Optimize and get the best teams for end-game content in Wuthering Waves! Learn about the best standard-banner characters, how they benefit your teams, and what characters you should try to roll for!
With the release of Wuthering Waves, many players are swiftly reaching more difficult content, looking for the best characters for their teams. At present, Wuthering Waves offers three guaranteed 5* standard characters of your choice through banners and events, giving many players choice paralysis on who they should prioritize first. With this guide, you will be able to quickly plan and prepare ahead for future content with characters who will likely be relevant in future patches.
Currently, the most popular teams revolve around having a main DPS, a sub-DPS, and a support character. However, as of 1.1, there is a large disparity between available support characters and the large cast of DPS-focused characters, meaning harder access to crucial buffs for carries. As the game is also in its early release, this is subject to change.
The following criteria is used for rating the top five characters to roll for on the standard banner.
Flexibility – Characters who function as a strong generalist across multiple teams are valuable as they can be slotted into both your current and future teams. They have access to buffs that many characters can use or are easily able to contribute in a meaningful way that many teams can utilize.
Availability – The guide focuses on standard banner characters, as it is unclear when the next reruns for the current 1.1 Limited Banner characters will return.
Ease of Use – Some characters are far easier to pilot and use to their full potential or be more forgiving of mistakes. The characters in this list focus around easy to use abilities and combos, and characters that make the game easier for their teams.
Power – Undoubtedly, the key factor in characters is how powerful they will be in end-game content. This will consider both their current power levels where many players are currently at (Union Level 30-50), their power levels at low sequence levels, and their power level at high levels of investment.
Unique Role – Some characters provide a unique niche that as of 1.1 there is little competition for their role.
With these factors in mind, here are the top 5 characters to roll for on the Standard Banner in Wuthering Waves in the order of the best options at the top.
Without question, the best character for any account is Verina, a powerful 5 star healer who buffs her teammates with significant damage buffs. For the end game needing three teams for Tower of Adversity, Verina will undoubtedly stay as a powerhouse with the presently limited support options.
Flexibility – Verina’s greatest strength is her double role as a healer and buffer. Healers have access to the powerful 5-piece echo effect of Rejuvenating Glow, granting a 15% ATK increase to her entire team for 30s. Her outro effect adds an additional 15% All Damage Deepen, another easy way to increase the damage of her party. She does this while healing her party members and not taking up too much field time, letting carries take up more time to DPS.
Availability – As a 5-star character, Verina is one of the most easily accessible characters for new players with the 5 star standard banner selector, as well as the 50 pull newbie banner and 80 pull beginner banner.
Ease of Use – Verina is one of the easiest characters to get value out of, so long as she has time to cast her abilities and quickly swap out. With the long duration of the Rejuvenating Glow effect, players do not need to aggressively keep track of her buffs. Having access to the Bell-Borne Geochelone echo additionally makes it safer for her team, providing a powerful 50% damage reduction while active.
Power – Verina provides many buffs for her party, while having access to the powerful Bell-Borne Geochelone. Many consider her the strongest healing and buffing character compacted in the same role as of 1.1, a near must-have pick in preparation for end-game content while leading less investment than another DPS character.
Unique Role – As of 1.1, there are only two healers in the game in Verina and Baizhi. Both characters provide a similar role in healing and increasing the ATK% of their team. Given most teams are looking for supports in their final team slot, Verina is often always considered.
Often seen as the free-to-play weaker option to Verina, Baizhi provides a similar but slightly more niche version of Verina’s healing and damage buffs. However, as supports are in such high demand, she is the second-best option for the role of healing and buffing her team.
Flexibility – Baizhi’s greatest strength is her ability to slot into any team and buff their damage. Her Outro provides the same effect as Verina’s 15% All Damage Deepen, but only to her next ally. However, the buff is continually added to the next character every 3s with her healing, letting Baizhi get similar value although needing proper timing to keep up the buff when your DPS swaps on field. She can also share the same Echo set as Verina, as she will nearly always be in a separate team.
