Honkai: Star Rail Relic Farming Guide: Best Sets and Substats

Relics are where most of your account's power hides in Honkai: Star Rail. Light cones and traces matter, sure, but six slots of randomized gear outweigh just about anything else you actually control. The catch is that the game barely explains any of it. You get a wall of numbers and a salvage button, and off you go. So here's how the stats roll, which sets deserve your Trailblaze Power, and when to start spending it.

How Relic Main Stats and Substats Actually Work

Every character wears six pieces. Four of them are Cavern Relics, which sit in the head, hands, body, and feet slots. The other two are Planar Ornaments, a sphere and a link rope. The two halves come from different places and roll different stats, which trips up a lot of new players.

Two slots are dead simple. Head is always flat HP and hands is always flat ATK, no randomness at all. A maxed 5-star head ends at 1,706 HP and hands ends at 353 ATK. Those two slots are pure stat sticks, and their value comes entirely from substats.

The other four slots roll a random main stat from a pool tied to the slot:

| Slot | Possible main stats | 5-star value at +15 | |---|---|---| | Body | CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, ATK%, HP%, DEF%, Effect Hit Rate, Outgoing Healing | 32.4% / 64.8% / 43.2% / 43.2% / 54.0% / 43.2% / 34.6% | | Feet | SPD, ATK%, HP%, DEF% | 25 / 43.2% / 43.2% / 54.0% | | Planar Sphere | One of 7 elemental DMG%, ATK%, HP%, DEF% | 38.9% / 43.2% / 43.2% / 54.0% | | Link Rope | Break Effect, Energy Regen Rate, ATK%, HP%, DEF% | 64.8% / 19.4% / 43.2% / 43.2% / 54.0% |

Those percentages are the whole reason farming hurts. That 32.4% CRIT Rate on a body piece is roughly a third of your crit rate from one slot, and the game doesn't just hand them out. Main stats aren't evenly weighted either. Four stats can roll on feet, so you'd expect a one in four shot at Speed, but community drop logs put Speed boots closer to one in ten. Crit bodies are the same story. When you finally pull an on-set crit body, that's a real event.

Substats are the other half of the system, and they're pure randomness. Every 5-star relic drops with three or four substat lines, and the pool is the same dozen stats regardless of set: flat and percent versions of HP, ATK, and DEF, plus SPD, CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, Break Effect, Effect Hit Rate, and Effect RES. Two rules clean up the mess. A relic can't roll a substat that matches its main stat, so crit-rate bodies never waste rolls on more crit rate. And no stat appears twice on the same piece.

Leveling works in steps of three. Every three levels the relic either unlocks a new substat line or pumps a random existing one, and a 5-star caps out at +15. Do the math and a four-line piece gets five upgrade rolls on the way to max. A three-line piece spends its first roll opening the fourth line, leaving four real upgrades. That's why four-line drops are worth more at the start, even though the lines themselves are still random.

Rarity gates the ceiling too: 2-star stops at +6, 3-star at +9, 4-star at +12, only 5-star pieces reach +15. Anything below 5-star is eventually fodder.

One habit worth building early: judge crit pieces by crit value. The formula is just 2 times CRIT Rate plus CRIT DMG, so a piece with 3.5% crit rate and 10% crit damage scores a 17. It's a quick gut-check for whether a DPS piece is actually good or just looks busy. Speed substats don't fit that formula, so count those separately, usually one Speed roll per piece is a decent bar for supports.

Best Cavern Relics for DPS, Sustain, and Support Roles

Cavern sets give a 2-piece bonus and a 4-piece bonus. The 2-piece is almost always a plain stat like 12% ATK or 16% CRIT DMG. The 4-piece is the one that defines how a character plays, so read that line before you commit weeks of farming to a set with a pretty name.

DPS picks

Scholar Lost in Erudition is the default crit set right now. Two pieces give 8% CRIT Rate, four pieces boost Skill and Ultimate damage by 20%, and the Skill right after an Ultimate gets another 25%. That covers nearly every standard damage dealer who cycles skill and ult in a loop, which is most of them.

