Useful Genshin Impact tips
Genshin Impact has taken the world by storm since its release in September 2020. Malaysia is no exception, with the game getting a cameo in the Lunar New Year celebrations when news station Berita RTM used its soundtrack. If you’ve just joined the game, here are 20 Genshin Impact tips to begin your journey in Teyvat proper.
1. Know your elemental reactions well
There are 7 elements in Genshin Impact: Pyro, Hydro, Electro, Dendro, Cryo, Anemo, and Geo. Combining 2 elements in a particular order will trigger elemental reactions, which either deal higher damage numbers or trigger effects that weaken monsters.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
While every new player would have been prompted to read about the elemental reactions during the first hours into the game, you won’t truly understand its implications until you’ve had your first boss fight. If you find yourself dealing mediocre damage numbers, try going to “Tutorial” under “Archives” to refresh your memory.
2. Know what elemental resonance is
Image adapted from: miHoYo
When you have 2 characters of the same element in your 4-man team, you’d achieve an elemental resonance. It helps to strengthen your team by granting special boosts. For example, having 2 Pyro characters in the party boosts the team’s Attack (ATK) stats.
A team with Pyro resonance for ATK boost
Image adapted from: miHoYo
You can choose to build your team in a way that complements your main DPS (Damage Per Second), who’s your primary in-charge of unleashing impressive damage numbers and obliterating every monster.
For the full list of combinations, click on “Elemental Resonance” on the top right corner of your “Party Setup” page.
3. Know the type of domain and its leyline disorder
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Domains feature a short monster fight you need to clear in order to obtain either materials to level up your weapons and skills, or “artifacts” – accessories your characters can wear to improve their stats.
Pyro slime being immune to Klee’s Pyro damage
Image adapted from: miHoYo
For some domains, the monsters are chiefly of a certain element. This means you shouldn’t be using characters that can only cast damage of the same element – otherwise, you’ll be dealing 0 damage.
For example, if a character can only cast Pyro damage, then using the character to fight Pyro slimes is inane because you’d never win the fight and your only option is to forfeit the domain.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Meanwhile, leyline disorders are essentially special conditions for each domain, in which certain elemental reactions will end up dealing damage to your own character. To avoid accidentally killing off your own characters, do a quick search online about the leyline disorder before assembling your team for the domain.
4. Avoid using your fragile resins before AR45
Image credit: u/MetaMemester
You need 20-60 resins to collect rewards from every boss and domain fight you do. However, every arduous 8 minutes in real time only regenerates 1 unit of resin. This is where fragile resins, which recharges 60 units of resins each, come in handy.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
However, fragile resins are only obtainable through events, the monthly Battle Pass, and by levelling up your AR. This makes them considerably precious and hence must be used wisely.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
While there are no fixed rules on when you should spend your fragile resin, the general recommendation is to save them until you’re at Adventure Rank (AR) 45, which takes around 2 months of daily play.
At AR45, you’re able to unlock the final level of every artifact domain. At the final level, every domain run is guaranteed to give you a 5* artifact – this is not guaranteed if you’re at a lower AR. This makes every fragile resin you spend a lot more worthwhile.
5. Craft condensed resins whenever you can
Image adapted from: miHoYo
When you reach Reputation Level 3 in Liyue, you can start crafting condensed resins. They require 40 resins and a Crystal Core – obtainable by catching Crystalflies in the open world. You can hold onto at most 5 condensed resins at once.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Condensed resins allow you to collect double the domain rewards in a single domain fight. As such, you don’t need to fight 8 rounds of domain fight to finish using 160 resin units – you simply need to do 4 rounds. This lets you collect more materials in a shorter time.
6. Know which artifacts to upgrade
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Each character can be equipped with 5 types of artifacts: the Flower of Life, Plume of Death, Sands of Eon, Goblet of Eonothem, and Circlet of Logos.
Main and sub-stats of a Plume of Death
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Every artifact you obtain has different main and sub-stats. The main stat is reflected on the uppermost row. Depending on the type of stats on the artifact, some artifacts would be better than the others.
Image credit: @genshinimpact.nor
You’ll spend most of your resins doing artifact domains because it is very difficult to obtain an artifact with a desirable main stat and good sub-stats. Good sub-stats are generally Critical Damage (CRIT DMG), Critical Rate (CRIT Rate) and ATK%, but it depends on how your characters’ skills work too.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Early in the game, you’ll mostly be acquiring 3* and 4* artifacts from open-world exploration. One common mistake made by newbies is upgrading every artifact they see, regardless of its stats and rarity, because they want to make their characters stronger quickly.
However, upgrading these artifacts to their maximum potential is not advisable unless you’re struggling, because even at their maximum level, they have much lower stats compared to a normal 5* artifact.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Instead, you should be saving your Mora (main in-game currency) and non-5* artifacts to level up a good 5* artifact when you finally start obtaining them starting from AR40 onwards. With 5* artifacts at maximum levels, you can make your characters a lot stronger than maxed-out 4* artifacts.
7. Don’t waste your Crown Of Insight and Mora on the wrong talents
Image credit: @genshin.nation
Mora may seem plentiful early on in the game. But if you didn’t manage your Mora well in the beginning, you’d find yourself penniless for the various costly upgrades you’d be making from AR45 onwards.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Meanwhile, an event-exclusive item named the Crown of Insight is rare to come by, and only 6 have been released as of the Energy Amplifier Initiation event.
Talents (character skills) are the most expensive things to upgrade. Moreover, raising a talent from Level 9 to 10 requires a Crown of Insight. Therefore, knowing which talents take priority is essential.
Upgrading talents of Razor, a widely popular 4* main DPS
Image adapted from: miHoYo
The DPS should be your main priority for talents upgrading. This means you should be spending the most resources on them. A general rule for talent-upgrading is to maximise the Normal Attack before upgrading their elemental skills – known as the E and Q skills for PC players.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Meanwhile, support-type characters should have their E/Q skills upgraded, depending on their utility. For example, upgrading Bennett’s Q skill is a popular choice as it gives an ATK boost while healing the team.
8. Level up your characters selectively
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Wanderer’s Advice, Adventurer’s Experience, and Hero’s Wit – these items are used for levelling up character levels. While they can be obtained from chests in the open world, Blossoms of Revelation, and events, you wouldn’t have enough of them to level up all your characters. Thus, you need to be selective.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Focus on maxing your main DPS to Level 90 first, so that all their base stats are at their highest.
Sucrose’s passive talent at Level 60
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Meanwhile, support-type characters should be up to at least Level 60 in order to unlock their passive talents, if they’re useful. For example, Sucrose’s Mollis Favonius boosts your team’s elemental mastery (EM), making her passive talent essential for teams heavily reliant on elemental reactions.
9. Press your dash button continuously rather than sprint
You can move around the map more quickly by dashing continuously, rather than to sprint. For PC users, press your mouse’s right click rapidly to do so. For mobile users, click the run button on the bottom right corner continuously. Open-world exploration, time challenges, and collecting materials will become much easier.
If you’re having doubts, someone actually did an experiment – watch it here:
Video credit: Yuu
10. Maximise your expeditions
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Expeditions can be unlocked at AR14, and you’d eventually unlock a maximum of 5 expedition slots when your AR increases. Doing expeditions allow you to obtain materials to craft weapons and cook food buffs without needing you to tiresomely run around the map to collect them individually.
There are 4 durations you can set for each expedition, ranging from 4 to 20 hours. The longer the expedition, the greater the yield. It is good to set an alarm marking when your expeditions end so that you can begin the next one immediately. This allows you to maximise the amount of resources obtainable from this expedition system.
There are expeditions for ores, food materials, and money. Early in the game, it is recommended to focus on acquiring ores, especially White Iron Chunks and Crystal Chunks, as you’ll likely need to craft weapons.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Once you obtain sufficient ores, do expeditions for fowls, sweet flowers, and lotus roots so that you can cook food for healing and buffing.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
11. Use the official interactive map
131 Geoculi, 66 Anemoculi, and 80 Crimson Agates – these are all the collectibles you need to find during your open-world exploration in order to upgrade your Statue of Seven for higher stamina levels, and your Frostbearing Tree for attractive rewards.
