A free player's path to primo-grinding
Genshin Impact is a GRINDY game. You have to farm and grind everyday to make them stronger and so that you'd get enough primogems to get the character you want. Not "a" character but THE character. And we all know how games rich in grinding works. You have to put your heart and soul into it to strengthen your characters. This already sounds like it's all hard work but it doesn't end there really. To top it off, Genshin Impact also has a gacha system. Which means that you don't just earn primogems and then click buy and exchange these for the character you want, no. That's not how it works. The gacha system is where the game has a roster of characters that you MAY have a chance of acquiring by purchasing a means to wish, pull or roll.
I've played games like these before Genshin Impact and let me tell you, even if you know this is a way to get money out of you, you'd risk it just so you'd get the character you want.
Going back to topic, Genshin Impact has a gacha system and the way for you to acquire new characters is if you earn enough primogems (your in-game currency) to roll. An intertwined/acquaint fate costs you 160 primogems in total. But hold up! It's not just achieving the single amount of wish here. You wouldn't want to risk rolling every time you get 160 primogems, no sir! You'd have to earn 1600 primogems to get a GUARANTEED FOUR-STAR CHARACTER or Weapon. You are aware of the roster having 3-star weapons in the pile, and primogems are not easy to come by. So to cut this short, you want to always have a guarantee you'll get a worthy character on your roll thus earning for ten wishes is best.
This has been a very long introduction. Basically this blog is about my primo-grinding journey with this game. Everyone's already posted tutorials and walkthroughs, best builds this, team comps that and hey I can't compete with the pros so I'll do what I do best; Documenting what I do!
There is a line between earning primogems and buying them. Not everyone can afford for many reasons I won't list down because that's not what this is about. Basically I'm one of those players who'd grind for primogems for the sake that I don't spend a dime to purchase primogems which is obviously what we're baited to do with the gacha system. Not that I'm against it, it's only business.
I have been playing this for three months and my first month has been slow. I wasn't very dedicated, I play when I'm free and basically I'm just a chill player who plays whenever without commitment whatsoever. But two months later I got back to it and I've been grinding non-stop to get my team in better shape. If grinding was a job, this would have been my new job.
There are two reasons why I was converted to a committed primogem-hunter. One, is because I want a pyro character that isn't Amber or Xiangling. No offense to them. I've gotten a lot of cryo characters but never a pyro which was a bummer on my part. And second, I got a character I unexpectedly loved. So I want to make her stronger while her banner is up.
I went down the road of obsession for primogems and I'm sure there are blogs and videos on how and where to get primogems already but I'll still talk about them here anyways. Now to tell you the truth I am the type of person who takes math seriously in a situation like this. There are many utility browser-planners and free applications for you to list down the character and weapon materials needed for ascension and to acquire them is not easy. Let me use Ayaka for example.
Grinding with mathematical help
For Ayaka's ascension materials (level 60 - Level 70) I need to gather:
Shivada Jade Chunk ×3
Sakura Bloom ×30
Perpetual Heart ×8
Kageuchi Handguard ×18
That's what it will look like in my notes.
Shivada Jade Chunk ×3 (Cryo regisvines, 80 resin needed, craftable)
Sakura Bloom ×30
Perpetual Heart ×8 (Mechanical Array, 160 resin needed)
Kageuchi Handguard ×18 (hunt Samurai daily, look for treasures usually guarded by samurai)
Hero's Wit x60 (approximately) or Adventurers' Experience (Leylines give 13-14 pcs, if repeated 8 times we get 100+pcs with 160 resin used)
Approximately 522k Mora needed (no problem here, I got 5M Mora in-hand)
Add extra Kageuchi Handguard and Old Handguard for talents
Domain for Ayaka's talents, reserve at least 120-160 resin for repeated domain gameplay (good for BP weekly completion)
You see how mathematics is involved now? This is what grinding did to me! It brought out the math that I loved only in high school and college!
Now the whole point of all this is because I have to set-up a schedule and a daily routine for me to utilize the activities offered by the game and of course, the RESINS which takes up to 8mins to load a single resin. We need about 20 to do Domains and Leylines and 40 to do bosses or if I want to save it for later and condense them. But then I wouldn't be able to uses it for bosses.
Wait! I thought this was about primo-grinding?! It is! Just showing you an example of the calculations I've been doing for the past two weeks. Also, it was thanks to my friend who introduced this game to me, that I was able to take on big bosses and higher-level domains to get more materials and artifacts.
