Genshin Impact is a fantastic, free-to-play action-RPG that delivers an experience quite unlike what you would expect from other gacha games. It features highly polished and well-balanced gameplay, an expansive world that’s packed with content, and a constant influx of new events. But Genshin Impact is still a gacha game, so resource management is essential, especially if you don’t want to spend any money.
Primogem— the premium, in-game currency— makes Genshin Impact’s world go ’round. You can use it to unlock new characters and weapons, or offset the domain dungeons’ time restrictions to grind for materials in swifter fashion. On one hand, Primogems are gifted on a daily basis via quest commissions, events, and exploration, which is excellent if you’re not looking to spend cash. On the other hand, the Primogems required to earn a new character or weapon are staggeringly high, meaning it could take weeks, even months, before you amass enough to get what you want. Since Primogems can be bought with real-world money, it’s tempting to turn to the dark side and spend cash for them instead. You don’t have to do that.
It’s a challenge to make informed decisions about how to spend your resources, especially if you are new to the game. Fortunately, we’ve gathered invaluable tips during our year-long Teyvat adventure that will help you either conserve Primogems, or make the most with the resources you’re given. Read on to learn how to keep your Genshin Impact spending to a minimum.
Conserve Fragile Resin Until the Late Game
In Genshin Impact, exploration costs nothing but your time. That said, you’ll eventually want to develop your characters and their weapons, and that comes at a cost. Character and weapon experience are capped at specific breakpoints, after which you must collect resources to move beyond the caps. Higher-level ascensions require additional materials, so you may find yourself grinding domain dungeons and world bosses to earn what you need. These activities are gated by a resource called Original Resin.
You steadily earn Original Resin over time, regardless of whether you are logged into Genshin Impact or not. You are capped at 160 Resin points, so you cannot stockpile more after you reach that cap. To sidestep this cap, you must either spend Primogems to get additional Resin, or use a consumable item called a Fragile Resin, which grants you a flat 60 Resin points.
You’re awarded Fragile Resin after reaching specific Adventure Rank levels. You also earn them during events, and from the Battle Pass. They are uncommon, and not something you want to spend all at once, especially if you have a low Adventure Rank. Do yourself a favor and stockpile Fragile Resin until you reach Adventure Rank 45. At AR45, domain dungeons, material leylines, and bosses give the best reward and experience gains. There is nothing stopping you from using your daily Resin to complete these challenges, but do not tap into your Fragile Resin reserves until you know you’re getting the most optimized rewards, which again, become available at AR45.
It’s tempting to try and grab gear for your favorite character on the off chance that you get lucky, but resist the temptation. You’ll inevitably run domains and challenges on a regular basis to get the gear you need. Whatever you earn before AR45 will be replaced once you start grinding for end-game gear, so keep your Fragile Resin stocked and undisturbed in your inventory until you get to that point.
Don’t Skip Events
Genshin Impact entices you to log in on a daily basis to complete commission quests for a handful of free Primogems. For low spenders, these gems go a long way toward spending Wishes on limited-time Event Banners. In addition to these daily chores, developer Mihoyo introduces special events on a bi-weekly basis that award you with valuable materials, as well as bonus Primogems. So, make use that you log in often.
On top of that, some of these events, particularly the major festivals, such as the recent Lantern Rite and Ludi Harpastum celebrations, award you with a free, four-star character and a free, four-star weapon. These major events aren’t quite as frequent as the bi-weekly ones, but they are vastly more rewarding, so you do not want to miss them. To date, Genshin Impact players have received the archer Fischl; the four-star sword Festering Desire; the bow Windblume Ode; the magic catalyst Dodoco Tales; a free, four-star Liyue character of their choice during the Lantern Rite; and most recently, the great sword wielders, Beidou and Xinyan. They were all free, and were obtainable purely through events.
Develop Your Serenitea Pot
The Serenitea Pot is a late-game gadget that spirits you away to a magical realm sealed within in a tea pot. This tea pot is Genshin Impact’s version of player housing, and it offers a robust selection of structures, furnishings, and ornaments to craft the fantasy getaway of your dreams. You’re fairly limited when you first unlock the Serenitea Pot, being restricted to a single island, and a handful of furnishings. You earn new furnishings blueprints through quests, and you can purchase them from your teapot spirit Tubby, who watches over your domain.
Not only is the Serenitea Pot a nice diversion from the daily grinding and story quests, but it also awards you with Realm Currency. The more you build and expand your domain, the more currency you earn per hour. This can be exchanged for more blueprints to further develop the Pot, or for specialty items, such as character experience books, artifact experience items, and a weekly Resin fragment worth 60 Original Resin. The Serenitea Pot version, called a Transient Resin, can only be used within ten days of purchasing it, so you cannot stock up on this in the same way you can with Fragile Resin. Nonetheless, its a fine source for extra resin, so once you get your Realm Rank up, be sure to purchase this as soon as it becomes available.
