Genshin Impact: The Best Five-Star Weapons

In Genshin Impact, the right weapon can dramatically enhance your character’s performance, easing your journey through even the most challenging quests. Five-star weapons, with their superior stats and unique passive effects, can be game-changers, offering significant boosts in damage and utility.

Players can obtain these coveted items through various means, including forging, completing specific quests or events, or trying their luck with wishes on the game’s banners. As the highest tier, five-star weapons are the most powerful and sought-after in the game, often turning the tide in battles when paired with the right characters. This guide highlights the top eleven five-star weapons in Genshin Impact, detailing their best uses and ideal character matches.

Beacon of the Reed Sea

Category: Claymore
Optimal for: All ATK-focused claymore wielders, particularly Dehya

Overview:
Beacon of the Reed Sea stands out as a remarkable claymore, designed as the signature weapon for the fiery mercenary, Dehya. Although Dehya may not top the charts as a DPS, this weapon certainly does in its category. It rivals the likes of Wolf’s Gravestone and The Unforged by offering a substantial 40 percent ATK buff. However, it edges out its competitors with a CRIT Rate secondary stat, facilitating optimal CRIT ratio balance for its wielders.

Activation Mechanics:
To unleash its full potential, the wielder must either deploy an Elemental Skill or take damage. An additional benefit is activated if the user isn’t shielded—receiving a 32 percent HP boost, significantly enhancing their resilience and allowing them to withstand considerable hits with ease.

Staff of Scarlet Sands

Category: Polearm
Ideal for: Elemental Reaction-focused polearm users, notably Cyno and Xiangling

Overview:
Emerging from the prestigious weapon series of Genshin Impact, the Staff of Scarlet Sands is tailor-made for polearm characters like Cyno, whose combat style is deeply intertwined with Elemental Reactions. This polearm not only enhances ATK based on the wielder’s Elemental Mastery but also maximizes the utility of building up Elemental Mastery for intensified reactions.

Activation Mechanics:
The weapon’s efficiency escalates with frequent usage of your Elemental Skill against enemies, further boosting its effectiveness. It also boasts a secondary stat of 40.2 percent CRIT Rate, which superbly complements a build focused on maximizing CRIT Damage, making it a powerhouse for enhancing overall damage output in battle.

Engulfing Lightning

Category: Polearm
Ideal for: Raiden Shogun, Xiangling, Rosaria, Shenhe

Overview:
Engulfing Lightning stands as the quintessential weapon for the Electro Archon, Raiden Shogun, and suits other characters geared towards maximizing Elemental Burst output. This polearm’s standout feature is its substantial Energy Recharge (ER) secondary stat of 55.1 percent, which is crucial for characters that require quick replenishment of their Burst abilities due to high energy demands.

Activation Dynamics:
This weapon excels by enhancing ATK proportional to the excess ER beyond 100 percent, achieving up to an 80 percent increase in ATK. After deploying an Elemental Burst, Engulfing Lightning further boosts your ER for a specific duration, optimizing continuous Burst deployment and making it an invaluable asset for sustained combat engagements.

Key of Khaj-Nisut

Category: Sword
Optimal for: Nilou, Furina, Kuki Shinobu, Kirara, Layla

Overview:
As the final gem in the Sumeru desert series, the Key of Khaj-Nisut shines as a stellar support sword that enhances the capabilities of your entire team. This weapon is particularly beneficial for characters that scale with HP, including shielders and healers, by offering a significant boost of up to 86.2 percent HP.

Activation Mechanics:
The real power of this sword unfolds when your Elemental Skill makes contact with opponents, enhancing your Elemental Mastery (EM) in proportion to your maximum HP. After activating this effect three times, it extends a team-wide bonus, elevating the EM of all party members based on the wielder’s max HP. This makes the Key of Khaj-Nisut an indispensable tool for enhancing team dynamics and boosting overall elemental reaction potential.

Polar Star

Category: Bow
Ideal for: All ATK-based bow characters

Overview:
The Polar Star stands out as a versatile and potent bow, enhancing both Elemental Skill and Burst performance. It boasts a significant 33.1 percent CRIT Rate boost, facilitating an optimal balance between CRIT Rate and CRIT Damage for bow wielders.

Functionality:
This bow’s uniqueness lies in its ability to incrementally increase ATK following hits from Normal Attacks, Charged Attacks, Elemental Skills, and Elemental Bursts. This feature makes it exceptionally adaptive, catering to ATK-scaling bow users regardless of their combat style. As a comprehensive enhancement over the Skyward Harp, the Polar Star is a top-tier weapon choice, amplifying the damage output across various attack modes.

Primordial Jade Cutter

Category: Sword
Ideal for: All ATK-scaling sword characters

Overview:
While the Primordial Jade Cutter isn’t tied to any one character as a signature weapon, its versatility has made it a favorite among many sword wielders in Genshin Impact, such as Keqing. Despite having a lower base ATK typical of five-star swords, it compensates with an impressive 44.1 percent CRIT Rate bonus, simplifying the task of achieving an optimal CRIT ratio.

