Wuthering Waves Tier List

Tower of Adversity

This tier list assesses characters based on their combat potential in Wuthering Waves current most demanding content Tower of Adversity (ToA). ToA is a mode similar to Genshin Impact’s Spiral Abyss or Honkai Star Rail’s Memory of Chaos and requires multiple teams, strong Echoes and good Weapons. This mode offers a reasonable mix of Boss encounters (single target), Elite packs (2-3 targets) and AoE scenarios (5+ Targets), allowing multiple characters to find a niche but in the end, there's a bias toward single target focused characters at the top-end.

ToA Vs Holograms

ToA is not the most mechanically demanding content in Wuthering Waves with high difficulty Holograms requiring much higher player skill levels. Holograms though can only offer their rewards once, can be completed with a singular unit, punish specific character kits and are exclusively single target. For these reasons we feel Tower of Adversity is a better representation of an ongoing meta in Wuthering Waves. As additional modes or rewards are added we will update the tier list or add variants as needed.

Skill Ceilings

As an action-combat game, Wuthering Waves offers many combat options to players - some of which are not easily executed but boost certain characters' powers substantially. The Switch Cancel is an example of such a technique 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 on their maximum potential and best teams. Each character is assessed with only the easiest and most powerful switch cancels included like Encore Rupture. Harder or more frequent cancels, such as Calcharo’s Death Messenger cancels, are not considered.

Criteria

• All characters are assumed to be utilized in their full best 3 man team, played with optimal rotations without mistakes, using best Echo main sets and correct Energy Regen values.
• All characters are using maximum level gold rarity Echoes,
• All Echo main stats are considered to be best in slot for that characters build,
• Each Echo used by characters is assumed to have 5 sub-stats with average rolls,
• Half of all sub stats (12) are designated as “good” sub stats the character would desire where the remaining (13) are random. This represent good but not insane endgame gear.
• Characters are all rated at Sequence 0 unless otherwise stated such as the Spectro (Rover) who starts at Sequence 6. We will increase the 4★ Sequence limit in the future.
• All characters are assessed as if they have access to S1 of all 4★ Weapons, S5 of all 2★ and 3★ Weapons and S1 of the standard 5★ Weapons everyone will get their free choice of. The best out of all 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 and the ratings are adjusted based on their performance within the role. Don't try to compare characters between roles, because their ratings mean different things.

DPS

DPS characters focus on being your sole damage dealers and the rest of your team is built to synergize with them and make them stronger. Stacking Echo set bonuses, character kit's and Outro Deepen bonuses together to power up a DPS is the goal of many teams. DPS character generally aim to spend roughly 14-15 seconds on the field to consume all the team's buffs.

Criteria that impact ratings for DPS:

• Characters rotation difficulty and potential for mistakes,
• Character damage within best possible team,
• Characters on-field flexibility and durability (can they easily dodge during combo, will they die in 1 hit?),
• Character ability to deal with all damage types - Single target, Cleave and AoE but with a bias toward single target being valued more.

Hybrid

Hybrid characters directly support your damage dealer of choice, often with incredibly synergistic kits, specialized Outro buffs like “Deepen” multipliers or other beneficial effects. Almost always built to complete their rotation right before your DPS performs their full damage combo. Hybrid characters kits offer a diverse combination of supportive, offensive and sustaining capabilities and possess the most variety in gameplay and have many different niches. Most Hybrid characters prioritize generating their Concerto, Resonance energy, and getting their buffs up in as little on-field time as possible to maximize the field time of the damage dealer.

Criteria that impact ratings for Hybrid:

• Characters rotation difficulty and potential for mistakes,
• Character performance within best possible team,
• How many effective teams character is playable in,
• Impact of kit on a teams performance (units that carry a team rank higher),
• Characters on-field flexibility and durability (can they easily dodge during combo, will they die in 1 hit?),
• Characters 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 not to conflict with the majority of Hybrid characters outro’s only buffing the next character to enter. Supports aim to provide maximum buffs, utility, defenses and healing in as little field time as possible to maximize the capabilities of your damage dealer foremost but also your hybrid character.

Criteria that impact ratings for Supports:

• Characters rotation difficulty and potential for mistakes,
• Character performance within best possible teams,
• How many effective teams character is playable in,
• Impact of kit on a teams performance (units that carry a team rank higher),
• Characters on-field flexibility and durability (can they easily dodge during combo, will they die in 1 hit?),
• Characters effective damage contribution after including their buffs on the team,
• Total on-field time required to perform rotation.

