Genshin Impact Early Game Tips and Guide

by Bolaget

This post is towards ppl who wants to increase their damage and/or get some tips on what teams to build, who to build and a bit about what to gear. This is not to be seen as an in-depth guide and I apologize if I give wrong information in any way, shape or form here.

To start of I’ll briefly go over some gear choices and my own opinion on these. Since this guide is mostly geared towards these early stages and things that are fairly reasonable for everyone to get. I will only touch on 3-star gear and the 4-star weapons you get/craft for free in game, since pretty much everyone will get these, the 3 star weapons are gacha gated but I am pretty sure everyone who has done the gacha will get these at least a couple of times.

Part 1 Gear

Catalysts:

3-stars:

Magic Guide: This catalyst is great for Lisa or Mona since it increases dmg against targets inflicted with hydro or electro status by a flat amount and since each of their basic attacks inflicts this every time, they hit an enemy that means the dmg bonus is always active for them while attacking. So even though it has lower base stats then 4- or 5-star catalysts it’s passive for hydro/electro casters makes them deal a ton of dmg and should not be underestimated.

Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers: Now this one is quite the beast and might be usable for a long time. What it does is that when you switch characters the character switched to gets an atk % increase for 10 seconds, it can only occur once every 20 seconds but it can occur for any character switched. So, it doesn’t only affect the one wearing the Catalyst, it also increases hp % as it’s secondary, it is in my humble opinion one of the best catalysts to put on Barbara and one of the reasons I also strongly recommend bringing her to your team. I highly recommend refining this to 5 asap, if possible and you want to bring Barbara on your team.

4-stars:

Prototype Malice: This is a fairly good weapon to put on Barbara for instance however it’s passive only activates when the ultimate is used and thus it won’t see as much use as the Thrilling Tales.

Mappa Mare: This is probably your best catalyst on any catalyst user that is your main damage dealer, unless your using Lisa or Mona and your Magic Guide is refined to rank 5, even then eventually Mappa Mare will be the better choice once it’s refined enough. Triggering an elemental combo will increase your elemental dmg by a % and it stacks twice and lasts for 10 seconds however it doesn’t have a cd so if you just keep them combos going, which is fairly easy for a mage character you’ll have your elemental dmg boost up at all time.

Bows:

3-stars:

Slingshot: This bow has a massive dmg increase for anyone using their bow users in close range, while decreasing the dmg at long range. Slingshot in short makes you use your bow user like a melee character and the dmg boost it gives is well worth sticking in melee range.

4-stars:

Prototype Crescent: This bow is probably one of the strongest among when it’s passive is active with a massive boost to attack and a movement speed boost. However, it only procs when a weak point is hit, all enemies have a weak point and if it’s not obviously pointed out in almost all cases it will be their head in that case. When your able to hit enemies weak pointsit is quite the beast this is however fairly hard to do while in combat.

Compound Bow: This is probably your best bet for a bow outside of the Slingshot since normal attacks or aimed shots will that hit will increase your atk and atk speed by a % and stacks up to four times for 6 seconds, but you can refresh it over and over. Slingshot hold the higher dmg but requires you to stay in melee range or do less dmg, this bow can be used at any range.

Spears:

3-stars:

White Tassel: This spear is good if your using mainly basic attacks, which you should be doing with most physical users, what it does is increase the dmg of all your basic attacks.

Halberd: This one is my recommendation amongst the 3-star spears since while White Tassel in theory will do more dmg in most cases you will not be able to hit the enemy at all time and therefore the big extra dmg attack Halberd does every 10 seconds will probably give you more bang for your buck. Xiangling’s skills also scales of her atk thus a higher base stat in atk and a secondary that gives an atk % increase helps more especially if she’s used as a support.

4-stars

Prototype Grudge: I would not recommend this spear at the moment since Xiangling is the only spear user and it’s buff that activates on elemental skill use lasts for 12 sec but Xiangling’s skill cd is also 12 sec so it’s pretty much impossible to get 2 stacks of it going unless your using cd reductions which can be done by bringing two anemo characters on your team. Its secondary stat is also energy recharge which is not that great if used on your main dmg dealer.

