Genshin Impact Gacha-of-the-Wild All

I've been playing around with this casually the past few days. Having fun, but still very much a beginner. I'm at adventure level 12 or 13. I've scraped enough together to do the beginner's (10) wish twice- got the guaranteed Noelle, plus Sucrose and Xingqiu. I'm told (by videos online) that Xingqiu is a great pull. I also scraped enough together to do the current timed banner (10) wishes, and got Xingqiu again, so I also have his first star unlocked on his constellation.

I'm sure I'm being very inefficient as I'm mostly just exploring randomly and doing quests as the mood strikes me. I haven't dropped a dime on this game yet and hope to get out before I feel the need to. But so far it's been fun.

Also, in terms of spending, if you do anything, start with the Welkin Moon thing that gives you 2700 primogems spread out as 90/day for 30 days for $5 - which is the best value in the game. Then think about the battle pass if you really get into it / are running late game. I have yet to buy my first gem thing (with bonus double) since the price ask for what you get is insanely terrible.

Honestly, there's not too much to "waste" that early on -- the way resource income scales later on, leveling characters/weapons to 20 or artifacts to 4/8 or whatever eventually has a very small cost. That early on, I'd say these are some decent rules of thumb:

- Up to level 20 just invest resources into whatever characters/weapons you are having fun playing (and/or who are useful for adventuring/puzzle solving).
- Do the items the handbooks suggests, because the early reward there are very helpful.
- If you're not struggling with combat, then don't sweat it -- spend them where it seems fun, or maybe save your resources until you need them/have a better idea where you want to spend them?

- For weapons, REFINE as fast as you can. Early on you might have a situation where you'd want two copies of a single weapon, but get those three star weapons up to refinement 5 as quick as you can. As for leveling/ascension, no harm in leveling to 20, maybe 40, but I wouldn't push (most) three star weapons much farther than that. Hopefully by then you'll have at least a few four star weapons, and for the most part those are going to be better choices for leveling beyond that point.

- For artifacts, you might want to save materials for a while until you start to have a better idea of what stats you care about for your characters. It's almost always a safe bet to level up your feather, since that is always just a flat boost to atk which for everyone except maybe Barbara will massively improve how well they do their job. (For Barbara, HP is the stat you should care about, so upgrading a flower for her is similar to a feather for nearly everyone else.)
- After the feather, if you get a goblet/cup that boosts a character's elemental damage, that's also worth upgrading for sure, or else maybe an atk% cup for the same reason as upgrading the feather. (Later on, atk% cups will usually be less useful than more targeted stats, but early on it's a great place to start.)
- Upgrade your artifacts in steps of four if you can, because every four levels you'll get either a new substat or an increase to one of the ones present already. Three star artifacts will stop at level 12, and even once you start getting four star artifacts you'll probably want to mostly leave them at 12 until much later on.

As for characters, of the starter set the only characters to be cautious about investing too much into would be Lisa and Amber. If you're going to stay entirely free to play they'll probably remain important, but even if you get a couple more lucky pulls (like that Xingqiu C1!) they're the most likely to fall off in utility.

The main character will probably remain a decent choice to level even if you spend a bit of money on the Welkin thing or battle passes. As you play you eventually get all their constellations for free, which is a pretty solid benefit, but in most situations other characters of the same element will eventually outshine them when it comes to integrating into team contexts. And, since you've got Sucrose, she's probably going to be your better choice for filling the anemo spot in most teams.

Buuuutt.... (and this is only the smallest of mechanical spoilers that you've probably seen if you're watching videos about the game)

which means that they will stay important/valuable at least for exploration and puzzle solving basically until you're done exploring and puzzle solving. As such, even if you start building a core team that doesn't include them it's probably worth continuing to level them to some extent, even if you don't invest as heavily in them as you do others.

A few more thoughts about characters:

- Xingqiu will be great as is, but there is a four star sword called the Sacrificial Sword that turns him from good to indispensable. It helps overcome his energy generation problems both through the raw stat, and due to its passive effect that will frequently let you cast your skill twice in a row, doubling energy and dealing a TON of damage. (It has a long cooldown because of how strong it is, so being able to cheat through that cooldown frequently is amazing.) Sadly, the Sac Sword is just a random pull from banners, so it's not something you can purposefully hunt down -- just have to hope luck brings it to you.
- If you still get a free Xiangling, she's a strong choice to upgrade. She has trouble building up energy for her burst attack, but if you focus on overcoming that, she's a spectacular burst damage support and pyro reaction enabler, with good synergy with Xingqiu's burst support. Also, if you craft her a Crescent Pike she can be a VERY strong physical damage carry (that is, the person doing auto attacks while waiting for team cooldowns/energy).
- Kaeya also has great synergy with Xingqiu, although their best teams together want either Jean or Diona as a healer. Still, even using Barbara you can have a LOT of fun keeping all the enemies frozen forever.
- Not sure if you'll build enough of the currency by the end of the month, but the characters on the store this month are Xingqiu and Ningguang, who are both are great choices. Xingqiu's C2 effect is STRONG, and Ningguang can either be a very strong carry or burst damage support, and has great synergy with

- If you roll a Bennett (or if he's on the store next month), use him. He's spectacular.

