For an in-depth analysis of the artifacts characters need for certain roles, players can utilize a guide made by fans of Genshin Impact or character guides from content creators such as Xlice to answer more specific character-related questions. 

Currently, there are 41 obtainable artifact sets in Genshin Impact, 24 of which are Five-Star artifacts and capable of being fully leveled up. Each set has its own unique bonuses, and not all playable characters utilize the same sets. The role these artifacts will play in your style will depend on the way you use your characters in combat and your ability to “farm” or defeat the dungeons that contain these artifacts. 

Understanding How Artifacts Work

Each artifact set comes with its own two-piece and four-piece bonus which can be found on this website made by fans of the game.

There are five categories of artifacts in Genshin Impact: Flowers, Feathers, Sands, Goblets, and Circlets. Each category comes with one Main Stat and up to four Substats. Listed below are the different stats and how they affect characters. 

• Health Points (HP) – Amount of health a character has
  • Flat HP: A numerical increase in HP
  • HP Bonus: A percentage increase in HP 
• Attack (ATK) – Amount of attack a character has
  • Flat ATK: A numerical increase in ATK
  • Attack Bonus: A percentage increase in ATK
• Defense (DEF) – Amount of defense a character has
  • Flat DEF: A numerical increase in DEF
  • Defense Bonus: A percentage increase in DEF
• Energy Recharge (ER)  – Increases the amount of energy recharged with each Elemental Particle and Elemental Orb obtained from defeated enemies to be used for an Elemental Burst
• Elemental Mastery (EM) – Increases the damage caused by Elemental Reactions
• Critical Rate (CRIT Rate or CR) – Increases the rate at which a character will deal a critical hit
• Critical Damage (CRIT DMG) – Increases the damage of a critical hit
• (Element) Damage Bonus – Increases the Elemental Damage dealt by the specified element
  • Elements — Anemo, Geo, Electro, Dendro, Hydro, Pyro, and Cryo

Main Stats

As its name describes, the Main Stat is the one that receives the bonus a character gains when equipping the artifact; it will always be a percentage stat gain or increase of Elemental Mastery. The Main Stat steadily increases with every level the artifact gains until it reaches its max level. It plays a huge role in building characters as all of their attacks (Normal Attack, Charged Attack, Elemental Skill, and Elemental Burst) are reliant on these stats.

For example, Kaedehara Kazuha is mainly reliant on Elemental Mastery to do damage with his Elemental Skill and Burst, thus, an optimal build for him is to have Elemental Mastery as the Main Stat of his artifacts. 

In most cases, the Main Stat of an artifact is never guaranteed. The only guaranteed Main Stats are for Flowers and Feathers. Flowers will always have a Flat HP Main Stat and Feathers always have a Flat Attack Main Stat no matter what artifact set they come from.

The Main Stats for Sands, Goblets, and Circlets are all about the luck of the draw, hence why players call it artifact farming.

Goblets are unique from the other categories as they are the only artifact type that can give an Elemental Damage Bonus (which can only appear as a Goblet’s Main Stat or in a set bonus) making it even more difficult to get a good artifact for characters.

Substats

Substats can be any stat whether flat or percentage, the only exception being Elemental Damage Bonus, of course. One Substat will increase every four levels, and it’s never guaranteed to be the same substat nor the substat a character needs, thus the luck of the draw in artifact farming is even more prominent. 

If an artifact does not have the maximum four Substats, it will gain a Substat every four levels. For example, if at LV 0, an artifact only has two substats, it will gain a third substat at LV 4, and then the final substat at LV 8.

In many cases, this causes “dead stats” to be on artifacts or stats that do not work harmoniously with a character’s abilities. Amber, for example, does not utilize Defense to amplify any of her skills, and thus, any Defense Substat on her artifacts won’t help her. 

In a perfect world, players would never have to deal with dead stats. But, this isn’t a perfect world, and thus, there will most likely be dead stats even on good artifacts. This doesn’t mean players shouldn’t utilize these artifacts, especially if there are other good substats; it becomes a weighing competition between gains and losses.

The desired stats on artifacts depend entirely on which character is being used and how they are used in combat. Some characters utilize Defense for their abilities whereas others use HP. Some need more Energy Recharge whereas others simply need as much Elemental Mastery as possible. Players can utilize the characters for damage dealing, healing, or support, and thus, each role might need different stats to fulfill it. 

Tips and Tricks

There isn’t any kind of set and/or stats I can recommend wholly because the combat can be that diverse. Instead, I can only give a few tips when obtaining artifacts and utilizing them on characters. 

1. If you’re truly investing in farming artifacts to make the most of your characters, hold off farming until you reach Adventure Rank (AR) 40. Five-star artifacts are not available to players until they have reached this milestone, and Five-Star artifacts are the only artifacts capable of being max leveled to level 20. 

2. You should read a character’s Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst. It will help you decide what stats are needed for that character and the role you want them to play on your team whether it’s as a healer or a damage dealer. If you’re still unsure, an in-depth character guide can shine some light on what’s needed. 

3. Although set bonuses can help, sometimes having good Substats is better. Especially early on in the game, players can benefit more from having well-built characters rather than having a four-piece bonus on an artifact set. The set is only an added bonus that’s entirely reliant on good artifact farming and made more difficult by the chance of dead stats. A character with artifacts that contribute to their skills is greater than a character with an artifact set that works alongside their skills. 

4. In most cases, when building a damage-dealing character, CRIT Rate and CRIT Damage are some of the most important stats since they contribute to a character’s critical hits. Typically, there’s a one-to-two ratio between CRIT Rate and CRIT Damage such as a 60% CRIT Rate to 120% CRIT Damage. Most characters utilize this rate but there are some who benefit from more CRIT Damage. For more information about this ratio, you can look up in-depth character builds that explain this such as build explanations from creators such as Xlice. 

Example Build

To get a better sense of how much artifacts can affect a character, I’ve compared one of my own character’s stats below with and without artifacts. Sometimes, it helps to have an actual example rather than abstract explanations to see how artifacts impact characters in the game. 

Conclusion

To those unfamiliar with artifact farming, it can be a complicated system, but it helps to make characters more versatile in combat. In the end, players end up with an inventory filled with useful and not-so-useful artifacts. It definitely is a system utilized by other games, so understanding artifacts and how to use them in Genshin Impact can also aid players in building characters in other games. 

If you’d like to hear more helpful tips, we post guides such as these every week on our website, or you can join us for a conversation in the Boss Rush Discord.

Image Source: Genshin Impact

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