Crescent Pike: Is probably your best bet outside of the Halberd since you will be picking up elemental orbs/particles fairly often and the dmg % increase to normal/charged attacks for 5 seconds is pretty good. It’s base stats coupled with it’s secondary stats will mean your physical attacks will deal more dmg then with the Halberd which is great for a main dmg dealer, however this will not increase the effectiveness of Xiangling’s skills and thus is not a good choice if using her as a support.

Swords:

3-stars:

Harbringer of Dawn: This sword has a lot of dmg potential being able to increase both your crit dmg and crit chance by a large amount. However, it requires your hp to be above 90% for you to get the crit chance bonus. This means all your attacks will deal a ton of dmg as long as you keep your hp high.

Fillet blade: This will be a much safer bet as it has a secondary stat that increases atk and every attack has a 50% chance to deal a massive bonus dmg attack but it can only occur every 15 seconds. Personally, this is one of my favourite passive effects since most of the time your not able to attack over and over and instead you will get a few hits in and then dodge to attack again.

4-stars:

Prototype Rancour: This is probably your best bet if your using your sword user as a physical attacker and your main damage dealer. Simply hitting with normal/charged attacks will increase you atk and def and its secondary stat increases your physical dmg.

Iron Sting: This sword requires you to deal elemental dmg to start stacking dmg % increases its secondary stat also increases your elemental combo dmg overall this will not be as good as the Rancour most of the time, though if you’re not using your sword wielder to deal physical dmg, Iron Sting will probably be a better choice

Claymores:

3-stars:

Skyrider Greatsword: This one increases your atk by a % up to four times on normal/charged attacks it also increases your physical attack as your secondary stat which means it is a great choice for anyone using their claymore wielders as their main dmg dealers.

Debate Club: This one will probably be your best choice if your elemental skill has a low cd. While it does say it’s cd is 3 seconds between each trigger while using Diluc you can use his e once hit + trigger, e again hit + trigger and e again hit + trigger. This might get “nerfed” shortly to have it work as intended. But again this is a great choice for Beidou/Razor/Chongyun because of their short cd but not so good for Noelle because of her 24 sec cd which means she can’t have the buff up att all time. The Skyrider Greatsword overall is the better choice.

4-stars:

Prototype Animus: This is probably my favourite weapon when it comes to the 3- or 4-star claymores. Every normal/charged attack has a 50% chance to deal a large bonus dmg attack in a small aoe with a 15 sec cd on its effect and its secondary stat is bonus atk %. I will go a bit more in-depth on this effect in a little bit.

Whiteblind: Now this would have been the best choice most likely if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s secondary stat is bonus def %. Like the Rancour this claymore stacks bonus atk/def % while hitting enemies with normal/charged attacks and stacks up to 4 times while lasting for 6 seconds. So while at maxed stacks it’s bonus atk % will be a bit higher then the Animus but it won’t have the bonus dmg trigger.

Now on the mentioned Halberd, Fillet Blade and Prototype Animus weapons. How their effects work is that when they trigger on your attacks you will deal your normal attack at let’s say 100 dmg and then a bonus dmg trigger will pop up for an additional 300 dmg. How this dmg is calculated I am honestly unsure since for instance my main dmg dealer using the Animus deals 850ish dmg on a normal attack with a 300% attack dmg boost on the weapon will deal 850 + 2000 dmg with no gear it would be 381 + 998. But while testing the Fillet Blade my sword user with the Fillet Blade who deals 60 dmg on normal attacks with a 240% attack dmg boost will deal 60 + 390 dmg another sword user would deal 10 + 50 dmg. Doing another test with a weaker 2h wielder who deals 120 dmg on normal attacks triggered attack will deal 120 + 500 dmg. The halberd which has an additional 160% dmg boost would give the results of 25 + 98. Of note is that the claymore triggers in a small aoe, the sword on a single target and the spear only on normal attacks but It triggers on anyone hit by that normal attack. The bonus dmg is also able to crit. Most likely it has something to do with the dmg calculation which thus far I am unaware of how it works.

Still this trigger works wonders in fights since most often you will not be able to attack at all times so you can actually see it as while dodging your actually “charging” a stronger attack so to speak. Most often while fighting against weak enemies this effect is strong enough to either instantly kill them or leave them with very little health.

Artifacts:

Here I will only mention some sets to aim for early on that are fairly common (I believe) and what main stats I personally prefer to see on artifacts.

