Wuthering Waves Tier List

We offer separate tier lists that assess characters based on different criteria due to the diversity of character traits and abilities different contents require in order to beat them. As a result, we recommend you to check all of the tier lists we offer before concluding on a character’s full position in the game’s meta. The better they perform in a variety of gamemodes, the more valuable they are overall.

Important! Characters are ordered alphabetically within a tier.

Tower of Adversity

This tier list assesses characters based on their combat potential in one of Wuthering Waves’ most challenging endgame contents, Tower of Adversity (ToA). This tier list assesses their performance in the Hazard Zone that resets periodically, as other zones do not reset. ToA is a mode similar to Genshin Impact’s Spiral Abyss or Honkai Star Rail’s Memory of Chaos and requires 3 teams of 3 equipped with strong Echoes and good Weapons. This mode offers a reasonable mix of Boss encounters (single target) and Elite packs (2-3 targets) along with rare AoE scenarios (5+ targets), allowing different categories of characters to find a niche. However, a bias towards single-target is present, as the most challenging floors are centered around beating Boss enemies.

Whimpering Wastes

This tier list assesses characters based on their combat potential in another challenging endgame content, Whimpering Wastes (WhiWa). This gamemode, in a similar fashion to Honkai Star Rail’s Pure Fiction, heavily favours a character’s ability to deal with several waves of smaller, lower health enemies quickly (AoE). It requires 2 teams of 3 equipped with strong Echoes and good Weapons. AoE characters are very strongly favoured over single-target ones, almost always creating a big discrepancy between the two archetypes.

Characters on this Tier List are evaluated based on their average performance in the "Infinite Torrents" stage (final stage) where players are given a total of 2 minutes to clear as many waves of enemies as they can.

Skill Ceilings

As an action-combat game, Wuthering Waves offers many combat mechanics for players to exploit - some of which are not easily executed, but can boost character performance drastically. Swap Cancelling is an example of such a mechanic, allowing you to switch out a character mid-attack to a new character while still fully executing the move you interrupted, essentially allowing you to attack with two characters at once. Such techniques won’t be for everyone, but a tier list must assess characters based on their optimal performance in optimal teams. With that being said, in order for our tier list to assess the performance of characters to the majority of the playerbase, we will only consider the easiest and most powerful swap cancels, such as Encore’s Cosmos Rupture, the Sentry Construct Echo skill, and other similarly lengthy animations. The most complex swap cancels with short time windows, such as Calcharo’s Death Messengers or Changli’s True Sights, will only be considered for certain character tags (Cancel, Expert) and will not affect characters’ positions on the tier list.

Buffs and debuffs that vary periodically are not considered, but may impact short-term unit performance.

Criteria

• All characters are assumed to be utilized in their full best 3-man team, played with optimal baseline rotations without input mistakes, using best Echo main sets and correct Energy Regen values. This means the overwhelming majority of rotations will be executed in a simplistic, one character at a time manner;
• All characters are using maximum level gold rarity Echoes;
• All Echo main stats are considered to be best in slot for that character’s build;
• Each Echo used by characters is assumed to have 5 sub-stats with average rolls;
• 15 Echo sub-stats are designated as “good” sub-stats the character would desire where the remaining (10) are random. This represents fairly high quality endgame gear;
• 5★ characters are all rated at Sequence 0 unless otherwise stated such as the Rover (Spectro) who starts at Sequence 6. 4★ characters are rated at Sequence 6.
• All characters are assessed as if they have access to R1 of all 4★ weapons, R5 of all 2★ and 3★ weapons and R1 of the standard 5★ Winter Brume weapon series, any one of which is given to select for free at Union Level 45. The best out of all these choices is used for their assessment;
• In Whimpering Wastes, all characters are assessed as if they have access to any "Exquisite Token" (purple rarity). The best out of these choices is used for their assessment;
• All characters are considered to be the maximum possible level with all Fortes upgraded to maximum rank with a maximum level Weapon.

Roles

We compare characters within their role - so DPS are compared to other DPS for example, and their ratings are adjusted based on their performance within the role. Please do not compare characters between roles, as their ratings are based on entirely separate criteria.

DPS

DPS characters focus on being your main damage dealers and the rest of your team is built to synergize with them and make them stronger. Stacking Echo set bonuses, character kits and Outro Amplify bonuses together to power up a DPS is the goal of a lot of meta teams. Some exceptions exist as certain DPS characters can be played with multiple characters of the same role, but they’ll generally aim to occupy the most of your team’s on-field time, sometimes even up to 14 or 15 seconds. This time can vary depending on the character, but in all cases they’ll have the goal of making the most of your team’s buffs to deal the majority of your team’s damage.

Criteria that impact ratings for DPS:

• Character rotation difficulty (potential for mistakes, or severe decrease in performance if their playstyle isn’t the absolute best possible);
• Character damage within best possible team;
• Character on-field flexibility and adaptability (Does being forced to dodge hurt them? Are they able to follow a scripted rotation easily? Can they adapt to different enemy mechanics?);
• Character ability to deal with different situations (AoE, Cleave, Single Target). This has a minor impact in ToA as single-target is favoured. In Whimpering Wastes, dealing AoE or Cleave damage is heavily favoured.

