How To Beat The Past, Present, And Eternal Show In Honkai: Star Rail

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In the climax of the Penacony tale within Honkai: Star Rail, as we near the decisive battle against Sunday to determine the future of the Dreamland, I’ll encounter The Past, Present, and Eternal Show during the final act. These formidable foes will not only appear in the main campaign but will also be recurring opponents if you aim to acquire some of the finest Break Planar Ornaments the game has to offer.

As a fellow enthusiast, I’m delighted to share that this trio of leaders, fortunately, isn’t the most formidable hurdle you’ll encounter. In fact, as you advance and develop your characters, they become progressively less daunting. Here, we’ll dive deep into all the essential strategies you’ll need to master the game.

All Attacks From The Past, Present, And Eternal Show

In the “Timeless Spectacle,” there are two distinct variations: a dual-encounter sequence and a trio of encounters. You’ll face the dual-encounter version in the narrative arc of Penacony, and further up in the Memory of Disorder.

In the unique context of the Simulated Universe, the three-stage conflict stands apart. Although it has similar foundational elements as its abridged counterpart, phase three introduces some distinct complexities.

Additionally, The Past, Present, and Eternal Show is made up of three individual units. These are:

  • Past Confined And Caged, a Physical damage enemy that can mark targets on your team, gaining stat bonuses and an AoE attack.
  • Present Inebriated By Revelry, a DoT-focused enemy that can apply both Lightning and Wind damage over time and detonate that damage in a burst, applying debuffs.
  • Tomorrow In Harmonious Chords, a primarily crowd-control-focused enemy that can put your characters to sleep and gain attack bonuses for each sleeping character.

During the course of the battle, each boss’s standalone attack remains consistent. However, when they collaborate, they gain extra mechanisms that alter their capabilities.

These three formidable foes pose significant threats individually, yet their repertoires of attacks aren’t particularly extensive. However, when they coordinate their actions, they can present quite the challenge.

All Past Confined And Caged Attacks

Previously, it was vulnerable to damage from Fire, Lightning, and non-physical sources. However, its defenses were robust enough that most other types of attacks would have minimal impact on its health and no effect on its durability.

The only exceptions are abilities like Fugue’s, Acheron’s, or Rappa’s that ignore Weakness type.

Attack Damage Type Description How to Counter/When to Heal Damage Dealt
Cleansing Flagellation Physical Hits a single character with moderate Physical damage. This attack always hits, so a Shield from a character like Aventurine nullifies it.
Damage redirects from Fu Xuan or healing over time from Lynx or Natasha are also usable.

As a weaker attack, you can hold off healing until the other enemies act or if it takes its target character below 50 percent health.

Admonishment of the Masses Physical Hits a single character and those next to them for minor Physical damage. As a multi-target attack, single-target heals like those from Lynx and Natasha aren’t ideal.

Aventurine’s shields do well, as does Fu Xuan’s damage redirect.
Weak attacks like this aren’t as important to heal unless you have an immediate option like the one Lingsha provides with her Skill, Ultimate, and follow-up attack.

Shackle-Bearing Messenger N/A The boss locks onto one character and gains a number of Attack Boost stacks.
Hitting the boss will remove a stack and lock onto the character that landed the hit.

Past Confined uses Desmios Evangelion on its next action.

 Hit the boss with as many characters as possible to remove Attack Boost stacks and lower the overall damage dealt.
Breaking this boss’s weakness cancels the Charging state.
Desmios Evangelion Physical The boss hits every enemy it’s locked onto, dealing massive Physical damage distributed evenly across all targets. This attack always comes after Shackle-Bearing Messenger, so once you’ve reduced the boss’s Attack Boost stacks as much as possible, you’re free to heal if characters are at or around a 65 percent health threshold.

All Present Inebriated By Revelry Attacks

All Present Inebriated is weak to Physical, Fire, and Imaginary damage.

