HSR Warp Banner Types: Character vs Light Cone, Standard & Beginner — Which to Pull and What Celestial Invitation Is
30-second answer: HSR has four main Warp types — the limited Character Event Warp (90-pull pity, 50/50 rule, 180 pulls worst case), the limited Light Cone Event Warp (80 pity, 75/25), the permanent Stellar Warp, and the 50-pull Departure Warp with a 20% discount and one guaranteed 5★ character. Smart order: finish the beginner banner, save Jades for character banners you actually need, touch Cone banners only with spare pity, and spend regular Passes on standard. There's also the Celestial Invitation system — it lets you hand-pick the exact 7 characters you can receive when you lose the 50/50.
What Is a Warp? The 4 Banner Types and 2 Ticket Types
Warp is Honkai: Star Rail's gacha system — the way you obtain characters and Light Cones (the game's equippable weapons). There are four main banner types: the limited Character Event Warp, the limited Light Cone Event Warp, the permanent Stellar Warp (the standard banner), and the one-time Departure Warp for beginners. Collaboration Warps also appear occasionally and run on their own rules. To pull, you need tickets: Star Rail Passes work on the standard and beginner banners, while Star Rail Special Passes are for limited banners. Short on tickets? Exchange 160 Stellar Jades for one — so one pull effectively costs 160 Jades. Think of Jades as cash and Passes as store vouchers: each counter only accepts its own voucher type, and they are never interchangeable. One safety net is shared by every single banner: at least one 4★ or better item is guaranteed within every 10 pulls, so a full multi never comes back completely empty.
Stellar JadeRarest currency — 160 jade buys one warp Star Rail PassFor the standard and beginner banners Star Rail Special PassOnly for limited banners Character Event Warp: The 50/50 and the 90-Pull Pity
This is the banner that matters most for most players: one rate-up limited 5★ character plus three rate-up 4★ characters. The base 5★ rate is only 0.6%, but pity — the built-in insurance — guarantees a 5★ within 90 pulls, and averaged out with pity the real rate is roughly 1.6% per pull. When a 5★ drops, there's a 50% chance it's the featured character. Lose that 50/50 (the JP community calls it surinuke) and your next 5★ is guaranteed to be the featured one, so 180 pulls is the absolute worst case to secure the character you want. Featured 4★ characters follow a similar rule: each 4★ drop has a 50% chance to be one of the three rate-up units. The most misunderstood part: your pity count does NOT reset when the banner ends — it carries over intact to the next Character Event Warp, though never to the standard banner. Track exactly where you stand with GameVika's Pity Counter (/hsr/pity) before committing any Jades.
Light Cone Event Warp: 80 Pity and 75/25 — Still Pull It Last
Light Cones are HSR's equippable weapons, and their banner has noticeably friendlier math: 0.8% base rate, hard pity at just 80 pulls, and a 75% chance that the 5★ you hit is the featured Cone. Lose the 75/25 and your next 5★ Cone is guaranteed — 160 pulls worst case. Featured 4★ Cones also take a 75% share of every 4★ drop. So why does it still rank below the character banner? Because a Cone is an amplifier, not a unit: it makes a character stronger but can never replace one, and a missed signature Cone almost always has a decent 4★ or standard substitute. The evergreen rule: characters first, Cones second, and only with genuinely spare Jades. Before committing, run GameVika's Pull Simulator (/hsr/pull-sim) with your current Jade count — seeing your real odds of landing both the character and the Cone in hard numbers is often the wake-up call you need.
Departure & Stellar Warp: The Freebies You Shouldn't Skip
The Departure Warp is the beginner banner: capped at 50 pulls total, 10-pulls only, with a 20% discount — each multi costs 8 Star Rail Passes, so 40 Passes covers all 50. You're guaranteed one 5★ standard character within those 50 pulls, so there's nothing to agonize over: just finish it as early as you can. The Stellar Warp is the year-round standard banner: a 0.6% total 5★ rate split between characters and Light Cones, pity at 90, and no rate-ups. Its best feature: after 300 lifetime pulls, you get to pick one standard 5★ character yourself from the list — but this selector is strictly once per account, so choose carefully. Since both banners run on regular Star Rail Passes — which can't be spent on limited banners anyway — there's zero reason to hoard them; spend as they come. Before planning your Jade budget each cycle, check what's currently running on GameVika's banner schedule at /hsr/banners.
What Is Celestial Invitation? Picking Your Own 50/50 Loss Pool
Celestial Invitation (星縁の誘い in Japanese) is the system's official name, and its purpose is very practical: you hand-pick exactly 7 characters to form your personal loss pool. From then on, whenever you lose the 50/50 on a character banner, the 5★ you receive comes from those 7 instead of landing randomly across the whole standard roster. The selection list includes standard 5★ characters and even certain limited ones — meaning a loss can still hand you a limited character you genuinely wanted. A softer landing, in other words. Note that you must select all 7 before you can confirm, so set it up before you start pulling rather than mid-panic. Collaboration Warps use this same pool, but they run a completely separate pity counter: pity built on collab banners carries over only to other collab banners of the same kind — never to regular Character Event Warps or the standard banner.
So Which Banner Should You Pull? An Evergreen Priority Order
For almost every account at any point in the game's life, the order is: (1) clear all 50 Departure Warp pulls first; (2) save Special Passes and Jades for limited character banners that genuinely fill a hole in your teams; (3) touch Light Cone banners only after securing the character, and only with at least one spare pity's worth of Jades in reserve; (4) spend regular Passes on the standard banner freely. The logic never ages: a new character unlocks a new playstyle, a Cone only amplifies an existing one, and a missed Cone always has a budget substitute. One survival rule on top: never start pulling without a full safety margin — on character banners, absolute certainty costs 180 pulls. Each new banner cycle, open GameVika's schedule at /hsr/banners to see what's running, then run the Pull Simulator (/hsr/pull-sim) and Should I Pull (/hsr/should-i-pull) so the decision is made with numbers instead of hope.
- 1Clear the beginner banner firstAll 50 pulls of the departure warp
- 2Save it all for the limited character bannerSpecial Passes + jade for a character that fills a team gap
- 3Light Cone banner only after the characterOnly when at least one full pity remains in reserve
- 4Spend regular passes on the standard bannerThese passes can't be used on limited banners anyway
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Does my pity count reset when a banner ends?
No. Pity carries over between banners of the same type: character banner to the next character banner, Cone banner to the next Cone banner. It never crosses types — limited pity doesn't count toward standard, and collab banner pity only carries between collab banners of the same kind.
If I lose the 50/50, is my next 5★ guaranteed to be the featured character?
Yes, 100%. When your 5★ isn't the featured character, your next 5★ is guaranteed to be the featured one — even if it drops on a later character banner. Light Cone banners work the same way: lose the 75/25 and the next 5★ Cone is guaranteed to be the featured one.
Can I claim the 300-pull standard banner 5★ selector more than once?
No — it's once per account. After 300 lifetime pulls on the Stellar Warp, open the banner's additional rewards to pick one standard 5★ character from the list. Choose carefully, because there is no second claim.
On the Departure Warp, if I get a 5★ early, do I still get another by pull 50?
No. The 'one guaranteed 5★ within 50 pulls' applies once — hitting it early uses up that guarantee. Your remaining pulls can still drop another 5★, but only at the normal random rate, which is very rare.
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