Genshin Impact just celebrated its third anniversary while Honkai Star Rail is currently making its way through its launch year. Clearly, HoYoverse took many lessons learned from the former to heart when developing the latter, because Star Rail now has yet another feature that Genshin Impact should consider copying. Instead of combining its two limited five-star Light Cones into one banner, Honkai Star Rail allows players to pull for one or the other — just like with five-star characters.
Both of these HoYoverse anime games use similar gacha banner setups when offering characters, but they differ when it comes to weapons and Light Cones. Genshin Impact weapons are equivalent to Honkai Star Rail Light Cones in that they both give characters an extra passive ability while providing stat boosts.
In each update, Genshin Impact currently offers both of its five-star weapons on a single banner, which means you need to get extra lucky to pull the one you want — it isn’t a true 50/50 situation like with character banners.
Honkai Star Rail version 1.4 is offering two five-star Light Cones in the same update for the first time, but each cone has its own banner, keeping the odds at 50/50 instead of a 33/33/33 chance. It’s a 33% chance because you can receive one of the two limited weapons or a standard five-star weapon, all on one banner.
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve pulled for a specific weapon in Genshin Impact only to get a standard banner reward, or a limited-time special weapon that I have no use for.
Star Rail has solved that issue immediately on its first try, and I hope to see separate weapon banners in Genshin in the future. It would likely incentivize players to pull for weapons more often, thanks to the higher odds and more specific rewards.
Genshin Impact version 4.1 is underway, which means you can still pull for Wriothesley, the head of the Fortress of Meropide.
If you’re unsure of who to spend your Primogems on, be sure to check out our Genshin Impact tier list after redeeming any available Genshin Impact codes to get a few extra wishes.