Genshin Impact is a complicated game to say the least; doubly so if you’re unfamiliar with gacha games. There’s the adventure aspect, a whole lot of currencies, a ranking system, and the need to summon new characters and items. Needless to say, even if you are experienced, there are always a few things that will catch you out. Today, we’re here with a handful of Genshin Impact tips which will help you get started and give you areas to focus on.
Save All of Your Primogems for Summons
This goes without saying for many gacha enthusiasts, but never, ever, spend any currency that can purchase summons on anything other than summons. Genshin Impact will let you use Primogems for more than just buying Intertwined or Acquaint Fates, but you should never take it up on that offer. The rarest characters have less than a 0.6 percent chance of being in one summon so you’re going to need every single fate you can get your hands on, especially if you’re a free-to-play player.
Understanding the Summon Odds
While we previously stated that you should always bulk summon using roughly 1200 Primogems, it turns out that isn’t a requirement to get the guaranteed drops. The game will give you at least one four-star item in every ten draws no matter how you do the summons.
If you want to be super efficient, when the limited time banners are close to an end, stop summoning right after you have a four-star item (or higher) drop. That way you aren’t “wasting” pulls on increasing the pity timer that you’ll never see.
You Can’t Change the Keybindings
Whether you’re playing with a controller or keyboard, you’re stuck with whatever MiHoYo currently has assigned as the default keybindings. Thet means B will be confirm on Xbox controllers rather than A. And if you’re used to “I” opening inventory on a keyboard, you’re out of luck, it’s stuck on “B” instead.
Rerolling Is Possible
Gacha fans are probably used to rerolling their initial offerings in order to get the best possible free summons before actually starting to play the game. This is possible in Genshin Impact, though it’ll take you about 15-30 minutes per attempt.
After a certain point, the game will introduce Wishes to you and give you enough currency to do a full ten summons. We recommend using the beginner’s banner to get a guaranteed Noelle as part of your efforts. If you walk away with two to four characters, consider it a success!
Get Used to Character Switching
One of the unique features of Genshin Impact is the ability to switch between four different characters in your party at will. You should get used to switching between them both during fights and outside of them. Sometimes it might be beneficial to quickly switch to an electric character to deal with some wet enemies. Other times you’ll need a fire character to light sconces in order to unlock a treasure chest.
Party Character Elements Matter
Outside of just the characters and their abilities, the makeup of your party actually matters. In the top right corner you’ll see a button labeled Elemental Resonance. Clicking on it will bring up all of the potential elemental party types and their associated buffs. For example, a party with four unique elements provides 15 percent elemental resistance to all of your characters. One with two or more fire members will be less affected by cryo damage and increase everyone’s attack by 25 percent. Make sure to take this into account when making parties!
Focus on Increasing Your Adventure Rank
Your adventure rank is the single most important thing to focus on when you’re first starting out in Genshin Impact. You can increase your adventure rank by opening chests, defeating foes, and completing missions. Don’t stress too much about exploring until you’ve hit at least Adventure Rank 20 at which point you’ll have unlocked all of the game’s main features.
Rank 12 Unlocks Daily Missions
After you’ve unlocked the Adventuring Academy, it may seem a bit lackluster. Sure you can return to town and ask for your level up rewards and there’s the adventuring book which helps give you tasks to do, but isn’t there more? There is, it turns out. Once you hit Rank 12, you’ll unlock daily missions. These are the bread and butter for any gacha enthusiast as they reward Primogems to help you get summons faster. Focus on getting here as quickly as possible and then complete as often as you can.
The Battle Pass Isn’t Available Until Rank 20
This unlock is less important, but still a good thing to know. Genshin Impact, again, following in the footsteps of similar games, has a Battle Pass. The catch is you don’t unlock it until Adventure Rank 20. Some of the progress is retrospective, so you’ll get some credit for everything you did beforehand, but you’ll still want to unlock it proper right away.
Keep in mind there is a free and a premium track. The free one comes with some nice EXP materials, about 720,000 gold, and 5 fates. The premium one is largely focused on reducing the amount you need to grind. It includes an additional four fates, more than two million gold, 680 Primogems, and a number of chests for you to open.
Use Your Stardust on Extra Fates
Every time you summon, you’ll notice you get a small amount of currency on the right side. This increases drastically if the item is a duplicate. What is this Stardust used for? Navigate over to the shop and click on Paimon’s Bargains. The tabs on the top, center of the screen are easy to miss, but you want to go to Stardust Exchange. Here you can trade in your Stardust for various resources or EXP tiems.
What you absolutely want to purchase every time it’s possible are the Acquaint Fates and Intertwined Fates. These items are limited to five purchases a month and will cost you 75 Stardust each. That’s 750 Stardust per month on ten extra fates. Make sure to buy those every month!
Save Your Starglitter for Guaranteed Summons
There’s a rarer material that you may have noticed as well. The same rules apply to Starglitter as they do Stardust, except this material only comes from four-star or higher summons. They’re far, far rarer. I only have about four Starglitter at Rank 11, while I’ve had over 500 Stardust.
Save this Starglitter to get guaranteed characters. As far as we know the shop rotates on a regular basis, but it looks like it’ll always offer a character unlock for 34 Starglitter. Don’t use your Starglitter on anything else! Save up until you have enough and then wait for the character you want to be in the shop! As of publishing, Razor and Amber are available.
Unless you’re absolutely loaded with Starglitter, we don’t recommend purchasing fates with Starglitter. While you could purchase nearly seven summons with 34 Starglitter, you really can’t beat a guaranteed, non-duplicate character.
And that’s it for now. Best of luck on both your adventures and summons!
