Should You Reroll in Honkai: Star Rail? Full 2026 Guide
Straight answer: most HSR players don't need to reroll. The beginner banner (Departure Warp) guarantees a 5-star within 50 pulls, and on regular banners the hard pity caps at 90 pulls with a guaranteed featured character if you lose the 50/50 once. The real cost of rerolling is the unskippable tutorial, which eats 30-40 minutes every time — so if you still want to reroll, switch servers before burning a new email. (official in-game figures.)
What rerolling means, and why HSR makes it painful
Rerolling means creating a new account, pulling right at the start, and deleting it to try again if you don't get the character you wanted — repeating until you land a great opening roster, then committing to that account for real. Simple in theory, but Honkai: Star Rail (HSR) doesn't make it quick.
That's because HSR forces you through its entire opening story — full dialogue, full cutscenes, no skip button. Guides across the board (Siliconera and others) agree: from account creation to unlocking Warping (the gacha) takes roughly 30-40 minutes, sometimes closer to an hour if you're reading slowly or new to the menus. Compare that to games where you can skip the tutorial in a minute or two, and it's clear why HSR rerolling has a reputation for being tedious.
A few terms worth knowing first: a Star Rail Pass is your gacha ticket, a Light Cone is gear that boosts a character's stats like a weapon, and a banner is a limited gacha pool currently running for a chance at a 5-star (the rarest tier) or 4-star unit. (official in-game figures.)
Is it actually worth it?
Honest answer: no, not for most people. HSR already gives every new account a generous head start, reroll or not.
As soon as you start, you get the beginner banner, called the Departure Warp. It offers up to 50 pulls, guarantees at least one 4-star or better every 10 pulls, and guarantees one 5-star character before you run out of those 50 pulls — picked randomly from the standard permanent 5-star pool, not the current limited banner. So even without rerolling, everyone ends up with a 5-star after just a few dozen pulls.
On top of that, HSR's pity system is forgiving: on limited character banners, pulling to your 90th pull guarantees a 5-star (hard pity), though most players actually get one much earlier, averaging around pull 77 once the odds ramp up (soft pity) from around pull 73. If that 5-star turns out not to be the featured character (you lost the 50/50), your very next 5-star pull is guaranteed to be the one you wanted. In other words, you're never stuck empty-handed for long, reroll or not.
Rerolling really only makes sense if you're picky about your exact starting lineup and are willing to trade 30-40 minutes for a slightly better opening — not something you need to play HSR well. (official in-game figures.)
If you still want to reroll: the steps
Step 1 - Start the game, create your Trailblazer, and play through the story until you meet Himeko and Asta at the Herta Space Station — that's when Warping (the gacha) unlocks. Your very first pull in the tutorial always gives you Asta (a 4-star), so don't expect a 5-star there.
HertaStep 2 - Check your in-game mailbox for the free Star Rail Passes, then dump them all into the Departure Warp beginner banner for up to 50 pulls, as described above. If you land the 5-star you wanted, stop — that account is a keeper.
Step 3 - Not happy yet? Don't rush to make a new email. Try switching servers first (e.g., between America, Europe, Asia, and TW/HK/MO) on the same account — progress doesn't carry over between servers, so switching effectively gives you a free fresh start without needing a new email.
Step 4 - Once you've run out of servers to try, that's when you need a new email. A common trick is the 'salted email': HoYoverse has blocked the old plus-sign trick (like [email protected]), so that no longer works, but adding periods inside your Gmail name still does (e.g., [email protected]) — Gmail still delivers all of it to your one inbox, but HoYoverse treats each version as a different email, so you don't need to create a new Gmail every time. (official in-game figures.)
- 1Create account & finish the tutorial~15-20 min, no skip button
- 2Dump every pass into the Departure Warp~5 min, up to 50 pulls
- 3Not happy? Switch servers first~1-2 min each try, no new email needed
- 4Out of servers? Make a salted email~2 min, add a dot to your Gmail
Who should reroll, and who shouldn't
Consider rerolling if: you have real free time (at least a couple of hours to try a few rounds), you're a completionist who wants a strong roster from day one, or you're specifically chasing a standard-pool 5-star that the Departure Warp can give you.
Skip rerolling if: you're short on time, you're brand new to gacha games in general (get comfortable with the mechanics first), or you'd rather just start the story instead of waiting. With a guaranteed 5-star within 50 pulls on the beginner banner and a safe 90-pull pity net on every banner after that, a normal, non-rerolled HSR account still grows into a strong account over time. (official in-game figures.)