Sets:

Berserker 2 set +12% crit, 4 set below 70% hp + an additional 24 % crit

Marital Artist 2 set normal/charged attacks +15% dmg, 4 set after using elemental skill normal/charged attacks + an additional 25% for 8 sec.

Sadly, the only artifact sets I have been getting a ton of so far is Berserker, Martial Artist, Instructor, The Exile, Traveling Doctor, Lucky dog and Adventurer. Of these I only find Berserker, Martial Artist and perhaps The Exile to be of any long-term use. There are some really great sets I’ve gotten a single drop of but again this guide is looking at early to perhaps mid game tips and I won’t dive into all possible sets and combinations.

For goblets you’re mainly looking for the type of elemental dmg % your mage is using, physical dmg % for your physical attackers or atk % bonus for use on both.For sands you’re mainly looking for atk % bonus on your dmg dealers, elemental mastery if your using a lot of combos with the character or elemental recharge % if you want to regenerate a lot of elemental orbs/particles to use your elemental burst more often. Atk % is your best bet early on.

For circlets you’re mainly looking for atk % bonus, crit rate % bonus or crit dmg % bonus. Again atk % is best bet early on but crit rate and crit dmg will probably later on be your best source of dmg once you get enough crit rate and crit dmg.

Part 2 Who To Build

Now on this part I will not go much into particular characters since most people rooster at the moment is fairly varied and frankly it would take too long. Instead I will go over the different weapon and character types.

I am someone who is of the firm belief that characters who are useful in as many situations as possible are the best choice therefore for dmg dealers I strongly recommend building a claymore user for your first main dmg dealer, if this is the type of playstyle you like.

So why do I prefer claymore users?

While swords, spears, catalysts and bows attacks faster than the claymore they pack a bigger umph and also attacks in a very broad spectrum every attack a claymore does is almost a small aoe attack in itself. This makes it easier to hit multiple enemies with each swing they do have the weakness of slower attacks and in certain situations getting attacked too often will make you think about changing weapon, though the charge attack will let you attack over and over in quick successions after a short wind-up. However, this part is pretty much up to preference, what really makes me prefer claymores are as mentioned their overall usage. While out and about claymores will be able to destroy mining nodes and rocks in a matter of seconds there are also enemies with geo shields/armour that only claymores have a great effect against, these enemies become fairly common in Liyue and their commonness is what makes me like claymore characters especially. Catalysts also has the advantage of being great in certain puzzles and against enemies with elemental shields same with bows against flying enemies or enemies with weak spots. Swords and spears on the other hand does not have any enemy or place in the game their extra useful against so far, but hopefully in the future enemies that you have to hit rapidly or something similar appears that will make them shine more, but for now swords and spears have no enemies their especially good or important against.

Still remember that you should enjoy the character you are using foremost and this is based on how and with who I like to play.

Anyhow overall I suggest your main damage dealer to be a physical attacker to start with.

This is because physical attackers will always be useful though they will deal little to no dmg against an enemy with an elemental shield or that only takes dmg from elemental dmg this will disappear once enough elemental dmg is dealt the break their shields most of the time, so far there are no enemy completely immune to physical dmg unless you count the final part of Electro Hypostasis (that I know of) but even then, all physical dmg dealers are able to deal some elemental dmg. Mages on the other hand are only able to deal elemental dmg, so far, certain enemies will therefore be a 100% immune to their dmg if used against enemies/bosses of the same element. So early on physical dmg dealers will have the advantage, mages will probably be the end game choice when used against the right elemental enemy since they get a 50% bonus dmg when used against the right element, for instance hydro vs pyro.

Remember to always max out your basic attack talent for your dmg dealers since this will be your main source of dmg and the increase for each lvl is very big. For instance every lvl will increase your dmg by about 3-10% per lvl depending on your character, weapon type and the talents lvl.

Outside of your main damage dealer you best bet is to build 1-2 supports and 1-2 healers. You’ll want your main damage dealer to be max lvl and with the best gear possible, your supports and healers mostly won’t need much investments above getting them into about lvl 50 early on and your probably better of building another dmg dealer once you’re at the point where you have a maxed our dmg dealer and the support + healers at lvl 50.

