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.
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.
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.
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.