How to know which artifacts to use in Genshin Impact

There are many factors to consider when judging Genshin Impact artifacts. These include the artifact set that they belong to, what those artifact set bonuses are, the main stats of those artifacts, and the sub stats that those Genshin Impact artifacts carry.

Artifact Rarity

Artifact rarity is one of the first things that you need to consider when deciding which one to use. Artifacts in Genshin Impact come in 5 different rarities. These are:

• One Star
• Two Star
• Three Star
• Four Star
• Five Star

Players obviously prefer five star artifacts over any other rarity as an artifact's rarity determines how strong and artifact is. As a player you should never settle for less than five star artifacts because you'll have to replace it eventually.

The only reason why you would need artifacts of a lesser rarity is because five star artifacts are locked for you. If that is the case then you can just use any placeholder artifact that is decent but don't invest too much time and resources into it as you will have to replace it later on.

Farming artifacts in Genshin impact costs a lot of Resin as it is very difficult to get an artifact that has good stats across the board and you'll often find yourself looking or ways to get more resin. That is why you shouldn't seriously farm for artifacts in Genshin Impact until you reach at least adventure rank 40 which puts your world level at 5.

After reaching this world level artifact domains start dropping five star artifacts but to get guaranteed five star drops you need to get your adventure rank to 45. That's why we recommend boosting your adventure rank to at least 40 before you start building characters seriously.

If you do need artifacts to help build your characters before you unlock guaranteed drops then you should remember that weekly bosses drops five star artifacts at a much lower adventure rank and you can always use a good four star artifact just until you unlock guaranteed drops.

Artifact Sets

When farming for an artifact it is important to realize which character you're building. Now there are certain artifact sets that are generally good such as Noblesse Oblige and Gladiator's Finale but for most characters you will need to get the artifact set or sets that best compliment them.

Almost all characters in Genshin have certain sets that are just better for them based on the artifact set bonuses that they provide. This is easy to discern for characters like Kokomi where you can see that the Ocean Hued Clam set provides a healing bonus at 2 artifacts and allows for passive damage based on healing done with 4.

For other characters it can be harder to figure out which set bonuses would be best but we think that it all depends on how you want to build them. We personally have Keqing built for Electro Damage instead of Crit Damage and Crit Rate because of the reactions that can be caused because of her first constellation.

There is also a general rule of thumb that you can follow depending on what role you have in mind for a character. For DPS characters you'll want offensive stats that compliment their abilities and element, for support characters you'll want sets that enhance their unique abilities but elemental mastery and energy recharge are good bets. Healers usually get artifacts that increase HP or healing bonus.

Those are just general guidelines when deciding which set bonuses you want as there are numerous exceptions to the rule but once you realize how you want to use the character you will also know which set would be perfect for them.

You should also know that you can mix and match artifact sets to suit your needs. That means that you can choose between two or four artifacts of the same set and judge the differences to figure out what works best for your playstyle.

Main Stats

This is the most important factor to consider when deciding which artifact to use. For main stats you will only need to focus on three artifact types which are Timepiece, Goblet, and Circlet. Those three are the only ones that can have different main stats as the Flower will always have HP as the main stat and the Feather will always have Attack as the main stat.

There are two ways that you can decide whether a main stat is good or not. The first is just using common sense. You can easily determine which characters require what stat, so for DPS characters you want Attack %, Crit Damage, or Crit Rate whereas for a healing character healing effectiveness and HP % is the way to go.

An easy guide to follow is for characters that do elemental damage like Ganyu and Ayato, go for elemental damage bonus. For characters that rely on their elemental skill and burst go for elemental mastery, and for shield characters you'll mostly want defense although there are a few exceptions to all of those rules.

The other way that you can check which main stat is better for your character's build is through the recommendations feature that was added to Genshin. This feature is really cool as it allows you to how other players have built their characters. You can see which main stat most players prefer for each artifact slot and you can also see other artifacts people have used as alternatives for specific character builds.

The comparison feature is really neat because it allows you to keep up with the meta without exiting the game and it also allows you to see any changes that take place in the meta. That way you can always know which are the best artifacts and which ones you can safely use for leveling up other artifacts.

Sub Stats

Sub stats is where it gets tricky as it is next to impossible to get an artifact that has the main stat you want as well as all sub stats that compliment that. Usually you will have to settle on sub stats as it is completely up to luck which sub stats it rolls with and which ones get upgraded through leveling up that artifact.

The general rule with sub stats though is to try for rolls that match the main stat of other artifacts or your character's main stat. For example, Yanfei, being one of the best Pyro characters, scales with Pyro Damage which means that she gets a Pyro Damage Bonus every time she ascends.

To compliment that you would try for a Crimson Witch of Flames Goblet that has Pyro Damage Bonus as a main stat but you would also want Crit Rate, Crit Damage, or flat out ATK % as sub stats because that is what DPS roles need.

It all depends on the character, the role that character will fill, and what their abilities are. This is important because two similar characters might have to built completely differently because of how they are designed.

Take Noelle and Zhongli for instance, they are both shield characters but Noelle scales with Defense whereas Zhongli scales with HP but the end result of the two is the same as it increases their shield strength and damage capacity. You could put the same artifact in the same artifact slot for both of them and notice a huge difference between the increase in their potential.

Follow the Meta or Don't

One of the best things about Genshin is that it is very approachable and doesn't penalize you for playing how you want to. That goes for artifacts as well. Following the meta is a decent strategy and it will result in more powerful characters but you shouldn't be afraid to build characters how you want to. Personally, we feel that making sure they fit your playstyle is better than getting them to do millions of damage in just a single elemental burst.

You should experiment and figure out what works for you and you should remember that there are no wrong ways to play the game as long as you have fun doing it.