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.
• 5★ characters are all rated at Sequence 0 unless otherwise stated such as the Spectro (Rover) who starts at Sequence 6. 4★ characters at rated at Sequence 6.
• 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 that 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 “swap cancelling” 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.
• Expert - Characters tagged with the Expert Tag can be considered one placement higher than their tier list ranking, but you need to master their advanced/harder playstyle for them to qualify for that higher rating.

02/01/2025

List of changes:

• Carlotta has been added to the tier list. The numbers and testing we’ve done shows that she’s one of the best DPS characters in the game who is also very easy to use. As a result we decided to put her immediately into the T0 row.
• Zhezhi T0.5 T0. Already argued by some as being that strong prior to Carlotta’s release, Zhezhi proved herself in version 2.0 as the best meta Hybrid option for arguably the two best DPS characters in the game — Jinhsi and Carlotta. Her brand new Jump Cancel tech found by our theorycrafting team additionally optimizes her into a Hybrid with a very short rotation - if players are willing to push Zhezhi to her limits. We’re moving her up to T0 to reflect how wanted she is by the top team compositions in the game along with her impressive base strength.
• Encore T1 T0.5. After further testing from our theorycrafting team, we’ve found out Encore’s single-target DPS matches Jiyan’s - who’s present in the tier previously above hers. Both able to be optimized, but also being more than playable in their best teams at a casual level - in either case their single-target DPS ends up matching as evenly as it gets. Their only difference is that Encore is exclusively single-target while Jiyan has huge AoE capabilities. This means Jiyan remains overall slightly stronger, but very comparable to her.
• In this logic, we’re removing the Expert tag on Encore and moving her up to T0.5 — her optimized single-target DPS matches the characters in that tier, but we deem the tag unnecessary as it’s not present on Jiyan. And Encore’s best team is in actuality quite easy to play at a casual level - where she still deals about as much DPS as a casual level Jiyan, justifying her moving up.
• Rover (Havoc) T1.5 T1. After a bunch of optimization both to Havoc Rover and their best support - Danjin, we’ve found out their DPS, even at a casual level, is certainly lagging behind the T0.5 characters, but not enough to justify a big gap between Havoc Rover and the high tier DPS characters like Encore, Jiyan and Xiangli Yao. To reflect the big DPS increases our new discoveries caused Havoc Rover to obtain, we’re moving them up to T1 to more accurately reflect the surprisingly impressive amount of damage they can deal. Keep in mind their position is still subject to change once we can acquire their last 3 Sequences, which might push them up even higher.
• Youhu T1 T1.5. After further testing on our end, we’ve found out Youhu holds a very small niche in the meta — only being a good Support option if you don’t have Shorekeeper on your account (as pretty much every account should have Verina and Baizhi by now). Lagging behind at least slightly in regards to all three generalist healer girls mentioned prior, she treads a very fine line between remaining relevant and going completely under the radar. Judging as she’s still quite far from a terrible character, we’re moving her down to T1.5 to reflect her situation.
• Lumi T2 T3. We were already hesitant on placing Lumi in T3 on her release, but with further testing, we’ve found out she holds no realistic meta niche and her meta utility is comparable to that of Taoqi’s. We tried making some Main DPS Lumi teams work, but they had and still have no commendable success whatsoever. Unfortunately lagging behind pretty much any other options, she’s being moved in the bottom tier to illustrate that. We will see if she will increase her value with Carlotta's release as she can be used there as a budget replacement to Zhezhi, but for now she will stay in T3.
• Moved Yuanwu to the Support category. Yuanwu’s only realistic use case was as a budget option for Jinhsi teams. Outside of that, he holds no niche in the meta, explaining his tier placement. Following this logic, as Yuanwu is always sporting the Rejuvenating Glow set and a 3 star Originite weapon as it’s most optimal on him in Jinhsi teams, we think he currently fits a Support more so than a Hybrid.
• Added new tags to multiple characters.

12/12/2024

List of changes:

• Lumi has been added to the tier list,
• Added new tags to multiple characters:
• Added Expert tag to Yangyang,
• Added Multirole tag to Aalto and Danjin,
• Added Coord tag to Baizhi,
• Added Heal tag to Rover (Spectro),
• Moved Rover (Spectro) to the Support category.

03/12/2024

In this tier list update we’re adjusting a number of character categories to reflect their most competitively played role in endgame with S6 in mind. We’re also expanding the selection of characters marked with the Expert tag and removing the Risk tag as the newer Expert tag makes it redundant. Thank you for all the feedback send our way, especially E-Thin, Gacha Smack, Serra, Sweat and Thundah.

• Danjin: Danjin has value both thanks to her damage output and buffs at S6, so we’re moving her to the Hybrid category to better reflect her not simply being a pure damage dealer. Also as mentioned above we’re exchanging her Risk tag for the Expert tag instead.
• Changli: We’re adding the Expert tag to Changli in recognition of her more challenging playstyle when compared to other characters. As a result we’re lowering her placement half a tier for the average player but as per the Expert tag for those who can play her optimally her ranking remains unchanged - basically Changli floor is already at a very decent level, but her ceiling can only be reached if you know what to do.
• Yangyang & Jianxin: With S6 (for Yangyang) and new teams in mind, Jianxin and Yangyang are moving into the Hybrid category to better reflect their position in the compositions and playstyles of the current meta.
• Yangyang calculations and rotations will be updated soon to reflect that.
• Aalto: Following up on our previous update we’re moving forward with shifting Aalto into the Damage category. As a Hybrid he currently has no team - at best he is a backup for Jiyan if Mortefi isn’t an option. At S6 he has an identity as a damage dealer so we’re moving him there for now. Though, he may find himself returning to Hybrid with the release of new Aero Damage dealers.
• Yuanwu & Spectro Rover: With Yangyang and Jianxian moving into the Hybrid category, we’re adjusting the rank of Yuanwu and Spectro Rover accordingly. Neither Yuanwu nor Spectro Rover have high meta relevance - Yuanwu has a niche position in Jinhsi teams but sits below many other better alternatives. And Spectro Rover sees little use due to their overlap with the far superior Havoc Rover. For these reasons we’re positioning them a tier below the newly moved Yangyang and Jianxin for now.
• Mortefi & Zhezhi: We’re aware some players feel Mortefi and Zhezhi are rated too highly based on the fact they’re “One Team Wonders” - only really serving as heavy hitters in Jiyan and Jinhsi teams respectively. Despite this we feel the teams these characters sit within are strong enough to justify holding onto their rating for now, but with that in mind we’ll be keeping an eye on them moving into 2.0.

