4 cost
CRIT Rate / CRIT DMG
3 cost
Fusion DMG
3 cost
ATK% ≥ Fusion DMG
1 cost
ATK%
1 cost
ATK%
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Last updated: 19/June/2026
Best guide and build for Changli from WW (Wuthering Waves). Changli is a 5★ rarity character from the 
Fusion element who uses the Sword type weapon.
Changli is a counselor serving the Jinzhou Magistrate, and former Secretary-General in the capital. Shrouded in flames, she's fated to burn brightly until her final embers. With her fiery determination and strategic mindset, she rises to power, always thinking ahead to reach her ultimate goal.
Changli has at least one video guide available:
Last review update
Patch 2.1
Last major build/calcs update
Patch 2.1
Last profile update*
19/June/2026
*Profile update means smaller edits to echoes, stats, synergies or teams that don't require new calculations.
To learn more about Changli check the sections below. Use the tabs to quickly switch to the kind of information you're looking for.
Profile
Blazing Enlightment
Basic Attack
Perform up to 4 consecutive attacks, dealing Fusion DMG. After releasing Basic Attack 4, enter True Sight, lasting for 12s.
Mid-air Attack
Consume Stamina to perform up to 4 consecutive attacks in mid-air, dealing Fusion DMG. After releasing Mid-air Attack 4, enter True Sight, lasting for 12s.
Heavy Attack
Hold Basic Attack on the ground to perform an upward strike at the cost of Stamina, dealing Fusion DMG. Use Basic Attack within a certain time to release Mid-Air Attack 3.
Mid-air Heavy Attack
Shortly after holding Basic Attack in mid-air or using Basic Attack True Sight: Charge, use Basic Attack to perform a plunging attack at the cost of Stamina, dealing Fusion DMG. Use Basic Attack within a certain time to release Basic Attack 3.
Dodge Counter
Use Basic Attack after a successful Dodge to attack the target, dealing Fusion DMG.
Tripartite Flames
True Sight: Capture
After releasing Resonance Skill, Changli dashes towards the enemy and enters True Sight, lasting for 12s. In the end, she releases a plunging attack, dealing Fusion DMG. True Sight: Capture has 2 initial attempts and can be used up to 2 times. The number of attempts is increased by 1 every 12s. Can be cast in mid-air.
Basic Attack: True Sight - Conquest
When in True Sight, if Changli uses Ground Basic Attack, she releases True Sight: Conquest, dashing towards the enemy and dealing Fusion DMG, considered as Resonance Skill DMG. After releasing True Sight: Conquest, True Sight ends.
Basic Attack: True Sight - Charge
When in True Sight, if Changli jumps or uses Basic Attack in mid-air, she releases True Sight: Charge, dashing towards the enemy and dealing Fusion DMG, considered as Resonance Skill DMG. After releasing True Sight: Charge, True Sight ends.
Radiance of Fealty
Deal Fusion DMG to nearby targets, obtaining 4 stacks of Enflamement, and entering Fiery Feather. Can be cast in mid-air.
Fiery Feather
When Changli releases Heavy Attack Flaming Sacrifice within 10s, her ATK is increased by 25%, after which Fiery Feather ends.
Flaming Sacrifice
Heavy Attack: Flaming Sacrifice
When releasing Heavy Attack, if Changli carries 4 stacks of Enflamement, she consumes all stacks of Enflamement to cast Flaming Sacrifice, dealing Fusion DMG, considered as Resonance Skill DMG. While casting Flaming Sacrifice, Changli takes 40% less DMG.
Enflamement
Changli can hold up to 4 stacks of Enflamement.
Changli obtains 1 stack of Enflamement for every Basic Attack: True Sight - Conquest on hit.
Changli obtains 1 stack of Enflamement for every Basic Attack: True Sight - Charge on hit.
Changli obtains 4 stacks of Enflamement for every Resonance Liberation Radiance of Fealty.
