Genshin Impact: How to Spend Your Primogems Wisely

Just like many gacha-style games, starting an adventure in Genshin Impact requires making the important decision of choosing where and how to spend Primogems, the special gems that can be used to summon the game’s wish banners, where you’ll get new characters, weapons and the much-desired limited five-star characters.

In the beginning, you’ll receive many Intertwined Fates and Acquaint Fates, as well as primogems, and you’ll get to see the golden glow of a five-star arriving over and over again. New interesting and powerful characters arrive all the time and you don't even know how or who to use, the teams you can put together or where to get the materials to evolve them. However, this party ends eventually and from then on, getting each primogem is a battle.

So, we're going to help you decide when to spend and when to save your gems and where to spend them. And if you have any questions, just leave a comment.

The first thing to define here is: what’s your player profile? There are several profiles of Genshin Impact players, such as those who love exploring the world, those who love collecting all the stories and theorizing over them, those who play just to pass the time, among others. But here, only two will really stand out: meta players and collectors.

Meta players play for the meta, meaning they play just to extract the maximum potential out of their characters, using only the best artifacts, weapons and maximizing their talents. For this kind of player, if a character can't deal six-digit damage on screen (or isn't able to help your main DPS reach those six digits), it's not worth pulling them.

It doesn't matter what the character looks like or their story. The important thing is the raw power that they possess. They have to be strong enough to be worth joining your account. You spend all your time reading about their abilities, doing math to know what the best combination of artifacts and weapons is. You read what other players have achieved and which character maximizes results with whom in team formation. The Spiral Abyss and the Imaginarium Theater are your playgrounds and finishing them in the shortest time possible and showing it off on social media is more important than the rewards.

Collectors are basically the other side of the coin from meta players. For them, what matters is the appearance, the stories, who the voice actor is, how attached you are to that character during the main quest, or simply because you want to have all the characters. Some want to have absolutely every character, regardless of their damage or support capacity, role or element. They just want to catch’em all.

Some collect all the female characters, or the waifus. Others, all the male characters, the husbandos, or all of a certain element, a certain region or faction. In fact, many times this type of player doesn't even enter the Spiral Abyss, they put together teams that don't have a lot of synergy, but they’re able to defeat the monsters of the open world and spend some time admiring the collection.

In both cases, you’ll need to have a management plan for your primogems and figure out where and when to spend your precious wishes. Now, where to spend these wishes is what we’ll discuss.

The Wanderlust Invocation Banner

Also called the standard banner, this is the game's perpetual banner, and you can make wishes with it using your Acquaint Fates, or the blue wish item. This banner offers a range of four or five-star weapons, as well as all of the four-star characters available in the game and a fixed list of some five-star ones:

• Jean;

• Diluc;

• Mona;

• Keqing;

• Qiqi;

• Tighnari;

• Dehya;

• Mizuki;

This banner never expires and you have the same chances as other banners. Every 10 wishes, you’re guaranteed to get a four or five-star character, and after 89 wishes without receiving a five-star, the next wish is guaranteed to give you a five-star character or weapon.

Is it worth investing your primogems here?: The simplest answer is no! Whether you’re a meta player or a collector, it’s not worth it. The reasons are quite simple:

• You get free Acquaint fates in many situations, such as character ascension; every ten levels of the battle pass; in the Paimon's Bargains shop you can buy five Acquaint fates with Masterless Stardust (which you get through the wishes) and other situations;

• There’s no control over what you can get here. Even if you’re guaranteed five stars, you cannot choose whether you’ll get a weapon or character, or which character it’ll be. So, there's no point in wishing on this banner if you want a Diluc or Mona, as there are no guarantees that you'll get one.

• You can get the five-star characters from this banner in the limited banners if you lose the 50/50;

Now, what I usually do is this: if I have 160 gems or a little over that, three or four Masterless Stardust (those coins you get when you get a five-star) and I'm sure that my next pull at the Wanderlust’s banner will be a five-star, then I use the primogems to make the wish and get a five-star and two or three Masterless Stardust and buy a new Intertwined Fate from Paimon's Bargains.

In other words, I spent 160 primogems, got a five-star that was guaranteed and, with the Stardust, I bought a new wish. Got it? Other than that, there’s no advantage in spending primogems here,

Beginners' Banner

As the name suggests, the "Beginners' Wish" is for beginners in Genshin Impact and is available indefinitely in the game, allowing you to make 20 wishes on it.

And it remains available until all 20 wishes are made. It also offers a 20% discount on required Acquaint Fates (i.e. instead of 10 wishes to get a four-star or five-star, it only takes 8) and still guarantees that the player will receive the four-star character, Noelle, and another four or five-star character within these 20 shots.

