# Does Honkai: Nexus Anima Have an Artifact System? > Honkai: Nexus Anima has no permanent artifact or gear system, and its Relics exist only inside runs. Here is what grows your Anima's power instead. Source: https://theanimadex.com/guides/artifact-and-relic-system-guide/ Published: 2026-08-26 Updated: 2026-10-09 Honkai: Nexus Anima has no permanent artifact or gear system. It does have **Relics**, but an Anima only equips them during a run-based challenge and loses them when the run ends. Permanent power comes from Ascension, Rapport, Dispositions and Evolution instead. If you are coming from Genshin Impact’s artifact sets or Honkai: Star Rail’s relics, there is no equivalent domain to farm. We first wrote this page saying the game had no relics at all. The game’s own rules text shows they exist, so this version explains where they live and what they are not. ## Key takeaways * **No permanent gear exists.** Anima do not keep equipment with rolled substats between fights. * **Relics are run items.** In the 12-round challenge mode, Anima equip Relics such as Treasure, Special and Sundering Relics, and the run’s rules govern them. * **Permanent power comes from four systems**: Ascension with Trait materials, Rapport from duplicate Energy, Dispositions, and Evolution. * **A CBT1-only system called Nutrition** was the closest thing to an itemization layer, and it was cut before the current test. * **A full gear system is unlikely at launch**, in our read, because the existing grind (leveling and evolving dozens of Anima) is already substantial without adding substat-chasing on top. * **This makes account planning simpler** than a Genshin or Star Rail roster: there is no gear-optimization side quest competing for your resources. ## What Nexus Anima has instead of artifacts Four systems currently do the job an artifact or relic system would do in another HoYoverse title. None of them involve equipping an item to an Anima. **Ascension** is the closest thing to a gear grind. “Ascension raises an Anima’s level cap and all of its Base Stats”, and it eats Trait-specific materials: the Crafting screen lists **Sturdy Shield** as “Common material for Protector Anima Ascension”, with a matching family for each Trait. You farm them with Spirit in the Anima Ascension Material Stage and craft lower tiers into higher ones. Levels themselves rise with your player level through Level Resonance, so materials go here rather than into experience. _The Crafting screen, where Trait-specific Ascension materials like Sturdy Shield are made. This is the material grind that replaces a gear farm._ ![Honkai Nexus Anima Crafting screen showing Sturdy Shield, the common Ascension material for Protector Anima](/images/honkai-nexus-anima-crafting-sturdy-shield-protector-ascension.webp) **Dispositions** are where the stat-rolling lives. A Disposition is two stat effects, quality varies, and “If the two effects in a Disposition have the same name, an additional bonus effect will be activated.” That is the artifact set bonus in miniature. You roll them by feeding candies, and Trust (max 300) improves the odds of high-quality rolls. See the [Dispositions page](/dispositions/). **Evolution** changes a unit’s ceiling. You obtain a juvenile Anima, clear its Evolution Challenges, and hold its Evolith to evolve it “into powerful 5-star Anima”. The [evolution guide](/guides/evolution-guide/) covers it. **The Apex Club** lets you name one Anima as your Star Anima and clear repeatable challenges to upgrade that Anima’s skill, with a chance at exceptionally rare Anima on repeat clears. It is also where the CBT2 endgame content lives, including the hardest-difficulty Riddle-style encounters that test a fully built team. **Rapport from duplicates** is the constellation equivalent. Repeat Bonds grant Energy for that Anima, Energy upgrades its six-rank Rapport ladder, and Nexus Energy Gathering pays Energy directly once you have Bonded the Anima three times. The [Bond guide](/guides/bond-guide/) covers the loop. ## Relics: the run-only item system Relics do exist, just not as permanent gear. The game describes them inside a challenge mode with its own rules: “Win 12 battle rounds to complete a challenge. Losing a battle costs you Challenge Lives”. Between rounds you earn coins to spend in a store on “enhancement items to upgrade your team”, and the number of Anima you can deploy grows from 6 to 8 over the run. The item layer works like an auto-battler’s: * **Relic families.** The game names Treasure Relics, Special Relics and Sundering Relics, plus role tags such as Physical Carry, Magic Carry, Defensive, Hybrid and Energy regen Relics. * **Equip limits.** Lines such as “This Anima can’t equip more Relics”, “Relic capacity reached” and “Relic equip requirements not met” show each Anima has slots and conditions. * **Run modifiers that key off Relics.