Secret Strategist
When Changli releases Basic Attack: True Sight - Conquest or Basic Attack: True Sight - Charge, for each stack of Enflamement, Changli's Fusion DMG Bonus is increased by 5%.
Sweeping Force
When Changli releases Heavy Attack Flaming Sacrifice or Resonance Liberation Radiance of Fealty, Changli's Fusion DMG Bonus is increased by 20%, and Changli ignores 15% of the target's DEF when dealing damage.
Obedience of Rules
Changli appears in mid-air, attacks the target, and enters True Sight, lasting for 12s.
Strategy of Duality
The incoming Resonator has their Fusion DMG Amplified by 20% and Resonance Liberation DMG Amplified by 25% for 10s or until the Resonator is switched out.
Sequence Node 1
Resonance Skill Tripartite Flames and Heavy Attack Flaming Sacrifice increase Changli's DMG dealt by 10% and resistance to interruption.
Sequence Node 2
Enflamement increases Changli's Crit. Rate by 25% for 8s.
Sequence Node 3
Resonance Liberation Radiance of Fealty DMG is increased by 80%.
Sequence Node 4
After Intro Skill is cast, all team members' ATK is increased by 20% for 30s.
Sequence Node 5
Heavy Attack Flaming Sacrifice's Multiplier is increased by 50% and its DMG dealt is increased by 50%.
Sequence Node 6
Resonance Skill Tripartite Flames, Heavy Attack Flaming Sacrifice, and Resonance Liberation Radiance of Fealty ignore an additional 40% of the target's DEF when dealing damage.
CRIT Rate
ATK%
HPATK
DEF
Max EnergyCRIT Rate
CRIT DMG
Healing Bonus
Fusion DMGWhile the source of the materials can be quickly found in the game, when it comes Pavo Plum you will have to gather them from the map. Check our Interactive map to find them quickly:
Review
Please keep in mind Wuthering Waves is a skill-based game and each character has a different playstyle, difficulty level and even special tricks and combos. Wuthering Waves is also a team based game and it's only by combining both these factors to the highest level a character can reach optimal performance.
Super accessible weapons-wise; her Signature weapon makes a negligible difference in her base performance with Emerald of Genesis (permanently accessible).
Extremely quickswap-friendly and very consistent in her rotations when optimized.
Works particularly well with mid-air characters, but works just fine with ground-based teammates as well.
Has high damage for her rotation time and a nice Outro buff.
Requires significant optimization to be worth playing - either advanced Animation cancels or Swap cancels, no other options to justify her being played on the team.
Very reliant on limited teammates for significant buffs in performance (particularly Lupa).
Overall, lower damage ceiling than more modern Fusion damage-dealing options, little reason to get her now if you don’t already own her.
Changli is a 5-star Fusion Sword Hybrid-DPS character who focuses on mid-air combat, and as a Fusion damage dealer with a relatively short rotation (if played correctly), mostly plays into the Mono Fusion archetype nowadays. She sports a unique 10-second-long Outro buff which characterizes a large amount of her synergies and has an affinity with quickswap that few characters can match. However, Changli is a rather complicated character to optimize, and she took a very long time post-release to be fully figured out. Let’s delve into how to achieve the best results with her and where she stands in the meta today.
Changli has one and only mechanic that her entire kit revolves around: Enflamement, which is linked to her second important mechanic derived from the first, True Sight. Enflamement is the name of her Forte stacks, and she can hold up to a maximum of 4. These Enflamement stacks can be acquired in 2 ways:
By using her Ultimate (this instantly gives you all 4 stacks)
Or by using her True Sight attacks (this gives you 1 stack for each).
When Enflamement is stacked up to full, Changli can cast a Forte Heavy Attack which deals a large amount of damage and restores a large amount of Resonance and Concerto Energy. As you may understand by the fact that she has multiple ways of generating Enflamement, the goal of each of her rotations will be to cast 4 different True Sight Attacks, chain that into a Forte Heavy, then an Ultimate, then a final Forte Heavy before swapping out with her Outro. This leads to 2 Forte Heavies per rotation, which essentially represents her rotation goal.
