Weapon Types

Wuthering Waves Ultimate Weapon Guide: In Wuthering Waves, weapons play a crucial role in defining a character’s combat style and effectiveness in battle. Each weapon type offers distinct advantages, catering to different playstyles and strategies. Whether you prefer swift and balanced attacks, heavy-hitting strikes, or ranged combat, choosing the right weapon can significantly impact your performance. The game features five main weapon types: Swords, Broadblades, Pistols, Gauntlets, and Rectifiers. Understanding their unique characteristics will help you maximize your character’s potential and adapt to various combat situations.

Weapon Stats

Understanding weapon stats in Wuthering Waves is essential for optimizing your character’s performance in combat. Each weapon comes with specific stats that influence damage output, survivability, and skill usage. Here’s a breakdown of the key weapon stats and how they affect gameplay:

Primary Weapon Stat

Base ATK
This is the core attack stat of a weapon.
It is directly added to the character’s total ATK, influencing overall damage output.
The Base ATK increases as the weapon is leveled up, making higher-rarity weapons more powerful at max level.

Secondary Stats

Each weapon also has a secondary stat that provides additional bonuses to enhance a character’s combat abilities. These stats vary by weapon and can significantly impact performance.

Crit DMG (Critical Damage)

Increases the damage dealt when landing a critical hit.
Works best when paired with a high Crit Rate to ensure frequent critical hits.
A crucial stat for DPS characters focusing on burst damage.

Crit Rate (Critical Rate)

Increases the probability of landing a critical hit.
Higher Crit Rate allows for more consistent high-damage attacks.
Often paired with Crit DMG to maximize damage potential.

Energy Regen (Energy Regeneration)

Boosts the rate at which a character’s energy is restored.
Allows characters to use their abilities and ultimates more frequently.
Beneficial for support or burst-DPS characters who rely on frequent skill activations.

ATK (Attack Percentage Bonus)

Increases the overall attack power of the character by a percentage.
Scales with the character’s Base ATK and weapon ATK.
Ideal for characters who rely on raw attack power for damage output.

HP (Health Points Bonus)

Increases the character’s total health pool.
Improves survivability, especially for frontline or tanky characters.
Useful for support or sustain-based characters that scale off HP.

DEF (Defense Bonus)

Increases the character’s defense, reducing the amount of incoming damage.
Helps characters withstand stronger enemy attacks.
Beneficial for tanks and defensive playstyles.

Choosing the right weapon stats is key to maximizing a character’s strengths and ensuring they perform effectively in battle. Pairing weapons with the right secondary stats based on a character’s abilities and role can significantly enhance their combat efficiency.

How to Obtain Weapons

In Wuthering Waves, weapons can be obtained through multiple methods, each offering different rarities and acquisition rates. The primary way to obtain high-rarity weapons (4-star and above) is through the Gacha Banners, where players can spend in-game currency to pull for weapons. The system includes a pity mechanic, guaranteeing a 4-star weapon within every 10 pulls, while 5-star weapons have an increased drop rate after 80 cumulative pulls.

For those exploring the open world, Treasure Chests provide a steady source of lower-rarity weapons (typically 3-star and below). These weapons serve as early-game options and can be useful for players just starting their journey.

Another reliable way to acquire weapons is through Crafting, where players can use specific materials gathered throughout the game to forge new weapons. As progression continues, crafting becomes an accessible way to obtain 4-star weapons, offering a dependable alternative to the gacha system. The crafting table is located in Jinzhou, where players can forge weapons suited to their playstyle. Understanding these methods allows players to efficiently build their arsenal and enhance their characters’ performance in battle.

Weapon Skills

Weapons feature passive skills that can significantly impact gameplay by enhancing damage, improving energy regeneration, or granting special effects.

Passive Effects

Each weapon comes with a unique passive skill that provides bonuses, such as increased attack power, elemental damage boosts, or energy regeneration.
Some weapons may trigger additional effects based on specific conditions, such as landing critical hits, using skills, or defeating enemies.
Weapon skills vary by rarity, with higher-rarity weapons often offering stronger or more complex passive effects.