Hybrid

Hybrid characters directly support your damage dealer of choice, often with incredibly synergistic kits, specialized Outro buffs like “Amplify” multipliers or other beneficial effects, or even by being a great source of secondary damage. They’re often built to complete their rotation right before your DPS performs their full damage combo, as their buffs may, in some cases, expire when switching. Hybrid characters, fittingly to their name, can often execute a variety of roles and offer offensive, supportive or sustaining abilities, if not all three at the same time. As a result of this, they fill the widest variety of niches and playstyles. They typically want to execute their combos in the shortest time windows possible in order to generate Concerto and Resonance Energy quickly to get their buffs up for your main damage dealer in the shortest amount of time. Certain Hybrid characters may be especially desired to deal additional damage in concordance with your main damage dealer, but in any case they’ll usually want to swap in and out of the field quickly.

Criteria that impact ratings for Hybrid:

• Character rotation difficulty (potential for mistakes, or severe decrease in performance if their playstyle isn’t the absolute best possible);
• Character performance within best possible team;
• How many effective teams the character is playable in;
• Impact of kit on a team’s performance (units that can carry teams a rank higher);
• Character on-field flexibility and adaptability (Does being forced to dodge hurt them? Are they able to follow a scripted rotation easily? Can they adapt to different enemy mechanics?);
• Character effective damage contribution after including their buffs on the team;
• Total on-field time required to perform rotation.

Support

Support characters must have the capability to provide benefit to the team regardless of the order in which they are switched in, so as to not conflict with the majority of Hybrid characters’ Outro buffs, that tend to solely buff the next character to enter. Their primary utility is to provide team-wide buffing, but they may often be desirable by providing defensive and sustaining/healing capabilities as well; all of this in the shortest field time possible, as they typically aren’t personally responsible for the majority of their team’s damage, in order to maximize the potential of your DPS and Hybrid characters.

Criteria that impact ratings for Supports:

• Character rotation difficulty (potential for mistakes, or severe decrease in performance if their playstyle isn’t the absolute best possible);
• Character performance within best possible teams;
• How many effective teams the character is playable in;
• Impact of kit on a team’s performance (units that can carry teams a rank higher);
• Character on-field flexibility and adaptability (Does being forced to dodge hurt them? Are they able to follow a scripted rotation easily? Can they adapt to different enemy mechanics?);
• Character effective damage contribution after including their buffs on the team;
• Total on-field time required to perform rotation.

Other criteria affecting the ratings

The criteria above this section apply to all our tier lists; however, each unique tier list rates characters based on their average value in the specific mode it represents. Hence, the higher a character is rated on a given tier list, the greater their power and usability in the mode, making accessing all rewards easier for players. We do not consider going for the highest scores or lowest time, only the ability to easily max out rewards. However, some criteria may be specific to certain character archetypes, or within certain modes altogether, depending on the tier list you view. They are as follows:

• For certain Hybrids: ability to perform effectively at lower levels of investment (if applicable, this is only a slight bonus judged on a separate scale and never negatively impacts other character ratings);
• For Healing and Shielding Supports: how much sustain/defensive utility they provide to the team, how much they allow for mistakes during gameplay;
• For Whimpering Wastes characters: ability to gather enemies efficiently, ability to deal with multiple waves of enemies quickly.

Additional specific criteria may be developed according to game updates/meta shifts.

Special tags

Tags represent the most defining features of a character's kit.

• ST - Character deals mostly single-target damage to enemies but can hit multiple enemies if they are stacked directly on top of each other.
• Cleave - Character has a mix of smaller range cleaving attacks or attacks that strike in a radius around them but does not consistently hit all enemies on screen with the majority of their rotation.
• AoE - A large portion of these characters’ damage or benefit is in the form of pure AoE, hitting most if not all enemies on the battlefield.
• Frazzle: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Spectro Frazzle to enemies.
• Erosion: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Aero Erosion to enemies.
• Bane: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Havoc Bane to enemies. (Currently unused).
• Burst: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Fusion Burst to enemies. (Currently unused).
• Chafe: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Glacio Chafe to enemies. (Currently unused).
• Flare: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Electro Flare to enemies. (Currently unused).
• Sustain - Character can provide effects that increase the team’s resistance to damage, such as Healing, Shielding or Damage Reduction. This tag is only given to characters who can provide these effects to party members other than themselves.
• Coord - Character can perform or benefit from Coordinated Attacks consistently, thanks to a major portion of their kit revolving around Coordinated Attacks or being able to execute Coordinated Attacks, providing damage and/or utility even when off-field.
• Control - Character has elements in their kit that can hinder enemy actions, such as freezing, slowing or stunning them.
• Gather - Character is effective at grouping clumps of small enemies together, allowing you to deal with several targets at once effectively.
• Ult - Character is ultimate-centric with most of their damage occurring during or via an ultimate, creating a reliance on it. Without the ultimate available, the character feels lackluster.
• Partner - Character is graded based on their best team as normal, but is especially reliant on being partnered with one specific character in order to function at the highest level. Characters marked with this tag will perform at least one tier lower than their listed position on the tier list without those characters alongside them (sometimes even more).
• Expert - Character can be considered one placement higher than their default tier list ranking, but has an optimal playstyle that needs to be mastered to qualify for that higher rating. Characters only obtain this tag if the expert playstyle creates a significant discrepancy in power compared to their baseline playstyle, more so than characters without the tag.