Additionally, her Forte Heavy following her Ultimate gains a 25% ATK buff, and via her Inherent Skills, her True Sight attacks get progressively stronger for each stack of Enflamement (5% Fusion DMG Bonus per stack), and her Forte Heavies and Ultimate gain a 20% Fusion DMG Bonus and a 15% DEF Ignore buff, further enhancing the power of her strongest attacks.
However, after her rotation ends, her Outro also carries over value into the next teammate: it increases the incoming character’s Fusion DMG and Liberation DMG by 20 and 25%, respectively, for 10s, which expires upon swap. This 10s Outro buff length is unique to Changli and Lumi, who are the only characters in the game with an Outro buff duration shorter than 14s.
Changli’s True Sight mechanic works as such: after casting Intro, Skill, or her Basic 4/Mid-Air Attack 4, she enters this state for 12s during which she may unleash a special Basic Attack, Conquest when she’s on the ground and Charge when she’s in mid-air 1 time. When either attack hits, she gains 1 Enflamement stack.
Her Skill is one of her most important ways to gain Enflamement, having 2 charges, good damage, and a fairly short cooldown of 12s, it constitutes the main way she will gain Enflamement throughout her rotation, alongside her Intro giving her 1 stack and a Basic chain, a second Intro, or a third Skill giving the last stack needed for a Forte Heavy.
However, all of her most important animations, including her Basic 4, her True Sight attacks, her Skill, and her Forte Heavies take a long amount of time. She is prone to interruption during each attack, and yet they are essential to her rotations, and if they don’t land she will rotate significantly slower. She only has one way to fully protect herself from interruption: Swap Cancelling. This means switching during one of her long animations, doing actions on another character, while Changli’s attacks continue their animations and hit the target even though she isn’t the active character. This constitutes the foundation of quickswap and characterizes Changli’s optimal playstyle.
Indeed, it’s difficult to talk about Changli without talking about Quickswap - all of her animations are easily quickswappable, she has no buffs that expire on swap aside from her Outro, which has a short duration, and she’s prone to being interrupted on her essential attacks if she doesn’t swap out of them. Overall, Changli is characterized by Quickswap, and while it’s possible to use some mechanics like her Ground Heavy Attack chaining into her Mid-Air 3 and some Animation Cancels in order to speed her rotation up without Quickswap, she struggles to find a spot in the meta without the help of it.
Meta Position & Conclusion
Changli is a character largely defined by two things: Lupa’s existence in the meta and Quickswap. Indeed, Lupa is a character who can provide a lot of interesting buffs for Changli and her Mono Fusion teams, and is an ideal recipient of her Outro buff, as she has an above average rotation length for a Hybrid that she makes up for with her Fusion/Liberation personal damage, while also being super comfortable with mid-air combat (which represents most of Changli’s rotation time) and Quickswap. Brant is also a character who has an ideal Outro buff for Changli and possesses strong personal damage with a rotation time similar to Lupa, who also operates entirely mid-air with a strong affinity for Quickswap. Other fusion DPS characters exist that also work well in Quickswap, being Aemeath and Galbrena, who have a higher base damage potential than Brant but a longer rotation time (this can however, be mitigated with good enough gameplay). As a result, in the meta, Changli is a character who completely relies on her Quickswap advantage to make herself stand out from other Fusion characters who deal almost as much damage, with better buffs and a lower field time, such as for example Brant and most importantly Lupa who has the best Fusion-related buffs in the entire game (which is why she is found on every Mono Fusion team to date).
In conclusion, while Changli has good personal damage with a balanced rotation time and lower-end buffs, the main advantage that makes her stand out from other characters is her ability to work excellently in Quickswap alongside other Fusion characters who have an affinity for it. Overall, Changli’s performance is largely dependent on the player who operates her, and while she can display good performance, she’s largely outclassed by other, more modern Fusion characters without that unique edge. Defined by expert gameplay, Changli will struggle for casuals in today’s meta, while the most experienced can still make her shine in the right teams.
