Genshin Impact Razor In-Depth Carry Guide

by Not-Casuals

Character Intro

• Razor is considered one of the most powerful 4 star Characters in Genshin Impact. He is extremely satisfying to play, especially considering how his elemental burst ability, drastically enhances his capabilities to deal large amount of damage, over a long periods of time.
• The fact that his elemental burst increases his normal attack speed considerably, really make this character unique and extremely fun to play. Its hard not to imagine yourself in an anime when using the elemental burst, using the Kaioken, Bankai, or Susanoo as you tap into this overpowered ability.
• In this guide, I will focus on a more Physical DPS build, since that is what he is best for, considering how well he synergizes with physical damage, because of how the elemental burst is designed.
• I will also go over all of his abilities, talents, constellations, stats priority, weapons and artifacts as well as cover some of the amazing team comps you should aim for when playing Razor. I’ll also share some tips on how to maximize his combat effectiveness and to have an insane uptime on his elemental burst.

Abilities

Before jumping into Razor’s in-depth kit, do know that Razor does not play very well with others, and will also be a very bad choice to play as a secondary role in your teams, considering how he has been designed. He needs as much of the spotlight as possible to manage his electro sigils. Additionally, his elemental bursts Does Not carry over to the next character.

Normal Attacks

• Razor’s basic attacks are considered extremely important as the most optimal way to build Razor is with Physical damage. These attacks are considered your bread and butter and should always be the first talent that you will level up.
• An important gameplay tip when using Razor, if you wish to maximize your damage per second, is to perform three consecutive basic attacks and to either dash cancel your fourth hit, as the charge up time is pretty slow. You can also alternatively cancel the last hit using your elemental skill, which can fill in very well and will also apply an electro sigil which we will later use for energy recharge.
• Even though canceling the fourth hit is considered an overall improvement to the DPS, I personally don’t apply this rule all the time. As an example, I will often still land the fourth hit, after the Wolf’s gravestone claymore procs its effect, which will drastically increase our overall damage. This means that if this last attack is gonna crit, the burst damage will be amazing, and who doesn’t love to see massive crits on the screen? I know I do.
• On a closing note for the normal attacks, I almost Never use the charged attack with Razor, I feel that its a massive waste of DPS in 99% of the situations.

Elemental Skill

• Razor’s elemental skill, Claw and Thunder, is very versatile and can be used differently based on the scenario you face. This elemental skill deals Electro damage and if using the Press version, it will have a small cone area of effect and will also provide an electro sigil. These sigils increase your energy recharge bonus by 20% per sigil, and you can have up to three of them at the same time. Each time you acquire a sigil, it refreshes the duration of the previous sigil back to 18.0 Seconds.
• This way, you can increase your energy recharge bonus by up to 60%, just for having 3 electro sigils on you. These sigils look like electro orbs floating around Razor.
• Now, when you Hold your Claw and Thunder elemental Skill, the ability will have a wide Area of effect radius and will also deal significant damage compared to the press version. It will also absorb all active electro sigils and will fuel razor with 5 energy per electro sigil absorbed. A quick note, Razor’s elemental bursts requires 80 energy.
• The Press cooldown of Claw and Thunder is 6 seconds, while the Hold cooldown is 10 seconds.

Special notes:

• You may want to use the Hold version when surrounded by multiple enemies. Also, when facing flying enemies, such as the water birds in the Oceanid encounter, the Hold version of this ability can actually hit them even though they are flying.

Elemental Burst

• Lightning Fang, Razor’s elemental Burst, is probably my Favorite ability in Genshin Impact. Razor become imbued by the wolf within, drastically increasing his overall power for 15 seconds. During this time, the wolf within will strike alongside Razor’s normal attacks, thus dealing electro damage. The transformation itself will causes nearby enemies to take electro damage.
• Lightning Fangs will also drastically increases Razor’s attack speed, making him extremely fun to use as he wrecks everything nearby using his massive claymore and claws. At level 9, the attack speed bonus increases by 39%. I repeat, 39% on a CLAYMORE user. Let that sink in for a minute.
• This elemental bursts also increases Razor’s resistance to interruptions, which is quite practical, am I the only one that hates to get staggered mid-animation?
• Finally, while in this powerful form, Razor will be immune to damage inflicted by electro charge status. Do note that this does not mean that you are immune to electro damage. You will also gain a high amount of electro damage resistance for the duration of Lightning Fangs. At lvl 9, we are talking about 80% resistance.
• In the end, this elemental bursts has a 20 seconds cooldown, and its gonna be pretty common when playing Razor, to have all of the energy back even before this amazing form expires and thus waiting on the cooldown.

