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Wuthering Waves

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  • Accidental Innuendo:
    • Whenever Changli picks up an item, she asks "How do you like these?" Obviously, that's in reference to the loot you just acquired, but given who she is, it's easy for a wandering mind to think she's talking about something else.
    • Camellya has a circus performer motif and her playstyle with her vines are based on rope-dancing. That said, with how sexualized she is, along with certain tendencies of hers, you're forgiven for thinking it's rope play instead.
  • Adorkable: Chixia is exuberant and loves being seen as a hero of justice, up to and including squeeing over cool superhero names.
  • Arc Fatigue: The Rinascita storyline starting from Septimont has drawn this reaction from a few players, as the quests follow a noticeable formula of stopping Leviathan and the Dark Tide by beating a formidable boss at the end of the quest. Despite Rover winning in the end, Leviathan and the Dark Tide appear again and again as a threat, which leads to a feeling of repetitiveness and lack of progress being made.
  • Awesome Music: While 1.0 was agreed by most to have a pretty lackluster soundtrack, Kuro has made a marked effort to improve the music with every patch. This culminated in 2.0 where some truly awesome tracks made up the new Rinascita and its promotional material. Some stand outs include the music for the 2.0 trailer entitled "Grand Feast Daydream performed by well known singer Annapantsu, and the song "A Fairy Tale" that plays on first entering the wilderness of Rinascita.
    • Then there's No Light for the Sanctuary, the second boss theme for Fleurdelys, an epic rock opera that leaves you truly thinking you're fighting a god-like being and have a real chance of winning. Many have compared it to the boss music from the more recent Final Fantasy games.
    • Among the bosses' soundtracks, the Sentry Construct is largely agreed to have one of the best ones, featuring a fantastic violin composition that hearkens a lot to Wuthering Waves' sister game, Punishing: Gray Raven.
    • "Saving Light", the music greeting the players for the first time in the 1.0 login screen, has an atmospheric feel with the Rover on the rock, ready to dive into Solaris-3. Gets even more amazing when it plays again during the climax of "Dawn Breaks on Dark Tides" where the Rover notes that the entire thing is where it all began.
    • "Radiance Across Sea and Sky", Porsche and Bugatti memes aside, is an amazing piece that summarizes all of Primus Fenrico's thoughts. He is certain that his ways are correct and nothing will stand in his way, not even the Rover and Phrolova.
    • "Chasing Daylight" is a masterpiece that finishes off the Rinascita arc with how hopeful the music is, with all of the Rinascita Resonators working together to seal Leviathan and free Rinascita from its grasp.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Rover. Many like Rover for being an attractive and proactive central character, whose expressions and lines give them deceptive character and charism that make them a worthy Player Character to follow. However, just as many critize Rover as, under the surface, just another bland, overtuned self-insert that plagues Japanese and Chinese media, who warps both the entire narrative and other characters around them in unsatisfying fashion and prevents the story from realizing its potential. For Male Rover in particular, most characters, especially females, being connected to and advertised with him leads to either cheering over how much a "rizzlord" he is or eye-rolling.
  • Broken Base: There is a good deal of divided opinion regarding how every playable character thus far views the Rover in a positive light. While some appreciate how beloved this makes the Rover, others feel this to be somewhat monotonous and would prefer to have a few characters who have a negative opinion of the Rover (or are at least more skeptical of them). It also doesn't help how many characters have some level of romantic infatuation with the Rover to the point its been memed that the game is about building a harem rather than saving the world. This trend was finally ended by Phrolova, who despises the Rover for breaking a promise they once made to her in the past by wiping out their own memories and putting their mission over her plight.
  • Cheese Strategy: As demonstrated by this player's gameplay footage, the enemy may not notice you nor have the proper means to retaliate while you're free to slowly chip away its health from a high ground using a ranged character. Although tedious, this surprisingly works even if that enemy is way above your level and stats.
  • Common Knowledge: The main gacha currency in this game is officially called "Astrite", but some fans still mistakenly call it "Asterite".
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Expect to see lots of players using either The Shorekeeper or Verina on their teams when looking up gameplay or guides. Having a healer is usually a must since all healers can equip the useful Rejuvenating Glow Echo set, which grants a 15% ATK% boost to the entire party after triggering a Healing effect, but what sets the aforementioned two units apart is their ease of use and more significant damage buffs to the team. The Shorekeeper grants boosts to the party's Critical Rate and Critical Damage, while Verina's efficient Concerto Energy generation allows for shorter rotations to get to your main damage dealers much faster.
