Genshin Impact: Is Vortex Vanquisher still the worst 5 star Weapon? How to build around Shields

Zhongli and Ganyu are getting concurrent rerun banners in Genshin Impact 2.4. Both are coming with their respective signature weapons, but Zhongli’s is still the unpopular Vortex Vanquisher. Is it still the worst five-star weapon? Let’s take a closer look at Vortex Vanquisher and its fellow Golden Majesty weapons’ place in the game.

Is Vortex Vanquisher still the worst 5 star Weapon?

No. These weapons are criminally underrated.

Vortex Vanquisher is part of the Liyue weapon series. There are currently four weapons in it: Vortex Vanquisher (Polearm), Summit Shaper (Sword), The Unforged (Claymore) and Memory of Dust (Catalyst). The Bow of the series is unreleased, and according to beta information will be named Kunwu’s Wyrmbane.

Each features 608 base Attack and a bonus 49.6% Attack at Lv. 90. Their shared ability, Golden Majesty, increases Shield Strength by 20%. Each time the equipped character hits an enemy, they get a 4% Attack boost up to five times. This bonus is doubled when the character is protected by a Shield.

Whenever a weapon in the Liyue series is featured, the banner is considered by many to be a “trap” or “scam” banner. They’re often paired with flashier, high profile weapons and by comparison, they can look underwhelming. They were actually some of the best weapons in the game, but miHoYo doesn’t do a good job of showing them off.

The key issue with Vortex Vanquisher and company is their marketing. Let’s take Vortex Vanquisher as our example. It’ billed as Zhongli’s signature weapon, and is of course the best looking one for him. It does not synergize well with him, however. The Attack focused stats don’t help his Shields, and the Shield abilities don’t work when Zhongli isn’t on-field. The same can be said for Albedo and Summit Shaper, who don’t work together for similar reasons.

Instead, the high base stats would enable Zhongli to play an on-field attacker. Zhongli’s sturdy Shields with an additional Shield Strength bonus make him almost untouchable, and the high base Attack and buffs make up for the slight loss of damage from his health-based attack scaling. It can serve a similar role on Thoma.

Shield mechanics are a little unintuitive in Genshin Impact. Typically, characters who create Shields will be used just to make the Shield before being switched into a DPS that needs the protection. Shield centric weapons like Vortex Vanquisher and artifacts like Retracing Bolide that buff Shield Strength only work when the character equipped with the item is on-field wearing a Shield, regardless of how it was made.

For example, Vortex Vanquisher’s 20% Shield Strength bonus only affects Shields worn by Zhongli, not Shields created by Zhongli. While Vortex Vanquisher can enable an on-field DPS role for Zhongli, it and the rest of the Golden Majesty weapons are better served with Shield characters and not on them. Let’s take a look at some examples where these weapon shine.