Meta Lines

Meta Lines categorize each section of the tier list into a power bracket. Here are the three brackets:

• Apex Characters (T0 & T0.5) - characters in this bracket are the cream of the crop. They’ll make clearing content a breeze, by doing some of the best damage numbers in the game, and/or providing massive buffs or debuffs quickly. Certain sustain characters even make dying practically impossible no matter how little you dodge enemy attacks. In their best teams, these characters make achieving the best results simple and consistent.
• Meta Characters (T1 & T1.5) - characters in this bracket still clear endgame contents easily, however they may need you to put more effort in your playstyle, or require higher levels of investment to perform comparatively to top tiers. This can be because they’re more restrictive in their builds, they’re mechanically intensive, they’re overshadowed by better options, or they possess a notable weakness or downside. Most often a mix of these reasons, they’ll regardless not disappoint if you give them the conditions they need to shine.
• Niche Characters (T2 & T3) - characters in this bracket are lacking in their respective roles. They have one fundamental flaw that makes them comparatively worse to higher tier characters, or they have multiple smaller flaws that add up together. More often than not, they cover a niche that’s filled by another unit that performs much easier than them. These characters still possess the ability to clear all content given the right amount of love, however they’re played noticeably less and will require higher maintenance to perform.

29/04/2025

Now that 1 year of Wuthering Waves meta developments have occurred, we've taken the time to revamp the Tier List from a design perspective (we also took some steps towards this goal last Changelog). New tags were added, old ones were revised and unnecessary ones were deleted as well, all in an effort to sum the essential traits of any character in a few keywords. Additionally, some characters may now appear in multiple categories if both are relevant to their meta position. This may mean certain characters who can serve other roles on the team aren't present on the Tier List under those different roles, as in some cases, it isn't relevant to their meta performance. As usual, remember characters are assessed based on the category they're in.

On top of this, we've been talking about it for a while, so finally a bunch of rotations have been updated for older characters with more accurate frame data and more optimized inputs wherever possible. This includes a bunch of the previous cast, and we even feature multiple playstyles on certain characters' gameplay sections, all of this with calculations provided — feel free to check it out!

This will be a lengthy changelog due to the amount of changes we've done this patch, so let's get into the Tower of Adversity placement changes (tag changes will be mentioned later with the affected characters):

• Zani added as T0 DPS. From the testing we had done and our calculations, in her best team Zani's performance is astounding. Undoubtedly it warrants T0, even without her Signature weapon factored in her ranking. Very high damage, reasonable field time, lots of damage reduction and simple to play — all the traits that make a character top tier, plain and simple. We'll be looking closely at the performance of other T0 characters relatively to Zani to decide how we'll go about any potential ranking changes to older DPS characters, so you can expect changes to occur during the second phase of Patch 2.3 with Ciaccona's release.
• Phoebe added as T0 Hybrid. In her best team with Zani, Phoebe's Confession mode provides a massive 100% Spectro Frazzle DMG Amplify and even a 10% Spectro RES Shred to top it off. Phoebe taking moderate field time and providing these huge buffs for one of the best DPS characters in the game definitely warrant a T0 placement, no doubt.
• Brant added as T1 DPS. As a Main DPS with Sanhua and a Support character, Brant actually has potential to take note of, but note that it won't function this well without his more optimized DPS playstyle which uses two Fortes per rotation. The rotation is marked for you to try out on the Gameplay section of his page — feel free to try him out!
• Rover-Spectro added as T1 Support. Spectro Rover has always seen a lot of use as a Rejuvenating Glow Support for Phoebe teams, and now that they've got Zani to work with, they've secured themselves a spot in T1 under this role.
• Danjin added as T1.5 DPS. Now that Danjin got Cantarella to work with, as well as Roccia and Mortefi previously, as a Main DPS Danjin can genuinely perform assuming you have her S6. Note that her Sequences are big damage boosts, but at S6 with the right teammates she definitely has potency.
• Aalto Added as T3 Hybrid. Aalto can still serve as a niche replacement to Mortefi in Jiyan teams, however in general he sees very little use, but he can still perform if you give him the chance.

