Presumably worn down by the cries of disappointed players, the Genshin Impact team announced a legitimately massive quality-of-life update coming in patch 5.5, which is about three weeks away at the time of writing: custom artifacts crafted by spending Sanctifying Elixir will be "guaranteed" to roll your specified substats at least twice, preventing flat-out garbage pieces.
This change was the footnote (and frankly, also the star) of the Genshin team's latest developer discussion. "Since the launch of 'Sanctifying Elixir,' we have closely monitored all feedback about the resource," HoYoverse writes. "To provide a better level-up experience for you, we will optimize the mechanics of 'Sanctifying Elixir' from Version 5.5 onwards."
This is, of course, a very nice way to say that we saw y'all falling to pieces in posts and surveys lamenting that your hard-earned, hand-picked artifacts rolled into worthless stats. And, to be fair, that does feel bad. Entire YouTube videos and accounts have been made to chronicle the relatable artifact pain of Genshin content creators like Xiao devotee Zy0x. Sanctifying Elixirs take a long time to get and have the potential to pocket you a great piece of gear, so it hurts even more when that gear ends up completely worthless. Luckily, that won't be possible anymore.
"Starting from Version 5.5, when using 'Sanctifying Elixir' to define Artifacts, the defined 'Minor Affixes' will be guaranteed to receive at least 2 enhancements when enhanced to level 20, thus improving your character-building efficiency!" the post adds.
The textbook way to spend Sanctifying Elixir is to pick a rare main stat, like a specific elemental goblet or an elemental mastery sands for your character's best artifact set, and slap critical rate and damage on that piece. These are simply some of the best and rarest stats you can roll, which is what you want to spend your Elixir on. Beginning with update 5.5, if you craft a piece like that, you'll always roll into critical rate and damage – that is, the substats you chose – at least two times.
In this double-crit hypothetical, this change would guarantee four rolls (two base and two bonus) of critical stats at level 20. Even in the absolute worst-case scenario, that is at least in the realm of decent. And with two rolls locked in, you'll have above 50% odds of getting a piece that's genuinely good. This dramatically raises the floor and improves the odds for crafted artifacts, which should cut down on letdowns and make building characters noticeably easier. Low rolls are still possible, but not quite so low.
To sum it up: don't craft a single thing until update 5.5. Now, if HoYoverse can just act on all the feedback about Elixirs being too uncommon, we'll really be in business.
