AlanDood
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9 Min read Wuthering Waves has been out for almost a month now, and there has been a ton of innovation and experimentation when it comes to teams.
Some teams are easy to spot, with synergy being very obvious, but some characters are very flexible, making them viable in many teams.
In this article, I’ll cover the basic principles when it comes to team building, the different types of teams, and the best teams in Wuthering Waves right now.
In Wuthering Waves, you field a team consisting of three characters. You can only input one attack/skill at a time, so you need to find a way to share field time with all three members.
This is where character roles come into play. There are many things a Resonator can provide for your team, but it mainly boils down to a few categories:
For the most part, Support/Sustain/Utility are grouped together and referred to as Support.
Characters generally fall into one of these three categories (Main DPS, Sub DPS, Support), but there can be overlap as well. For example, Sanhua can deal quick damage with her Skill/Liberation, but she also provides an Outro Skill buff for Basic Attack DMG. This means she provides two roles as a Sub DPS and Support.
Putting together a team of 3 strong DPS characters won’t be ideal, as you realistically can’t utilize them all at the same time. (You can swap cancel many attacks, and have windows where two characters are on field at the same time, but this is more edge case)
In general, most teams strike a balance between DPS characters, Sub DPS, or Supports. Depending on the type of team you build, you will want to pick different roles.
Here’s a quick rundown of the current roster and what roles they generally provide.
The line between DPS and Sub DPS can be a bit blurry sometimes. Some characters are more suited for Sub DPS as they provide off-field damage, but others may have quick ability rotations that allow them to swap in quickly, and swap out.
You can technically build anyone to be your DPS, these are just the roles based on character kits to maximize efficacy.
In general, there are two types of teams in Wuthering Waves: Hypercarry and Quick Swap. While these two teams do have major differences, there can definitely be some overlap. They aren’t perfect categories, but they’re quite useful for labelling purposes.
As the name suggests, Hypercarry teams focus on one main DPS character and buff them up with 2 Supports. Hypercarry teams are often easier to build and require less investment.
This is because supports don’t need much to provide value. Let’s take Verina for example. Her Outro skill provides a universal DMG amplify, and her passive grants an ATK buff.
As such, you don’t need to invest resources into leveling her or her weapon up much. The same can be said with her Echoes. There are two Echo sets that provide buffs to your team, but you don’t need to level them up to activate their Sonata Effect.
Moonlit Clouds
These two sets make it so you’re able to buff up your main DPS character, focusing on their damage output. Furthermore, you can reuse these Echo sets on multiple teams in the Tower of Adversity. By having a Rejuvinating Glow and Moonlit Clouds set, you can easily build 3 Hyper Carry teams with minimal investment in two supports for each team.
Hypercarry teams are also generally easier to play. You don’t need to swap cancel much, and you can focus on parrying/dodging with one Resonator.
The main thing to keep in mind is ensuring that your buffs are constantly on.
The second type of team is a “Quick Swap” team. This name comes from the fact that you can swap between two (or three) characters to maximize both of their damage outputs.
For example, Calcharo deals great damage, but many of his attacks have long animations. By swapping and cancelling them, you get the full attack plus extra field time on a second character.
This playstyle was very powerful in the CBT, but it was nerfed quite heavily on release. Many Outro Skills provide strong buffs, but they don’t persist if you swap off a character.
This makes quick swapping a bit less powerful, but it’s still a strong tool.
Quick Swap can also refer to a team that uses characters with high damage, but low uptime. This means that a character will do significant damage with their abilities, but deal much less when they’re on cooldown.
By swapping to another character, you can have high damage uptime by utilizing the cooldowns of multiple characters. For these teams, Quick Swap isn’t a perfect name, and Dual DPS might be better. This is because you aren’t actually spamming the swap button, but just using a common team of DPS + Sub DPS + Support.
Quick Swap/Dual DPS teams generally require more resources since you care about the damage of two characters rather than just one. This means you’ll need to invest in levels for two characters, two weapons, and two sets of Echoes.
Every Resonator can fulfill multiple roles, but every character has a role they’re more suited for. You can build Baizhi as your DPS, but she’s more suited as a Support/Sustain.
Here’s a rundown of some of the best teams you can currently play.
While I listed some of the strong teams in the game, I haven’t fully covered how to build teams from scratch. Every account will have a different roster (for the most part), so figuring out how to team build with what you have is important.
I’ve already covered the basics of team building and the two types, but let’s list the current roster of characters and what roles you can expect.
As mentioned previously, Hyper Carry teams are generally quite easy to build. You have one main DPS and two supports that carry the Rejuvenating and Moonlit sets.
When it comes to your supports, you don’t even have to use traditional supports. Verina is the best support in the game, but you can’t use her on every team.
