Like other RPGs, weapons are an important part of building your characters in Genshin Impact. Not only do they provide the bulk of your attack power, but the weapon’s passive ability provides an opportunity to create synergy with the rest of a character’s build. Whether you are looking to put together a character that focuses on pure DPS, healing, or tanking, picking the right weapon is an important part of the build. Here’s everything you need to know about weapons in Genshin Impact.
Different Weapon Types And Rarities
In Genshin Impact, there are five different types of weapons: swords, claymores, bows, polearms, and catalysts. Every character is limited to a single type of weapon that they can equip and only one weapon can be equipped at a time. In addition to the five main categories, weapons also have rarities, ranging from a one-star to a five-star ranking. Weapons with a higher rarity have better stat scaling, so a level 20 three-star sword will typically have a lower ATK stat than a level 20 five-star sword.
Weapons of three-star rarity or higher have both a secondary stat and a passive ability. The secondary stat can be additional ATK, DEF, Crit chance, or any of the other stat types in the game. The secondary stat scales along with the weapon’s level, just like the main ATK stat. Passive abilities come in a much wider variety, sometimes giving additional damage against enemies affected by Pyro or Cryo elements, or just giving the wielder one of three random buffs whenever you switch to that character. The passive abilities are specific to each named weapon and can only be improved by refinement, which we will get into later.
How To Get Weapons
How you acquire weapons is going to vary based on the rarity of the weapon. Five-star weapons can only be obtained from Wishes, specifically from the Wanderlust Invocation (the standard Wish) and the current weapon event banner Wish. The character event banner historically does not contain any five-star weapons. Four-star weapons can be obtained from all Wish banners, purchased from Paimon’s Bargains with Starglitter, or forged using a Billet. Starglitter can be obtained by rolling Wishes and weapon Billets are either dropped by bosses or purchased from the souvenir shop. Four-star weapons are also given in the paid battle pass and as event rewards during some limited-time events.
Three-star weapons are acquired either from wishes or from chests scattered in the open world. Two-star and one-star weapons can be found in chests in the open world and in investigation spots, or purchased from NPCs.
Leveling, Ascension, And Refinement
Weapons can be leveled up by feeding them: either other weapons, or weapon enhancement ores. The ores, which come in various tiers offering different amounts of weapon XP, can be obtained by forging them with materials that can either be mined or obtained through expeditions at the Adventurer Guild. The ore can also be obtained as a reward for various quests, including the daily commissions. Weapons have a max level of 90; however, you will need to “ascend” them six times prior to that and be at Adventure Rank 50 before they can reach max level.
Every 10 to 20 levels, a weapon will be maxed out and need to be ascended before it can be leveled up again. Each weapon will require a handful of materials to ascend: Typically, one weapon ascension material and two types of enemy drops. Weapon ascension material can be found in specific Domains of Blessing, depending on the weapon. The item details will specify which Domain (there is one weapon materials Domain per region) and what days of the week it is available to obtain. Each item is only available for two days a week Monday through Saturday, although every item is obtainable on Sunday.
As you level your weapon and move to higher and higher ascension tiers, the rarity of the materials required will increase. These higher-rarity materials can be obtained from doing the harder Domains or by defeating higher-level enemies. You can encounter higher-level enemies by increasing the world level, which increases at specific Adventure Ranks.
Lastly is refinement, which increases the stats of weapons’ passive abilities. Refinement is typically achieved by feeding a duplicate of the weapon to it, which you can do from the refinement menu. Some event-specific weapons take refinement materials instead of duplicate weapons, but those materials can typically only be obtained during the event.
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