Now let's get into the Tag changes, starting with the new tags we're adding:

• The Partner tag is returning from the Honkai Star Rail and ZZZ sections of the website for Zani and Phoebe (Hybrid). The description for the tag is as follows: Character is graded based on their best team as normal, but is especially reliant on being partnered with one specific character in order to function at the highest level. Characters marked with this tag will perform at least one tier lower than their listed position on the tier list without those characters alongside them (sometimes even more).
• Zani and Phoebe (Hybrid) need each other to perform at their best. Phoebe's confession state buffs Spectro Frazzle DMG by massive amounts, a damage type only Zani can do a lot of and Zani's damage is balanced around these buffs. As a result, Zani will underperform severely without Confession Phoebe to support her due to the massive buffs she provides, and Confession Phoebe can only function with Zani currently, so these factors require the Partner tag be present. Zani can still function without Phoebe but the difference in performance will be felt and her performance won't match other T0 characters. Phoebe (DPS) could've been considered for this tag relating to Spectro Rover, but with Ciaccona being able to apply Spectro Frazzle, we're waiting until her release to see where DPS Phoebe stands.
• We're adding two tags denoting to Crowd Control abilities:Control and Gather, as sometimes they are a core element of a character's gameplay especially in Whimpering Wastes. The descriptions for the tags are as follows:
• Control: Character has elements in their kit that can hinder enemy actions, such as freezing, slowing or stunning them.
• Affected characters: Carlotta, Phoebe, Xiangli Yao, Cantarella, Spectro Rover.
• Gather: Character is effective at grouping clumps of small enemies together, allowing you to deal with several targets at once effectively.
• Affected characters: Jinhsi, Phoebe, Jiyan, Roccia, Yangyang, Jianxin, Shorekeeper.

To declutter some redundant/irrelevant tags, we're revising some older tags and deleting ones that aren't useful anymore. Here's what's affected:

• Heal and Shield tags are being regrouped under the umbrella of the Sustain tag. The description for the tag is as follows: Character can provide effects that increase the team’s resistance to damage, such as Healing, Shielding or Damage Reduction. This tag is only given to characters who can provide these effects to party members other than themselves.
• Affected characters: Brant, Cantarella, Spectro Rover, Jianxin, Taoqi, Shorekeeper, Verina, Baizhi, Youhu, Aero Rover, Yuanwu.
• We judged the Debuff tag to be too broad of an umbrella to regroup all different Status Infliction mechanics, so we are separating them by element. The tag descriptions are as follows:
• Frazzle: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Spectro Frazzle to enemies.
• Erosion: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Aero Erosion to enemies.
• Bane: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Havoc Bane to enemies. (Currently unused).
• Burst: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Fusion Burst to enemies. (Currently unused).
• Chafe: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Glacio Chafe to enemies. (Currently unused).
• Flare: Character's kit relies upon or is able to apply Electro Flare to enemies. (Currently unused).
• Affected characters: Phoebe, Zani, Aero Rover, Spectro Rover.
• We're removing the Cancel tag and the Multirole tag. In the case of the Cancel tag, it was redundant with the Expert tag in terms of indicating a degree of player skill is necessary to fully exploit the character, while in the case of the Multirole tag we've already covered it by including characters in multiple tiers, so we're getting rid of it for that reason.
• Lastly, we're revising some older tags on characters, including the following:
• Brant Ult tag added. This is because Brant needs his Ultimate to enter his My Moment state where his Forte point generation increases and his Forte nuke is enhanced.
• Danjin (Hybrid) Expert +1 tag removed. Danjin as a Hybrid buffer does not perform to T1 level even when optimized, so she does not warrant the Expert tag.
• Yangyang Expert +1 tag removed. Same reasoning as Danjin (Hybrid).
• Youhu Coord tag added. Youhu's kit is really dependent on including a teammate who can execute Coordinated Attacks in order to buff them via her Outro skill, so she gets the tag for this reason.

Let's tackle the Whimpering Wastes placement changes now:

• Zani Added as T0.5 DPS. Zani's performance in Whimpering Wastes needs further testing to see whether she clearly places in T0.5 or not, since judging by her wide AoE abilities it's not so clear. However, we do expect similar performance to Carlotta so we're sliding her in T0.5 for now. We'll keep testing her and finalize her placement in time for Ciaccona's release in the second phase. (She also gets the Partner tag here.)
• Phoebe Added as T1 Hybrid. Confession Phoebe is tied to Zani so putting her in the same tier as Zhezhi, who's tied to Carlotta for casuals, makes the most sense. (Jinhsi and Zhezhi is very well usable if you're executing optimal rotations, so we won't consider a Partner tag on Zhezhi.)
• Zhezhi T1.5 T1. Carlotta and Zhezhi together have shown to pull great performances in the latest iteration of WhiWa, which warrants Zhezhi moving up a tier next to Confession Phoebe. We highly recommend you try the Carlotta team in WhiWa if you haven't — it'll perform well!
• Rover-Spectro Added as T1.5 Support. Spectro Rover as a Support isn't as strong in WhiWa as in ToA due to the presence of DPS Phoebe and Zani being less felt. They're however still very much viable in those teams which warrants a T1.5 placement.
• Brant Added as T1 DPS. Brant as a Main DPS is actually very potent in WhiWa too — this is because his Forte nukes, Returned from Ashes, have a wide lingering hitbox which lasts across multiple waves. His performance is a bit connection-dependent for enemy waves to spawn in fast enough for him to nuke them down, so be aware of that when considering his placement if this is a problem to you (we don't factor it in and assume you're playing on a smooth connection).
• Yinlin T0.5 T1. Yinlin has unfortunately not been performing to the level of other T0.5 characters so she had to drop down to T1. Don't worry though, as Yinlin is still a great character with a DPS like Xiangli Yao, and T1 has characters that can still clear WhiWa easily, so she's doing great in the meta right now.
• Yangyang T0.5 T1. Very similar reasoning to Yinlin: Yangyang isn't really used in any of the top meta teams as better partners exist, but her general grouping capabilities still remain very desirable if you need them to clear WhiWa so she isn't in a bad position either, but she unfortunately had to drop down to T1 to reflect her performance accurately.
• Sanhua T1 T0.5. Sanhua is performing even better than expected in WhiWa. Thanks to her lightning fast rotation speed, she's able to guarantee extremely high uptime on your DPS characters better than anyone else, whether that's characters she buffs effectively like Camellya, Brant or Encore, or even characters that she buffs less but have low cooldowns like Jiyan or Havoc Rover. If HP pools were to increase once again, buffing would be preferred over running her in teams where her Basic Attack DMG buffs aren't wanted, however she's currently in a great position which warrants her raise to T0.5.

