Honkai Star Rail pity system explained: 50-50, pity counter, more

Aakrit Sharma
Trailblazer in Honkai Star Rail

Understanding Honkai Star Rail’s pity system is key to planning your Stellar Jade spending properly, and here’s how to count your pity for the character and Light Cone banners in HSR.

Honkai Star Rail lets you unlock new characters and Light Cones every few weeks through banners. Although the RPG is entirely free-to-play, there’s no limit on how much you can spend on banners, which is why players with limited funds must understand the gacha mechanics.

If you’re confused about the drop-rate of five-star characters and Light Cones in HSR, here’s a comprehensive guide to the game’s pity system.

How does pity work in Honkai Star Rail?

The pity system is a gacha game mechanic that determines how many pulls you need to do before you get a guaranteed five-star unit in Honkai Star Rail. Pity on Honkai Star Rail’s banners resets once you get a five-star drop from it. Here’s how the pity system works in the different HSR banners:

Character banner pity system

The pity system in Honkai Star Rail ensures that you get a five-star character within every 90 warps on a character banner. All banners in the game have a separate pity counter. This means that performing 75 warps on the Light Cone banner won’t guarantee you a five-star character within the next 15 warps on any of the character banners.

However, pity carries over updates, implying that even if the character/Light Cone featured in an event banner changes, your pity won’t be reset. For instance, if you were unable to get a five-star character from the first 50 warps on Jingliu’s banner, you’ll get a guaranteed five-star character within the first 40 warps you make on the next character banner.

Double character banners

In the 1.4 update, Honkai Star Rail introduced double banners for five star characters. Double banners usually include a previously released five-star character, giving players another chance to get their favorite units.

Double rerun banners in Honkai Star Rail share the same pity and the boosted four-star characters. This means that pulling on any of the two event character banners adds to your overall pity for the event character banners.

Light Cone banner pity system

Light Cone banners in Honkai Star Rail are slightly more rewarding, as the pity in these banners guarantees a five-star drop at 80 warps instead of 90.

This table will also help you understand the drop rates and pity system in Honkai Star Rail:

Type of bannerFour-star pityFour-star drop rateFive-star pityFive-star drop rate
Character event banner10 Warps5.1%90 Warps0.6%
Light Cone event banner10 Warps6.6%80 Warps0.8%
Stellar Warp (permanent banner)10 Warps5.1%90 Warps0.6%
Departure Warp (starter banner)10 Warps5.1%50 Warps0.6%

What is soft pity in Honkai Star Rail?

Soft pity is an unofficial term used by Honkai Star Rail players when they get a five-star character around 70-80 pulls.

Although there’s no official confirmation on this, many believe that your chances of getting a five-star unit increase around 70-80 pulls on the banner, and going to the upper limit of 90 is not necessary most of the time.

In other words, soft pity is when players get a five-star drop between 70-80 pulls, while hard pity is when you get the guaranteed five-star drop at 90 warps. In the case of the Light Cone banner, hard pity is 80 while soft pity is 60-70 pulls.

Standard Warp banner in Honkai Star Rail
The permanent banner in Honkai Star Rail doesn’t have 50-50 mechanics.

How does 50-50 work in Honkai Star Rail banners?

In Honkai Star Rail’s event banners for characters, there’s a 50-50 chance that the first five-star character you get is the one featured in the banners.

However, if you don’t get the featured five-star character, the next five-star drop you get is guaranteed to be the featured one. Like pity, the 50-50 count carries over between updates.

Is there 50-50 in Honkai Star Rail Light Cone banners?

No, instead of 50, there’s a 75% chance that the five-star Light Cone you get from a Honkai Star Rail banner is the one with the boosted drop rate. If you lose this chance, the next five-star drop is guaranteed to be the featured five-star Light Cone.

How to count pity in Honkai Star Rail?

You can count pity in Honkai Star Rail by going to the desired banner’s in-game page, tapping on the View Details page, and going to Records. Go back in pages till you find the last five-star drop you got from the banner, and start counting the number of warps you’ve made since that.

Is the pity in Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact the same?

Yes, Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail have the same pity systems. Previously, the only difference was that Honkai Star Rail didn’t have re-run banners, shared pity within banners, and Epitome Invocation (for weapon banners), but this changed with the second phase of the 1.4 update.

We hope this guide helps you clear any doubts regarding the pity system in Honkai Star Rail. For more content on the game, check out:

Best Jingliu Honkai Star Rail build | Best Acheron Honkai Star Rail build | Who is Jade in Honkai Star Rail? | Best Bailu Honkai Star Rail build | Best Natasha Honkai Star Rail build | Best Tingyun Honkai Star Rail build | Best Clara Honkai Star Rail build | Best Yanqing Honkai Star Rail build | Honkai Star Rail PC and mobile requirements | Honkai Star Rail 2024 player count | How to reroll in Honkai Star Rail | How to uninstall Honkai Star Rail

About The Author

Aakrit is a games writer with over 2000 published articles for EssentiallySports, Sportskeeda, FortniteINTEL, and CharlieINTEL. Currently, he writes guides on Minecraft, Roblox, Pokemon games, Genshin Impact, and Brawlhalla. Aakrit loves playing shooter games and in his free time, you can find him queued up in Valorant, Fortnite, Apex Legends, or Halo Infinite. You can contact Aakrit at [email protected].