  • Demonic Spiders: Kerasaurs are the nastiest Elite-class Tacet Discords you'll face in the wilds of Septimont. They're tough, fast, hit hard, and they gain a resistance to whichever element they're first struck by, making any mono-element team a bad idea against them. They also won't stay stunned for long even if you do Break them. You also can't rely on the Bell-Borne Geochelone Echo's shield to mitigate the knockback on their attacks, as the sheer frequency of hits they deal will remove those three stacks in an instant.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience: The majority of Encore's "BAA BAA!!" Resonator Showcase presents her as a bubbly kid who's roleplaying as a hero in a stage play, but then the last few moments of the video reveal she was reading the story to herself, Cosmos and Cloudy in an isolated place. Even if this was still a pre-release material, many viewers and commenters point out Encore may be relying on Escapism, a coping mechanism, or having a dissociation from the post-apocalyptic reality of the world.
  • Difficulty Spike: Tactical Hologram challenges are special versions of the Overlord Class Tacet Discord boss battles, and you're in for a shock if you expect them to be as easy as the originals. A Tactical Hologram boss deals extremely high amounts of damage, far more than what's usually expected for monsters at its level, so the game also recommends a higher average party level. If you're not properly prepared enough and not careful at dodging or parrying, the boss can One-Hit Kill each of your party members. Due to such surprise difficulty, the Tactical Holograms quickly earned a reputation of being "skill checks" in an Action RPG that's mostly based around "stat checks". To top it all off, Tactical Hologram challenges are Timed Missions, so you can't take too long to beat them.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Like in Punishing: Gray Raven, Kuro Games keeps up its tradition of having minor characters that the fanbase takes a shining to:
    • Yhan, the Simulation Training Instructor, a unique NPC among unique NPCs, being a tall, grisly, visibly older but no less handsome man. He gets some of the most, loudest calls to become playable.
    • Xinyi, the mayor of Hongzhen introduced in Huanglong Act VII: Thaw of Eons, for similar reasons to Yhan. She's a middle-age woman, and still gorgeous, with a cool fashion sense, gaining a following precisely because of those traits and her relationship with Jinhsi.
    • Rosemary, the eponymous shopkeeper of "Rosemary's Apothecary" in Rinascita, caught many players' attention for her cute design resembling that of Koseki Bijou from Hololive and for being a good-natured member of the Fisalia family who is trying to use her family's practices to help others.
    • Avidius, a gladiator joining the Hunt, ended up being quite memorable for his role in the last few Rinascita story quests, as he not only tries to cope with his being a creation of Cristoforo's but also undergoes a character arc of trying to defy his "purpose" and ultimately resolving to sacrifice himself to save Rinascita.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Wuthering Waves has many similarities with Genshin Impact, but calling it as "Just a Genshin Copy" was contentious as it can be misunderstood as a dismissal of the other mechanics that make this game deviate from Genshin. A more neutral counterpoint from fans instead says Wuthering Waves borrows concepts not just from Genshin, but also from other video games like Punishing: Gray Raven (an Action RPG developed and released by Kuro Games before Genshin became a Breakthrough Hit on 2020), Death Stranding, Pokémon, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Devil May Cry. A contributing factor is this interview article with PR director Anthony Chau saying that Kuro Games hopes to dismiss "the assumption that this is a Genshin Impact clone."
    • These similarities have become so prominent that Wuthering Waves have often placed next to Genshin and other HoYoverse titles as if WuWa was part of the HoYoverse family. Although, some fans weren't pleased at the notion of WuWa being treated as a HoYoverse game despite being actually made by Kuro Games.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • Wuthering Waves has faced this with a couple of games from HoYoverse. More importantly, this further extends to the latter and WuWa's developer Kuro Games, and eventually escalated into an online Flame War.
      • Perhaps the biggest example is with Genshin Impact. Wuthering Waves has been compared a lot to Genshin because both games are Chinese open-world games,note  with some content creators and gaming news outlets even treated Wuthering Waves as the next "Genshin Killer" before it was even launched.note  This is taken further with some players comparing Genshin rather negatively to WuWa, especially when it comes to the perceived generosity towards its playerbase, not helped by the fact that some of WuWa's playerbase consisted of disgruntled former Genshin players. The rivalry quickly turned rather toxic after Wuthering Waves's disastrous launch, as many rumors and misinformation about HoYoverse and Kuro Games started spreading around social media,note  At any rate, discussions between both games can surely set off fiery debates, so much so that it can be hard for some neutral fans to enjoy both games without provoking either side.
      • Coming off the heels of Wuthering Waves, Zenless Zone Zero sparks a slew of comparisons to WuWa due to its similar Stylish Action gameplay, with WuWa fans dismissed ZZZ as an inferior Fanservice-riddled copy. It grew further heated when ZZZ's well-received 1st anniversary came shortly after WuWa's underwhelming 1st anniversary.