Note that some characters weren't added across multiple categories between ToA and WhiWa - this is because certain roles characters can execute aren't desirable in the gamemode and see no use (such as DPS Aalto which is exclusively single-target).

We have a single Tag change too (most changes were covered earlier and won't be repeated):

• Rover-Havoc Ult tag added. This is because Havoc Rover needs their Ultimate to access not only the potent AoE nuke it provides, but also the second AoE nuke they obtain from it in the form of the Dreamless Echo.
• Phoebe Expert +2 —> Expert +1. Phoebe is still subject to change in Whimpering Wastes due to Ciaccona's release, but she doesn't perform to T0.5 level even when played optimally, so we're lowering her Expert factor to reflect this.

17/04/2025

Since there were no new characters added this update, we won't be doing many big changes to our tier list. We're waiting until the 2.3 patch and the release of new characters to see if any big adjustments are needed, so stay tuned! Here are our changes to the Tier List's design:

• Added Elements to character icons to help with visualization.
• Changed "S0R0" icon to "S0" on standard banner characters. This is because they don't have signature weapons, this changes nothing to their rating. Affected characters: Verina, Encore, Calcharo, Jianxin, Lingyang.

WhiWa Tier List Changes:

• We decided to edit the Tier List Criteria for our Whimpering Wastes Tier List as follows (can be found in our About the Tier List and Criteria section):
• About the Tier List (Whimpering Wastes): Characters on this Tier List are evaluated based on their average performance in the "Infinite Torrents" stage (final stage) where players are given a total of 2 minutes to clear as many waves of enemies as they can.
• Criteria: In Whimpering Wastes, all characters are assessed as if they have access to any "Exquisite Token" (purple rarity). The best out of these choices is used for their assessment.
• The above changes were done for clarification purposes, but also because Exquisite Tokens do not reset periodically and are always the same, so they serve as the best baseline to assess a character's performance in accordance with the specifics of the gamemode. This led one character's placement to change, being:
• Baizhi T1.5 T1. The "Plunderer's Captain Seal" token is excellent to use in a team featuring Baizhi as she provides the most healing instances of any character in the game. This token has the power to clear waves of small enemies after 6 instances of healing, and Baizhi greatly contributes towards this total, more than any other available Support, which gives her very good performance and warrants her raise to T1.

28/03/2025

Now that Kuro Games lowered the HP pools of Whimpering Wastes back to its intended difficulty, we were able to properly test the whole cast in Whimpering Wastes to come up with some new tier list changes! We'll list them below. We've also finally gotten around to drawing some conclusions on Aero Rover — they'll be present on both tier lists so let's get the two ToA changes out of the way first:

• Rover(Aero) added as T3 Support.
• Aero Rover is a character who has some problems they can't really work around. First of all, they have a dedicated F2P-accessible 5-star weapon with an amazing effect for them, and it drastically enhances their kit because it provides the whole team with Aero DMG Amplify. Here's the thing: it's locked at 10% Amplify at R1 right now, and even when they get access to R5, it won't be that impressive compared to a Shorekeeper or a Verina in terms of buffing potential, besides it's exclusive to Aero teams so aside from this niche Jiyan option they pretty much don't fit anywhere.
• Some rapid-fire issues include a lack of teams, a lack of buffing potential, a rotation much longer than the top supports, a lack of damage compared to other choices, fulfilling a role in a team (Support) that's already too contested by meta options, a lack of access to their full kit (locked at S1R1), taking away the possibility to use the crucial Spectro Rover and Havoc Rover, and a lack of being able to exploit their full kit (no one makes use of Aero Erosion right now, and the only debuff applier we have outside of Rover is Confession Phoebe who's infinitely better as a DPS).
• This isn't even mentioning their inconsistency problems — against smaller enemies they won't be able to hit their mid-air attacks all the time, which are crucial to their rotations and can mess you up completely if you don't hit them, and no matter what changes happen to their synergies and damage/buffing potential this won't be helped. All in all they land as a bottom tier character, but hopefully they find some use in the future when someone allows them to exploit their kit.
• Taoqi T3 T2.
• On her end of things, Taoqi has seen a rise in usability ever since Carlotta came out, as a budget buffer for her. She's faster than the other budget Resonance Skill Amplify option Lumi (unless you double Intro into Lumi with Verina instead of Shorekeeper, but this doesn't help in the best possible teams) and while she buffs less than Lumi, her cooldowns typically line up perfectly with Carlotta's if you optimize your Yangyang, because Yangyang tends to be too fast for Carlotta to keep up, even if the two work brilliantly for more casual players. All in all Taoqi provides buffing for Carlotta with cooldowns that line up just right and this factor allows her to find a legitimate use case if you lack premium options for the Montelli lady, justifying a rise to T2.

