Handguard Farming in Genshin Impact

Any Genshin Impact player who has experienced Inazuma knows the pain of not having enough resources. Whether you’re ascending characters or weapons, it’s easy to run low on regional items, especially Handguards. No matter how many enemies you defeat, it’s nigh impossible to have enough Handguards. Which is why we’ve got a guide on the best places to farm Handguards in Genshin Impact!  

General Info on Farming Handguards in Genshin Impact

Handguards come in three rarities. The 1-star Old Handguard is dropped most commonly and can even be dropped in bundles by enemies. 2-star Kageuchi Handguards are slightly less common and only dropped in single quantities. The 3-star Famed Handguard is the most rare and is also only dropped in single quantities. 

Handguards of any rarity have a chance to drop after defeating either a Nobushi or Kairagi (though they are not guaranteed). Both types of enemy can only be found in Inazuma. While they can be found on all islands in Inazuma, they are most commonly found on Narukami Island, Seirai Island, and Watatsumi Island. 

While Kairagi and Nobushi can be found as Weekly Bounties, Bounty enemies will not drop items. Despite being common enemies, gathering item drops from the Nobushi and Kairagi can be harder than pulling teeth. Especially if you’re using Handguards for more than one purpose. 

Players who are truly desperate can head to the Paimon’s Bargains tab of the Shop and use the Stardust Exchange. We don’t recommend this, though, since it will deplete your Masterless Stardust. It is also limited to just 45 Old Handguards per month anyway, so the Shop alone won’t get you very far. It’s more efficient to know where the best places to farm Handguards are than to rely on limited shop availability.

Uses for Handguards

Most players familiar with Inazuma characters or weapons will probably know what Handguards are used for in Genshin Impact. For those who are unfamiliar, though, Handguards are used for ascending characters and weapons. 

As of Version 3.0, they do not have any other uses. This is probably just as well, because it can be a huge pain gathering enough for just their current uses now. 

Character Ascension

As of Version 3.0, there are four different characters who use Handguards for ascension. They are all 5-star characters, so free-to-play players at least will have less of a headache gathering them. 

The four 5-star characters who use Handguards are Kamisato Ayaka, Kamisato Ayato, Yae Miko, and the Raiden Shogun. In order to fully ascend each character, players will need:

• 18 Old Handguards (1-star)
• 30 Kageuchi Handguards (2-star)
• 36 Famed Handguards (3-sar)

Luckily, most players will be able to gather enough Handguards for character ascension in between gathering other ascension materials. Typically, it takes longer to gather boss drop items and level-up books.

Talent Leveling

Each character that requires Handguards for ascension will also require them for Talent leveling, too. On top of the four Inazuman characters, the Traveler’s Electro Talents also require Handguards to level up.

To fully level any one talent, players will need:

• 6 Old Handguards (1-star)
• 22 Kageuchi Handguards (2-star)
• 31 Famed Handguards (3-star)

This can mean a lot of Handguards for players who want to level up more than just one Talent. Handguards consumed in Talent leveling seem to be used much more quickly than just character ascension. That’s why it’s so important to know where the best places to farm Handugards are. 

Knowing a few locations dense with enemies that can drop Handguards will make Talent leveling much less of an annoyance. It will also make your grind sessions much more fruitful, too. 

Weapon Ascension

As of Version 3.0, there are eight different weapons that use Handguards for ascension. Four are 5-star weapons, including the Polearm Engulfing Lightning, the Swords Karan Geppaku Futsu and Mistsplitter Reforged, and the Claymore Redhorn Stonethresher.

While these 5-star weapons are all fantastic for your characters, they also drain a lot of resources to fully level up. They require more Mora and materials to ascend, which makes them a bigger drain on your inventory than their 4-star counterparts.

To fully ascend a 5-star weapon, players will need:

• 15 Old Handguards (1-star)
• 23 Kageuchi Handguards (2-star)
• 27 Famed Handguards (3-star)

The remaining four weapons using Handguards are 4-star weapons. They are the Polearm Wavebreaker’s Fin, the Sword Amenoma Kageuchi, and the Claymores Akuoumaru and Katsuragikiri Nagamasa.

While these weapons aren’t quite as good as the 5-star weapons above, they can still work incredibly well with your characters. They also cost fewer resources to fully ascend and level. This makes them more viable for players on a resource budget. 

To fully ascend a 4-star weapon, players will need:

• 10 Old Handguards (1-star)
• 15 Kageuchi Handguards (2-star)
• 18 Famed Handguards (3-star)

Weapon ascension can also easily drain your Handguards before you realize it. It may not seem like it, but ascending weapons enough will chip away at your resources until you’re running way lower than you think. 

