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Newbie Guide

by kynosae 
Updated for Version 4.6

Introduction

This guide is tailored for newbies of Adventure Rank 0–45 who have yet to familiarize themselves with all of Genshin’s myriad gameplay systems and are looking for guidance on how to best progress through the early game. The guide also discusses where to find reliable informational resources outside of the game. 

In order to avoid information overload, this guide is divided into sections based on Adventure Rank (AR). The AR and Adventure EXP system is tied to the unlocking of game systems, quests, and Domains. As such, it is a useful benchmark for your account’s progress and provides a guideline for what you need to know at various stages in the game.

This guide aims to supplement what the game teaches you — not replace it completely; simple things that are covered by the in-game tutorials and do not require further elaboration are not tackled here. In addition, some of the more complex topics have guides of their own, which are linked when appropriate. 

However, keep in mind that there is no need to be totally familiar with concepts discussed within each section before progressing in AR. Revisiting earlier sections when you need a refresher is perfectly fine!

Additional Resources

When confused about anything, the Genshin Wiki can also serve as your first port of call. It contains comprehensive information about almost anything in Genshin you would want to know about. 

Enka.Network allows you to show your characters’ artifact builds in your profile. 

If you want to know more about building or playing a specific character, consider checking out their Extended Guide or Quick Guide on KQM

For exploration purposes, HoYoverse has an official interactive map

As Genshin is a hugely popular game, there are many other sources of information out there, but as a result there is also a lot of misinformation. Sites like GenshinLab or Game8 are rife with questionable or outright incorrect information, especially with regard to character builds and teams. The official wiki on HoYoLAB is also poorly formatted and lacking in information, and it does not offer anything over the Genshin Wiki on Fandom.

AR0–12

Adventure Ranks 0–12 essentially serve as the introduction to the game. This section introduces a large portion of game mechanics, although the more complicated ones are detailed in sections about higher ARs. Time-limited events are not accessible at AR0–12. 

This is by far the longest section of the guide because it introduces many important mechanics in-game. You don’t need to read everything in one go — a new player will have difficulty taking in all the information at once. Furthermore, because of the low Adventure EXP needed to advance to the next AR, you’ll progress beyond AR12 long before you are familiar with all the concepts introduced. Feel free to jump to what you’re looking for with Ctrl-F and/or revisit the section whenever you have questions.

Server Locations and Ping

Genshin has six servers: two for Mainland China (天空岛, 世界树) and four for the rest of the world (Europe, America, Asia, and TW/HK/MO). You cannot move your account between servers, and cross-play between servers is not possible. It is therefore important to choose the right server when you start. As many things in the game are server-side, picking the server that is closest to you geographically will result in lower ping and a better gaming experience. Each server also has its own server time, which determines when certain things like daily and weekly resets occur. 

The Europe server is located in Germany (UTC+1), the America server is in the Mid-Atlantic (UTC-5), and the Asia and TW/HK/MO servers are in Japan (UTC+8).

Game Settings and Menu Navigation

If Genshin’s graphics are too straining, you can adjust the settings before launch by holding Shift while starting up the game (i.e., pressing the “Launch” button on the game launcher or opening the game executable). 

The image below shows the Paimon Menu, which comes up by pressing Esc on PC or the Paimon icon at the top left on mobile. It looks quite empty at first, but as more features unlock the menu quickly fills up. There is a gear icon on the left, from which you can access game settings.

Genshin Impact comes with four options for voiceover language — English, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean. One of them will come preinstalled, whereas the other three can be installed from Settings > Language. As the game is quite heavy on storage demands, especially for players on mobile devices, you can save on storage by only having the voice pack that you intend to use installed. If you install and switch to a second voice pack, you can delete the one that came preinstalled without any issues.

Story Progression and the Overworld

Raising Your Adventure Rank: A Progression Roadmap

In the early game, new players should follow along the available quests instead of setting their sights on the overworld immediately. The first few Story Quests and Archon Quests naturally bring you through most of Mondstadt and a small part of Liyue, giving you the opportunity to unlock Teleport Waypoints and collect Oculi along the way. Anemoculi and Geoculi will increase your maximum Stamina when offered to Statues of the Seven, making future exploration easier. Additionally, all of these exploration features give you Adventure EXP to raise your AR. 

Anemo and Geo Sigils, which are obtained from chests and Statue of the Seven Offerings, can be exchanged in souvenir shops in Mondstadt and Liyue Harbor respectively for some useful progression materials. Geo Sigils can also be obtained from some cliff-side rocks and floating wooden boxes; they are the only Sigils that can be obtained in such a fashion.

Daily Commissions

At AR12, Daily Commissions are unlocked. Every daily reset, which happens at 04:00 in the morning server time, you receive 4 commissions. Completing one awards you with Adventure EXP, Mora, Weapon EXP, Friendship EXP, and — most importantly — 10 Primogems (the game’s premium currency). Upon completion of all four, there is an additional reward claimable at the Adventurer’s Guild which includes 20 Primogems. For a free-to-play player, Daily Commissions represent approximately 20% of your Primogem income.

Of the four commissions, usually three of them will be basic commissions that do not involve any NPCs, and one of them will be an NPC commission. Some NPC commissions provide the opportunity to obtain Achievements if they are completed in a certain way. If you want to avoid missing out on the chance to get Achievements, look up the name of the NPC commission on the Genshin Wiki to check whether any are available and if there are any specific steps you need to take in order to complete them. 

Every region has its own Daily Commissions, which are unlocked as you progress along the quest lines for those regions. You can select a preferred region for those Daily Commissions once you unlock the relevant map area and Adventurer’s Guild, which limits received commissions to that region. In addition, each region has its own set of NPC Commission-locked Achievements.

Introduction to Original Resin

Original Resin is an essential time-gated resource that is used to obtain almost all materials needed for account progression. There is a cap of 200 Resin, and it takes 8 minutes for 1 Resin to regenerate. It takes 26 hours and 40 minutes to go from 0 to 200 Resin, so it is optimal to login at least once a day to avoid hitting the cap and wasting Resin.

While there are many other uses of Resin that will open up at higher ARs, the first two uses of Resin available to new players are the Blossom of Revelation (at AR8) and Blossom of Wealth (at AR12), which provide Character EXP Materials and the in-game currency Mora, respectively. 

In addition to natural regeneration, additional Resin may be obtained via Fragile Resin. You are likely to obtain your first one as a reward for reaching AR12. However, as the amount and quality of materials obtained through the use of Resin increases with your World Level, it is not advisable to consume any of your Fragile Resin before reaching AR45. 

Unless you know what you are doing, and especially for newbies, refreshing Resin with Primogems is not recommended.

Overworld Tips Part 1: The Basics

Traversing the Overworld

The movement speed of characters is affected by the height of their character model. Taller characters walk, run, and dash faster than shorter ones. 

Holding down the dash button to sprint is the least efficient mode of travel. Instead, tap the dash button at intervals of about 1s for best results — inputting 2 dashes too quickly causes a short dash cooldown to occur, though this dash cooldown is not shared between characters.

Dash-jumping, known colloquially as bunny hopping, is another method for horizontal travel that involves entering the sprint animation, jumping, and pressing the jump button every time the character lands. It works best with the short male model, and can continue even after the Stamina bar is depleted if done correctly. 

Some characters such as Lynette, Sayu, Yelan, and Wanderer have Skills that allow long-distance horizontal movement. Lynette in particular is free at AR25, though she’s also the slowest of these characters.

For climbing, not pressing jump allows the character to climb by far the highest, but it’s slow. Jumping is faster, but it consumes a significant amount of Stamina. Only use climb-jumps if you are certain you have enough Stamina to make it to the top. If you run out of Stamina, you’ll fall down and (likely) die of fall damage.

Just like climbing, swimming without dashing allows you to cover a longer distance, but more slowly. However, there is an alternative way to swim that involves holding the dash button and repeatedly pressing the forward key. It is approximately the same speed as holding both forward and dash, but more Stamina-efficient. 

Some characters, most notably Kaeya, have a passive that reduces your sprinting Stamina cost by 20% when they are in the current team. This is an invaluable passive during the early-game, and it is useful both in and out of combat. Additionally, having 2 Anemo characters in your party of 4 also reduces all Stamina consumption by 15%.

Exploring Overworld Content

Aside from respawning enemies and materials, the overworld is full of chests and quests, both of which reward you with Primogems. Chests do not respawn — ever; claims of chest respawns are common but false.

While exploring, you may take damage from enemies or the environment and want to heal back. Besides food, the Statue of the Seven is also a great source of healing. By default, it only heals characters up to 50% of their Max HP, but can be adjusted to heal characters to full health.

Note that some regions of the overworld are tied to an Archon Quest or major World Quest, the completion of which either grants access to these areas or unlocks exploration functions for chests. Exploring without completing these quests may be a less enjoyable experience, and you may need to backtrack after completing the necessary quests.

Game Mechanics

Character Screen

The character screen serves as the interface through which you can upgrade and access information about your characters. The six tabs of the character screen — Attributes, Weapons, Artifacts, Constellation, Talents, and Profile — are explained below.

Attributes

The Attributes tab has three main functions: viewing character stats, increasing character levels, and ascending characters. The Ascension feature remains inaccessible until AR15; this guide discusses it in a later section.

