Genshin Impact's mysterious Weapon Banners, explained
How can you get lucky with your weapons?
A good weapon is needed in Genshin Impact. Sure, you might feel proud jaunting Genshin Impact with your hard-earned five-star character from the game’s character banners. That can certainly be considered a victory for your wallet and Primogems.
Every good character needs to be paired with a trusty weapon to succeed. If you want the best weapons for your character, you’ll need to partake in the Genshin Impact event weapons banner, which has completely different rules than the game’s standard gacha mechanic, which functions like a randomized vending machine. It also features exclusive tools like the Summit Shaper.
Here's a short primer on the need-to-know basics about how Banners, and the Pity system work for weapons in Genshin Impact.
How do you get weapons using the Genshin Impact gacha?
You can obtain random weapons through every Genshin Impact Banner, but the best weapons are found in the Standard Banner and the Weapon Event Banner.
The Standard Banner is your one-stop-shop for everything you need for Genshin Impact when you’re starting out. Offerings in the Standard Banner range from characters to weapons. Each Wish will get you one of the two and costs Acquaint Fate.
Something you might want a strong weapon to kill.
Alternatively, there’s the Event Weapon Banner. It features a rotating group of rate-up weapons, including two five-stars and five four-stars. You can also receive five-star weapons normally featured on the Standard Banner while drawing from the Event Banner, but this won’t occur all the time.
One Event Weapon Banner is usually available for three weeks. The two featured five-star weapons usually correspond with the current character on the Event Character Banner. For example, during Version 1.3, Hu Tao was introduced, and the Event Weapon Banner featured the Staff of Homa. If you don’t know, the Staff of Homa is perfect for Hu Tao’s best build.
Five-star items featured in the Event Weapon Banner usually aren’t available through other means after the banner concludes. The Staff of Homa won’t be on the Standard Banner after it concludes.
What are the best Genshin Impact Banners for weapons?
The best weapon Banner to pull from depends on what you need. If you’re looking to generally equip your party with some good weapons as you’re starting out, you should pull from the Standard Wish Banner. Sure, there are some characters mixed in, but often you’ll get a good selection of weapons.
If you’re looking to build-up a singular character, you might want to look at the Event Weapon Banner. The banner often offers tools for more specific needs, so this round might be the one for you.
How does Pity work for weapons in Genshin Impact?
Because gacha systems are always totally randomized, players can make many Wishes in Genshin Impact without getting the character(s) they want. To balance this out, the game incorporates a pity system, which means that if you don't pull a desirable item a certain number of times in a row, you'll be guaranteed one eventually.
If you go nine consecutive pulls without drawing anything that has at least four stars, you're guaranteed a four-star weapon or character on your tenth pull. To continue, if you endure a certain number of pulls without gaining a five-star reward, you're guaranteed one after hitting a particular threshold.
For the Standard Banner, if you endure 89 pulls without gaining a five-star reward, you're guaranteed something with five stars on your ninetieth pull. This could mean either a character or a weapon.
Rosaria with a spear she earned from her local weapon banner.
The Event Weapon Banner plays a bit differently. You’re instead guaranteed a five-star weapon at 80 pulls, meaning if you don’t obtain a five-star by pull 79, your next one will be something special. This five-star can only be a weapon, so don’t worry about characters ruining your hunt for the main tool.
Alas, pity on the Weapons Banner does get a smidge more complicated. For characters, if you don’t receive the promotional character on your first pity pull, you’ll get them on your second. This occurs because your chance to receive the promotional five-star character is at 50 percent and the banner only features a single promotional five-star.
For the Event Weapon Banner, your chance to receive a promotional five-star is instead at 75% percent. If you receive a non-featured five-star from one pity, your next one will certainly be a promotional five-star.
To complicate things further, there are often two promotional five-stars available. If you’re gunning for a particular five-star, like the Staff of Homa, there’s a fair chance that your accumulated pity will be spent on the opposite feature five-star weapon. This means it could cost far more to get the Staff of Homa than it did to obtain Hu Tao.
According to user collected data, the Featured Weapon Banner usually has a fifty-fifty chance for each promotional weapon, if you’re going for that. Assuming that to be true, it implies obtaining your ideal five-star could take up to 320 pulls. That translates to about 52100 Primogems. One YouTuber spent $2,000 trying to get the Staff of Homa.
Does the Genshin Impact Event Weapon Banner feature soft pity?
On the Standard Banner, Genshin Impact is theorized to have a feature called “soft pity. more than a few players have reported experiencing a "soft pity" system in play.
For the Standard Banner, it means that once you reach 75 cumulative pulls without receiving a five-star reward, your chance for obtaining a five-star rises exponentially before definitely getting one at 90.
Chongyun and the Traveller.
To be exact, one user who performed 100 million wishes on a simulator, claims that your chance of getting a five-star character breaks down like this: pulls 1 - 74 have a 0.6 percent change, pulls 75 - 89 have a 20 percent chance, pull 90 has a 100 percent chance.
Far fewer players have experimented with the Event Weapon Banner, but we can assume soft pity begins after 65 pulls. This assumption is made by subtracting 10 from the normal soft pity because pity takes 10 fewer pulls to hit on the Event Weapon Banner.
Best of luck obtaining your ideal killer tool.
For more information about how Genshin Impact’s gacha system operates for characters, please check out our other guide.
