Hey all! It's your favorite Genshintuber I.King!
So it looks like my theory about Artifacts is coming true little by little. We now have two new sets and the running opinion is that at least the Tenacity of the Millelith set is meant for Zhongli but we've already had a couple sets that fit Zhongli very well, Retracing Bolide and Archaic Petra. Also if any of you guys watch Atsu (AsianGuyGenshin) he's made a pretty good case for Physical Zhongli so that other set might be a good choice on him too.
And that's the thing right? Eventually we'll have so many sets to choose from that MiHoYo can totally eliminate the RNG and give us leveling up systems that are more in our control because by then the meta will be about which sets best suit us instead of which substats we need to see drop.
That system seems to be getting under way too if this Discussion Q&A is to be believed.
Looks like we'll be buying level up items for our Artifacts in the new version. That's just a hop skip and a jump from being able to set up and level our individual stat and substats.
So with that all in mind I decided to do this little tips guide for the current Artifact grind. Let's hop to it!
Let me just show off a little. As you can see I've got so many Artifacts that I broke the limit set up in the inventory. You might also notice they are all either 5* or 4*.
Now how do you get this? First off if you followed my beginner's guide that's a good place to start. #shamelessselfplug ftw! At the start it will be a long road. You'll start out with 3*s at best but don't be afraid to level them up. It will feel like it costs you a ton and you may want to try doing farming routes if you get a little impatient but for now you gotta do what you gotta do.
After that my first tip for you is to only start farming for Artifacts at AR40 the earliest. Pretty much only start farming to collect 5*s. The game's natural progression seems to transition you from basic 3* to 4* Artifacts so you shouldn't feel the need to farm them. (Side Note: Same goes for the weekly bosses. Only start to do them once you're at the AR where they drop their exclusive Talent up mats) I would actually recommend doing Artifacts once you've hit AR45 because that's when the highest level challenges unlock and have guaranteed 5* drops. BUT chances are you'll need a few 5*s just to survive them (roll on the Zhongli rerun guys) so in that case do the lvl80 challenges and hope.
Because you started only at AR40-45 you should have had plenty of time to farm Talent books, Ascension mats and Weapon mats before now. So like Envi said in recent videos do actually become guilty of farming for nothing but Artifacts. By this point these are the most important things. Going back to my guide you want to prioritize resin like this: Weekly Bosses then Ley Lines or regular Bosses then Talent/Weapon Domains. Then push Artifact Domains up behind Weekly Bosses once you've hit AR45. (For BP you can actually kill bosses and do Ley Lines without collecting on them and they will still count towards it.)
Unlike Envi though you need to get good at resource management. You can upgrade any Artifacts you want until you've gotten to a point where your team is consistently completing the lvl90 Domains without the need to use too much food. Then only level Artifacts with the right stats and substats.
A general rule of thumb is: Goblets only with Elemental/Physical percent, Hourglass with ATK% or Energy Recharge, Hats with Crit Rate/DMG. But this can change depending on the specific characters you want to level. For example DEF is often a terrible stat but are the desired stats for Noelle, Xinyan and Albedo.
For substats you also pretty much want Crit DMG, Crit Rate, ATK%, Energy Recharge, with more specialized stats like Elemental Mastery and HP% coming into play for characters that can benefit from them. Flat stats are not recommended.
With that in mind start looking through your Artifacts. If you see one piece that looks promising roll first to fill its 4 total substats.
If it doesn't roll a favorable one consider how good the other ones are. For example a DEF substat on a Crit Rate hat might not be the end of the world. Keep rolling to see what it'll bump up next and reconsider the piece each time you do. The goal is to not pointlessly get a bad Artifact to +20 because that wastes resources but if it never rolls into DEF again it still might be good. But if you see one going bad unlock it. You won't use it right away because these will get you more experience towards other Artifacts but unlock it just so you don't have to come back to it later only to realize you didn't want it anymore.
Finally let's talk about budgeting. This is one of the most important things in resource management. The reason I have this set up where I have 1000+ Artifacts all 4* and 5* is because I only upgrade Artifacts for 3 reasons:
1. I really need to to get my character strong enough for the Domain challenge.
2. I have something like 1007 Artifacts and I can't collect any more until I'm back down to 999.
3. I'm using the Mora spent on the Artifacts to complete the BP task Spend 500,000 Mora.
So I was saying about unlocking the Artifacts that don't work out. But none of them start off locked. Once you find Artifacts that look promising lock them. But thanks to budgeting we're only going to revisit these once they pop up in the queue. By that I mean prioritize the Artifacts you intend to use on a character right away and then move into Artifacts you just feel might turn out well. And then go back to those 3 steps above.
With these tips I've started to ignore 1* and 2* Artifact drops and definitely don't do any kind of farming routes for those 1* Artifacts. (I mean not that I could. Again 1000+ Artifacts I can literally not pick them up and I'm not about to spend 3* and 4* Artifacts just to pick up a 1*)
Also note that each lvl90 Domain drop will net you at least 1 (I've gotten 2 a few times) 5* Artifact, 2-3 4* and typically 4 3* Artifacts. And of course you'll get double these numbers if you use Condensed Resin.
In the beginning you'll have a large amount of 3*s to feed into anything that looks good. But sooner or later you'll end up with only 4* and 5*s and I'm pretty sure eventually only 5*s.
Hope this guide helps you guys out! Let's all stockpile on Artifacts so we're ready for the day when the RNG gets the boot! [emoji]