I would strongly recommend building the free character Barbara and consider including her into your team, more on this later on, Xiangling is also a free character and a great addition as a support character to most teams. An honourable mention is Fischl though not everyone will have her and Qiqi if your lucky enough to get her is perhaps the best support/healer in the game at the moment.

Part 3 What Teams To Build

Now to start of I will go fairly in-depth into the free character Barbara just to showcase why I think she is a staple inclusion into almost every team. First of as a catalyst user she can use the catalyst Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers, this weapon will give the passive of “when switching characters, the new character taking the field has their ATK increased by 24/30/36/42/48% for 10s. This effect can only occur once every 20s.” this effect works as long as a catalyst user with it equipped is on your team. So what you want to do is start the fight with for instance Barbara active then switch onto your main dmg dealer for the atk % bonus for 10 seconds, you will then have to time your switches so this passive is always active on your main dmg dealer, but once you get used to it the dmg increase is massive, especially since most likely you’ll be able to get to refinement 5 fairly easy. The books secondary stat is also hp % which is what Barbara’s skills scales of. Her skill which gives a persistent over time heal on active character has the weakness of applying the wet status to the active character but what a lot of ppl don’t talk about is that it also deals hydro dmg and applies wet to enemies around the active character as well, this means that if your short on supports or characters to combo with often she can be a great addition by having her skill deal hydro dmg to anyone close to your character which you can then combo with, many times even though it barely deals any dmg with it’s attack it has helped me break hilly mages shields very quickly since it will combo with their shields on it’s own, unless it’s the hydro mage. In short the catalyst I mentioned on its own gives a great boost to any team and for now at least Barbara is mainly the only useful character to put it on who also adds support and healing on her own. So even if you don’t need her healing just the atk % bonus can be a great addition, of course you could bring another catalyst user to put it on.

When it comes to physical dmg dealers what I recommend for early game is to trigger the superconduct combo, electro + cryo dmg, this gives a -25% def for 12 seconds on the enemy it triggers on and equals about a +30% dmg boost for all physical attacks. Therefore, you want to keep an electro and cryo unit on your team at all time when using a physical dmg dealer as your main dmg source. Fischl is the best choice for a electro unit since you can just switch to her use e summon bird and it will attack over and over with electro dmg for you, switching to Lisa and doing a single basic attack works as well, having Beidou or Razor as your main dmg dealers is also a choice to bring electro dmg. When it comes to cryo dmg your option is either to use Kaeya and switch him in to use his skill to hit with cryo dmg, Qiqi is the absolute best choice since her skill works similar to Fischl only in short range around you but it also heals you, using Chongyun as your main dmg dealer is also a choice though you’ll have to run out of his field after you’ve used it since it makes you deal cryo dmg instead of physical dmg and it has a fairly long cd compared to Kaeya.

If you choose an elemental dmg dealer superconduct is your worst elemental combo to use since it deals a very small amount of bonus dmg and is mostly for its physical defence debuff which does nothing for you. Therefore, you never want to do electro + cryo as your combo.

Xiangling is a free character who is also a great addition to almost any team because of her persistent skills that deal pyro dmg.

I would almost always recommend at this point of the game to build a team with either two or three of Fischl, Xiangling, Barbara and if your lucky Qiqi because of their persistent effects and synergy with almost everyone. Building teams around the different elemental resonances is also a good choice with double pyro giving your team +25% atk, double geo +15 % dmg while shielded and so on.

Part 4 Showcase

Lastly to give an example of what I am using at the moment, I am at AR 31 almost 32 so world lvl is 3 and I have so far cleared every content in the game that I could find, that means every elite/boss available at the moment, every hidden quest + their fights and every dungeon open to me.

My main dmg dealer is Diluc but I pretty much use his normal/charged attack 95-99% of the time (mostly the charged attack) so you could pretty much use any claymore weapon user or really any physical dmg dealer for the same or at least if it’s not a claymore user similar effect.

Here are some pictures of how he looks at the moment and what gear I have him using.

