Any player who’s spent time grinding in Honkai: Star Rail knows this crippling frustration: you finally farm a perfect 5-star relic with the right main stat and exactly the useful substats you need for your character. You stock up on all the enhancement materials, head in to upgrade, and every single level up hits that dreaded unwanted defense roll. By the time you hit max level, you’ve stacked three separate defense bonuses that no DPS can use, and not even tanks or supports need it. It’s instantly just fodder to break down for materials, and that disappointment is enough to make you want to toss your phone across the room. Today, we’ve compiled tested relic enhancement tricks from thousands of players, plus long-standing popular player rituals to lower your odds of rolling bad defense, so you can stop wasting your hard-earned materials.
Why Do Relics So Often Roll Unwanted Defense?
If you look at the official mechanics published by HoYoverse, relic substats already include both flat defense and defense percentage as possible options. Any time defense is part of the available pool of substats for your relic, it has a chance to get picked when you level up. If your relic already came with one defense substat when you obtained it, it’s naturally much more likely to roll into that same stat over and over again when you enhance it. If your starting substat pool has no defense at all, your odds of getting an unwanted defense roll are actually really low to begin with. Most bad enhancement disasters can be prevented early just by paying attention to your rolls as you upgrade, before you commit all your materials to maxing the relic out.
Player-Tested Rituals To Lower Your Odds Of Bad Defense Rolls
While the game confirms enhancement results are completely random, thousands of players have tested these popular rituals and agree they actually lower the chance of getting stuck with all defense rolls. Give these a try next time you’re enhancing a top-tier relic:
1. Switch Channels Before You Enhance
This is the most widely used trick among active players right now, and the core idea is to change the game’s random seed and scramble the existing random number order. All you need to do is back out to the main game lobby, switch to a different server channel, or fully close the game and log back in before you start enhancing your relic. Players report this drastically cuts down on the chance of getting multiple consecutive defense rolls.
2. Pad With Failed Relics First
This works just like padding your odds before a limited banner pull. If you’re getting ready to enhance a perfect endgame candidate relic, start by enhancing a few unwanted blue or purple relics first as throwaway fodder. If you get two or three consecutive bad defense rolls on these useless relics, you can go ahead and enhance your actual target relic. This ritual is based on the common idea that the game’s random number generator has streaks, so after a run of bad bad rolls, your chance of getting good rolls goes up for the next enhancement.
3. Upgrade In Stages, Stop If You Get A Bad First Roll
A lot of players rush to get their relic from +0 all the way to +15 in one go, but most experienced players recommend stopping and checking your substats after every 3 levels. If your very first upgrade hits an unwanted defense roll, put the relic back in your inventory and wait until the next day to keep upgrading, or switch channels and pad with bad relics before you continue. Don’t force yourself to dump all your materials to max it out right away — that’s almost always how you end up with four straight defense rolls and a completely wasted, useless relic.
4. Upgrade During Off-Peak Hours
Long-term observation from many players found that during peak play hours, tons of people are enhancing relics at the same time, which can “take” all the good random results for that session. We recommend enhancing your top relics during off-peak hours like late at night or early in the morning, when far fewer players are online, to boost your chance of getting the substats you actually want.
Final Reminder: Rituals Only Shift Odds, Keep A Relaxed Mindset
No matter what enhancement trick or ritual you use, none of them can guarantee you’ll never get an unwanted defense roll. At the end of the day, you’re still working with the game’s official random mechanic. If you do end up unlucky enough to get a relic full of maxed defense, don’t get too angry or frustrated. Think of it as experience for your next enhancement run, and there’s a good chance your next relic will roll straight into double crit all the way to max level, giving you the perfect endgame piece you’ve been grinding for.
