For all of the frustrations that come naturally from getting hooked on a gacha RPG, Genshin Impact offers its players a bit of respite from its gambling mechanics by providing a host of easily-accessed free items that are just as useful (and sometimes more so) than the premium items earned through wishing.
The list below makes it apparent that a snazzy and expensive weapon isn’t immune from being completely useless, and a low-rarity character or meal isn’t necessarily outdone by the 5-stars just because they’re easier to come across. Read on to find out which everyday goodies you should be stockpiling, and which 5-star scam banners you can avoid.
10 Great: Debate Club
The Debate Club is a macuahuitl befitting Teddy Roosevelt, who famously said, “speak softly and carry a big stick.” It’s also the favoured early-game claymore for anyone making the wise decision to main Razor, Beidou, Chongyun or even Noelle (not to mention fate’s chosen who get blessed with Diluc from the start… ugh). But the Debate Club is so ubiquitously lauded as the best choice for new players that few stop to notice why that’s the case.
The passive trait puts more boom in your batting every time you use an elemental skill. For 15 seconds after using a skill your combo will get an extra hit worth 60% of your normal damage, and this can happen once every three seconds within that fifteen second window. What the description doesn’t tell you is that short cooldown skills can proc this bonus so it overlaps with itself, nullifying the three-second cooldown for the bonus hit. This is useful for Razor’s tapped skill, and is almost broken in combination with Diluc’s three-for-one skill combo that resets the cooldown repeatedly.
9 Repaired: Xinyan
In an earlier article we called Xinyan great on paper and nowhere else. We really wanted her to reach her potential, but she launched with too many bugs for that to be the case. But we’re happy to report that Xinyan appears to have been quietly repaired — a change left out of 1.3’s patch notes presumably because the miHoYo never acknowledged her bugs in the first place.
She’s now, as predicted, one of the best pyro supports available both offensively and defensively, thanks to her shield’s ability to pulse flames outwards at your foes as well as absorb damage.
8 Terrible: Amos Bow
Now now, Ganyu mains, stay your arrows and hear me out. Yes, this weapon is currently best-in-slot for one of the game’s top three damage dealers, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was effectively unusable for the majority of its existence until now, and still is for everyone who didn’t luck out on the late January limited banner. Amos Bow boosts an arrow’s damage the further it flies. Sounds cool right? Who doesn’t want to play a high-fantasy sniper?
So why is this toothpick launcher such a slap in the face? Because archer auto attacking is only accurate (and that’s being generous) from within melee range, and aimed shots from all archers already have a damage falloff beyond a certain distance. So Amos Bow doesn’t actually supercharge your marksmanship as much as it counteracts a nonsensical limitation DPS that’s already baked in. All of that is to say nothing of the fact that spamming aimed shots makes for extremely cumbersome gameplay when you’re forced to do it from intermediate range. Remove the silly range penalty, miHoYo, let Amos shine.
7 Great: Sacrificial Bow
Each weapon in the “sacrificial” family is a great one-trick pony. These aren’t made for high, sustained DPS. Sacrificial weapons are meant for making your longest cooldown skills more spammable, and potentially shortening the time between your burst DPS windows.
Even defensively, the sacrificial weapons can still shine. Don’t throw out all of your HP artifacts, stack them on Diona instead and you can become functionally immortal by level 90, as she generates 16,000-32,000 HP shields every few seconds.
6 Great: White Tassel
This spear is enjoying a moment in the sun right now, or maybe that’s the inferno made from Genshin’s highly-favored pyro characters that you’re feeling. It’s essentially the anti-Amos Bow in that it punches well above its weight class instead of under-performing like the 5-star bow.
This 3-star mighty mouse is among the best weapon pairing for you newfound Hu Tao mains out there. It won’t hold a candle to the new Staff of Homa 5-star spear, but it outpaces even the go-to 4-star spears. Fully refined, Tassel gives a normal attack buff of 48% on every hit, and increases the ever-valuable CRIT% stat as well.
5 Great: Sweet Madame
Many have tried to measure up to this culinary colossus, but in the six months since Genshin’s release, none have prevailed. Will Rosaria’s rosy rendition of this staple dish take the crown as the most efficient healing item next month? We’ll have to wait and see.
As the only food item on this list, veteran Genshin players won’t need any convincing, this one deserves its place. For those just starting out, Sweet Madames may not yet be your most consumed food item, but it will be soon. There are better HP plates out there, sure, but since this one only requires two poultry and two sweet flowers there’s no other meal that can be made with such little effort. The constant 22% HP replenish means that these chickens will keep your team ticking regardless of how high you stack your health stats.
4 Great: Thrilling Tales Of Dragon Slayers
Colloquially known as “TTDS” in the online community, this readily available catalyst is one of the best budget weapons you can give to your support mages. The passive trait is straight-forward but packs a wallop, fully refined, this catalyst grants a 48% ATK bonus to whoever takes the field after the caster for 10 seconds. The effect can only be applied by the same caster once every 20 seconds, but having two TTDSs in your party means this boost can be applied non-stop.
3 Great: Skyward Harp
Not one to be outdone by all of the 3-stars on this list, Skyward Harp scores another win for the vaunted 5-star elite items. As a golden drop, it automatically scales faster than other weapons from lower ranks, meaning its main ATK stat will increase at greater intervals for each level up.
Additionally, Harp comes with a CRIT% sub stat, like White Tassel, and its passive trait gives a freebie 20% damage increase on every critical hit. But it doesn’t stop there — because every four seconds a shot from Harp can proc a whirlwind at the feet of your enemies for crowd control and additional damage.
2 Great: Solar Pearl (or Ningguang in general)
After a bit of a slow start, Ningguang has really turned out to be a sleeper hit within Genshin’s hardcore DPS-maximizing community. In the game’s early days, while everyone was fawning over the honorary 5-star Fischl, slower, less-flashy units like Ningguang fell by the wayside. She was never bad, in fact, the few tune-ups she does need won’t even be live until patch 1.4, but she’s a character that becomes exponentially more popular as people learn how to take advantage of her buffs.
Solar Pearl makes Ningguang even more lethal. This catalyst boosts her skill and burst damage after an auto attack, and boosts her auto attacks after a skill or burst. Basically, it boosts everything all of the time. Ningguang’s screen also provides cover, damages on cast, and walking through it boosts all Geo damage. Using a burst with the screen active almost doubles the burst’s damage. All the while Ningguang generates her own shields via crystallize, and with either of the Guyun artifact sets simply having these shields will also increase her attack. There’s simply no stopping Ning, and Solar Pearl makes that more apparent.
1 Great: Crescent Pike
There’s little to say about Crescent Pike that hasn’t already been said, it’s simply that good. This is the 4-star spear that outpaces many 5-star weapons in damage potential, especially on units such as Zhong Li, or even Xiangling. After picking up an energy particle, Pike adds bonus hits to your normal combos worth 20% of your damage for five seconds.
That’s already pretty good, but what the description doesn’t mention is that these bonus hits can deal critical damage, meaning the boost is well over 20% and increases with your CRIT DMG stat. Thanks to Zhong Li’s and Xiangling’s auto attacks that hit more than once per button press, and the fact that each of these hits triggers a bonus hit, that in turn can critical, these characters become one-person wrecking crews with this weapon.