Follow-up attackers want The Wind-Soaring Valorous instead. It opens with 12% ATK, tacks on 6% CRIT Rate, and adds 30% Ultimate damage for one turn after a follow-up lands. Since follow-up characters fire constantly, that buff is up more often than not. The Ashblazing Grand Duke is the older follow-up option, stacking 6% ATK per follow-up hit up to 8 stacks, and it still works fine as a 2-piece plus 2-piece combo with Valorous.

Break teams live on Iron Cavalry Against the Scourge. Sixteen percent Break Effect from two pieces, and at 150% Break Effect your break damage ignores 10% of enemy DEF. Push to 250% and Super Break damage skips another 15%. Those are the two numbers a break carry builds around, and every substat roll goes into Break Effect and Speed to hit them.

DoT characters skip crit entirely. Prisoner in Deep Confinement gives 12% ATK, then ignores 6% of DEF per damage-over-time effect on the target, up to three. Kafka and friends stack debuffs fast, so they usually sit at the cap.

A few specialists exist past those. Poet of Mourning Collapse actually lowers your Speed by 8% and pays up to 32% CRIT Rate if you land under 95 Speed, which sounds weird until you meet the Quantum characters built around it. Pioneer Diver of Dead Waters rewards teams that pile debuffs on enemies. Both are character-specific picks, so check your carry's page before grinding either.

Sustain picks

Longevous Disciple carries the HP scalers. Twelve percent max HP from two pieces, and the wearer gains 8% CRIT Rate for two turns when hit, stacking twice. Sustain characters love the HP, and the crit is a sneaky bonus for characters like Blade-adjacent HP attackers.

Classic healers still run Passerby of Wandering Cloud, 10% outgoing healing plus a free Skill Point at the start of battle. That skill point is honestly the better half, since it greases your whole rotation on turn one. Knight of Purity Palace stays the shielder set, 15% DEF with 20% bigger shields on the 4-piece.

Newer Amphoreus sets have pushed into this space too. Self-Enshrouded Recluse bumps shield strength twice over and hands shielded allies 15% CRIT DMG, and Warrior Goddess of Sun and Thunder trades healing triggers for Speed and a team-wide crit buff. Worth grabbing if your sustainer is from that region, but the old standbys hold up fine for everyone else.

Support picks

Sacerdos' Relived Ordeal is the current king here. Six percent Speed on two pieces, and using a Skill or Ultimate on an ally raises that ally's CRIT DMG by 18% for two turns, twice stackable. Buffers who spam single-target skills keep both stacks running on your carry basically full time. It drops in the same cavern as Scholar Lost in Erudition, which makes that one domain feed your DPS and your support at once.

Messenger Traversing Hackerspace is the budget-friendly alternative, 6% Speed plus a 12% team Speed burst for a turn whenever the wearer casts their Ultimate on an ally. Turn order is king in this game, so more Speed for everyone is never wasted. Watchmaker, Master of Dream Machinations does the same trick with 30% team Break Effect for break squads.

Two general points before you commit. Mixing 2-piece plus 2-piece is completely legitimate, two stat bonuses beat a 4-piece your character can't trigger. And good substats beat a perfect set bonus almost every time. A 4-piece Scholar with no crit rolls loses to mismatched pieces carrying double crit lines. Farm the set, but keep the stats.

Planar Ornament Sets Worth Chasing

Planars only have two slots, so there's no 4-piece to chase. You're picking one 2-piece effect, and because the sphere can roll your element's damage and the rope can roll Energy Regen, these two pieces often swing a build as hard as the body piece does.

