TIL All dolphins are whales

Just a funny cross-post that made me think of this sub and raised a question in my mind:

Do you consider yourself a Genshin “Dolphin” or a “Whale”? And what do you consider to be the difference?

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Commentaires

Bakuritsubakudam2026-01-24 19:12

For me Dolphin investment is at most C2R1 above that is whale territory

VaultOfTheSix2026-01-24 19:45

Would that make you a Dolphin or a Whale?

808fisherman2026-01-24 22:09

but it's 100 not. a ton of people out there with welkin passes playing the game have multiple c2(the vat majority of ppl would not consider consistent welkin/bp remotely in dolphin territory). A ton of people who have spent a few thousand don't have any c2r1 but have a pretty large roster in constrast to time playing.

Unless you can see someone's entire roster and know how long it took to get there, seeing a single character's constellation and making an entire summary of them is flat out silly.

Bakuritsubakudam2026-01-25 02:21

I thought that welkin+bp was considered dolphin

VongQuocKhanh2026-01-24 19:20

If we’re just gonna leave it that broad; dolphins consider their purchases, whales just purchase

Pristine-Pop19672026-01-24 19:21

Dolphin - someone who spends on the gacha currency packs.

Whale - pulls everything. Nothing missing.

Whaling - Dolphin trying to evolve into a Whale by getting everything.

SailcrVee2026-01-24 19:22

I don't think I'm either. I buy the expensive BP + Welkin and the occasional top-up for my birthday or Christmas. Pretty much all of my limited 5\* characters are C0 and only a handful are R1.

VaultOfTheSix2026-01-24 19:27

Sea Otter?

Inner_Skin_7982026-01-24 19:37

How do you even define these? To me, there are only 2 types of players: those that spend and those that don’t. 😂

VaultOfTheSix2026-01-24 19:44

I have no idea. I’ve seen fairly consistently, references to “dolphins” and “whales” in this community — with that only being vague reference to a dolphin = low spender and whale = high spender.

But again, what is low vs high spending then?

Perhaps you are right in that there is only one — the whale (a spender). Thus “all dolphins are whales”

MoonshineEclipse2026-01-24 19:50

There’s no set metric really. Just got into an discussion with people about this and many people only consider whales those that C6R5 all the characters and spend primogems to refill their resin, apparently. By my metric those are leviathans because they are spending tens of thousands of dollars yearly to do it, far more than the average person spends.

KiteSG2026-01-24 19:43

I consider myself a whale.

A goldfish will buy Welkin + BP. Doesn’t really touch top ups. Probably won’t claim the double top up reset.

I’d say a dolphin regularly buys Welkin + BP and also occasionally tops up for certain desired character, constellation or weapon every once in a while.

A whale frequently buys the max top up package until they get everything they want. Whether it be every 5 star in the region at C0R1, a couple of C2R1s, or a C6R1 they really like.

Then there’s leviathans that get everything C6R5 because it’s a collection at this point.

MoonshineEclipse2026-01-24 19:51

Same but I just had an argument where people were like “if you have to consider spending you aren’t a whale”. A whale spends as much as they want to spend above bare minimum without bonuses in my opinion.

Also, people always assume you are only ever playing one gacha game lol

SanicHegehag2026-01-24 20:05

There's people who have spent $0 on this game, and others who are well over $250k spent. Trying to put them into even *somewhat* reasonable tiers is absurd.

That said, I'll give it a go, but the tiers are going to be broad.

F2P: Obvious. Spend nothing.

Spender: Regular Welkin + Battle Pass. There's a wide variance here, as some people on get a Welkin, or they're an occasional Battle Pass buyer. It's really just splitting hairs, so it doesn't really matter where you fall on this spectrum. Probably builds way too much ER because they listen to Zajef.

Fish: Buys the annual top-up, and maybe a few more. Generally has most of the characters, maybe some very early cons, and their Weapons. Probably thinks that Jello Impact makes the best content in the game.

Dolphin: Regularly buys top ups. Has all of the characters they want, and doesn't hesitate to get C2/R1. May even have a favorite Archon at C6. Breezes through Fearless and clears dire with no issues if they don't suck. Spending is somewhere between $5k - $10k over the last 5 years. Watches IWTL because they think they're a Whale.

Whale: Doesn't register spending, and only considers what they want. C2/R1 is the baseline of every character, and you get your favorites to C6 and will go for Weapon Refinements. Gets embarrassed by Dire Clears over 180 seconds, and will blitz content with "off Meta characters" because it's funny. Watches DHCWSP and thinks "yeah, I can do that", but they can't. Has spent over $20k, but hasn't kept count at all.