Passive Talents

• His first talent, Awakening, decreases Claw and Thunders elemental Skill cooldown by 18%. Also, using Lightning Fang, the elemental burst, resets the cooldown of Claw and Thunder. This helps make Razor even more bursty!
• His second talent, Hunger, increases energy recharge by 30% when Razor’s energy is below 50%. This means that using the Hold version of Claw and Thunder before that 50% threshold will help make the overall gain of energy from the electro sigils more beneficial.
• The fact that Lightning Fangs automatically consumes all active electro sigils helps you benefit from this passive talent.
• When Leveling up the Talents, Prioritize the Basic attacks first, then the elemental burst, and finally, the elemental skill. Once all of your talents reach level 6, the order changes slightly.
• First should be the basic attacks, followed by the elemental skill, and finally the elemental burst.
• As for his last passive talent, it reduces stamina consumption when sprinting by 20%. This effect does not stack with other identical effects.

Constellations

• The First Constellation, Wolf’s Instinct is considered very good on Razor as it increases his damage by 10% for 8 seconds after picking up an elemental orb or elemental Particle.
• The Second Constellation, Suppression, is not quite as good but is still considered decent, as it increases Razor’s crit rate by 10% when attacking enemies with less than 30% HP remaining. If you are using the Wolf’s Gravestone Claymore, this constellation actually synergizes very well with the proc as they both require the same enemy HP threshold.
• The Fourth Constellations, Bite, is considered Extremely good on Razor as it reduce the defense by 15% of enemies hit by Claw and Thunder, the elemental skill, when using the Press version. This effect lasts for 7 seconds. This is gonna be especially useful when facing enemies such as Ruin Guards and Ruin Hunters which have tremendous amounts of physical defense.
• The Sixth Constellation, Lupus Fulguris, is insane. Razor’s claymore will charge up with Electro damage every 10 seconds, using a normal attack will unleash lightning for 100% of Razor’s ATK. Now since I am a PRO at maths, this can occur 6 times in a minute! That’s a LOT of extra damage! Using Claw and Thunder while lightning fang is Inactive will cause Razor to also receive an electro Sigil, thus further improving his energy recharge.

Stats Priority

• The primary stats that you will be aiming for to build the ultimate Razor are as follows; Physical damage, Crit Rate and Crit Damage are all extremely important main stats. They are your bread and butter. Flat ATK and ATK % are also very important, even Elemental Mastery is considered good. I would personally avoid energy recharge, HP and DEF.
• On the sands piece, you will most likely want an ATK % main stat while on the Goblet, you will definitively want a physical damage bonus main stat. Finally, on the helm, you’re gonna want crit damage.
• Artifacts sub-stats are gonna matter a whole lot for Razor, and will require a significant amount of time to farm those best in slots stats. A perfect piece would roll as follow for a goblet: Physical Damage main stat, Crit Rate 3.9%, Crit DMG 7.8%, ATK 5.8%, Flat ATK 19 or EM 23.

Weapons

1. Wolf’s Gravestone is going to be your best in slot 5 star weapon with the current weapons available. This weapons increases ATK % by a significant amount when leveled to 90 and also has amazing refinement rank effects. The first effect being a flat increase to ATK % and the second increasing the party’s ATK % by a huge amount when attacking an enemy with less than 30% HP. This effect can proc only once every 30 seconds and will last 12 seconds. You will see an howling red wolf head when this effect will proc. This means, GO TIME… use that Ultimate for some massive damage.

2. Skyward Pride is going to be your second best option, even though the weapon has energy recharge as a stat on it. The main reason why its gonna still be a viable weapon is because it is a 5 star weapon and that once it is level 90, it will still offer a high amount of base ATK, which is a vital stat. Now, the weapon refinement rank will also increase ALL DMG by a significant amount by default. The vacuum blades can also be a useful effect after using normal or charged attacks shortly after using the elemental burst.

3. Prototype Aminus, Serpentspine and Blackcliff Slasher.

• The prototype Aminus is gonna be the best free 2 play options for users that are either very low spenders or are going with a F2P experience. This weapon can, with time, be refined to level 5 which makes it one of the more viable options. The ATK % of the weapon will synergize well with the build and the on hit effect from the refinement rank will also add some bursts and small AOE every 15 seconds.
• The Blackcliff Slasher is another interesting option but may be more interesting to users that will be able to bring it to a refinement level of 3, which could require a significant amount of wishes. The crit damage found on the weapon can go a long way assuming that you already have a very high amount of crit rates coming from your artifact sub-stats. The refinement effect is also considerable but do keep in mind that it acts as 3 independent stacks and as such will require large numbers of enemies to consistently refresh the stacks. As a reminder, this weapon can be acquired in Paimon’s shop.
• As for the Serpentspine, it is considered a risky option because of how the refinement rank behaves. You will gain a damage increase from maintaining 5 stacks but could also make some of the harder areas of the game, such as Abyss Floor 12, much more challenging and quite hard to maintain stacks. Now some of the things that you could do to help counter this is to run characters that can apply shields to your Razor to help maintain the stack up-time, such as a Diona or a Noelle. The crit rate found on this weapon can really help make a well performing crit build as your crit rate will be average just by using this weapon and you would benefit most from using an artifact helmet that has crit damage has a main stat. As a reminder this weapon can be acquired in the battlepass level 30. It does require you to purchase the BP.