Attack Damage Type Description How to Counter/When to Heal Damage Dealt
Precious Blood Shed For You Wind or Lightning This single-target attack has a high chance of reducing its targets Defense stat and applying a Lightning or Wind DoT.

The Lighting DoT is called Carousal of Revelry. The Wind DoT is called Carousal of Wantonness.

 Because this attack applies DoT stacks and a Defense debuff, characters with high Effect RES are unlikely to be affected.

Supports like Gallagher, Lingsha, Luocha, and even Natasha can cleanse debuffs, making this attack less effective.

Feast That Is Set For You Wind or Lightning This attack targets your entire party and attempts to apply either the Wind or Lightning DoT to them. Lots of Effect RES is the best tactic here, and characters like Aventurine can grant tons of it for free so long as they’re shielded. Lingsha’s AoE heal can also work.

The DoT damage of this and the single-target version stack, so you’ll want to heal after one or two activations or risk it getting out of control.

A Cup Runneth Over For You Wind or Lightning This attack targets your entire party, and attempts to apply either the Wind or Lightning DoT to them.

Present Inebriated also enters the Charging state, using Wash Away All Sins For You on its next action.

 As this attack is functionally identical to Feast That Is Prepared For You, Effect RES and cleansing abilities are best.

However, you’ll want to heal up once this attack occurs, as a more powerful one is yet to come.

Breaking this boss’s weakness cancels the Charging state.

Wash Away All Sins For You Wind and Lightning Rather than applying a DoT effect, this attack causes every DoT currently active on each character to detonate, dealing their combined damage all at once. Characters with an active shield can negate a portion of the attack, as the shield will tank at least some detonated DoT damage.

Depending on your setup and the results of the detonation, you might need to heal immediately using something like Lingsha’s Skill or Lynx or Natasha’s Ultimate.

All Tomorrow In Harmonious Chords Attacks

Tomorrow in Harmonious Chords is weak to Physical, Fire, and Lightning damage.

Attack DamageType Description How to Counter/When to Heal Damage Dealt
All Is Bright Imaginary This attack deals a moderate amount of Imaginary damage to one character. This attack always hits, but its lower damage means even a modest shield can tank the hit.

Heal from the damage dealt when a party member reaches no lower than 50% HP.

All Is Calm N/A This attack puts a character in an Alien Dream, unable to take actions but regenerating a small amount of HP each turn.

If attacked while under the effects of Alien Dream, the damage they take is greatly increased, but they’ll wake up and be able to act again.

 Alien Dream is a debuff, meaning any character that can cleanse such effects — Natasha, Lynx, Lingsha, or Gallagher, for instance — can remove it.

Characters with High Effect RES can also avoid the effect entirely.

Silent Night N/A Tomorrow gains an Attack bonus for every character on the field afflicted with Alien Dream. You’ll need to cleanse as many characters as you can to remove Alien Dream or wait for them to be attacked by a member of the trio.
Holy Night N/A The boss enters the Charging state but does not attack. It will use Sleep In Heavenly Peace on its next action. Breaking the boss’s weakness removes the charging state.
Sleep In Heavenly Peace N/A This attack has a high chance of putting every character in the Alien Dream state. Stack as much Effect RES as possible on as many characters as possible.

Auto-cleanse abilities like those from Huohuo’s Skill or Lingsha’s follow-up attack are also effective and don’t require additional input.

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All The Past, Present, And Eternal Show Phase One Attacks

In the initial stage of confronting The Past, Present, and Eternal Show, this phase serves as an introduction for the following two stages. During this time, they will primarily rely on their standard attacks. It’s crucial to remember two extra aspects that will persist throughout subsequent phases:

The first stage in our battle against The Past, Present, and Eternal Show is a prelude for the next two stages, with them mainly employing their basic attacks. Nevertheless, there are two additional factors to keep in mind that will continue to be relevant as we progress further:

Ability Description Counter Strategy or Ability Effect
Hearing, Together As One The bosses share a health bar. Dealing damage to any one of the three boss enemies will deal damage to their shared health pool.