Friendship EXP

Each character has a Friendship level. This does not have any combat-related effects, but it unlocks character lore in the Profile tab as well as a character namecard upon reaching Friendship 10. 

At the right side of this tab, a simple overview of a character’s stats are displayed, as well as an option to view more details. This detailed stats screen is a comprehensive overview of a character’s stats, though not everything is shown. Certain stats have a “?” mark on the right, which provide an explanation of their effects when pressed.

Base Stats

Every character possesses a certain amount of base Max HP, ATK, and DEF. While Elemental Mastery and Max Stamina are also categorized under Base Stats, characters do not naturally possess Elemental Mastery. Max Stamina is different from all other stats in that it is shared across all characters and is increased through the aforementioned offering of Anemoculi and Geoculi to Statues of the Seven.

In the detailed stat screen, the Max HP, ATK, and DEF of a character is divided into a base value (white number) and additional value (green number). All percentage increases of these stats scale from the base white number that the character possesses. 

The HP stat reflects the total amount of health the character has. If a character’s health bar is fully depleted, they will fall. The DEF stat affects the amount of damage a character receives from certain sources. Elemental Mastery strengthens Elemental Reactions. For a more detailed explanation of how this works, check out Elemental Reaction Basics.

Advanced Stats

This section explains the stats that players most often concern themselves with: CRIT Rate (sometimes abbreviated as CRate or CR), CRIT DMG (CDMG or CD), and Energy Recharge (ER%). The other stats are not as relevant or are not readily increasable. All characters naturally possess 5% CRIT Rate, 50% CRIT DMG, and 100% ER.

CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG

The CRIT Rate of a character is the chance that their attacks deal extra damage, or “crit,” and CRIT DMG is the multiplier applied to CRIT Hits (crits). With the base 50% CRIT DMG, a crit will deal 1.5 times the damage of a non-crit. Not dealing a CRIT Hit does not increase the chances of a subsequent attack being a crit, and there is no benefit to building beyond 100% CRIT Rate.

Energy Recharge

To understand Energy Recharge, you’ll first need to know the basics of Energy. 

Each character has an Elemental Burst, which is fueled by Energy. The character’s maximum Energy is determined by the Energy cost of their Elemental Burst. The main way of obtaining Energy is through Elemental Orbs and Elemental Particles, generally referred to as “Energy particles” or simply “particles.” 

Orbs and particles function similarly, with the sole difference being that orbs are larger visually and provide more Energy. These particles can be white (non-Elemental) or belong to an Element; particles belonging to an Element will generate more Energy for a character of the same Element.

The in-game tutorial for obtaining Energy is somewhat misleading. Dealing Elemental damage is not a mechanism to generate particles. Rather, most characters have a method of particle generation corresponding to their Element that is connected in some way to their Elemental Skill. In addition, the Favonius weapon series generates non-Elemental particles — you obtain a Bow from this weapon series during Mondstadt’s Archon Quest Act III.

Furthermore, almost all enemies drop particles when they are defeated, but most also drop particles when their HP falls below a certain percentage threshold. Different enemies drop different kinds of particles at varying HP thresholds. 

The Energy Recharge (ER%) stat multiplies the amount of Energy a character receives from particles. It does not affect Energy that is directly credited to a character without the presence of particles, also referred to by the community as Flat Energy.

Shield Strength

The Crystallize Elemental Reaction and some character abilities can grant Elemental shields. Shields can absorb damage dealt to your character, but if an attack deals more damage than the shield can handle, the shield breaks and the remaining damage is dealt directly to the character. When a character is shielded, they cannot be staggered or knocked down by enemy attacks. This also applies to the attack that breaks the shield.

Shield Strength increases the effectiveness of the shield. It is specific to the on-field character being protected by the shield (not the creator of the shield) so swapping from a character with high Shield Strength to a character with lower Shield Strength will lower the strength of the shield accordingly. Also note that some damage bypasses shields, such as fall damage and the effects of certain enemies.

Elemental DMG Bonus and Elemental RES

These two attributes respectively increase the damage of Elemental attacks executed by characters or enemies and reduce the Elemental damage received by them. DMG Bonus will become significant later on, but it is of little concern in the early game.

Weapons

There are five types of weapons — Swords, Polearms, Claymores, Bows and Catalysts. Each character can only equip weapons that match their weapon type. 

  • Swords, Polearms, and Claymores typically deal Physical damage with their Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks.
  • Bow characters deal Physical damage with their Normal Attacks, Plunging Attacks, and Aimed Shots; they can also charge up their Aimed Shots for a short period to then deal Elemental damage instead.
  • Catalyst characters always deal Elemental damage. Most Catalyst characters have some range to their Normal Attacks.

Weapons with a rarity of 3 stars or more have three attributes: Base ATK, secondary stat, and weapon passive. A weapon’s Base ATK and secondary stat can be increased by increasing its level; this is done by consuming either Weapon Enhancement Crystals or other weapons as upgrade materials. Due to their low stats and lack of passives, 1- and 2-star weapons are not useful and can be used as upgrade material without issue.

On the other hand, weapon passives can be increased through “refining”; this is done by consuming a duplicate weapon. All weapons start at Refinement Rank 1 and can be refined up to Rank 5; it is common practice to refer to the refinement level of a weapon as R# (for example, R3 = Refinement Rank 3). Whether a weapon should be refined depends on the usefulness of its passive and how many other characters would like a copy of the weapon as well.

The higher the rarity of a weapon, the higher its Base ATK and secondary stat. Within each star rarity, weapons may have varying Base ATK values — weapons with a higher Base ATK have lower secondary stats, and vice versa. 

A select few 3-star weapons (namely Harbinger of Dawn, White Tassel, Black Tassel, Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers, Magic Guide, and Slingshot), some 4-star, and most 5-star weapons are useful. Do not consume the aforementioned 3-star weapons or any 4- and 5-star weapons as upgrade materials in the early- or mid-game.

The Catalyst weapon Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers is notable for its huge ATK buff (48% at R5) for 10s to the next character swapped in. This is a huge amount of stats for the receiving character and particularly significant in the early-game during which you don’t have many sources of ATK% increases.

For the collection-minded, the following 3-star weapons are exclusive to chests in either Mondstadt or Liyue, which means they are limited in quantity:

  • Sword: Traveler’s Handy Sword (Mondstadt), Fillet Blade (Liyue)
  • Bow: Recurve Bow (Mondstadt), Messenger (Liyue)
  • Polearm: Halberd (Liyue), White Tassel (Liyue)
  • Claymore: White Iron Greatsword (Mondstadt), Skyrider Greatsword (Liyue)
  • Catalyst: Otherworldly Story (Mondstadt), Twin Nephrite (Liyue)

There is also the 3-star Dark Iron Sword of which only two exist in the world: one as a dialogue option reward from an NPC in Liyue Harbor called Chen the Sharp, the second in a chest in Chenyu Vale.

Artifacts

Artifacts can be equipped on characters to increase their stats. The degree of said increase is dependent on the artifact’s rarity and level. All characters have five artifact slots and can equip only one of each type of piece: Flower of Life, Plume of Death, Sands of Eon, Goblet of Eonothem, and Circlet of Logos. These are colloquially referred to as Flower, Feather, Sands / Hourglass, Goblet / Cup, and Circlet / Hat.

Furthermore, artifacts each belong to a certain set, and equipping characters with artifacts from certain sets gives additional set bonuses based on the number of artifacts worn from that set. The set that an artifact belongs to also determines what rarities it is available in. Since they can be available in multiple rarities, sets are classified by their highest available rarity. All 3-star artifact sets and most 4-star artifact sets are thus useless as they are overshadowed by the stats of 5-star sets.

Since 5-star artifacts are only reliably farmable at AR45, the artifact system as a whole is not of particular concern until then. You will be able to get sufficient artifacts from Boss drops and exploration, and it is best to just level whatever pieces you get with useful main stats.
For an in-depth look at Artifacts, you can check out the KQM Artifacts Guide.

Constellations

Obtaining duplicates of already-owned characters unlocks Constellations, which are additional augmentations and enhancements to a character’s kit. All characters have six Constellations, with the third and the fifth always being increases to Talent levels. How significant of an upgrade Constellations are, if at all, varies heavily between characters.

Talents

Talents are where the majority of a character’s kit is located. They comprise Combat Talents, generally Normal Attack, Elemental Skill, and Elemental Burst, as well as Passive Talents, consisting of two Ascension Passives and one Utility Passive. Combat Talents can be upgraded, but the materials required for this are only farmable at AR27 and above. 

Skills and Bursts have cooldowns, which restrict how frequently they can be used. Bursts are also restricted by their Energy Cost, which is generally positively correlated with their cooldowns.

Profile

A character’s Profile page contains their voicelines and lore about the character, gated by Friendship levels and sometimes story progression.

Building Characters and Teams

Most characters have guides available that go into how to play them and bring out their potential, but they are generally aimed at mid- to late-game players who have unlocked the game systems necessary to build characters and the content that wants optimization of characters. In the early-game, what you can do to build characters is limited and team compositions are not very important. 

