Information

As you progress through the story in Wuthering Waves you will obtain quite a lot of free 4★ characters. This guide will list all the free characters and also let you know when you will be able to obtain them - so you can easier plan your early game progression team!

Also keep in mind that a lot of the 4★ characters are actually really strong and can be the backbone of your team for quite a long time.

Free characters

Rover [Hybrid]

Rover (Spectro)

Rover is the main character in Wuthering Waves, starting as a Spectro-based Hybrid character who is a jack-of-all-trades, splitting their focus between dealing damage and applying Spectro Frazzle. The Rover's Spectro variant at a baseline looks incredibly weak, but shortly within the Rinascita story arc they will gain the unique ability to apply Spectro Frazzle, an attribute only shared by Limited 5* characters. This allows Spectro Rover to have a very unique use case as the only budget Spectro Frazzle character. Within a typical rotation Spectro Rover can apply up to 10 stacks of Spectro Frazzle, as well as pausing the timer on Spectro Frazzle's decay. Being the literal only low budget option for these teams makes Spectro Rover extremely valuable for this team archetype if you plan to invest into it

Pros & Cons

Boasts a good combination of damage and utility,
Can quickly fill their Forte Gauge,
All Sequences are available for free,
Fast and precise attack frames that make parrying easier,
Only low budget option for Spectro Frazzle application, being used with Phoebe's DPS playstyle and Zani at low investment or with quickswap.
Healing on S4 allows for the use of Rejuvenating Glow without needing a certain weapon.
Can reduce enemy Spectro RES at S6.

While the damage output is really good, it still lags behind the dedicated main DPS, and at the same time, their Outro is a CC effect, not a buff, making it hard to find a place for them in most endgame best-in-slot compositions.

Source: Starter character

Worth investing? Yes!

Rover [DPS]

Rover (Havoc)

The Rover's second Attribute, Havoc, sees Rover turning into a Main DPS character with surprisingly competent personal damage. Havoc Rover's gameplay loop is centered around consuming Forte to deal enhanced Basic ATK and Skill DMG, but also features a high damage Liberation capable of easily nuking lower level enemies. This makes Havoc Rover one of the strongest easily accessible DPS characters, joining the ranks of someone like Encore.

Pros & Cons

One of the best low cost DPS characters,
Can be used with over low cost characters like Danjin or Sanhua,
Competent teammate for one of the strongest DPS characters in the game - Phrolova,
Can reduce enemy Havoc RES within their Sequences,
Large AoE nukes through Resonance Liberation and Signature Echo.

Does not compete with modern DPS characters,
AoE is locked to Liberation and Echo,
Forte Build-up can be rather slow.

Source: Act 1 Chapter 6

Worth investing? Yes!

Yangyang [Support]

Yangyang

Yangyang is a Hybrid character whose primary value comes from an extremely short rotation and the ability to grant Resonance Energy through her Outro Skill. She also offers some grouping through her Skill and Liberation. Her issues come from the value of these utilities. A lot of more modern DPS characters have shorter rotation times themselves, facilitating Hybrid characters with longer rotation times. This means Yangyang's short rotation can often not be taken advantage of. Additionally, her Outro Skill is invalidated incredibly easily once you get far enough into the game to build a proper amount of Energy Regen on your character. Yangyang's grouping ability is also incredibly low range and does not last long enough to make a proper impact in any of the endgame modes.

Pros & Cons

Requires low field time to execute Concerto combo, with the ability to get in and out fast (for a Hybrid character),
Outro that recovers energy,
Can gather enemies both with her skill and ultimate.

No Deepen buff on Outro skill,
Grouping abilities are not impactful enough in Endgame to justify usage,
Energy Generation utility is entirely useless once your characters reach their required Energy Regen threshold.

Source: Prologue

Worth investing? Yes!

Chixia [Main DPS]

Chixia

Chixia is a DPS that deals primarily Single Target DMG from a range. She is also incredibly simple to understand. If the bar above your HP is full? Hold skill to shoot at enemy. If not? Press skill or ultimate to fill the bar. She can surprisingly still be used in Endgame content if the correct teammates are acquired, however it won't be easy. Her gameplay makes it hard for her to dodge enemy attacks as dashing will cancel her held Skill, which will severely hurt her damage output and Energy generation. Additionally, she has no way of parrying enemy attacks which forces her to dodge. She also has an above average Energy Cost of 150, meaning she needs plenty of Energy Regen to execute her full combo.

Pros & Cons

Completely ranged playstyle,
Easy to understand and play,
Deals a respectable amount of damage with the correct teammates,
Can move while channeling her resonance skill,
Has a strong dash attached to her resonance skill that can be used for quick repositioning,
You get her for free!

Almost completely single target outside a few burst skills,
Cannot parry as a ranged character,
Expensive ultimate,
Vulnerable to interruption by fast enemies or large attacks while channeling resonance skill if positioned poorly.

Source: Prologue

Worth investing? Not really.