Note that sharing health does not mean they share Toughness or weakness types. Those remain independent.

Appeal, Singular Grace One of the bosses becomes Impresario, granting them an additional action and mildly increasing their Speed score.

If one of the bosses is Weakness Broken, their action is delayed, and Impresario moves to another one.

If all bosses are Weakness Broken, they immediately take a large amount of additional damage and become more vulnerable to incoming damage.

The first to come out of Weakness Break will be chosen as the new Impresario.

 Hit each boss with as many characters who can break its weakness as you can. Fire is optimal here, as it’s the only weakness all three share.

Ideally, you’ll also have a character or characters who can hit more than one of the bosses with a single Skill use, but single-target specialists like Moze or Topaz are more than usable.

All The Past, Present, And Eternal Show Phase Two Attacks

In Phase Two, the battle becomes more challenging as not only do you have to handle the standard moves of the bosses, but also two fresh mechanics come into play: ‘Commandment’ and ‘Dance for Synchrony’.

Ability Description Counter Strategy or Ability Effect
Enact, Heed Thy Command Commandment, the symbol with the puppet on strings, is added to the Action Order.

Whenever Commandment acts, it dispels all crowd control debuffs and Weakness Break on all bosses.

Commandment’s action is slightly delayed every time you break a boss’s weakness, provided the break occurs before Commandment acts.

Commandment allows activation of the Dance for Synchrony attack at the end of its action.

 The “counter” to Commandment is to break the weakness of all three bosses,. However, it cannot be removed from the Action Order, so it’s impossible to truly negate it as a threat.
Dance for Synchrony This attack combines the three bosses’ ultimate abilities into a single attack. It applies the following effects in sequence:

  • Wind and Lighting DoT.
  • Alien Dream.
  • Massive Physical damage that breaks Alien Dream.
 Dance for Synchrony is the transition attack between phases one and two, so it’s impossible to avoid it entirely.

However, you can prevent the Dance from happening additional times by breaking the bosses’ weaknesses as quickly as possible.

All The Past, Present, And Eternal Show Phase Three Attacks

In phase three of our battle with The Past, Present, and Eternal Spectacle, just one new feature is introduced, yet this simple addition significantly intensifies the struggle.

Ability Description Counter Strategy or Ability Effect
Verdict, Eternal Life A second instance of Commandment appears in the Action Order. There is no direct counter to this ability, as it affects the Action Order and not any of your characters.

However, as Commandment is still subject to being delayed via Weakness Break, you can make Commandment take more time to act by using Fire, Lighting, and Imaginary damage. As before, fire is ideal.

Best Teams And Strategies To Beat The Past, Present, And Eternal Show

To consistently and comfortably outperform The Past, Present, and Eternal Show, it’s beneficial to regularly introduce characters who can exploit and undermine the vulnerabilities of its participants.

This way, you ensure that your characters are well-equipped to deal with the challenges posed by the game, maximizing your chances of success.

Primarily, you should rely on characters who specialize in Fire damage, with Imaginary and Lightning units serving as secondary options. It’s crucial that your most powerful character has a higher Speed stat, so they can act before the bosses, thus dealing more damage to their Defense early on.

You should keep the following in mind as well:

  • Give your characters high Effect RES, at least 35 percent for an endgame team, if not more. A modestly-built endgame team with Aventurine on it has anywhere from 40-80 percent Effect RES per character while shielded. Teams without Aventurine might have anywhere from 30-50 percent per character, depending on your Relics.
  • Try to get your characters to at least 135 Speed at endgame, as this is one of the main speed breakpoints that lets you act before many bosses.
  • Focus on Past Confined And Caged first, as DoT damage can be nasty if left to build. Present Inebriated by Revelry should be next, as Alien Dream can turn the tide of the fight very quickly.
  • Use characters who can hit multiple opponents at once. Even Serval, Hook, and Clara (when buffed by her Ultimate) can do well here.
  • Use your cleanse abilities wisely, especially if you don’t have one that can target multiple party members. Prioritizing keeping your main and sub-DPS out of Alien Dream is more important, as most Support abilities are active regardless of whether they can take action.
  • Keep at least one Skill Point handy at all times, and if your Sustain’s ultimate heals, save it to use as an emergency button if the team gets too low. Ultimates take action priority over almost all other actions, so use them to break up the flow of combat.