At AR0–12, with almost nothing unlocked, the most you can do is upgrade your characters and weapons to Level 20 and equip what few artifacts you get from chests. Prioritize this for up to four characters at one time, in order not to spread resources too thin. Do not worry about wasting EXP materials on leveling the “wrong” characters now, as the resources needed for Level 20 are minuscule in the long term and will make your early-game combat experience much easier; at low ARs, team composition, synergy, and character strength are of little relevance.

Likewise, there is no need to focus on building “coherent” teams in the early game, as doing so is unnecessary to clear story and Overworld content, and is basically impossible to achieve owing to your extremely limited character availability.

Training Guide

At AR12, a feature called the “Training Guide” is unlocked. This feature recommends upgrades based on character level, weapon, artifacts, and Talents, scaled to the player’s World Level. While the information provided tends to be mostly accurate, depending on the character it may lack necessary context or nuance. In the early-game it may be an acceptable resource, but by AR45 it will be time to move on to proper guides.

Forging

Forging is a relatively minor game system, with two main functions both related to weapons: acquiring craftable weapons and Weapon EXP Materials. The first forging station you have access to is Wagner’s, in Mondstadt city proper. Each nation’s city has one forging station, but all stations share the same forging slots. In essence, there is only one forging station which can be accessed from any city blacksmith and some Teapot furnishings (the Teapot is unlocked later on). 

Weapon EXP Materials are forged from various types of ores, which can be obtained either by mining them in the overworld or through expeditions (unlocked at AR14). There is an invisible daily limit to the amount of weapon EXP you can get from forging — 300,000 weapon EXP, which is equivalent to 30 Mystic Enhancement Ores.

At AR30, Magical Crystal Chunks begin to spawn in the overworld. These can be forged into weapon EXP with the use of Resin. This is an extremely suboptimal method of using Resin and should be avoided.

The Wish System

A gacha simulates luck to determine what items a player can get from a luck-based shop. Genshin’s Wish System is what makes Genshin a gacha game, implementing luck into your chances of getting the character or weapon you want. 

In the Wish System, players spend wishing currency (Fates) on banners in order to receive items. Like many other gacha games, Genshin’s Wish System has a pity system: each roll of the gacha has a base rate of obtaining a 5-star item, but after reaching a certain threshold of pulls known as the soft pity, the rate is increased with each subsequent pull and eventually reaches 100%. The table below shows the rates for the various banners. For more information, see the explanatory infographic.

BannerBase 5-Star RateSoft PityHard Pity
Beginner’s Wish0.6%N/AN/A
Standard Wish0.6%7490
Character Event Wish0.6%7490
Weapon Event Wish0.7%6377
Chronicled Wish0.6%7490

There are two varieties of Wish currency, Intertwined and Acquaint Fates, which determine the type of banner they can be used on. Both Fates are priced at 160 Primogems, the game’s premium currency.

Intertwined Fate

For time-limited Event Wish banners

Acquaint Fate

For permanent Standard Wish banners

Characters and weapons in Genshin are classified as either event-exclusive or standard. Event-exclusive items can only be obtained from Event Wish banners that contain their specific rate-up, whereas standard items can be obtained from both the Standard and Event banners. However, the three starter characters given for free (Kaeya, Amber, and Lisa) are not available from Event banners except Chronicled Wish.

Pity Infographic

Standard Banners

There are two standard (Acquaint Fate) banners: Beginner’s Wish and Wanderlust Invocation. It is highly recommended that players do not spend Primogems on Acquaint Fates for the standard banner, as pulling on time-limited Event banners is almost always a better value proposition. Acquaint Fates can be earned naturally through AR rewards, the Battle Pass, and character ascensions. 

Beginners’ Wish

You can only wish on the Beginner’s Wish banner 20 times, and it will permanently vanish after that. The pool of available characters in the Beginner’s Wish is limited to 3-star weapons and standard characters that were available in the game’s release (Version 1.0). Because of this limitation and the relatively high desirability of some of the 1.0 4-star units, this banner is usually worthwhile. 

Wishes spent on the Beginner’s Wish do not count towards pity on the Wanderlust Invocation banner.

Wanderlust Invocation

This is the standard Wish banner, which is available at all times. New characters that are designated to the standard pool are added to this banner the version after their introduction. The 5-stars in this banner are, as of writing:

CharactersKeqing, Mona, Qiqi, Diluc, Jean, Tighnari, Dehya
WeaponsSkyward Series (Blade, Harp, Spine, Atlas, Pride), Amos’ Bow, Aquila Favonia, Primordial Jade Winged-Spear, Lost Prayer to the Sacred Winds, Wolf’s Gravestone

Event Banners

There are three Intertwined Fate banners: Character Event Wish, Weapon Event Wish, and Chronicled Wish.

Character Event Wish

Character Event Wish, as its name suggests, is a time-limited Event Wish banner that contains a rate-up for characters: one featured 5-star character as well as three promotional 4-star characters. There are typically 2 Character Event Wishes running concurrently, and each lasts for half a version (3 weeks). 

All 5-stars from Character Event Wishes are guaranteed to be characters. When you get a 5-star, there is a 50% chance for it to be the featured one, with the other 50% chance being evenly divided among all available standard characters. If the previous 5-star obtained was not the featured one, the next 5-star is guaranteed to be the featured character. This guarantee is shared between concurrent Character Event Wishes and carries over from an expiring Character Event Wish to the subsequent one.

Weapon Event Wish

Weapon Event Wish is a time-limited Event Wish banner that runs on the same schedule as the aforementioned Character Event Wish. It contains a rate-up for two featured 5-star weapons and five promotional 4-star weapons — one of each weapon type.

All 5-stars from this banner are guaranteed to be weapons, and there is a 75% chance that the 5-star item you get is one of the two rate-up weapons (i.e., 37.5% chance for each). The other 25% chance is evenly divided among all other standard weapons. If the previous 5-star you got was not one of the two featured, the next 5-star is guaranteed to be. 

The weapon banner has an additional system called “Epitomized Path.” This system allows you to select one of the two rate-up 5-star weapons, and every 5-star item you pull that is not the selected weapon will credit 1 Fate Point. When you have 2 Fate Points, the next 5-star item is guaranteed to be the selected weapon. Getting the selected weapon will clear all Fate Points. Fate Points do not carry over to the next banner.

Chronicled Wish

Chronicled Wish is a new type of banner added in Version 4.5. The pity rates are the same as the Character Event Wish; however, this banner allows you to select a target weapon or character from the designated pool (the image depicts the pool for the first Chronicled Wish). There is a 50% chance to get the 5-star you selected, and a 50% chance to get another 5-star of the same type (character or weapon) as your selection. 

If you do not get your targeted 5-star, you will get 1 Fate Point, which guarantees that the next 5-star obtained will be the targeted one. This Fate Point does not carry over to future Chronicled Wishes; however, the pity accumulated on the banner does.

Characters are only eligible to appear in a Chronicled Wish if their Character Event Wish banner has run at least three times and has not run recently. 5-stars appearing here can still appear in normal banners and subsequent Chronicled Wish runs.

Approaching the Wish System Prudently

Other than simply understanding the rates of Genshin’s gacha, the right mindset can go a long way in making your rolling experience less miserable or infuriating and can encourage better planning.

It is better to consider the number of rolls needed to guarantee your desired item the purchase price, and anything less than the guarantee as a discount. For, at the end of the day, the rates have no mercy. There is no desire sensor and no effective ritual that can modify your chances. Do not expect to get lucky. If you want to get an item, save up enough to hit pity, such that even in the worst case scenario you have enough Fates to obtain it. 

If you do not want the featured 5-star on the Character Event Wish banner, do not wish on it. That is known as “building pity” and is widely regarded as a very bad idea. It is particularly important to avoid “building pity” if you are well on the way to soft or hard pity or have a guarantee for the next 5-star, as any surprise early 5-star will reset your pity or consume your guarantee. Only wish if you are fully aware of this possibility and are okay with the consequences of getting an early 5-star at that point. 

Generally speaking, and especially for newbies, characters are much more important than weapons. Characters can function just fine without their specific 5-star weapon, and having the right characters for the teams you want to play is much more important. The double rate-up system of the weapon banner is also more punishing if you only want one of the two weapons. All in all, do not wish on the weapon banner unless you know what you are doing.

Rerolling

Generally speaking, rerolling in Genshin is not recommended. Each reroll attempt takes quite a long time and does not give many rolls — combined with the low rate for 5-stars of 0.6% before pity, it can take a very long time to get a successful reroll. If you are inclined to reroll, you may consider targeting a good 4-star off the beginner’s banner — any of Xingqiu, Bennett, Fischl, or Sucrose, or even more than one of those. Sucrose is particularly valuable because the rest can be bought from Paimon’s Bargains (see below), but she cannot and thus cannot be guaranteed. This may make your mid-game experience easier.

Starglitter and Stardust in Paimon’s Bargains

Masterless Starglitter and Masterless Stardust are currencies obtained from wishing. These are used in the Paimon Shop.

Masterless Starglitter

Masterless Stardust

Every month, you can buy up to 5 Intertwined Fates (limited) and 5 Acquaint Fates (standard) using Masterless Stardust. Save your Stardust for this only; Stardust can be used on other materials but this should only be done once you have a very large surplus, something that newbies do not have. The other option that might be worth considering is Dust of Azoth, if you lack the Ascension Gems needed for a character and don’t want to waste Resin farming Bosses that drop materials you don’t need (see Original Resin Part 2). You can also exchange 5 Starglitter for 1 Fate of either type; as Intertwined Fates are more valuable, players tend to prefer buying them over Acquaint Fates.