Availability – Baizhi is given out for free to every player during the main story quest, as well as on every banner as one of the standard 4-star characters. Players will be able to immediately use her as long as they follow the story.
Ease of Use – Baizhi requires a bit more effort to play than Verina, between timing the passing of her All Damage Deepen effect, to needing the current on-field DPS to pick up a buff Baizhi lays on the ground for another %ATK buff. Baizhi also demands more time on the field to maximize the value of her healing and effects.
Power – In most situations, she is the worse Verina, yet that same role lands her as the second-best character on this list. Many characters appreciate her %ATK buffs and healing, and the same access to Bell-Borne Geochelone and Rejuvenating Glow makes her nearly as valuable to her parties. As an added bonus, she has some of the most powerful effects in the Depths of Illusive Realm mode, making her a strong option for clearing through its content.
Unique Role – Much like Verina, she is the other available healer in the game as of 1.1. However, she does provide a 12% Glacio Damage increase for her party at maximum sequences, giving her an edge pairing with future Glacio-DPS characters.
Mortefi provides valuable off-field damage in the form of his Resonance Liberation, Heavy Attack Damage buffs for his teammates, and bounces in and out of the field with a super-fast rotation. All while dealing respectable damage on his own with a low barrier of effort on the players’ part.
Flexibility – While not every character can benefit from Mortefi’s Heavy Attack Damage Outro skill buff, his Resonance Liberation is one of the easiest contributions of damage, firing Coordinated attacks with the on-field character’s attacks. With more sequences, it continually adds ways of accessing these coordinated attacks, increased damage, and giving him a teamwide %ATK buff at maximum sequences. Mortefi’s role as a Sub-DPS is using his skills quickly and giving the next character lots of time to be on-field dealing damage, which many carries appreciate. Mortefi can also run both a DPS-focused Fusion Damage set, or Moonlit Clouds to increase his utility, giving him a fair amount of options to pass around his Echoes.
Availability – Mortefi is available on the standard pool and is likely to return in future banners given the presently small pool of 4 star standard characters, or while rolling for weapons and other characters off-banner.
Ease of Use – Mortefi jumps on field, casts his abilities, quickly ramps up his Concerto Energy, and sets up his teammate in a swift and easy combo. With more sequences, his rotation becomes more and more flexible.
Power – Mortefi’s greatest benefit is his synergy with powerful characters like Jiyan and Havoc Rover, providing them tons of extra damage off-field for their relatively demanding on-field time. It further helps Mortefi that many of his sequences are some of the biggest spikes in the game, especially as of current content where players are trying to beat content that is higher level. He is a character that will scale well into end-game and the present as players build their rosters.
Unique Role – As an off-field Sub-DPS character, Mortefi’s role as of 1.1 is mostly contested by Sanhua and Yinlin but finds a valuable niche in powering up Heavy-ATK damage and characters who rely on basic and heavy attacks. Given a lot of his damage is off-field, he provides more time than many other characters for staying on-field.
A bit of a controversial placing, as many tier-lists rate him at a low placing or average at best, and his damage and odd scaling make him less flexible for sharing Echoes. However, what Yuanwu provides as of 1.1 is a currently unmatched utility in making the game easier for players. Yuanwu provides interruption resistance, and a presently exclusive powerful break-bar damage increase, leaving bosses vulnerable fast and safely for other characters to deal damage.
Flexibility – Yuanwu hits a middle-ground of flexibility, finding a near universal use in his ability to swiftly break down a boss character’s break-bar. His DEF-scaling is a double-edged blade, letting you use echoes that otherwise would go to waste, but is unlikely to be shared among other users.
Availability – Yuanwu is a free to play character, accessible immediately after clearing the first area of the Tower of Adversity, as well as a standard banner 4-star character. For many players, he will be available on their teams out of the box.