There are just a few key aspects to keep in mind when building a Hyper Carry team:
First and foremost, you need to determine what type of damage your Main DPS deals. For example, Jiyan’s Liberation empowers his attacks, considered as Heavy Attack Damage. On the other hand, Spectro Rover deals mostly Skill Damage with their Forte Circuit.
With this in mind, you want to pick a Sub DPS/Support that buffs up your damage type. In the case of Jiyan, Mortefi will be one of the best support options.
Mortefi’s Outro Skill provides almost 40% Heavy Attack DMG Amplify, which is a massive buff to Jiyan’s damage. Other characters buff up Attribute damage like Aalto (Aero DMG Amplify).
With this in mind, try to pick a support that buffs your Main DPS as much as possible. Every character will have different damage types, so look into which buff will benefit you most.
For most teams, you’ll generally want to run a healer. While many attacks can one shot you, being able to tank smaller hits while attacking helps you deal more damage faster.
Furthermore, the Healing Set provides a solid 15% ATK buff for the whole team when healing. This persists even if you swap between characters, making it a strong buff for any team regardless of Hyper Carry/Quick Swap.
Lastly, the Bell-Borne Geochelone (Turtle) provides even more buffs for your team. The shield will provide 50% DMG Reduction for 3 hits/15 seconds, and a 10% DMG Boost for the shield duration.
In total, running a healer on your team will grant at minimum 50% DMG Reduction, 15% ATK, and 10% DMG Boost. When combined with a strong support like Verina, this buffs up your Main DPS immensely.
For your 2nd support, The Moonlit Clouds set will be the other low investment Echo set. Performing Outro Skill will buff the next Resonator’s ATK by 22.5% for 15 seconds. Unlike the healing set, this buff is only for one Resonator, so it’s not as suitable for Dual DPS teams.
The Impermanence Heron is the 4-cost Echo that also provides a buff. After performing an Outro Skill, the next character will receive a 12% Damage Boost.
While this is slightly more than the healing set, performing an Outro Skill takes up more time as you need to recharge Concerto Energy on your support. Comparatively, the healing set is very easy to activate as you just need to heal, activate the turtle echo, and swap out.
Even still, it’s an easy way to get more buffs on your main DPS without too much investment.
When it comes to Dual DPS teams, you mostly consider the same factors as a Hyper Carry team. The main difference is that you need to figure out how to balance field time between two characters.
Hypothetically speaking, Dual DPS teams should outperform Hyper Carry teams. If you can combine the strongest parts of two DPS characters, it should outperform one DPS, even with two supports.
However, playing with two characters while dodging/parrying attacks can be more difficult. If your DPS characters are melee, you’ll have an easier time parrying in general, but Rectifier characters can parry on some hits as well.
Once again, you want to consider the different damage types of your DPS characters. You generally will still run a healer, and so far, Baizhi/Verina, so Damage Type doesn’t matter too much.
However, your two DPS characters can synergize with their Outro Skills. For example, Sanhua has a quick rotation, making her suitable as a Sub DPS. Her Outro Skill also amplifies Basic Attack DMG.
This pairs well with Lingyang, who deals a lot of damage with Basic Attacks. With the current small roster of characters, there isn’t too much overlap between Outro Skills and DPS characters, but this will change as more characters release.
For the most part, the third character on a Dual DPS team will want to be a Healer. This is because the Rejuvenating Glow Set and Turtle Echo buff the entire team rather than one character.
However, if you don’t have a healer for your third team, you can run other shielders like Taoqi. Even still, you can run Cruisewing instead of the Turtle Echo. This will allow any character to heal, which will activate the Sonata Effect on any character.
You’ll lose out on the 50% DMG reduction and 10% DMG Boost, but this is an option to keep in mind.
The last thing to consider is a rotation for your Dual DPS teams. In general, Wuthering Waves isn’t a game where you stick to set rotations/combos. You want to adapt to your fight to ensure you can dodge/parry at the right time.
However, you still want to know what rotation will lead to the most damage. This will let you switch between your DPS characters to output more damage.
When it comes to your healer, you simply want to swap to them every 30 seconds to keep the buffs active.
This wraps up just about everything you need to know about team building. I don’t go into every situation, as every account is unique. You might have some Resonators with multiple Sequences, which can change things as well.
Overall, the decision to build Hyper Carry/Dual DPS teams isn’t too much different. For example, Jiyan/Mortefi/Verina is often considered a Hyper Carry team.
You can slap the Moonlit Clouds set on Mortefi and get good value from it. However, if you build Mortefi into a Sub DPS with a Fusion Echo Set and Crit stats, you’d consider him a Sub DPS. This makes the team a bit closer to Dual DPS.
The lines can be thin, but the characterizations are still important to understand. Once you know the basics of team building, you’ll be able to maximize your account based on what you have.
Thanks for Reading! Be sure to check out our other Wuthering Waves Guides or our Wuthering Waves Tier List.
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