Genshin Impact has been around for over a year, and a lot has changed since adventurers stepped into the world of Teyvat. If you are jumping into the game for the first time, there’s more content to explore than ever before. You will get bombarded with game systems, quests, currencies, and more that might feel overwhelming.
I have been playing Genshin for over a year, and I’m still learning new things now and then. And no matter how daunting it sounds, the game is more welcoming than ever before. If you want to experience the beautiful world of Genshin with your party of four, you are in good company.
I’ve broken down my progression guide into three sections for early game, mid-game and late-game players. If you have already experienced some of what Genshin has to offer and don’t know what to do next, feel free to head to the appropriate section.
Early Game Progression (Adventure Rank 1-25)
When you first load up the game, you will get to choose between Aether and Lumine, the two playable protagonists in the game. Whoever you pick will be your “main character,” but only for the core storyline. After that, you can choose whoever you like as they have the same powers.
But before we begin, do you have friends who also play Genshin? If you’d like to play with them, make sure you start your journey to Teyvat on the appropriate server. Genshin Impact progression does not carry over across servers, and missing out on co-op can be a bummer. On the other hand, co-op makes Genshin a more accessible and fun experience, and being on the same server as your friends can be rewarding.
Play through the campaign
Genshin does not exactly have a “campaign,” but it does have a main questline that keeps evolving. You get to experience Monstadt before moving on to Inazuma and Liyue regions. These are the three significant regions available in the game right now out of the seven in the works. Smaller areas like Dragonspine and the Golden Archipelago (limited-time area) have their story quests, rewards, and more.
Experience the story and see what Genshin has to offer. You will be able to play up until a certain point before you run into a wall where the game tells you to raise your adventure rank. This is where you will get to experience a lot of the other systems the game throws at you.
Adventure Ranks
You will get to sign up with the Adventurer’s Guild by talking to Katheryne in any of the cities in Teyvat. You could consider Katheryne as Officer Jenny or Nurse Joy from Pokemon; you’ll find them in every city!
The Adventure Rank system lets you access better loot, more story quests, activities, and other content that are unavailable at the start. As you keep clearing content, you will unlock new levels and unlock more content up until AR 35.
Here is everything that unlocks as you progress through the adventure rank system:
- Adventure Rank 8: Blossom of Revelation – Leyline Outcrops ( Lets you farm character XP books)
- Adventure Rank 12: Blossom of Wealth – Leyline Outcrops ( Lets you farm Mora)
- Adventure Rank 14: Character Expeditions (Lets you get free resources passively even when not playing the game)
- Adventure Rank 16: Domains of Forgery (Source of weapon ascension materials)
- Adventure Rank 20: Spiral Abyss (Endgame dungeon) and Battle Pass (Available to all players)
- Adventure Rank 22: Domains of Blessing (Source of Artifacts)
- Adventure Rank 25: City Reputation System (Unlocks region-specific rewards)
- Adventure Rank 26: Story Keys (Unlocks character-specific story content)
- Adventure Rank 27: Domains of mastery (Source of Talent level-ups)
- Adventure Rank 35: Serenitea Pot (Housing system)
Level Up Your Characters
Do not hesitate to level up your characters if you encounter more challenging enemies. During the early game, I’d recommend leveling up one damage dealer as much as possible along with a weapon. You will need to get to certain adventure ranks to progress further, and keeping one character at the maximum likely level cap is strongly recommended.
Don’t Hesitate to Play Co-op.
The co-op mode is unlocked as soon as you hit Adventure Rank 16. You will not be able to join friends whose world level is higher than yours, but others can join you and help you out on your adventures. Feel free to use the co-op option whenever it’s available for activities and events if you find yourself struggling with content.
Use Your Adventure Book
Need to find a specific boss? Want to know where enemies are on your map? Use the Adventure Book! It’s a handy little tool that you are introduced to by the game within the first hour of gameplay, and it is often underused by players.
You will be able to track down resources in your map or check out objectives and daily commissions right from the adventure book. You can also use the official interactive map by MiHoYo for finding hidden chests, resources, and more.
Grab Those Collectibles
There are Anemoculus, Geoculus, and Electroculus spread throughout Monstadt, Liyue, and Inazuma, respectively. It would help if you tried to grab the Anemoculus first thing and level up the Statues of the Seven.
You will get access to rewards and increased stamina levels, which helps in combat and exploration. Consider marking your map each time you grab any of the collectibles make finding them more accessible. You can also refer to the official interactive map to find the collectibles, chests, and more.
