Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build Guide

In this Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build Guide we’re going to be covering an Electro main dps Calcharo build. This build focuses on dispatching bosses and and elite enemies as fast as possible, and farming Echoes. It’s a build capable of climbing the endgame mode, Tower of Adversity, as early as character level 50.

Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build Guide

Calcharo is a standard banner, five star character, that you get from either the beginners banner, character selector, or from losing your 50:50 chance on rate up banners like Jiyan’s. He’s a single target Electro damage dealer that uses Broadblade. He can sustain very long combos on field, and able to deliver potent dps, as well as strong parries to defend. He also comes with his own enchanted mode, which he enters by using Resonance Liberation (Ultimate).

Top Reasons to Use Calcharo

Calcharo is one of the best damage dealer in entire Wuthering Waves, as of version 1.0. Not only he’s capable of doing very high damage for prolonged period of time, he also has great support characters. Characters such as Yinlin, Jiangxin, and Yangyang, each boosts Clacharo’s dps in various ways. And Yangyang is a starter, and guaranteed character, you get from first ten minutes of the game. So Calcharo is off to a great start.

If you decided to pull the limited five star Yinlin however, she works as specialized support for him. Which elevate his playstyle and damage, making him even higher on priority list.

Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build Guide – Active Skills

Skill leveling Priority: Resonance Liberation > Basic Attack >> Forte Circuit > Skill >> Intro.

Gnawing Fangs – Basic Attack

As a prolonged on-field damage dealer, Calcharo relies a lot on Normal Attack and its sub-attacks (Normal, heavy, and plunge attacks). So raising this skill as much as possible takes priority.

Unlike other games, Basic Attack element matches the character element. So all of Calcharo attacks are Electro, eliminating any hybrid scaling issues. His Normal Attacks strings four quick attacks, that’s strictly melee range. They converts to five Enhanced Normal Attacks, after using Resonance liberation, and they extends his range. Note that normal attacks outside Resonance Liberation scales with Normal Attack skill level. While Enhanced Normal Attacks scales with Resonance Liberation skill level.

His Heavy Attack have him take a step backwards, and launch a ranged attack in straight line. It helps against enemies performing deadly attacks in their melee range. It also can parry enemies attacks, so whether you are in enemy range, or outside of it, using heavy attacks is convenient. Parrying is a high priority against bosses, because some can surely kill characters so easily if their hits lands.

Heavy Attacks converts to Heavy Attack: “Mercy” after building 3 stacks of Clacharo special Forte stacks (Cruelty). In that case, the new heavy attack scales with Forte Circuit skill level instead. And during Resonance Liberation, it converts to Heavy Attack: “Death Messenger”. This version scales with Forte Circuit skill level as well. It refund both Resonance Energy (for next Resonance Liberation cast), and Concerto energy (For outro skill). The Death Messenger version gain charges with normal attacks.

Plunge Attack is a simple thrust down move, that has limited range. It’s not a priority to use.

Extermination Order – Resonance Skill

The skill is a very simple three hit combo, and in our Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build Guide, it’s mainly a utility tool, rather than main dps source. The skill doesn’t interrupt the normal attack string, so you can for example make a quick combo like this example:

• Normal 1 > Skill 1 > Normal 2 > Normal 3 > Skill 2 > Normal 4 > skill 3 > Heavy Attack (Mercy)

Skill have advantage of attacking in small AOE, and having Calcharo step forward. So it closes small gaps between you and enemy.

The utility of casting skill is generating Concerto (Con.) Energy, which is used for intro and outro skills. It also build stacks of “Cruelty”, to enable casting Heavy Attack (Mercy). There’s no other way of building Cruelty stacks, so you have to cast all three skills for convenient rotation. The skill will go into cooldown if you cast first or second hit, then switched or stayed for long without finishing all three hits.

Phantom Etching – Resonance Liberation

Calcharo enters an enchanted status for 11 seconds, It’s called “Deathblade Gear”. It deal damage upon cast, as well as make his normal and heavy attacks deal more damage. It cost 125 Resonance Energy, and has 20 seconds cooldown. With the right build, Clacharo can make 20 seconds rotation, and cast Resonance Liberation on cooldown. Casting Resonance Liberation refund Con. Energy, so it’s better to use your outro/intro skill first before casting Resonance Liberation. That way, you don’t waste Con. energy, and increase uptime

In Deathblade Gear, the three Forte bar stacks is replaced with different 5 stacks bar. So you have diffrent Heavy attack, that consumes more stamina, and deal more damage, in larger AOE.

