Genshin Impact Lantern Rite Event Guide: How To Party Liyue Style [Update]

Genshin Impact’s 1.3 update is live, and with it comes a pretty big limited-time event to celebrate this month’s Chinese New Year.

There’s a lot to keep track of, so here’s a guide tackling each different activity in the Lantern Rite event.

Five Flushes Of Fortune – Photo-Taking Guide

There’s a nifty photo-taking event in Genshin Impact that’s similar to Pokemon Snap, but with way more restrictions. To activate this quest and get the Kamera, talk to Ji Tong in Liyue. He’s at the north part of the town.

Once you have the Kamera, you can start taking photos. However, you can’t exactly snap a general item and call it a day; you have to take a photo of a specific object of a specific colour. Once you take a photo, you gain a randomly coloured picture: red, blue,yellow, brown, purple. You need one of each to get the Five Flushes Of Fortune daily reward via trading them with Ji Tong.

Here’s a step-by-step guide:

• You gain 10 Film per day. You need Film to take photos of Today’s Photo Subject.
• Every day, there will be a new Photo Subject. Today’s one, for example, is a Red Item.
• You need to scour the world to find that one item and take photos of it. For this instance, you should take photos of Jueyun Chili at Qingce Village.

• Once you take a photo of the correct subject, you gain a random-coloured picture.
• Protip: you can take pictures of the same item as long as it is a different entity. So if you see two stalks of Jueyun Chili, you can take 6 photos to gain 6 randomly-coloured pictures.
• In case you do not get a particular colour for the Rewards, you can give extras to your friends in hopes that they give you one of their extra colours.

Geovishaps Guide

To start this monster hunt, you need to talk to Zhiping who is located south of Liyue. He will ask you to find out what’s causing earthquakes in the region.

Head to the western bit of Tianqiu Valley; the Geovishap is waiting at ground level in a conveniently-shaped giant circular arena.

There it is, in all of its glory. Here are a few protips on defeating it:

• The Primo Geovishap has the standard three-hit swing that ends with an AoE ground pound. Just dodge accordingly.
• The Primo Geovishap has a breath attack. Just get behind it when it starts doing it, then attack it from behind.
• If you get too close, it will do a damaging crowd-control swing with its tail. Luckily it telegraphs this move; just dodge accordingly.
• Occasionally, the Primo Geovishap will do a large AoE heavy-hitting Shower attack. You need to have a character who can summon a shield (like Noelle or Xinyang) to counter this effect. A single counter will deal a good chunk of damage to it.

• When it’s at half health or less, it will start launching projectile spikes onto the ground that will summon additional protruding grounds spikes after a second or two delay. Just move out of the way when you see the spikes plant itself in an area.
• The Primo Geovishap will also burrow into the ground, dig its way to your general direction underground, and then do a two-hit emergence and ground pound attack. Dodge and get out of the way as soon as it stops in front of you when it’s tunneling.
• When the Primo Geovishap is at less than a quarter of its health, it will stop doing its Shower attack. So no free counter damage; you have to brute force your way through its thick noggin.

Theater Mechanicus Guide

Theater Mechanicus is a new tower defense activity that you can play in Genshin Impact’s current CNY event. It involves a lot of Xiao Lanterns, Veneficus Sigils, and Peace Talismans. Here’s how to access it:

• First, complete the Lantern Rite festival starter quests, which lets you go wild with Xiao and his kit.
• Then, you’ll need to create Xiao Lanterns using the alchemy bench. Get the recipe from an NPC named JingMing in Liyue, then craft away. You’ll need the following to craft 1 Xiao Lantern: 1x Lantern Fiber (collect random plants & flowers), 1x Wick Material (hilichurl & Fatui enemy drops), 1x Plaustrite Shard (mine ore nodes).
• Speak to Ruijin in Liyue Harbor. She’ll let you try out one Theater Mechanicus tower defense session for free. All future runs require you to cough up 1 Xiao Lantern.

Once that’s done, you’ll need a basic gist of how it goes:

• Like any tower defense mini-games, you need to stop enemies from reaching the escape point. Enemies come in waves; if you kill them off in every wave, you win.
• The catch? Your party members cannot deal damage directly to them. Instead, you’ll need to use their elemental reaction abilities to trigger Mechanici towers that you can place all over the field. You build them using Veneficus Points.
• The towers you have on tap are Tidal Flats (Hydro), Spark (Pyro), Thin Ice (Cryo), Thunderstrike (Electro), and Recovery (extra construction points). And just like in other tower defense games, you can upgrade them.
• When you start, you’re given a minute to set up your towers. The only protip right now is place them where you can cause the most amount of elemental reactions. For instance, place Tidal Flats next to Thin Ice for easy Frozen effects on enemies. Or place Spark next to Thunderstrike for easy Overload opportunities.
• Keep in mind; some fast enemies can escape easily than others, so setting up towers for easy Freeze opportunities is vital for later waves.
• Once you complete a wave, you’ll get a Mystic Arts screen. These are modifiers that help you with your tower defense management. These also cost Venificus Sigils.
• The party combination you create is also very important. Good picks include Kaeya & Ganyu (Cryo), Mona & Xingqiu (Hydro), Xiangling & Klee (Pyro), and Fischl (Electro). These characters can generate reactions faster because of their quick cooldown times for their skills.
• Alternatively, characters like Venti and Jean have special Anemo skills that push away mobs so that you can prevent their escape. If you have either one, slot them in.
• The best part? This mini-game allows for co-op play, so you can have other folks with better gacha luck to help you out.
• Once you complete certain challenges, you’ll earn Veneficus Sigils that will help you permanently upgrade your existing towers so that they start off strong & powerful.
• Clearing the mini-game and its challenges will also award you Peace Talismans; use these for rare items in the Xiao Market.

Mystic Arts List

Use Veneficus points to buy these. While most of these Mystic Arts powerups are beneficial, some of them cost 0 points and are detrimental to your wave runs, but they offer a bonus once they’re killed.

Tower Upgrades List

You need Veneficus Sigils to permanently upgrade your towers.

Peace Talisman Challenges Rewards List

The main reason you want to ace Tower Mechanicus. Trade these talismans for awesome rewards at the Xiao market.

Lantern Rite Event Guide

Check out this video for a full walkthrough of the Lantern Rite starter quest that leads to the opening of the Xiao market in Liyue.