Now let's talk about WhiWa changes:

• Cantarella added as T1.5 Hybrid. To understand Cantarella's placement, we need to look at what she does. She buffs Havoc and Skill damage. In terms of Skill damage, she's not that good with Changli, Jinhsi isn't that strong, and Carlotta has much better teammates in the form of Brant and Zhezhi. Finally, in terms of Havoc damage, no character truly stands out aside from Camellya — unfortunately Roccia, Sanhua and even Danjin all outclass Cantarella in terms of buffing strength. This makes Cantarella difficult to stand out, so we're placing her in T1.5 for now.
• Rover (Aero) added as T3 Support. Refer to our ToA explanation for most of the reasoning, however do be aware Aero Rover is worse in WhiWa than ToA because small enemies are the name of the game and they won't be able to hit them with their mid-air attacks a lot of the time, forcing you to alter your rotation and making things less smooth. This justifies their positioning in T3 further.
• Baizhi placed on Watchlist. This time around Baizhi isn't placed on the Watchlist to go down, but instead to go up — it all depends on one factor: the Plunderer's Captain Seal token, which does huge Electro nukes after multiple instances of healing. It makes clearing the content much easier when your team can't exploit more specialized buffs. So far only gold tokens have changed in the mode, so if it turns out that purple tokens always stay the same, she'll go up a tier as she exploits this powerful token very well. However, if purple tokens do change next WhiWa iteration, then Baizhi will be staying in T1.5.
• Brant T1 T0.5. Something we had initially missed on Brant is that his Forte Anchor nuke has a lingering hitbox that stays for a long time — that means that when you activate it, you'll typically clear at least 2 waves at once using a single skill (can be even more with good luck and good ping). Generally though, as he's able to buff Changli, a top tier unit, and nuke multiple waves at once, this makes him a much more powerful WhiWa character than we expected, so we're raising him up.
• Carlotta T1 T0.5. Initially we placed her in T1.5, turns out Carlotta's a powerhouse in WhiWa, no less. She plays pretty much no different than in Tower of Adversity, which makes her super simple to use. Her damage is off the charts, so her big skills can clear waves multiple times. To top it all off, she has a great F2P weapon option in the form of Static Mist. This makes her one of the best DPS units in the mode, comfortably T0.5 next to Xiangli Yao.
• Changli T0.5 T0 & Expert tag removed. Now that Brant's released, Changli is more powerful than ever in WhiWa; he makes her easy to play and he's able to buff her damage so she can clear multiple waves on her own without the aid of a second DPS. She retains that team flexibility, Emerald of Genesis is amazing on her, and to sum it up she has everything needed to be a top tier contender for WhiWa, which makes her T0 (we removed the Expert tag on her because, well, she can't really go higher than T0).
• Encore - Expert tag added (+1). Encore surprisingly has a lot of potential to be tapped into for the more experienced part of the playerbase. We initially thought she could be raised up a tier fully, but at a baseline she remains difficult to use in WhiWa; this is because she has some attacks with some AoE but they're very low-range which requires very precise execution, timing and positioning, so it warrants an Expert tag.
• Youhu T2 T3. Unfortunately for Youhu, buffing Coordinated Attacks isn't a desirable niche in WhiWa. All Coordinated Attackers available are either low tier, or the high tier Coord units do so through the application of a mark, which doesn't last multiple waves so it doesn't contribute to close to any damage. This makes Youhu have very little justification in the game mode especially when compared to other healers, so she'll have to wait until a proper Coord unit makes her a viable buffer before she sees any raises.

27/03/2025

This time around the Tier List Changelog won't be as long as the previous ones. Three reasons: first, the new characters we got this 2.2 update didn't change too much to the meta, so little changes were justified in relation to them. Second, when it comes to ToA, we didn't have many of the points we made discussed by the community, so we judged major changes unnecessary (let us know if you have any feedback though).

Third, Whimpering Wastes had overinflated HP pools which Kuro changed this patch to make things easier; this made testing for the current meta difficult as we wanted to push out a changelog on 2.2's release in time for Cantarella and Aero Rover. Unfortunately we haven't had enough time to try out Aero Rover either but we have almost everything ready — expect them to be added in a day or two.

With that out of the way, let's get into our changelog for ToA. As a reminder, Whimpering Wastes will be updated in a few days and should receive more changes than what we have for ToA here — more changes are warranted for WhiWa, we just couldn't test anything yet.

