Wuthering Waves (WW)IunoBuild and Guide

Review

Iuno is a 5-star Aero Gauntlets character who can accomplish a wide array of goals on the team. She functions as an effective mix of support and damage, as she is able to heal the team, provide shields to herself, but also deal a ton of damage by herself and even buff the incoming character’s Heavy Attack damage. Iuno is a character of many facets, so let’s quickly explain her kit before going into the intricacies of her position in the meta.

Key Mechanics

Iuno’s main mechanic is called Lunar Cycle. She will primarily enter it via casting a Skill after her Intro (called Closing Refrain) or by casting her Ultimate. It has 2 phases: Half Moon and Full Moon. Half Moon is entered by default and will be ignored throughout all of her rotations, as the Full Moon form deals the majority of her damage and is tied to her Forte gauge, which she consumes to enhance her attacks in that stance. That Forte gauge is called Sentience and replenishes up to 100 points, gained from the following actions:

• Intro Skill provides 40 Sentience;

• Closing Refrain provides 25 Sentience;

• Ultimate provides 60 Sentience.

• Additionally, her Unfinished Refrain and Moonring Basic Attacks (in Half Moon stance) all restore Sentience but this will be unused in her rotations.

Her Sentience bar stores up to 100 points and will be consumed by the following actions:

• Moonbow Basic Attacks (50 points for the whole 3-chain);

• Moonbow Skills, called Arc Beyond The Edge (25 points per skill, 2 charges).

Every enhanced attack gives lots of extra Concerto Energy and also deal higher damage, making them a key component of her rotations.

As you can see, we already can tell a full Basic Attack string and 2 skills consuming the full Sentience bar — that’s right, that’s basically what Iuno’s rotation is all about.

It is however worth noting that her attacks will be enhanced so long as any amount of Sentience is available — the attack gets enhanced all the same whether there’s 1 or 25 Sentience available per skill, for example. It only consumes up to that maximum. We abuse this in her Main DPS rotation to take her damage to new heights.

But before we get too detailed here — how do we access the Full Moon stance? We first need to enter Lunar Cycle (as detailed prior) then cast a jump attack, called Flux. This makes Iuno enter Full Moon Stance and she’s ready to begin the main part of her rotation at that point.

Basic Attacks

Iuno’s standard Basic Attacks and Moonring Basic Attacks are all unused in her rotations. So they’re actually pretty skippable. However, her Moonbow Basic Attacks are used plenty, particularly in her Main DPS rotations. They deal a lot of damage, generate a lot of Concerto Energy and consume a lot of Sentience. The third Moonbow Basic Attack is a particularly lengthy 2-parter and makes for a great Swap Cancel window.

Do note that Iuno’s Moonbow Basic 3 deals much more damage than the first two, so it’s heavily recommended to go for the full chain. On the instance that an incoming attack has to be dodged though, worry not as Iuno’s Moonbow Dodge Counter packs just as much of a punch.

Skill & Ultimate

Iuno has a lot of skills, but she only really ever wants to use two. 

The first of which is Closing Refrain: It is accessed after her Intro, plain and simple. It deals a lot of damage but is not necessary to her Concerto rotation — nonetheless, it’s great to use as an extension to her rotation if it’s necessary for her to take up more field time to align with your team’s cooldowns, and it’s also completely worth using as a Main DPS thanks to the Sentience generation it provides. 

It can also be mandatory to use as a means to activate certain weapon effects; keep this in mind depending on your build!

The second skill is Arc Beyond The Edge: This is her Moonbow stance Skill and it has up to 2 charges, which we always use in her rotation. They can be animation-cancelled by her Ultimate, similarly to Ciaccona’s Forte Heavy Attack (where we use the Ultimate right after the projectiles have been shot). It also makes for a good rotation finisher due to its Concerto Energy being instantly generated, and the animation being fully Swap Cancellable.

Lastly, Iuno’s Ultimate makes her enter Lunar Cycle, and can instantly cancel any ability that is used before it. It also generates a ton of Sentience and is one of the 2 contributors to stacking up a big chunk of DMG Amplification via one of her Inherent Skills. And of course, it deals a ton of damage on hit.

Buffs, Sustain & How to Access Them

Iuno has buffs that she gives herself and buffs that she provides to the whole team. Let’s detail the buffs she gives herself first:

• Blessing of the Wan Light (Inherent Skill): Iuno gets 4% DMG Amplification per stack of Blessing for 10s, up to 10 times. She gains 5 stacks by using an Intro, and 5 by using her Ultimate. This effect ends if she is switched off the field.

• Waxing Ascent (Inherent Skill): Whenever Iuno casts any skill at all, she grants 1 very small Shield to herself (this only serves as a means to trigger the Crown of Valor Echo set and her dedicated Signature weapon effect, the Shield itself will not protect you from any attack except a flick of a finger).

Now for the buffs she gives to the team:

• Outro: Grants 50% Heavy Attack DMG to the next character switched in for 14s, expires on swap. Super strong, generically applicable buff. Also deals a small hit of damage.

• Full Moon Domain: Accessed via a special Heavy Attack which can only be cast at full Concerto Energy and deals a small amount of damage, Iuno can generate this domain which can grant stacks of Blessing (the same ones she gives herself) in the same manner, being if the incoming character can apply Shields to themselves multiple times. This is only usable by Augusta and will ideally only be used if Augusta is in the team.

• Healing: It is worth noting the Full Moon domain mentioned earlier, as well as the special Heavy Attack, both generate great amounts of healing, the domain granting healing as well as Stamina restoration over time. Additionally, all of Iuno’s Sentience-Enhanced attacks all give a small amount of healing to the team. If healing is particularly desired by the player, casting the Full Moon Domain can be considered.

Meta Position & Conclusion

Iuno is strong. Quite strong, but don’t be fooled as she is not quite as meta-defining as a Shorekeeper, a Cartethyia, or even an Augusta. The truth of the matter is, while Iuno fulfills many roles and is excellent at all of them, the characters she wants to buff work completely fine on their own with the F2P-accessible teammate Mortefi. Mortefi gives Heavy Attack DMG Bonus, can provide lots of buffs via the Moonlit Clouds or Empyrean Anthem sets and the Static Mist weapon buff being a pistol user. Additionally, his rotation is shorter than Iuno’s and he still holds a good chunk of personal damage in his own right.

However, we’ll repeat ourselves here — in the meta, Iuno is REALLY strong and competes with some of the best Main DPS in the game even though she’s intended as a buffer, which is a really good surprise and it adds to her solo pull value a lot. With that being said, as a Support who also wants to deal damage, getting a limited weapon becomes all the more important for her to really separate herself from Mortefi, and while she is a step above him in any situation, Iuno could be a redundant pull for many. In fact, Augusta and Jiyan don’t need Iuno.

But that’s not saying everything — while Augusta and Jiyan don’t need Iuno, Iuno doesn’t need neither Jiyan nor Augusta all the same. In fact, playing alongside Ciaccona, or even Jianxin, as well as Aero Rover, she’ll be able to take down bosses all on her own; even though she was intended as a buffing character. She truly is a force to be reckoned with, particularly considering she gets extra team utility in the form of healing and stamina restoration — if the player desires more of it on their team, that is.

In conclusion, Iuno is a great character who definitely separates herself from Mortefi by dealing higher personal damage, and having a higher buffing potential; but please keep in mind the characters she wants to buff can work completely fine without her on the team — their ceiling only gets raised even higher, but they retain a good floor nonetheless. On the other hand, Iuno herself is a great single-value pull by virtue of her Main DPS potential, and we completely think you should pull Iuno if you like her. She slots in a lot of teams, using different playstyles, and she’s effective at all of them!