Build
The percentages show the performance of the weapon based on calculations, but in some cases, some weapons might provide additional QOL that can't be quantified and it would push that weapon ahead of others in the priority (and in those cases, we would put that weapon higher).
Changli calculations were done using added buffs from the following teammates:
Brant + Unflickering Valor + 
Tidebreaking Courage
Lupa + Wildfire Mark + 
Flaming Clawprint
100.00%
91.10%
90.40%
90.00%
90.00%
89.90%
81.40%
76.70%
100.00%
Offers a 10% unconditional Fusion DMG% boost and an additional 30% Fusion DMG% after using a Resonance Skill for a grand total of 40% additional Fusion damage.
Below you can find Main Echo options:
Substats: Energy Regen (Until Satisfied) > CRIT Rate = CRIT DMG > ATK% > ATK > Resonance Skill DMG%
All recommended endgame stats portray a fairly good quality endgame build as a goal to aim for on most characters. However, don’t treat this as an end-all-be-all, and more of a suggestion.
All stat recommendations are given at S0 for 5-stars, S6 for 4-stars, and free characters (unless specified otherwise), based on total stats in the in-game stat-screen with the character out of combat but also active in the party (and hence some buffs may or may not apply). Any other precision may be directly specified. If not specified, Energy Regen requirements are estimated in the character’s best team.
HP: 16500+
DEF: 1150+
ATK: 2000-2200+
CRIT Rate: 65-80%+
CRIT DMG: 210-260%+
Energy Regen: 108%-120%+
Lower end estimated in Mono Fusion team, Higher end estimated in a team with Brant+Shorekeeper.
Fusion DMG Bonus: 40-70%+
Below you can find the order of leveling the abilities for Changli.
Res. Skill
Forte Circuit
Res. Liberation
Basic Attack
Intro Skill
Basic and Intro can be skipped when levelling to save on resources at a minimal damage loss.
Gameplay and teams
Generally speaking, Changli’s kit revolves around generating 4 Enflamement Forte stacks to cast her Forte Heavy attacks as quickly as possible. She has different approaches to get there and even an opener to execute in order to make the most of her kit’s damage potential.
Remember that Changli is most effective when played as a Quickswap character who executes cooldown-based combos as they become available, so her fully optimal combos may vary depending on the team you’re using. However, the rotations we feature should cover all types of teams pretty well. Any quickswapping is optional, but with that being said, swapping out of certain abilities makes playing Changli much safer, so it’s important to try and optimize Changli to truly make her shine, even if it’s not a requirement to clear content with her.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to squeeze in the active ability before any of her combos aside from the Opener combo and Swap-Cancel them, as her best Echoes to equip are Transforms. Other than that, on the chance you’re running a Summon echo, its placement really doesn’t matter, so use it as soon as she’s on the field, and the ability isn’t on cooldown.
We’ve listed the 4 rotations you can use below. Here’s some insight on each of them and what abilities to perform:
This two-part combo can be executed at the start of any battle where your Ultimate is immediately available. We strongly recommend executing it before doing your other character rotations, as it’s free damage at no downside: seeing as in the overwhelming majority of Changli team compositions, she is able to recover her Ultimate by the time she reaches 4 Enflamement stacks, you can follow with the rotations below without any issues.
Opener Combo
Ultimate
Forte: Heavy: Flaming Sacrifice (swap)
This approach allows Changli to generate her full Forte stacks without ever switching out with a single Intro Skill, which is perfect when you only have 1 Intro skill available for her — feeding her Intro Skills can be very important, but may prove negligible with proper execution. The exact rotation below enables the fastest possible Enflamement stack generation with a single Intro and no swaps. This is particularly interesting for teams where having an Outro buff active on everyone constantly (like the Changli + Brant + Lupa trio) is advantageous (without getting into crazy quickswap optimization yet).
