Genshin Impact's 5 best three-star weapons you shouldn’t sleep on

If you've been playing Genshin Impact , you've likely developed a party filled with characters that mesh with your sensibilities. Now that you have the crew of your dreams, it's time to think deeply about what weapons they're using.

Weapon quality is denoted by a star ranking that ranges from one to five. Better weapons have higher star counts. Ideally, you'd arm your crew exclusively with five-star weapons, but they can be rather difficult to obtain. Luckily, three-star armaments are abundant in the world and can be upgraded to the point where you can't tell the difference. Watch out for these five three-star weapons to bring your team to the next level.

How do weapons work in Genshin Impact?

There are five weapon types in Genshin Impact: swords, bows, polearms, claymores, and catalysts. Each type is useful for different circumstances, and each character can only utilize one of these weapon types.

The effectiveness of each weapon depends on three factors.

1) Star rating

As we mentioned before, each weapon has a star rating between one and five. You'll receive one-star, two-star, and three-star weapons as regular drops from simply playing Genshin Impact. Four-star weapons can be received as rewards for completing specific quests and as rewards from gatcha rolls. Five-star weapons are exclusively gained via gatcha rolls.

2) Level

Just as you can level up your character, weapons can have their level increased by feeding them other weapons and special ore. The amount of stat increases your weapon gains from being leveled up changes based on the star rating. More stars mean your weapon will gain more stats with each level.

3) Refinement

If you obtain a duplicate of a weapon, you can feed it into another one to increase overall effectiveness. This can only be performed a limited number of times with each weapon.

Using refinement, you can make those seemingly terrible three-star weapons into amazing tools that will lead you to victory. To achieve that, you'll need to get your hands on these five weapons.

Five three-star weapons you need to get in Genshin Impact

5. Cool Steel

Cool Steel is a powerful sword that's perfect for the Hydro and Cryo users in your party. At level 20, Cool Steel adds 113 base attack to your overall abilities. You can increase damage against foes affected by Hydro or Cryo by up to 24 percent. That's an easy damage boost if you're able to land any elemental blow on a foe or if you find yourself in combat while it's raining.

4. Amber Catalyst

The Amber Catalyst is a dangerous catalyst weapon that will briefly empower its user with incredible strength. After using two normal attacks, all elemental damage will increase by up to 24 percent for six seconds. If your character uses fire, this means your damage over time will become an extremely potent force.

3. White Tassel

White Tassel is a polearm designed for your DPS character. It features a decent critical rate that starts at nine percent and can quickly reach 17.3 percent. White Tassel's passive increases your total normal attack damage by up to 48 percent, making every attack that much more fearsome.

2. Debate Club

The Debate Club is a claymore that enables destructive elemental and normal attack combinations. After using an elemental skill, your normal and charged attacks deal an additional 120 percent damage per blow.

This effect lasts 15 seconds, which is more than enough time for your elemental skill to cool down. The Debate Club's attack boost will be active more often than not. If you only have room for one three-star claymore, make it this one.

1. Sharpshooter's Oath

Sharpshooter's Oath is a bow that's absolutely perfect for anyone that wants to deal a bunch of damage at a rapid pace. If you naturally attempt to get headshots with your bow or aim for other weak spots, the Sharpshooter's Oath will reward you with a damage boost. Every time you hit an enemy weak spot, your damage will be boosted by up to 48 percent.

Your damage can be further boosted by the bow's high critical rate. Before being upgraded, the Sharpshooter's Oath features a high 18 percent critical hit rate. By level 50, its critical rate grows to 30.4 percent. Combined with the innate weak spot damage boost, you're going to defeat a lot of enemies in just a shot or two.

Genshin Impact is now available.