Everything you need to know about Genshin Impact’s Labyrinth Warriors event

The Genshin Impact Labyrinth Warriors event is a-maze-ing. For many, this dungeon-delving activity will be the highlight of Version 2.2 — it's certainly mine. This time around we're heading to the Mystic Onmyou Chamber, a mysterious new Domain (basically Genshin's version of dungeons) that's popped up in Inazuma, and is spewing out troublesome monsters.

Luckily, Liyue's resident rockstar, Xinyan, happens to be in the area, as is everyone's favorite frenemy, Childe. With this twosome in tow, and a floating paper Samurai called Shiki-Taishou, you embark into the monster-filled labyrinth in search of answers, and more importantly, loot.

After all, as with the Thunder Sojourn event for Beidou, Labyrinth Warriors grants a valuable opportunity to *invite* Xinyan to your party without having to wish at all. The four-star Pyro claymore-user may not be the best Genshin Impact character, but she does have a decent shield that boosts Physical damage—a strong support for Eula, perhaps?

In this Genshin Impact Labyrinth Warriors guide, we'll run through everything you need to know to tackle the new event, whether it's Charms, using Shikifuda, or just some general tips for making it through relatively unscathed.

How to Get Xinyan in Labyrinth Warriors

The first and most important question is how to get your mitts on Xinyan in the new event. It's pretty simple, really. Just follow the quest to the adventurer's guild, and you'll be directed to the Labyrinth. Once there, you need to earn 4,000 Aged Tokens—the event currency—by completing the available trials.

The second condition to unlock her is completing the 'Path of Taishou' quest, but only two of the trials are currently available. The other three are set to unlock this coming week, so you should be able to complete them, as with the quest, and claim Xinyan from the event menu by October 30.

How does Genshin Impact Labyrinth Warriors work?

Labyrinth Warriors is somewhat similar to the Spiral Abyss dungeon, in that you have to fight your way through room after room of trials against various monster combos. However, it differs because you have to navigate through the dungeon yourself, though you can also take advantage of Shikifuda, Charms, and various Emplacements. Here's an explanation of each:

Emplacements

As you fight through the Mystic Onmyou Chamber, you'll come across Emplacements stationed at the centre of each room. Here's a brief rundown of what each does:

• Arrayed and Ferocious Emplacements (Sword symbol): These activate a challenge and allow you to draw a Charm-buff once you complete it. You can also select two different difficulties that alter enemy strength in exchange for rarer Charms.
• Charm Emplacement (Question mark): Draw charms here for buffs, or use Battered Shikifuda to redraw the selection. These are earned by completing challenges.
• Curative Emplacement (Downward arrow): Heals your party and allows you to swap for characters from your support party.
• Decisive Emplacement (Monster face): This is the final challenge—usually a boss enemy like a Ruin Grader or a Lawachurl.

Charms

These buffs are a critical part of Labyrinth Warriors, as they stack together, allowing you to supercharge your party and deal with the chamber's challenges. Be sure to choose charms based on your playstyle. For example, there's no point picking a buff to Electro-Charged if you never use it. With that in mind, it's always worth using Battered Shikifuda to reroll your selection if none are relevant, and to buff your odds of getting rarer Charms by upgrading Charm Magic: Ingenuity.

Shikifuda

The Samurai, Shiki-Taishou, is more than just a floating piece of paper, and offers support magic in the Mystic Onmyou Chamber. Before heading into a trial you choose three Shikifuda abilities, each with three uses that can be activated at any point. These abilities offer elemental AoE damage, character buffs like attack-speed or reduced cooldowns, as well as plain old healing.

What you choose should, of course, depend on your party's elemental composition and what reactions you want to cause. If in doubt, we recommend Seal of Flashing Lightning, Strixwind Summoning, and Ensorcelled Waters. The first offers reduced skill and burst cooldown, which is highly beneficial. The second draws enemies together for maximum punishment, and as an Anemo AoE, will cause the Swirl reaction no matter what element you use. The last one is emergency healing, which is handy since you can't revive characters during a trial.

Charm Magic

You can upgrade these passive buffs incrementally, using Damaged Replicas gained by defeating monsters or searching containers during a trial. While some have specific effects that cater to playstyle, like increasing the number of explosive barrels in each chamber, we recommend those that offer general utility. Meticulous Planning, for example, grants an additional use for all your Shikifuda, whereas Rejuvenation adds a healing point before every boss—a real life-saver.

Genshin Impact Labyrinth Warriors' support team, explained

As you can't revive characters during a trial, except with Barbara's superpowered C6, it's essential to have a support team. But unlike Spiral Abyss, this support team won't do any fighting. It's more to give you a selection of backup characters to draw from at the Curative Emplacement if one of your main party faints. With that in mind, pick characters who would make a good backup, and bring a second healer along.

Genshin Impact Labyrinth Warriors tips

Here are a few final tips to help you tackle Labyrinth Warriors:

• Look out for Cursed Seals: Did you walk over a smoking floor, and now you can't heal? That's a Cursed Seal. These debuff traps are easy to miss, so keep an eye out for black smoke leaking through the floorboards in the corridors between rooms. If you have Venti, you can use his skill to windglide over them.
• Traps work on enemies, too: In many of the chambers, you'll find wall traps that fire Electro darts, but the upside is that these hurt enemies and bosses, too.
• Search for treasure: Even though the chests are pretty lackluster, the best way to get Damaged Replicas to upgrade your Charm Magic is by searching shining spots for treasure, though you'll also end up with a fair few radishes.
• You don't have to remember Charms: If you head into the menu during a trial (Press U on PC), you can view every Charm-buff you're currently stacking, along with a map of discovered Emplacements.

The Genshin Impact Labyrinth Warriors event runs through November 8, 2021.