How to Farm Pale Flame Artifacts in Genshin Impact

As a Genshin Impact player with over 500 hours focusing on physical damage characters, I‘ve farmed the Pale Flame artifact set extensively. Here is an in-depth guide on efficiently obtaining this powerful artifact set including domain tips, recommended teams, and ideal stats to target.

To start farming Pale Flame, fast travel to the Ridge Watch domain located directly northwest of Dragonspine in Genshin Impact. Simply approach the door and spend 20 resin to enter.

Evaluating Pale Flame‘s Strengths

The 2-piece Pale Flame bonus provides a 25% physical DMG bonus, which is equal to 2-piece Bloodstained. However, the 4-piece Pale Flame bonus is unique:

"When an Elemental Skill hits an opponent, ATK is increased by 9% for 7s. This effect stacks up to 2 times and can be triggered once every 0.3s. Once 2 stacks are reached, the 2-set effect is increased by 100%."

This means that at max stacks, the 4-piece Pale Flame provides an incredible 25% physical DMG bonus and 18% ATK increase. The catch is that keeping max stacks requires using an elemental skill every 7 seconds.

So while Bloodstained is more consistent, Pale Flame‘s potential is higher. Keeping stacks up just takes practice and skillful rotation.

Understanding Pale Flame‘s Drawbacks

However, I don‘t believe Pale Flame is the unanimously best physical option. The 4-piece effect only boosts ATK – it does nothing for physical skill and burst damage.

2-piece Pale Flame and 2-piece Bloodstained is more well-rounded. I actually recommend this combination for Xinyan and physical Rosaria.

I‘ve also found the stacking mechanic clunky for Fischl, slowing her skill rotation. So for physical Fischl, 2-piece Bloodstained and 2-piece Pale Flame or 2-piece ATK sets work better.

In summary, 4-piece Pale Flame is best for auto-attack focused carries like Razor and Eula. But more burst-centric physical damage dealers have better options.

Recommended Team Compositions

Now let‘s discuss how to counter the Ridge Watch domain‘s threats:

• Geovishaps – vulnerable to cryo
• Ruin machines – missile barrages blocked by geo constructs
• Both – deal constant damage, so healing is highly valuable

Keep these in mind when building a team. Here are two comps I‘ve used to full star Clear Pool and Mountain Cavern:

I‘ll expand on the individual roles later when discussing characters. But the core ideas are:

• Cryo + electro for Superconduct (-40% physical RES)
• Geo structures to facetank missiles
• Healer to counter attrition damage
• Buffer like Bennett or Zhongli for additional damage

You can substitute characters to fit your roster but this framework enables easy clears.

Best Characters for the Ridge Watch Domain

Below I‘ve highlighted top characters for tackling the Ridge Watch domain:

Cryo Characters

Cryo is crucial for dealing with the tanky Geovishaps. My picks:

• Rosaria – great physical carry with crit sharing
• Kaeya – strong physical DPS and energy battery
• Ganyu – solid off-field cryo damage
• Diona – heals, shields, energy, and more

I always include either Rosaria or Kaeya as main DPS when farming this domain. Their raw cryo damage melts through Geovishap shields and armor. Plus both generate tons of energy for 80 cost carries like Eula.

Electro Characters

Electro is mainly used to trigger Superconduct, shredding physical RES by 40%. Top options:

• Fischl – great for sustained off-field electro
• Raiden Shogun – alternate energy battery and buffer
• Kuki Shinbou – heals and deals electro over time

Oz combined with C6 boosts physical damage by 23.4% through Tenacity. Raiden enables cost-heavy team comps while buffing bursts via her skill. Kuki provides healing you may need without Diona.

Geo Characters

Geo structures are indispensable for blocking those annoying Ruin Grader missiles. I recommend:

• Zhongli – his pillars completely shield teams from missiles
• Albedo – great off-field damage and energy generator
• Noelle – solid shields and minor heals as needed

Zhongli makes farming this domain so comfy via impenetrable pillars and RES shred. Albedo enables double geo comps through particle generation. Noelle fills similarly to Diona when cryo is covered.