The 7 standard 5-star characters — what you're actually rerolling for
Both the Departure Warp beginner banner and the "Direct Selection" mechanic on the standard banner draw from the exact same list of 7 standard 5-star characters recorded in the official in-game data for the Normal banner — not a community-guessed roster. Those seven characters cover all 7 Paths currently in the game, meaning whichever one you reroll into, you land at least one missing role to start building a team — there's no "totally useless" outcome role-wise.
The table below lists all 7 names with their Path, Element, and combat role — useful for weighing things before spending 30-40 minutes on a reroll: if you're already happy with your current F2P roster and it doesn't lack any of these 7 roles, another reroll is unlikely to change much. (official in-game figures + GameVika character database.)
| Character | Path | Element | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Himeko | Erudition | Fire | AoE damage dealer, wipes out multiple enemies at once |
| Welt | Nihility | Imaginary | Applies debuffs to enemies; some also deal main damage via DoT |
| Bronya | Harmony | Wind | Buffs the team (ATK/SPD/CRIT…) to boost overall combat power |
| Gepard | Preservation | Ice | Shields allies or draws hits, mitigating damage for the team |
| Clara | Destruction | Physical | Balanced main DPS with 3-target cleave attacks, counters when hit |
| Yanqing | The Hunt | Ice | Single-target damage dealer, the go-to against Bosses/Elites, easy high CRIT |
| Bailu | Abundance | Lightning | Heals the team, keeping allies alive through dangerous attacks |
What skipping the reroll actually costs you — the real numbers
A real question a lot of players ask: "If I skip the reroll, will I fall behind?" It's answerable with real numbers: the steadiest F2P Jade source is Daily Training, worth exactly 60 Jades per day (official figure, already used in this wiki's Stellar Jade Sources guide) — and it has nothing to do with whether you rerolled or not.
JadeThe table below is self-computed (60 × number of days) to show the BASELINE accumulation rate, excluding events/codes/mail since those vary by patch: the 30-40 minutes spent rerolling doesn't change this daily rate at all — rerolling only changes your STARTING POINT (which standard 5-star you happen to have on day one), not how fast you farm going forward.
| Milestone | Jade accumulated (60/day) | Pulls equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | 60 | 0 pulls |
| Week 1 (day 7) | 420 | ~2 pulls |
| Month 1 (day 30) | 1,800 | ~11 pulls |
When rerolling backfires — the downsides most guides skip
Three downsides most guides skip, worth weighing before a second or third reroll attempt: (1) Real cumulative time — each round costs 30-40 minutes, so five attempts already eats 2.5-3.5 hours, while the only extra reward is a different STARTING POINT, not a long-term advantage. (2) Once an account has redeemed a new-player code or a time-limited event reward (usually usable only once per account), deleting it to start over LOSES that redemption — it can't be recovered on the new account if the code has since expired. (3) If you've already added friends or joined an Assist list on the old account, switching accounts means rebuilding your entire friend list from zero.
In short: rerolling is worth it if you HAVEN'T attached anything to the account yet (just installed, no codes redeemed, no friends added), but if you've already played for a few days before considering a reroll, the opportunity cost usually outweighs the benefit of a slightly better opening.
FAQ
How long does one HSR reroll take?
From creating a new account to being able to pull on the beginner banner takes about 30-40 minutes, since the entire opening tutorial and story can't be skipped. If you're slower or reading through dialogue, it can stretch closer to an hour. (official in-game figures.)
What's a salted email, and does it work for HSR reroll?
It's a trick for generating multiple 'different' emails from one Gmail account so you can register new accounts without making a new Gmail. The old plus-sign method (like [email protected]) used to work but HoYoverse has blocked it; adding periods inside your Gmail name (like [email protected]) still works, since Gmail ignores dots when delivering mail to your inbox, but the game treats each variation as a separate email.
Can the Departure Warp beginner banner give you the current limited character?
No. That banner only contains 4-star and 5-star characters and Light Cones from the standard permanent pool — it doesn't include the limited character from whatever event banner is currently running. To get a limited character, you'll still need to pull on that event banner and rely on the normal 90-pull pity. (official in-game figures.)
Does the Departure Warp share pity with event banners?
No. Per the official in-game data, Newbie is a completely separate gacha type from the limited banners — pulls on the Departure Warp neither add to nor subtract from the pity counter of any later event banner. (official in-game figures.)
Does the list of 7 standard 5-star characters ever change?
As of the current 4.4.0 data, the list is fixed at 7 names (Himeko, Welt, Bronya, Gepard, Clara, Yanqing, Bailu) used for the Direct Selection mechanic on the standard banner. The data shows no sign of this changing, but if HoYo adds a new character to the standard pool in a future version, this guide will update to match the latest data — it isn't locked forever.
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