4. Rainslasher is probably a last resort option and you should most likely attempt to avoid it by crafting a Prototype Aminus as this weapon as elemental mastery on it and the refinement requires enemies to be affected by Hydro or Electro. Applying this effect is not a problem, however, in some cases, the enemies can however get this effect purged of off them depending on elemental reactions and also based on the floor effect, such as the 12th floor of the abyss.

5. The Unforged. Once the new 5 star claymore, The Unforged, is released in 2 weeks, it will most likely become in the top 3 of the best weapons for Razor and will most likely fall between second and third spot, depending of your current team-comp and the synergy you are able to run with shield characters.

Artifacts

• 4-Piece Gladiator will most likely be your best option to build the most powerful Razor. Using basic attacks is your bread and butter with Razor and you will benefit tremendously from using this 4 piece set, assuming the main and sub-stats are good on the pieces. Remember, you only need 4 pieces of the set, the 5th artifact piece could be from a different set, id recommend this piece to either be the Goblet or the Helm, considering how hard it can be to roll Physical Damage or Crit Damage as main stat.
• 2-Piece Gladiator, 2-Piece Bloodstained could be a very good option assuming that you do not have a good 4-Piece set of Gladiator, assuming that your main stats are better on the Bloodstained set. The bonus 25% physical damage from the 2 pieces Bloodstained could definitively be of use when fighting the hoards of Hilichurls.
• 4-Piece Retracing Bolide will be a viable option especially if you own the Unforged 5 star claymore or if you use the serpentspine claymore, assuming that the rest of your team comp is able to support your Razor with sufficient amount of shields to benefit from the 4 piece effect. Do note that you will lose a tremendous amount of value if you are unable to maintain a shield effect on Razor if you are using this 4 piece set.
• If you want to build an Electro Razor, you could consider trying either the Thundering Fury or the Thundersoother sets. I personally do not recommend these two sets as I feel that Razor has not been designed to be played in this manner and you may end up losing a lot of overall DPS, even though some of your abilities could seem burstier.

Team comps

• For the team comps, one thing you must do is include a Cryo Character with Razor such as Qiqi, Diona, Kaeya, but NOT Chongyun as he messes up Razor’s Physical attacks with his abilities. This will allow you to trigger Superconduct (Cryo+Electro) which reduces the Physical Resistance of enemies and increases Razor’s Physical damage significantly!
• There’s also a few things that you shouldn’t do. First of all, as previously mentioned, Razor shines the most when used as a MAIN DPS. He doesn’t play well with others as you’ll end up losing team value when Razor is benched.
• Avoid using Razor in teams where you are already using; Diluc, Klee, Keqing, Chongyun and Beidou. While some of these can be considered acceptable, you will most likely benefit much more from using other characters in your team with Razor.
• Some of the characters that synergize especially well with Razor; Xiangling, Qiqi, Barbara, Diona, Xingqiu, Fischl, Kaeya and Mona.
• Depending of the rest of your team, characters such as Jean, Childe, Venti, Sucrose, Ningguang and Bennet could also play a considerable role. Do note that while Bennet is considered an amazing support, I feel that his synergy with Razor feels a bit more limited because how Razor’s elemental burst works and has a long duration and is not an instant huge burst ability.

Tips

• Your ideal combat rotation will often require you to acquire your electro sigils as fast as possible by using your elemental skill Claw and Thunder. You ideally want to use the Hold version of Claw and Thunder when under 50% energy recharge to benefit from the bonus from Hunger. As soon as your elemental burst is available, you’ll want to use it. Do note that whenever you use Lightning Fang, Razor will automatically absorb any active electro sigils and thus gaining energy recharge towards your next ultimate burst.
• As previously mentioned, you will also most likely want to animation cancel out of your fourth basic attack, either via dash cancel or E press.
• Finally, keep in mind the iFrames, aka invulnerability frames when using your elemental burst, this split second can save your life if timed properly to avoid massive damage from an enemy attack.