Wuthering Waves Encore Build Guide
Jul. 11, 2024Wuthering Waves Encore Build Guide
In thisWuthering Waves Encore Build Guide,we’re going to be covering a main DPS build, for Encore. This build focuses on dispatching enemies as fast as possible, whether they are bosses, elites, or smaller enemies in AOE. She is suitable for endgame mode, Tower of Adversity, but even more effective against Hologram bosses. Encore has more damage potential than any other damage dealer in version 1.0
Encore is a five-star standard character, who has Fusion Element, uses Rectifier, and plays at range. You may obtain Encore from the Beginner banner, Beginner selector banner, five-star standard selector, or lose a 50:50 chance on a limited banner. So she’s pretty accessible, and in most cases, Encore is one of the best picks to start the game with.
With some of her moves taking so long animation, Encore needs a quick-swap playstyle. Players may get out of her long animation with a character switch. So Encore will stay on-field finishing her animation, and the new switched character enters the field and the player is free to use them simultaneously. This makes Encore very unique and unusually boosts team dps.
Encore can charge her Concerto energy fast, and she has high damage Outro skills. So the quick swap style enables her to do even more DPS while off-field. Her Resonance skill is a channeled skill that keeps casting after switching, dealing potent damage from off-field. As well as her Charged Attack with full Forte bar, which deals damage in AOE, and is considered as Resonance Liberation damage.
On top of that, Encore is much easier to play against deadly bosses. The reason is she keeps switching in and out, to avoid big hits of enemies. She is also ranged, so she has much more room to avoid incoming damage. That’s why she’s the best character to do the hardest challenges in the game, Hologram bosses.
Normal Attacks and Heavy Attacks ofEncorehave two versions. The default one, used outside ofResonance Liberation, scales with the Basic Attack level and deals lower damage. Then there’s the enchanted version, which scales with theResonance Liberationlevel and deals more damage.
So before Encore activates Resonance Liberation, she rarely uses Basic attacks. And for that, we don’t prioritize leveling Basic Attacks.
Both Normal and Heavy Attacks are ranged, so we may still use them if the enemy is locking in a deadly melee combo that we can’t get close to. But that’s situational.
LikeYinlin, Encore has two casts of her Resonance skill, but they’re only for DPS purposes, not complex buffs. On the first cast, Encore is suspended in the air and shoots a sequence of 8 projectiles at the enemy. This is a channel skill, that reduces the damage Encore takes while casting if she stays on-field. However, the channel continues if you switch characters, so Encore becomes invulnerable while she keeps doing damage as the next character enters the field and also performs skills and deals damage. This skill has10seconds cooldown
The second cast is available for a brief second after Encore finishes casting the first Resonance Skill. If you press at the right time, Encore unleashes a quick mini-nuke to deal more damage. For extreme optimization, players may implement this rotation for maximum damage:
This is too much hassle, but doable with some support characters that can perform quick mini-rotations, such as Sanhua. However, there are situations where you may ignore this part in favor of doing simpler combos and staying on the field for more time on support or sub-dps characters.
After casting Resonance Liberation, and for10seconds, the Resonance skill of Encore transforms into another form. She loses the channel animation and the long cooldown. Instead, Encore gets a skill with a longer travel range, faster animation, and 4 seconds cooldown. So it allows multiple casts during Resonance Liberation.
This combo is suitable for Hyper to carry Encore who stays on the field for the full10seconds, and not quick swap:
A total of three casts ofResonance Skill: Cosmos: Rampageis approximately equal to two casts of skill outside Resonance Liberation. So hyper-carry playstyle is not far superior, and the player can still activate Resonance Liberation using one skill, and switch. This is especially true if Encore has a full Forte bar, as I’ll explain further down the guide.
Fore125Resonance energy cost, Encore enters10seconds of Rave mode. In this mode, all of Encore’s Normal, Heavy, and Resonance Skills are replaced with an enhanced version. All attacks become faster, and the cooldown of Resonance skills becomes shorter. This allows Encore to do combos faster, and dish out more damage in a shorter duration.