This is the status we want Clachro to be in, most of the time. So it’s better to try time it with enemy shield break, to have enemy down on ground, unable to attack, and taking more damage. This way your highest damage combos doesn’t get interrupted.

Calcharo Build Guide – Passive Skills

Hunting Mission – Forte Circuit

In our Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build Guide, Forte Circuit is very important part that brings the build together. It’s on by default, and doesn’t need activation, so all utilities are available from level 1. However, leveling up this skill increases the damage of heavy attacks.

The Forte is what enable Heavy attacks to have two alternative versions, on top of the default one. All of them help regain energy.

Bloodshed Awaken – Inherent Skill

A passive skill you may allocate at Ascension 3 (character level 40+). It give Clacharo a buff to all damage during Resonance Liberation, after you use fully charged Heavy Attack: “Mercy”. This define the optimal start of Calcharo rotation as follows:

• Intro > Heavy Attack: “Mercy” > Resonance Liberation

Assuming you start the battle with full energy and full 3 stacks of Cruelty. This is true in Tower of Adversity, which is the hardest content in the game. In open world, rotations are much more flexible, but still aim to use Heavy Attack: “Mercy” as last thing before entering Resonance Liberation.

Revenant Rush – Inherent Skill

This is a nice passive that give 5 sec damage taken reduction to Clacharo after he use Heavy Attack “Death Messenger”. This is the version inside Resonance Liberation, which charges pretty fast. So in ideal scenario, you get full uptime for the buff during Resonance Liberation. It define the ideal rotation inside Resonance Liberation to be:

• Normal 1 > Normal 2 > Normal 3 > Normal 4 > Normal 5 > Heavy Attack “Death Messenger”

Unlike default mode, we don’t need to use Resonance Skill in our Resonance Liberation mode. That’s because it doesn’t charge heavy attack, and only takes time from more damaging talents. There’s exception to that, when using Lustrous Razor weapon, which require using skill to buff Resonance Liberation damage.

Calcharo Build Guide – Concerto Skills

Intro and Outro skills needs fully charged Concerto energy to cast. They are important to trigger certain Echo Sets bonuses and weapons, even though they deal low damage in case of Calcharo.

Wanted Outlaw – Intro Skill

Deals some damage to enemy, and refund 10 Con. energy.

Nothing fancy here, unless you use Verdant Summit weapon. In that case, you need Intro skill to enter with damage bonus from weapon passive.

Don’t give priority to leveling this skill, the gain is minimal. However, we still use it to switch Calcharo in, since it tie with other character Outro. All support characters have a buff or two to give to Calcharo if they use their Outro, so we always want to switch To Calcharo with Intro Skill.

Shadowy Raid – Outro Skill

Unlike Intro skill, Ouro skill deals some decent damage. It’s still less frequent than Resonance and Basic attacks, but it also tie with other characters Intro. So it has potential to build team dps. His Outro skill is also frontal AOE, which helps against crowded waves of enemies and bosses alike.

Calcharo playstyle and Rotation

In this section of the Guide, I’ll explain to you how to play Calcharo effectively and precisely. Wuthering Waves is a game that relies more on player mechanical skill, and highly rewards player for timing their moves. It offers dodges, perfect dodges, parry, jump, and invulnerability frames through Resonance liberation, as well as advanced set of offensive moves. Combining these moves in an orderly fashion, results in success, even against harder enemies, with under-gear.

Depending on all factors explained in previous sections, the ideal rotation (when full energy) involve the following:

• Switching to Calcharo with Intro Skill (His avatar is flashing on top right screen)
• Use Skill to trigger Electro set bonus
• Use Heavy Attack Mercy (Forte bar has three charges)
• Use Resonance Liberation
• Heavy Attack “Death Messenger”
• 5 Normal attacks
• Heavy Attack “Death Messenger”
• 5 Normal attacks
• Heavy Attack “Death Messenger”
• Echo Skill
• Outro

Meanwhile, in open world without full energy:

• Switching to Calcharo with Intro Skill (His avatar is flashing on top right screen)
• Use Skill1 > Normal1 > Normal 2 > Skill2 > Normal 3 > Skill 3 > Normal 4
• Use Heavy Attack Mercy (Forte bar has three charges)
• Echo Skill
• Outro
• Farm enough Concerto energy on another character
• Intro
• Perform the ideal rotation with full energy.

Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build Guide – Weapons

For this Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build, gear is a crucial part, and Weapon is a major part of gearing. Calcharo scales with standard Attack stat, and Electro damage so she cares about a weapon with high ATK, and DMG modifier.