Intro
Basic: True Sight: Charge
Skill
Heavy Attack
Basic: True Sight: Charge
Basic: Mid-air Attack (Interrupt instantly via Dash)
Dash
Basic: Mid-air Attack 4
Basic: True Sight: Charge
Skill
Basic: True Sight: Conquest
Heavy: Flaming Sacrifice
Ultimate
Heavy: Flaming Sacrifice (Swap)
Outro
Additionally, you may let the last Heavy occur naturally without swaps to keep Outro buffs and cast Echo. This extends the rotation by 1.37s.
This approach has the big downside of preventing one of the characters on your team from using their Intro skill altogether, which can be problematic in certain teams, such as Changli and Brant. However, on the chance your other character kits don’t strictly require Intros, this combo is very strong as it allows Changli to skip doing any Basic Attacks to acquire her Enflamement stacks, leading to an overall DPS increase in those teams. We strongly recommend this combo if your team allows for it to be executed, as it removes a lot of Changli’s potential clunkiness.
Double Intro Combo
Intro
True Sight: Charge
Skill
True Sight: Conquest (swap)
Build your second character’s Intro skill
Intro
True Sight: Charge
Skill
True Sight: Conquest
Skill
True Sight: Conquest
Forte: Heavy: Flaming Sacrifice
Ultimate
Forte: Heavy: Flaming Sacrifice (swap)
Outro
Changli is a character defined by her ability to Swap Cancel a ton of the attacks in her kit — this means you can input an attack with a mildly lengthy animation to be executed, switch her out of the field, and have that attack still be performed while you can input actions on other characters. On Changli specifically, all of her key abilities can be Swap Cancelled, that is:
Basic P4
Her Skill (True Sight: Capture)
True Sight: Conquest
Forte: Heavy: Flaming Sacrifice
Swap Cancelling all of these abilities makes Changli invulnerable to damage, so it offers a lot of protection, and most importantly, it allows you to completely play two characters at once if executed perfectly. This is where a lot of Changli’s value as a Dual DPS comes from. Only issue? This is extremely mechanically intensive; the inputs are not easy and require quick thinking and execution to perform.
Remember this: none of Changli’s Swap Cancels, aside from the ones we listed in our previous rotation samples, are necessary to learn in order to clear any kind of content in the game.
With that being said, it makes Changli significantly stronger. You are free to practice Swap Cancelling some of these abilities if you wish to push your Changli a level beyond her skill floor performance - the most important ones are her True Sight: Conquests, so we recommend learning to swap out of those; the rest is nowhere close to essential.
To satisfy our most curious readers, we’ll provide below what a max potential Changli rotation can look like, if you’re playing her the way speedrunners would, for example — in other words, this will depict Changli gameplay for players trying to reach the lowest possible time, beyond simply claiming all rewards from endgame content.
Max Potential Combo
Disclaimer: We strongly don't recommend burning your fingers away in the process — so if you care for your hands, don't bother with any swaps we didn't list in the above rotations.
Sure, Changli can make use of a lot of swap cancels, but she really doesn't need them to clear any endgame content — she's strong enough at a baseline. Please take good care of your hands when playing video games in general, not just Wuthering Waves!
This rotation may not work in specific teams running specific teammates (for skill cooldown reasons). In those situations, then cast an extra Basic chain and only rely on 2 Skills instead of 3.
Skill (swap)
True Sight: Conquest (swap)
Intro
True Sight: Charge
Skill (swap)
True Sight: Conquest (swap)
Skill (swap)
True Sight: Conquest (swap)
Forte: Heavy: Flaming Sacrifice (swap)
Ultimate
Forte: Heavy: Flaming Sacrifice (swap)
Outro
Aemeath Brant - Changli's two best partners who fulfill the same role of dealing a ton of Fusion damage, but who operate differently. Brant is very good at buffing Changli via his Outro skill, he brings healing and shielding to the table and is overall very easy to pilot while dealing very good damage on his own. Aemeath on the other hand is only worth using if played well in Quickswap, since Changli's short Outro buff requires Aemeath to cast Basic Attack chains as Changli is rotating to fully benefit from it on her biggest damaging moves. But if played well? Mono Fusion with Changli, Lupa and Brant or Aemeath is good enough to clear anything in their path.Lupa - Lupa is part of Changli's best team as she is the best buffer for mono Fusion teams, with for example Changli and Brant or Encore as the perfect Dual DPS core. Thanks to her massive boosts to Fusion ATK and DMG Bonus in teams with 3 Fusion characters, she makes for a great partner, but we recommend against using Changli to receive Lupa's Outro buff as Changli deals little to no Basic Attack DMG, unless Changli's own Outro buff is more valuable like in the Aemeath+Lupa team.
