Artifacts Guide and Farming

1. The Five Slot Types

A full artifact build is five pieces, and each slot has a fixed role. The Flower of Life always has flat HP as its main stat. The Plume of Death always has flat ATK. Those two are the only slots where you never choose the main stat, which makes them pure substat lottery tickets: the main stat is identical on every Flower and every Plume, so their value lives entirely in the rolls beneath it. At level 20 a 5-star Flower shows 4,780 flat HP and a 5-star Plume shows 311 flat ATK, figures that are consistent across community databases.

The other three slots roll their main stat randomly from a pool. The Sands of Eon can be HP%, ATK%, DEF%, Elemental Mastery, or Energy Recharge%. The Goblet of Eonothem adds the elemental and physical damage bonuses on top of the same base pool, so it can roll Pyro, Hydro, Electro, Cryo, Anemo, Geo, Dendro, or Physical DMG% in addition to the standard stats. The Circlet of Logos can roll CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, or Healing Bonus alongside the HP/ATK/DEF/EM/ER options. Because the Goblet and Circlet pools are deep, getting the exact main stat you want is often the longest step of a build.

2. Main Stats and Why They Matter

Main stats are not equal in value. A damage-focused character almost always wants an Elemental DMG% Goblet rather than an ATK% Goblet, because elemental damage multiplies the whole hit while ATK% stacks additively with other ATK sources. On the Circlet the choice is between CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG at roughly a 1:2 ratio, and the right pick depends on what your substats already give you. A CRIT Rate circlet caps at 31.1% and a CRIT DMG circlet at 62.2%, which is exactly double, so the two are designed to be paired with substats that push you toward a balanced ratio.

For supports the priorities flip. A battery unit that needs to use its burst often wants an Energy Recharge Sands, sometimes before ATK%, because a burst that never fires contributes nothing. Healers such as Kokomi or Barbara often want a Healing Bonus circlet and an HP% or ATK% sands depending on which stat their healing formula uses. The golden rule repeated across guides is that the correct main stat beats the set bonus, which beats perfect substats: a 4-star piece with the right main stat is better than a 5-star piece with the wrong one.

Substats and RNG

Substats are where the real grind lives. A 5-star artifact starts with three or four substats drawn from ten possibilities: flat HP, HP%, flat ATK, ATK%, flat DEF, DEF%, Elemental Mastery, Energy Recharge, CRIT Rate, and CRIT DMG. It gains an additional substat at levels 4, 8, 12, and 16, and at level 20 it stops growing. Every upgrade after the fourth line rolls into an existing substat rather than adding a new one, so a piece that starts with only three lines and rolls a dead stat early is permanently worse than a four-line piece.

The community scores substats with Crit Value, defined as CRIT DMG plus twice CRIT Rate, and the practical target for a main DPS piece is a high CV with ATK% or EM as the supporting line. A piece with no CRIT line and only flat stats is fodder. Because the rolls are random, the difference between an average piece and a good piece is larger than the difference between a level 80 and a level 90 character, which is why veterans say artifacts, not levels, are the endgame.

3. The AR45 Five-Star Guarantee

Before Adventure Rank 45, artifact domain runs can return a mix of 4-star and 5-star pieces with no floor on quality, which makes focused farming inefficient. At AR 45 the domain tier shifts so that a 20-resin run is guaranteed to drop at least one 5-star artifact, drawn from the two sets that domain offers. This is the single most important threshold in artifact progression, and multiple independent guides state it identically, so plan your artifact push to start at AR 45 rather than earlier.

Note that the guarantee is for one 5-star piece, not for the set you want or the slot you want or a good main stat. A run can drop a 5-star Flower when your build needs a Goblet, and that is normal. The guarantee removes the frustration of all-4-star runs, but it does nothing about the substat lottery, which is why artifact farming is measured in weeks of resin, not days.

4. How to Farm

Artifact domains, called Domains of Blessing, are the primary source and each one drops two possible 5-star sets chosen at random per run. The efficient play is to prioritize domains where both sets are useful to your roster, so a bad-luck streak on one set still feeds a character you care about. Condensed Resin lets you spend 40 resin at once for two drops and is the standard way to farm once you have the blueprint, because it halves the number of domain loading screens without changing drop rates.

Weekly bosses and some world bosses also drop specific 2-piece sets such as Gladiator's Finale and Wanderer's Troupe, but those drops are not resin-guaranteed and the rates are poor, so treat them as bonus finds rather than a farm plan. Open-world chests and events hand out low-star artifacts that exist only to be fed into the upgrade or conversion system. For the resin economy behind all of this, see the Original Resin guide, and for set-specific entries browse Artifacts.

The Mystic Offering Strongbox

The Mystic Offering, unlocked after a certain Adventure Rank, is a conversion station that turns five 5-star artifacts into one new 5-star artifact of a set you choose from a limited menu. The catch is that the output set is selectable but the slot and substats are random, and the input pieces are consumed, so you feed it the 5-star pieces that have the wrong set or useless substats. The strongbox is the release valve for a domain you no longer need: once you have finished one set, converting its excess 5-stars into the set you are still chasing is more efficient than hoping the domain drops it directly. Use it on domains where you have a large surplus and a clear second target.

5. Stat Priorities by Role

For a main DPS the order is ATK% or EM Sands (EM only for reaction or Swirl builds), an Elemental or Physical DMG% Goblet matching the character, and a CRIT Rate or CRIT DMG Circlet balanced toward a 1:2 ratio. Substats should chase CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, ATK%, and Elemental Mastery in that rough order, with Energy Recharge only if the character struggles to burst. This is the profile that actually moves the damage formula.

For a sub-DPS or support who needs to burst often, Energy Recharge on the Sands rises in priority, sometimes above ATK%, because uptime on the burst is the entire point of the unit. Healers prioritize Healing Bonus and the stat their healing scales on, with HP% or ATK% on the Sands and ER% when the burst is the heal. Shielders and tanky supports value HP% and ER% over offensive lines. The role, not the character's rarity, decides the stat order, and locking the wrong main stat is the most common endgame mistake.

6. When to Start Farming

Do not commit resin to artifact domains before AR 45. Below that rank the lack of a 5-star guarantee makes the effort inefficient, and your account is better served by leveling characters, raising talents, and clearing the story for Adventure Rank. The standard plan is to arrive at AR 45 with a main DPS and a second team already at level 80 to 90, then open the artifact grind for those two teams first and expand outward only as resin allows.

Once you start, farm the domain that serves your strongest two teams and lean on the strongbox for sets you need but no longer run. Expect the process to take weeks, and judge pieces by CV and main stat rather than by rarity alone. For deeper mechanics and element-specific pages, the wiki covers individual stats and reactions. Remember that artifacts are the last 20% of a build that costs 80% of the effort, so start them when your characters are otherwise ready, not before.