If you have run into Itto in Genshin Impact and moved on without quite understanding it, this is the explanation.

Short answer

It matters more than its screen time suggests, which is why it keeps coming up.

It is more consequential in the late game than the early one, which is why first impressions mislead. The game introduces it quickly and assumes you picked it up, which is where the confusion starts. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different.

How it connects to the rest of Genshin Impact

Its role has changed across updates, so older discussion describes something slightly different. The wiki entry is thorough and buries the actually useful part six paragraphs down. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you. Knowing this does not make you better at Genshin Impact, but it does make the rest of it legible.

Two similarly named things exist, and mixing them up explains a lot of contradictory advice. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. Community shorthand around it has drifted far enough from the original meaning to cause arguments.

Where you encounter it

It appears in supplementary material in more detail than it does in the game. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. Whether it is worth going out of your way for depends entirely on how you are playing.

  • Ignore the myth attached to it; it has never held up.
  • Treat wiki trivia sections as trivia rather than mechanics.
  • Keep a save or backup from before you start — it costs nothing and occasionally saves an evening.
  • Note where it first appears, so you can go back if you need to.
  • Check which version of Genshin Impact any discussion of it is describing.
  • Stop and reassess after two failed attempts rather than repeating the third.

What it changes in practice

There is a persistent myth attached to it that has never been true in any version. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.

What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep.

What it is

If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional.

If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.

Common misunderstandings

Genshin Impact is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. Everything below is framed around the current state of Genshin Impact rather than a launch-week impression.

Where people go wrong

  • Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
  • Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.
  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
  • Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.

Genshin FAQ

Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?

No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.

Why do other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

How long does this take?

Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.

What if none of this works for me?

Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.

If you only take one thing from this: the answer near the top is the part that matters, the rest is context.