The shop also offers two selected 4-star characters and one 4-star weapon series for Masterless Starglitter. The characters and weapons on offer are on a schedule:

MonthsCharacters (34 Starglitter)Weapons (24 Starglitter)
January, JulyFischl, XianglingBlackcliff Series
February, AugustBeidou, NoelleRoyal Series
March, SeptemberNingguang, XingqiuBlackcliff Series
April, OctoberRazor, AmberRoyal Series
May, NovemberBennett, LisaBlackcliff Series
June, DecemberBarbara, KaeyaRoyal Series

Some of the available 4-star characters (Xingqiu, Bennett, Xiangling, Fischl) form the core of many teams and/or have important Constellations. Paimon’s Bargains gives players a guaranteed method to acquire the characters and Constellations for the price of slightly less than 7 Fates, which can make teambuilding significantly easier. As such, it’s generally recommended to save Starglitter for these characters or Constellations instead of directly exchanging for Wishes. The most notable Constellations to target are Xingqiu’s C2 and C6, Xiangling’s C4, Fischl’s C6, and Bennett’s C1.

Do not buy the weapons from Paimon’s Bargains. They are not particularly good and generally not worth it.

Elemental Reaction Basics

As the Elemental tutorials in-game will have explained, entities and beings can become affected by an Element when they are attacked with that Element or come into contact with natural sources of it. This is known as Elemental application. Some beings, like slimes, are naturally affected with their corresponding Element.

The state of being affected by an Element is known as an Elemental aura, which is displayed as an Elemental symbol above the health bar. 

When an Elemental application meets an Elemental aura, a reaction often happens. In-game tutorials pop up when you first trigger reactions; they provide basic information on what each reaction does and are sufficient knowledge for early-game players. As there are a lot of reactions, their categorization may make remembering their qualities easier. Reactions belong to one of four categories: Amplifying, Additive, Transformative, and non-damaging. 

Amplifying reactions (namely Vaporize and Melt) multiply the damage of the attack that caused it by either 1.5x or 2x at base, depending on the Element that triggers it. This multiplier increases with the triggering character’s Elemental Mastery (EM).

The Vaporize multiplier is ~1.75x here because of Hu Tao’s Elemental Mastery stat.

Additive reactions (namely Aggravate and Spread) add a certain amount of damage to the damage of the attack that caused it. EM increases the amount of damage added.

Transformative reactions (namely Overloaded, Superconduct, Electro-Charged, Swirl, Shatter, Burning, Bloom, Burgeon, and Hyperbloom) create a separate instance of damage and may have secondary effects besides damage. EM increases the magnitude of the separate damage instance.

Despite the magenta color, the damage caused by Overloaded is Pyro damage.

Non-damaging reactions (Frozen, Crystallize, Quicken) do not directly cause damage, but they have secondary effects, including enabling other reactions.

Elemental Mastery increases the strength of the Crystallize shield. It does not affect Frozen nor Quicken, though Quicken enables Aggravate and Spread which are affected by EM.

Character level affects the strength of Transformative and Additive reactions. For all reactions, the rule is that the Elemental application that triggers the reaction “owns” the reaction, and hence the Elemental Mastery stat of the character who applied said Element determines the effect of the reaction. The Elemental Mastery of the character who provided the Elemental aura does not matter. 

For reactions with multiple stages, only the last application affects the resulting reaction. 
For an in-depth but easy-to-digest guide to Elemental Reactions and the underlying system of Elemental Gauge Theory, check out this video. It may not be entirely level-appropriate if you are totally new, but it’s great for players approaching mid-game who want to better understand this system.

AR13–20

A few new systems are unlocked in these ARs. The guide sections below introduce Expeditions, World Level, and Weapon/Character Ascension. Your AR will still be rapidly increasing at this point from following the main Archon Quest chain, so just continue working on quests and exploration as limited-time Events still aren’t available yet.

Expeditions

Characters can be sent out on Expeditions from the Adventurers’ Guild for 4, 8, 12, or 20 hours, with the number of slots increasing with AR up to a maximum of 5 slots at AR36. These Expeditions provide an opportunity to obtain a small amount of materials, such as plants, ores, or Mora, for little effort. Generally, it’s best to just select the longest duration of 20 hours. 

The most common choices for expeditions are ores, to save on mining needs, and Mora, which early-game players frequently run out of. Each region has its own expedition slots, which are unlocked when you unlock the corresponding section of the map from a Statue of the Seven. 

Some characters have Passive Talents that either speed up the time taken by 25% or increase the rewards by 25% for expeditions in their home region. 

World Level and Ascension Quests

Your World Level, which is displayed in the Paimon Menu, determines the difficulty of enemies and Bosses in the overworld as well as the rewards received from defeating them. After AR20, it increases every 5 ARs.

World Level

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Adventure Rank

1–19

20–25

25–29

30–35

35–39

40–45

45–50

50–54

55–60

To unlock World Levels 2, 4, 6, and 7, you have to complete an Ascension Quest. Putting off the Ascension Quest allows you to stay at your current World Level, but this is not recommended as increasing World Level significantly boosts Boss, enemy, and Domain rewards, which help to progress your account. The difficulty increase is manageable, and you can get help from Co-Op if there is a Boss or Domain that is too difficult to handle alone.

As more and more permanent content has been added to the game, most of which give Adventure EXP, players are now able to progress through ARs significantly faster than when Genshin first launched. As such, the Ascension Quests have had their difficulty repeatedly reduced. 

Original Resin Part 2: Unlocking Ascension Phases

The maximum level of characters and weapons is tied to their Ascension Phase, which caps out at Ascension 6 or Level 90. Increasing a character or weapon’s ascension phase is called “ascending,” and it requires a selection of materials gathered from the overworld and a specific Ascension Material that requires spending Resin to obtain. Characters also require Ascension Gems of their Element.

Ascension PhaseMax LevelUnlocked at AR:
020
14015
25025
36030
47035
58040
69050

For characters, their Ascension Materials can be obtained from defeating World Bosses (also known as Normal Bosses), with each Boss reward claim costing 40 Resin. These consist of Elemental Ascension Gems and a Boss drop material that is unique to each World Boss. Bosses do not necessarily drop Ascension Gems corresponding to the character that wants that Boss’s Ascension materials; this can be remedied with Dust of Azoth, which converts Ascension Gems from one Element to another. The amount of rewards received from Bosses scales with your World Level (WL), so it is inefficient to farm Boss drops in advance if you haven’t yet unlocked that Ascension Phase.

For weapons, their Ascension Material can be obtained from Domains of Forgery, unlocked at AR16. Such a Domain contains three different Ascension Materials, with availability being determined by the day of the week — each material is available for two days from Monday to Saturday, and all materials are available on Sunday.

The rewards received from Domains are not correlated with your WL and are instead based on the Domain level. For Domains of Forgery, the second, third, and fourth levels unlock at ARs 21, 30, and 40 respectively.

Co-Op Mode

At AR16, Co-Op Mode is unlocked. With this, other players can now join your world, and you can join other players’ worlds. However, you can only join worlds with a World Level equal to or lower than your own. You gain the option to lower your World Level by one at WL5, but this is generally not recommended as it reduces the rewards you can get. Every change in World Level will persist for a minimum of 24 hours. 

Co-Op has limitations, such as being unable to interact with most NPCs and Statues of the Seven. Some Story Quests also disable Co-Op Mode. As such, Co-Op is most often used for assistance in combat, either in the overworld or in Domains. However, it is important to note that enemy stats also increase in Co-Op. If you are requesting help from a player of significantly higher AR, this won’t be a problem; but, if players are of similar strength, it is possible for Co-Op to actually make the combat challenge harder.

Number of PlayersEnemy Base HPEnemy Base ATK
1100%100%
2150%110%
3200%125%
4250%140%

Overworld Tips Part 2: Material Collection

The overworld is brimming with resources to harvest, most of which are necessary for upgrading characters or weapons. The interactive map is a handy way to look up the locations of key items. 

Items in the overworld have differing respawn timers based on type — below is a handy infographic covering all of these.

Characters and weapons usually require upgrade materials from the region that they belong to, so you might pull a character who requires materials or Boss drops from a region you have yet to explore. Fortunately, the developers are aware of this issue and have added four Teleport Waypoints across the farther ends of Teyvat that automatically unlock after the completion of Mondstadt’s Archon Quest, removing the need for new players to trek dozens of kilometers across just to get to far-flung regions.

However, Inazuma, the third nation the Traveler goes to, is wholly inaccessible until you start its Archon Quest, and the sub-areas of Enkanomiya and the Chasm Underground are also quest-locked. While you can access Bosses and areas you have not yet unlocked by going into Co-Op Mode, it is unlikely that there are many accounts with a low enough World Level that have also unlocked those areas. To upgrade characters and weapons from these regions, the best way is to continue playing through quests and unlock those areas yourself. This is not a serious hurdle in the long term and should not be considered as a major limitation when planning which characters to pull for.

