For free-to-play or budget players, or those of us who build a very wide variety of characters, the Best 4-star Weapons are the bread-and-butter of outfitting a roster in Genshin Impact. While 5-star Weapons are usually the best in the game, there are plenty of 4-star Weapons that compare quite well and are easily a step up on the Best Genshin Impact 3-Star Weapons.
Indeed, in some niche cases, like Albedo’s Cinnabar Spindle, sometimes a 4-star is the best choice for a specific Character, but pretty much useless for anyone else. In this Guide, we’re taking a look at the strongest and most versatile options in the category to let you know which 4-Star Weapons are absolutely the best in Genshin Impact.
Table of Contents
Genshin Impact’s Best 4-Star Weapons
Unlike 5-star Weapons, which all come from wishes, 4-star Weapons come from a variety of sources: Wishes, Battle Pass, Limited Events, Vendors, Paimon’s Bargains, and Forging. Unfortunately, however, Limited Events are temporary, and therefore 4-star weapons only available in these cannot be won.
As such, newer players can’t acquire these Limited Event 4-Star Weapons. Even though none made the list, they were not excluded because of unavailability, they simply ranked lower or are too niche. Please note that any stat and passive effect numbers will be presented as if the weapon is ascended to level 90 and is at Weapon Refinement 1.
Favonius Series
There is a Favonius weapon for all 5 weapon types, and they all share the “Windfall” passive effect and Energy Recharge secondary stat. Therefore, there’s no point in picking one out separately for our list.
These 4-star Weapons are obtained from Wishes and are the go-to for Sub-DPS and Support Characters who are not particularly dependent on their weapon for damage. Favonius weapons generate Elemental Particles when the character using it crits, and the particles can be picked up by other characters after swapping. Therefore, these weapons help your Support and Sub-DPS Characters fuel your Main DPS damage dealer’s burst energy.
This effect can’t be triggered off-field, but even off-field Support Characters like Gorou will hit the enemy while placing his skill, potentially triggering the effect. Consider a Crit Rate circlet with these weapons to help make sure the effect gets triggered. Almost any Sub-DSP, Support, or Healer could use these weapons to support the team.
The Catch
This 4-star polearm was added during the Inazuma releases and is permanently available once per account alongside its refinement materials, from vendor Kujirai Momiji in exchange for fish at the shore northwest of Inazuma City. The polearm boasts a 45.9% Energy Recharge secondary stat, and Elemental Burst DMG and Crit Rate from its passive effect “Shanty.” Simple and straightforward, but highly effective!
This weapon is best suited to Characters who do a lot of their damage via Elemental Burst and potentially have high energy needs. Furthermore, it synergizes extremely well with the Emblem of Severed Fate artifact set, which also increases Elemental Burst DMG by 25% of Energy Recharge and is one of the Best Artifact Sets in the game.
The best candidates to use this weapon are Raiden Shogun and Xiangling, but it can be used decently on Zhongli, Yun Jin, Rosaria, Candace, and Shield Support Thoma.
Serpent Spine
Serpent Spine comes from the Gnostic Hymn battle pass feature and therefore isn’t available to free-to-play players, but it’s easily the best 4-star damage-dealing claymore in the game. Serpent Spine boasts a decent 27.6% Crit Rate secondary stat and a powerful passive effect in “Wavesplitter.”
The passive is complex, rewarding the wielder with 6% more damage per 4 seconds on-field, up to 5 stacks. However, in exchange, they take 3% more damage per stack as well. Stacks are lost when damage is taken but persist even if the character goes off-field.
This passive incentivizes use on an on-field damage dealer, and incentivizes waiting to build stacks before initiating combat. It also incentivizes using a Shielder in the party to prevent stack loss and to negate the extra damage taken. Despite the downsides, the damage output is fantastic!
Potential Serpent Spine users include Arataki Itto, Noelle, Diluc, Razor, Beidou, Eula, and Chongyun. Even Dehya and Xinyan could use it in some builds.
The Widsith
The Widsith is a 4-star Catalyst found in Wishes that is aimed at damage-dealing Catalyst users. It comes with 55.1% Crit DMG and has a very unique and random passive. The “Debut” passive triggers when the Character takes the field, only once per 30 seconds. It provides one of three possible 10-second buffs: 60% more ATK, 48% more Elemental DMG, or 240 more Elemental Mastery.
Ideally, you want to give this to a Character who can take advantage of all 3 possibilities, but even a team who can only benefit from 2 can still use this well, like Ningguang, or Klee in mono-pyro teams where the Elemental Mastery is wasted. The best wielders of The Widsith are Klee, Lisa, Ningguang, Nahida, Yanfei, Mona, Wanderer, Yae Miko, and Heizou.
Sacrificial Series
Like the Favonius Series above, Sacrificial Weapons come from Wishes and are part of a set that shares an effect. However, there is no Sacrificial Polearm, and while the Sword, Claymore, and Bow have Energy Recharge as the secondary stat, the catalyst has Elemental Mastery instead.
The passive’s effectiveness will depend on the functionality of the wielding character’s Elemental Skill. Basically, when the wielder’s Elemental Skill deals damage, there’s a 40% chance to reset the cooldown, occurring once every 30 seconds.
These weapons are more recommendable with higher refinement levels, as the passive scales significantly with refinement. At R5, the chance is 80% and the limit is once every 16s, so it’s basically double as effective. On some characters, it feels like getting 2 skill usages in most rotations.
Sacrificial Weapons are extremely versatile with many Characters able to make effective use of them such as Xingqiu, Sucrose, Diona, Kazuha, Kokomi, Barbara, Kaveh, and Dori. Aside from these, there are still so many more who can put it to use even if just for the Energy Recharge or the catalyst’s Elemental Mastery.
Dragon’s Bane
The release of Dendro reactions lead to a higher valuation of Elemental Mastery as a stat, even for older reactions as players revisited reaction scaling and realized its power. As a result, this 4-star Polearm from Wishes has improved in standing throughout the content of Genshin Impact.
With 221 Elemental Mastery at level 90, it’s a powerful “stat stick” for Polearm Characters who will trigger elemental reactions. The passive increases DMG against opponents affected by Hydro or Pyro, but that’s not as niche as it sounds if we bear in mind how popular Hydro and Pyro Characters are for usage in elemental reactions. The best users of this weapon are Thoma, Raiden Shogun, Hu Tao, Xiangling, Cyno, and Rosaria.
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