Genshin Impact - Pity system and 50/50 explained in full

Genshin Impact’s gacha system has a number of features that affect the pulls you get from your Wishes. Rather than purely relying upon random chance, Genshin Impact employs a Pity system and a 50/50 mechanic that can favour you in certain situations.

Getting a lot of Wishes will either take a lot of playtime or a lot of money, so it’s important to fully understand how each of these elements will impact your rewards. By knowing how they work, you will be able to exploit your Wishes to give yourself the best chances of acquiring the characters you want.

Here’s our full explanation of what is 50/50 in Genshin Impact, and how the Pity system works alongside it.

How does the Genshin Impact Pity system work?

Pity is a key part of Genshin Impact’s gacha system, which guarantees you will get 4-star and 5-star items after you have attempted enough Wishes.

A 4-star pull is guaranteed every 10 Wishes
A 5-star pull is guaranteed every 90 Wishes

These are absolute maximum caps, known as Hard Pity.

After approximately 75 Wishes, Soft Pity will kick in and you will now have a much higher chance of pulling a 5-star item until 90 Wishes. Players will therefore get a lot of their 5-star pulls in between 75-89 rolls on a banner.

When you pull the 4-star or 5-star item, regardless of how many rolls it took, your Pity will completely revert back to zero and will start accumulating again from scratch until your next successful pull.

NOTE: Your 4-star and 5-star Pity are completely separate. If you pull a 4-star item, this has no effect on your 5-star Pity and only the 4-star Pity will revert to zero.

How do you check your Pity in Genshin Impact?

Unfortunately, Genshin Impact doesn’t give you this number anywhere so you will have to work it out for yourself.

To check your Pity in Genshin Impact, go to the Wish section of the menu and select ‘Wish History’. This has a record of your Wishes, and the outcome of each one. 4-star pulls are highlighted in purple and 5-star pulls are highlighted in gold, making them easier to spot.

As you’ll see, there are 5 records per page so you will simply have to go back and see how many records there are between your most recent Wish and your last 5-star pull. This will be your current Pity count. Use the following formula to work it out quickly:

Multiply the number of full pages without a 5-Star Pull by 5, then add the number on the final page between the top entry and the 5-star pull. In the above scenario, Pity would be 36.

Whatever your Pity is, subtract it from 90 and that’s how many more rolls you’ll have to make before you are absolutely guaranteed to get your next 5-star character.

Unfortunately, the Wish History only goes back 6 months but there are some online tools out there allowing you to back them up for longer periods.

What is 50/50 in Genshin Impact?

This remains one of the most confusing aspects about Genshin Impact, perhaps owing to the slightly misleading wording. We’ll define it and then explain with an example.

A 50/50 in Genshin Impact means that when you successfully get a 5-star pull, it has a 50/50 chance of being the limited character advertised on the banner. The 50/50 therefore only applies on banners where specific characters/items are advertised and does not apply on the standard banner.

Unless you have hit soft/hard pity, there is still a low chance of you actually getting that item/character (0.6% as a base rate to be exact). It doesn’t matter when the 5-star item turns up – if it happens on your 10^th roll, then it has a 50/50 chance of being the character advertised on the banner. If you finally get your 5-star on the 90^th roll, then it’s also got a 50/50 chance of being the character on the banner. If you don’t get them, it will be another random 5-star character.

However, here’s the important part – if the 50/50 does not give you the character on the banner, then the next time you get a 5-star pull on that banner it will definitely be the advertised character.

Example to explain 50/50 in Genshin Impact

Confused? You’re not the only one. Here’s an example that should explain how 50/50 works:

You get lucky on the above pictured Dehya banner and pull a 5-star character on your 15^th roll

This character has a 50% chance of being Dehya (the promoted character) and a 50% chance of being any other random 5-star character not promoted on the banner
Unfortunately, you get a different 5-star character
Your Pity resets to zero and the next 5-star character you pull on this banner is guaranteed to be Dehya

You will therefore definitely get Dehya in 90 Wishes or less – this is when Hard Pity would kick in and guarantee a 5-star pull

Ultimately, this means if you keep rolling on the same banner, the absolute maximum number of Wishes required will be 180 to guarantee you get the advertised 5-star character.