Now back to primogems!
Grinding primogems is very crucial for me the past few weeks because the character I told you I really love, Kamisato Ayaka, has a banner that is going to end in 6 days. I want to reach at least C2 while she's there, who knows when the next banner would be, right? I've achieved her C1 already. So I want my last one or two rolls to give her the C2 she deserves. Now how exactly do I grind for primos?
Desperation has come! As listed in many reliable sources already. There are many places, activities in-game or externally that you can use or do to acquire primogems. While others are on an event-basis and not something you can do in your own power, there is something that you can do yourself.
I finish all of the quests (no matter what quest it is, every primo it can give is a primo for buying a fate).
Sometimes I just go for treasure hunting and seelie-chasing because they provide you with primogems from 2 primogems to 5 primogems and if the treasure is really big, then you get about 10 primogems. Again, every primo counts to build that 1600.
There are also shrines. In these shrines, I get to unlock a very, very big treasure that gives us a surety of 10 primogems but I need keys of course. So I grind for those keys if I know where to find them. They could be rewards for raising a level of a statue or rewards for ascending your AR or rewards for quests, no matter what it is, I will do it for the sake of 10 primogems, yes.
One of the most important suppply of primogems is commissions. So as much as possible, I try to play shortly for a day to complete these commissions which will provide us a surefire of 60 primogems daily.
And then there is Achievements. They provide you with primogems from 5-20 depending on the achievement itself. Sometimes I read through them, see which ones I can try to do and I go with that.
Daily check-ins are a wee-bit annoying. They make you go to their site and sign in to get unattractive rewards until you reach and get the 20, 20, 20 equals 60 primogems within the list. Of course you get 20 primogems once a week so you are forced to keep checking-in. At some point, the rewards are not motivating enough for me to keep doing it. I just get the 20 primogems for the week and that's it. I can't be committed to do it until 30-31 days. They better make the rewards a little more appealing than that.
Raising a statue's level gives you primogem rewards at some point so I try to hunt oculus if I can or mark them where I see them and try to get them again when I can.
Then there's also Dragonspine and Sakura Tree where you can get rewards like primos or fate itself, if you offer enough Agate and Electro Sigil to them. Of course I'd bite too. This is more on exploration really so I set a schedule when I am free to spend a lot of time to explore.
Yes that's right, I don't just hunt for primogems, I also do a lot of grinding for intertwined/acquaint fate themselves. Which leads us to two more options that I consider when I grind for a wish.
As grindy as it sounds, the Battle Pass option provides you with Daily, Weekly and period-tasks. This one has a MORE motivational type of rewards that I'd go for. I aim for fragile resin and acquaint fate mostly but Hero's Wit and the large sum of Mora is enough to compensate for the effort too compared to daily check-in's cheap rewards. Everyday I fulfill the Daily missions because that is a total of 645 points for sure already. The Weekly missions I had to carefully plan because my timer-based-ticket Resin is involved. I have to complete 1000exp to level up my BP and get the rewards. Good thing this is consistent BUT there is a weekly limit of 10,000exp so if that is full for the week, it's sad the next mission accomplishments will not count. So plan the period-tasks wisely.
And my last option, is to ascend characters. When you ascend characters, you get an Acquaint fate as well. This is NOT a recommended route because you are about to use up your hard-earned resources to ascend a single character and the roll may not even be worth it. So I only do this when I really have plans to strengthen the character that I am going to ascend.
Final Thoughts on Primo-Grinding
Wow you've seen a lot of math involved here. I tried to lessen the computations so this blog won't sound like a mathematical list of problem solving but this is the life of a player who wants to earn primogems for free. It's tough and it's like a daily chore as it goes on but as long as I play it with my friend, I don't get bored. Together we explore Teyvat, fight bosses together, explore the dangerous islands of Inazuma together, do co-op-hidden activities, hunt oculus together, solve super-hard puzzles together and do events together, do crazy photoshoots in the pots and go back to spending our resin when it's loaded. This is what makes the grinding all worth it. Co-op. It's what made this infuriatingly-grindy game worth the time.
I do hope they prepare more co-op activities in the future. And if there are events, it'd be preferably be done in co-op than playing it as a lone wolf. Grinding alone would be a bore to me and I would have dropped this game.
That concludes my primo-grinding path. I plan to keep doing it until Ayaka's banner finishes and then hopefully I walk a new path afterwards.
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