For crit damage dealers, the choice mostly comes down to thresholds:

• Inert Salsotto gives 8% CRIT Rate, and past 50% CRIT Rate your Ultimate and follow-up damage rise 15%. Easy to activate and fits ult-heavy and follow-up carries.
• Rutilant Arena is the mirror image, 8% CRIT Rate with 20% Basic ATK and Skill damage past 70% CRIT Rate. Basic-attack-reliant units prefer it, but that 70% bar is steep.
• Firmament Frontline Glamoth gives 12% ATK plus 12% damage at 135 Speed or 18% at 160. Pure juice for fast carries.
• Duran, Dynasty of Running Wolves stacks Merit on ally follow-ups, five stacks of 5% follow-up damage plus 25% CRIT DMG at full stacks. Made for follow-up teams where everyone's chiming in.
• Bone Collection's Serene Demesne gives 12% HP and 28% CRIT DMG once max HP clears 5,000. HP-scaling attackers get a crit set and a stat they wanted anyway.
• The Wondrous BananAmusement Park is the weird one, 16% CRIT DMG rising to 48% while one of your own summons is on the field. If your character brings a pet, it's huge. If not, skip it.

Supports and sustains have a shorter shopping list. Broken Keel gives 10% Effect RES and, past 30% Effect RES, hands the whole team 10% CRIT DMG. That's the default support planar, since it turns a defensive stat into offense for everybody. Fleet of the Ageless does the same shape with 12% HP and 8% team ATK past 120 Speed. Lushaka, the Sunken Seas gives 5% Energy Regen and boosts whoever's first in the team lineup by 12% ATK, so you park your buffer second and aim it at your carry.

Energy-hungry characters have two more. Penacony, Land of the Dreams adds 5% Energy Regen and 10% damage for allies sharing the wearer's element. Sprightly Vonwacq gives 5% Energy Regen and advances the wearer's action 40% at the start of battle past 120 Speed, great for openers who need to move first.

Break squads grab Talia, Kingdom of Banditry, 16% Break Effect with another 20% past 145 Speed. DoT teams can run Revelry by the Sea, which needs 2,400 or 3,600 ATK for its 12% or 24% DoT boost.

Notice how many of those have a number attached. Before you farm a planar, check whether your character can actually hit the threshold, because a set sitting below its own bar is just a dead 2-piece bonus.

Efficient Relic Domain Farming Routes

Caverns of Corrosion cost 40 Trailblaze Power a run. The bar caps at 240, which is six runs, so a day of natural regeneration is six pulls at the slot machine. That's the whole budget, and it's why route planning matters here.

The biggest efficiency rule: don't farm caverns early. Five-star drops only become reliable at Trailblaze Level 40 with Equilibrium Level 3. Below that you're mostly pulling blue and purple pieces you'll trash in a week. Spend early Power on character ascension and trace materials instead, and let the relic farming start once gold actually drops. At Trailblaze Level 50 you get a 50% shot at a second 5-star per run, and at 60 you're guaranteed two. That's when farming really pays.

Second rule, and this one saves people weeks: every cavern drops two sets at once. You're never farming one set, you're farming a pair, so pick the domain where both halves serve you. The good ones do that naturally.

| Cavern | Sets dropped | Farm it for | |---|---|---| | Path of Uncertainty | Scholar Lost in Erudition + Sacerdos' Relived Ordeal | Crit DPS and supports together | | Path of Elixir Seekers | Longevous Disciple + Messenger Traversing Hackerspace | HP scalers and Speed supports | | Path of Cavalier | Iron Cavalry + The Wind-Soaring Valorous | Break and follow-up teams | | Path of Darkness | The Ashblazing Grand Duke + Prisoner in Deep Confinement | Follow-up and DoT characters | | Path of Thundersurge | Warrior Goddess of Sun and Thunder + Wavestrider Captain | Healers and big ult attackers | | Path of Drifting | Passerby of Wandering Cloud + Musketeer of Wild Wheat | Early account catch-all |

Path of Uncertainty is the one most accounts should live in, since your main damage dealer and your main buffer both eat from it. Path of Cavalier covers two full team archetypes in one place. Start with whichever cavern holds your carry's 4-piece, get that done, then move to the second priority rather than splitting Power across four domains at once.

Planars come from the Simulated Universe instead. From World 3 onward, beating an elite or boss unlocks the immersion device on that floor, and you pay 40 Trailblaze Power or one Immersifier to claim a set of planars. Two tricks here. One, the weekly points bar in the Simulated Universe is free Stellar Jade and currency, so clear it every week regardless. Two, you bank Immersifiers from those weekly rewards, and they're just prepaid Trailblaze Power that only works in that mode. Spend them instead of raw Power when you can.