Spend Your Original Resin
Original Resin is like a “stamina” system and dictates how much you can do certain content for rewards. For example, killing bosses, clearing most domains, and doing leylines require original Resin to collect rewards. Once you are out of the 160 resin that the game gives you each day, you need to wait for it to recharge. You get one Resin every eight minutes, which translates to around 21 hours for the full refresh.
You should spend original Resin every day as it allows you to make your characters stronger. I’d recommend doing bosses or weapon material domains as they are the most valuable in the early game. You will notice another currency in your inventory called Fragile Resin which can give you more original Resin by consuming them.
I firmly recommend not using the consumables until you are at Adventure Rank 45 or higher. The loot gets better as you progress through the adventure ranks and get an incredible bump in value at higher adventure ranks, making it worth it to save the Fragile Resin for future use.
Mid Game Progression (Adventure Rank 25-45)
As you progress through the story and gain adventure ranks, you will unlock more Trounce Domains, the Teapot Housing System, Story Keys, and more. If you are in the midgame, I recommend keeping the following tips in mind.
Increase Your World Level
As you increase your Adventure Rank, you will notice that “Ascension Quests” become available. You can think of them as a rite of passage to the next world level, which will bump up the difficulty and make things harder. But would anyone do that? You get access to more loot, higher drop rates, and you also get to make your favorite characters stronger. The higher your world level is, the stronger you can become!
Do Not Farm Artifacts
You will unlock a ton of artifact domains, and it’s not worth spending your Resin on. You will have guaranteed drops for 5-star artifacts every run from AR45, and I recommend saving your sanity for them. Leveling up your characters and bumping up their talents, or upgrading their weapons are guaranteed spikes in power.
You do not need to worry about artifacts just yet, and feel free to use random artifacts to beat all of the content at this stage. Gladiator and Berserker pieces will do just fine for most characters, and you can focus on optimizing your characters in the endgame.
Continue Exploring
Exploring can be very rewarding, and grabbing those chests throughout the map will give you many primogems for your favorite characters. Unfortunately, Liyue and Monstadt are not particularly rewarding as the chests in the region don’t drop primogems too often. It would help if you also leveled up Inazuma’s Sakura Tree and Dragonspine’s Frostbearing Tree by exploring and grabbing all of the necessary collectibles in the respective areas.
Teapot Time
At Adventure Rank 35, you will unlock a housing system where you can decorate your own little space with furniture, plants, pets, and even your favorite characters can join you. Think of it as Animal Crossing lite but with more limitations.
There are tons of achievements, and if you level up your teapot by placing more furniture in your teapot, you get an exclusive realm currency which you can use for purchasing XP books, Mora, and other essential items every week. Whether you hate it or love it, I can’t deny that the teapot system is necessary if you want to progress through content faster.
Unlock the Reputation System
As you progress through the story, you will unlock the Reputation system for each region. You can do weekly bounties and quests to level up your reputation in each of the three major areas to unlock special rewards. The reputation system can get you some cosmetics, gadgets and is one of the best sources of Mora.
Experiment With Teams
At this stage, you should have a fair idea of which characters you love using. While you can get past content in the early game with just about anything you want, having a well-rounded and robust team is very important.
Your supports are essential in Genshin Impact, and whether they enable off-field reactions or deal damage without needing to be on the field, they make your team move like clockwork.
Genshin offers a ton of freedom, and you can build teams around elemental reactions or even a single element. You can even go for physical damage builds with characters like Razor or Eula.
Find out which supports work best with which characters and build a solid team that works best for you. You can clear content with any character as long as you have team synergy, so focus on playing what you love more than relying on meta stats.
Related reads: Comprehensive Elemental Mastery Guide
Participate in Events
A lot of events are unavailable in the early game as they require you to unlock Inazuma. By around AR 30–40, you are likely to reach Inazuma and have access to all of the events. If you complete all events and do your daily commissions, you should have a steady flow of primogems and rewards.
End Game Progression (Adventure Rank 45+)
By AR 45 and beyond, you should have access to all of the content that the game has to offer. And this is the point in time you should start min-maxing your characters.
Remember I asked you to save the Fragile Resin? Now is when they will come in handy to give your characters a significant power boost.
Polish Your Builds
As you progress through Adventure Ranks, all of your characters will begin to hit their maximum potential. Focus on leveling all of your essential talents and ascend your characters.
If you run out of XP books or Mora, now is a great time to do Leylines as you will get significantly better rewards than before.
Artifact Farming
You can now use your Fragile Resin to get artifacts for your characters. I recommend getting a usable set at around AR 45 for all your party members to get a solid build going.