Do Pity and 50/50 carry over?

Losing the 50/50 can feel like the most devastating thing in the world on the banner of a character you really want, but there is at least a silver lining. When you lose a 50/50, you are not only guaranteed to win the next 50/50 that arises, but there is another perk as well.

Pity and 50/50 both carry over to other banners of the same type:

Character Event Pity and 50/50 does carry over to the next Character Event banner but does not carry over to other banners like Standard or Weapon Event

Weapon Event Pity and 50/50 carries over to the next Weapon Event banner but does not carry over to Standard or Character Event banner
Standard banner Pity does not carry over to Character Event or Weapon Event banners – there is no such thing as a 50/50 loss in the standard banner so this is not relevant

For example, if you get a 5-star pull on Raiden Shogun’s Character Event banner and it is not Raiden Shogun, you can choose to save this 50/50 loss for the next Character Event banner. When a new Character Event banner appears, you will be guaranteed to get the advertised character by wishing on the banner until you get a 5-star pull (maximum of 90 Wishes).

Of course, if you really want Raiden Shogun you can keep rolling on that banner instead and you’ll get her next time.

Example to explain Pity and 50/50 carry over in Genshin Impact

This one gets confusing as well, so here’s another example to explain:

You keep wishing on the Raiden Shogun banner and fail to get a 5-star character until your 90th roll (Hard Pity)

Unfortunately you lose the 50/50 – the character is not Raiden Shogun but another random 5-star character
You keep wishing on the banner but the Character Event banner expires after 40 rolls and you don’t pull a 5-star character at all
You now have a guaranteed 50/50 win and 40 Pity accumulated on the Character Event banner

The next Character Event banner is made available some time later, featuring Zhongli
Since you already have 40 Character Event Pity built up, you will guarantee a 5-star character within 50 rolls which is when you would hit Hard Pity
You also lost your last 50/50 on the Character Event banner so you will definitely pull the advertised character (Zhongli) this time

Basically, you were guaranteed Zhongli within 50 Wishes

What about Weapon Event Banners?

Obviously most players are more interested in snagging the 5-star characters, but the Weapon banners also have similar Pity and 50/50 mechanics, but with some small tweaks that make it a bit more generous.

The main differences with the Weapon Event banners are:

Hard Pity is reached on your 80^th Wish rather than your 90^th Wish– you will therefore be guaranteed a 5-star weapon on your 80^th Wish
Soft Pity is reached at approximately 65 pulls, boosting your chances of 5-star pulls until you get to 80

The 50/50 odds are actually 75/25 in a Weapon banner when you successfully pull a 5-star weapon
Therefore, you have a 75% chance of pulling one of the advertised 5-star weapons and a 25% chance of a random 5-star weapon

So how do I guarantee the banner character?

As discussed above, the absolute worst-case scenario is that it will take 180 wishes within that banner. This will occur if your Pity is starting from scratch, you lose your first 50/50 after 90 rolls (getting a random 5-star character instead) and you then need another 90 rolls to get the next 5-star character which will definitely be the advertised character.

As per the above examples, the only time you can quickly guarantee a Character Event banner character is if you have a high Pity count from a previous Character Event banner and also carry over a 50/50 loss. Depending on how high your Pity count is, you could get them within a relatively small number of Wishes.

However, it is generally not advised to try and build up Pity before a new Character Event banner. If you pull the 5-star character again on the current Character Event banner within a small number of Wishes, Pity will start again from scratch and it will be a massive waste of Wishes. The best way to build Pity is to do so organically without doing it intentionally.

Genshin Impact Pity, 50/50 and Wishes all get pretty confusing, but hopefully our guide to Pity and what is 50/50 in Genshin Impact will give you everything you need to get those all important 5-star characters. For more Genshin Impact content, check out the articles below: