Light Cones are some of the most important items in Honkai: Star Rail so it’s important to learn what they are and how best to use them.
These new items don’t change your character’s physical appearance, but knowing how to best equip them will greatly aid you in combat.
What Are Light Cones in Honkai Star Rail?
Light Cones are equipable items that provide characters with bonus HP, Attack, and Defense stats as well as access to that Light Cone’s passive ability.
Every Light Cone will come with its own rarity: 3, 4, or 5 Star.
A character can be equipped with any Light Cone in the game, but matching the item’s Path to the character will unlock the item’s bonus ability.
For example, you could equip Dan Heng with the ‘Cruising in The Stellar Sea’ Light Cone.
Since both the character and the item have the Path ‘The Hunt’, you’ll get not only a stat boost but also access to the Light Cone’s ability.
If you give the same Light Cone to Clara (Path: The Destruction), she would get the stat boost but no additional benefits.
How to Get Light Cones
Light Cones are primary acquired through the Warp gacha features in Honkai: Star Rail. Light Cones will be a part of the reward pool for most banners that players can roll with Star Rail Passes.
In addition, Honkai Star Rail players can obtain Light Cones in the Warp Exchange Store and other shops. There will also be opportunities to earn Light Cones through the Battle Pass, Weekly Boss System, specific quests, and limited-time events.
You can even get an exclusive Light Cone ‘Make the World Clamor’ before Honkai Star Rail even launches!
Using a Standard Warp, players are guaranteed to get at least one 4 Star Light Cone or character for every 10 Warps.
How to Activate Light Cone Ability
To use a Light Cone ability in Honkai: Star Rail, players need to equip it to a character that shares its specific Path.
If the Light Cone and character Path match, that character will get the benefits of the item’s ability, as well as the usual stat boosts provided.
A character of a different Path will still receive bonus stats, but will not be able to utilize the Light Cone’s ability.
How to Upgrade Light Cones
There are three ways to improve a Light Cone in Honkai Star Rail:
- Leveling Up
- Ascension
- Superimpose
Leveling Up
Light Cones can gain experience and level up by consuming other Light Cones or Enhancement Materials.
- Open your inventory
- Choose the character your Light Cone is equipped to
- Select Light Cone
- Choose Enhance
- Select Level Up
From here, you can use Light Cone Experience Materials (AKA Aether) to level up your item. You can also choose to consume other Light Cones that you don’t need for some easy XP.
Leveling up a Light Cone will increase its stat boosts, but it will not boost its ability.
Ascension
Light Cones begin at Level 1, but initially max out at Level 20. To surpass that level cap, players will need to ascend their Light Cone.
- Open your inventory
- Choose the character your Light Cone is equipped to
- Select Light Cone
- Choose Enhance
- Select Ascend (Available if at the current level cap)
To ascend a Light Cone, players will need Light Cone Ascension Materials. Each Light Cone can be ascended a total of 5 times, until its level cap is 80, with each ascension requiring more resources.
After ascending, players can then level up their Light Cone to its new, higher level cap.
Superimpose
By expending duplicate Light Cones, players are able to increase the item’s Ability rank by 1. This process is called Superimposing, and will destroy the duplicate while upgrading the original Light Cone.
- Open your inventory
- Choose the character your Light Cone is equipped to
- Select Light Cone
- Choose Enhance
- Select Superimpose
- Add any duplicate Light Cones then hit Level Up
Increasing the rank of a Light Cone Ability will boost its effect, but players should note that the ability is still only active when equipped to a character of the same Path.
Any Light Cone can be Superimposed 4 times, raising its rank up to Rank V.