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 the strike in a radius around them but does not consistently hit all enemies in the 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.
• Heal - Character can heal themselves or the team, providing sustain but also triggering the 5-P Rejuvenating Glow set bonus.
• Shield - Character can apply shields to themselves or the entire team and/or provide defensive buffs and benefits further increasing the survivability.
• Coord - Character can perform Coordinated Attacks consistently, thanks to a major portion of their kit providing damaging, supporting or utility benefits while not on the field. Or the character can make use of Coordinated Attacks to enhance their own kit.
• Multirole - When built in an alternative way, can move to a different category on the tier list and flex their role to another position even if it’s less conventional.
• Cancel - Character needs or is widely considered to be far more powerful with the use of “switch canceling” to enhance their performance.
• Ult - Character is ultimate-centric with most of their damage occurring during an ultimate window, creating a reliance on it. Without the ultimate active character feels lackluster.
• Hard - Characters rotation has very strict damage windows, tricky to land combos or sequences or both. Meaning this character can move higher on the tier list in the hands of an expert or even lower in the hands of a novice.
• Risk - Character that throws safety to the wind and treads the line of death with dramatically lower defensive capabilities than other characters. You will die... a lot if you don’t play perfectly.

25/07/2024

• Encore T1 T0.5.
• Encore is a character with significant potential for skill expression, offering both an easy-to-use and reasonably strong damaging rotation, as well as a devastatingly potent advanced rotation that incorporates Dash Cancels, Swap Backs, and more. The damage difference between the simple Encore rotation and the advanced one, which utilizes all available tricks, is staggering.
• When evaluating our Tier List, we strive to consider both the difficulty and potential of all characters and rank them accordingly. In Encore’s case, the community feels that her high skill ceiling playstyle is currently underappreciated in her rating. We agree with this assessment and will be raising her to tier 0.5. When played to her full potential, Encore is capable of some of the highest Single-Target damage in the game.
• Representing difficulty on our Tier List is a challenge. We recently dropped Calcharo due to his overly complex baseline rotation. Encore, however, is different. Unlike Calcharo, her baseline damage is easy to access and strong, and she has an advanced, competitive rotation on top of this, which justifies raising her tier.

22/07/2024

• Our team feels enough time has passed after the release of the game to raise all 4 stars baseline on the tier list to Sequence 2. Part of this decision is influenced by the large quantity of pulls and premium currency Kuro has distributed, allowing even F2P players to amass multiple copies of many 4 stars. All 4 stars' position on the tier list has been reevaluated even if their ranking has not changed. In some time we will also add a toggle to switch between S0 and S2, but we simply weren't able to introduce it in time for Changli's release.
• We feel many of the damage dealers in Wuthering have their place within the endgame meta and are absolutely viable. In order to ensure we can demonstrate the closeness of each characters' performance we have added an additional tier to the tier list - Tier 1.5.
• Changli has been added to the tier list. Her review, pros and cons that justify the ratings will be available on her profile soon.
• Jinhsi has proven herself to be far more powerful as we’ve learnt more about her, her team compositions and how to make use of her unique kit to overwhelm and invalidate many of the bosses in the game. Jinhsi convincingly has some of, if not the highest damage, teams at Sequence 0, making her the top damage dealer for Tower of Adversary. On top of this, Jinhsi’s airborne state has proven to be absolutely oppressive in the face of most endgame bosses, allowing her to attack with little need to dodge or suffer interruptions. For all these reasons and more, we’re re-adjusting the DPS column resulting in many characters moving down half a tier compared to Jinhsi.
• Jiyan T0 T0.5. Jiyan has good damage, grouping and AoE but lacks the defensive capabilities and raw output Jinhsi and her teams can provide currently. After consulting with the community and extended testing we feel it appropriate to move Jiyan half a tier below Jinhsi in the current state of endgame.
• Rover (Havoc) & Encore T0.5 T1. With Jiyan’s move to Tier 0.5, we’re moving Havoc Rover and Encore down half a tier to maintain the status quo as we still feel each of them are behind him in power.
• Calcharo T0.5 T1.5. Unlike Havoc Rover and Encore, we’re moving Calcharo down a full tier instead of only half a tier. Calcharo has potential to deal top tier damage, contending with the likes of Jinhsi and Jiyan’s top teams in the hands of a swap cancel, combo, bossing, no lag gaming god. But most players do not fall within this category as Calcharo is notoriously hard to play at even a reasonable level. In many cases, due to his long trick filled combos, reliance on Swap Canceling and punishing Ultimate duration, he falls below expectations, resulting in lower damage output than Encore or Havoc Rover. We acknowledge Calcharo can compete with the best, but he is held back by the severe difficulty required to actually use him to his full potential.
• Danjin T1 T1.5. In line with the changes to Havoc Rover and Encore, Danjin is moving down half a tier to facilitate the re-shuffling of the damage category. Her relative placement (outside of Jinhsi) remains unchanged.
• Jianxin T0.5 T1. As players are reaching the point they can confidently fully clear ToA with close to or maximum stars Jianxin’s value is starting to drop. Her biggest strength lies in grouping enemies and the majority of the hardest fights players are struggling with, have limited or no enemies for her to group. The stages she previously excelled at have become much easier due to players account levels being higher and them over-leveling most of the AoE content in the tower.

