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Honkai: Star Rail - What are Eidolons and how do they work?
Eidolons are somewhat similar to Traces. They are essentially short skill trees that give your character permanent buffs. Each character has six Eidolons that you unlock as you progress through the game. Each one is unlocked with a specific material. In this article, we’ll explain more about Eidolons, how they work, and how to unlock them.
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In Honkai: Star Rail, Eidolons are permanent character upgrades. You unlock the main character's Eidolons by completing in-game quests and by buying them with in-game currency. For most others, you need up to six duplicate pulls of the same character to get every upgrade.
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What are Eidolons?
Eidolons are a set of six passive buffs and upgrades that you can unlock. Each unlock is permanent and gives you some pretty neat stuff. For instance, Caelus/Stelle’s second one grants them HP regen when they hit an enemy that is weak to physical damage. These abilities help round out a character’s skill set and introduce some fun new mechanics.
As of this writing, each character only has six they can unlock. The third and fifth ones are guaranteed buffs to their Ultimate abilities. Most of the rest add more power to their existing abilities. For example, March 7th’s second one grants a shield at the start of battles.
In general, these buffs and extra abilities are great but not game-breaking. You should be able to use most high-level characters without their Eidolons. Think of it more as icing on the cake. Lower-level characters, though, should probably have them to be worthwhile in the endgame.
How do I unlock them?
There are a few methods for unlocking Eidolons. We’ll briefly go over each method below.
- Stelle/Caelus — Your main character should get their first one after completing the Humming Antlers, Entwined Horns quest. You can then buy four more for Strale in the Central Starskiff Haven area. The final one isn’t available as of this writing.
- Most other characters — Most other characters are obtained through summoning (called Warping in Honkai: Star Rail). The developers let you use duplicate character pulls to unlock Eidolons for those characters. Thus, if you want a maxed-out Seele, you’ll need seven total Seele pulls. One for the character and the other six for unlocks.
That’s it, really. Levels are mostly earned through RNG. That is, of course, except Caelus/Stelle. This is definitely frustrating for a lot of players. Luckily, the developers didn’t overpower the system, so a 5-star character at Eidolon level zero is still vastly better than most 4-star characters at Eidolon level six.