Leviathan: Cares more about collecting that anything else. The worst part about getting a C6/R5 character is the time it takes to get through the pull animations. Plays Stygian Onslaught on coop religiously and only watches bilibili videos.

VaultOfTheSix2026-01-24 20:11

You are right. This is quite absurd. And is also the awesome set of classification(s) to-date. Was literally Lol’ing at the CC associations 😂

I vote for these being the standard definitions.

issm2026-01-24 21:12

> Trying to put them into even somewhat reasonable tiers is absurd.

May I introduce you to the magic of a logarithmic scale?

xBATTOUSAlx2026-01-25 01:01

I don’t necessarily agree with the standard dollar amounts you put into each tier, but I can get behind the theory ha. Very good attempt. I definitely vertically invest in my characters, and over several years I now have 4 C6 5 stars. But am only just now feeling like I’m probably a dolphin because I think my total money spent over the past few years is over 1000$ now. 5-10k for a dolphin seems BIG.

SanicHegehag2026-01-25 01:35

Here's some perspective for you that will blow your mind.

We are on Patch 46. With Version 1.0, that's 47 total versions of the game. Someone just buying the *basic* Battle Pass would have spent $470.

If they bought a Welkin every month, that's 63 Months, or another $315.

That means someone who is just a Battle Pass / Welkin Player from 1.0 will have spent $785.

I assumed a Welkin + Battle Pass + Top Up each version for a Dolphin to hit my number.

$1k is just barely above a consistent Low Spender.

xBATTOUSAlx2026-01-25 01:54

THIS makes me feel MUCH better about my spending. REAL numbers. I started in like 2.1 so I haven’t even hit those maxes for BP/Welkin. I’m gonna go back to calling myself a big fish instead of a dolphin. Maybe your numbers are better than I thought haha. OR maybe it’s time to spend some more $$$….. I’m totally tapped after C6 Bina after all…

WhooooCares2026-01-24 20:06

CN doesn't do "F2P", "Dolphin", "Whale", they do: Low, Mid, and High. Low Investment is 3 cost or less, Mid is up to 12 cost, high is anything above 12. You see it pretty often on their calcs.

People also have to realize there's a big difference between places that have a high cost of living vs places that don't. CN and JP are both high cost of living countries, so you rarely see all this hand wringing over investment levels. On Reddit, a lot of people don't live in high cost of living countries so spending on a gacha makes no financial sense. Sometimes they don't get some people can spend a few hundred dollars without affecting their life in a negative way.

In the US I'm a dolphin, but to people here I'm a millionaire whale.

DeadenCicle2026-01-24 20:24

Personally I consider myself a whale because I realized I spent almost 1000$ in Welkin and Battle Pass since I started playing. I feel like this is kind of insane for one game, so recently I stopped getting the Battle Pass.

xBATTOUSAlx2026-01-25 00:55

$1000 over the course of several years though surely can’t make you a whale. I feel like that just proves his argument that “all dolphins are whales” and I don’t like it at all haha. That was patient, thoughtful spending on your part and makes you a “Low spender” in general. That’s my thought anyway

issm2026-01-24 21:16

That cross post doesn't go far enough.

If you go by ancestral relationships, all whales are fish. All vertebrates are also fish, i.e., you're technically a fish.

lostn2026-01-24 23:18

dolphins are not whales. Both are Cetaceans and share a common ancestor.

I think you're confusing another interesting bit of trivia. Killer whales (aka Orcas) are actually dolphins not whales.

I know you're talking about gacha games, but you posted a pic of marine dolphins. I assume you are also talking about marine mammals in your TIL. You couldn't be talking about gacha dolphins because those are obviously not whales. They spend but spend less than whales.

VaultOfTheSix2026-01-24 23:26

Actually this is a cross post from the TIL sub. But it spawned the question about the dolphin/whale difference in Genshin.

Seems that what that means is *highly* subjective and contextual. Good times.

Lunar-Apple772026-01-25 00:03

I'd say I'm a dolphin, I pretty much always have welkin active and often get the lower tier of BP + I buy out the shop every year.

I don't buy the top ups without the 1st time bonus though and I still have to think about what I spend my primos on and don't just get everything I even sort of like the way whales do.

xBATTOUSAlx2026-01-25 00:41

Your post is basically the same as mine and 5 hrs earlier so I’m just coming here to chat instead haha.

There has got to be an actual dollar amount that people think are whales though, right? I regularly get BP/Welkin and have done full double gem bonuses once, plus a couple other smaller purchases previously and I’m just NOW deciding that I’m probably a dolphin. But with over 3 solid years into this game all those BP’s/Welkins sure add up too!