Calcharo uses Broadblade, which has some interesting dps options

Guardian Broadblade S5 – Three Star

The basic free to play pick, before using any weapon selector, or pulling any four star weapon. This weapon has decent base attack for a three star (325), and offer 24.3% ATK increase, as well as 24% Damage bonus on normal and heavy attack. A full dps weapon that grants everything Calcharo needs, minus a resonance liberation damage bonus or crit.

Being a three star, you easily have it at max refinement tier (Ascension 5), which is why it’s comparable to four star weapons.

Helios Cleaver – Four Star

If you managed to pull Helios Cleaver from any banner, it’s a direct upgrade from Guardian Broadblade. It has higher base attack (412), higher 30.3% ATK, and the passive grants more ATK buff that builds up from 3%, 6%, 9% 12%, then reset.. So it’s average 7.5% ATK, for total 37.8% ATK.

But it require the use of skill every 12 seconds, so make sure to alternate the rotation accordingly.

Autumntrace – Battle Pass Four Star

If you pay for battle pass, you may choose to get this weapon at Battle pass level 30. It has nice Crit rate stat that’s harder to come by, and helps Calcharo reach high Crit stats.

It’s naturally above all other four star options, but still not the best weapon you can get for free. So don’t waste your money on this weapon if Calcharo is the only Broadsword user you use.

Verdant Summit – Five Star from Weapon Selector

At account level 45, you will get a five star weapon selector, and the Broadsword inside is Verdant Summit. If you play Calcharo as your main character, it’s best to select this as your choice.

Verdant Summit is best none-limited weapon for Calcharo in entire game, and even very competitive with the limited Broadblade. It gives highest base attack (587), 36.4% ATK, and 12.8% Energy Recharge. On top of that, it grants 14% Resonance damage after using skill.

These are very potent bonuses that’s hard to compete with, turning Calcharo into a dps machine. Also have much easier time maintaining his energy for Resonance Liberation.

Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build Guide – Stats & Echoes

Similar to Relics from Honkai Star Rail, and Artifacts from Genshin Impact, Echoes works as gear in Wuthering Waves. We have five slots to equip echoes, but the difference is, we are not strict to use certain echoes in certain slots.

In total, character have 12 points to distribute among Echoes. Meanwhile, Echoes has three grades, Common (1 cost), Elite (3 cost), Boss (4 cost). So the ideal distribution in endgame is (4,3,3,1,1). However, up to endgame and fully optimize setup, there are several other combinations to maximize damage and stats in early game. Such as using four slots only with (3,3,3,3), or all five but get (4,4,1,1,1). Reason for this is, some stats such as crit and elemental dmg% are more impactful on early game than ATK stat.

Calcharo Top Stats

In this Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build we aim to get these dps main stats:

• Cost 1: Atk %
• Cost 3: Electro Damage
• Cost 4: Crit Rate

The goal of Crit stats is to balance a ratio of 1:2 Crit Rate: Crit Damage stats, so always aim to get closest to it. Calcharo doesn’t have innate Crit Rate bonus, while he have Crit Damage on minor Forte. So it’s Crit Rate main stat that we always aim for, to balance the ratio.

For sub stats, we need energy Recharge enough to get his Resonance Liberation ready in cooldown, and this change depending on team and other characters rotations. (For example Yangyang gives 20 energy to next charge on her Outro skill. So Calcharo needs less energy sub stats when played with her.

Other sub stats are Crit, ATK, Resonance Liberation DMG, and Normal Attack DMG.

Calcharo Echo Skill

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. Calcharo own dps is very high, so Echoes that deal pure damage is not very attractive. For this reason, we want a utility Echo that help Calcharo own damage.

Something like applying Debuff on enemies, buffing Calcharo, or refunding energy would be ideal. Or use a defensive Echo instead to increase survivability.

In a vacuum, without considering Echoes set bonus, we would consider one of the following:

• Inferno Rider (Cost 4), which buffs Basic attack damage for 15 sec.
• Mourning Aix (Cost 4), which buffs Resonance Liberation damage for 15 sec.
• Thundering Mephis (Cost 4) which buff both Electro DMG and Resonance DMG.
• Flautist (Cost 3) which refund 10 Con. energy.
• Rocksteady Guardian (Cost 3) On defensive side, to parry boss special attack.
• Stonewall Bracer (Cost 3) for a shield.