** For example, “The Energy Costs of allied units with 2 or more Relics equipped decrease by 35%.” * **A Relic Vault** you visit mid-challenge. None of this persists after the run, and nothing in the game points to Relics you farm and keep. That is why the answer to “does it have an artifact system” is still no, with an asterisk. Plan your account around the four permanent systems above, and treat Relics as a per-run tactical choice. ![Honkai: Nexus Anima’s Anima Standard Bond banner, the gacha screen used to pull new Anima and Eidos](/images/honkai-nexus-anima-anima-standard-bond-gacha-banner.webp) _Acquisition, not equipment, is where most of an Anima’s growth budget goes._ ## The CBT1 system that almost was: Nutrition During the first closed beta test, the game briefly had an early itemization-adjacent system that testers referred to as Nutrition. It functioned as something closer to an artifact system than anything currently in the game, but it was removed before the current test cycle and does not appear in the build today. Treat Nutrition as a cut prototype, not a preview of what is coming back. HoYoverse has iterated heavily on core systems between beta cycles (the direct-invite [PvP mode](/guides/is-honkai-nexus-anima-pvp-or-pve/) is a good example of something added between tests rather than removed), so systems do change test over test. But there is no signal that Nutrition, specifically, is due for a return. ## Why a full gear system is unlikely at launch This is our own read, not an official statement, so treat it as an expectation rather than a roadmap. There are two practical reasons a Genshin- or Star Rail-style gear layer is a hard sell for this game specifically. **The roster is already a heavy grind on its own.** The Anima dex runs 84 entries deep, and getting a competitive roster means leveling, Bonding, and evolving a meaningful chunk of that list, not just your five favorites. Stacking a substat-rolling gear system on top of that would mean players need to farm domains or dungeons for equipment on dozens of units at once, which is a much bigger ask than a single-character action RPG asking players to gear five or six mains. **The auto-chess format rewards roster breadth over single-unit optimization.** Formation-building in Nexus Anima is about assembling a full lineup of up to eight Anima with the right [Trait rows and Aspect synergy](/guides/formation-guide/), not about maximizing one carry’s damage output the way an artifact system typically does. A gear system tuned for single-target optimization sits awkwardly next to a format that already rewards spreading investment across a team. Neither reason rules a gear system out forever. If it arrives, our expectation is that it would be simple (a light stat-boost item with no substat rolling) or added later in the game’s life once most players already have a maxed core roster and are looking for a new resource sink. That is speculation on our part, not a confirmed plan. ## How this compares to Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail If you are coming from either game, here is the practical difference in what your resources buy you. | System | Genshin Impact / Star Rail | Honkai: Nexus Anima | | ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------- | | Equipment | Artifacts / relics with rolled substats | None | | Main power lever | Character level, talents, weapon/light cone, artifacts | Anima level, Bond, Evolution | | Endgame farming target | Domain runs for better substat rolls | Apex Club clears for Star Anima skill upgrades and duplicates | | Roster breadth vs. depth | Rewards deep investment in a small main team | Rewards a wider roster for formation flexibility | | RNG on gear quality | Yes, substats roll randomly per piece | No equivalent RNG layer | The upshot: if artifact farming is your least favorite part of Genshin or Star Rail, Nexus Anima removes that step entirely. If you enjoy the long-tail optimization that gear rerolling provides, you will not find an equivalent grind here, at least not yet. ![The Apex Club’s Star Anima gameplay screen, where a designated Anima’s skill can be upgraded through repeat challenge clears](/images/honkai-nexus-anima-apex-club-star-anima-gameplay.webp) _Apex Club’s Star Anima upgrades are the closest thing to a gear-adjacent power system currently in the game._ ## How HoYoverse’s other gacha games handle gear If you are weighing whether to invest in Nexus Anima based on how much of a second job the gear grind becomes, it helps to see where this game sits relative to HoYoverse’s other titles, all of which do have some form of equippable gear. **Genshin Impact** uses artifacts: five equip slots per character, each piece rolling random substats, farmed from repeatable domains. It is widely considered the single most time-consuming system in the game, and a large share of the community’s endgame conversation is about substat efficiency. **Honkai: Star Rail** inherited the same idea as Relics and Planar Ornaments, with the same domain-farming loop and the same substat RNG, just reskinned for a turn-based combat system instead of an action one. **Zenless Zone Zero** uses Drive Discs, a version of the same substat-rolling gear loop adapted to its own combat pacing. Every other major HoYoverse gacha built a gear layer with rolled substats into its core loop. Nexus Anima, at least in its current form, is the outlier that has not. Whether that holds through launch is genuinely unclear, since the company has a strong pattern of eventually adding one, but it is also the first of these games built around an auto-chess format with a much wider active roster than the four-to-eight characters a Genshin or Star Rail team actually fields, which is exactly the structural reason a gear system is a harder fit here (see above). ## What this means if you are free-to-play The