Genshin Impact New Player’s Guide

by Not-Casuals

1- What is a Gacha game

The Gacha system is done through an in-game system called “Wish”, and is how you unlock characters and is a way to acquire rare weapons. You will be using both Intertwined Fate (for special event banners) and Acquaint Fate (regular banners) and you should only use them to open 10x at a time, for a guaranteed 4 star + pull. You will be able to acquire these Fates from many different sources when playing the game, such as leveling your adventure rank, and you can also spend Primogems to buy them. Primogems are a special currency of this game and you will be rewarded Primogems regularly from doing almost anything, such as quest, opening up chests, defeating enemies and much more. You can also use real world money to buy Genesis Crystal which can be traded for Primogems as a 1:1 ratio.

2- Adventure Rank

The Adventure Rank is the level of your account, which is different from the level of your character. As you level up in the Adventure Rank, you will unlock game features, such as COOP at AR16, and many rewards. You will also periodically be able to upgrade your World’s Level, which will make every encounter harder, but give more rewards. Everything you do in Genshin Impact rewards you with Adventure Rank XP, quest being one of the best sources for it. It is recommended you explore everything, open every chest, and fight every rare monster as well as doing daily objectives, commissions and quests to level it up as fast as possible.

3- Quests and the Adventure Book and Resin System

In order to advance in the game and unlock new characters, the first thing you should focus on is following the main quest line. It will allow you to unlock the F2P characters right at the beginning (Amber, Kaeya and Lisa) as well as give you the most progression value in a short amount of time. You will also unlock the Adventure Book (F1 to open on PC) which details a ton of one-time objectives and rewards, as well as shows you the location of rare bosses and events, some of which you can do using Resin, which is the special daily regenerating currency in this game. It is very important that you do not let your resin be capped and unused, as it is one of the best, and only way, to gather some materials and items. Your resin can be used mainly on defeating special bosses around the map, or doing repeatable dungeons that have daily alternating rewards, which are needed for character ascensions. This is also a great source of daily adventure rank experience.
You will also unlock Commissions, which will be shown in the Adventure Book. These are 4 quests that reset daily, and give crazy amounts of rewards. YOU MUST DO THESE EVERY DAY, BEFORE RESET!

4- Exploring and Gathering

When playing and exploring, you should, first, pick up EVERYTHING. Ores, flowers, food items, chests, anything you see, pick it up, you will need it one day. At the same time, it is a very good idea to open your map and drop custom markers on some of the stuff you find, such as ore nodes, shrine locations, and special materials. There are a lot of special items in the game that will be required to advance your characters and items further, later on. Gathering and marking them from the start will help you greatly!

*Note that there are some special flowers that require you to use a certain elemental magic on them to be able to pick them up, those are VERY important to gather for quests in the future! The Mist flowers (Cryo) are a perfect example.

It is also very recommended that you go and unlock as many teleport way-points as you can, as they give adventure rank experience and will let you travel easier when doing objectives.

5- Anemos, Stamina and healing

When you are exploring the world, you will see stars that sometimes appear on your minimap. These are called Anemos, and are very important to gather, as they can be turned in to the Statues of the Seven, which will level up and grant you tons of reward and it is also the ONLY way to increase your total stamina, which is used to run, climb, swim and use charged attacks in combat. You can also use these Statues of the Seven to completely heal any of your characters at any time by simple teleporting to them, which is much easier than using food (when out of combat).

When picking up these Anemos, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you put down a marker on your map for the location you just picked it up from. The reason is that you will need to gather hundreds of those, and online, you will find interactive maps that let you know the location of everyone of them, but, if you have not marked them in your game, it will be very difficult to establish which ones you have picked up already, when trying to gather them all.

6- Custom Map Markers

While we are on the topic of markers, it is also VERY IMPORTANT that you drop these map markers on ANY and EVERYTHING of value that you find around the world, such as rare materials, flowers, gems and ore nodes. The reason for this is, first, it will help you find these things in the future when you need them, but also, when playing COOP with your friends, you will be able to travel to one players world, gather these materials and defeat the bosses, and then jump to another party members world and repeat the same exact ones. If you have them all marked, it will be very easy to navigate and farm many resources and boss rewards for free this way!

7- Leveling up Character, Weapons and Artifacts

In Genshin Impact, leveling up your characters, artifacts and weapons will get very costly, very fast, which will slow down your progression in the mid game if you have wasted too much of your boosting materials and experience on too many different characters and items. It is very recommended that you find a few characters that you really enjoy playing, and focus on them specifically, ascend them, enhance their weapon and artifacts, and you will see that the content will be much more enjoyable later on. On that note, I recommend you focus on enhancing your weapon properly, for example an enhanced and maxed refined 3-stars weapon is considered better than a blank 4 star weapon, which are much more expensive to enhance and refine.

Also, when enhancing your artifacts, the Feathers will give you the most amount of damage at the beginning, as it always has the ATK stat, so it is recommended that you get a good feather and upgrade it to max level and equip it on your main damage dealer.
Note that when enhancing artifacts, every 4 levels, you will unlock a new bonus stat on that item, so it is important that you enhance it in chunks of 4 levels at a time!

8- Elemental Combinations and Resonance

Genshin Impact is all about the different elements and combos you can create. For example, using a water ability (or simply fighting during a rainy day) will “wet” the enemies. Then, if you combo that with Fire, you will create a “Vaporize” effect, which will cause incredible burst damage. Same goes with Electricity, for a shock effect, or Ice, to freeze the enemy in a block of ice! There are MANY ways to combine elements, and you don’t have to do it perfectly to enjoy the game, but it is important that you create a party that has multiple elements, and that you switch between characters often and apply their elements, for a much better combat experience! It’s also part of the fun of creating a party of 4 characters that synergize well with each other.

Also, when creating a party, you will see that there is a menu for “Elemental Resonance” which depends on the different elements your party of 4 currently has. For example, having 4 different elements in your party will give all your characters a 15% Resistance to elements, or, having 2 Fire characters will give them all an ATK boost, and having 2 Anemos will give you a movement speed and stamina reduction boost. These details can have a powerful impact on your progression.

9- Consumables and Crafting

Consumables are a very important part of this game, as you progress into harder content. The majority of them come from food, and some also come from alchemy. The materials needed are the same that you can gather from all over the world, some of which are harder to find, which is why it is important to explore and put markers on the rare stuff you discover. Keep on the lookout, when crafting, for one of your characters having a special buff, such as Xiangling giving a 12% chance to double the amount of food you cook, when it is an ATK boosting consumable. You will also be able to craft food that regenerates Stamina, which you can use while climbing or gliding, in order to replenish your stamina bar and climb or fly further.

10- Blacksmith Tips

You will also be able to craft weapons with the blacksmith, once you gather prototypes (from bosses and vendors). It is recommended that you do not use your ores for anything else, as weapons will be much more important than enhancement ores, and you will need large quantities of ores for this. Also a good tip is to buy the green and white quality weapons that the Blacksmith and his apprentice sell, every day, to have extra materials to enhance your other weapons.

11- Special Vendors and Expeditions

Lastly, expeditions are a very meaningful and easy way to accumulate materials for said consumables and weapons, and you should always have them running at full capacity. Some characters make it so that their expeditions are quicker so you should prioritize using those when possible.

I hope these general guidelines, explanations and tips can be helpful for the new players out there!