Improving Weapon Skills

Weapon passive skills can be enhanced by increasing the weapon’s ascension rank.
Ascension requires specific materials that can be obtained from enemy drops, events, or exploration.
Higher ascension ranks amplify the effects of passive skills, making weapons more powerful as they level up.

Weapon Projections (Weapon Skins)

Weapon Projections allow players to customize their weapons’ appearance without affecting their stats or passive effects.

Cosmetic Enhancements

Weapon skins only change the weapon’s visual design and do not impact combat performance.
Players can equip different skins to match their character’s aesthetics or preferred style.
Skins may be obtainable through in-game events, achievements, or special purchases.

Weapon Screen Elements

The weapon screen in Wuthering Waves displays essential details about each weapon, helping players understand its stats, progression, and unique effects.

Weapon Level: Indicates the current level of the weapon. Increasing the level enhances key stats such as Base ATK and the Secondary Stat, improving the weapon’s overall effectiveness.

Ascension Rank: Represented by diamonds beneath the weapon level, ascension marks key milestones that allow further leveling. Reaching these milestones requires specific materials collected from exploration, enemy drops, or events.

Base ATK: The flat attack value added to a character’s total ATK. This stat increases as the weapon is leveled up, directly affecting damage output.

Secondary Stat: Each weapon has an additional stat, such as Crit Rate, Energy Regen, ATK%, HP, or DEF, that enhances certain character attributes and influences playstyle.

Weapon Rank: Determines the strength of the weapon’s passive skill multipliers. The rank can be increased using the Syntonize function, which requires feeding duplicate copies of the same weapon to enhance its effects.

Weapon Skill: The passive ability of the weapon that grants special effects in combat. These effects improve when the weapon is ascended, making weapon skill upgrades an important factor in character optimization.

Leveling Up Weapons

Leveling up weapons in Wuthering Waves is essential for increasing their effectiveness in combat. To enhance a weapon, players must use weapon energy cores and other weapons as upgrade materials. As a weapon’s level increases, its Base ATK and Secondary Stat are improved, directly boosting a character’s overall power. Higher-level weapons provide stronger passive effects and better stat scaling, making them more effective in battle. Regularly upgrading weapons ensures that characters can maximize their potential and perform efficiently in different combat situations.

Ascension

Enhancing weapons is essential for maximizing their combat potential. This is done through two key mechanics: Ascension, which raises a weapon’s level cap, and Ranking Up, which strengthens its passive skills.

Weapon Ascension

Ascension is required to break level caps and continue upgrading weapons.

Level Caps

Weapons have level caps at 20, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80.
Once a weapon reaches a cap, it must be ascended before further leveling.

Ascension Rank

Each successful ascension increases the weapon’s Ascension Rank.
Higher ranks improve Base ATK and Secondary Stats, making weapons significantly stronger.

Material Requirements

Each weapon requires specific ascension materials, which vary based on weapon type and rarity.
These materials can be obtained from enemy drops, world exploration, events, and shops.

Weapon Ranking Up (Syntonization)

Ranking up, also known as Syntonization, enhances a weapon’s passive skill multipliers, increasing its effectiveness in battle.

Syntonize Function

Found in the weapon menu, this function allows players to increase a weapon’s Weapon Rank.
Upgrading the rank boosts the effects of the Weapon Skill, providing better combat advantages.

Weapon Rank Improvement

Higher ranks improve the scaling and power of passive skills.
Some weapons gain additional buff durations, stronger damage multipliers, or enhanced effects at higher ranks.

Duplicate Weapons Requirement

To Rank Up a weapon, players must use a duplicate of the same weapon.
The system prevents ranking up with different weapons, making duplicate pulls valuable for progression.

Rank 5 Cap

All weapons can be upgraded to a maximum of Rank 5.
Each rank-up significantly improves the weapon’s abilities, making it more effective in combat.

Mastering Ascension and Weapon Ranking ensures that weapons reach their full potential, allowing characters to deal more damage and gain greater combat advantages.

Weapon Tier List Considerations

Choosing the right weapon can greatly impact a character’s performance. When prioritizing weapons, consider the following factors to maximize effectiveness and long-term value.