Sub DPS Options for More Damage

Two slots left? Consider these strong sub DPS picks:

• Xingqiu – reduces damage taken through rain swords
• Beidou – great against 2+ enemies with bounces
• Xiangling – reverse melts as enabler for huge bursts
• Yelan – substantial off-field hydro application and damage

I really like Xingqiu for the damage reduction, minor heals, and freeze potential to consider. But when facing the Geovishaps alone, swirl-enabled carries like Xiangling can dish out major numbers backing up your physical DPS.

Recommended Weapons for Main DPS

For primary damage dealers, these are my most used weapons against the Ridge Watch enemies:

Their high base ATK and useful passives provide big buffs to normal and charged attack damage, ideal for basic attacking carries. The crit stats from Serpent Spine and Jade Cutter also enable easier artifact farming.

I‘d highly recommend the F2P-friendly Snow-Tombed or Prototype weapons at high refinements if you lack 5-stars. Their passives can also smooth out rotation requirements for keeping 4-piece Pale Flame‘s stacks up.

Prioritizing Substats When Farming

Here are the ideal Pale Flame substats to target for carries like Razor, Kaeya, and Eula:

1. CRIT Rate / CRIT DMG
2. ATK%
3. Energy Recharge (to sustain burst uptime)
4. Flat ATK

Physical DMG caps out easily between goblet, set bonuses, and weapons. So stacking ATK, CRIT, and energy is essential to scale damage higher.

As a benchmark from my builds:

• 50:100 is the baseline CRIT ratio before weapons and resonance
• 130-140% ER enables comfortable 80 energy cost bursting
• 2000+ ATK for hypercarries like Eula by max level

Keep these goals in mind when evaluating artifact stats. Offset any deficiencies through weapons, supports, ascension bonuses to maintain 1:2 crit scaling.

Is the Pale Flame Domain Worth Farming Over Other Sets?

The Pale Flame/Bloodstained domain sees heavy competition from EoSF/Shimenawa‘s. Let‘s compare pros and cons:

Pale Flame/Bloodstained

Pros:

• Specializes in increasing physical damage
• Useful for both supports and carries
• Strong early game options available from defeating Nobushi

Cons:

• Less versatile for non-physical characters
• Ridge Watch domain enemies harder to counter

Emblem/Shimenawa

Pros:

• Boosts burst and skill damage for any elemental character
• Severed Fate strongbox expands options
• Domain wide-open making dodging easier

Cons:

• Doesn‘t improve regular attacks
• Energy drain causes rotation issues for some characters

So I recommend players focus Pale Flame first if specializing in physical carries, as the 25% damage bonus is too big to pass up. The imperfect Tenacity/Pale Flame strongbox isn‘t worth farming over the original domain.

However, Emblem is much more versatile for elemental sub-DPS characters in amplifying their skill and burst. Shimenawa works well enough as an offset 2-piece on hypercarries like Yoimiya or Hu Tao also.

You ultimately can‘t go wrong farming either domain as both have strong sets. Just target the one suiting your roster needs best long-term.

Final Tips for Efficiently Obtaining God Rolls

To summarize key points in actually getting well-rolled Pale Flame pieces, make sure you:

• Farm at the highest difficulty you can quickly clear for better artifact rates
• Use spare artifacts as fodder to level up promising Pale Flame ones
• Strongbox unwanted Bloodstained/Tenacity pieces into more potential candidates
• Aim for 30+ CV flower/feather pieces to offset other deficiencies
• Be patient and persistent as RNG evens out over time through resin refresh

Artifact farming is a long-term marathon requiring luck and dedication. But by understanding strong stats to target and being selective with leveling only great pieces, your persistence will eventually be rewarded.

I‘ve had to spend months in this domain to gear multiple triple-crowned physical characters like Eula, Rosaria, Kaeya plus supports like Fischl. But it enabled me to 36 star the Abyss multiple times with physical as a preferred playstyle.

So don‘t get discouraged by initial bad luck! Hopefully this guide better optimizes your own Pale Flame farming journey. Let me know if you have any other questions in the comments!