Complete Guide To The Protean Hero Divergent Universe In Honkai: Star Rail

The Simulated Universe is a staple in Honkai: Star Rail, being constantly refreshed, updated, and reimagined throughout the game’s versions to accommodate recent gameplay changes and new character introductions. You can expect a new iteration to drop every couple of patches.

And with the big Amphoreus update, it wasn’t much different. Originally introduced during the Penacony update, the Divergent Universe, now named Protean Hero, has received a complete overhaul. Veterans from the Divine Comedy iteration will be at home with this new version, but it has more than enough changes and updates to make it feel like a completely new game mode.

How To Unlock Divergent Universe: Protean Hero

Before tackling the new challenges in this game mode, you must have previously unlocked Divergent Universe. This requires completing the regular Simulated Universe World 3 and the “Farewell, Penacony” Trailblaze Quest.

Once you’re done with those, you get access to the Divergent Universe: Terminal Interface at the Radiant Feldspar.

Depending on your quest choices, the Radiant Feldspar might be renamed to Trailblaze’s Stern, The Tatalov, or The Soaring Clock Hand!

Completing the “Light Slips the Gate, Shadow Greets the Throne” Trailblaze Quest is your final requirement, but players can use the Finality’s Vision feature if they want to play it as soon as possible.

Once you’re done with all these, head to the Radiant Feldspar and complete the “Divergent Universe: Hymn of Value” quest. After a few dialogue boxes, you’ll be ready to jump into the divergence.

Protean Hero General Rules

Protean Hero is a step up from the main Simulated Universe but with key differences. The main goal stays the same: advancing through stages with your selected team while collecting Blessings, Curios, and Cosmic Fragments that make you stronger.

You must go through 13 rooms (18 in higher difficulties) divided into three Planes. Those rooms may contain enemies (Combat, Encounter, and Boss), special events (Occurrence, Adventure, and Wealth), or are fully pacific (Respite, Store, and Escapade).

Each Plane consists of random rooms, but always has a Boss room at the end. The third Plane penultimate room is always a Respite room.

Features from the old Divergent Universe, such as Equations and Weighted Curios, are also present. If you’re familiar with those, you’ll feel right at home, but many have received some balance changes.

All your characters will be at Level 80 with temporarily leveled-up Traces, Light Cones, and Relics strong enough to clear a run. However, your own builds will often be stronger. Characters can be exchanged at any time.

Once you complete a run, you can save your current Blessings, Curios, Equations, and other buffs into a Save File. This Save File can be used later in Planar Extraction.

Day And Night System, Explained

Battles in the Divergent Universe: Protean Hero cycles between Day and Night states. Just as Amphoreus has the Dawn and Evernight versions in some areas, the same happens during battles here.

Day and Night grants different buffs to active battle participants:

• Day: Allies restore 30% of maximum HP when Day begins, and heal 5% HP at the start of each turn.
• Night: Allies deal 30% more damage, but enemies also deal 15% more damage.

Every battle always starts at whichever period you choose, with the other arriving after a few turns. Think of it like the Memory of Chaos’ cycles but with slightly different durations. Golden Blood’s Boons can add new effects to those periods.

Day and Night start at a 50 percent uptime each, but this can change during the run. Their effects increase according to your current Threshold (difficulty), so you’ll always have stronger boosts to deal with those huge HP pools from endgame.

Golden Blood’s Boons, Explained

The main damage mechanic in Protean Hero is the Golden Blood’s Boons. When entering the game mode, you choose between a Day or a Night-enhancing effect, which will greatly help you throughout the run.

Some effects can add more Final Damage during Day, or decrease HP consumption during Night, as well as increasing each cycle’s duration.

After going through four rooms, you get an Enhancement for your existing Golden Blood’s Boons. These are the best upgrades available, and it’s safe to plan your run around a good enhancement you find.

A Golden Blood’s Boon can reach up to Enhancement Level 3. Once you find a third Enhancement room, you can choose a new Boon, which can be either a Day or Night Boon.

Look out for Enhancements that make the most sense for your current team/build. Since you can freely change characters, you can also adapt your team to use a powerful upgrade.

All Trait Effects

Another minor addition was Traits. Similar to Path Resonances in Simulated Universe, Traits are activated once you get Blessings with certain Keywords, giving special effects to your team.

There’s one Trait for each Path, and they offer powerful boosts even if that’s not your primary path. Each Blessing from that path increases the Trait effect.

Here’s a list of all Traits available and their effects:

Strategy Guides And Build Planning

You can pick a Strategy Guide for your Protean Hero runs. These include a suggested team, alongside many recommended Equations that synergize with it. Recommended Blessings and Equations will be highlighted whenever you get to them.

Guides are made by other players, and you can make your own through the official website.

You can pick a Guide as soon as the run starts, but you can change to others at any time by selecting the Guide icon in the top left corner.

Using a Guide is not mandatory, but it is helpful to learn about the mode. You can also find new ways to play with your compositions, so give it a try.

Returning Features

Many elements added during different iterations of the Simulated Universe/Divergent Universe are back for Protean Hero, but with a small twist. Below is a list of them and what has changed from previous versions.

Equations And Weighted Curios

Equations and Weighted Curios work as usual, but many were added. Some were either reworked or removed from the game entirely to fit the game mode better.

Notably, as the Remembrance Blessings have been greatly reworked, its Equations are almost entirely new. The same can be said about the Harmony Equations, which now replace Abundance and Preservation.

Inspiration Circuit

Divergent Universe upgrades are universal, so any upgrade made during Divine Comedy is maintained. Additionally, you now have Titan Odes, which unlock even more bonuses during Day and Night cycles.

Ordinary Extrapolation and Cyclical Extrapolation

These two modes also work as in other Divergent Universe iterations:

• Ordinary Extrapolation has one-time rewards for each of its five difficulties. The extra Torturous Difficulty scales up every time you beat it.
• Cyclical Extrapolation resets every week and gives you extra Synchronicity Level points. You get specific Equations, Curios, and Day/Night effects to complete the stage.

You should clear Cyclical Extrapolation every week to get its rewards and complete your weekly Nameless Honor missions.

Excessive Conversion

Higher difficulties will feature Excessive Conversion stages, where the fight only lasts for two cycles. But you only get more enemy waves instead of bosses. Fragments obtained also depend on how many enemies you defeat after the second wave.

Protean Hero Rewards

Aside from numerous Stellar Jades, you can get tons of Materials, Experience Books, Credits, and many other rewards from Protean Hero. You get plenty of these from the various categories in this game mode.

Planar Extraction is also available in the Protean Hero version of the Divergent Universe. This mode lets you farm for Planar Ornaments easily using your Save Files from completing regular runs.

You’ll only have to face the related boss without going through its Simulated Universe world and can repeat it as long as you have Trailblaze Power. This is the easiest way to get the 2-piece sets for your characters.