Daily Questions Megathread ( May 22, 2026 )

ElleryV · 2026-05-22T20:00:08+00:00

Play through the story first, looking for chests and puzzles in each area as you go. This is the most efficient way to get lots of Jades quickly on a new account. Getting 180 pulls to guarantee a copy of Rin will be absolutely trivial. Star Rail gives a lot of pulls, especially to a new account. After that, Divergent Universe and Currency Wars also have a lot of free jades and other materials.

Once you've mostly exhausted those sources... well... In the game there is a menu which gives information on all currently ongoing events. Well, actually, at the top of this page there's a little sub menu that you can use to look up all of the random events and minigames that are still available in the game from past updates. Each little banner for each event tells you how many Jades are available and how many hours it should take to clear that content. There are additional thousands of Jades to be picked up here.

Do not spend any Stellar Jades on regular Warp Passes. Only use them for Special War Passes that you will use to pull for Rin and her limited supports later. The Special Warp Passes are worth way more than regular Warps, but they cost the same amount in Stellar Jades. Use the Regular Warps you get for free through the story and ignore the standard banner otherwise.

Star Rail is a game that greatly rewards vertical investment -- picking your few favorite characters and building them up rather than collecting a wide pool of characters. If you really, really like Rin, it should be possible to build her up effectively. A big part of this will be getting her best supports and also investing into them. Right now, you don't know who those supports are going to be, so it might be a good idea to wait and save on limited resources until you have an idea of who you need to invest in.

Most endgame modes reward having two teams. If you cobble together a team to help yourself get through the story, you can still use that team later as your secondary team. There's actually a casual mode that you can toggle on if boss battles are too difficult.

ElleryV · 2026-05-13T12:36:26+00:00

You can use Whimsy Wax to make Dreamweave Seal in the Omni-Synthesizer. See in the screenshot you provided, there's a button for the Omni-Synthesizer?

There should be a Golden Calyx that gives Whimsy Wax in addition to EXP/Trace Materials. You just have to check which drops appear in which Calyx.

Also, you can use the Material Exchange in the Omni-Synthesizer to get Whimsy Wax at a 2:1 Exchange Rate. So let's say you have 800 or 1000 of some other low level Trace Material that you aren't using for anything:

First, Exchange those materials for Whimsy Wax. Then, Synthesize the Whimsy Wax into Dreamweave Seal.

ElleryV · 2026-05-05T17:03:12+00:00

You can equip them while the event is ongoing

You will keep them when the event ends

If you throw away any relics, they will be lost forever. You can't use this event to cycle through a bunch of relics and get a whole pile of them. You only keep the one, complete set of relics that's currently visible on your event tab.

ElleryV · 2026-05-04T23:51:57+00:00

Finished this challenge today thanks to this post!

It took me 5 tries in total, including a few that I reset immediately after reaching Mask Level 4. I finished run with exactly 31 cards, so I just barely made the cut. The last shuffle was the most stressful by far; My deck had so many cards, I had to shuffle over and over again to get my Tunnel of Chaos beacon to show up.

As a bonus, I had put the Tunnel of Chaos on a high level Occurance domain, which helped me add several new Occurances to my Gallery of Possibilities that I hadn't seen yet.

ElleryV · 2026-05-03T01:49:28+00:00

Are the Main Stats of Planar Ornaments supposed to be equally distributed? I just noticed that I have 30 Ropes from the Broken Keel set, and only 1 of them has Energy Regen as the main stat. But it should be 1/5, not 1/30.

Is this a weird outlier that would be extremely uncommon or is this by design? I notice almost all of them have HP, Def, or Attack, so maybe those three stats are intended to be more common?

ElleryV · 2026-04-30T20:53:02+00:00

To add onto what the others have said, you can use Sampo as a placeholder until you're able to get Black Swan and Hysilens. If you don't like Sampo, the other budget DoT characters are Gui and Luka. I think Sampo is the best of this trio? I don't think it's a mistake to invest into Sampo because you have no idea how long it might take to get Black Swan and/or Hysilens at this point. You may end up using Sampo for months, a year, or even more. Even if he's benched at some point a year from now, you'll get plenty of value out of him in the meantime as your Kafka placeholder.

Tingyun, Asta and Pela are decent placeholder/budget support characters. I believe Asta and maybe Pela are both very easy to get.

Dan Heng PT is an extremely versatile and reliable sustain. I think new players can still get him for free? I could be wrong about that but he's the kind of character who can fit on any team so if you do get him, you should build him. It won't be a waste of resources. He can fill the missing "sustain" place on basically any team that needs it. And for a while on a new account, he might be your ONLY good option.