absence of a gear system removes one specific whale-versus-F2P gap that exists in Genshin and Star Rail: substat luck. In those games, a free player and a paying player can own the exact same character and still be meaningfully apart in performance because one rolled better artifact lines. That gap does not exist here, because there is nothing to roll. A gap still exists, just a different kind. It shows up in roster breadth (how many Anima you have leveled, bonded, and evolved) and in duplicate depth (how many copies of your key units you have caught), both of which paying players can accelerate but F2P players can still reach through time and consistent play. That is a meaningfully different shape of advantage than artifact RNG: it rewards playing more, not rolling better, which is a friendlier trade for anyone planning to stay free-to-play long term. ## What actually moves the needle on your Anima’s power right now If you are trying to plan resource spending without a gear system to chase, here is the practical order of operations. 1. **Settle your formation first.** Decide the eight Anima you actually want to field (team size reaches 8 at player level 20), using the [formation guide](/guides/formation-guide/) and the [Aspect synergy guide](/guides/aspect-synergy-guide/), before you commit heavy investment anywhere. 2. **Ascend your core, not your whole dex.** Level Resonance keeps every bonded Anima levelled with you, so Ascension materials are the scarce part. Spend them on the Traits your formation uses. 3. **Point Rapport and Dispositions at the same units.** Daily Aspect Affinity tickets go into Nexus Energy Gathering for your main carry, and candies go to the units you field, chasing a matched-pair Disposition. 4. **Run Apex Club once your core is stable.** Naming a Star Anima and clearing challenges upgrades its skill and is one of the more reliable sources of rare duplicates and account depth in the current build. 5. **Treat pulls as acquisition, not gearing.** Since there is nothing to reroll or re-farm on a unit you already have, most of your currency should go toward acquiring the Anima and Eidos your formation is missing. The [gacha guide](/guides/gacha-guide/) covers banners, currencies, and pity in full. None of this requires tracking a single substat, which is the biggest practical difference from Genshin Impact or Star Rail account planning. ## Bottom line Honkai: Nexus Anima has no permanent artifact or gear system. Its Relics are run items inside a 12-round challenge mode, and the CBT1 Nutrition system was cut. Permanent power comes from Ascension, Rapport, Dispositions and Evolution, with Dispositions doing the job that substat rolls do elsewhere. A full gear layer is unlikely at launch, but nothing is ruled out officially. Start with the [formation guide](/guides/formation-guide/) to settle your eight, then read the [Bond guide](/guides/bond-guide/) and [evolution guide](/guides/evolution-guide/) to understand where your leveling and Bonding time actually pays off. Browse the [Anima dex](/anima/) and [Eidos database](/eidos/) for the full roster, and check the [tier list](/tier-list/) once you are ready to decide who earns that investment first. ## Frequently asked questions Does Honkai: Nexus Anima have an artifact or relic system? Not a permanent one. There is no Genshin Impact-style artifact system and no Honkai: Star Rail-style relic farm. The game does have Relics, but they are items an Anima equips during a run-based challenge mode and loses when the run ends, like items in an auto-battler. Permanent power comes from Ascension, Rapport, Dispositions and Evolution. What happened to the Nutrition system from the first closed beta? Nutrition was an early itemization-adjacent system present during the first closed beta test. It was removed before the current test cycle and does not appear in the build today, so treat it as a cut prototype rather than a system you can plan around. How do you make an Anima stronger without gear? Ascension raises an Anima's level cap and all of its Base Stats using Trait-specific materials. Repeat Bonds and Nexus Energy Gathering give Energy for Rapport, a six-rank upgrade ladder. Dispositions add two stat effects with a bonus when they match, and Evolution turns a juvenile into a 5-star form. Will Honkai: Nexus Anima add an artifact system at launch? There is no official announcement either way. Our read is that a full gear layer is unlikely at launch: Dispositions already fill the stat-roll role, with quality tiers and a matched-pair bonus, and Relics are built into run modes. Stacking a substat-rolling gear farm on top would make an already resource-heavy game a much longer grind. Is Nexus Anima easier to gear up than Genshin Impact or Star Rail? In the sense that there is nothing to gear, yes. You never chase a specific substat roll or reroll a piece for a better line. All of your investment goes into choosing which Anima to level, bond, and evolve, which is a simpler decision tree than optimizing artifact substats. Does catching duplicate Anima do anything? Yes. The game says repeatedly Bonding an Anima grants Energy for it, which upgrades its Rapport. Once you have Bonded the same Anima three times while exploring, it also unlocks in Nexus Energy Gathering, a stage that pays Energy directly. These rules can change between versions.