18/11/2024

In our previous update we asked for your feedback on a few characters and based on that we’re making some additional updates to the tier list:

• Camellya T0.5 T0. After a few more days of testing, we’re updating her rating from Tier 0.5 to Tier 0. When measuring Camellya’s kit and numbers against other top tier characters, she isn’t a step above her competition - she’s quite similar (in a vacuum). However, Camellya (and her teams), unlike a lot of other characters is quite accessible, making achieving her full potential not only possible but fairly easy. Based on this, Camellya ends up performing better than her competition in T0.5 and closer to what Jinhsi offers - because of that we’re raising her to Tier 0 alongside her. Also, a different rotation was found that improves her single target damage output and we're currently testing it - once we're done, the calcs on site will be updated. Stay tuned!
• Changli T0.5 T0 and moved to Hybrid category. We’ve gathered and evaluated all your feedback on which category the community feels Changli should be placed in. As a result we’ve altered her category from Main DPS to Hybrid whilst also raising her into Tier 0 to better fit her position in the meta relative to other characters in this category. We’ll continue to monitor how Changli is being played in future patches and with additional character releases as to whether she’ll make a return to the Main DPS category.
• Yinlin T0 T0.5. Yinlin is a character we categorized on the edge of Tier 0 and Tier 0.5 at the time of our rework. She's able to be played in many of the top ToA teams with ease, but always with options for substitution (Xiangli Yao, Jinhsi, etc). With the move of Changli to Hybrid Tier 0 we’re moving her from one edge to another and placing her into Tier 0.5 for now.

14/11/2024

• Camellya has been added to the tier list.

As promised in the last update, we have revamped the tier list with the addition of 4★ characters set at Sequence 6. For some 4★ the update to Sequence 6 is a substantial one - for others it has less impact. Some 4★ characters have moved up in the Tier List while others positions have only improved relative to other 5★ characters with a similar role. Also this update is a general parse on the meta resulting in some characters moving position regardless of additional Sequences.

Additionally as a part of this update we’re also introducing a new Tag alongside removing some old ones to address the ranking of specific characters we’ve had trouble placing in the past.

Our Tier Lists aims to reflect not only in-game testing and performance but also to ideally align with community opinion and experience. If you have any feedback on the updated Tier List don’t hesitate to reach out and share - we’re always listening and ready to make changes as needed!

The Expert Tag: Internally we set an expectation of what we consider a reasonable level of play when writing guides and assessing characters performance. Sometimes characters' optimal play styles fall outside these expectations, resulting in a lower than expected placement on our Tier List but with evidence of extraordinary performance from dedicated/skilled community members. Our goal is to represent the value of a character to the average player but we also agree a character's maximum power must be recognized. The Expert Tag is our solution to this. Characters tagged with the Expert Tag can be considered one placement higher than their tier list ranking - we’ve attempted something similar in the past but we’re now making it far more obvious by branding the character's portrait with a special icon representing this higher placement. We hope dedicated players of these characters understand the lower placement, but with the recognition of potential with mastery of the character.

[Encore & Calcharo] Encore and Calcharo are the two characters at the time of rework we are attaching the Expert Tag to. Encore in the hands of most players is a solid Resonator with good Single Target and Cleave damage output boasting a relatively simple playstyle and rotation. However, in the hands of the dedicated Encore players, she becomes far more - she becomes highly technical, far harder to play, but also much stronger. She is the driving force behind the introduction of this special tag. Calcharo, similar to Encore, has a baseline performance much lower than his maximum potential and for all the same reasons we’re attaching the tag to him as well.

When reworking the Tier List two characters were the subject of much discussion, Changli and Aalto (S6). As a result of these discussions we’re placing both characters on our Watch List with the intention of hearing what you have to say on these characters before proceeding with any changes.

• [Changli] Compared to Camellya, Xiangli Yao and Jiyan, Changli doesn’t feel placed quite right. She has no meta defining “best” team when compared to these characters at this time and usually makes do with a non-perfect fit, hybrid character, double DPS Quick-Swap set-up or double Support team. Changli has fantastic potential but feels limited by teammate choices - she sometimes serves as a Hybrid in the Sub-DPS role and doesn’t feel like she has quite the meta foothold the aforementioned 3 have. We are also considering rating her as both Main DPS and Hybrid and she would then appear in both columns with different ratings - do let us know what you think of the idea.
• [Aalto] Aalto currently has no place in any team as a supportive character. Our only Aero damage character is Jiyan and Mortefi has proven to be the superior choice in his team. Until an Aero character for Aalto to support is released we expect him to continue to struggle as a Hybrid Support/DPS character. At S6 Aalto gains substantial damage potential with many considering him to be more of a main DPS. Our team is currently considering moving Aalto to the Pure DPS category until such a time a character he can support is released.