Resonance Liberation is the main focus for a hyper-carry Encore build. And among the main DPS sources in the quick-swap version, along with Forte Circuit.
During Resonance Liberation, all normal, heavy, mid-air, dodge counters, and Resonance skills scales with Resonance Liberation level. So we prioritize leveling it first. However, each still scales with their default modifiers, a.k.a Resonance Skill scales with Resonance skill damage bonus stat from Echoes. So beware of this delicate difference.
Unleashing Resonance Liberation resets the cooldown of Resonance Skill, So it’s possible to make advanced combos with quick swaps such as:
This rotation has Encore barely on field for three seconds or less and still gets most of her damage. You may use the secondary character as another damage dealer; And during the long animation of Encore, they deal damage simultaneously.
Encore Forte has100charges to build, which Wuthering Waves calls “Dissonance”. When full, Encore’s Heavy Attack becomes “Resonance Liberation: Cloudy Frenzy”. Which takes a long time to charge, and unleashes a deadly AOE attack. This attack scales with Forte Circuit level but with Resonance Liberation DMG modifiers.
During Resonance Liberation duration, the Heavy Attack becomes “Resonance Liberation: Cosmos Rupture”. Which is basically the same skill, but with higher damage. Cloudy Frenzy deals334.00%damage at max level, whileCosmos Rupturedeals up to773.73%damage. So always aim to fill Forte bar while Resonance Liberation is active to useCosmos Rupturefor massive DPS boost.
Note that filling the Forte bar during resonance liberation is much easier, and faster. So if you start Resonance Liberation with zeroDissonance(due to switching out and filling Resonance energy right afterCloudy Frenzy), you fill the entire bar with two skills and 4 normal attacks. The rotation will look something like this:
A universal 10% DMG bonus for Encore while her Resonance Liberation is active, and her HP is above 70%. This might sound like it encourages playing Encore with a healer; However, Encore’s constant switch playstyle enables her to avoid most enemy hits, and she rarely takes damage to begin with.
Another pure damage passive, and one of the reasons Encore has the highest damage potential among all 1.0 characters. Gain 10% Fusion damage, after casting any version of Resonance Skill, whether default version or inside Resonance Liberation.
This buff lasts10seconds, and Resonance Skill has10seconds outside of Resonance Liberation. Inside Resonance Liberation Encore’s Resonance Skill has a mere4seconds cooldown. So the uptime of this passive is almost permanent.
The Intro and Outro skills need fully charged Concerto energy to cast. They are important to trigger certain Echo Sets bonuses and weapons, And in the case of our Wuthering Waves Encore Build, both Intro and Outro deal high damage. Especially Outro that has the highest damage modifier among all characters Outro skills!
Encore’s Intro is a very simple single hit, that deals moderate damage. Overall, it contributes a small amount to team DPS, so only level after you leveled everything else and if you have excessive resources, and don’t need them for other characters.
The Outro on the other hand, is a very potent skill, especially in early and mid-game. Not only the modifier of this skill is very high, but it also starts with the full damage from character level 1. Unlike the other skills in the character kit, Outro doesn’t have ten levels for players to level up. It always has the same modifier.
Encore’s Outro leaves a field that procs damage in AOE every 1.5 seconds, for 6 seconds. So it procs total 4 times, for a total modifier of 707% damage if all four procs hit. So it can kill enemies from off-field.
For this Wuthering Waves Encore Build, gear is a crucial part, and Weapon is a major part of gearing. Encore’s DPS scales with standard Crit, Attack, and Fusion damage stats. And she is a pure damage dealer.
Encore doesn’t need energy Recharge from Echoes, especially in Quick swap style. This helps her focus on pure damage stats and allows her to reach a higher potential. Encore is free to use proper DPS weapons. She uses Rectifier, which has a smaller pool of DPS options, but also very strong ones.
The step above three-star weapons is Rectifier#25, which is a craftable four-star. The weapon comes with higher base ATK and Energy Recharge sub-stat. The energy Recharge is not useful to Encore, so this weapon is also not optimal, and better not to waste crafting materials on. Just use it if you are stuck with nothing else.
