Wuthering Waves Tier List
Best Wuthering Waves Tier List
Simulation-backed rankings by role. Every placement starts from our engine running each character’s full rotation on one benchmark boss, then is reconciled with the live meta.
How we rankMain DPS
The character on the field doing the damage.
Sub-DPS
Swaps in for a burst, then hands off to the carry.
Support
Heals, sustains, and amplifies the carry.
Crowned
Exalted
How this list is ranked
Every placement follows the same five checks, in order, and the numbers come from our own damage engine: the same simulations behind every character page on this site.
- 01
Simulated damage
Our engine runs every character’s full rotation, on a standard build, against the same Lv100 boss with 20% RES: total damage, damage per second, and rotation length, at S0 and S6. For carries we also measure time-to-kill: the seconds needed, solo and with their best teammate, to burn through 500k, 1.5M and 3M HP bars, so fast short rotations and slow big ones are compared fairly.
- 02
Measured team uplift
For Sub-DPS and Supports we simulate carry + teammate and measure how much the carry’s own damage actually rises, plus the damage the teammate adds from their turn.
- 03
Team flexibility
A buff that lifts every carry outranks an equal buff that fits one team. We weigh how many of our reference carries a unit meaningfully lifts, and whether they unlock a whole archetype.
- 04
Live meta check
Numbers are reconciled with the live community meta. Where raw DPS undersells a kit (long damage-over-time windows, opener-heavy setups), the meta read wins.
- 05
Ease of use
Rotation complexity, animation locks and energy hunger break ties between close placements; they never move a unit a whole tier on their own.
What each tier means
Crowned. Defines the current meta: the highest simulated output in the role right now.
Exalted. A step off the crown: formerly crowned or near-crowned, still an elite endgame pick.
Excellent. Clears all endgame content comfortably; strong in the right team.
Strong. Works, but outclassed in this role by everything above.
Tiers assume no Resonance Chains (S0) and a solid, comparable build, in an endgame context. Flexible characters appear in every role they fit, ranked for that role. Beta characters are marked and may shift before release. Hover a character for the one-line reasoning, or open their page for the full simulation.