Genshin Impact is renowned for providing the player with a variety of different 5-star and 4-star weapons to fight with. With high rarity, many players will flock to using their favorite 5-star weapons. Yet, fans should not ignore 4-star weapons – these also have quite a few interesting skills and abilities that come with them.
Add that to a higher drop rate which makes them easier to obtain and refine, and the player is left with high-efficiency weapons that can easily be switched around for tactics. With well over 50 different choices in 4-star weapons, here are a handful with the most interesting tactical abilities.
10 Royal Weapons
The Royal weapons are a class of 4-star weapons, like the Royal Greatsword, with the shared skill Focus which increases the user's crit rate. Crit rate is a trait that tends to define a DPS's true damage output, given that critical hits make for a much higher amount of damage.
The Royal series targets this trait by increasing crit rate with each hit. Much like a pity system, this makes activating a critical hit much easier as combat goes on. This effect stacks up to 5 times, resetting when a critical hit is finally realized. It's a perfect weapon for characters that struggle to achieve critical hits, or that have a high critical damage stat.
9 Sword of Descension
Sadly for players in Genshin Impact's mobile and PC community, the Sword of Descension was a PS4 exclusive weapon as a reward for pre-registration. Nonetheless, this is a weapon with an incredible skill. Each hit has a 50% chance to deal 200% attack damage in a small area.
This makes for a heavy-hitter weapon, ideal for any sword-wielder in the game. Players would especially be advised to equip the Sword of Descension to a character that acts as a main attacker, like fast-moving Xingqiu.
8 Favonius Weapons
The Pride of Mondstadt, the group of weapons bearing the name of the Knights of Favonius has an interesting mechanic. These weapons each have a 60% chance to regenerate 6 energy particles on a critical hit.
This alone doesn't mean much, given that critical hits don't happen too often. But with a crit rate increase due to artifacts, these weapons have the potential to become perpetual energy generators.
7 The Flute
Despite the name, the Flute is a sword and not an instrument – at least not in the traditional sense. This weapon makes use of Harmonics, which music notes earn on normal and charged attacks.
Collecting 5 of these harmonics will increase attack damage by 100%, making for a devastating advantage for fast-attacking characters like the Traveler. With few attacks, the Flute will make a DPS out of most characters.
6 Serpent Spine
Weapons often have mechanics that rely on a set number of hits or pure chance for skills to activate. However, Serpent Spine is a little bit different; its sole mechanic is time on the field. Furthermore, with a stack of 5 damage increases every 4 seconds, the stack doesn't decrease upon leaving the field.
However, there is a catch. With every hit against the player, the stack will decrease by one. Damage from being hit also increases with each increase.
5 Deathmatch
The requirements of using the Deathmatch are particularly interesting. In order to activate the polearm's attack and defense boosts, the player will need to be near an enemy.
Effectively, this means that the Deathmatch's boosts are always active in battle, different than other weapons that offer skills with a cooldown. It also includes the defense boost when there is more than one foe, switching to a full attack boost when only one remains.
4 The Viridescent Hunt
With a 50% chance of generating a cyclone that pulls opponents in, the Viridescent Hunt is the ultimate crowd control weapon. Generally, this allows characters with areas of effect attacks to better damage the opponents in the area.
This can be especially dangerous with archers like Ganyu and Amber. Ganyu's charged attacks can hit multiple opponents at a time, while Amber's burst rains arrow down in a tight space. The Viridescent Hunt will help optimize these attacks by packing opponents into an even smaller area.
3 Eye of Perception
The Eye of Perception has a 50% chance to release a Bolt of Perception. At base refinement, this bolt of purple energy deals an incredible 240% attack as damage, which increases with each refinement.
However, the Eye of Perception does not stop there. Each Bolt of Perception has the potential to attack multiple nearby enemies, up to 4 in total. This makes it an ideal crowd control weapon, heavily optimizing damage in a way that other catalysts cannot.
2 The Widsith
The Widsith ends battles on a musical note, both figuratively and literally. Clearly taking notes from the Flute, the Widsith will play a random theme song when a character enters the field.
There are three possible traits that these songs bring: a 60% increase to attack, a 48% increase to elemental damage, or an increase of 240 to elemental mastery. While this leaves a lot to chance strategy-wise, a skillful player will find the Widsith's high increases useful in battle.
1 Sacrificial Weapons
Skill cooldowns are the enemy of the vast majority of players in Genshin Impact. This is especially true in the case of characters like the power-hungry Fatui Childe, who are renowned for their incredibly long-skill cooldowns.
Though they hardly solve the problem completely, the Sacrificial weapons do make life a little easier for these few. With a 40% chance to reset cooldown immediately, this definitely helps to alleviate pressure in fast-paced situations.