The passive comes with an ATK bonus if the user has over 60% HP when casting Resonance Skill. If HP is lower, it heals the user instead. And with a character such as Encore, who switches out a lot, she’s less likely to lose HP. So the ATK bonus has good uptime.
The weapon is free, and that’s its sole strong appeal. So always keep an eye out for an upgrade.
Another Four Star that comes from Gacha, so it has the potential to get to higher refinement but over a longer period of time. It’s the most suitable four-star to use for Encore.
It has a higher base ATK stat, a very good amount of % ATK on sub stat, and the weapon passive is also a % ATK bonus. It lasts 15 seconds upon using the Intro skill, so it has very good uptime.
Overall, it’s an option for Encore, if you lack five-star options.
The standard five-star Rectifier weapon, which players can pick from a Five-star weapon selector at Union level 45. Usually, Rectifier is not the best five-star weapon to pick from the selector, since the Sword is better. However, in case the player gets the sword earlier from Standard weapon pulls, then you may pick Rectifier next.
The weapon comes with the highest base ATK, highest % ATK sub stat, and small Energy Recharge from passive. Then it stacks normal attack DMG bonus, which is a good chunk of Encore’s DPS in hyper-carry style.
This is the signature weapon for Yinlin, which I don’t recommend pulling for. However, if you have a lot of wishes to use on the weapon banner and would still save enough to get Changli in version 1.1 or in her reruns, then you may consider pullingStringmasterforEncore!
The reason is that Yinlin is a sub-DPS whose personal DPS increase impacts the team’s overall DPS only a little. Meanwhile,Encorehas the highest DPS potential inWuthering Waves, so pushing her DPS to the highest possible level is a significant gain.
The weapon comes with the same base ATK asCosmic Ripples, but with a more potent 36% Crit Rate sub stat. Not only that, but it also provides a % DMG bonus from its passive, along with a stacking % ATK bonus. Finally, the character gets more % ATK while off the field, whichEncorebenefits from on herOutro,Forte, and evenResonance Skillwith swap cancel!
Overall, it’s a huge damage boost forEncore, which might be worth getting if you have a good roster of characters.
Similar toRelicsfromHonkai Star RailandArtifactsfromGenshin Impact,EchoesinWuthering WavesEncorebuild work as gear. We have five slots to equipEchoes, but unlike the other games, we are not restricted to using certainEchoesin specific slots.
In total, a character has 12 points to distribute amongEchoes.Echoescome in three grades: Common (1 cost), Elite (3 cost), and Boss/Overlord (4 cost). So, the ideal distribution in the endgame is (4,3,3,1,1). A setup with (4,4,1,1,1) is not possible with theFusionset, so we can’t resort to this as an alternative forEncore.
In this Wuthering Waves Encore Build we aim to get these dps main stats:
If your Encore has Crit Rate stat on her weapon, you may use Crit DMG on Cost4echoes. Otherwise, always use Crit Rate main stat.
As Encore doesn’t need Energy Recharge, she may focus all her sub stats on pure DPS. So pick as much as possible Crit, % ATK, flat ATK, Resonance Liberation damage, Resonance Skill damage, and Normal Attack damage.
On top of providing main and sub-stats, each Echo provide a skill that can be used in battle. Only one skill can be acquired this way, and it comes from the top Echo on the Echoes page. Encore’s optimal set is the Fusion set, so she is stuck with only one of the options in this set.
The 4-cost Boss skill in theFusionset,Inferno Rider, has a very long cast time. It deals decent damage, but you can’t animation cancel and benefit from the skill before its third hit, so you are stuck with yourEchofor three full swings, leaving you vulnerable to damage or interruption. You endure all this for a bonus of 12%Fusiondamage and 12% normal attack damage for 15 seconds after casting.