Functionality:
The sword’s unique passive increases ATK proportionally to the wielder’s maximum HP, enriching both HP-based and non-HP-based characters. It not only enhances offensive capabilities but also boosts survivability by significantly increasing the user’s HP. This dual benefit makes the Primordial Jade Cutter exceptionally effective, ensuring characters can deal robust damage while maintaining higher resilience in combat.

Freedom Sworn

Type: Sword
Best for: Support sword characters, notably Kazuha, Jean, and the Traveler

Overview:
Despite some initial skepticism about its suitability for its designated character, Kazuha, Freedom Sworn excels in enhancing support characters with its exceptional abilities. This sword is particularly adept at boosting Elemental Mastery, significantly amplifying the damage dealt through Elemental Reactions.

Capabilities:
As a key piece of the Millennial Movement arsenal, Freedom Sworn extends its utility beyond the wielder by enhancing the entire team’s performance. Activating any Elemental Reaction twice consecutively bestows a substantial ATK increase and elevates the damage output of Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks across your squad. This feature makes it an invaluable asset for support roles, enriching group dynamics and combat effectiveness dramatically.

Staff of Homa

Type: Polearm
Ideal for: DPS polearm wielders, notably Hu Tao and Xiao

Overview:
The Staff of Homa stands out as a coveted polearm in Genshin Impact, favored by a wide range of DPS characters. Its remarkable 66.2 percent CRIT Damage substat makes it a powerhouse for any polearm user aiming for high damage output.

Performance Enhancements:
This weapon not only boosts HP but also increases your ATK proportional to your maximum HP, mirroring the utility seen in the Primordial Jade Cutter. Moreover, when your health falls below 50 percent, the Staff of Homa activates an additional ATK boost, further amplifying its effectiveness. Even if your gameplay style doesn’t regularly drop your HP below half, the significant CRIT Damage boost alone makes the Staff of Homa an invaluable asset for maximizing damage potential in any encounter.

Mistsplitter Reforged

Type: Sword
Best For: DPS sword characters, notably Kamisato Ayaka, Keqing, and Alhaitham

Attributes:
Mistsplitter Reforged, boasting a substantial 674 base ATK, shares the top spot with Aquila Favonia for the highest base attack of any sword in Genshin Impact. This exceptional attack power makes it an ideal choice for characters that scale with ATK, like Ayaka. Complemented by a 44.1 percent CRIT Damage stat, this sword is highly sought after for its damage potential.

Enhancements:
Mistsplitter Reforged naturally enhances Elemental Damage Bonus, making it particularly effective for characters that leverage elemental attacks. The sword’s abilities are further amplified under certain conditions: when normal attacks deal elemental damage, following the use of an Elemental Burst, or whenever Energy levels are below 100 percent. These features allow the wielder to consistently deliver heightened elemental damage across various combat scenarios, solidifying its status as a top-tier weapon for DPS-oriented sword users.

Elegy for the End

Type: Bow
Best For: Support characters like Yelan, Kujou Sara, Fischl, Diona, Amber, and Collei

Attributes:
Elegy for the End stands out as a stellar support bow, thanks to its significant Energy Recharge secondary stat, which facilitates more frequent use of Elemental Bursts—a crucial feature for support roles.

Enhancements:
This bow boosts the whole team’s performance by enhancing their ATK and Elemental Mastery after the wielder’s Elemental Skill or Burst hits enemies four times. This attribute makes it an invaluable asset in teams that capitalize on Elemental Reactions, enhancing both the frequency and effectiveness of these interactions, thereby amplifying the team’s overall damage output in battle.

Aqua Simulacra

Type: Bow
Best For: All DPS bow characters

Attributes:
Aqua Simulacra is a standout bow for its universal Damage Bonus to all elements, allowing any DPS bow character to maximize its potential regardless of their primary scaling stat. This versatility sets it apart from other weapons that are limited to specific attribute boosts.

Enhancements:
While it has a relatively modest base ATK, Aqua Simulacra compensates with an impressive 88.2 percent CRIT Damage, the highest of any weapon in Genshin Impact. Its passive activates simply by proximity to an enemy, making it extraordinarily easy to utilize effectively. With such a high CRIT Damage and a universally applicable passive, Aqua Simulacra not only fits Yelan like a glove but also reigns as one of the top weapons to enhance any DPS character’s arsenal in the game.

Conclusion

The lineup of five-star weapons in Genshin Impact offers a diverse range of tools that can significantly enhance the capabilities of your characters. Each weapon, with its unique attributes and powerful effects, is designed to synergize with specific character builds, enhancing their damage output, supporting capabilities, or utility in battle. Whether you’re equipping a DPS character to maximize their damage potential or boosting a support character’s utility, choosing the right five-star weapon can dramatically alter your gameplay experience. As you continue your adventures in Teyvat, consider these top-tier weapons to fully realize your characters’ potential and dominate in both PvE and PvP battles.