Baizhi [Support]

Baizhi

Baizhi is a Support who can be summed up as 'Verina at home'. Jokes aside, Baizhi is a very versatile Support character who can be slotted into any team due to her healing and buffing capabilities. She has an incredible Outro skill that is only inferior to Verina's and that provides All-Type DMG Deepen to the next ally, but compared to other 'next-type' Outros, the buff isn't lost when you switch as it retriggers on heal. Her Sequences also give her a teamwide Cheat Death mechanic (at S5) and a Glacio DMG% buff that helps characters from that element (at S6).

Sadly, the 'Verina at home' line wasn't a joke and Baizhi is worse than her in almost every way. She has a longer rotation, has less healing, and less buffing. The little buffing she does have is also harder to utilize. To optimally play Baizhi you must use her Outro Skill into your Main DPS, and her Euphoria passive is clunky to use as it requires an object to be picked up. This makes Baizhi harder to play than she should be.

Pros & Cons

Incredible supportive Outro, granting 15% DMG Deepen which is not lost when switching,
Can effortlessly enable the 5P Healer set bonus without sacrificing her weapon choice,
Completely universal - every single team can use Baizhi,
Has decent team-wide healing,
Can grant the team a cheat-death after unlocking S5 in the form of a full heal to the character that would have suffered fatal damage,
Has a pet? Dinosaur? Thing..?

Verina at home - is worse in almost every way requiring more field time, and effort to play, and is still more clunky after all that,

Source: First Convene

Worth investing? Yes!

Yuanwu [Hybrid]

Yuanwu

Yuanwu is intended to be a Hybrid character who ended up being better utilized as a Support. Why is this? To put it in simple terms, his kit is so bad that you do not want to use it. His intended playstyle features him using enhanced Basic and Heavy ATK's to generate Concerto and deal damage to use his Outro Skill to do huge Vibration DMG to the enemy. Unfortunately, Vibration DMG has absolutely no offensive benefit and Yuanwu's damage output is poor. Therefore his best playstyle is to use the Originite Type IV weapon to trigger Rejuvenating Glow and be a Coordinated ATK bot for Jinhsi. And even then, in this playstyle Jinhsi will severely fall behind the competition, making Yuanwu overall a bad character.

Pros & Cons

Requires basically no resources to function.

Generally outperformed in every way by the entire cast,
Has a kit so bad his best playstyle completely ignores it,
His only usecase is with a character who has fallen out of the top meta, and thus cannot be left with a mediocre team.

Source: Event

Worth investing? Absolutely Not

Sanhua [Hybrid]

Sanhua

Sanhua is a Hybrid character who has one of the fastest possible Concerto rotations in the game, allowing her to execute quickly, deal great burst damage, and switch out granting her Concerto outro buff to those who need it. Her Ultimate is tied for the lowest cost in the game (100), and she generates a decent amount of energy herself, meaning she can focus on a more offensive build instead of Energy Regen, further adding to her burst potential.

While in her prime she was used as the best F2P option for most DPS's due to her fast rotation and S6, new DPS characters rotate too fast themselves for Sanhua to find a good use there. At this point Sanhua's usage is limited to Basic ATK Damage dealers like Luuk Herssen, Brant and Camellya due to her Outro Skill.

Pros & Cons

One of the fastest concerto rotations in the game,
Gains an absurd amount of Concerto when detonating the ice spawned from her abilities,
Low energy cost of 100 means she can consistently pull off her super-fast burst combo.

Need to time the Forte's mini-game properly in the combos,
The burst-specific rotation doesn't use any Basic Attacks, wasting parts of her kit even if it's optimal.

Source: Event

Worth investing? Yes!

Rover [Support]

Rover (Aero)

Rover comes back once again! But this time, as an Aero character tailored towards supporting Aero teams, especially those that use Aero Erosion. Aero Rover's utility within their base kit is rather limited, only being useful for increasing the cap of Aero Erosion from 3 to 6. But this changes when looking at their completely free signature weapon Bloodpact's Pledge. This weapon is tailored towards Aero Rover by increasing their healing and giving up to 26% Aero DMG Amplification. This completely outclasses something like Shorekeeper's Outro Skill for Aero Characters, and combined with Aero Rover's Outro Skill it makes them a decent alternative for all Aero DPS's, assuming Ciaccona is involved. However, Aero Rover's potential gets truly unleashed with Cartethyia, who can take full advantage of the increased cap of Aero Erosion. Outside of Chisa, Aero Rover is the best bet for Cartethyia - something very impressive given how strong Cartethyia is. If Chisa does not have her Signature weapon, Aero Rover will even fully outclass her! Overall, very impressive performance from Aero Rover.

Pros & Cons

One of the best options for a top tier DPS - Cartethyia,
One of 2 characters to increase the Aero Erosion cap,
Signature weapon is completely free,
Can be used for other Aero DPS characters.

Incredibly clunky playstyle,
FoNot a strong contender in any team outside of Cartethyia.

Source: Act 2 Chapter 4

Worth investing? Yes!

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