• Cantarella added as T1. Cantarella is a good character that can fulfill many roles, such as dealing damage, healing and buffing — very similar to units like Brant in that sense, and similar in strengths and weaknesses to Yinlin, which is why we're placing her in T1.
• She has a solid position in the meta, but runs into issues in regards to her Resonance Energy, and her lack of a definitive top meta team where she's the best option. The only unit able to make a full use of Cantarella's Skill and Havoc DMG Amplify Outro skill is Danjin, and while she can act as a Main DPS (this actually makes the team pretty viable), it's hard to justify playing Danjin this way instead of as a buffer for units like Havoc Rover (or even Camellya if you don't have Sanhua available).
• This means in top Skill damage teams, she's outdone by units like Zhezhi, and in top Havoc damage teams, she's outdone by units like Sanhua who coincidentally both stand in T0. This makes it difficult to justify rating her any higher than T1. With that being said, Cantarella can hope for a future Havoc-Skill DPS stronger than Danjin who will be able to allow her to reveal her full potential, but until that happens, it's unlikely she goes up the tier list as things stand.
• Encore - Expert tag added (+1). Encore is a character that required a lot of testing from us because she's one of the game's most underused DPS units, so there's not that much to go off of. We fortunately have come up with some optimizations for her that allow you to squeeze much more damage out of her when executing proper animation cancels during her Ultimate window (similarly to Jiyan — the two always end up being comparable somehow). All in all, this warrants the addition of an Expert +1 tag thanks to the extra damage you can squeeze out of her — new rotations will be up on the website with calculations very shortly, hopefully in time for our WhiWa tier list update, so stay tuned!
• Yuanwu - Shield tag added. Pertaining to Yuanwu's S4.
• Rover (Havoc) - Heal tag added. Pertaining to Havoc Rover's S3.

06/03/2025

Our first Whimpering Wastes tier list update is here, Brant just released, and a ton of revisions to our past characters have been made — there's a lot of material to go over so we didn't finish everything for the entire character cast, however we're happy to announce we extensively revised our tier list assessments for every character on both tier lists, and we revised our rotations for around half of the character cast as well (not everything is up on the website just yet, we've added a few like Youhu/Changli/Baizhi but the rest will be up soon).

This was done because we revamped the Expert tag and some character rankings along with it: how we'll go about it from now on is feature every character placement at a strictly casual level following the definition in our Tier List criteria section. However the Expert tag is now allowed to cover discrepancies of more than one tier. In the future this can be as many tiers as needed, but as things stand certain characters have gotten the "Expert +1" tag while others have gotten the "Expert +2" tag. This means for example that a character in T1 with the Expert +1 tag will be T0.5 at an Expert level, meanwhile a character in T1 with the Expert +2 tag will be T0. We'll list everyone who acquired the Expert +2 tag below — everyone else is staying at Expert +1.

Additionally, for visualization purposes, we're clarifying on everyone's character icon that they're graded at S0R0 - this means no sequence nodes and no limited 5-star weapons (this doesn't change anything to our rankings, just makes things easier to visualize for everyone).

We're separating our changelog in 2 categories so let's tackle our ToA tier list first:

• Brant added as T1. Brant's very strong - he welcomes quickswap with other mid-air characters even though it's not necessary, his playstyle is straightforward, he deals a ton of damage, he heals and shields your party, he has a great Outro buff; so to summarize, all good things. However, a ton of his potential is locked behind his signature weapon, even more so than Yinlin. It offers him big amounts of Energy Regen that he needs, and a lot of extra damage on top. This makes it the only weapon that really allows him to utilize his signature Echo set, Tidebreaking Courage, while still being worth it for his total damage. With his weapon included he'd likely land around T0.5; however too much of his damage is locked behind it so we're leaving him comfortably in T1. Note that this means he's still a very strong unit, just not a top tier one.
• Calcharo - Expert tag changed (+2). It should be no surprise to many that Calcharo has the biggest meta discrepancy between a casual player and an Expert player who's willing to learn all of his optimizations. The new Expert tag revamp was done mostly because of him — it's impossible to depict his meta position accurately without it. Good luck to any Calcharo mains who are willing to learn all his optimizations; it's really difficult but quite rewarding.
• Changli T0.5 T1 & Expert tag changed (+2). If you took a closer look at our past Tier List changelogs, you'll realize this change has been on our minds for a little while. The new Expert tag revamp is perfect to more accurately represent Changli's meta performance for casuals. Brant helps her cause a ton as a hypercarry unit, so she's very comfortably in T1, however you can swap cancel so many of her abilities she can work with almost all other DPS units in the game in quickswap playstyles. Her versatility and viability at an Expert level is so strong it no doubt warrants her the status of top tier, however players who aren't willing to swap her every ability might experience some issues with her. She's still strong in that case of course, just not top tier, so we deem this placement most accurate for her.
• Danjin - Heal tag added. Simply fixing a small oversight (Danjin heals herself on her Forte heavy attack).
• Jiyan - Expert tag added (+1). In our past tier lists we considered Jiyan getting an Expert tag due to his Double Dragon rotation providing a significant boost to his damage; however it didn't warrant T0 performance. With more strong DPS units releasing causing his drop to T1, he can now comfortably wear the Expert tag, because he's still super strong himself if you're willing to properly execute optimized rotations.
• Mortefi T1 T0.5. Mortefi's not only strong with Jiyan anymore; Phoebe is one of the new candidates for the top 3 DPS units in the game and he works brilliantly with her, on par with Sanhua. This newfound flexibility in 2 top teams with both Jiyan and Phoebe warrants his ascension back to T0.5.
• Xiangli Yao - Cancel tag added. Xiangli Yao may warrant an Expert tag in the future because he's very swap-cancel friendly in Dual DPS team comps and can output ludicrous amounts of damage in the process; however unless you play him like a speedrunner (which isn't what our Expert tag covers), he doesn't warrant a T0 placement so we won't add the Expert tag to him. With that being said, if he were to ever drop to T1 with more powerful DPS units coming out in the future, it's very likely he'll get the Expert tag on top of the Cancel tag, so expect that to happen eventually.

