Gearing your Characters: The Basics

[LtNoobslayer]

Time for another guide no one asked for!  Today's topic is of course getting your characters outfitted with the right gear to ensure smooth travels during your journey across Teyvat.  I'll be breaking down the character screen and what things to keep an eye on as you progress to get the most out of your characters.  Let us begin.

Today Zhongli will be helping us out with navigating the character menu.  He knows an awful lot so he's a great teacher at times.

On the main screen you will see some aggregate primary stats for your character, their element, and their friendship level.  The Details button on the right side of the screen will open up a more detailed breakdown of their stats.  When a Character is not yet max level, there will be an additional button by the "Dressing Room" button that says rather aptly, "Level Up".  This is the primary way to increase character levels as combat is an inadequate source of character exp.  When you hit the level gates noted by the level numbers being the same (Level 40/40 is at the cap while level 40/50 has just ascended and can be leveled more) the "Level Up" button is replaced by the "Ascend" button.  How far you can ascend a character is determined by your world level and in turn by your adventure rank.

Next is the Weapons tab on the left, here you can change your weapons, level them up, look at how pretty your characters are with their angry face...You know the usual.  It is recommended to keep your weapon at the same level of your character.  Just as characters can ascend at certain intervals so too do weapons, the process is the exact same for leveling them up albeit using their own unique materials.  4 star weapons are completely viable and in some odd cases 2-3rd best options for characters.  Typically you don't need to fret over 5 star weapons unless someone is your favorite and you like the drip.  Check the stats of the weapon and if it has any special effects that match the character's playstyle to decide who gets what weapons.  When in doubt, Favonius weapons are always solid placeholders on anyone.

Next up is artifacts, here's probably the biggest section explanation wise.  Artifacts are the real end game of Genshin, the eternal grind for marginally better stats (or not if you know how to be content with things less than perfect).  Artifacts take up 5 gear slots and come in a variety of sets.  Every set has a piece for each of the 5 slots: Hat/Circlet, Cup/Goblet, Clock/Sands, Feather, Flower.  Of these pieces the Flower and Feather always have the same main stat, health % and flat attack respectively.  The sands, goblet, and circlet can have one of a specific subset of main stats each depending on the piece.  Circlets can get critical rate or damage, while goblets are where you can get elemental damage % bonuses for example.  All sets have a 2 and 4 piece bonus for having the correct number of matching artifacts in each slot.  General rule of thumb, especially while leveling is that {Main stat > sub stat > set bonus}.  As you get to higher levels you can begin to focus in on getting a full set with desirable stats.

Clicking on any of the artifacts will bring up the menu for changing out or leveling up artifacts.  Artifacts use other artifacts as exp materials.  Artifacts come in 5 rarities starting at 1 star and going up to 5.  Higher quality artifacts not only have more and larger base stats but also can be leveled further than other rarities.  For example 4 star artifacts will cap at level 16 but 5 star artifacts can be leveled to 20.  While leveling just throw the best quality artifact you can for the slot with the right stats.  Zhongli here scales with his max HP so I'd make sure he had a good flower and an HP% sands artifact.  Since he's a Geo character I'd also give him a geo damage goblet if I have one, otherwise more HP% for him while I wait.  Below you can see I even gave him an HP% hat even though most characters want one of the crit stats.  as your characters outgrow their low level and low rarity artifacts you can use them to level up your new ones so there's no waste.  Don't worry too much about leveling artifacts in the early game but don't ignore them either.  If you're at character level 50 and still using level 4 artifacts you might struggle a bit but likewise don't worry about leveling those 4 star artifacts to 16 while you're only level 30-40.

Below you can see the main stat, rarity, level, 4 sub stats, and the set bonus for Zhongli's hat.  The sub stats will appear and level up every 4 levels.  A 5 star artifact can spawn with 3-4 stats to start.  If it has 3, it will gain a random 4th stat at level 4.  If it started with 4, and every level up following, it will increase one of the current sub stats at 4/8/12/16/20.  In the example below it appears Zhongli got 1 Crit Damage level, 3 Crit rate levels, and 1 Elemental mastery levels.  The crit rate would have appeared at level 4 by my math.  You can navigate the artifacts by slot using the symbols on the top left of the screen and filter down by artifact set and specific stats.  If you click on another artifact you can even compare it to your current equipment side by side to see their stats on the same screen.