Image credit: @B4_K19
Besides these collectibles, important chests which offer Primogems and Hero’s Wit are also scattered throughout the map. Finding these chests can be a chore as they’re often cleverly concealed in the uneven terrains.
Image adapted from: HoYoLab
To save players from getting an excruciating headache trying to figure out where everything is, Genshin Impact released an interactive map which marks out all these items. Access it here.
12. Main quests aren’t the only way to obtain Adventure EXP
Image adapted from: miHoYo
You need Adventure EXP to increase your AR. The main source of EXP comes from the Archon Quest, but there are also other sources you can tap on.
Image credit: @stillbbh
One easy source comes from unlocking Teleport Waypoints when you explore the map. Each Waypoint gives 50 EXP each. Meanwhile, each domain completion gives 100 EXP. Defeating open-world bosses, such as the Hypotheses, yield 200 EXP each.
Non-player characters (NPCs) also offer world quests that give additional EXP upon completion.
13. Make use of the co-op function once you unlock it at AR16
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Playing solo is fun until you encounter a powerful boss like Childe, or find yourself tediously completing domains for the 6th time today. To rescue your underleveled characters from death, or to halve the time needed to complete 1 round of domain, leverage on the co-op function once it unlocks at AR16.
You can invite your higher-level friends to enter a battle and have them defeat the monsters for you, or have strangers of similar levels over to help support each other.
14. In co-op, don’t leave the domain after collecting the rewards if you intend to go for another round
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Don’t leave the domain upon reward collection if you intend to go another round, or else the entire co-op team has to leave too. The host then has to re-enter the domain again, creating additional loading time for everyone.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
If no one from the co-op team leaves, the host is able to start the next round immediately, allowing the team to seamlessly continue onto the next domain fight.
Only leave the domain if you see someone else leaving, or if you need to change the character you’re using – as this cannot be done while you are inside the domain.
15. Learn to dodge monster and boss attacks
Most monsters and bosses have predictable attack styles. If you can dodge them, you’d be able to save your healing food.
Image credit: @oceanomio
For example, clicking the dash button twice when the ruin guards’ missiles are close allows you to completely evade the painful strike.
Video credit: derVadok
Meanwhile for Childe, you simply have to dodge his arrows by running around him during his 1st stage attacks. His 2nd stage attack is a close-ranged melee slash, so you’ll need to sprint to his rear when he unleashes it, and tap the dash button in time with his multi-dashes to evade the slashes.
His final stage attack is a slow closed-range slash that can easily be avoided with a short dash away from where he is standing. Just note that at some point, he will unleash a giant narwhal attack as a special attack. Simply moving out of the damage radius will be enough to save you from getting 1-hit KOed.
Diluc’s i-frame
Image adapted from: Genshin Impact
Another common dodging technique applicable across all fights is timing your “i-frame”. When a 5* character unleashes their burst attack, a momentary i-frame is triggered as the camera pans close to your character. During the i-frame, the character is immune to any incoming damage.
For bosses with unavoidable attacks, such as the Primo Geovishap, using the i-frame to your advantage is the hallmark of a good player.
16. Unlock frivolous achievements for Primogems
Image credit: @MuffinInedible
Primogems are important in-game currency which you can use to obtain new characters through the gacha system – this is further explained in Point 19. You can use real money to buy them, but there are plenty of ways to obtain them for free within the game. One of them is through obtaining achievements.
Genshin Impact has many interesting achievements to unlock, from getting struck by lightning to apologising to pigeon-protector Timmie after angering him. Each achievement yields either 5, 10, or 20 Primogems.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
It may not sound like much, but completing some sets of achievements can actually yield over 200 gems in total. Some of the easiest sets of achievements to complete are the Challenger Series and the Elemental Specialist. Simply go to lower level domains or certain levels in Spiral Abyss to trigger the respective elemental reactions as stated in the achievements’ description.
17. Do your Spiral Abyss and unlock Floors 9-12 ASAP to earn Primogems bi-weekly
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Prohibiting the usage of food buffs and healing food, Spiral Abyss is where you can test the real strength of your characters.