Ease of Use – Yuanwu is one of the easiest characters to use effectively in Wuthering Waves, and is extremely forgiving for players who choose to use him in their teams. His rapid speed basic attacks give him easy parry windows, and his DEF-scaling makes him naturally more tanky. More importantly, his ability to grant both interruption resistance and break-bar damage increases windows for his team to deal damage. His sequences further make it safer for his team, providing a large shield buff scaling off his massive defense stat at his 4th sequence, and a defense increase at his 6th sequence.
Power – Yuanwu is a character that desperately wants levels, and the current time-gating and early state of Wuthering Waves makes it quite some time before Yuanwu reaches his full potential. At level 90, his base DEF increases to 1638, a drastic increase from level 60 (1046). High numbers naturally scale much better with %DEF increases to give Yuanwu better returns at better levels. But when Yuanwu gets investment is when you have one of the strongest potential late game utility DPS characters in the game.
But for now, many guides value the current power level of the character, where Yuanwu struggles at lower levels.
Unique Role – As of 1.1, Yuanwu holds near exclusive power to breaking the opponent’s break-bar, and his unique DEF-based scaling and easy parries makes him naturally much harder to kill than any other character in the game.
Jianxin is another particularly odd character to find in a tier list. In theory, her maximum potential is the equivalent of a solo character, capable of massive shields, strong DPS, crowd control in her ability to pull enemies together, and Resonance Liberation damage increase for her teams. A character that can perform the role of DPS, Sub-DPS, and Support should be the ultimate flexible character, and yet she has some particularly glaring flaws.
Flexibility – Without a doubt, Jianxin is a seemingly perfect flexible character, often finding her place either as a support or as a Sub-DPS. It helps particularly with the lack of support characters in the game that she often is in the third slot of Tower of Adversity teams along with Verina and Baizhi. But Jianxin’s rather demanding field time and... unique 6 second window of channelling makes her difficult to use optimally.
Availability – Jianxin is available on the standard banner, allowing players to access her through the free 5-star selector and casually through the newbie and beginner banner.
Ease of Use – Jianxin is a fairly easy character to play, but the main question is her ability to play optimally in difficult content. Standing still is often a death sentence even with shields, and 6 seconds in a fast-paced action game is an eternity, especially if one is standing still for bosses. She has a notable combo as of 1.1 in the ability to use the Bell-Borne Geochelone and her own innate damage reduction additively for 100% damage reduction, but it is unclear if it will be patched out.
Power – In an ideal situation, Jianxin providing grouping, shields, and respectable damage is more than any other character can ask for. But her power, especially in future content, currently depends on how easy it will be to protect Jianxin during her 6 second window of channelling. In the future, Wuthering Waves may release characters who can optimize her ability to channel or make it safer for her to contribute. However, even with these drawbacks, Jianxin’s supportive ability to pull enemies and shield is a fairly strong power especially in early stages of Tower of Adversity.
Unique Role – As the only jack of all trades as of 1.1, and as a supportive character, Jianxin’s role is quite unique in itself. Most players will be using her as the third support alongside Baizhi and Verina, landing her a relatively exclusive value especially as players can guarantee her with selectors.
There are many other characters who are very highly rated but have some notable drawbacks that keep them off the list. A huge priority in this list is ease of use for teams and players, lending value to how easy it is to pilot the character, and how much they can provide at low skill floors. Characters like Danjin may be absolutely insane at high levels of play, but often end up mediocre with mistakes. Sanhua is another character who likely would have made the list, having accessibility and powerful Sub-DPS capabilities, but is a bit more complicated to play than others.
It also happens that the list lacks main DPS roles. The list values characters who can be easily slotted into teams for future DPS, and given the large abundance of Main DPS characters both presently in-game and in 1.1, there is less priority on DPS as they are harder to slot into teams.
Overall, while you can choose to rely on tier lists, try your best to pick characters that you feel most comfortable playing for your selectors. Characters like Encore, Calcharo, and Lingyang are all powerful carries as of 1.1, and are all fun to pilot. Your enjoyment of the game should be prioritized over trying to optimize the best possible teams.
