One-Handed Swords in Genshin Impact: General Weapon System Overview

One-handed swords are one of the most versatile weapon types in Genshin Impact. They combine fast attack speed, flexible animations and reliable elemental application, making sword users suitable for a wide range of roles: main DPS, sub-DPS and supports. Understanding how sword stats, passives and refinements work helps you select the right weapon for each character and maximize overall team performance.

Core Characteristics of One-Handed Swords

All one-handed swords share certain baseline properties. Their normal attack chains are relatively fast, with short recovery frames and good combo potential. This makes sword users efficient at applying elements through normal and charged attacks and weaving abilities into short, fluid rotations.

Sword users typically favor precision and agility over raw striking power. While their single-hit multipliers are often lower than those of claymore or polearm characters, their high attack frequency and smooth animation canceling allow consistent damage and safe positioning during combat.

Main Stat and Substats

Every sword has a base ATK value that increases with weapon level. Higher rarity swords (4-star and 5-star) generally provide much higher base ATK, which significantly boosts total damage. Alongside base ATK, each sword also features a secondary stat, such as:

• Crit Rate — increases the chance to deal critical hits, ideal for DPS-focused builds.
• Crit Damage — enhances the damage of critical hits, amplifying burst and sustained DPS.
• ATK% — boosts overall attack, useful for characters who scale well with attack-based abilities.
• Elemental Mastery — improves reaction damage, excellent for characters triggering Melt, Vaporize, Aggravate, Spread or Bloom variants.
• Energy Recharge — helps spam Elemental Bursts, perfect for support or burst-reliant sword users.
• HP% or DEF% — supports characters whose abilities scale with survivability stats, including shielders or defensive supports.

Choosing the correct substat is just as important as base ATK. For example, a sword with lower base ATK but strong Crit stats might outperform one with higher base ATK but irrelevant secondary stats for a given build.

Weapon Passives and Their Roles

Most 4-star and 5-star swords feature passives that provide additional bonuses when certain conditions are met. These can include:

• Increased Normal and Charged Attack damage after using a skill or Burst.
• Additional Elemental or Physical damage when hitting enemies affected by specific elements.
• Teamwide buffs to ATK, Elemental Mastery or damage bonuses after triggering reactions.
• Energy generation or faster Energy Recharge from hitting enemies or using abilities.

DPS-oriented swords typically enhance personal damage, rewarding aggressive on-field play. Support-oriented swords provide buffs or energy support for the entire team, making them ideal for characters who swap in briefly and then rotate out.

Refinement System

Refinement improves weapon passives by consuming duplicate copies of the same sword. Each refinement rank (up to rank 5) increases the potency of the passive effect, such as higher damage bonus, stronger buff values or reduced internal cooldowns.

Refinement does not change base ATK or secondary stats, but it can dramatically impact overall performance when a weapon’s passive is central to a character’s playstyle. For example, a sword that buffs team ATK or reaction damage becomes significantly more impactful at higher refinement levels.

Because 5-star weapons are difficult to obtain in multiples, refinements are more common and practical on 4-star and event-exclusive swords.

Roles of Sword Users

One-handed sword characters are used in several roles:

• Main DPS — stays on the field, relying on fast normal and charged attacks amplified by weapon passives and Crit-focused stats.
• Sub-DPS — deals burst or skill-based damage during short windows, then swaps out while passive buffs or off-field effects remain active.
• Support — provides healing, shielding, buffs or energy generation, often prioritizing Energy Recharge and supportive passives over raw DPS.

Depending on the role, the ideal sword changes. Main DPS characters benefit from Crit stats and offensive passives, while supports often prefer Energy Recharge or ATK buffs that help the entire party.

Choosing the Right Sword

Selecting a sword involves balancing several factors:

• Character scaling — does the character benefit more from Crit, ATK%, EM or ER?
• Team role — is the character a main DPS, reaction trigger, Burst spammer or pure support?
• Passive synergy — does the weapon’s effect align with the character’s rotation and team composition?
• Availability — do you have refinements or a reliable way to obtain duplicates for 4-star weapons?

For reaction-based teams, Elemental Mastery swords can outperform traditional ATK or Crit options. For Burst-reliant supports, Energy Recharge becomes a key stat. For hypercarry sword DPS, Crit-focused or high-ATK swords with strong damage passives often perform best.

Forged and Event Swords

Many accessible swords can be forged at blacksmiths using weapon billets, ores and Mora. Forged swords are valuable for free-to-play players, offering solid base stats and useful passives that can be refined to high ranks over time.

Event-limited swords often feature unique passives tailored to specific regions, characters or reaction styles. These weapons can be highly efficient when fully refined, making event participation a great opportunity to strengthen sword-based rosters.

Conclusion

One-handed swords form a flexible and efficient weapon category in Genshin Impact. With fast attack animations, strong synergy with elemental abilities and a wide range of stat and passive combinations, sword users can fill almost any combat role. By understanding base stats, substats, passives and refinements, players can choose the optimal sword for each character and build teams that fully leverage the strengths of this agile weapon class.