28/06/2024

• Jinhsi has been added to the tier list.
• Jinhsi is incredibly easy to play, has very few weaknesses in her kit and does phenomenal cleave damage, giving every other damage dealer a run for their money. Despite her reliance on coordinated attacks, Jinhsi has suitable options when choosing her teammates for both spenders and F2P players as well. For these reasons we’re placing her in Tier 0 alongside Jiyan, but we’ll be keeping an eye on Jinhsi and Jiyan’s performance moving forward to see if either of them can edge each other out in further testing and in the eyes of the community.
• Yuanwu T2 T1.
• Yuanwu finally has a place to call home and that’s side by side with Jinhsi. Yuanwu isn’t necessarily her best coordinated attack teammate but he definitely gets the job done even at S0. As Yuanwu now has very real meta relevance we’re moving him up to Tier 1 and will keep an eye on his performance as the community has more time to test him with Jinhsi.
• Spectro Rover T1 T2.
• Spectro Rover certainly isn’t bad but suffers from the fact they directly conflict with a superior option - Havoc Rover. Only being able to use one or the other, with most people choosing Havoc is a massive demerit for this character who currently doesn’t have any known team’s they’re strictly the best in. On top of this we feel Yuanwu has more meta relevance than Spectro Rover so keeping them together in the same tier doesn’t feel right. For these reasons we’re moving Spectro Rover down a tier.

17/06/2024

• Yangyang T1 T2 - Yangyang's performance in endgame has proven to be more limited than expected when compared to alternatives, for this reason we're lowing her from Tier 1 to Tier 2. Yangyang's gathering and crowd control abilities, while useful, are not on the level of a character such as Jianxin, who is able to clump up entire floors of enemies in Tower of Adversary to be bursted down with AoE. Yangyang's gathering is limited to 2-3 enemies in the best of cases, and none at worst, making it a nice bonus addition to her skill, but a significant downgrade compared to the floor-destroying force Jianxin provides. Yangyang's Outro has also proven to be less powerful than her piers. Granting energy is certainly a handy bonus, but one that can be made up for with sufficient energy regeneration. Damage amplification Outros such as Baizhi's and Verina's can not be compensated for with gear and can be the deciding factor in clearing a floor with 3 stars or not. Due to these shortcomings, Yangyang falls behind alternatives like Baizhi, resulting in her moving down a tier.

06/06/2024

• Yinlin has been added to the tier list.

31/05/2024

Jianxin has been moved to Support category and her rating has been increased from T1 to T0.5. After discussing, reviewing and testing different playstyles put forth by the community, creators and our own team, Jianxin has found great success in the Support role thanks to her CC, defensive nature, gathering and situationally powerful Outro. As big Jianxin fans, we’re very happy she’s able to shine in the AoE portions of ToA. For more info about her, check our blog here.

27/05/2024

• Rover (Havoc) T1 T0.5
• The Havoc Rover is as an outstanding character, fully capable of contending in endgame Tower of Adversity. Since their addition to the tier list, multiple new ways to play them and build their teams have been discovered - with the most powerful being the double Dreamless burst rotation team consisting of Havoc Rover (Dreamless), Danjin (Dreamless) and any support of your choosing most commonly Baizhi, Verina or Jianxin.
• It is no exaggeration to call this team one of the best in the game and we fully expect it to be a staple in a large amount of full clears of the initial Tower. That's why we're raising Havoc Rover to Tier 0.5 for now, but will be keeping an eye on their performance and any new developments that might raise them even further.
• Below we've linked two videos - one showcasing the power of the Double Dreamless teams and the other showing some rotations for the Rover.

25/05/2024

• Rover (Havoc) has been added to the tier list,
• Sanhua T1 T0.5 - With the addition of Rover (Havoc) to the tier list, who deals a large chunk of their damage through Basic Attacks, Sanhua finds another team to call home. And even when playing the Burst variant of Havoc Rover Sanhua is still a great choice. This addition means Sanhua is now the best support in Encore, Lingyang and Havoc Rover's teams - all of which are viable in endgame. On top of that, Sanhua also easily slots into other teams as a generic carrier of the 5P Moonlit set and Heron echo, meaning she can extend her usability even beyond this. With some of the most coverage, lowest field time, and effective Concerto rotations, Sanhua joins Mortefi as one of the go-to Hybrid options for most teams.
• Danjin received the Multirole tag. With the 'release' of Rover (Havoc), she can be now also played as Hybrid thanks to her Havoc DMG Deepen Outro.

23/05/2024

Our team has reviewed all changes made to each character in 1.0 against our experiences in pre-release version and made the following changes to our initial rankings.

"Deepen Multipliers"

In 1.0 all characters Outro buff skills have been changed from standard increases for example Heavy ATK DMG% (Mortefi) or Resonance Liberation DMG% (Jianxin) which stacked additively with normal increases to DMG% like Electro DMG% or standard DMG% to a new multiplier that scales outside of them called a "Deepen" multiplier. The "Deepen" multiplier is a true multiplier outside of the standard damage formula, meaning after all your normal team buffs including CRIT RATE, ATK%, DMG%, etc. are included. For example, if you dealt 1000 damage normally, after a "Deepen" buff of 15% you would now deal 1150. This is a tremendous change and raises the value of specific characters with Deepen buffs that are useful to the most powerful main damage characters as such tier list adjustments are required.

• Jianxin T2 T1 - Jiaxin has a Liberation DMG% "Deepen" Outro which is excellent for Calcharo, especially before Yinlin arrives as his premium support raising her value. Additionally thanks to community theorycrafting efforts an alternative way of conducting Jianxin's Concerto Rotation has been discovered offering her a much faster option and much higher potential to be played as a support. This new rotation involves starting and stopping her Forte Gauge Primordial Jade Sprial as fast as possible just to gain the Resonance Energy and Concerto from it. This new rotation loses out on some of her incredibly powerful kit like her shields but drastically reduces her field time making her a much stronger choice as a Hybrid character (which is even better now thanks to "Deepen"). This new option, on top of her old options, and her drastically increased supportive capabilities push her to a higher status as such we're raising her to Tier 1.
• We will soon update Jianxin damage calculations and her rotation on her profile too.
• Aalto T3 T2 - Previously Aalto lacked supportive capabilities due to his Aero DMG% Outro stacking unfavorably with other damage multipliers, but with the changes to Deepen this is no longer the case especially with Jiyan. 23% Aero Deepen is a strong option for one of the strongest characters and absolutely makes him a viable alternative to Mortefi (albeit a little behind in most full team configurations) for those without him or who want to use Mortefi elsewhere.
• While Aalto's buffing capabilities are similar to Mortefi's for Jiyan specifically, he does not have as many applications (Mortefi can be used for Jianxian, Jiyan and Danjin), he is harder to play than Mortefi due to some positioning being required around his Mist Gates, he relies on movement during his rotation (which can be a good or bad thing), takes up more field time and lacks Mortefi's Coordinated Attack ultimate. Aalto is behind Mortefi but offers some interesting evasive and defensive options and is now a real option on a powerful team, for this reason we are raising him a tier.
• Yangyang T2 T1 - With the introduction of "Deepen" creating and exploiting damage windows on DPS characters has become more powerful. Many of the current characters in the game such as Calcharo, Jiyan and Encore all require their Ultimate in order to achieve maximum damage and will aim to have it active at the same time as all team buffs and a powerful "Deepen" multiplier. Yangyang's Outro offers Energy Regen - something that can assist these characters with gaining access to their Ultimates faster in order to exploit that burst window which is now more valuable compared to previous versions of the game. With the rise of Deepen multipliers and most of them being restricted to "next character only", the fact Yangyang has an alternative which works around this, grants her a lot of value in team compositions.
• You can use your DPS ultimate burst window, swap to Yangyang, charge up her Concerto, use her Outro on your main DPS for energy then switch to your Deepen buffer earn the Concerto there and then go straight back into Ultimate Burst that much faster thanks to Yangyang. For these reasons on top of her already great and flexible supportive kit we're raising her up a tier for now.
• Taoqi. Like Jianxin and Aalto, Taoqi possesses a "Deepen" multiplier but for Resonance Skill damage. Currently based on our research the only DPS that deals a large amount of Resonance Skill damage is Chixia whose performance isn't a match for higher rated damage dealers. Due to Taoqi's "Deepen" bonus not being immediately applicable in patch 1.0 we're leaving her were she is for now but keeping an eye on her ready to take action if a new character or current character shifts to abusing Resonance Skill damage high up the tiers.
• Yuanwu received major mechanical changes compared to CBT2 and we're currently retesting him and his placement may change in the future.

Damage Dealer Changes

Many have noted large changes to character balance between CBT2 and 1.0 for DPS characters like Calcharo and Encore. Please rest assured all Prydwen's calculations already have all these nerfs factored in and our tier list also accounts for them.

20/05/2024

Initial release of the tier list.