Genshin Impact’s release set a new standard for free-to-play gacha games, combining their addictive hunt for new characters with a full-featured and gorgeous open-world RPG. Like any gacha game, a big part of the fun in Genshin Impact is finding new characters to build out a great team through lucky draws. To make that team actually work well together, though, you’ll need to spend a lot of time getting them leveled up enough to take on progressively tougher challenges.
The level grind in Genshin Impact certainly isn’t the worst out there, but it can take a major time investment to build out your party, especially if you don’t know the best way to go about it. To save you the frustration of leveling at a snail’s pace rather than actually enjoying everything the game has to offer, here’s how to level up quickly in Genshin Impact.
Further reading
- The best open-world games
- The best free-to-play games for 2021
- 5 ways Genshin Impact is better than Breath of the Wild
EXP materials are key
The most important thing to realize about leveling in Genshin Impact is that you’re not going to do it efficiently by fighting monsters. That may seem odd when that’s exactly how level grinding works in most other RPGs, but Genshin Impact approaches things differently. While the combat in Genshin Impact is flashy to watch and satisfying to play, it’s not the game’s real focus. Where Genshin Impact really shines is in exploration, and accordingly, that’s the best way to level up your characters in the game.
To level up fast in Genshin Impact, you’ll want to focus your energy on collecting EXP materials. As you explore the world of Teyvat, you’ll come across items called Wanderer’s Advice, Adventurer’s Experience, and Hero’s Wit, worth 1,000 EXP, 5,000 XP, and 20,000 EXP, respectively. Using these is by far the quickest way to level up your party members.
Fortunately, these materials are fairly easy to find in your travels, with the most valuable EXP materials naturally being harder to find. EXP materials are a common reward for completing quests, and they’re frequently found in treasure chests scattered around the world as well. These are all activities that will also increase your Adventure Rank, which can net you even more EXP materials as you rank up.
While you’ll end up finding a decent amount of EXP materials no matter what you choose to spend your time on in Genshin Impact, there are a few activities that grant these all-important items much more reliably.
Go through the story
When we think of grinding out levels, we often look to other side activities before the main plot. But just by following the main story of Genshin Impact, you can get a ton of EXP and Adventure Rank at the same time. The only downsides to this is that these missions are a little lengthy and can only be completed one time. So, while the payout is good and more fun to do than some of the more repetitive tasks, they won’t bring you to endgame level.
Progressing through Domains
Completing Domains is one of the best ways to level up quickly in Genshin Impact. These repeatable dungeons appear throughout the map, each offering slightly different rewards. You can find Domains marked by an icon that looks like a diamond with a blue dot in the center, and you’ll usually have to complete a short puzzle or even a quest chain to unlock each one. Domains specialize in various important items that they offer as rewards, such as Artifacts or Weapon Ascension materials, and you’ll be able to see a preview of possible rewards before you take one on so you won’t waste your time getting items you don’t need.
That’s what makes Domains a good place to find EXP materials. You’ll regularly find these items in Domains, along with other rewards that you’ll need to boost your weapons and characters, making them a convenient one-stop shop for progressing through the game. They also offer fun challenges that can scale to match your level, and you can come back anytime you want. The downside of using Domains is that it costs 20 Resin a pop to collect your rewards, and that same resource is used to acquire pretty much every material you’ll need to progress past the early stages of Genshin Impact. EXP materials also aren’t one of the specialized rewards offered by Domains, so the amount you get can vary.
Farming Ley Line Outcrops
An even faster way to level up is to farm EXP materials by activating Blossom of Revelation Ley Line Outcrops. Like Domains, Ley Line Outcrops are repeatable activities that show up on the map. Blossom of Revelation Ley Line Outcrops will show up with an icon that looks like a wisp of blue smoke. Activating one will trigger a short combat encounter with a few enemies around your level, and once you defeat them, you can claim the rewards in exchange for 20 Original Resin. The advantages of using a Blossom of Revelation Ley Line Outcrop are that you’re always guaranteed to win a stack of EXP materials and they’re much quicker to complete than Domains. If you’re only looking to level your characters as quickly as possible and don’t need materials to level up weapons or talents — which can be just as important — tackling Blossoms of Revelation is the way to go.
Tips to level up fast
Even if you’re focused on Ley Line Outcrops to quickly grind for EXP materials, there are a few things that can trip you up in your quest to level up your characters.
Step 1: One is that it also costs Mora to use EXP materials, so it’s possible to run low enough on money that you can’t level up anymore. Mora is pretty easy to come by in Genshin Impact, but if you find yourself a little short, you may want to consider taking on a few Blossom of Wealth Ley Line Outcrops. These are marked with yellow smoke icons on your map, and they function identically to Blossoms of Revelation, except that they offer Mora instead of EXP materials. It also costs 20 Resin to claim their rewards, though, so there’s a limit to how much you can use them.
Step 2: Another source of rewards, including EXP materials, that is easily forgotten is your trusty Adventurer’s Handbook. You will accomplish most of these tasks naturally while playing and doing other things, and you’ll be rewarded with various items. The ones that you might not do automatically are usually very simple and won’t take much time to knock out. You do need to do every task in a specific chapter of the handbook before more open up, so make sure to clear them all out so you can start working on the next set. Each subsequent chapter has better and better rewards, so don’t slack on them.
Step 3: It’s just as important to spend your EXP materials wisely as it is to collect them in the first place. Since characters are drawn randomly in Genshin Impact, you’re more or less guaranteed to recruit some characters that you just don’t like or don’t fit your party composition. Rather than trying to keep all of your characters around the same level, try to pick a core group of four characters that get first dibs on all EXP materials, with an alternate or two if you need to use a specific element or ability. When you get a new character, rather than immediately leveling them up, take them through a low-level dungeon to see if you actually like their abilities and read through descriptions of how they’ll progress to decide if they’ll be useful in the long run.