Alongside Phase 2 of Honkai Star Rail Version 1.6 comes Virtual Scentventure, a combat event in which players must try to score as high as possible. After finishing the event's normal mode, players will unlock the ominous Despair Mode. If you are one of the players who want to get all the rewards from the event, then here is our guide for the Virtual Scentventure event's Despair Mode in Honkai Star Rail.

Honkai Star Rail Virtual Scentventure Event – Despair Mode Guide

The Virtual Scentventure event will run until near the end of Honkai Star Rail Version 1.6 Phase 2. Unlike the Critter Pick event introduced during the first Phase, this event will not become permanent. As such, players must finish the event before it goes away.

Virtual Scentventure Normal Mode vs Despair Mode

There are two key differences between this event's Normal Mode and Despair Mode. The first is that perhaps intuitively, the enemies are harder in this mode. At Trailblaze level 70, the level of the enemies the player has to face in Normal Mode is 80. In Despair Mode, however, they are all level 90 instead. That means that the enemies in Despair Mode have more HP, higher ATK, and are overall harder to kill or survive against.

Ths second main difference is that unlike in Normal Mode, players no longer have access to Trial Characters. That means that in Despair Mode, players can only use whatever characters they own, and everything that entails. Players will be very limited in the team compositions that they can bring to the mode's various stages.

Thankfully, Despair Mode retains the Scent Plug-In mechanic. Players will still be able to enjoy the various buffs that each stage has to offer. As with Normal Mode, players can bring up to two Scne Plug-Ins from a list of four.

Virtual Scentventure Despair Mode Rewards

Unlike in Normal Mode where players receive rewards based on how many points they have, Despair Mode just requires players to “Participate” in the fight. This will be important later. Here are the awards that players can get in Despair Mode:

  • Participate in Everlasting Dream – Despair Mode
    • 20,000 Credits
  • Participate in Confusing Lies- Despair Mode
    • 20,000 Credits
  • Participate in Heavenly Blade's Afterimage – Despair Mode
    • 20,000 Credits
  • Participate in Icy Post – Despair Mode
    • 20,000 Credits
  • Participate in Cry of the Frozen Fantasy Land – Despair Mode
    • 20,000 Credits

In total, players will receive a total of 100,000 Credits for participating in Despair Mode.

Virtual Scentventure Despair Mode: Is it worth it?

Based on the sheer difficulty of the event, as well as the meager rewards that don't even include Stellar Jades, players might not see much reason to finish this event. After all, why put yourself through a difficult fight when you can just easily get Credits from a Golden Calyx? The only reason that players would want to even clear Despair Mode is for bragging rights, as they can tell their friends that they were able to get SS Ranks in Despair Mode.

However, if you don't care for the bragging rights, and just want some easy Credits, there is a very easy way to get all of the rewards in the Virtual Scentventure Despair Mode, and this won't be a guide if we don't teach you how to do it.

Virtual Scentventure Despair Mode Guide

If you recall, we brought up that the wording to get the rewards is that players have to “participate” in the Despair Mode fights. That means that players don't need to defeat the boss to receive the reward. You don't even need to fight the boss or field a proper team.

All players have to do to receive the stage rewards is to send in a team of one character. It can be any character, even a non-leveled one. Once the players must then quickly press the pause button on the upper right corner of the screen, and select the Retreat option. The Challenge Ended screen will appear and will award the player a score of 0 and a letter rating of C. As the player now has a letter rating for that stage, they are considered to have “Participated” in the stage. This makes them eligible for the 20,000 Credits for each stage.

This is perhaps the easiest part of the event, even easier than even the Normal Mode. The ability to get a total of 100,000 Credits in-game with just a few clicks is something that every Trailblazer wants. Of course, if you do want to clear the Despair Mode stages normally, then we still have you covered. The guides we made for the Virtual Scentventure Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4, and Stage 5 Normal Mode fights are still usable in Despair Mode. Players will just not be able to run the teams that use the Trial characters, as they are not available in Despair Mode.

That's all for our guide for Despair Mode on the Virtual Scentventure event in Honkai Star Rail. Check out our gaming news articles for the latest in gaming news.