Last updated: 9 July 2026

Genshin Impact Pity System Fully Explained

The Genshin Impact pity system is the set of wish-count guarantees that protect players from endless bad luck. Understanding soft pity, hard pity, the 50/50 system, Capturing Radiance, and how pity travels between banners turns every Primogem into a smarter decision — whether saving for a new character or chasing a signature weapon.

01What Is Pity and How Does It Work?

Every wish on any banner increments an invisible counter. That counter tracks how many pulls have passed since the last 5-star drop. The pity system uses two thresholds — soft pity and hard pity — to ensure that no run of bad luck lasts forever.

The base rate for pulling a 5-star on a Character Event banner is 0.6% per wish. That sounds brutal, but the pity system layers two safety nets on top to make sure players never wait too long.

• Soft pity — the pull count where the 5-star rate starts climbing dramatically.
• Hard pity — the pull count at which a 5-star is absolutely guaranteed.
• The pity counter does not reset on 4-star pulls — only a 5-star pull resets it.
• Pity counters are separate for each banner type: Character Event, Weapon Event, and Standard each track their own count.

02Soft Pity: Where Your Odds Skyrocket

On the Character Event banner, soft pity begins at pull 74. From that point forward, each consecutive wish without a 5-star dramatically raises the effective rate — jumping from 0.6% to roughly 6.6% at pull 74, then adding approximately 6% more per additional pull.

In practice, the vast majority of 5-star pulls land between pulls 74 and 89. Tracking your current pity count lets you know when that surge is imminent.

On the Weapon Event banner, soft pity kicks in earlier — around pull 63–65 — reflecting the banner's lower hard pity cap of 80 pulls.

• Character Event banner soft pity: pull 74
• Weapon Event banner soft pity: pull ~63–65
• Standard banner soft pity: pull 74 (same as Character Event)
• The rate increase is exponential each pull past the soft pity threshold

03Hard Pity: The Absolute Guarantee

Hard pity is the unconditional floor — the pull count at which the game must give a 5-star, no matter what.

• Character Event banner: hard pity at pull 90
• Standard banner: hard pity at pull 90
• Weapon Event banner: hard pity at pull 80
• 4-star pity: every 10th wish guarantees at least one 4-star item

Because soft pity activates so aggressively before these caps, reaching the hard pity wall is rare. Most players hit their 5-star somewhere between pulls 74 and 89 on character banners. Still, knowing the hard cap matters for worst-case Primogem budgeting.

04The 50/50 System and Capturing Radiance

Hitting hard pity (or soft pity) only guarantees a 5-star — the 50/50 system then determines which one you receive. On a Character Event banner there is a 50% chance the 5-star is the featured limited character and a 50% chance it is a standard 5-star character.

If the standard character is pulled (a '50/50 loss'), the very next 5-star is guaranteed to be the featured limited character. This guarantee carries over even if you switch to a different Character Event banner.

Capturing Radiance — introduced in Version 5.0 — adds a further safety net using a loss counter:

1. After your first consecutive 50/50 loss, Capturing Radiance has a small chance to trigger and convert the loss into a win.
2. After a second consecutive loss, the Capturing Radiance trigger probability rises significantly.
3. A third consecutive 50/50 loss is impossible: Capturing Radiance is guaranteed to trigger, handing you the featured character automatically and resetting the loss counter.

The practical effect: you can never lose more than two 50/50s back-to-back on Character Event banners. Capturing Radiance only applies to Character Event banners — it does not affect the Standard or Weapon Event banners.

05Weapon Banner: Epitomized Path and Fate Points

The Weapon Event banner (Epitome Invocation) operates under different rules. It features two 5-star weapons simultaneously, and without guidance, any 5-star pull could be either of them. The Epitomized Path system lets players lock in their desired weapon to prevent bad-luck splits.

1. Open the Epitome Invocation banner and tap the Epitomized Path button in the lower-left corner.
2. Select the specific 5-star weapon you want.
3. Each time a 5-star weapon drops that is not your chosen weapon, you earn 1 Fate Point.
4. Once you hold 1 Fate Point (reduced from 2 in Version 5.0), your next 5-star pull is guaranteed to be your chosen weapon.

With hard pity at 80 pulls and a maximum of one Fate Point needed, the worst-case scenario for securing any specific weapon is 160 pulls. This is a significant improvement over the original system's 240-pull worst case.

Critical caveat: Fate Points do not carry over between Weapon Event banners. When a banner ends, all accumulated Fate Points are lost. If you change your Epitomized Path selection mid-banner, the counter resets to zero immediately.

06How Pity Carries Between Banners

One of the most misunderstood aspects of the pity system is what happens to your counter when a banner expires. The rule is straightforward: pity carries over within the same banner type, never across types.

• Character Event banners: pity and the 50/50 guarantee both persist from one limited character banner to the next. Pulling 60 wishes on one character's banner and then switching to the next means you begin that new banner at pull 60.
• Standard banner: has its own independent pity counter. Wishes spent on Wanderlust Invocation do not affect Character or Weapon Event counters.
• Weapon Event banner: pity carries between consecutive Epitome Invocation banners, but Fate Points do not.
• Dual-character banners (when two character banners run simultaneously) share a single pity pool — both count as the same Character Event type.

This means there is never a penalty for switching between active limited character banners mid-patch. Your saved pity, your 50/50 guarantee, and your Capturing Radiance loss counter all transfer seamlessly.