Spiral Abyss

The Spiral Abyss is unlocked at AR20. It is located on Musk Reef, which can be accessed by flying into a glowing portal at the tip of Cape Oath, Mondstadt.

The Spiral Abyss consists of twelve floors in two parts: Floor 1–8 (Corridor) and 9–12 (Spire). Each floor has three chambers, and clearing a chamber grants rewards. The Corridor’s enemy layout and clear rewards are one-time and do not reset, whereas the Spire’s clear rewards reset on the sixteenth of every month, and its enemy layout changes with the first reset of every new version. The last floor of the Spiral Abyss is one of the two main forms of endgame content in Genshin, and it usually takes until AR50+ for the average player to successfully complete. The other form of endgame is the Imaginarium Theater, released in Version 4.7.

Clearing Floor 3 and 4 of the Spiral Abyss grants the player the characters Xiangling and Collei respectively; they can be useful additions to the roster and acquired fairly early on. As there are no penalties for failing the combat challenges, feel free to challenge Abyss floors at any time. 

Alchemy (Crafting)

The guy on the left annoyed so many people with accidental interactions he was first moved farther away from the Crafting Bench and then given a dialogue option to send you straight into the Crafting Bench UI.

Character Ascension Gems, Weapon Ascension Materials, Character Talent Materials and enemy drops from the overworld all come in multiple star rarities. One of the main functions of the crafting bench is to allow items of lower rarities to be combined into their higher-rarity versions.

Another reason for trips to the crafting bench is condensing Resin — this effectively allows players to claim rewards twice from the completion of one Domain or Ley Line Outcrop, saving time and effort. Condensed Resin is unlocked through the Reputation system discussed below and requires Crystal Cores, which can be obtained from catching Crystalflies in the overworld. 

Finally, while the crafting bench also has some miscellaneous gadgets and potions, these are generally of little use.

AR21–30

Time-limited event content is usually unlocked in these ARs, and you should prioritize them to get Primogem rewards. You’ll likely spend most of these ARs working through Liyue’s Archon Quest, and at AR30 the Inazuma Archon Quest is unlocked.

Regarding new gameplay feature additions, Talents and artifacts become farmable, but you should avoid farming artifacts until AR45. The Reputation system and the Serenitea Pot are also unlocked. 

Version Updates and Content Cycle

Genshin Impact’s content can be largely broken down into permanent quests, overworld exploration, time-limited events, and combat (Spiral Abyss). The first two are immediately available and provide early-game direction, with time-limited events becoming available between ARs 20 and 30, while the higher floors of Spiral Abyss are to be tackled post-AR45. 

Genshin Impact is a live-service game, meaning it constantly receives updates with new content. These major content updates are known as “versions” or “patches.” Each version lasts roughly 6 weeks on average and adds time-limited content, which may only be experienced within the version itself, as well as permanent content, quests and sometimes overworld expansions that continue to be available in subsequent versions. 

Versions are named using a major and minor version number, with the major version number indicating which chapter of the main story (Archon Quest) the game is in. For instance, Genshin released at Version 1.0 together with the Prologue chapter and Chapter 1 of the story. The minor version number increased until Version 1.6, after which Version 2.0 released together with Chapter 2 of the story.

Ordinarily, each version has 5 time-limited events. This includes 1 flagship event awarding ~1000 Primogems, 3 normal events awarding ~420 Primogems, and 1 minor event that doubles the rewards for either Ley Line Outcrops (Mora and Character EXP) or Domains of Mastery (Character Talent Materials). Additionally, the anniversary version (September 28) and the Lantern Rite version (between January and February) will have bonus login and mail rewards.

Approximately 12 days before a new version comes out, there will be a special program livestream previewing the upcoming content. The English-language stream goes live on Twitch and YouTube; the Japanese and Korean versions go live on YouTube; the Chinese version goes live on BiliBili. Typically, character voice actors behind 2D character chibis will present the livestream content, except for the anniversary and Lantern Rite version streams which have the development team presenting in Chinese with subtitles. Except for different voice actors and collaborations, all four stream languages have materially identical content. This special program comes with 3 codes for 100 Primogems each, and the codes expire in less than 16 hours. Make sure to claim them. Note that the codes for the Chinese livestream are different; use the codes from the English, Japanese, or Korean special programs.

Original Resin Part 3: Talents and (Not) Farming Artifacts (Yet)

Domains of Blessing, which drop artifacts, are unlocked at AR22. While these Domains are where most players end up spending the majority of their Resin, they are not worth farming until AR45 when the last Domain level opens up, since only that level guarantees 5-star artifact drops. 

In the meantime, focus on other areas of account progression such as character Ascension and Talents. The order of investment for your typical ATK-scaling DPS generally goes like this:

Weapon Level > Relevant Talents > Character Ascension > Character Level.

Domains of Mastery are unlocked at AR27. These Domains reward Character Talent Materials, commonly known as Talent books, which allow you to upgrade character Combat Talents — their Normal Attack, Elemental Skill, and Elemental Burst. 

When a character uses a Talent, the numbers resulting from it such as damage, healing, or shield durability are based on the Talent’s scaling. You can view a Talent’s current scaling by selecting the Talent in-game. This scaling can be increased significantly by increasing the Talent level, which ranges from 1–10. Talent upgrades are gated by a character’s Ascension. Additionally, characters unlock Passive Talents at Ascensions 1 and 4 — these are commonly referred to as a character’s A1 and A4 Passives respectively.

Ascension PhaseMax Character LevelUnlocked at AR:Max Talent Level
0201
140151
250252
360304
470356
580408
6905010

Note that most characters do not utilize all three of their Talents, so you should only upgrade those that are relevant. Check out a character guide to determine which Talents are relevant for the character you are building.

Upgrading Talents above Level 6 requires Talent Material drops from Weekly Bosses

Finally, Constellations also influence Talents. A character’s third and fifth Constellations give a +3 level increase to a Talent, which means that Talent levels usually only reach up to 13, though special passives or event buffs can raise it up to a hardcoded maximum of 15. 

Reputation System

At AR25, the Reputation system is unlocked. In order to gain access to a nation’s Reputation, you need to complete a quest that becomes available after the first one or two acts in the nation’s Archon Quest chain. You can increase your Reputation level for a particular nation by making exploration progress in that nation at set percentages (20%, 40%, and 60%), completing Archon and World Quests (one-time reward), and fulfilling weekly Requests and Bounties (3 of each are available per week).

Gaining Reputation levels grants rewards, including some gadgets, furnishings, namecards, and shop discounts. Furthermore, at the max level (Reputation 10), you can get a glider themed after the respective nation. A notable Reputation reward is the Condensed Resin recipe, unlocked at Liyue Reputation Level 3. 

For the full list of Reputation rewards, check out the Genshin Wiki’s Reputation article. 

Serenitea Pot and Fishing

The Serenitea Pot, referred to by the Genshin community as simply “Teapot,” is unlocked at AR28. While some players may not be interested in it, the Teapot provides a good amount of resources weekly and should be set up. For more details, check out KQM’s Teapot Guide

Unlocking the Teapot also unlocks Fishing. The Fishing article on the Genshin Wiki is a good reference for this game system, so this guide does not detail fishing mechanics.

While fishing is a somewhat tedious game system that most find unenjoyable, three 4-star weapons are obtainable by fishing: the Catch (Polearm), End of the Line (Bow), and Fleuve Cendre Ferryman (Sword). 

  • The Catch is a very good Polearm for Xiangling, and with the Xiangling-Bennett combination being so common and reliably strong, any player planning to use Xiangling should grab the Catch too. The weapon is also good for Raiden and sometimes Rosaria. 
  • End of the Line is the weakest of the three weapons. There is no particular need to obtain it unless you’re desperate for a Bow with an ER% secondary stat.
  • Fleuve Cendre Ferryman is a Sword that gives a lot of ER%, and it can be immensely helpful for solving Energy problems on characters like Dendro Traveler, Xingqiu, or other Energy-hungry Sword units if you lack any Favonius weapons.

But I don’t want to fish!

Fair enough. Though, fishing isn’t really all that bad. Fish only respawn every 72 hours, so the chore is already paced for you unless you decide to Co-Op and fish in other people’s worlds. 

But I really, really, don’t want to fish!

That’s fine. The point of a game is to have fun, after all. So long as you’re willing to accept any difficulties brought by limiting your weapon options or if you’ve acquired superior weapons, go and play Genshin as you like!

AR31–45

After working through Inazuma’s Archon Quests, Sumeru’s questline is unlocked at AR35, and Fontaine’s at AR40 — plenty of content to look forward to.

A large number of Story Quests are also unlocked in these Adventure Ranks, although you may not have access to all of them until getting through an Archon Quest or other Story Quests. Completing Story Quests provides a good amount of Adventure EXP to make progress towards AR45 and beyond. 

As all the game mechanics have already been introduced, AR31–45 is also a good time to start proactively familiarizing yourself with basic game mechanics, combat, and character kits if you haven’t already.

Early-Game Combat: “Who Should I Build?”

The amount of building you can do before AR45 is somewhat limited, since farming artifacts is a no-go. Relying on Transformative Reactions is thus often easier for newbies, as these only scale with character level and EM. This contrasts with Additive and Amplifying Reactions, which also scale with weapon and Talent levels, CRIT, and more.

Without the options needed to build the right teams, characters who rely on Bursts with high Energy Costs are just as, if not even more difficult to use, as you need either weapons or artifacts with Energy Recharge, and, in some cases, other specific characters who can generate Energy for the Energy-hungry character. 

With that in mind, below is an overview of freely available characters and some especially good 4-star characters for this part of the game. Pre-AR55, you’re not likely to have played for long enough to have your choice of limited 5-stars or the Fates to pull them, so 5-star units are not discussed here. Do check out their respective character guides if a 5-star character you’re interested in is currently on-banner.

Pyro
Electro
Cryo
Hydro
Dendro
Anemo
Geo

Pyro

Bennett
Bennett
While Bennett is a Burst-based healer, his Skill has a short cooldown and a Passive talent to further reduce that cooldown, allowing him to spam his Skill while in the field created by his Burst. Additionally, on-field characters within his Burst field gain a Flat ATK buff that scales with just his Base ATK — which can be increased by weapon levels and his own levels — and his Burst level.
Xiangling
Xiangling
Upon clearing the third floor of the Spiral Abyss, you can claim a free copy of Xiangling. While she becomes a formidable damage dealer later on, she is fairly weak in the early-game because of her reliance on a high-cost Burst and buffers like Bennett.
Amber
Amber
Amber is given for free at the very beginning of the game. As a Pyro Bow character, she has gained a reputation as being just a torch-lighter. That is, unfortunately, an accurate reputation in the case of many players.

Electro

Shinobu
Kuki Shinobu
Shinobu is a Skill-based healer who also applies Electro in a radius around her. Her ability to provide on-demand healing and trigger Transformative Reactions like Hyperbloom makes her quite useful all the way from early- to late-game. Shinobu’s Boss material for Ascension is locked inside the Chasm Underground, so you need to progress through the main quest line if you decide to build her.
Fischl
Fischl
Fischl can summon Oz, her raven familiar, with either her Skill or Burst. As a turret, Oz deals largely single-target damage that can come in handy if you need to panic-run *ahem* make a tactical retreat from enemies.
Lisa
Lisa
Lisa is given for free at the end of her Story Quest. She has a high-cost Burst and a finicky Skill that requires her to stand still for at least 1.9s, which an enemy may interrupt to send her tumbling. This can be ameliorated by her C2, but Lisa’s C2 is entirely unrealistic for a new player to obtain. 

Nevertheless, as a Catalyst user, Lisa can apply Electro on demand and can be used in a basic Hyperbloom setup.
Electro Traveler
Electro Traveler
While Electro Traveler’s kit is ostensibly built around generating Energy for their allies, they themselves have punishingly high ER requirements. While the Traveler can trigger Hyperbloom in theory, the reliance on their Burst coupled with high ER requirements makes them fairly newbie-unfriendly.

Cryo

Kaeya
Kaeya
Kaeya is given for free at the end of his Story Quest. His tall male model allows you to run faster and dodge attacks more comfortably, and his Utility Passive reduces sprinting Stamina consumption, all of which makes him a great pick as a primary unit for overworld traversal if you lack characters with special movement abilities. Paired with a Hydro character like Xingqiu or Barbara, you can Freeze enemies and put a stop to their attacks.

Hydro

Barbara
Barbara
Barbara is given for free during the Act III of Mondstadt’s Archon Quest. She heals with her Skill, which also periodically applies Hydro to very-nearby enemies. Just like in Shinobu’s case, Skill-based healing that can be used without needing Energy is very convenient in the early-game. However, Barbara’s Skill applies Hydro to the active character periodically, allowing enemies to use Elemental Reactions on them — something to be careful about.
Xingqiu
Xingqiu
While Xingqiu has a high-cost Burst, his Skill provides damage reduction and minor healing, as well as the same sort of Hydro application as Barbara’s Skill. His Burst provides decent damage and lots of off-field Hydro application, making him a highly desirable unit that many late-game teams want. Investing resources into Xingqiu will never be a waste.

Dendro

Collei
Collei
Upon clearing the fourth floor of Spiral Abyss, you can claim a free copy of Collei. She has a few instances of Dendro application on her Skill allowing you to access the Hyperbloom reaction.
Yaoyao
Yaoyao
Yaoyao is another Skill-based healer, but she also applies Dendro. Just like Collei, she allows access to Hyperbloom and is quite useful for the early-game.
Dendro Traveler
Dendro Traveler
If you walk to a Sumeru Statue of the Seven, you can resonate with Dendro and access Dendro Traveler. They provide quite a good amount of off-field Dendro application with their Burst but have fairly demanding ER requirements.

Anemo

Sucrose
Sucrose
Swirl’s ability to spread Elements around and cause further reactions makes it particularly impressive. As an Anemo Catalyst user, Sucrose can apply Anemo anytime for Swirl, and her Skill has a large AoE for even more Swirl fun plus some mild grouping for smaller enemies. As Swirl needs Pyro, Electro, Hydro, or Cryo Elemental aura to occur, it’s recommended to bring teammates of those Elements with her.
Lynette
Lynette
Lynette is obtained for free after reaching AR25. Her Hold Skill sprint isn’t very fast (slower than a tall male model character played optimally), but it doesn’t consume Stamina. Unlike some 5-stars with similar movement-enabling Skills, however, Stamina doesn’t regenerate while in motion either.
Anemo Travelers
Anemo Traveler
Anemo Traveler is pretty much the first character you get. Their Burst has the funny effect of moving enemies away from you — something not particularly productive when you’re trying to defeat them — but their Skill is fine as a way to Swirl.

Geo

Noelle
Noelle
While not technically free, Noelle is guaranteed on the Beginner’s Banner. She has a shield on her Skill, and while that shield is up she can heal the team with her Normal and Charged Attacks. However, her Skill has a much longer cooldown than her shield has duration, and she is not particularly useful for dealing damage unless well-invested. As such, she’s not particularly recommended for newbies who lack the resources to effectively invest in her.
Geo Travelers
Geo Traveler
Geo Traveler’s Skill creates (up to 3) boulders that are necessary for some early puzzles or slightly-too-high collectibles. Unfortunately, these boulders also become a pain in combat since they block projectiles and characters can accidentally climb them.

Encounter Points and Commission Achievement Farming

Adventure Encounters

At AR35 or after completing Archon Quest Chapter II Act III, a system called Adventure Encounters is unlocked. This system provides Encounter Points, an alternative way to collect Daily Commission rewards by completing quests, opening chests, or collecting Event rewards. These points cannot be saved up, but quests and event rewards can. As such, a common tactic to skip the most commissions is to refrain from claiming more Event rewards than are necessary to claim the needed Encounter Points. Though, do remember to collect all rewards before the Event goes away. Requests (but not Bounties) from the Reputation system provide exactly one Encounter Point.

Daily Commissions remain completable even if all rewards have been claimed; they just don’t provide any rewards.

Weekly Bosses

There are some Bosses, unlocked by completing Story or Archon Quests, whose rewards can only be collected once a week and reset every Monday at 04:00 in the morning according to server time. Claiming the rewards costs 60 Resin, but the first 3 rewards are discounted by half to 30 Resin. Claiming more than 3 Weekly Boss rewards in one week is not recommended, as their Resin efficiency drops dramatically without the discount. 

Furthermore, Weekly Bosses drop Elemental Ascension Gems corresponding to the Elements of the Boss, and, at AR40/WL5+, special Talent materials — you can view the drop table by selecting the Boss’ Domain. Each Boss has three types of special Talent materials they can drop. They also have a chance to drop billets, which you can use to craft weapons, as well as; and Dream Solvents, which are used to convert the aforementioned special Talent materials from one type to another. 

Imaginarium Theater

The Imaginarium Theater gamemode, released in version 4.7, is unlocked at AR35. As of writing, this gamemode has not been released and will require further investigation for a comprehensive overview to be added in a future update. For now, consider referring to the HoYoLAB post about it

Understanding Character Kits

For the purpose of building characters, you need to understand how that character works. This means, at the most basic level, having the ability to read the Talents and Constellations of a character and deduce how that character is meant to be played. 

A team in Genshin Impact generally wants to do two things: keep all four members’ HP above zero, and reduce all the enemies’ HP to zero. Characters are generally designed to contribute to these objectives, with varying success. In practice, this means that the functions of characters can be broadly split into:

  1. dealing damage via Talents and reactions
  2. enabling the aforementioned reactions and buffing said damage
  3. keeping teammates alive via healing, shields, and/or damage reduction.

Character kits contain some of the above functions to varying degrees, and characters can be described as fulfilling a certain role in a team based on that. Whether the character works as an on-field or off-field unit is also important, as most teams only have time for one dedicated on-field unit. 

Furthermore, some commonly used terms include DPS, enabler, buffer, shielder, and healer. Characters can and do fulfill multiple roles at the same time — for example, Xingqiu is both an enabler and an off-field DPS, and Bennett is both a buffer and a healer while also having an alternative playstyle as an on-field DPS. When reading a character’s kit, you should keep in mind what role(s) the kit may push that character towards to better understand their abilities. 

At first glance, character kits appear daunting due to the large amount of specific terminology for each thing the character does, which is then cross-referenced throughout the other parts of the kit. Talent descriptions can also get somewhat wordy in an effort to be specific and unambiguous, which some people find difficult to understand. 

In actuality, however, any character kit can be roughly understood in two read-throughs of the talents and their multipliers once the reader has an understanding of the basic terminology that Genshin uses in kit descriptions (e.g., Conversion, Infusion, damage types, resistance to interruption), a basic understanding of how reactions work, and what functions are available to characters by virtue of their weapon, Element, or abilities that are not inherent to the kit itself. For example, Anemo characters can Swirl, and thus can use a buffing artifact set called Viridescent Venerer; characters who deal consistent Skill damage from off-field can use Tenacity of the Millelith, another buffing set. 

You should also notice in these read-throughs what information is needed for a deeper understanding that isn’t stated in the kit itself and will have to be sought through alternative sources or playtesting. There are only two main things to keep in mind: firstly, keep an eye out for any specific terminology and convert it into more intuitive labels whenever possible; and secondly, try to picture how the kit might be used and what role the character fits into.

Example #1: Analyzing Lynette’s Kit

Normal Attack: Rapid Ritesword

Normal Attack
Performs up to 4 rapid strikes.

Charged Attack
Consumes a certain amount of Stamina to unleash 2 rapid sword strikes.

Plunging Attack
Plunges from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging opponents along the path and dealing AoE DMG upon impact.

Lynette’s Normal Attack Talent has no embellishments and is as simple as it gets.

Elemental Skill: Enigmatic Feint

Flicks her mantle and executes an Enigma Thrust, dealing Anemo DMG.
When the Enigma Thrust hits an opponent, it will restore Lynette’s HP based on her Max HP, and in the 4s afterward, she will lose a certain amount of HP per second.
Based on whether you press or hold this ability, she will use Enigma Thrust differently.

Press
She swiftly uses an Enigma Thrust.

Hold
Lynette will enter a high-speed Pilfering Shadow state and apply Shadowsign to a nearby opponent. You can control her movement direction during this state, and you can end it prematurely by using this skill again.
When this high-speed state ends, Lynette will unleash her Enigma Thrust. If there is an opponent with Shadowsign applied to them nearby, Lynette will approach them in a flash before using Enigma Thrust.

A maximum of 1 opponent can have Shadowsign at any one time. When this opponent gets too far from Lynette, the Shadowsign will be canceled.

Arkhe: Ousia
At specific intervals, Lynette will unleash a Surging Blade when she uses Enigma Thrust, dealing Ousia-aligned Anemo DMG.

So, this thing called an “Enigma Thrust” deals Anemo damage. When Lynette hits an enemy with it, she will heal herself for 25% of her Max HP, then lose 6% of her current HP for 4s. While the description vaguely says “a certain amount” of HP will be drained from Lynette, the Skill’s Attributes tab tells you clearly what that amount is.

Lynette’s Skill has a Press and Hold variation. This means that it will do different things depending on whether you simply tap the skill button or hold it down when activating the Skill. On tap, she simply does the Enigma Thrust immediately. On hold, she enters a “high-speed Pilfering Shadow state” (mentally convert this to “Hold Skill state”) and applies a “Shadowsign” to a nearby opponent. You can see from the Attributes tab that the state lasts up to 2.5s. During her Hold Skill state, her movement direction can be controlled. From this, you can tell that, basically, holding Lynette’s Skill lets her move quickly for up to 2.5s. 

As for Lynette’s Shadowsign, it can only be applied to one opponent at a time, and the Enigma Thrust at the end of her Hold Skill targets the enemy with the Shadowsign.

Arkhe is a Fontaine-specific mechanic that affects certain Fontaininan enemies and puzzles. As it doesn’t materially affect the functionality of Lynette’s kit, you can skip over that.

Elemental Burst: Magic Trick: Astonishing Shift

Lynette raises her mantle high, dealing AoE Anemo DMG, using skillful sleight of hand to make a giant Bogglecat Box appear! 

Bogglecat Box
• Taunts nearby opponents, attracting their attacks.
• Deals Anemo DMG to nearby opponents at intervals.
• When the Bogglecat Box comes into contact with Hydro/Pyro/Cryo/Electro, it will gain the corresponding element and additionally fire Vivid Shots that will deal DMG from that element at intervals. Elemental Absorption of this kind will only occur once during this ability’s duration.

Lynette’s Burst summons an object called a “Bogglecat Box,” which lasts 12s (as seen from the Attributes tab). Since that’s all it does, the community, for convenience’s sake, usually refers to the Box itself as her Burst.

This object taunts and deals Anemo damage to nearby opponents. It also has a mechanic known as Elemental Absorption. This mechanic, which some Anemo units have, allows an ability to “absorb” an Element from enemies or the environment and deal additional damage of that Element (plus corresponding Elemental application) for the duration of the ability. Of course, if you don’t have any teammates of Elements that can be absorbed, getting an Absorption will be unreliable or impossible depending on the enemies.

While the Talent description itself doesn’t say, the exact intervals with which Lynette’s Burst deals Anemo and/or absorption damage would also be of interest.

1st Ascension Passive (A1): Sophisticated Synergy

Within 10s after using Magic Trick: Astonishing Shift, when there are 1/2/3/4 Elemental Types in the party, all party members’ ATK will be increased by 8%/12%/16%/20% respectively.

This simple passive provides a small team buff when Lynette uses her Burst and mildly incentivizes using characters of different Elements in your party. However, do note that this is a very minor incentive (4% ATK per Element) and almost all other teambuilding considerations would take priority over that.

  4th Ascension Passive (A4): Props Positively Prepped

After the Bogglecat Box summoned by Magic Trick: Astonishing Shift performs Elemental Conversion, Lynette’s Elemental Burst will deal 15% more DMG. This effect will persist until the Bogglecat Box’s duration ends.

Admittedly, “Conversion” is somewhat of an inaccurate translation since the capability is usually called Elemental Absorption. Such translation inconsistencies happen from time to time, but they can usually be resolved by looking at the context. In this case, it’s clearly referring to the Elemental Absorption on Lynette’s Burst. This increases her Burst’s damage. 

Conclusion on Lynette’s Kit

Having looked at her base kit (Constellations not included), it’s clear that Lynette is an off-field character, since her Normal Attacks don’t do anything and the majority of her combat functionality is in her Burst. While her Skill looks complicated, in combat its use is very simple — just tap it to deal Anemo damage and get Anemo Particles. The high-speed movement from Lynette’s Hold Skill can be useful in the overworld, but it’s not really useful for combat. 

Furthermore, judging from the fact that Lynette is an Anemo character, she has the ability to hold 4pc Viridescent Venerer, an artifact set that shreds Elemental RES on Swirl. Therefore, you can surmise her to be an off-field support that buffs the damage of on-field characters using 4pc Viridescent Venerer, and that she further provides mild defensive utility via her Burst’s Taunt.

Example #2: Analyzing Cyno’s Kit

Normal Attack: Invoker’s Spear

Normal Attack
Performs up to 4 consecutive spear strikes.

Charged Attack
Consumes a certain amount of Stamina to lunge forward, dealing damage to opponents along the way.

Plunging Attack
Plunges from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging opponents along the path and dealing AoE DMG upon impact.

Cyno’s Normal Attack Talent is as simple as it gets. It has no additional effects beyond the barebones description common to all Polearm characters.

  Elemental Skill: Secret Rite: Chasmic Soulfarer

Performs a swift thrust, dealing Electro DMG to opponents along the path.

When Cyno is under the Pactsworn Pathclearer state triggered by Sacred Rite: Wolf’s Swiftness, he will instead unleash a Mortuary Rite that deals thunderous AoE Electro DMG and extends the duration of Pactsworn Pathclearer.

Cyno’s Skill has two forms: first, a “swift thrust” with a 7.5s CD; second, when under “Pactsworn Pathclearer,” the Skill becomes “Mortuary Rite” with a 3s CD that extends the duration of “Pactsworn Pathclearer” (at this point, you still don’t know what “Pactsworn Pathclearer” is).

Elemental Burst: Sacred Rite: Wolf’s Swiftness

Calls upon a divine spirit to indwell him, morphing into the Pactsworn Pathclearer.

Pactsworn Pathclearer
Cyno’s Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks will be converted to Electro DMG that cannot be overridden.
Cyno’s Elemental Mastery and resistance to interruption will increase, and he gains immunity to Electro-Charged DMG.

This effect will be canceled when Cyno leaves the field and lasts a maximum of 18s.

Now you know what “Pactsworn Pathclearer” is — it’s a special mode activated by Cyno’s Elemental Burst. At this point, you can mentally translate all mentions of “Pactsworn Pathclearer” into a simpler and more intuitive label, like “Burst mode” or “Q form”. His Skill can also be translated into “Skill in Burst” and “Skill outside Burst.”

You can also see that Cyno’s Burst mode converts his Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks to Electro damage, increases his Elemental Mastery, and will be canceled when he leaves the field. From this, you can conclude that Cyno is meant to be played on-field and deal Electro damage. Recalling that his Skill has a separate form while in Burst mode, and that it has both a shorter cooldown and extends the duration of his Burst mode, you can surmise that his Skill is supposed to be used while in Burst mode.