Take Advantage of the Reputation System
Mihoyo introduced a reputation system that lets you undertake additional quests in each region to earn bonus rewards and recipes. The rewards for undertaking these reputation quests make them worthwhile. You can unlock gadgets that reveal treasure chests in a given region, or show the location of the hidden Oculus relics that award you with stamina enhancements and key resources. Unique regional recipe cards can be acquired through reputation quests, as well. Finally, each region awards a unique cosmetic wing-glider you can use to customize your characters, which is a nice touch. Be sure to tackle these reputation quests every week to unlock these rewards.
Don’t Get Addicted to Wishing
Simply put, do not wantonly spend Primogems. It’s easy to spend your time-earned or cash-bought Primogems on a brand new character or shiny new weapon Banner. Resist this urge. Genshin Impact is a gorgeous, content-dense, free-to-play adventure, but keep in mind that Genshin Impact is a gacha game at heart. Mihoyo’s cash cow is the randomized character and weapon Banners where you gamble for items, with gamble being the operative word.
You could roll once on a Banner, and get extraordinarily lucky, but the odds are you won’t. You’re guaranteed a four-star weapon or character at 10 Wishes, and guaranteed a five-star weapon/character at 90 Wishes. Since you only earn about 60 Primogems per day, not including bonus gems during events, it can take between two and three days to earn enough Primogems to wish on a Banner. If you’re buying Primogems, then you’re spending about $2.60 per wish, $26 for a ten-pull, and $234 for 90 rolls to guarantee a 5-Star unit. With a new Character Event Banner circulating every three weeks or so, you are going to be spending astronomical amounts of cash trying to acquire every unit as they’re introduced.
So don’t. Don’t blow your Primogems on Banners as soon as they arrive. Give yourself some time, read community thoughts, and make informed decisions about whether you want to spend your hard-earned Primogems on a flashy new character, or hold out for one you like more later down the line.
Don’t Waste Primogems on the Standard Banner
As an addendum to the previous point, don’t spend any of your Primogems on the Standard Banner. Standard Banner Wishes can be made with Acquaint Fate, a unique item that you receive as you improve your Adventure Rank, earn Battle Pass rewards, elevate a character to higher level-tiers, and, of course, with Primogem purchases. The Standard Banner has most non-event characters/weapons of all rarities, and the items aren’t limited-time affairs like the ones associated with Event Banners. So don’t rush to roll on Standard; its not going anywhere. You regularly receive Acquaint Fates, so there’s no need to waste Primogems purchasing them for Wishes. Save your Primogems for the Character Event Banners, and go for Standard Banner rolls only whenever you amass enough Acquaint Fates to do so. Don’t rush it!
Skip the Weapon Banner
The last Primogem-hording bit of advice is this: Unless you have more money than you know what to do with, avoid spending Primogems on Wishes for use with Weapon Event Banners. Most newly introduced five-star characters have a signature weapon; a weapon that generally edges out four-star weapons. Unfortunately, earning these potent armaments requires rolling on the Weapon Banner, which has notoriously bad rates for the promotional weapons. Thankfully, this system has improved slightly since Genshin Impact’s launch, but it is still a tremendous money sink no matter how you look at it.
Essentially, you can chart which of the two promotional weapons you want to pull. You’re guaranteed a five-star weapon at 90 Wishes, but you only have a 50 percent chance of getting the weapon you want. If the five-star weapon you earn is not your chosen one, you earn a Fate Point. Once you earn two Fate Points, which is to say you lose the 50/50 twice in a row, your next five-star roll is guaranteed to be the weapon you want. In essence, the worst case scenario is that you need to Wish 270 times on the Weapon Banner to get the gear you want. With Wishes costing you some $2.60 a pop, you’re looking at more than $700 worth of Wishes to get a guaranteed weapon of your choosing. Sure, there’s always a chance that you get it sooner, but the odds are pretty ugly no matter how you look at it. Stay away from the Weapon Banner, especially if you’re going the free-to-play route. You’re never getting those Primogems back.
Appreciate Lower-Ranked Weapons
Five-star weapons are excellent, and you’re bound to get some from the Standard Banner. That said, don’t sneeze at three- or four-star weapons. When you first start your adventure, do not hesitate to improve and refine a three-star weapon to carry you through early Adventure Ranks. Weapons, such as the White Tassel spear and Slingshot bow are common, but possess potent special effects that make them surprisingly useful at lower levels. The White Tassel, for instance, increases your normal attack damage. Refining this weapon by feeding it other weapons of the same type boosts the damage further, up to 48 percent. That’s not too shabby for a low-tier weapon.
Once you achieve a high Adventure Rank, you should start farming four-star weapons. The game often gives you freebie, four-star weapons via quests or events, and they’re surprisingly good. For example, The Catch is a superb, energy-recharging spear that’s obtained by playing the new fishing mini-game. It and other four-star weapons are fantastic substitutions for the best-in-slot, five-star weapons, and they can be improved and refined to be monstrously powerful. Best of all, they’re free! So, craft and build up these weapons instead of wasting money with the pricey Weapon Banner.
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