At the moment he deals about 850ish dmg on normal attacks and charged attacks deals about 650ish dmg without any buffs or debuffs applied, crits are of course higher and the trigger effect deals an extra 2000-3500 dmg on average depending on if it crits or is a normal/charged attack. With buffs and debuffs the dmg on average is anywhere between 1000-2400 dmg depending on crits or not (and I crit a lot) and if I hit the switch + atk or not with the trigger effects dealing around 3000-7000ish bonus dmg depending on if it crits or not. With this I am able to pretty much kill all normal enemies and some of the elite enemies in a single hit or within a few seconds. I am able to shave of up to 50% of the Regisvine when their in a downed state, most bosses that are incapacitated loses close to 25-50% of their health when their in a downed state, pretty sure this will go down as we move along the game but this is with a max lvl’d character (that can be switched for any other claymore character or physical dmg dealer for similar effect), max lvl’d 4 star weapon that everyone can get and refine to lvl 2 like me, three 3-star artifacts two at +8 and one at +12 and two 4-star artifacts at +12 and to be frank most of the artifacts either have bad or suboptimal secondary stats, lastly his basic attack talent is lvl 4.

What I use in combat is pretty much only the superconduct debuff, the thrilling tales switch atk buff (though I still haven’t really gotten the timing down) and then very rarely I will use Dilucs skills to deal pyro dmg to combo with Fischl’s e skill when I am low on stamina, but I almost never do this since my normal/charged attacks deals more dmg most of the time.

Any how this post became quite lengthy and I hope this helps at least someone out there and anyone is free to use this post or the info it contains however they like. I also apologize for any misspellings as english is not my first language and it became quite long at 6-7 pages.

Extra Part:

So haven’t really seen anyone mentioning this part but upon the 2nd, 3rd and I believe 5th and 6th ascension each character will get a boost in a certain area tied to themselves, in short 1st unlocks a talent, 2nd + 3rd boosts a stat, 4th another talent and I believe 5th + 6th will further boost the stat. I’ll add the one’s I know of so far and feel free to give info so I can add to the list. These additions are in the long run not game defining but in some cases they can show you towards what kind of stats/builds are most beneficial on your character.

Since in some cases I wasn’t paying much attention to this while ascending I’ll just add the aproximate buff.

5-stars:

Diluc: + crit rate, +4,8% crit at 2nd and another +4,8% crit at 3rd total +9,6% at this point, estimated + 19,2% crit rate at max lvl

Venti: + energy recharge, +8% energy recharge at 2nd, estimated +32% energy recharge at max lvl

Keqing: + crit dmg, +9,6% crit dmg at 2nd, estimated +38,4% crit dmg at max lvl

Jean: + healing bonus, +5,5% healing at 2nd, estimated + 22% healing at max lvl

Qiqi: + healing bonus, +5,5% healing at 2nd and +5,6% at 3rd total +11,1 % healing at this point estimated +22% healing at max lvl

Traveller: + atk, +6% atk at 2nd and +6% atk at 3rd, total 12% atk at this point, estimated +24% atk at max lvl

Mona: +unknown (would love someone with mona to tell me what it is and at what % sadly no friend of mine got her :/ )

4-stars:

Barbara: + hp, +6% hp at 2nd and +6% at 3rd total 12 % hp at this point, estimated +24% hp at max lvl.

Fischl: + atk, +6% atk at 2nd and +6% atk at 3rd, total 12% atk at this point, estimated +24% atk at max lvl

Chongyun: + atk, +6% atk at 2nd and +6% atk at 3rd, total 12% atk at this point, estimated +24% atk at max lvl

Razor: + physical dmg, +7.5% at 2nd, estimated + 30% physical dmg at max lvl

Ningguan: + geo dmg, numbers unknown (guessed to be same as Razor)

Beidou: + electro dmg, numbers unknown (guessed to be same as Razor)

Kaeya: + energy recharge, numbers unknown (guessed to be same as Venti)

Lisa: + elemental mastery, numbers unknown.

Xiangling: + elemental mastery, numbers unknown

Amber: + atk, +6% atk at 2nd and +6% atk at 3rd, total 12% atk at this point, estimated +24% atk at max lvl

Sucrose: + unknown

Xingqiu: + unknown

Bennet: + unknown

That is the info I have at this time but this does show you a little on what the optimal way to build some of the characters are, for instance Diluc and Keqing will benefit the most from crit rate + crit dmg builds, since they already get + crit rate/crit dmg. Razor is best as a physical dmg dealer and so on. These bonuses are as mentioned not game breaking but sort of like having an extra artifacts main stat on the characters.