1. Prioritize Critical Stats

Weapons with CRIT Rate and CRIT DMG are highly valuable since these stats are harder to obtain in large amounts from other sources.

CRIT Rate increases the chance of landing a critical hit, making damage output more consistent.
CRIT DMG amplifies the power of critical hits, leading to significantly higher burst damage.
Weapons with critical stats often outperform those with flat ATK boosts due to their scaling potential.

2. Team Composition Efficiency

Selecting weapons that fit into multiple team setups ensures better investment value.

Choose weapons that can be used by multiple main DPS characters rather than niche options.
A versatile weapon pool allows flexibility in building different teams without needing constant replacements.
Weapons with general damage-boosting passive effects tend to benefit a wider range of characters.

3. Character Compatibility

Picking weapons that align with your characters’ strengths and abilities ensures optimal performance like Shorekeeper and Stellar Symphony.

Identify whether a character benefits more from ATK, CRIT, Energy Regen, or Elemental Damage bonuses.
Consider each character’s skill set and scaling mechanics before choosing a weapon.
A powerful weapon on one character might be less effective on another due to mismatched stats.

4. Weapon Versatility

Weapons that can be used by multiple characters provide better long-term value.

Prioritize weapons that fit both current and future characters.
Consider weapons that can be passed down to another unit once stronger options become available.
Avoid weapons that are too niche unless they offer exceptional synergy with a key character.

5. Free-to-Play (F2P) Considerations

For F2P players, accessibility and long-term usability are key factors when choosing weapons.

Four-star weapons are generally easier to obtain and can remain viable at high ranks.
Some Galaxy-infused four-star weapons may offer powerful effects, making them worthwhile choices.
Upgrading and ascending four-star weapons is often more efficient than investing heavily in five-star weapons with low ranks.

6. Energy Regeneration Utility

Weapons with Energy Regeneration passives are highly useful for many playstyles, as they help maintain skill rotations.

Supports and sub-DPS characters benefit significantly from faster ability uptime.
Energy Regen weapons can enhance team synergy, ensuring smoother rotations.
Even for DPS characters, a steady flow of energy can lead to higher sustained damage output.

By considering these factors, players can make informed decisions when selecting and upgrading weapons, ensuring that their investment aligns with both their current team and future gameplay needs.

Notable Weapons

Some weapons stand out due to their strong stats, passive skills, and versatility across different characters. These weapons offer a balance of offensive and supportive capabilities, making them valuable choices for different playstyles.

Emerald of Genesis (Sword) – A 5-star sword that provides CRIT Rate, Energy Regeneration, and ATK, making it highly versatile for various Resonators. The combination of offensive and energy-related stats ensures consistent ability uptime and high damage output.

Static Mist (Pistol) – A 5-star pistol with CRIT Rate as its secondary stat and supportive effects that enhance the ATK of the next Resonator. This makes it particularly useful for characters who rely on team synergy and damage amplification.

Abyss Surges (Gauntlet) – A 5-star gauntlet that offers strong combat capabilities but is particularly suited for Lingyang, making it more niche compared to other weapons.

Stellar Symphony (Rectifier) – A support-oriented Rectifier that provides team-wide and character buffs, making it an excellent choice for Resonators who play a supportive or hybrid role.

Variation (Rectifier) – Considered the best 4-star healer weapon, this Rectifier is easy to obtain and offers high Energy Regeneration, ensuring frequent healing skill usage and ability uptime.

Autumntrace (Broadblade) – A 4-star Broadblade that provides both ATK and CRIT Rate, making it a valuable choice for Broadblade users who rely on consistent offensive output.

Ceaseless Aria (4-star) – Known for having one of the best universal passive abilities among 4-star weapons, making it a great choice for various characters regardless of role.

Originite: Type IV (Gauntlet) – A 3-star gauntlet with a healing passive that restores the Resonator’s HP when dealing Basic Attack DMG, making it a useful early-game weapon for sustain.

These weapons offer a mix of damage, utility, and support, allowing players to tailor their loadouts based on their team composition and preferred playstyle.