Constellations are the duplicate system of Genshin Impact.  All characters work perfectly fine out of the box at what we call C0, or constellation zero.  All characters have 6 Constellations that can be unlocked by getting duplicates.  5 Star characters like Zhonlgi are much harder to get these copies of but their effects are equally powerful.  4 Star characters are much easier to get and therefore their constellations come easier as well.  Most constellations add new or extra effects to a character's existing kit, for example Zhongli has a constellation that let's him place a second pillar with his elemental skill.  Other characters can have their roles change with constellations.  Yanfei's C4 gives her a shield when she uses her elemental burst, normally she's a pyro DPS character but with this new addition to her kit people have built her as a shielder for other characters too.  Not all constellations are created equal and it comes down to player preference.  Do you want more new characters or your favorites to be stronger?  How far down the constellation do you want to go?  Many Raiden Shogun players stop at her C3, Hu Tao players stop at her C1.  Hunting for cons is harder as a F2P player so if you choose that route plan carefully and keep up to date on your prayers to RNGesus.  Below you can see my C0 Zhongli and my C3 Raiden (small whale moment, totally worth).

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Next is the talent screen, and to assist us Ayaka is going to join us for a moment.  The talent list is made up of 3 combat talents, 2 ascension passives, and an "exploration passive".  Ayaka has a special extra talent that modifies her sprint into a special version that lets her run over water so she's here to showcase that.  The first talent listed is the "normal attack" or "auto" talent, this governs the multipliers on your normal and charged/heavy attacks with your weapon.  Unless the character is using their weapon to attack consistently this is usually ignored or only leveled to level 6.  Many support characters don't get this talent leveled as most players only use their skills or bursts before swapping off of them again.  The second talent is the "elemental skill" or sometimes "E" thanks to the keyboard key to activate it.  Skills typically apply the character's element in some way and operate on a cool down.  Some skills have both a "tap" and a "hold" version of the skill, usually with their own effects and cooldowns.  The talent level will increase damage multipliers as well as other effects depending on the skill.  The 3rd talent is typically the "elemental burst" or "ult" or "Q" (Below Ayaka breaks tradition with her special sprint talent).  These are the most powerful abilities a character has and it operates on both an energy system (needs to be recharged with particles from skill use and enemy defeats) and a cool down.  Ayaka happens to have a very powerful burst that can shred through enemies so I made sure to level it up for maximum ouchies.  These 3 talents can be leveled to a max of 10.  The cost goes up for each level.  If the talent is never used many folks leave it at 1, for general use you can go up to 6.  After level 6 upgrades require drops from weekly bosses, and the apex level 10 requires the rare event material "crown of insight".  The next 2 talents are ascension passives.  typically called A1 and A4 to coincide with the ascension level associated with them.  These passives unlock as you ascend your character and typically flesh out their kit and playstyle.  The final talent is a crafting/exploration talent.  These are always active and can do things from as mundane as duplicating food made, to marking items on the minimap to reducing weapon upgrade costs, sometimes they even adding talent levels to other characters in your party!  Talents are important parts of your character's combat power so make sure to keep them leveled (at least to 6 when you can).

And back to Zhongli for the last tab. The profile page contains some of the character's backstory and a collection of their voice lines to revisit at your leisure.  As the friendship level increases you unlock more of their story and voice lines.  There's even some voice lines for hitting certain levelling milestones too so check back as you use them.

That about wraps up my "quick" overview of leveling your characters and keeping from falling behind as you go.  hopefully this helps anyone new to the game or maybe some veterans who've gotten stuck.

 

Edited February 11 by LtNoobslayer
Minor grammatical edits