10 Best Places for Farming Handguards in Genshin Impact, Ranked

After going over the ways to use Handguards, let’s get into where you can actually find them. As we mentioned before, they are only dropped by certain enemies in Inazuma. That means you shouldn’t waste your time trying to find them in Monstadt, Liyue, or Sumeru. It just won’t happen.

Nobushi and Kairagi can be found throughout each of Inazuma’s islands. Nobushi tend to wander in small groups or will sometimes hang out with groups of Treasure Hoarders. They can often be found near beaches, but will also loiter near caves and other areas, too. 

Kairagis will be found in one of three groupings: on their own, in pairs, or occasionally a single Kairagi will hang out with a small group of Nobushi/treasure hoarders. For Kairagi found in pairs, make sure you can finish them off one after the other without much delay, otherwise the remaining enemy could regain health after their companion falls. 

Now that we’ve gone over that, let’s get into the farming locations!

10/10

Seiraimaru (Seirai Island)

Starting off our list of the best places to farm Handguards in Genshin Impact is Seiraimaru on Seirai Island. If you have all the waypoints unlocked, you can teleport to the Koseki Village waypoint and head due west.

After a bit, you should come across four Nobushi/Kairagi. (If you hit the beach, then you’ve gone too far!) There isn’t much else on this part of Seirai Island, so don’t bother looking for other Nobushi or Kairagi in the area. 

9/10

East of Chinju Forest (Narukami Island)

The next spot is over on Narukami Island, east of Chinju Forest. After teleporting to the waypoint in Chinju Forest, head east over the stream toward the beach. Players should be able to find an encampment of Nobushi right where the sand meets grass in this area. 

Usually, there should be about four Nobushi/Kairagi for players to fight, meaning four potential Handguard drops. The lucky player may even get multiple Handguards from a single enemy.

8/10

Jakotsu Mine (Yashiori Island)

For our eighth spot on the list of best places to farm Handguards in Genshin Impact, teleport to the Formation Estate Domain on Yashiori Island. If you haven’t unlocked this domain yet, that’s okay — it’s just the closest teleport point. Once there, head east and jump off the nearby cliff. Using your glider, continue heading east until you see the Nobushi and Kairagi roaming the beach below.

There are typically three Nobushi and one Kairagi in this spot unless you challenge the Ley Line Deposit that also appears here. Doing so will spawn even more Nobushi and allow you to collect even more Handguards in one fell swoop. If you don’t have any resin, don’t worry — you won’t need any to summon the Nobushi. You’ll only need resin to claim the Ley Line rewards, and that’s technically optional. 

7/10

West of Amakumo Peak (Seirai Island)

To get to number seven on our list, there are a couple options. Players can either teleport to the waypoint above or north of Amakumo Peak. Teleporting to the northern waypoint may take slightly longer, but will be easier for players who aren’t as far into their Inazuma quests.

Once at your chosen waypoint, head west to the northern tip of the island found west of Amakumo Peak. There should be three Nobushi/Kairagi in this area and two more a bit further south. 

Enemies in this area are pretty scarce, but do watch out for Specters. They tend to hang out around the beaches of Seirai Island, just waiting to spit elemental attacks at unwary Travelers.

6/10

North of Konda Village (Narukami Island)

For our sixth recommendation of the best places to farm Handguards, teleport to the Konda Village waypoint on Narukami Island. Head north from the waypoint to where the river splits into two directions. Near this junction, you’ll find four Nobushi/Kairagi spread out near the water.

A fifth Nobushi can be found slightly further north by following the river heading west from the split. The enemies in this area are slightly easier to find and much closer to other resources, enemies, puzzles, and quest locations — hence its place higher in our ranks. 

5/10

Island West of Ritou (Narukami Island)

The fifth spot on our list of the best places to farm Handguards takes some running, gliding, and swimming to get to. Luckily, it will still be easy to get to for anyone who has reached Inazuma. 

To get to this area, head to the Statue of Seven in Ritou on Narukami Island. From there, players can head north to the Waverunner waypoint to summon their Waverunner. Using their boat, travel east to the nearest island. On that island’s western shores, you’ll start running into Nobushi. 

Though they’re a little spread out between the two small islands and in the water, there should be at least six Nobushi to fight, meaning six chances to gather Handguards.