However, if we consider set bonus, only Flautist (Cost 3) and Thundering Mephis (Cost 4) belongs to relevant Electro set. So if we aim to build full set, we need all five slots to equip Electro set, including the main one. If we go hybrid however, we have a chance to equip any of the other Echoes, and two pieces of two other sets.

Calcharo Echo set

Echoes comes from sets, and some echoes capable of rolling into one of two sets. So it adds another layer of complexity to our Wuthering Waves Calcharo Build.

The best five pieces set for Calcharo is a straight forward Electro Set, Void Thunder. it grants up to 40% Electro DMG bonus if you use two skills, or one skill and heavy attack every 15 seconds.

The alternative is using 2 pieces Void Thunder, and 2 pieces, Lingering Tunes, or Moonlit Clouds. This gives a combination of Electro DMG, ATK, or Energy Regen. It also allow picking up the best sub stats from each set, and allow a flex fifth slot that doesn’t have to belong to any certain set.

Note that set bonuses only apply when you use different echoes. So if you want 5 set bonus, you have to use five different echoes, without any duplicates.

Calcharo Team Composition

Teams consist of three characters in Wuthering Waves, and to build Calcharo right, we have to pair two suitable companions. Calcharo wants to take a lot of field time, doing prolonged combos, so we need support characters that takes minimum field time, and provide buffs to help him.

A Healer (Baizhi/Verina/Yangyang)

Some teams can build without relying on healer, as the main dps either have insane defenses, or self heal. Calcharo can counter some beating with Parry, and takes few hits with his DMG taken reduction buff. However, he’s not a tank, and building him to be tanky make him lose dps. So the safer option is to give him a healer.

Baizhi is the default healer you get upon making one wish on Beginners Banner in Convene. So just slot her and be done with it. She provide a minor heal on using her skill, and she may give some buffs through healer set.

A starter choice that will see power creep from any specialized limited healer. Even the standard banner Verina power creep her by a lot.

Verina is a character you can pick from Five star selector, and she’s the best support in the game. She heals much more than Baizhi, and provide buffs on top of that. As the game is giving us two five star selectors, on top of another random character from Beginner banner, getting Verina is inevitable.

Yangyang is not a healer, but some advanced teams in endgame can use her with the healing sword and healing set and use her as a healer replacement. This is important because number of healers are limited at launch, and some modes require more than one team (such as Tower of Adversity).

A buffer (Yinlin/Jianxin/Yangyang)

All of these characters provide potent buffs to Calcharo, increasing his efficiency and damage output. You may use Energy Set on them to add another buff to Calcharo on their Outro.

Yinlin is a limited, five star, Electro character that comes in second half of version 1.0. She buff both Resonance damage and Electro damage, as well as doing off-field Electro damage. She’s the absolute best in slot team mate for Calcharo, in terms of dps increase.

Jianxin is a standard five star, that you may get randomly, or pick from five star selector. She’s a shielder and a healer while on-field. But her value in Calcharo team comes from her Outro skill, giving 38% Resonance Liberation DMG Deepen for 14s, which is a huge damage multiplier.

On some game modes that need one character to solo, Jianxin can switch to a main dps, self healer, and shielder. A one woman army on her own, so she have several places to be used, not only in Calcharo team. She’s a great alternative to Yunlin, or sometimes against enemies you can kill before they kill you, she’s an alternative to a healer (If you don’t have Verina)

Finally, the starter character, Yangyang. She’s a decent character to start with, who refund energy to next character on her Outro. It’s not a huge dps increase, but saves Calcharo very precious sub stats at endgame. And at early game before getting sub stats at all, she’s the ideal support to help him get his Resonance Liberation up.

Final Tips

Calcharo with Yinlin is the top dps due in game at version 1.0. And having one of them being standard character and the other being limited is easy access for even free to play players. You can simply select Calcharo on one selector, and Verina on another selector. Then save everything to pull for Yinlin from limited banner, the game however players with free wishes, so it shall be an easy task at start.

You might consider getting S1 Calcharo with one of the character selectors, if you got lucky and pulled other important character already. It helps refund 10 energy for him every rotation, which smooths out his rotation by a lot

Electro damage is not widely resisted among enemies, so you get to clear most content. However, at some point, you will be met with Resistant enemies, and need another team. Jianxin could be your secondary dps for that second team, while substituting as support for Calcharo if needed.

Calcharo is easy character to parry enemy attacks, so he have higher potential against harder bosses. Unlike some dps character such as Encore who deal insane damage but has no parry.

Stay tuned for more Wuthering Waves Character Guides.