How Many Primogems Can You Really Get per Patch?

Genshin Impact is one of the most popular live service games in the world currently. The game is constantly updating with brand new content and missions to do. It has recently entered its 3.0 phase with the latest addition of Sumeru.

Since Genshin is a live service game that also has a gacha system, many players wonder how friendly it is towards F2P players and low spenders. In this guide, we will be taking a look at the Primogems HoyoLabs hands out for free every patch and how to acquire them. We will also look at how likely players are to pull 5-star characters, depending on these primogems and other low-cost options.

What is a Patch?

A patch refers to an update to Genshin Impact. These updates are usually quite large and introduce a lot of new content to the game. This includes new characters, new weapons, new quests, new events, new regions, etc.

What are Primogems?

Primogems are a premium currency you can purchase to take part in the gacha system of Genshin Impact. Genshin Impact is a gacha game, and a lot of the appeal lies in collecting the newly released characters. You can only get these characters by making wishes on the characters/weapons banners using around 160 Primogems per wish.

Thus, primogems serve as the premium wishing currency of Genshin Impact, where you can make either single wishes or multi-rolls in Genshin.

Getting Primogems

While Genshin Impact’s Primogems can be purchased using the premium currency, they can still be collected without spending any money. You are able to collect Primogems from miscellaneous things such as achievements, dailies, exploration, quests, etc. In fact, some of the primogems gains you make are randomly generated. This is why people often debate if the game is really pay-to-win.

Primogems are difficult to calculate at an exact value because there are various methods to save up on primogems in Genshin, even as a F2P player. However, in this guide, we will be making some estimations to reach a fairly accurate number.

How To Get Free Primogems Every Patch?

Since patches cycle monthly, the per-patch Primogems are similar to the monthly Primogems you can get by completing a variety of different activities such as daily challenges, Spiral Abyss and other events.

Daily Primos

Completing all four of your daily commissions each day and collecting the reward from the adventurers guild will net you 60 Primogems daily.

If we consistently perform these every day for a month, we can calculate the primogems as 60 x 30 = 1800. Thus you get 1800 Primogems from doing just your dailies every month.

If we were to make a calculation based on the patch length of 42 days, we would get 60 x 42 = 2520. Thus you get 2520 Primogems per patch from dailies.

Spiral Abyss Primos

Clearing the Spiral Abyss for the first time will net you a total of 1200 Primogems with the 36-star clear.

After this, the last four floors, namely floors 9-12, will have their rewards reset every two weeks. On the first and sixteenth of every month, the reset takes place. Every time you clear these, you gain 600 primogems.

150 for each Floor with four different floors results in 600 Primogems every reset. There are three resets during the length of a patch, so we get a grand total of 1800 Primogems from the Spiral Abyss each patch.

Patch Event Primogems

Patches introduce a variety of new quests with every update. There is generally one large event, and a few smaller ones are being held simultaneously. All of these provide primogems, as you can see in the images below.

We cannot get an exact number, but it is estimated that the main events award 900 primogems while the smaller ones provide around 420 primogems each.

Thus, we can calculate that with most patches having one large and three small events, our primogem gains for the patch go up to a solid 2160 primos.

Update Maintenance Primos

Every patch requires some downtime for maintenance, and HoyoLabs are kind enough to compensate for this with 300 primogems every time.

Minor Sources of Primos

Here are some other minor sources of consistent primogem gains. They may not seem like a lot, but they can add up and maybe squeeze out enough value to help you hit soft pity.

Developer Stream Promo Codes

Around ten days before the release of a new patch, the developers at HoyoLabs will give a preview of what to expect in the latest updates. In these streams, they will put up limited-time promo codes that players can redeem to receive in-game rewards, including primogems.

The number of primogems can vary but is generally between 300 and 400.

Character Quests

Every patch introduces two new character quests for 5-star characters. These quests provide a lot of interaction with the particular 5-star characters. Not only this but they provide 60 primogems each.

You can unlock these quests from the story quest tab in the mission selection screen.

Hangout Events

These are generally events that focus on doing quests with certain 4-star characters. They also provide around 60 primogems each upon completion per character.

Trial Run Primos

Trial runs for the new characters that are held each patch will also award you around 40 primogems. While this may not seem like a lot, this is still a good opportunity to experience the character before wishing on their banner.

How Many Total Free Primogems Can F2P Get?

With all the free methods discussed so far, let's sum it all up and find out the total number of primogems you can get for every patch on average!

For Low Spenders

This section is for players who spend small amounts of money to get boosts such as the blessing of the Welkin moon or the battle pass upgrades.

These players are not categorized as whales due to the low and affordable nature of the spending.

Blessing of the Welkin Moon

Available for $5 USD, you can instantly get 300 Genesis Crystals which convert to primogems at a 1-to-1 rate if you are unaware. However, most low spenders are recommended to use these for character skins unless they are truly desperate to hit their soft pit counter.

Moreover, upon login for the next 30 days, you gain 90 primogems daily. If you miss a login, you will not get your primogems. This results in 2700 primogems over the course of a month. If we were to adjust this for the duration of a patch with 42 days, we would get around 3780 primogems every patch cycle.

Gnostic Hymn (Battle Pass)

Purchasing the battle pass allows you to access a lot more rewards from the regular battle pass. You gain access to more mora and XP material. Not only this, but you can now receive additional fragile resin and a total of 4 intertwined fates from the battle pass. These are equivalent to 160 Primogems each.

These rewards include Primogems as well. The primogem reward, however is only available upon completing the battle pass. This means you need to hit BP level 50 to gain an additional 680 primogems from the battle pass.

Average Number of Primogems per Patch

So, in addition to our 7300 Primogems from the F2P patch primogems, spending on the welkin pass and battle pass gives us access to a total of 4460 more primogems. This brings us to a new total of 11,760 primogems every patch. This extra spending results in a total of 73 wishes which is already nearly enough to hit soft pity.

We can further include the additional intertwined fates that we get from the battle pass and Paimon’s bargains from the Stardust Exchange, along with a bit of extra luck in exploration and adventures. This would result in a guaranteed wish for a 5-star character every new patch as you hit hard pity.

Time to guarantee a 5 star

So, in conclusion, while we can agree that Genshin Impact has a bit of an unfriendly system when it comes to securing 5 stars consistently, HoyoLabs has given players enough avenues to secure themselves a 5-star character.

F2P players who consistently make use of these options will be able to guarantee a 5 star every two patch cycles. And, for small spenders, they can access a new 5 star character every patch cycle.

We hope this guide was useful to you in figuring out what primogem gains to expect and plan for with every patch cycle. After you’re done farming and saving up on them, you can then look into the best ways of using primogems in Genshin Impact.