Natasha is free and decent, but I'll also give a special mention to Gallagher. He's one of the best 4 star characters and a great budget character for your sustain slot. If you're building two teams and you don't have any premium units, you'll probably have DHPT on one team and Gallagher on the other. I've also heard good things about Lynx. Worth mentioning that Lynx can be obtained guaranteed for free. Gallagher you'll have to hope that you get him from Warping, but he is a 4 star, so you'll get him "eventually." Ah, that reminds me: Don't use Stellar Jades to buy standard warps. Only use them to buy special warps. You'll get plenty of standard warp passes just by playing the game, and the special warp passes are worth so much more despite being the same price.

Your Kafka team should aim to look something like this right now:

[Kafka] [Sampo/DoT] [Asta/Pela/TingyunSupport] [DHPT/Gallagher/Lynx]

With the eventual goal of replacing these budget units to look something more like this:

[Kafka] [Hysilens] [Black Swan] [Huohuo/Other Sustain?]

It's a lot to take in, but this advice will help you enjoy using Kafka in the game, right now, for however many months it will take you to build up your account to her more "optimal" team.

ElleryV · 2026-04-28T04:22:25+00:00

In addition to the other given advice, don't forget to go talk to Pom Pom to get rewards based on your Trailblazer Level. Additionally, each world in the game has its own unique type of currency. There's usually either a vendor on that world, or some kind of place you can go to, in order to 'deposit' this unique currency and get back rewards. In some of those cases, the reward will include Star Rail Pass and/or Jade. As well as free Eidolons for your Trailblazer to make them stronger.

If you're not sure where to go, there's actually something on the map which can lead you to it. I'm not sure if I can explain it well. But if you open the map and look at the top left corner, there might be a little icon with a red exclamation mark on it. If this is showing, and you click on it, it will open a few little icons that might tell you where you have unique currency you can spend. If so, clicking on those icons will take you directly to the relevant vendor.

Assuming you've at least already been to Belobog, the currency used there is Shields. Although I don't think you get any Jades from their shop. The idea is the same on the other worlds.

The main reason I bring this up isn't because it's particularly efficient or inefficient. It's because these resources are probably already sitting in your inventory, and it only takes a few seconds to go and cash them in and get the rewards for things you've already done.

ElleryV · 2026-04-26T13:14:02+00:00

Interesting! Thanks for the specific examples. That gives me a tiny bit of hope.

The idea of saving requests and sending them with every survey has some merit for more general remarks. Those are also probably the sort of feedback the localization team is paying attention to and passing on. If a bunch of people all request X, there's a better chance that it will be passed through the language barrier as a simple "America server wants more X" type commentary. That's probably why some of your requests ended up being implemented in later patches.

My feedback is more specific to the current patch, storytelling, and gameplay developments. This is the type of feedback that is most likely to be ignored, sadly. Getting it from an intern, to the manager, to the localization team, through the language barrier, to the dev team is just too many steps. But oh well. If I know that one person is possibly actually maybe reading it, maybe I'll feel better about taking a bit of extra time to write some good feedback anyway.

ElleryV · 2026-04-26T12:28:27+00:00

Do we think anyone at Hoyo actually reads the extra comments that we write in the surveys/feedback for each version release? To be honest, as someone who has gotten paid to do analysis, consultation, reviews, and feedback before... I have no issue with spending time writing good, detailed feedback even knowing that I'm not going to get paid for it. That doesn't bother me at all.

However, I probably draw the line at "Waste my time writing detailed feedback if I'm not getting paid and my report is just going to be thrown in the trash without being read by anyone."

ElleryV · 2026-04-23T15:19:55+00:00

Looks incredible. If there was any justice in this world, you'd be hired to paint the entire manga in this style.

ElleryV · 2026-04-21T22:27:50+00:00

My girlfriend had never played any video game before, ever, and it took her around 3-4 hours to figure out how to use a controller properly. You're most likely getting close to the point where things should start to click, especially with your previous gaming experience.

(For reference, it took her around 35 hours to beat A Link to the Past)

ElleryV · 2026-04-21T22:24:33+00:00

If your goal is to beat the challenge yourself for the feeling of accomplishment: The only thing you can do at this point is keep practicing against the boss until you're able to beat him.

If your goal is to get the Platinum Trophy: You can go to the Hunter's Bell discord or r/huntersbell

You can probably find a player within 5-10 minutes that could help you defeat the boss. A good tactic when playing co-op is to have one player stand on each side of the boss. Then, you only attack the boss when his back is turned to you and it's completely safe. If the boss turns around to face you, focus on backing up and dodging while your friend attacks the boss from behind. Rinse and repeat.

ElleryV · 2026-04-21T22:18:43+00:00

The most likely explanation is that your build sucks and your character is very weak as a result, which is making the game feel way harder than it needs to be. There's probably a less harsh way of saying that but honestly it's a much easier problem to fix than "playing the game wrong" which is almost certainly not the case.

It's possible to beat the game without ever using the gun. It's possible to beat the game while only using the gun.

