Can you use 5-star artifacts as consumables in Genshin Impact?

We’ve all run out of artifact EXP items before in Genshin Impact, but were you aware you can use 5-star artifacts as consumables when you did?

Genshin typically limits players to using up to 4-star or below artifacts as enhancement materials for EXP to prevent them from wasting valuable ones, but you can get around that. It makes for a good way to clear out your excess 5-star artifacts you’ll never use, so here’s how to try it yourself.

How to use 5-star artifacts as consumables

As you’ve probably noticed before, when you’re out of artifacts or 4-star or below in Genshin Impact, the auto-add button will simply inform you that you’re out of consumables. Nothing will happen when it is pressed otherwise.

This prevents you from continuing to enhance any artifacts you had in progress at the time. Which can be damn annoying.

Fortunately, there’s a way around this. While you won’t be able to use the auto-add material button, you can click on the plus icons shown below it that normally get filled up with consumable artifacts and materials.

Doing so will bring you to a list of your artifacts, and if you’ve ever been artifact farming for a specific character in Genshin Impact, your list might just look a bit like mine does here.

READ MORE: Genshin Impact: 2.8 Livestream codes for free Primogems

To use your excess 5-star artifacts as consumables for one you actually want to level up, you just need to select them on this screen individually.

While using auto-add here would be more convenient than doing this manually, it mostly prevents the player from trashing any good artifacts they have without realising. As such, we don’t have the option to use auto-add for 5-star artifacts as consumables likely for this very reason.

Of course, while you’re using these artifacts as material, you might want to check what stats they have before you confirm any of them. No-one wants to realise they just used their god roll crit-rate helmet 5-star artifacts as consumables for experience on some junk for a support character you’ll only use in your second Spiral Abyss teamv every so often.

While you’re here, you might want to check out the latest web event for Genshin Impact, or some of the available robot recipes in the on-going creation event.