Zhezhi - Zhezhi's 25% Skill DMG Amplify Outro buff can be utilized on Changli to replace Brant in a hypercarry-style team composition; however in spite of her extra flat Energy generation and despite the fact that she retains good personal damage off-field via Coordinated Attacks it's far from optimal — we only recommend her if you happen to own her, want to play Changli as a hypercarry, and don't own Brant.
Chixia - Leaning towards the easier-to-play side of Dual DPS teams, Chixia stands out as the only character currently being able to fully utilize Changli's Outro skill (20% Fusion and 25% Liberation DMG Amplify) and she's able to dish out some great damage because of it, on top of Changli's good personal damage, making the two a good pair.
Encore - A very good Main DPS option who can be supported by Changli via her Outro skill, which amplifies Fusion DMG by 20%. Combining their two good personal damage numbers together makes for a very solid team that can clear content easily when learnt. Be careful with this one as this is a step-up in difficulty compared to single DPS teams.
Xiangli Yao - The infamous hardcore Dual DPS pair for Changli, who can deal huge damage in long swap-cancellable windows that Changli uses to amazing effect. Additionally, Changli's 25% Liberation DMG Outro buff is appreciated to buff Xiangli Yao's key abilities like his ultimate nuke. When learnt, this duo deals monstrous damage. We however don't recommend it to any casual players, as its difficulty can just make it a bad team damage-wise if not properly played.
Cartethyia - Changli is probably the best option for Cartethyia outside of Ciaccona, but remains very difficult to use. Changli is the quickswap queen, and Cartethyia has a number of abilities during which Cartethyia can swap out, and Changli can weave in some of her own attacks, so they can both deal damage at the same time. It's additionally possible to time Changli's 25% Liberation Amplify Outro with Cartethyia's final Ultimate for extra damage. As usual with Changli, hard to use, but very rewarding if used effectively.
Jinhsi - The teacher and student duo is famous not only for having some of the highest Expert quickswap DPS in the game, but also for being amazing in the new Whimpering Wastes mode — able to clear tons of waves very quickly when played right, this Expert quickswap duo won't disappoint if you play it right; however, that's a tremendous ask in terms of difficulty, so be careful, it might not net good results for casual players.
Yangyang - A particularly fun and fast duo with Changli, who's free to use, sports proper damage and is fully quickswap friendly. Still a difficult team to properly get the hang of, but not too much to still dish out good damage.
Verina - One of the usual Healing Support options that can slot into any team. Super easy to use, provides amazing team-wide ATK% buffs and 15% DMG Amplify with one of the fastest rotations in the game. Enjoy. 
The Shorekeeper - Similar to Verina, a premium Healing Support option who can not only slot into any team, but also provide insane 12.5% Crit Rate, 25% Crit DMG, 25% ATK and 15% DMG Amplify buffs to your whole team. One of the best but also easy to use characters in the game. Best Team
Changli buffs Aemeath via her Outro in this team, while Lupa buffs Changli. Only ideally used in Quickswap if Aemeath doesn't have better teammates available. In most cases, use Brant.
Brant Dual DPS Team
Expert Team
VERY difficult teams to play, won't net good results for most. Pick your second teammate based on preference in strengths/playstyle. Verina is always stronger with Jinhsi.
Dual Fusion Team
Encore is stronger than Chixia, but more difficult to play.
Budget Dual DPS Team
This is a budget team so don't expect the best performance here — however it'll still work well.
Calculations