Beginning from Floor 1, you need to accumulate at least 6 stars across the 3 chambers of each floor in order to unlock the subsequent floor. To obtain the stars, you need to defeat the monsters within a certain time limit. There are 12 floors in total.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Spiral Abyss is a huge source of free Primogems. For Floors 1-8, you get 100 Primogems for every 3 stars accumulated. In total, you can get 2,400 gems by maxing out every floor. The rewards can only be collected once.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Floors 9-12 yield a lower number of Primogems – 50 for every 3 stars accumulated. However, these floors refresh every 2 weeks, unlike Floors 1-8. Hence, you can continuously collect Primogems from Floors 9-12 throughout the game.
18. Do every in-game event, web event, and redeem gift codes
Image credit: @kreideprinzesin
In-game events are important sources of materials and Primogems. You should complete every event in order to get as many of these items as possible.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Many web events on the Genshin Impact’s official website also give free Primogems. Read up on upcoming events on miHoYo’s official website to know what’s in store.
Image credit: @ai_baggs
Gift codes are also released during live streams and on miHoYo’s official platforms. These codes spread around the Genshin community quickly, and some are usable for a limited time only. Thus, be sure to redeem a code ASAP when you hear of one. These gift codes often give Primogems.
19. Spend your Primogems only on the limited event banner
Obtaining Zhongli from the limited banner
Image adapted from: miHoYo
One of the greatest sources of enjoyment in Genshin Impact is obtaining new characters for your team. In the game, characters are either 4* or 5*, and the only way to obtain them is through the gacha system.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
You can access the gacha system by clicking on the “Wish” tab in your menu. A few banners will appear on your screen: the beginners’ banner, a weapon banner, a permanent banner, and finally a limited event banner.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
To make a roll on the beginners’ and permanent banner, you require Acquaint Fates. For the limited event banner and weapon banner, you use Intertwined Fates. The 2 types of Fates cost 160 Primogems each.
Xiao’s limited banner
Image adapted from: miHoYo
As you accumulate Primogems, it is recommended to spend them only on the limited event banner, which changes every 2-3 weeks. There are 2 reasons for this.
Keqing (4th from left), a permanent banner character, appearing on the limited event banner
Image credit: @a_nya_pso2
Firstly, you can still obtain 5* characters from the permanent banner in the limited event banner. This means you’re spending your hard-earned Primogems on a banner that offers a greater selection, making it more worthwhile.
A record of past characters and items obtained so you can keep track of your pity count
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Secondly, the game has a “pity system” – once you’ve accumulated beyond 75 tries on a single banner, every try thereafter has a greatly increased chance of dropping a 5* character or weapon. Within every 90 pulls, you’re guaranteed a 5*. As such, it is more ideal to focus your Primogems on one banner to accumulate enough tries to hit the pity count.
20. Don’t waste your Starglitter
Image adapted from: miHoYo
When you get duplicates of characters or weapons in the gacha system, you’ll obtain an important currency called “Starglitter”. Refrain from using it to buy Fates or in-game monster drops – you should only use the Starglitter to purchase the featured 4* characters and the 4* weapons under Paimon’s Bargains, which refreshes monthly.
Fischl, a popular 4* character, at Constellation 4
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Using Starglitter to directly purchase the featured 4* characters means obtaining a duplicate for a character you frequently use. This saves you the agony of trying your luck at the gacha system. When you obtain a duplicate, you gain a “constellation” for that character. The higher the constellation, the stronger the character.
Image adapted from: miHoYo
Meanwhile, the 4* weapons in the shop give additional CRIT DMG or ATK% and admirable passive boosts to your characters. These weapons are thus great alternatives to spending money on the weapon banner for a 5* weapon.
Become a pro player with these Genshin Impact tips
With these Genshin Impact tips, we hope that you’d be able to escape from the embarrassment of 3-digit damage numbers and have your characters dying less frequently.
Nevertheless, while building a strong team is a crucial aspect to ensuring a smooth gameplay experience, do keep in mind that Genshin Impact is a lot more than just flexing your character stats. The game’s graphics, music, and its thrilling plot to come are also what makes the game a must-play.
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Cover image adapted from: miHoYo and miHoYo
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