When you do run it, clear as much of the floor as you can before cashing in at the device, since one cleared floor pays out on every terminal you've unlocked. And keep an eye out for the limited-time double drop events, they crop up a few times a year for both caverns and planars, and saving a stockpile of Power or Immersifiers for one is the closest thing this system has to a sale.

Last thing on routes. Relics swap between characters for free, no cost, no penalty, and the enhancement level comes with the piece. A spare Speed boot set isn't wasted, it's a loaner until your second Speed boot drops. Build with that in mind and one good piece can serve three characters over a month.

When to Use Fragmentum and the Enhancement System

Quick lore detour, because the name confuses people. The Fragmentum is the corrosion spreading off the Stellarons, the crystalline corruption you see growing out of everything. Cavern Relics are described in-game as equipment preserved and rebuilt inside it, which is why the farming dungeons are called Caverns of Corrosion. So "using the Fragmentum" in practice means running those caverns. The question is when, and the answer is the level gate from earlier: hold off until Equilibrium Level 3 at Trailblaze Level 40, farm hard once gold drops are guaranteed at 60, and before that point your Power is better spent on ascension mats.

Once the relics start piling up, the enhancement system is what turns them into gear.

Leveling without wasting materials

Level in steps and pay attention. The game has an enhancement cap toggle that stops the process at each 3-level node so you can see what just rolled before continuing. Use it. Take a piece to +3, look at where the roll landed, and decide. Rolled into a stat your character wants? Keep going. Rolled flat DEF on your crit body? Stop right there and eat the small loss. Most players stop testing around +6 or +9 and only push to +15 on pieces that have already rolled well twice. A dead piece at +9 costs a fraction of a dead piece at +15.

Salvage and crafting

Unwanted relics get salvaged. Two-star through 4-star pieces should become relic EXP, full stop, you'll always need the stuff. Five-stars are the interesting call, because salvaging one gives 10 Relic Remains instead of EXP, and 100 remains lets you synthesize a piece from any set and slot you pick. So ten trashed 5-stars equal one guaranteed correct-slot piece. Early on, when you're still leveling lots of gear, feed 5-stars as EXP. Once your teams are functional and EXP is piling up, switch the dead ones over to remains.

Self-Modeling Resin

This is the item that fixes the main stat problem. One Self-Modeling Resin, plus 100 remains, crafts a piece with a main stat you choose outright. Since Speed boots and crit bodies are roughly one-in-ten drops, skipping that roll is enormous. You can spend 800 remains to make a resin, limited to two per month, and they also come from Nameless Honor and events, so treat them as precious.

Since version 3.5 the resin also handles substats. One resin picks the main stat. Two total adds one chosen substat. Five total adds two chosen substats. The premium craft sounds great, but here's the practical advice: five separate main-stat crafts will finish more characters than one fancy craft, because the resin only sets the starting lines. Where the enhancement rolls land is still random. A five-resin piece can still flop.

Best targets, in order: an Energy Regen rope when your character's ultimate timing is broken without it, Speed boots to hit an action-order target, the right elemental sphere, then a crit or Effect Hit body. Never waste resin on head or hands. Those slots have fixed main stats, so there's nothing to pick.

Variable Dice

Three resins convert into one Variable Dice, which rerolls the enhancement distribution of a finished +15 5-star without touching its main stat or substat types. Roll bad levels into good ones, basically, and you keep whichever version came out better since a worse reroll doesn't force you to accept it. Pair it with an Interference Key when you have one and you can lock out a junk substat from getting rolls during the reroll. Save dice for pieces that already have the right lines, since rerolling garbage just gives you prettier garbage.

The whole loop feeds itself. Farm the cavern pair that covers two characters, test at +3 and +6, feed the failures forward as EXP or remains, then spend remains and resin on the slot randomness refuses to give you. A few weeks of that beats twice the farming with no plan.