Character Leveling Guide

Leveling is an essential part of Honkai: Star Rail. See how to level up characters and where to farm ascension materials with our guide!

How to Level Up and Ascend Characters

Spend Character EXP Materials

In the Character Details menu, pick a character and select Level Up on the bottom right of the screen.

This will prompt you to use Character EXP Materials such as Traveler's Guide, Adventure Log, or Travel Encounters to level up your character for the first 20 Levels.

All Upgrade Materials

Collect Materials and Increase Equilibrium Level

When a character reaches levels 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70, they must use items called Ascension Materials to ascend them and continue leveling them up. Most of these levels require you to complete Trials of the Equilibrium to ascend your characters.

How to Increase Equilibrium Level

Ascension Level Requirements

How to Get Ascension Materials

Enemy Drops

You can get a lot of materials through using the Omni-Synthesizer and Assignments alone. Do Assignments to collect a ton of materials and use them in the Omni-Synthesizer to get higher rarity materials.

All Enemy Drops

List of Enemy Drops
Ancient Engine	Silvermane Medal	Squirming Core
Conqueror's Will	Shards of Desires	Dream Making Engine
Artifex's Gyreheart	Immortal Lumintwig	Immortal Aeroblossom
Ancient Spindle	Silvermane Insignia	Glimmering Core
Usurper's Scheme	Fragments of Impression	Dream Flow Valve
Artifex's Cogwheel	Immortal Scionette	Ancient Part
Silvermane Badge	Extinguished Core	Thief's Instinct
Tatters of Thought	Dream Collection Component	Artifex's Module

Stagnant Shadow Drops

Characters ascending from Level 40 will require item drops from Stagnant Shadow Bosses. You can unlock Stagnant Shadow after reaching Equilibrium Level 2.

Stagnant Shadow Bosses and How to Unlock

All Stagnant Shadow Drops

List of Stagnant Shadow Drops
Netherworld Token	Ascendant Debris	Dream Flamer
Dream Fridge	Suppressing Edict	Nail of the Ape
Searing Steel Blade	Shape Shifter's Lightning Staff	Gelid Chitin
Golden Crown of the Past Shadow	Void Cast Iron	Storm Eye
Lightning Crown of the Past Shadow	Horn of Snow	Endotherm Chitin
Broken Teeth of Iron Wolf

Trailblazer Exclusive Materials

Trailblazer Ascension Material
Enigmatic Ectostella

The Trailblazer's Ascension Materials can be collected from Trailblaze Missions and Trailblaze Rewards through talking to Pom-Pom.

List of Ascension Materials Needed

5-Star Character Ascension

Ascension	Levels	Materials
1	20 - 30	2★ Enemy Drop x5
2	30 - 40	2★ Enemy Drop x10
3	40 - 50	Stagnant Shadow Drop x3 3★ Enemy Drop x6
4	50 - 60	Stagnant Shadow Drop x7 3★ Enemy Drop x9
5	60 - 70	Stagnant Shadow Drop x20 4★ Enemy Drop x5
6	70 - 80	Stagnant Shadow Drop x35 4★ Enemy Drop x9

All 5 Star Characters

4-Star Character Ascension

Ascension	Levels	Materials
1	20 - 30	2★ Enemy Drop x4
2	30 - 40	2★ Enemy Drop x8
3	40 - 50	Stagnant Shadow Drop x2 3★ Enemy Drop x5
4	50 - 60	Stagnant Shadow Drop x5 3★ Enemy Drop x8
5	60 - 70	Stagnant Shadow Drop x15 4★ Enemy Drop x5
6	70 - 80	Stagnant Shadow Drop x28 4★ Enemy Drop x7

All 4 Star Characters

Character Ascension Unlocks

You Can Get Free Star Rail Passes

For every character's 1st, 3rd, and 5th Ascensions, you'll receive a free Star Rail Pass that you can use to roll in Warps.

All Warp Banners

Access to More Traces

Some Traces are locked behind minimum Character Ascension Levels. Be sure to ascend them to gain access to more powerful traces to maximize the abilities of your character!

Honkai: Star Rail Related Guides

All Tips & Tricks

All Tips and Tricks Guides