How the Gacha Pity System Works in Genshin Impact Explained
Clara Sophie Wagner
Indie Games & Visual Aesthetics Specialist
Published
Updated
4 min read
Genshin Impact utilizes a gacha mechanic known as Wishes to distribute characters and weapons. To protect players from endless bad luck, the game employs a pity system. Pity guarantees that players will receive high-tier rewards after a specific number of unsuccessful attempts. Understanding how hard pity, soft pity, and the 50/50 system interact is essential for managing Primogems effectively.
Character Event Wishes
The primary focus for most players is the Character Event Wish, which features a limited-time 5-star character alongside three featured 4-star characters.
Hard Pity and Soft Pity
On the Character Event banner, the base probability of pulling a 5-star character on any single wish is 0.6%. Hard Pity: If a player does not receive a 5-star character after 89 pulls, the 90th pull is 100% guaranteed to be a 5-star character. Soft Pity: While the game does not officially use the term soft pity, community data analysis reveals that the probability of pulling a 5-star significantly increases starting at the 74th wish. This heightened rate makes it extremely rare for a player to actually reach the 90th wish hard pity limit.
The 50/50 System and Capturing Radiance
When a player pulls a 5-star character on the limited banner, there is a 50% chance they will receive the featured character. This is known as the 50/50. Winning the 50/50: The player receives the featured promotional character. The next 5-star pull will again be a 50/50 chance. Losing the 50/50: The player receives a standard banner 5-star character instead (such as Jean, Diluc, or Qiqi). However, the next 5-star character pulled on an Event banner is 100% guaranteed to be the featured character. Starting in Version 5.0, HoYoverse introduced a mechanic called Capturing Radiance. This system occasionally triggers when a player is about to lose a 50/50, overriding the loss and granting the limited character instead. This effectively increases the consolidated probability of winning the featured character from a strict 50% up to 55% over time.
Weapon Event Wishes (Epitome Invocation)
The weapon banner operates under different mathematical rules than the character banners, and it features two limited 5-star weapons simultaneously.
Weapon Banner Pity
The base rate for a 5-star weapon is slightly higher at 0.7%. Hard Pity: A 5-star weapon is guaranteed at 80 wishes. Soft Pity: The probability of pulling a 5-star weapon increases sharply beginning around the 63rd wish. When a 5-star weapon drops, there is a 75% chance it will be one of the two featured promotional weapons, and a 25% chance it will be a standard 5-star weapon.
The Epitomized Path
To allow players to target a specific featured weapon, the game uses the Epitomized Path. Before wishing, players chart a course for their desired weapon. If they pull a 5-star weapon that is not their chosen weapon, they receive 1 Fate Point. Once a player has 1 Fate Point, their next 5-star weapon is 100% guaranteed to be the one they charted a course for. Because the Fate Point requirement was reduced from 2 to 1 in Version 5.0, it now takes a maximum of two 5-star pulls (up to a theoretical absolute maximum of 160 wishes) to guarantee a specific weapon.
Standard Wish (Wanderlust Invocation)
The Standard banner uses Acquaint Fates instead of Intertwined Fates. It contains a permanent pool of standard 5-star characters and weapons. The standard banner shares the exact same 90-wish hard pity and 74-wish soft pity mechanics as the character event banners. However, there is no guarantee system to target a specific character or weapon on this banner, making it highly unpredictable. The game implements a hidden balancing mechanic ensuring players do not exclusively pull weapons or exclusively pull characters over long periods, but players cannot actively choose their rewards.
Pity Carry-Over Rules
One of the most important aspects of the Genshin Impact gacha system is how pity transfers between banners over time. Pity Count Carry-Over: The number of wishes made since the last 5-star pull carries over between banners of the same type. If a player makes 40 wishes on a character banner and stops, they will start at 40 pity on the next character banner. Guarantee Carry-Over: If a player loses the 50/50 on a character banner, that 100% guarantee carries forward indefinitely to future character banners. Fate Point Wipes: While weapon banner pity (the pull count) carries over, Fate Points do not. When a weapon banner ends, any accumulated Fate Points are reset to zero. Therefore, pulling on the weapon banner is generally discouraged unless sufficient wishes have been saved to secure the guarantee before the banner expires.
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