โ๏ธ Artifacts and Building
๐ Essential Artifact Sets
Some artifact sets are incredibly versatile and can be used on many characters, both as 2pc combinations or 4pc sets. I consider the following to be essentials for any given account, and a great place to start if you are unsure about which sets to farm:
- Viridescent Venerer
- Noblesse Oblige
- Marechaussee Hunter
- Golden Troupe
- Emblem of Severed Fate
- Tenacity of the Millelith
- Gilded Dreams
- Scroll of the Hero in Cinder City
๐งช Condensed Resin
Obtain the recipe for Condensed Resin by leveling up your Liyue reputation and use it to claim rewards. Condensed resin is crafted using 60 resin, and will give you triple rewards when clearing domains and ley lines. Avoid farming and claiming with 20 resin unless there is an event that gives double drops with 20 resin. Doing this helps you spend less time farming so that you can use that time to do other things.
๐ Farming Artifacts Before AR45
Do not farm artifacts properly until AR45. At AR45, you unlock the highest difficulty in domains. It will likely be too hard to clear them by yourself, so it's advisable to try doing them with friends in co-op or via the "Match" function. Matching will make it so you can challenge the domain with up to 3 other players, making things more manageable when you are low AR. Doing the lower difficulties will give you less rewards and is not worth it in the long run. Once you can farm the highest level domains, focus mainly on 5* artifacts. At some point, 4* and lower rarity pieces will be obsolete and you can use them to level up 5* pieces.
โญ Stygian Onslaught Farming
Farming artifacts during the first week of Stygian Onslaught yields more artifacts per resin than farming in traditional domains. Since there are usually many things to farm for at any given time, such as talent materials and bosses, it can be a good idea to exclusively farm artifacts during that first week of Stygian Onslaught. Ignoring everything else that requires resin until the artifact farming period ends can maximize your efficiency.
๐ Main Stats > Set Bonus
The main stat of an artifact is more important than the set! Many players prioritize a character's ideal 4pc set but to do so will use artifacts with main stats that do not benefit the character at all, such as defense sands on Diluc or HP goblets on Qiqi. When you lack the ideal artifacts for a 4pc set, be sure to use 2pc combinations instead.
๐ฏ CRIT Rate & CRIT DMG
To build DPS characters (your primary damage dealers), pay more attention to CRIT Rate than CRIT DMG. Having 200% CRIT DMG is useless when your character only has 20% CRIT Rate. For beginners, the basic CRIT ratio to aim for is to have at least 50% CRIT Rate and 100% CRIT DMG, but when you can only prioritize one of the two, focus on CRIT Rate. As you obtain better pieces, you can try to push the ratio to be 60% CRIT Rate and 120% CRIT DMG, and so on. Having the ratio be roughly 1:2 will help, and as you improve you'll get a feel for the proper ratios.
โก Alternative CRIT Sources
Some characters can get away with having less CRIT Rate or CRIT DMG than what you'd usually expect if they can get it from alternate sources. Sets like Blizzard Strayer, Marechaussee Hunter and Obsidian Codex will provide massive amounts of CRIT Rate when fully activated, so the characters wielding the 4pc can fulfill the CRIT ratios mentioned previously at a lower threshold. For example, a Neuvillette with 34% CRIT Rate and 140% CRIT DMG will actually have 70% CRIT Rate if he has 4pc Marechaussee Hunter with full stacks. Other sources of CRIT can be found in the passives of weapons, such as Calamity of Eshu, which provides CRIT Rate to a shielded character's normal and charged attacks. Lastly, there is Cryo Resonance, which provides 15 CRIT Rate when two Cryo characters are in the party and activates when enemies are affected by Cryo or are Frozen.
โป๏ธ Artifact Strongbox
Use the Strongbox to recycle undesirable 5* artifacts instead of using them to level up other 5* pieces. Since artifacts can only be farmed as matching pairs in domains, the Strongbox is particularly helpful for when you want one of the sets in a domain but not the other.
๐ Serenitea Pot Realm Depot
The Serenitea Pot's Realm Depot includes Transient Resin and Artifact Enhancement Materials that reset every week. Filling up the realm with items to obtain currency faster and buying these weekly items makes a big difference for artifact farming.
๐ Don't Forget to Level Up Talents
If your character has good artifacts but is not doing much damage, their levels might be too low. In order to know which ones to prioritize, you can go to a character's talents, click on any of them, and then tap the "Talent Upgrade Reference" tab.
โฐ Resin Specials
Try to take advantage of all resin specials. Every week, you can fight 3 weekly bosses for 30 resin, and occasionally we get events for double drops when farming ley lines and domains. It is best to not let these go to waste.
๐บ๏ธ Exploration
๐ Sprint Efficiently
When sprinting, hold the button for a few seconds to run continuously. Many players will tap the button over and over again because they don't know you can hold it and then continue sprinting until stamina runs out.
