The Realms of Guile and War is a new activity in Genshin Impact that’s part of the Perilous Trail event. In it, you’ll partake in numerous battles, while replacing some of the characters that you’ve already used. Here’s our Genshin Impact Realms of Guile and War guide to help you with the available characters, Strategems, and what you can expect during your runs.
Note: For more information about the game, check out our Genshin Impact guides and features hub. You may also take a look at our main guide for the Perilous Trail event.
Genshin Impact Realms of Guile and War guide – Characters, Strategems, and rewards
Starting out: Choosing the difficulty mode and your party members
After clearing the Chamber of Twisted Cranes domain and talking to the other characters, a notification will tell you about a new activity. The Realms of Guile and War in Genshin Impact can then be accessed by interacting with the wooden board. You’ll notice that only one stage is available at the moment (Direcliff Court), and the others will be unlocked in the coming days.
Likewise, prior to starting your run, you can select the difficulty. You’re better off choosing Apex Hostility as it also yields the rewards from the easier modes.
In any case, the next screen will show you the types of enemies you can encounter, as well as the characters that you can add to your party. Trial characters (all at level 80) include Xingqiu, Qiqi, Chongyun, Keqing, Yanfei, Shenhe, Yun Jin, and newcomer Yelan.
This would be a great time to test Yelan’s capabilities in a fight, but don’t rush things just yet. That’s because of how this activity is structured:
- Each dungeon run has three rounds with around three encounters (i.e., nine encounters to complete your run).
- Upon completing a round, you can only select one character from your current party to continue. The others will be made unavailable, and you have no choice but to pick someone else from the remaining pool.
- Given the increasing difficulty, you could opt for weaker characters at the start before going with your best fights near the end. For instance, I started out with Kazuha, Keqing, Mona, and Qiqi. I kept Kazuha until the third round, whereupon I tested him alongside Xingqiu, Raiden Shogun, and Yelan.
Strategems
You can also pick three Strategems in the Realms of Guile and War in Genshin Impact. These offer additional buffs to your party inside the domain. However, after clearing a round, a new set of Strategems will appear and you’d have to choose again. Here are the ones that I’ve seen so far:
| Strategem | Effect |
| Assurance | +30% attack speed for the active character; normal attacks heal 5% of their max HP |
| Stunning | Hitting a target with your normal attack three times causes an AoE shockwave |
| Thunderstruck | Normal attacks increase that type of damage by 15% for five seconds; stacks up to four times. |
| Perpetual Valor | Charged attacks deal +40% more damage and no longer consume stamina; increased resistance to interruption when performing a charged attack |
| Transfixing Strike | Charged attacks increase that type of damage by 20% for eight seconds; stacks up to three times. |
| Scattering Light | Plunging attacks restore three energy and 3% of max HP |
| Tidal Might | Plunging attacks increase that type of damage by 20% for eight seconds; stacks up to three times |
| Immaculate | +60% ATK when party members are using three different types of weapons |
| Swift Lethality | +20% Hydro and Electro damage for every Hydro and Electro character in the party |
| Transcience | Opponents taking Electro-charged damage have their Electro and Hydro resistances decreased by 40% for five seconds |
| Tactical Deployment | Non-active party members generate three energy per second after entering combat |
| Unity | After using an elemental burst, the party gains +50% elemental burst damage for six seconds |
| Superlative | +1 level for elemental skills and elemental bursts |
As you can see, certain Strategems provide amazing effects in conjunction with your party members. For instance, Assurance, Stunning, Thunderstruck, Transcience, and Swift Lethality are great to have if you’re using Yelan in a Taser comp (i.e., a main DPS spams their normal attack to continuously cause off-field “turret” abilities to damage foes).
Note: Completing encounters and increasing the difficulty net you Strategem Shards. These can be spent to reactivate a Strategem from a previous round. You can also use these to revive a downed character in case you want to have them later.
Rewards
The third encounter of the third round (i.e., encounter #9) is a bout against a single foe. This is when you’ll want to annihilate your target using your best characters.
When you’re done, you can check the event panel for the challenge rewards. If you picked the Apex Hostility difficulty from the start, then all the rewards can be obtained in one go.
The items include Moonlit Cragstone (the currency for the event shop) and the Fading Twilight bow (we discuss whether it’s a good weapon or not in a separate guide).
Genshin Impact is available via its official website. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.
