New 5-star Characters Are Coming to Genshin Impact’s Standard Banner

The Wanderlust Invocation, popularly known as the Standard Banner in Genshin Impact, has always been known as one of the game’s biggest gambles. And don’t forget we’re talking about a gacha game here. You have plenty of 5-star options, but they’re quite limited when it comes to characters, and those big prizes were barely updated throughout the years. Well, not anymore, it seems.

When the 3.0 update arrived, the first 5-star Dendro character Tighnari was announced to be joining the Standard Banner in the following update, making it the first time a new 5-star character was introduced there. But now in 3.5, another new 5-star has those same honors: Dehya is not limited and she heads straight for the permanent pool of characters after her debut.

More 5-stars Joining the Standard Banner

During the Genshin Impact Version 3.5 live stream, the hosts surprised all viewers by announcing that Dehya would also join the other six 5-star characters in the standard banners. The team was initially composed of Jean, Mona, Keqing, Diluc, and Qiqi, but Tighnari later joined them.

Those characters are usually seen as “good, but not great”. Some quickly fell into oblivion and are rarely used these days, but most of them are still well-regarded by the community. That is, when they don’t randomly decide to appear and be a 50/50 party pooper, of course. People will hate them in those cases.

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But the main point here is that being somewhat “average” (as in, not the best but far from the worst in that role) seems to be the main criteria to be introduced to the permanent banner. Dehya’s arrival means that more characters can be introduced directly to it as time passes, or that even some older ones can later join them. Albedo is often regarded as a candidate since there’s no 5-star Geo in it, and he has that “Standard” feel surrounding him.

What About Weapons?

Well, weapons are complicated. Even limited weapons considered average or bad (like the Liyue series) were never brought to the banners and still haunt the Weapon’s Banner from time to time. The same happens for the limited 4-star weapons. But with Dehya’s introduction, this might indicate a change in the near future.

Her weapon and Tighnari’s didn’t join the other ten standard 5-star weapons, but since HoYoverse seems to be willing to add new loot for those banners, even if rarely, it could be possible for more weapon options to be available soon. Tighnari’s weapon hasn’t returned yet since its debut either and could fit well in the Wanderlust Invocation.

It feels bad to always get the same 5-stars every time when we lose a pity, so a wider selection alleviates that frustration, even if only a bit. But well, let’s see what Fontaine holds for us in that regard.