Honkai Star Rail Echo of War’s Doomsday Beast can be a challenge. The game has quite a few unique battles throughout the trailblazer missions, but none come close to the large boss fights at the end of a story arc. With the Echo of War challenges, these memorable battles can be relived at different difficulties and with unique rewards. Our guide will go over everything you need to know to beat the Doomsday Beast Echo of War challenge in HSR.
How to Unlock and Find Echo of War: Destruction’s Beginning in Honkai Star Rail
At the time of this writing (June 2023), there are two Echo of War challenges. Both are unlocked after completing a trailblaze mission called In the Dangerous Muddy Swamp, which takes place after beating the boss of the Jarilo-VI storyline. The Doomsday Beast’s Echo of War is called Destruction’s Beginning. It can be found in the Supply Zone area on the Herta Space Station.
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How to Beat the HSR Doomsday Beast Echo of War
The HSR Doomsday Beast fight works exactly as it does in the story, which means you’ll mainly be fighting its two hands (called Dawn’s Left Hand and Disaster’s Right Hand). There’s also the Antimatter Engine. Depleting the health of all three will cause the boss to fall and expose its head. Take down the giant health bar to trigger a second phase where you’ll need to do it all again one more time.
Best Team for Doomsday Beast in Destruction’s Beginning
I’ve found that the Honkai Star Rail Doomsday Beast is a simple boss to plan a team around. As the very first one of the game, its weaknesses correlate with the character types you’re first introduced to: Physical, Fire, Ice, and Wind. While taking a team based on this diverse lineup can be viable, you can be more prepared if you load up on fire characters since all three parts of this boss are weak to fire.
My suggestion is to bring one healer and three other characters who can focus on damage. When it comes to a team for those using free characters, I found the following to work well.
- Trailblazer (Preservation)
- Natasha
- Dan Heng
- Asta/March 7th
Related: Honkai Star Rail: Best Natasha Build, Relics, and Light Cones
It’s important to remember that Echo of War allows you to use support characters. This fight can be even more of a breeze if you take advantage of the opportunity to add a Himeko or a Hook to your team if you don’t have them yet.
Doomsday Beast Echo Fight: Phase 1 Tips
The best strategy for both phases of the Doomsday Beast fight is to take out the hands first. They have much lower toughness and health than the Antimatter Engine does. Which one you choose to focus on first is up to your preference. They each have different attack types.
- Dawn’s Left Hand uses single-target strikes.
- Diaster’s Right Hand has sweeping AoE attacks that hurt the entire party.
These attacks are pretty plain at first, but the Antimatter Engine does provide individual buffs that restore toughness and enhance each hand’s attack to a deadlier version capable of impairing your allies.
You might be tempted to take out the Antimatter Engine first due to the buffs, but you’ll likely be able to destroy at least one, if not both hands before you can break the toughness of the engine. It’ss best to leave it for last.
The most critical moment in the fight will be when all three targets are destroyed, and the Doomsday Beast leans over. As tempting as it is to inflict as much damage as possible, the better option is to save your skill points and build up your energy by whittling down the large health bar with normal attacks. Only use skill points if you need your healer/Natasha to attend to any hurting allies.
In my experience, even when taking this challenge on with high difficulty, the boss will stay down for more than enough turns to deplete all of its health with normal attacks.
Doomsday Beast Echo Fight: Phase 2 Strats
This second phase of the Doomsday Beast battle is admittedly more challenging than the first. Both hands use the enhanced version of their attack as a base. What’s worse is the Antimatter Engine can now buff them both at the same time. It results in much stronger attacks that have a higher chance of impairing your team.
The first attack during this phase, Impending Doom, will be its strongest. This cinematic attack will likely take out a decent chunk of health from the entire party. I suggest using Natasha’s Ultimate to make up for the damage. If you see the Antimatter Engine use its Cataclysm Precursor ability, take note that this means it’s charging up and will use Impending Doom for its next action.
As much as its strongest attack will hurt, the hands will cause more issues and need to be destroyed first. Use all of the damaging ultimates you have to cause weakness breaks and then get to work. Try to focus on Disaster’s Right Hand a bit more since it does have the potential to apply Imprisonment to multiple members of the team.
There isn’t much to worry about once the hands are gone. Just keep wailing on the engine and save a skill point for when your healer’s turn comes around. The Doomsday Beast will lean over again once all three targets are destroyed, but you don’t need to hold back this time. Throw everything you got, and the boss will fall.
Echo of War Destruction’s Beginning Rewards
Three successful attempts each week in Echo of War can provide some great rewards, as long as you have 30 Trailblaze Power to spare. Aside from high rarity relics and Lucent Afterglow currency that’s used in Forgotten Hall, unique light cones can also drop. Most importantly, this is the only way to earn the Destroyer’s Final Road level-up material for Traces.
That covers everything for the Honkai Star Rail Doomsday Beast Echo of War challenge. If you’d like to see other activities that all players should keep up with, check out our F2P Schedule Guide. All of your other trailblazer needs can be found at our HSR guide hub.
