If you’ve ever spent 300 stamina farming a relic domain only to walk away with three blue drops and a single useless purple, you know how frustrating gearing your top Honkai: Star Rail characters can be. Gold relics are the endgame gear that turns passable supports into immortal healers and average DPS units into boss-melting powerhouses, so it’s no surprise most players are looking for reliable ways to get them. Whether you’re a new Trailblazer just hitting Trailblaze Level 40 or a veteran grinding for perfect substats, this guide breaks down exactly how to get gold relics in Honkai: Star Rail without throwing all your hard-earned stamina down the drain.
Best Reliable Methods to Get Gold Relics in Honkai: Star Rail
Gold relics start dropping consistently once you hit Trailblaze Level 40, but you can get lucky and grab them as early as TB30 if you run higher difficulty Calyxes or challenge specific endgame content. Not all farming methods are equal though, and some give you far more control over the set and stats you get than others. We’ve ranked the most efficient methods below based on stamina cost, drop rate, and flexibility for F2P and paying players alike:
- Relic Domain Calyxes: The most consistent source of targeted gold relic sets, with a 15% drop rate per run at Difficulty 3, jumping to 25% at Difficulty 4 once you hit TB50.
- Simulated Universe World Drops: Each world drops specific gold relic sets from World 3 onwards, with bonus drops from weekly boss fights and point-based rewards. You don’t spend stamina here, so it’s perfect for off days when you don’t want to burn through your resin.
- Forgotten Hall & Pure Fiction Rewards: Clearing new floors of these endgame challenges gives guaranteed gold relics as one-time rewards, often with high main stat rolls that work for most meta builds.
- Event Exclusive Rewards: Limited-time events regularly hand out free gold relic sets, sometimes even with pre-selected main stats that fit popular characters like Seele or Silver Wolf.
Don’t sleep on the Simulated Universe if you’re F2P, by the way. I’ve gotten three perfect 5-star Musketeer sets for my DPS characters just from running World 5 three times a week, no stamina spent. It’s slower than farming Calyxes, but it’s zero cost and you get extra rewards like Cosmic Fragments to buy relics from the shop on top.
How to Maximize Gold Relic Drop Rates When Farming Calyxes
Most players default to spamming the highest difficulty Calyx they can beat, but that’s not always the best choice for drop rates or stamina efficiency. If you can’t clear Difficulty 4 of a relic domain without using three revives and burning all your support skills, you’re better off sticking to Difficulty 3 for a while. The drop rate difference is only 10%, and you’ll finish runs faster so you can farm more total runs in the same play session.
Always use the 2x drop event bonus when it’s active for the set you’re farming. HoYoverse runs these events every 2-3 months, and they double the number of relics you get per run without increasing the stamina cost. I once got four gold relics in a single run during a 2x event, which saved me almost 200 stamina I would have spent grinding the same domain later. You don’t have to hoard stamina for months waiting for these events, but if you know one is coming up in a week, it’s fine to save 1-2 days worth of resin to burn during the bonus window.
If you’re farming for a specific set for a limited time character, don’t waste time waiting for 2x events. Characters like Sparkle or Acheron only have reruns every 6+ months, so it’s worth burning extra stamina to get their sets ready while they’re still on your team. Just make sure you don’t burn through all your fuel before you know what stats you actually need for the character.
Mistakes to Avoid When Farming Gold Relics
Even if you’re following all the best farming strategies, small mistakes can waste weeks of stamina and leave you with nothing but garbage relics you’ll never use. The most common mistake I see new players make is farming relics way too early, before they hit Trailblaze Level 50. Before TB50, gold relic drop rates are so low that you’re better off spending your stamina on leveling materials, ascension items, and trace materials for your core team. You can get by with full purple relic sets for all story content and even most early Forgotten Hall floors, so don’t waste resin on gold relics until you can access Difficulty 4 Calyxes.
Don’t try to farm perfect substats on your first set of gold relics. Most players spend months chasing 100% perfect rolls, but you only need decent main stats and 2-3 good substats to clear 99% of the game’s content. For example, a DPS character only needs a crit rate or crit damage body piece, attack boots, and an elemental damage sphere to be viable. The substats can be whatever you get at first, and you can replace pieces slowly as you farm more drops.
Another big mistake is farming sets for characters you don’t even use regularly. I once spent 400 stamina farming a Hunter of Glacial Forest set for Herta, only to realize I never use her on any of my teams and would have been better off building a support set for my Luocha instead. Make a list of your top 4-5 core characters first, and only farm sets for them before you move on to less used units.
How to Get Free Gold Relics Without Spending Stamina
You don’t have to burn all your stamina every day to get good gold relics. There are multiple free sources of 5-star relics that refresh weekly or give one-time rewards for clearing content, and most players miss at least half of them. The first free source is the Simulated Universe weekly boss fights. Each week you can get up to 3 bonus drops from killing the weekly bosses, and each of these has a 40% chance of dropping a gold relic from the associated world’s set pool.
The Omnipotent Shop in the Simulated Universe also sells gold relics every week for Cosmic Fragments, which you earn just from running the Simulated Universe normally. You can buy two random gold relics per week, and they often have surprisingly good rolls. I’ve gotten two perfect speed boots for my supports from this shop, no stamina spent at all.
Don’t forget to claim your Forgotten Hall and Pure Fiction rewards every two weeks when the floors reset. Even if you can only clear the first 8 floors of Forgotten Hall, you’ll get at least one gold relic per reset as a reward, plus tons of stellar jade and other materials. If you’re part of an active crew, you can also get occasional gold relic drops from crew weekly rewards, depending on how many missions your crew completes each week.
Nameless Honor battle pass also gives guaranteed gold relics every level, even on the free track. You don’t have to buy the paid pass to get these, just complete your daily and weekly missions to level up the pass, and you’ll get multiple gold relics per pass cycle. That’s one of the most underrated free sources for new players, since you can get these relics even before you hit TB40.
Gearing your characters doesn’t have to be a frustrating grind that eats up all your free time. By focusing on the most efficient farming methods, avoiding common mistakes, and taking advantage of free stamina-free sources, you can build viable endgame sets for all your core characters in a fraction of the time. Take it slow, prioritize your main team first, and don’t chase perfect rolls right away, and you’ll quickly figure out how to get gold relics in Honkai: Star Rail without wasting all your hard-earned stamina. Before you know it, you’ll be clearing the hardest endgame content with ease and experimenting with weird off-meta builds just for fun.
