How to Improve your Character’s Combat Ability

While heavily influenced by BOTW, Genshin Impact instead adopted the standard RPG formula of leveling up characters, improving their skills, and equipment to improve their combat prowess, allowing them to tackle dangerous enemies and explore the beautiful yet dangerous expanse of Teyvat. In this page, we will summarize the various methods of improving your characters’ individual strength to make them formidable forces of nature. Please refer to the dedicated pages that we have published in our guide related to the topics mentioned below.

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Level Up and Ascend Characters

While your characters can EXP from defeating enemies, the bulk of your EXP will come from Experience Materials that you can acquire from chests, quest rewards, Ley Line Outcrop - Blossom of Revelation, events, adventure rewards, and more. There are three types of EXP materials that you can use: Wanderer’s Advice (grants 1000 EXP), Adventurer’s Experience (5000 exp), and Hero’s Wit (20000 EXP). Using these materials will also require a corresponding amount of mora.

You can only level up characters up to a certain level cap. After reaching the level cap, you’ll need to Ascend the character. This process involves collecting the necessary Ascension Materials and paying the required mora. You can check the details of each material to display the different sources where you can get them; usually, these will involve hunting down mini-bosses, elite bosses, or clearing specific domains. You’ll have to repeat this process to reach higher levels for your characters. Take note however, that higher ascension levels will also require you to reach a specific Adventure Rank.

Level Up, Ascend, and Refine Weapons

Leveling up weapons is necessary to increase their stats and in turn, improve your character’s damage output. You can level up weapons by using Enhancement Stones or other weapons you don’t use, preferably 1-star or 2-star weapons you can commonly find in chests. The amount of EXP these weapons and stones give will depend on their rarity. Prioritize upgrading 4-star and/or 5-star weapons. 3-star weapons can be upgraded as placeholder weapons but don’t go crazy on investing too much on them.

Like characters, there’s a level cap to weapons as well. To remove the level cap, you’ll also need to Ascend the weapon by spending mora and submitting the required ascension materials. Higher ascension phases will also require reaching higher Adventure Ranks. Like character ascension materials, you can also check the details of each material to display the different sources where you can get them. This will usually involve hunting down mini-bosses, elite bosses, or clearing specific domains.

Finally, you can also refine weapons. This process involves “feeding” the duplicate copy of the weapon to the one you’re going to keep to permanently increase its effects. You can refine a weapon up to 4 times. Any additional copies of that weapon can be used as level up material.

Level Up Artifacts

Artifacts are the accessories of the game. There are five artifact slots that you can equip to the character, namely: flower, feather, timepiece, chalice/goblet, and headwear. Each artifact provide various stat boosts, even if they bear the same name. You should always look out for artifacts with multiple stat boosts, on top of the base stat that they improve on. Next, equip artifact sets that complement the character’s abilities. You’ll want to equip sets that boosts ATK and CRIT to your melee DPS while healers or tanks can prioritize sets that boosts healing, HP, and defense.

Level Up Talents

You’ll be able to permanently level up individual talents after a character reaches Ascension Phase 2 onwards. This will improve a talent’s skill attributes and will require “Talent Level-Up Material” in the form of books. You can find these books in high-quality chests and as rewards for clearing specific domains. Leveling up talents also costs a lot of mora so prioritize leveling up the talents of your main team.

Level up Constellation

Each character has access to their respective constellations. These are a collection of passive effects that provide new beneficial effects to the character or permanent upgrades to their existing skills/talents. The only limiting factor is that the required materials can only be obtained if you ever get a duplicate of that character. This is especially true for characters obtained via Wish. The Traveler (main character) can get these items through the main quest, adventure rank reward, and purchasing it from the Souvenir Shop.