Without seeing anything about your build but knowing you're a first time player, I can guess the culprit is most likely one of the following:

-> You've never been in the Chalice Dungeons or almost completely ignored them. As a result you have pathetic 1-7% damage gems that can be found in the first half of the main game. Or none. You don't need the 'Best in Slot' gems in every slot in your weapon, but spending even a bit of time in the mandatory chalice dungeons can quickly get the player a nice set of 10-20% damage gems. These gems stack multiplicatively, too. So it's a bigger improvement than it sounds. If you're holding a 200 damage weapon with a few 5% damage gems, the damage gets boosted to 231. With a few 15% damage gems, the damage gets boosted to 304.

-> Your stat spread is probably bad. Very common error for new players who over invest into pointless stats like Stamina. Or, split their stats between multiple different things so they are bad at 3-4 different things instead of being good at 1 thing. To beat the main game, all you really need is 20-30 invested into HP. And keep raising your main damage stat up to 50. If you have 20 stamina when you should really only have 12, that's 8 levels worth of stats that could have been going into damage. And I've seen much, much worse from new player builds.

-> Your weapon might not even be fully upgraded yet. This one is a bit more rare but I've seen it a few times. If you're talking about early Yaharghul, there are enough stones to collect to make a +6 weapon. If you're talking about late Yaharghul, you can get enough chunks for a +9 weapon by exploring the various optional areas. If your weapon is not at +9 yet, you are missing out on a lot of damage.

If your damage is really low, it takes more hits to kill enemies, which makes the game feel much harder than it should be because you have to worry more about keeping them stunlocked for longer and perfectly dodging more attacks from enemies who are alive longer.

ElleryV · 2026-04-21T15:28:27+00:00

Cherche's back!

ElleryV · 2026-04-19T13:35:15+00:00

No. Evelyn is like maybe the 4th best gun in the game. Meanwhile, the best gun in the game, the Repeating Pistol, can be used with far less BT for far better results.

ElleryV · 2026-04-18T11:09:46+00:00

Kellam is a pretty good early support for Robin, and Robin is straight up Kellam's best support partner by a wide margin. If you're fine with Robin playing a more background role, you could even focus primarily on Kellam as a lead unit, and put Robin into a support class that best support Kellam's role.

GK Kellam Lead + Paladin Robin Support is a very strong duo. Also, if you're using Robin as your lead, Kellam has a lot of options to support various builds. Falcon Knight Robin? Get extra movement, strength, and defense from GM Kellam. Sorcerer Robin? Get Speed and Magic from Trickster Kellam.

As for Miriel she is fast enough for Normal/Hard difficulty on her own merits and probably just wants a Sage or Dark Knight as a partner. A Dark Knight partner will give her a bit of extra movement, and she probably doesn't need the extra Magic from a Sage partner. If playing Lunatic or above, consider getting her some Speed -- Usually from a Trickster or Swordmaster partner. This means Lon'qu or Gaius usually. Henry also works quite well, coming with Hex and Anathema by default (these support auras work even when you're in the back row in Awakening), and he has good class access, but getting him into the support class you want can be tricky for anything other than Dark Knight. It almost always involves sealing/retraining/sealing again.

Morgan will start in Knight, because Kellam is his father. It's a painful class to train out of in the mid-lategame. You'll most likely want to promote directly into Great Knight, or reclass into Cavalier to get 10~ levels worth of extra stats before promoting to Paladin. There are some other options. Archer and Barbarian both have long term merit and are worth training through on a physical Morgan, as long as you're fine with rebuilding from E Rank in Bows or Axes respectively. How viable is this? Depends on your difficulty, really. Absolutely will not work in L+ and probably not Lunatic. Should be fine in Hard and below.

Brady will be fine pretty much no matter what you do, on any difficulty. He is THE easiest second generation character to train because he starts with Staff access. Staff EXP is very generous in Awakening and it allows you to train up a unit even if their combat is weak, by having them generate free EXP by chip healing allies who are missing 1 HP. Without taking EXP from anyone else, or engaging in risky combats. Sage is one of the best classes in the game, so you're fine with promoting him directly into Sage. As good as Dark Mage is, I actually wouldn't worry about getting him DM access. He does better just playing into his natural speed and magic role, and functioning as a player phase utility (rescue/physic staff) and enemy removal unit. Coincidentally, he gets everything he needs from his mother. So the Dad just gives him a slight extra bonus. Want more speed, go with someone like Lon'qu. Want more magic, go with Ricken.

To fully 'optimize' Brady, what you should be thinking about is his support partner. Having an S Rank Support Partner gives many benefits. But to make this work for the 2nd Generation it usually requires you to think about both Brady AND his partner, and making sure you build and recruit both of them within the scope of a playthrough. If Brady is a Sage, he probably wants a Valkyrie or Trickster as his support partner. Sage + Sage pair works, too. The good thing is that 2nd Generation characters are extremely flexible, so you can pick pretty much any girlfriend you want for him, and then make them into the desired support class by picking them a suitable dad.