The starting characters Amber, Lisa, and Kaeya, as well as the four-star characters added to the Wanderlust Invocation after Version 1.0, cannot be obtained from this wish. Noelle can only be obtained once from the banner. The items wished from this banner don’t contain four or five-star weapons, after all, it disappears after 20 wishes.

*Is it worth investing your primogems here?: at the start of the game, it’s very likely that you’ll earn more than the 20 wishes needed to finish this banner before needing to spend primogems here, but if that’s the case, yes, it’s worth spending some gems here, since it’s more “economical” than the Wanderlust banner and guarantees that you’ll get the character Noelle.

At the beginning of the game, Noelle is extremely versatile and powerful, and will carry you for a long time. She has a powerful shield, heals, and is also capable of dealing good damage. Of course, as the game progresses, you’ll get other characters that fulfill this role better, but, at the start, Noelle is without a doubt an ideal character for meta players and one of the most charismatic, sweet and beautiful characters in the game, who’ll look beautiful in any collection.

Weapons Banner

This banner, called Epitome Invocation, periodically brings the signature set of five-star weapons that complement the kit of the five-star characters from the limited banner. There are, overall, two weapons per banner, one for each of the available limited characters. The banner has a difference from the Wanderlust and limited ones, which is the Stellar Reunion. It allows you to choose which of the weapons you want to receive when you get the banner’s limited weapon, avoiding making it so that you get the other weapon, which you’re not interested in.

Is it worth investing your primogems here?: Investing in the weapons banner is only for meta players or for those who really want a specific weapon to strengthen one character. Overall, signature weapons are not essential for you to take advantage of your characters' powers. Often, a four-star weapon is enough to easily overcome most challenges.

However, for those who want to deal a lot of damage and defeat the Abyss with ease, the weapons here can be worthy allies. A limited weapon that’s highly targeted in the weapon banner is the Staff of Homa, Hu Tao's signature weapon. It’s widely used on many spear-wielding DPS characters due to its substat of increased Critical Damage. So, investing your primogems here depends a lot on your need or desire for a certain weapon, but know that it’s harder to get the weapon here than it is to get a character.

For those who like to collect characters, except if it’s for style, there’s no point in investing primogems here. Sure, having an Arlecchino with her signature weapon that looks like a scythe is a lot cooler than having an Arlecchino with a random spear, but your resources will hardly be well invested in your objective here.

Regional Banner

This is a new banner introduced in version 5.0, which brings a series of characters and some weapons from a certain region, such as Mondstadt or Lyiue. There are about five characters and two or three weapons at a time. You use your Intertwined Fates to make wishes here and the same rules as the Stellar Reunion apply, allowing you to choose which character you want to get.

Is it worth investing your primogems here?: Not all limited characters from a region are available on this banner, but it's a chance to get a character you wanted. And believe me, over time, it’ll become increasingly rare to get a character from the regions that came at the start of the game, such as Zhongli, one of the most sought-after characters in the game.

You can feel this by looking at the posts on social media, keeping count of how many days a character hasn’t gotten a rerun or who’s been in “Hoyo prison”. So, if a character you really want from one of the earlier regions appears, whether you are a meta player or a collector, it’s worth investing your primogems here.

Limited Character Banners

This is the “main course” of Genshin Impact. Here, the new and interesting characters who'll be part of the game’s cast will be released. With each update, a new character, or a return of a previously released character, will be available to be obtained using Intertwined Fates. Every ten wishes, you’re guaranteed to receive a four or five star character as a reward. Every 90 wishes, you’re guaranteed to get a five star character.

By default, you have a 50% chance of getting a limited character or a character from the Wanderlust banner. If you get the limited character, the next banner will still give you the same chance of getting a limited character or one from the Wanderlust. If you get a character from the Wanderlust, the next five star character that comes along is guaranteed to be the limited one.

In version 5.0, a new Capturing Radiance mechanic was introduced that helps “save the 50/50” by adding an additional 5% chance of getting the game’s limited five-star character (giving you a 55/45 chance of winning).

Is it worth investing your primogems here?: Yes! This is where you’ll invest all of your primogems! Whether you’re a collector or a meta, this is where you’ll get the characters who will make up your team or your collection. In this banner, you have the opportunity to get a past character from the periodic reruns or get a character released in the update. This is where it’s really worth investing every primogem you’ve got.

This is the game’s biggest dilemma, isn’t it? Where to get these all-important gems? The answer is: in many places! You earn gems from daily commissions from the Adventurer's Guild, temporary events (which often give out large amounts), achievements (especially over time), the Spiral Abyss (especially floors 9-12), the Imaginarium Theater, and exploring the world, by opening chests and solving puzzles.

Now, good luck with your wishes and go get those primogems! If you have any questions, leave a comment.