Artifact drop rates and randomness can be demoralizing sometimes, and you would rather have a party of four with half-decent artifacts than overinvesting in one character.
Spiral Abyss
This is where things get tricky. You will need two teams to beat all of the Spiral Abyss, and you should be looking to build a second team. You do not need five-star units to destroy the Spiral Abyss. Some of the strongest units in the game are four stars, including Bennett, Xiangling, Xingqiu, Sucrose, Beidou, and Fischl.
Understanding what works best and identifying team rotations will help you improve your efficiency more than anything else. I personally got my first 36-star clear (full clear) at AR 51, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up if you find yourself struggling.
Instead, you can improve as a player, understand team synergies and increase your character investment to make life easier for yourself. The Spiral Abyss is just a testing ground to test the limits of your teams, and it is by no means the end-all-be-all endgame content.
Beyond The Endgame
Once you beat everything and find yourself in a situation where there’s nothing else left for you, here’s what you can do.
Achievement Hunting
There are a lot of achievements that are fun to chase, and if you love showing off the number of achievements and rare name cards, you could consider going for everything on your Achievements tab. It’s not for everyone, but if you are a completionist like me, you could consider it.
Wait For Events
There is something new to do almost every week. You are guaranteed a new event at least every two weeks, and logging in and grabbing those sweet rewards will keep your Primogems topped for up for your favorite characters.
Experiment With Your Teams
As you get new characters, more team options will open up, and you will get to try out new builds. I thought my National Team with Xiangling, Sucrose, Bennett, and Xingqiu was great, but when I got Raiden Shogun, it completely changed my experience.
Some units can completely change your experience, and it’s always fun to have someone new in your party to play with. You could spend time with someone you’ve never tried before or try out weapons that have been lying around in your inventory for months.
New Regions and Content Updates
A new major region is typically added each year, and there are smaller islands or areas that are introduced more frequently. It’s the best time to hop into Genshin, and if you find yourself left with nothing to do, take a break and wait for these huge content drops to show up. Liyue, Inazuma, and Dragonspine were solid additions to the game.
Running into new enemies, beating new bosses, and getting those sweet chests all over again in a new playable area is always enjoyable. Each patch lasts around 40 days, and new characters often come with their unique story quests, events, and other content that you can keep coming back to.
FAQs
Question: How limited is the progression if I don’t spend money on Genshin Impact?
Answer: There is no need to spend any money whatsoever if you choose not to. Simply playing the game will let you unlock tons of characters and weapons to build fun teams with. Most of the strongest characters in the game are 4-stars!
Question: Which characters should I level first?
Answer: Kaeya is a safe bet among the free starter units as he is a powerhouse unit even in the endgame. But it all depends on your playstyle and who you enjoy playing with. You want an equal amount of investment in all four of your party members. But in the early game, try to have one powerful damage dealer to make exploring and domain challengers easier.
Question: How do I build a team?
Answer: You typically want a healer or shielder just for comfort, but if you are comfortable without one, that’s fine too. Your three other party members should typically consist of supports, sub-DPS units, and one primary damage dealer. Genshin offers a lot of flexibility in team-building, and you could effectively run four sub-DPS units or have a team that does no reactions at all.
Question: Which talents should I level up first?
Answer: The general rule of thumb is to level talents that you use and skip the first talent for any unit with which you do not use Normal Attacks. So, for example, a unit like Xingqiu or Xiangling typically does not stay on the field, and you could focus on leveling their Elemental Skills and Bursts only. But a character like Xiao will want a high investment in all three talents.
Question: How should I approach building a character?
Answer: You typically want to level characters up and increase their talent levels along the way. There is no reason to raise a character all the way to level 90, and you ideally want to ascend them at level 80 before stopping. Of course, there are exceptions to this, including Anemo units that swirl, characters that scale with HP or Defence, and characters that trigger many transformative reactions. Once you level your character and equipped weapon, focus on artifacts.
Question: How long does it take to build a character?
Answer: If you have zero resources, it takes anything between four to six weeks to somewhat maximize a character’s potential. This includes unlocking all ascensions, increasing talent levels to 9, leveling a weapon, and farming artifacts.
Final Words
Genshin is not a game in which you can spend hours every day once you reach the endgame. As a new player, you can spend hundreds of hours on it.
Once you have beaten everything and found every secret in Teyvat, you will find yourself logging in, doing your dailies, spending your Resin, and clearing events whenever they are available.
Genshin doesn’t demand much of your time, but whenever new regions or playable areas return, it’s worth getting back into even as an endgame player.
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