📚 What Does Gacha Pity Mean? The Guarantee System Explained

Hard pity is the absolute limit — reach the counter and the top-rarity result is guaranteed. Many games also use soft pity, where the drop rate quietly rises as you approach that limit, so most players actually get their result somewhat before the hard cap. The two together make the average cost lower than the advertised base rate suggests, which is why experienced players plan around the counter rather than the percentage.

Hitting pity does not always give you the character you came for. Many limited banners run a two-step system: your first guaranteed top-rarity pull may land on a standard-pool unit instead, and only then does the game promise that the next one will be the featured character. Reading the banner text is essential, because the true worst-case cost is roughly double the single-pity number in these systems.

In most games the pity counter carries over between banners of the same type, so pulls you made last month are not wasted when a new character arrives. Some games keep separate counters for character, weapon and standard banners, and a few reset the count entirely when a banner ends. Confirm the rule in your game before saving, because it changes whether holding pulls is smart or pointless.