Premium Team

Character Star Rating Element Role
Firefly Five-Star Fire Main-DPS
Fugue Five-Star Fire Support/Sub-DPS
Ruan Mei Five-Star Ice Support
Lingsha Five-Star Fire Sustain
  • Firefly is the premiere Break damage DPS, and between her Fire element and AoE damage, she makes quick work of all three bosses’ Toughness bars. Keep her trained on the center boss, Tomorrow on Harmonious Chords, for most of the fight, but swap to the other enemies if they need extra damage.
  • Fugue not only enables Firefly and Lingsha’s Super Break damage, she can provide some Toughness reduction and supplementary damage of her own. The fact she can hit Fire weakness as an AoE with her Enhanced Basic Attack is a bonus.
  • Ruan Mei quickly became a must-have for Break-focused teams, as her Ultimate makes enemies need to recover from Weakness Break twice, and her Skill is a blanket damage and Weakness Break Efficiency buff.
  • Lingsha is a hybrid Sustain and DPS, capable of healing and dealing damage in equal measure. Her Skill, Ultimate, and follow-up attack all heal, and the FuA is a party-wide cleanse, making much of this fight’s challenge disappear.

Five-Star Team

Character Star Rating Element Role
Himeko Five-Star Fire Main DPS
Imaginary March 7th Four-Star Imaginary Sub-DPS
Harmony Trailblazer Five-Star Imaginary Support
Gallagher Five-Star Fire Sustain
  • Himeko‘s value has continued to climb since launch, and because The Past, Present, and Eternal Show is such a Break-focused fight, her follow-up attack occurring after three breaks and her solid AoE damage make her a great budget choice.
  • Imaginary March 7th is primarily here to help enable Himeko, because with her Filigree Bonus Ability, she can do Fire damage to a target besides Himeko’s. Also, her Enhanced Basic is some of the best freely available damage in the game.
  • Harmony Trailblazer started the Super Break revolution and can do wonders for any team that needs some extra damage. Their Skill is also AoE Imaginary damage, and their Ultimate enables Super Break across the team, keeping them valuable regardless of how you build around them.
  • Gallagher is probably the best four-star character in Honkai: Star Rail, helpful in every mode and against almost any enemy. His Skill cleanses. His Ultimate grants a debuff that lets his allies heal from damaging enemies. His advanced action after his Ultimate is extra healing. So long as the enemy is weak to Fire, he can help any team to victory.

Free-To-Play Team

Character Star Rating Element Role
Hook Four-star Fire Main DPS
Serval Four-star Lightning Sub-DPS
Harmony Trailblazer Five-star Imaginary Support
Gallagher Four-star Fire Sustain
  • Hook was one of the few Fire DPS units at the launch of Honkai: Star Rail, and can still be a fine enough option. The main reason to use her in a free-to-play team is her AoE Fire damage and ability to break the weaknesses of all three members of The Past, Present, and Eternal Show.
  • Serval is a solid supplementary DPS unit who has seen her star rise gradually as Star Rail’s meta evolved, and adds both Lighting damage and a Lightning DoT to the equation.
  • Harmony Trailblazer is here to take this team’s damage, which by default is below average, and buff it. Between applying Super Break, buffing Break Effect, and providing Imaginary damage, there’s almost no team Harmony Trailblazer can’t improve.
  • Gallagher is far and away the best four-star Sustain in the game, with heals to spare, cleanses to give, and a surprising amount of damage output for a character you’re likely to pull far more frequently than the likes of Lingsha or Aventurine

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2025-01-30 02:36