Honkai: Star Rail — How to Level Your HSR Characters

Honkai: Star Rail is a gacha, turn-based RPG with all the complexities that label carries. One main way you’ll progress, especially in the early game, is by leveling up your characters. Character leveling is separate from Trailblaze leveling, though you’ll certainly need to do the latter to unlock both quests and many of the game’s features. Improving your characters is not as straightforward as expected from a more traditional JPRG. There has been some significant gacha-fication to the system.

Related: Honkai: Star Rail – How to Reroll & Best Characters to Reroll

Leveling Up Your Characters in Honkai: Star Rail

If you’re expecting to level up your characters by fighting monsters and completing quests in Honkai: Star Rail, you’ll be disappointed. While you do get a pittance of experience for simply playing the game, by far the more efficient leveling strategy is to spend three types of consumables:

• Travel Encounters, which provide 1,000 total Character EXP.
• Adventure Logs, which provide 5,000 total Character EXP.
• Traveler’s Guides, which provide 20,000 total Character EXP.

Early on, you’ll only need a few thousand experience per level, but by the time you get into the mid-teens, and certainly after that, you’ll need thousands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of EXP to advance even a single level. Thankfully, these items are relatively plentiful, and you’ll get quite a few just playing the game, completing main and side quests, and going through the story. There are also dozens of characters across the various banners, so you’ll need as much experience as possible. Thankfully, we’ve found one of the best ways to get it.

Best Ways to Level Your Characters in Honkai: Star Rail

As you travel the stars, you’ll encounter golden, tree-like structures called Calyxes. The first of these, found on the Outlying Snow Plains of Jarilo-VI, awards three Adventure Logs per activity completion. You’ll be fighting Flame and Frostspawn enemies, so bring Fire, Ice, Physical, and Wind element characters.

Every time you fight a wave of these enemies, you’ll spend 10 Trailblaze Power, which replenishes at a rate of one every five minutes or so. You can take on up to six waves in a single battle sequence for eighteen waves and 54 Adventure Logs. As you progress through HSR, you’ll eventually unlock higher Calyx tiers with better rewards, including Traveler’s Guides at Tier IV.

Related: Honkai: Star Rail Walkthrough – Characters, Quests, Story & Collectibles

You’ll want to spend your Trailblaze Power daily here and in other activities that use it for valuable materials and rewards. You never know when you might need them.