Genshin Impact launched update 5.6 on May 7, 2025, known as Paralogism, including a new set of Event Wish banners. Out with the old, in with the new! But now that the 5.5 banners have ended, we can dig into the player stats from the previous 5.5 banners to uncover some (potentially) unexpected info.
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What Happened in the Latest Event?
The Event Wishes in the 5.5 update were divided into the standard Genshin Impact pattern of two Phases, with each Phase offering a different banner set of Character Wishes for players to select.
In 5.5 Phase 1, the Character Event Wishes were a release banner for Varesa and a rerun banner for Xianyun. In Phase 2, players were given the choice between the support Geo-user Xilonen and the Anemo Archon, Venti.
According to the data from the popular Genshin fansite, Paimon.moe, players overwhelmingly chose to pull Xilonen instead of Venti – and by a huge margin. According to their latest stats (as of this writing), 34,613 players pulled Xilonen, while only 5,364 players reported pulling Venti.
For a quick comparison, that means just 13.4% of players pulled Venti, with a whopping 86.6% of players pulling Xilonen instead! Of course, some players may have just pulled both, but that requires a huge amount of dedicated time and effort, so it’s probably safe to assume most players focus on a single character to ensure they got the character they wanted.
Usually, Genshin banners give you a bit more of a tough choice, but in this case, it was clearly an easy decision for most players.
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Are Those Genshin Stats Reliable?
All these stats are self-reported, and since HoYoverse doesn’t share official stats, it’s possible that there are some distortions in the data. Don’t bet your Primogems on it being 100% accurate, but since multiple websites indicate similar trends, it’s pretty safe to assume that the data is accurate for this particular Wish.
A Quick Refresher on Xilonen
If you’ve already played with Xilonen, it may be clear why she’s the more popular character. A subject of the nation of Natlan, Xilonen is a female Geo Sword user who typically plays as a support role. She can shred the enemy’s elemental resistances while buffing your team’s damage, so she has been a popular character for many players.
Take a Look at Venti
Venti will be familiar to every player in the game thanks to his first appearance way back in the Genshin Impact prologue, where we first see him speaking to the enormous dragon Dvalin, also known as Stormterror. He’s also the bow-wielding bard of Monstadt and the vessel of the Anemo Archon, so naturally, he’s an Anemo user.
Why is Venti Less Popular?
While we don’t have a crystal ball to explain the reasons behind every player’s Wish choice, we can still make a few educated guesses about what’s going on behind this massive difference.
First of all, it’s well-known that Xilonen is currently one of the best characters in the game. Her combination of THING and THING makes her extremely valuable in combat situations, even though the overall popularity of Geo-based characters seems to be on a downward trend.
Venti is also one of the oldest characters available in the game, so it’s entirely possible that most players simply already had Venti and didn’t need to pull him.
Finally, we have to consider the quality of self-reported data. While it’s usually a pretty good indicator of people’s feelings, any statistician will tell you that it isn’t always 100% accurate. Even if you don’t
So, Which Character is Worth Playing?
Just because the vast majority of players chose to pull Xilonen over Venti doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the end of the story. As mentioned above, the best explanation for why players overwhelmingly chose Xilonen is that most of them probably already have Venti. But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t worth playing, since it all depends on what you want to do!
For combat support, Xilonen is undeniably the better choice — but combat isn’t the only thing there is to do in Genshin Impact. Venti’s Anemo powers make him an excellent character for moving around the map and exploring, since he is able to cover large amounts of distance quickly.
If you’re a dedicated player who has spent a lot of time in Genshin Impact, Xilonen is the better choice since you’re probably more interested in grinding than exploring. But for new players, Venti can simplify the process of uncovering the vast world of Teyvat.
A Final Word about Banners and Wishes
As the name ‘Wish’ suggests, you really should just choose the character that you ‘wish’ to play with, not the one that’s the “best” according to everyone else. That is definitely not the most popular opinion in the Genshin world, but some people forget that games are supposed to be about having fun, not just about grinding out the best possible results.
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