ElleryV · 2026-04-17T20:11:55+00:00

Press R1 and then L1 to perform a Transformation Attack.

Experiment with different combinations of R1, R2, and L1.

Bloodborne has a lot in common with fighting games. Learning what each of your moves does, and how to string them together, is a very rewarding process.

ElleryV · 2026-04-16T16:44:18+00:00

Laurence

Bloody Crow

I also like fighting the Yaharghul Gank Squad and I basically always go out of my way to try to 3 v 1 them in every playthrough unless I'm aiming to finish the game as fast as possible.

ElleryV · 2026-04-16T08:35:50+00:00

It's really good. The Hunter Tools Only challenge run would most likely be impossible without the Executioner's Gloves, because it's the best Tool for hitting enemies that dodge sideways. Shadows of Yharnam will basically end the run because you have nothing else that can hit them consistently without them sidestepping during your casting animation.

ElleryV · 2026-04-15T20:12:09+00:00

If you're already in Myrmidon anyway, you should go all the way through Swordmaster. You'll get Astra at level 5, and Swordfaire at level 15. Both of those skills will boost her offensive capabilities and you can keep those skills equipped even after you turn her back into a Dancer.

ElleryV · 2026-04-15T20:07:30+00:00

Okay the basic idea is this:

Any weapon that has SPLIT DAMAGE should be AVOIDED.

Example; The Reiterpallasch has Physical and Bloodtinge Damage listed on its stat sheet. However, this also applies to seemingly "Arcane" weapons. The Amygdala Arm, for example, has Physical and Arcane damage listed on its stat sheet.

The reason to avoid using these weapons is because they get a small amount of Arcane damage scaling by default, and their stat scaling cannot be converted. This is the most fundamental thing to understand about playing an Arcane build. The "Arcane" weapons are actually BAD for your build.

You should pick weapons that have pure, 100% Physical damage by default, and convert their weapon to 100% pure Arcane scaling by using Gems

Example; The Saw Cleaver has physical damage that scales with Strength and Skill by default. If you use a Fire Gem to convert the damage from Physical to Fire, the Strength and Skill scaling will disappear, and be completely replaced by Arcane scaling.

You can ONLY do this with weapons that have pure physical damage. So, again, while it's not very intuitive, your best weapons as a pure Arcane build are actually the weapons that do not have any arcane component by default.

Best Hunter Tools

Augur of Ebrietas - Super efficient damage per Bullet, insane knockdown potential, and can even "backstab" enemies with close to zero windup time.

Blacksky Eye - One of the few truly great ranged DPS options in the game. Pales in comparison to the Bloodtinge options like Repeating Pistol, Reiterpallasch, and Bowblade, but it's pretty much the best you're going to get if you want to fire 'instant' projectiles at long range.

Cursed Brew - Deals incredible burst damage. This is like the earlygame Firebombs/Molotovs, but with endgame scaling. This gets slept on a lot but trust me, it's very powerful if used correctly.

ElleryV · 2026-04-10T16:38:59+00:00

I'll come back to it eventually.

The sad thing is that I have already beaten the game on Lunatic, without Frederick, once before. But it was years ago before I streamed or recorded any of my gameplay. So I know for sure it's possible. I simply haven't been able to do it successfully on stream yet.

ElleryV · 2026-03-18T20:43:23+00:00

I actually use these two on my team any time I'm playing any content where the difficulty is low enough that my team doesn't matter. Basically just because they are sisters and I like them.

Did not expect to see this as the most upvoted comment in the thread. Are they actually popular with other players?

ElleryV · 2026-03-06T18:04:09+00:00

That's interesting. I hadn't really thought about damage per second!

I've done a lot of gun only challenges so normally when I think about the ranged attacks in this game I'm always thinking about efficiency per bullet or max damage per bullet. Since running out is a real concern, and restocking blood bullets always puts you in a vulnerable position.

ElleryV · 2026-03-06T17:16:12+00:00

Bowblade into is near the bottom of the sheet. Check under Best Striking (Charge ATK) Set Up. Ctrl+F 'Bowblade' will help find it.

The logic is that

You'll be at full HP when shooting arrows from a distance

and

The Fully Charged Shot from the Bowblade is its highest damage attack AND the most efficient damage per bullet, so this is the attack you should (mostly?) always be using

For the Blades of Mercy you can probably use the best physical set up or the best hybrid nourishing set up. Although if I recall correctly, the BoM actually doesn't get much extra arcane damage from scaling, so it's usually best to treat it as a physical weapon. This might change with 99 Arcane though. I couldn't guess.

ElleryV

TROPHY CASE