- The next character specific banner starts this Tuesday, and will run for three weeks. It will feature Venti, who is one of two or three of the most useful characters in the game, and maybe is the one reason why you wouldn't want to level Sucrose since he fills the same niche, and mostly does it better. So, just something to consider if you think you might roll a bit on his banner. (His banner will probably feature Razor, Noelle, and Sucrose as supporting four star characters, which is maybe not the most exciting, but still worth thinking about due to the chance at Venti, and the fact that Sucrose's C1 is also big boost.)

Yeah, that's a pretty solid adventuring team (that is, one that has a broad spread of abilities that let you deal with traversal and puzzles just as well as they handle combat) and it'll do you well for quite a while.

Eventually you'll probably want to find ways to start working in healing for tougher combat scenarios (and just to spend less time dealing with food), and if it hasn't already, I'm pretty sure the game will give you Barbara at some point for that. (As with Xiangling, I'm nearly certain that still happens for new players, but I can't remember exactly when or how.)

As for Sucrose vs the anemo aligned Traveler (as the main character is sometimes referred), that's actually probably going to work out better until you reach the point where you can unlock Sucrose's two talents that let her buff elemental mastery in various different ways. At that point, if you've got a team that's making heavy use of elemental reactions other than freeze, she's going to suddenly offer a boatload of new utility for many team compositions. But, until then the Traveler's solid jack of all trades ability is probably well worth sticking with.

(Also, MUCH later you'll get to a point where you have access to higher end artifact sets, and Sucrose will be much better at capitalizing on the benefits of the the anemo focused Viridescent Venerer set, even further extending her support utility.)

Just a reminder, if you have forgotten about the Daily login rewards, you still have time to get at least 40 primogems.

Some slightly creepy footage of Yaoyao has shown up from the original closed beta. Who knows when our little dendro chef will make it into game, however.

That was just a general reminder.

So now there is a new web event that just started: A Wanmin Welcome. It'll be worth 150 primogems if you hit it everyday.

Good thing I've been saving my primos. I lost the 50/50 and didn't hit my 5* until about 75 rolls both times, but Venti is mine.

On the bright side, my other 5* was Jean. The only other base 5* I'm really itching for now is Diluc.

Gratz on the 5*s!

In case anyone is wondering who the spoiled 1.5 characters are likely to be...

Interesting thing about these two is that they are not mentioned anywhere in game, unlike a handful of characters we know about who are already mentioned or seen in a story quest in game.

I could probably use another pyro support, actually.

I guess it might be a bit better now that I'm close to having Hu Tao built up, but they way they currently construct Abyss floors, I never have enough pyro available. I suppose if you've got Diluc and/or Klee on top of the more easily available options though, that would be a bit different.

As for the cryo claymore, looks like it might be more accurate to call her a physical claymore user who can easily trigger superconduct on her own, so that's not bad.

I suppose in the world of physical carries Rosaria is about to fill that same spot, but it's still not quite clear whether her best focus will be that or as a cryo support. (Or rather, which job she does best might strongly depend on how many constellations you get.)

Well, Rosaria is a cryo polearm character, so at least there's that.

Beyond that, there's a bit of speculative stuff to be gleaned from character models datamined from old beta clients.

There were what appeared to be anemo claymore and sword (beyond the Traveller, of course) characters, but they seemed to originate from Inazuma, so it will be a while yet for that.

Then there was a Liyue cryo character who originally looked like they would be a physical focused claymore user, but leak/dataminers seem convinced that her kit might have been moved to the leaked 1.5 character we've been discussing, and she might have been reworked potentially to be a cryo catalyst.

As for the geo bow user, apparently Albedo was originally built out as a bow user, but was changed to sword at some point. But, there is one more Liyue character from the datamined beta client who seemed to be geo, but without a clear indication of weapon type, so that's a possibility too.

Couldn't resist this screenshot in the "Quiet, please, this is a library!" quest.

The stinking dating sim thing has me so disappointed and bored I hadn't checked out anything else yet. I was put to sleep 3 nights this week attempting to get through that trash. Finally finished up Chongyun last night, and powered through Bennet's with a guide this morning,

Also, after the character demo with Venti, and realizing I'm only 33 wishes away from pity kicking in, I decided I'm gonna see if I can pick him up to help with crowd control, despite already having 9 characters at level 80, and one more at 70. I'm just so terrible at the Spiral Abyss, I think I need the ability to ground all the little guys up. I just cannot manage with all those arrows flying around while trying to defend the totem in 11-2.

Oh boy, I'm probably not the first to say this but the second phase of the Stormterror boss fight is so poorly explained. I had my first party wipe because I didn't understand several key things about this fight. I had to look up a video on youtube and while watching I was like

I'll give it another go tomorrow and it should be much easier. Right now I'm just upset at how much food I wasted during the fight trying to revive and heal my party.

I also was wondering is the daily checkin at the Genshin Impact site (posted above) an ongoing thing every month? Or is it just for this month because of the new content?

Guess who I rolled tonight... Bennett. I also unlocked Barbara for free after completing the Stormterror boss fight. And rolled a second Barbara after I got Bennett, so I've got her C1 unlocked. I haven't leveled either up or equipped them yet to try them out. I'm going to look at that tomorrow after work.

So... looks like I'm loaded with support characters? I'm at AR23(ish) and world level 1. I've leveled the Traveler and Xingqiu to mid 30s. Have a couple more characters in the low 20s. And almost every fight seems winnable as long as it isn't timed. I think I clearly have a DPS shortage.