Genshin Impact is a smash-hit in the gacha community, despite the vast selection of titles in the genre. It's not often that a gacha successfully makes a game with an addicting pull system, good gameplay, and quality graphics, but miHoYo certainly proves the strength of their model.

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With tough odds, the Genshin Impact banners are not a walk in the park; by gacha standards, banners in the game are difficult to pull on. However, players shouldn't give up just yet. There are a lot of tips that make pulling in Genshin Impact's banners both easier and more enjoyable.

Updated on December 8, 2022, by Elara Leclair: The latest big version update to Genshin Impact, the 3.0, has been creating a buzz among fans. With the introduction of the new region of Sumeru, the Dendro element, new reactions, and great new characters, this update has already become a highlight for the game. The game boasts a wide range of characters, new and old, to choose from and explore. With the number of events, dailies, and new patches, there is an abundance of Primogems and rewards to be earned, allowing players to progress and build their characters.

However, for free-to-play and low-spender players, it can be difficult to obtain every character in the game. With the recent arrival of the Wanderer, Faruzan, and newly announced upcoming characters such as Yaoyao and Alhaitam, as well as plenty of reruns, it can be easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of characters. Therefore, it is important for players to be aware of their expectations and understand what the gacha system means for their experience in Genshin Impact.

9 Understanding Pull Odds

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The banners featured in Genshin Impact are far from forgiving to players looking to pull a specific character. In fact, the vast majority of the time, a pull will give the player a three-star weapon instead of even a four-star item. This isn't even talking about the rarity of five-star items.

Generally speaking, the average five-star item has a 0.6% chance of appearing. This is remarkably low compared to a four-star item's 5.1% chance of appearing and being guaranteed after 10 pulls. All in all, this is a very difficult gacha to work with. That said, players can improve their odds by increasing the amount they pull on a banner and saving Primogems for characters they desperately want.

8 The Pity System

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However, miHoYo has also implemented a pity system in its gacha: these are essentially a guarantee that players will receive a higher rarity item after a certain amount of pulls. This should make it easier for players to get their hands on these limited-time weapons and characters. The pity system in Genshin Impact offers soft pity and guaranteed pity.

For the standard banner and limited-time character banners, soft pity, the chances to pull a five-star item drastically increases after 75 pulls. After that, the pity system in Genshin Impact guarantees five-star items after 90 pulls. For limited-time weapon banners, however, the soft pity rate is a bit lower at 65 pulls with a guaranteed five-star weapon being after 80 pulls.

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Genshin Impact has a 50/50 system that ensures players have a chance to obtain the limited characters they desire. Typically, the chance of getting a rate-up character in limited-time banners is 50 percent. However, if the rate-up character is not obtained the first time, players are guaranteed to receive a rate-up on their second pull of a 5-star item. Players should keep in mind that the weapon banner pity system works slightly differently as there are two rate-up items in this banner type.

7 Differences Between Banners

Limited Banner, Standard Banner, and Weapon Banner in Genshin Impact

Permanently, there are three different banners to pull on: a character event banner, a weapon event banner, and the standard banner. Each of these banners comes with its quirks, which are better off understood by players before they even think about pulling.

Character event banners will only give five-star items as characters, and the same is true for the weapon event banner with weapons. Furthermore, each of these gives a rate-up to items featured on the banner, meaning that the featured item will come up more commonly than other items of their class. These are best for players that want specific items and item types.

The character banner and the weapon banner rate-ups rotate as they are considered limited-time banners. There are usually two character rate-up runs per rotation to ensure reruns can come more often. These tend to share the same four-star rate-up characters.

6 Prioritizing Wants And Needs

Genshin Impact Zhongli Wish

With a balance of pity and item rate-ups, any player can better calculate their odds to get the items they want. However, players will also find that prioritizing items that they want will make gameplay more enjoyable. After all, players don't want to pull a polearm if they don't have a character that can use it.

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Keeping up to date with miHoYo's banner schedule will make planning a pull schedule easier. While banner leaks should be taken with a grain of salt, miHoYo does tend to give players a few weeks in advance to plan their pulls. The current banners can be found both by the internal announcement system in-game and on their website.

Players can also anticipate which characters will be released based on their presence in the story; if a character plays a vital role in recently released content and hasn't been released yet, there's a higher chance they'll be released soon.

5 Pulling Limited Banners

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Standard Banner currently includes Diluc, Jean, Mona, Keqing, Qiqi and Tighnari who has been added to the standard pool since the 3.1 update. One of the major benefits of pulling on an event banner is the possibility of pulling a limited item. These are items that are not available in the standard pool, making them unobtainable after their banner ends. Naturally, these are some of the most sought-after characters in the game given their scarcity.

There are a lot of characters that are not available in the standard banner. These include characters like the Wanderer. This makes five-star characters far more valuable than four-star given that they cannot be obtained without good planning. Genshin Impact players can improve their odds of pulling these banners by saving for limited item banners in advance.

Saving for limited characters is recommended over limited weapon banners, as there are many four-star weapon options available through crafting or in-game events. New characters bring fresh play styles to the game, introducing new ways to play and keeping the gameplay dynamic, in contrast to weapon banners. The banner pity system for obtaining weapons makes it more difficult to acquire desired weapons, as it may require more attempts to pull the desired weapon compared to a rate-up character.

4 The Value Of A Four-Star Item

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Of course, every player wants to pull a five-star item. That's just how a gacha works: there is more pride in a pull the rarer an item is. That said, players would do well to avoid considering four-star items useless.

Related: Genshin Impact: Every 4-Star Character, Ranked

While a five-star finds its strength in sheer stats, a four-star item finds its strength in frequency. Refinement of weapons, and constellations for characters, heavily increases the strength of their abilities and talents. And four-stars can receive these benefits far more often than a five-star item.

3 It's Not Just About Primogems

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Many players become discouraged when they hear about the cost of wishes. 160 primogems per wish is a lot at later levels, especially when the game only guarantees players 60 primogems per day in commissions. It is recommended that players save their primogems for Intertwined Fates for the event banners instead of the Acquinted Fate for the standard banner

That said, pulling on banners often yields more than just a primogem count. Upon pulling a duplicate character or weapon, players will receive a select amount of stardust; this material can be spent on even more wishes. That and the starglitter shop allows for five of each type of wish to be purchased each month, with free primogem codes also offering increased primogem counts. If players are willing to spend some money, the Battle-Pass and Welkin Moon also offer extra primogems or wishes.

2 Character Reruns

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Fear of missing out could very well be the enemy of any Genshin Impact player. With limited characters that don't appear after their banner and limited resources, it's not uncommon to want to pull on every banner.

While this can be a perfectly fine way to enjoy the game, players should be aware that reruns do happen. After all, both Venti and Tartaglia have had reruns, meaning that even limited characters are likely to be available at some point in the future. Generally speaking, reruns aren't likely to occur until several updates after their last release: Tartaglia had to wait for 7 banners until his first rerun, and Venti had to wait for 8 banners.

1 Epitomized Path ExplainedGenshin Impact Epitomized Path Selection Page

The Epitomized Path in Genshin Impact gives players the opportunity to select one of two featured five-star weapons in the Epitome Invocation banner. Players who do not get the desired weapon are rewarded with one Fate Point. This means they will receive one Fate Point if they get a non-rate-up weapon or the other rate-up banner they have not chosen.

It is possible to accumulate a maximum of two Fate Points, which will guarantee that the next five-star pull will be the chosen weapon once both have been obtained. Unlike the pity system, Fate Points reset when the weapon-banner duration ends.

Genshin Impact was released on September 28, 2020, and is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS.

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