  1st Ascension Passive (A1): Featherfall Judgment

When Cyno is in the Pactsworn Pathclearer state activated by Sacred Rite: Wolf’s Swiftness, Cyno will enter the Endseer stance at intervals. If he activates Secret Rite: Chasmic Soulfarer while affected by this stance, he will activate the Judication effect, increasing the DMG of this Secret Rite: Chasmic Soulfarer by 35%, and firing off 3 Duststalker Bolts that deal 100% of Cyno’s ATK as Electro DMG.

Duststalker Bolt DMG is considered Elemental Skill DMG.

Goodness, what a paragraph — why do the developers even write like this? But really, it’s not as complicated as it first looks. 

The first sentence: when Burst mode is active, Cyno will enter the “Endseer” stance from time to time

The second sentence: if Cyno uses his Skill while in “Endseer,” the Skill hit will deal more damage and add 3 extra instances of damage

That seems like a fairly big increase in damage, so it should be important to use Cyno’s Skill while in Endseer. This also fits in with the earlier postulation that Cyno’s Skill is supposed to be used while in Burst mode. However, you may also notice that it’s not stated how often “from time to time” is or what this “Endseer” stance looks like. You should make a note to find that out.

  4th Ascension Passive (A4): Authority Over the Nine Bows

Cyno’s DMG values will be increased based on his Elemental Mastery as follows:
• Pactsworn Pathclearer’s Normal Attack DMG is increased by 150% of his Elemental Mastery.
• Duststalker Bolt DMG from his Passive Talent Featherfall Judgment is increased by 250% of his Elemental Mastery.

This passive is more straightforward: it increases specifically the Normal Attack damage in Burst mode, as well as the extra instances of damage dealt by Cyno’s A1 Passive, by his EM. This seems to incentivize using Normal Attacks over Charged Attacks. Combined with the EM increase provided by his Burst mode, it’s clear that he is intended to be built with some EM and played in a team that makes use of that EM. However, since the multipliers for his Burst mode and Skill are all ATK-based, he wants ATK too. 

Conclusion on Cyno’s Kit

Having read all his talents, and assuming a level of familiarity with the mechanics and damage-dealing ability of the various Electro reactions, the natural conclusion is that Cyno is intended to be played as an on-field unit that triggers Aggravate and possibly Hyperbloom.

Since he’s reliant on his Burst, which costs 80 Energy, it’s also important that he gets enough Energy to use that Burst reliably, either from ER% stats or Electro batteries. Since the Elemental Skill description doesn’t tell you how much Energy particles he generates with his Skill, you won’t know for sure the importance of those, which should also prompt you to look for more information regarding his Energy generation.

Of the three main functions a character can serve, Cyno’s almost purely a damage dealer (DPS). He doesn’t provide anything for other characters beyond Electro application, and has no defensive capabilities. 
While there is a lot more depth to characters, teambuilding, and rotations in Genshin, they are beyond the scope of this guide. You may check KQM’s Teambuilding and Artifact guides for more in-depth conceptual exploration, or specific character guides if you want to focus on them.

Addressing Common Misconceptions

1. Regarding meta and character value:

Coming from other gacha games with more power-creep, it may be natural to assume that 5-star characters are almost always stronger than 4-star characters, or that in order to complete the endgame (Spiral Abyss, especially Floor 12) you must aim for the “strongest” characters, “meta,” and/or open your wallet for Constellations and 5-star weapons. This is wholly untrue

  1. You don’t need that much DPS to complete the Spiral Abyss.

Clearing the Spiral Abyss is perfectly doable by a large variety of teams without significant Primogem investment, as the roster of easily accessible and strong 4-star off-field units makes teambuilding a lot easier, and 5-star units do not generally need Constellations to function well. 

Acquiring the requisite skill to properly operate teams and handle enemies is much more important. In addition, damage per second, or DPS, is a terrible metric in isolation for comparing teams. Point v) elaborates on this.

  1. Genshin is not a competitive game, so chasing the “meta” or looking for power-creep isn’t a good idea.

In competitive games, the concept of a “meta” is omnipresent and covers the most optimal and effective strategies and playstyles. Genshin, as you may have noticed, is not a competitive game.

The hardest permanent endgame content is Spiral Abyss, and there is no prize for clearing it better or faster than other players. Finishing the floor in 10s using C6R5 characters will net you no more reward than clearing it in 1.5 minutes. You only need to complete it within the duration specified by the timer, and that is quite a lenient requirement. 

This lack of challenge also renders most discussion about power-creep meaningless, as power-creep is not just about “A being better than B,” but rather “A being better than B such that B is no longer worth using.” In the absence of a challenge that demands higher power levels and makes older characters unplayable, power-creep (if it can even be said to exist in Genshin) is not a problem. 

  1. It is not a crime to be unable to 36-star Spiral Abyss ASAP.

The world record from account creation to 36-starring as of writing is 4 days and 18 hours, but no one expects you to clear the Abyss nearly as fast. Floors 9–11 are vastly easier than Floor 12, and 1- or 2-starring each chamber of Floor 12 is also much easier with the additional time. Pulling units you dislike to accelerate 36-starring is probably not worth the extra 50–150 Primogems per reset for some time. Just pick the characters you do like and build good teams around them, and you’ll eventually be able to 36-star.

Additionally, not all players choose to tackle the Spiral Abyss anyway, perhaps preferring to spend their time exploring the overworld or decorating their Teapot. For those who don’t find enjoyment in Genshin’s combat system and are willing to accept the decreased Primogem income, leaving Abyss untouched or only doing the bare minimum is perfectly fine.

  1. Comparing individual characters doesn’t get you anywhere.

Genshin combat involves a team of four characters, and none of the characters the game released so far are direct upgrades to another. Even similarly functioning units have their own caveats and tradeoffs. Answering whether x is better than y in a vacuum is impossible; the type of enemy environment, teammates, investment level, and player skill are all necessary and relevant considerations that cannot be neglected. Just like everything else in Genshin, It Depends™.

  1. Team DPS numbers in a vacuum are not appropriate comparators with which to rank teams or characters with.

The qualities that make a team shine really depend on what you are trying to achieve. Speedrunners prioritize whatever is needed for the specific chamber or Abyss half that they’re trying to speedrun, but what most people are looking for in their definition of a “good” Abyss team is something that clears comfortably and can perform well even with changes in enemy environment (i.e., single-target to multi-target and Element checks).

The answer that most people automatically gravitate towards is “more DPS = better.” More DPS is indeed a form of comfort, because it allows you more leeway for mistakes and reduces enemy pressure (the faster things die, the less time they have to kill you). But it is also not, by any long shot, the only form of comfort.

These are some major considerations for comfortable Abyss clears that are neglected by a DPS number calculated against a stationary enemy with infinite HP:

  • Ease of gameplay (how much player skill issue affects the team damage output)
  • Restrictions or lack thereof on movement (“Circle Impact” restrictions such as Bennett’s)
  • Persistence of buffs and debuffs in multi-target or multi-wave scenarios
  • Survivability (shields, damage reduction, healing, whether dodging is punished or not, enemy reactions with self-aura)
  • Flexibility of rotations (ability to extend, shorten, or otherwise vary setup and execution to account for enemy positioning and HP)
  • Methods of Energy generation (front-loaded during setup or sustained, ability to quickly start the rotation from low Energy)
  • Damage windows (front-loaded, back-loaded, sustained)
  • AoE coverage (whether the damage output can hit multiple targets, amount of grouping capability in the team)

2. You don’t need a DPS for every Element.

While certain Bosses and enemy shields can create Elemental “checks,” that does not mean that you need a DPS for every or even most Elements. There are only two halves of every Spiral Abyss chamber, and Elemental restrictions only disincentivize using certain Elements and not outright force you to use a certain one. 

As Elemental Reactions are a significant part of the game, many teams tend to have more than one type of Elemental application to counter Elemental restrictions. Even if one of the Elements in a team isn’t effective, the others are bound to be.

3. It’s not true that “you can stop building CRIT Rate at 65/70/75/80%” etc.

It is sometimes claimed that you can stop building CRIT Rate at [insert number below 100%] because you already crit “enough” of the time. This is incorrect. Mathematically speaking, maintaining a 1:2 CRIT ratio is optimal until 100% CRIT Rate. Just because you don’t notice the non-critss doesn’t mean they don’t happen. For speedruns, building lower CRIT Rate for more CRIT DMG to successfully one-shot something is a strategy, but speedruns aren’t the concern of newbies anyway.

4. You don’t need to build a character simply because you got their Constellations, Weapon, or even a good artifact for them.

While pulling for a character you want, you may get characters (or Constellations) that you weren’t aiming for, and feel a strange sense of obligation to build those characters simply because you have them and it “would be a waste” to leave them untouched. It is completely fine to ignore that sense of obligation, as expending time and resources on building a character you won’t end up using is what’s actually a waste. The main imperative for building a character is that you want to use them. If you think you might need the character in the future, there’s no harm in waiting until you actually find that time where you need to use them to start building them.

Sometimes, the trauma of artifact farming may even lead people to consider building a character simply because they rolled an artifact that is really good for that particular character and no one else. For the same reasons as stated above, this is a bad idea and should be avoided.

Credits

Writing: kynosae 

Editing: radish.yy, cuppacote, polomo

TC Contributors: jamberry, staryy_

Transcribers: alehannita

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