Wuthering Waves: Elements Explained

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How Do Elements/Attributes Work in Wuthering Waves?

Are There Elemental Reactions in Wuthering Waves?

There is no denying that Wuthering Waves copies many of the mechanics from Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail. Starting from the male and female MC down to the cost of wishing for new characters, the game is eerily similar to the mentioned games, and it’s hard to say otherwise.

Considering this, players will be forgiven for thinking that the game also copies the Elemental Reaction system from Genshin. That is not the case. This is one of the few areas where Wuthering Waves tries to assert its identity as something different. Here’s how it works.

Wuthering Waves: All Ascension Materials Location

It’s essential for Resonators to collect ascension materials if they want to level up their characters in Wuthering Waves.

How Do Elements/Attributes Work in Wuthering Waves?

Wuwa Elements Explained

All characters in Wuthering Waves have a primary attribute or element associated with them. These characters deal damage of that element using either their Basic Attack, Heavy Attack, Skill, or Resonance ultimate. There are six elements in the current state of the game, with all playable characters having one of the following elements:

Fusion (Fire)
Glacio (Ice)
Aero (Air)
Electro (Electric)
Spectro (Light)
Havoc (Dark/Chaos)

Just like the Resonators on the side of the player, enemies in Wuthering Waves are also associated with a particular element. Attacks of an element against enemies of the same element will be resisted. This means that if players use Calcharo, an Electro character, to attack an enemy who is also of the Electro element, the enemy will resist that damage.

This resistance doesn’t matter all that much for regular gameplay like exploration, clearing quests, and doing dailies, but once players start tackling end-game content like the Tower of Adversity, having multiple teams to cover each other’s blind spots can do wonders.

Are There Elemental Reactions in Wuthering Waves?

Unlike Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves doesn’t have reactions between elements in the same sense. Instead, the game fills the void left by Elemental Reactions with Intro and Outro skills. Each character in Wuwa has their own version of an Intro and Outro skill, corresponding to that character’s primary attribute.

Intro and Outro Skills can be activated by filling up the Concerto meter on the left side of the health bar using basic and heavy attacks.

While Intro skills are, in most cases, a burst of elemental damage from the character being switched in, Outro skills offer various buffs to the incoming party member.

Yuanwu, for example, unleashes thunderbolts that lower the resistance of enemies in the area. But Danjin’s Outro Skill makes it so that the incoming Resonator’s Havoc DMG is buffed by 23 seconds. Effects like Danjin’s allow for mono-elemental teams to work, increasing the effectiveness of one element through buffs, which can then be further increased by equipping the right Wuwa echo.

That is the extent to which elements affect gameplay in Wuthering Waves. While this is a much simpler system than what Genshin players will be used to, it makes up for it through responsive, skill-based combat, which is Wuwa’s main selling point.