Are Royal Weapons Worth It? (Genshin Impact)

The Royal series are weapons available at the Starglitter Exchange in Paimon’s Bargain shop every other month. Every Royal weapon has a secondary stat of ATK% and passive that gives CRIT rate.

But there are far better weapon options than the Royal series – so no, it’s not worth buying.

Their ATK stats and passive aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re strictly worse than Blackcliff – a weapon series that costs the exact same as Royal weapons.

So if you plan on buying weapons with your Starglitter, buying Blackcliff weapons is a much better option. The Starglitter Exchange shop alternates between these two weapon series. If the Royal weapons are featured this month, then just wait until next month for Blackcliff.

But if you’ve already bought a Royal weapon – don’t worry – it’s still viable.

Are Royal Weapons Good?

Royal weapons are decent weapons, but they’re never the best option.

Their main issue is the existence of Blackcliff weapons.

The Blackcliff series are weapons that cost the exact same as Royal weapons – but they’re just explicitly better. Although Royal’s ATK stats are good, ATK is a very saturated stat. You can easily get extra ATK from other sources like artifacts and external buffs.

In contrast, CRIT is a rarer stat that’s harder to come across – thus making Blackcliff’s CRIT damage stat more valuable.

Additionally, Royal’s passive is very insignificant.

Its passive is called Focus. At Refinement Rank 1 (R1), it has the following effects:

• Upon dealing damage to an opponent, it increases the user’s CRIT rate by 8%. This has a maximum of 5 stacks.
• Dealing a CRIT hit removes all existing stacks.

Each Refinement Rank increases the CRIT rate gained by 2% per stack. At R5, each stack gives 16% CRIT rate.

Although it sounds great in theory, it’s terrible in practice.

The graph above shows how much average CRIT rate you gain from Royal weapons depending on your character’s base CRIT rate.

The more CRIT rate you have, the less you benefit from the passive.

This can be good for lower investments or early-game players that don’t have enough CRIT rate, but it’s strictly worse than just using a Blackcliff weapon – Blackcliff’s CRIT damage stat is guaranteed.

And for late-game players, this passive is practically useless.

Since it’s always optimal to build the standard amount of CRIT rate, you’ll barely benefit from the passive.

For instance, having 60% base CRIT rate at R1 means you’ll only gain an average of 4% CRIT rate. That’s basically worth a bit over one substat roll. Because of this, Royal weapons are best considered a stat stick for extra ATK.

Who Can Use Royal Weapons?

Royal weapons are viable on most ATK-scaling DPS units.

Here’s a list of all Royal weapons and their synergies with all current playable characters.

Decent means that Royal works well with the character, but it isn’t among their best 4-star weapons.
Not recommended means that Royal can work, but there are much better options – namely, other gacha 4-star weapons, free weapons, craftable weapons, or 3-star weapons.
No synergy means that the character won’t benefit from the Royal weapon at all – or it’s one of their worst weapon options. These are usually characters that don’t scale off ATK or CRIT rate.

Are Royal Weapons Worth Refining?

No. The Royal weapons’ passive is very insignificant, so there’s no point in refining them.

They’re already not worth buying – let alone refining.

Instead, it’s far better to buy other better items from the Starglitter Exchange shop. This includes Blackcliff weapons (if you need a weapon), 4-star constellations, and gacha fates.