Honkai Impact 3rd v7.3 Drops Weapon Constellation System & Time-Gates Stigmata Enhancement — Players Call It "Serving Up Hot Garbage"

Think it's a buff? Think again. Honkai Impact 3rd's Version 7.3 update brings some genuinely nice gacha improvements — but buried underneath is a brand-new weapon constellation system and a time-gated stigmata enhancement grind. Veterans took one look and summarized it in four words: wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

Let's start with the good news. The Expansion Supply (character banner) pity drops from 100 to 90 pulls (total S-rank rate stays at 1.5%), A-rate UP character probability is doubled, and S-rank duplicate fragments get a massive boost (non-Soul Awakened: 30→50, Soul Awakened: 70→150). The Precision Supply (equipment banner) changes are even bigger: off-banner 4★ weapons and stigmata are completely removed, a new pity system guarantees a UP 4★ item every 10 pulls and a UP 4★ weapon every 60 pulls, and crucially, pity carries over to the next equipment banner. UP 4★ stigmata rate jumps to a juicy 14.59%, and Einstein's Torus (for PRI-ARM upgrades) now drops in the pool.

But here's the real bombshell hiding in the fine print. Weapons now have a [Tuning] (同调) system — yes, it's literally a constellation/dupe mechanic like Genshin's, maxing out at [Tuning Phase 3], with each phase unlocking stronger [Tuning Skills]. S-rank signature weapon Tuning materials can ONLY be obtained by pulling duplicate weapons from gacha. A-rank weapons? You can grab one Tuning material per week from the Star Stone Shop (4 materials = 1 Tuning). Translation: pulling one copy of your weapon is no longer enough to max it out.

The stigmata changes are where things get truly infuriating. New UP stigmata come with a free selection box on login and can be forged (2 Material A + 600 Aether Essence). Sounds generous, right? Here's the catch: after v7.3, enhancing a single stigmata to max requires 7 Material A, meaning a full 3-piece set needs 21 total. Version 7.3 gives out ~45 Material A max, but future versions guarantee only 13 minimum.

Players did the math instantly and it doesn't add up: 21 materials needed per set, only 13 guaranteed per version — are you a Module Block (模组块)? (That's a reference to another notoriously time-gated material system in the game.) This resource shortfall means players are forced into a longer grind. The days of stigmata being "equip and forget" are officially dead.

The weapon constellation system drew especially fierce backlash. Some lamented that "old weapons we previously scrapped are now clown-tier," while others noted: "I was actually happy when I saw the equipment banner would no longer drop off-banner junk — then I saw weapon refinement and thought, yeah, that's classic Honkai 3rd planning." One commenter put it bluntly: the base gacha cost drops significantly, but weapon constellation means total spending might actually go up. Their verdict? "A steaming pile of garbage."

Some players spotted the deeper play: since they're giving you "freebies" now, expect S-rank character banners to fire rapid-fire. "If you don't believe it, you're seriously underestimating miHoYo." More aggressive analysis points out that as Material A gets tighter, players who don't pull for weapon refinements when a new S-rank drops will fall behind — "double full-price is just the baseline, the era of SSA (S-rank + Signature + Alliance) is on the horizon."

Bottom line: v7.3's gacha overhaul is a sugar-coated bomb. The equipment banner improvements genuinely make pulling feel better, but the weapon constellation and stigmata material time-lock are designed to claw back every penny "saved" through the enhancement grind. Stigmata used to have zero upgrade friction — now they're hard-capped by scarce materials. The play? "Give you three candies, then take away five."