And here are the WhiWa tier list changes:

• Brant added as T1. In Whimpering Wastes, Brant is especially strong because he buffs Changli, who's without a doubt a top tier unit, by a lot. He has a good amount of AoE in a lot of his abilities and his Forte skill hits like a truck. However almost all of his damage is concentrated within that single Forte ability, which causes issues to clear multiple smaller waves of enemies. As a result Changli prefers Dual DPS playstyles with other characters and he lands himself in T1 for now: strong but not top tier.
• Calcharo - Expert tag changed (+2). WhiWa being exclusively AoE-focused really doesn't help Calcharo who has a ton of issues landing his Death Messengers on more than one enemy - it's possible, just VERY difficult. He warrants Expert +2 by being able to perform via proper positioning, however for casual players he'll always land in the bottom tier - we advise not to use him in the mode if you aren't willing to optimize a lot (which is very difficult in Calcharo's case).
• Carlotta T1.5 T1. Carlotta performed way better than expected when the team first tried her out — turns out her abilities have just enough AoE that with minor amounts of positioning (which really isn't too difficult on her), she'll perform completely fine even as the sole DPS of the team. This comfortably justifies moving her up a tier.
• Danjin - Heal tag added. Simply fixing a small oversight (Danjin heals herself on her Forte heavy attack).
• Jinhsi T1 T1.5 & Expert tag changed (+2). To say the least, Jinhsi is difficult to make proper use of in WhiWa. It requires completely changing your usual playstyle to instead rotate fast with her on low stacks, typically in Dual DPS team comps. She practically necessitates that to perform so we're dropping her to T1.5 and adding Expert +2 to her — because truth is, when you optimize Jinhsi in this gamemode, she's way up there as one of the highest performing units in the game (especially with Changli as her partner, as the team has some of the highest damage potential out there).
• Mortefi T1 T0.5. Mortefi, similarly to Carlotta, has also been performing better than expected — he has no AoE abilities, however his buffs to Jiyan, a top tier unit without question, are very appreciated and outside of Dual DPS team comps Jiyan ends up performing the best with Mortefi. This makes Mortefi warrant an Apex character placement.
• Phoebe T1 T1.5 & Expert tag changed (+2). Phoebe is very similar to Jinhsi. In WhiWa she particularly enjoys Dual DPS playstyles and can perform amazingly well if you swap cancel a lot between her, a second DPS, and Spectro Rover (which is why both have the Cancel tag). However that playstyle is locked behind Expert play and without that she has a lot of issues in multiwave, due to needing Spectro Frazzle on enemies to do damage. As a result she drops a tier but keeps her initial Expert placement so she gets a +2.
• Verina T0.5 T0. For casual players who won't be making use of Shorekeeper's optimal rotations, Verina takes significantly less field time than Shorekeeper does. We initially placed Verina below her because Shorekeeper has grouping, an AoE nuke on Intro and stronger buffing. However for our core casual audience Verina may often end up outperforming Shorekeeper, so she warrants a T0 placement without a doubt.
• Xiangli Yao - Cancel tag added. Refer to our ToA changelog — exact same reasoning here, however Xiangli Yao has good AoE so he's likely to drop in a more distant future than in ToA (no guarantees though).
• Yinlin - Placed on Watchlist. Yinlin is somewhat of a question mark; after revising her rotations we realized the extra Concerto energy she gains from multiple enemies possessing a mark at the same time isn't all too powerful, especially since her Coordinated Attack mark is not possible to upkeep across several waves of enemies. She's still strong especially with Xiangli Yao however — so we ask for your feedback whether she should be in T0.5 or T1 (reminder: our Discord server is the best place to communicate your thoughts to the team).
• Zhezhi T1 T1.5. Zhezhi simply doesn't perform as well as we thought in WhiWa - she lacks big AoE abilities, her damage isn't sufficient to clear waves quickly, she doesn't buff top tier units. She's good with Carlotta and Jinhsi, sure, but even when optimized she's not at the level of Dual DPS playstyles with both. Carlotta saves her placement a little by still being comparable to Dual DPS comps somewhat (which isn't the case for Jinhsi at all), however she's dropping to T1.5 as a result.