3 big mistakes new players should avoid in Genshin Impact

Making mistakes in Genshin Impact is usually no big deal, but these three can cripple new players.

In the early game, Genshin Impact is all about exploring open-world environments and completing the story. That’s all fun, but eventually, you’ll need to start powering up your characters to take on even tougher challenges.

Spiral Abyss and weekly events require tough teams to max out and if you’re just starting out in the world of Teyvat, there are tons of simple accidents that take a long time to fix. These are three crucial mistakes new players need to avoid in Genshin Impact.

Save White Tassels from Liyue chests

The China-themed nation of Liyue is full of exciting loot, but it’s easy to miss one of the most valuable treasures. The White Tassel is a three-star polearm weapon that is only available in Liyue chests. Exquisite and higher Liyue chests all have a small chance of dropping a White Tassel. Most Genshin Impact players focus on four and five-star weapons, but using White Tassels as upgrade fodder is a huge mistake.

In addition to a respectable max base attack of 401, White Tassel’s crit rate secondary stat is extremely valuable. On top of all that, the weapon’s effect boosts regular attack damage by a whopping 48% at refinement five. White Tassel is a perfect budget polearm for almost every character. Xiao, Xiangling, and other solid main DPS options make great use of White Tassel.  

Hold off for good artifacts

When you’re new to Genshin Impact, an easy mistake to make is upgrading the wrong artifacts. Artifacts are an extremely important part of Genshin Impact. They are the engine that powers your characters, granting massive stat boosts and powerful set bonuses. It makes sense to upgrade them early, but choosing the wrong set or individual pieces can waste your entire collection.

Several early sets like Lucky Dog, Adventurer, Tiny Miracle, and others quickly fall off. The set bonuses are only situationally useful, and having bad primary stats makes them basically useless.

The better choice is to look for early artifacts with combat-related buffs. Berserker, Exile, Resolution of Sojourner, and Instructor are the best early artifact sets. You’ll eventually upgrade to four and five-star sets from domains. As a general rule, look for artifacts with attack as the primary stat. Upgrading defense or an elemental type your character doesn’t use is an easy way to waste precious artifact experience.

Skip new characters until you get to Inazuma 

This final Genshin Impact mistake is especially important for brand-new players. You get access to the limited banner as soon as you start playing, but you won’t have the tools to upgrade some characters for a very long time.

Take Arataki Itto for example. New players who pulled him were excited to use him until they realized they were completely unable to upgrade his abilities or ascend him past level 40. Riftborn Regalia and Onikabuto are only available from Inazuma, which you can’t access until you’re caught up with the story.

New players should instead look for rerun banners with characters from Monstadt or Liyue. This also somewhat applies to certain characters like Eula who need materials from Dragonspine. You should have access to the first two countries and sub-region by the time you push level 40. If you really want a certain character from Inazuma, you can grab their level 20 ascension materials from the character trial in the events menu. This is less of an issue with the current new characters Shenhe and Yun Jin, but it’s a real problem for newer Genshin Impact players.