๐ฏ World Quests Unlock Areas
Some world quests in the game are far more important than they appear to be at first glance, given that they unlock a lot of areas and waypoints you wouldn't otherwise have access to. For example, "The Still Water's Flow" can be easily missed, but it unlocks the Enkanomiya map, whereas in Sumeru, the "Golden Slumber" quest line unlocks many underground areas, which account for a huge chunk of the desert's exploration percentage.
๐ฐ Mora Chests & Exploration Progress
Mora chests count towards exploration progress. If you see boxes floating in water, bundles of rocks twinkling with an Investigate sparkle and other similar trinkets, be sure to get them even if you don't need the Mora but are trying to reach 100% exploration in a region.
๐๏ธ Elemental Sight
Use elemental sight constantly! If you find an empty Seelie court or Monetoo graffiti, elemental sight will show you the direction you can find them in. It can also highlight hidden puzzles, challenges and lots of other things you can interact with but might otherwise miss.
๐ฃ Time of Day Fishing
When fishing for weapons like The Catch or Fleuve Cendre Ferryman, be sure to change the time between day and night at every spot you visit. Fishing spots have two different batches of fish - one for the day and one for the night. This can help save a lot of time.
๐ฟ Dendrograna in Sumeru
Dendrograna from Sumeru can be used in lieu of a Dendro character when exploring Sumeru. They can light up Dendro Elemental Monuments, revitalize scorched mushrooms, among other things.
๐ฏ Challenge Symbols
Pay attention to the symbol on a Challenge before starting it. There are three different kinds - a sword for fighting challenges, a target for things like exploding barrel challenges (bows are ideal there), and an hourglass for things like timed particle chases, opening chests within the time limit, etc.
๐บ Fastest Route to Boreas
The fastest route to reach Boreas is through the Cecilia Garden domain in Mondstadt. Many players teleport to the waypoint east or south, but they take significantly longer.
๐น Archer Edge Trick
Archers do not fall from edges when they aim. If you have to walk on an invisible path where it's easy to fall down, try doing so whilst holding an archer's charged shot. They can move around freely without accidentally slipping off. This is particularly useful in the Sumeru desert because of the many puzzles with invisible floors.
โ๏ธ Save the Dark Iron Sword
Save the Dark Iron Sword! There are only two of these in the entirety of Genshin. The first can be found in Liyue Harbor, while the second is inside a chest in Chenyu Vale. Considering that they are of 3* rarity, the stats are pretty good, and they are worth locking or refining.
๐ฎ Miscellaneous
๐ Have Fun First!
Remember that, at the end of the day, having fun is more important than anything else. If you have a build that isn't ideal or how a character "should" be built but you enjoy it... Then keep doing that. There is no true right or wrong in this game. This guide is to help those that are clueless about building and struggle with clearing content, as well as those that may want to get really good at combat related things! :)
โญ Focus on Constellations
Sometimes it can be better to focus on pulling the constellations of your favorite characters over new ones. Constellations can significantly increase the power of many characters, but they don't require you to farm bosses, talents, enemies and local specialties like a new unit would. Having too many characters to build can be overwhelming, but that stress is lessened when you choose to enhance your existing units instead of adding more to the mix. Always read what your character's constellations do before you decide to pull for them.
โ๏ธ 5-Star Weapon Pulling Strategy
If you want a 5* character's limited signature weapon, it is advisable to only wish for the weapon if you want both of the weapons featured on the banner and have enough wishes to guarantee it in case of a loss. If you want one but absolutely do not like the other weapon, skip the banner! On that note, if you want both of the featured signatures, but do not have one or both characters, prioritize the desired weapon over the character. You can get characters from any banner lineups, but getting desirable weapons banners where you want both options is much harder.
๐ Track Your Wishes
Keep track of your wishing history! Be it with screenshots, Excel sheets, Paimon.moe or something else, it's a very good thing to keep track of your 5* wishing history. To know at what pity a 5* character came home, if it was a 50/50 win, loss, or Capturing Radiance. That kind of data can be fun to observe in the form of graphs or tables, and you never know what kinds of trends you'll discover.
๐ฑ HoYoLAB App
The HoYoLAB app is a lifesaver. It contains lots of useful and fun tools that can be customized. The widgets can show your favorite characters, how much resin and teapot currency you have at the time, and can allow you to do Daily Check-In with ease, which sends extra goodies to your in-game mail. The Enhancement Progress Calculator is great for figuring out what you need to farm for characters, and the Teyvat Interactive Map shows the locations of all kinds of items.
๐ Build Sharing
If you want to share your builds with other players for advice or to show off your progress, enka.network and akasha.cv are very useful tools. You set your in-game character showcase to public and check your UID on one of the sites, then can create an image neatly showing all of your character's stats in one place. When you update your profile, it can take a few minutes for the changes to kick in, but if you log out of the game it will be done immediately.