So, sticking withInferno Rideris an option, but I prefer faster castingEchoskills. There are some interesting alternatives, such asFusion Warrior, which has a 1-cost.Fusion Warrioris a counterattack, making it more suitable for anEncorehyper carry build, where she stays on the field longer. Even so, it’s still viable in quick swap teams, as the skill has a 70% reduced cooldown if it successfully counterattacks. This reduces the cooldown from 15 seconds to 4.5 seconds, allowing you to use it again very soon.
TheFusion Warriordeals decent Fusion damage, and doesn’t take a lot of field time. So it’s certainly a good alternative to use. The last option isGeohide Saurian, which spits out fire ten times, for a total smaller damage thanFusion Warrior. The only advantage in usingGeohide Saurianis it has no condition to use. You don’t need to time the skill correctly, but use anytime.
For any pure DPS character, an elemental set is highly preferable. So for Encore, we better get the full Fusion set, and not go hybrid. Reason is, Fusion set provides 40% straight up Fusion damage, which is far better than any alternative.
Teams inWuthering Wavesconsist of three characters, and to buildEncoreright, we have to pair her with two suitable companions.Encoreis a main DPS who can be used in dual DPS or secondary DPS setups. So, we focus on getting a sub-DPS who can perform their combos fast enough untilWuthering WavesreleasesChangliin 1.1, who will be the best companion forEncore, filling the role of both sub-DPS andFusionbuffer.
Encore is one of the best characters to deal with Hologram bosses, as the constant switching enables the team to avoid most damages. So in that case, she may be paired with either a sub-dps or two defensive units instead for even more survivability.
Instead of the standard (Main dps – Buffer – Healer) comp, Encore prefer (Main dps – Sub dps – Healer) in most cases. So even if you pick a buffer in the second slot, make sure they can dish out good damage in a short duration. One accessible character such as this is Sanhua, who doubles as a normal attack buffer.
Sanhuahas decent invulnerability frames, fastConcertobuild-up, and good damage. She even has herForte barpersist after switching out. So, you can useSanhua‘sIntro+ Skill, then switch toEncore, useResonance skill, switch back toSanhua, and her Charged Attack is still ready to use. This is a very smooth playstyle, makingSanhuaa natural fit withEncore.
You might useYinlin, who deals more damage thanSanhuaand persists from off-field. However,Yinlinloses herSinner’s Markafter switching. So, she has to stay on the field, finish her rotation, and get herPunishment Markup before going back toEncore. This changes the rotation drastically and limits the quick swap playstyle but has the potential to deal more team damage.
Other characters in sub-dps roles might be:Havoc Rover,Mortefi, andYangyang(Only atS5or higher Sequence). However, the true sub-dps and buffer forEncoreisChangli. Consider pulling Changli instead of pulling Sequences or weapons for Encore.
Encore is one of the characters who benefit greatly fromVerina, similar to every other character. However, she is more adaptable with other sustain characters as well. For instance, you can buildTaoqias a sub-dps and use her with Encore and a second sub-dps.Taoqihas an easier time protecting Encore’s team, due to the constant swap and avoiding enemy attacks.
BaizhiandJianxinalso fit with Verina easily if necessary. Since Encore gives them a chance to take time on-field and perform their comps.
Encorehas the greatest damage potential in version 1.0, as long as you do her swap cancels. But without them, she’s still a very good, top-tier hyper carry. So you can say thatEncoreis one of the most flexible characters inWuthering Waves.
Don’t hesitate to try new comps and new rotations forEncorebecause her kit offers a lot of possibilities. This is especially true against the hardest content, where enemies force players to adapt their playstyle to avoid damage. If players ignore enemies, they will simply die. There’s no amount of sustain that enables face tanking everything in the game.
If you haven’t used your five-star selector yet and want to testEncorebefore making a decision, don’t rely on trial stages. Since trial stages are solo stages without any support characters and no switching available, tryEncorein one of the events instead. The game gives a temporary leveled-upEncorethat you can team up with your own characters.
Stay tuned for moreWuthering Waves Character Guides. and check out ourCalcharo,Yangyang,Havoc Rover, andYinlinbuild guides. And Check ourYouTube channelfor news & guides on other games.
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