Genshin Impact Artifacts Explained: Pieces, Main Stats, Set Bonuses and Where to Farm Them

Characters in Genshin Impact get their levels and weapons from straightforward upgrades, but their real power comes from artifacts — five pieces of equipment that together decide whether a character merely works or truly shines. The system looks intimidating from the outside, so let's take it apart piece by piece.

The Five Pieces and Their Main Stats

Under the main stat sit up to four substats — smaller rolls of stats like CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG, ATK%, and Elemental Mastery. Every four enhancement levels, an artifact either gains a new substat or upgrades an existing one, up to level 20 for a 5-star piece. That randomness is the entire endgame loop: players farm hundreds upon hundreds of pieces chasing the precious few whose substats upgraded the right way.

Set Bonuses Are the Point

Each artifact belongs to a set, and wearing two pieces of a set grants a bonus, while four pieces grants a second, stronger one. A support favourite shows how this works: the Instructor set's two-piece bonus adds 80 Elemental Mastery, and its four-piece bonus gives the whole party another 120 Elemental Mastery for eight seconds whenever the wearer triggers a reaction — a huge team-wide buff from a set that only exists at 3-star and 4-star rarity. The standard arrangement is four pieces of one set plus a single "off-piece", usually the Goblet, because an Elemental DMG Goblet in the right element is the hardest piece to find on-set.

Where Artifacts Come From

Domains are the main source of 5-star sets, and their top difficulty — which unlocks at Adventure Rank 45 — guarantees at least one 5-star artifact per 20-Resin run. World and weekly bosses drop the Gladiator's Finale and Wanderer's Troupe sets alongside lower-rarity sets like Instructor. Elite enemies across the open world can also drop low-rarity sets when you claim their rewards with Resin, and ordinary treasure chests sprinkle low-rarity artifacts through exploration — one more reason opening chests is never wasted time. Sets like Instructor, which never appear in domains, can only be collected through these boss and chest routes.

How to Judge a Piece

Beginners should equip for main stats first: the right main stat on a mediocre piece beats the wrong main stat on a beautiful one. After that, value substats by role — damage dealers want CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG above almost everything, reaction-focused supports want Elemental Mastery, and characters with expensive bursts want enough Energy Recharge to use them on cooldown. And take heart from sets like Instructor: a support whose job is triggering reactions and buffing the team can perform beautifully in cheap 4-star pieces. In artifacts, the right idea almost always beats the rarest roll you own.