4/10

East of Amakumo Peak (Seirai Island)

Number four on our list of the best places to farm Handguards is pretty close to number seven. On the other side of Amakumo Peak on Seirai Island, players will find even more Nobushi/Kairagi to challenge. You can either teleport to the waypoint above Amakumo Peak and glide over, or teleport to the much closer eastern waypoint. 

On the southeastern side of the island, northeast of Amakumo Peak, there are a few different areas to find enemies carrying those coveted Handguards. Between about three different locations you should be able to find 6–8 Nobushi/Kairagi. Two of the groupings are on the northeastern island, while the last group is almost directly south of the waypoint, on the same island as Amakumo Peak.

3/10

North Watatsumi Island (Watatsumi Island)

Our third recommendation for the best places to farm Handguards in Genshin Impact is on Watatsumi Island. Players can teleport to the northern waypoint and explore the areas north, west, and south of the waypoint. There are multiple clusters of Nobushi and Kairagi west and south, with just one to the north.

To avoid the pain of climbing back up cliffs, we suggest heading north first. You’ll need to do some swimming to reach the three Nobushi in this area, but then you can head west and take on the two clusters furthest away from the waypoint. After that, you can jump off the cliffs and glide east to fight the last few enemies in the area. 

If you clear out all the Nobushi and Kairagi in this northern part of Watatsumi Island, you should be able to find at least ten Handguard-dropping enemies. 

While they are spread out, it’s still worth heading to Watatsumi to look for Handguards. Smart players will be able to nab a good handful or two of Handguards without expending too much effort.

2/10

Fort Hiraumi (Seirai Island)

For players who don’t want to spend much time getting a large number of Handguards, you won’t want to miss our number two recommendation of the best places to farm Handguards. 

Fort Hiraumi on Seirai Island is overrun with Nobushi. Once teleporting to the waypoint near it, you can either head east or west and you will run into a group of Nobushi. The group to the east is slightly larger than the western group, but between the two groups, you should find around ten Nobushi in a much smaller area than on Watatsumi Island.

For players who do feel like spending some more time gathering resources, there is another cluster of Nobushi slightly further away. Just head southeast from Fort Hiraumi, and you’ll see another three Nobushi on the southern beach of the nearby island.

1/10

Jinren Island (Narukami Island)

Now for the absolute best of the best places to farm Handguards in Genshin Impact, it’s Jinren Island!

Jinren Island is a small pair of islands located north of Narukami Island. On the smaller of the two islands is a waypoint, making it easy for players to access without needing to summon a Waverider. 

There are no enemies to fight on the smaller island of Jinren, but the bigger island is absolutely overrun with Nobushi and Kairagi. They’re on the beaches, they’re hidden behind rocks, they’re atop the cliffs. You can even find a group of them on a sandbar, which doesn’t show up on the map!

While it’s interesting to note that one of the Nobushi on Jinren Island is named and has a much larger health bar than others (like a miniboss), he isn’t much stronger and still has the chance to drop Handguards. So don’t forget to defeat him while you’re sweeping through the island.

In all, there are about fifteen Nobushi and Kairagi on Jinren Island, so even players with the worst luck imaginable will still be able to walk away with a decent number of Handguards. It does take some time to track down all the enemies on the island, but it’s well worth it for the chance to get all those Handguards. 

If All Else Fails…

If you’ve exhausted all other farming areas, as a last resort, you can also challenge Ley Lines. Ley Lines will follow certain patterns and appear in the same handful of areas, regardless of which type they are. Once they reach the end of their pattern, they will cycle through it again. 

The nice thing about knowing that is also knowing that the same enemies always crop up in the same places. Ley Lines in certain areas of Inazuma will create Nobushi and/or Kairagi every time. The Ley Line challenge east of Jakotsu Mine is one of these Ley Lines.

While it is a nice method to have in your back pocket, it’s hard to rely on, since it will mean remembering which enemies spawn at which locations. It’s also unreliable, since you won’t know where your Ley Line deposits are every day. You unfortunately can’t choose where in their location cycles they start. 

That means either getting lucky when you log on or challenging them and using resin to revitalize them. Revitalizing them will collect their rewards and also move them to the next location in their cycle. Fighting Ley Line challenges without revitalizing them will not move them to their next location cycle until the rewards have timed out. 

Join the High Ground

That’s our guide on the best places to farm Handguards in Genshin Impact! Did you find some new farming spots, or are you sitting on one that’s even better? Let us know in the comments below, and for more farming guides, check out our list of the best places to find Crystal Cores. We update our Genshin content all the time, so make sure to check back soon!

Happy gaming!

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