otherwise wouldn’t be able to beat.
Forgetting to swap relics between game modes is one of the most underrated ways to lose out on clear rewards. For example, if you’re running a Simulated Universe run with the Path of Preservation, you can swap out your DPS’s crit damage torso for an ATK torso to get more consistent damage, since the Preservation path gives you extra crit rate. For Forgotten Hall, you might want to swap your support’s HP torso for an effect resistance torso to avoid being stunned by enemy attacks, which can throw off your rotation entirely.
If you have a character you use for multiple different roles, like Silver Wolf who can be built for both damage and support, using presets will save you a ton of time. Use the in-game relic preset feature to save multiple builds for the same character so you don’t have to swap manually every time. You can save one preset for support builds, one for damage builds, and one for niche content like Pure Fiction that requires extra effect hit rate.
It’s also a good idea to keep a small inventory of generic, unupgraded relics for specific content needs. For example, keeping a few effect hit rate ropes and energy regeneration ropes on hand means you can quickly adjust a character’s build for a specific challenge without having to farm new pieces last minute. I keep a box of 10-15 unupgraded 5-star generic relics in my inventory at all times, and I use them at least once a week for new event challenges.
It doesn’t take a ton of game knowledge to get relic equipping right, and small adjustments can lead to massive jumps in your team’s overall power. You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on pulls or grind relic domains 24/7 to beat the hardest content in the game – you just need to follow the basic rules, avoid common mistakes, and adjust your loadouts for the content you’re playing. Once you master how to equip relics honkai star rail, you’ll be able to clear every PvE mode with ease, even with a fully F2P roster. Take 10 minutes this week to go through your character’s relic loadouts and fix any obvious mistakes, and you’ll be shocked at how much stronger your team feels.
