CiacconaBuild and Guide

Ciaccona is a 5-star Aero Pistol DPS whose primary point of interest is her ability to apply both Spectro Frazzle and Aero Erosion (mostly via her Ultimate). She amplifies Aero Erosion DMG and boosts Aero DMG in several ways, and is characterized by her ability to rotate quickly while retaining an off-field presence, similar to Coordinated Attackers (even though she isn’t one). She additionally has great personal damage if you wish to play her as a Main DPS, it is a completely viable playstyle for her.

We’ll go through her abilities in order of how we execute them in her rotation. Her kit is honestly pretty simplistic so this won’t take long.

Her Intro skill allows her to skip instantly to Basic Attack stage 3 — this is important because stage 4 is the only important part of her Basic chain. Beyond that, it applies 1 stack of Aero Erosion, and like other Intros it generates a good chunk of Concerto Energy and does minor damage quickly.

Her Basic Attack stage 1 and 2 are pretty much never used, so only stage 3 and 4 matter. Stage 4 can be interrupted by several means, the primary method we use for this is with a jump. Why it’s important to do so is because it generates a wind clone of Ciaccona called an “Ensemble Sylph”. These Ensemble Sylphs have the effect of activating a “Solo Concert” which gives all party members 24% Aero DMG Bonus as long as the Ensemble Sylph is present. On top of this, the Ensemble Sylph will fully complete Ciaccona’s Basic Attack 4 even if it is cancelled, so you can cancel it at no loss. The duration of Ensemble Sylphs is permanent, but only 2 can exist at any given time. Due to this, you can pretty much consider this buff’s uptime as permanent. Note however that Solo Concert will not be activated on the specific condition that Ciaccona’s Basic Attack 4 is cancelled with her Skill.

An interesting perk of cancelling Ciaccona’s Basic 4 with a Jump is that it puts her in the air and allows her to follow up with her Mid-Air Attacks. Mid-Air Attack 2 naturally follows up into Basic Attack 4, which means you can chain Basic Attack 4’s quickly together by repeatedly Jump cancelling. We make extensive use of this in her Main DPS rotation and her Opener rotation to shorten it a great amount, we use it once in her standard SubDPS rotation as well to speed things up.

The reason why we do Basic Attack 4 is for 3 things: 

• Charging up 1 of 3 Forte Circuit stacks called “Musical Essence” (we explain this later);

• Activating Solo Concert;

• Applying 1 stack of Aero Erosion while generating Concerto Energy.

Ciaccona’s Resonance Skill is similar to her Basic 4 in terms of applying 1 stack of Aero Erosion, other than that it’s a quick boost to her Concerto Energy which we make good use of.

After building up 3 Forte stacks total, including 1 from her Intro and 2 from her Basic 4 done 2 times, we can cast a special Forte Heavy Attack called “Quadruple Downbeat”. It generates a massive 25 Concerto Energy, a necessary boost to finish Ciaccona’s rotation. On top of this, it deals a great amount of damage and applies 1 more Aero Erosion stack. It also has the additional effect of gathering enemies in its center by pulling them in, which is great for dealing with small targets all at once.

Last but not least, Ciaccona’s Ultimate causes her to enter a singing state called “Recital” on top of doing a big wave of AoE damage. This state will last even if she is switched off-field, and every 1.6s she is able to either manually input or automatically perform a wave of damage called “Symphonic Poem: Tonic”. Depending on the mode chosen at the start of her Ultimate (Aero Erosion mode by default), she will inflict either Aero Erosion or Spectro Frazzle on all enemies hit. It is possible to almost instantly switch from Aero Erosion to Spectro Frazzle after casting her Ultimate so the process isn’t too slow. Once this is performed, she is ready to switch out and apply waves of Status Inflictions off-field. Her Outro even amplifies all Aero Erosion DMG by 100%, so her Aero Erosion actually ends up dealing solid off-field damage, especially with Aero Rover in the mix to stack Aero Erosion up to 6 times instead of 3.

Regarding her meta position, Ciaccona was already in a good niche without Cartethyia and now that she’s finally released she’s even stronger. Similarly to the synergy Zani and Phoebe have, Ciaccona and Cartethyia complement each other’s kits perfectly. Ciaccona’s low field time as a SubDPS paired with Cartethyia’s high field time perfectly complement each other, and her multi-wave AoE Erosion application allows Cartethyia to utilize her kit to the fullest. Cartethyia being one of the strongest damage dealers in Wuthering Waves, maybe even the strongest, makes Ciaccona a very high-demand unit from this factor alone.

However, even without considering Cartethyia as a teammate, she’s already a character who can slot in many teams. The main points of interest are as a Main DPS, and with Absolution Phoebe a.k.a Main DPS Phoebe. She’s really strong with her because she’s able to apply Spectro Frazzle across several waves of enemies, a feature Phoebe was dearly missing to perform in Whimpering Wastes. Ciaccona allows her not only to perform in the gamemode, but to perform to top tier level alongside each other. 

Additionally, Ciaccona deals amazing personal damage if her rotation is extended thanks to her ability to chain Basic 4’s really quickly together, which allows her to access her Forte Heavy Attack multiple times in a single rotation. Able to access it twice, or even thrice depending on the team, Ciaccona is an excellent Main DPS choice particularly in Whimpering Wastes when paired with Sanhua to buff her Basic Attack damage and allow her to take a lot of field time. This is thanks to her ability to group enemies and spread her damage all throughout her rotation, even dealing some damage off-field via her Ultimate.

In a team with Jiyan, he and Ciaccona are a good pair even though Mortefi can be considered stronger in single-target scenarios. With that being said, Ciaccona has more AoE damage which is something to be considered, but she does boost Jiyan’s damage much less than Mortefi. Overall it’s difficult to pick one, we consider them pretty equal in performance to each other but this does add to Ciaccona’s team flexibility. 

Furthermore, Ciaccona can be used as a second Frazzle applier for Zani alongside Spectro Rover which allows Zani to access more extended combos without Phoebe, which Spectro Rover alone couldn’t cover before. Phoebe however remains the best Frazzle support for Zani.

In conclusion, Ciaccona is a character who has quick rotations, AoE capabilities, slots in many teams, while buffing damage by good amounts and dealing very good damage of her own. Overall, she is desirable for many characters and can even be used as a Main DPS herself, allowing her a ton of flexibility, one of the highest in the game. Besides, her full potential lies with one of the best damage dealers in the game currently, if not the best. All this to say, Ciaccona is one of the most valuable characters, as you are sure to have a viable team for her on your account no matter what, some of her strongest synergies making up for some of the strongest teams in the game, cementing her position as a top meta character.