    • WuWa also has a mild yet noticeable rivalry with Tower of Fantasy, with ToF fans accusing WuWa fans of botting to prop up the latter's score, whilst WuWa fans stating that their game is simply "better" (Better in the loosest sense of the term given WuWa's own issues with optimisation). This eventually led to a three-way dumpster fire, with more outside observers agreeing that Genshin came out on top by simply doing nothing but releasing a playable product and being the biggest of the three.
    • In China, there is one with Minecraft due to the Chinese name for the game, Ming Chao, resulting in both Minecraft and WuWa fans fighting over the same acronym for tagging.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • "Gathering Wives" - A joke nickname that sounds similar to the game's title, coined after fans noticed the huge amounts of Ship Tease involving the Rover and several female characters, or the abundance, screentime, and plot relevance of females compared to most males. And due to the game's nature as a gacha, it's also a meta joke on anime fans playing gachas because they like to collect "waifus".
    • Even during pre-release, some English fans simply call Yangyang as "Yanyan".
      • After the game's official release, Yangyang is often called "Yapyap" because she talks. So. Damn. Much.
    • Calcharo easily earned the nickname "Sephiroth" because of his striking resemblance to the Final Fantasy character; from their similar long silver hair, primarily dark outfit, white shoulder guards, and long sword. This is further reinforced when Calcharo is revealed to have the same Japanese voice actor as Sephiroth, making him an example of a Casting Gag.
      • "Kakarot" is also a popular nickname for him, due to it being what he was called originally.
      • Misremembering Calcharo's name or replacing it with similar-sounding terms (or even just with words that start with the letter C) became prevalent enough as a meme trend in the fandom, resulting in joke nicknames such as "Calculator", "Calendar", "Cancellation", "Calculus", "Canada", "Churro", and "Calzone".
    • "Lion Boy", "Lion Dance Boy" or "Lion Dude" for Lingyang due to his lion motifs and association with liondancing.
    • "Onigiri Man" and "Onigiri Guy" for Scar, based on the early "Onigiri Manko" memes that poke fun at the black strip on the zipper of his initial design.
    • The official in-game terminology for the combat mechanics were such a mouthful for some fans, they preferred giving simpler Layman's Terms, MOBA lingo, or Genshin-related names instead for convenience. For example, "Resonance Liberation" is simply called "Ultimate", "Ult" or "Burst".
    • Inferno Rider is alternatively called "Ghost Rider" because it's similarly a humanoid riding a motorycle on flames.
    • Tempest Mephis and Thundering Mephis are sometimes jokingly or accidentally called "Tempest Memphis" and "Thundering Memphis" respectively, as Mephis sounds just like the Memphis city of Tennessee, USA.
    • It's very common for the fandom to use simple descriptions to refer to an Echo than its actual fantastical name:
      • "Dancing Turtle", "Disco Turtle" – Hoartoise, due to its Echo skill that summons flying "disco ball"-like shards as it heals you over time.
      • "Big Turtle" – Bell-Borne Geochelone
      • "Monkey", "Monkey Boss" – Feilian Beringal
      • "Wolves" – Fusion Dreadmane and Havoc Dreadmane, due to their wolf-like appearances.
    • The Rover is called "Wuthering" and "Waves" for Male and Female Rovers respectively due to having no canon name.
      • "MRover" and "FRover" would later on become the simpler and more commonly-used identifiers for the Male and Female Rovers respectively.
      • Whenever possible, the elemental variants of the Rover are often shortened into Portmanteau nicknames such as "Spectrover" for the Spectro Rover.
    • "Dragon Lady" or "Dragon Girl" for Jinhsi due to her connection to the dragon Sentinel Jué.
    • "Grass Girl" for Verina because she's a botanist who has plant-based powers.
    • "Takanashi Kiara" for Changli due to resembling the head of KFP, and for both being phoenix powered women.
    • "Lucia" for the unknown lady who appears at the beginning of the game, due to her resemblance to Lucia from Kuro Games' other game, Punishing: Gray Raven. She is also simply known as the Woman in Silver.
    • The Shorekeeper is jokingly called "White Swan" because she's visually perceived as the Wuthering Waves counterpart of Black Swan from Honkai: Star Rail, albeit with a brighter color scheme.
      • Additionally, while obviously Ship-to-Ship Combat exists within the fandom given the amount of Ship Tease the Rover gets with other characters, the Shorekeeper gets the nicknames of "Canon Wife" and "Shorewife" because of how close and intimate her relationship with the Rover is.
    • "Rin" for Carlotta, as she's voiced in Japanese by Kana Ueda, uses gems in combat, and her attire emphasizes her thigh-highs, making her feel like an Expy of Rin Tohsaka from the Fate Series.
    • "Montiny" for Carlotta, which is a pun on her surname Montelli, and is based on the fandom's trend of joking about her height. "Smolotta", "Smol Mafia Girl" and "Smol Mafia Lady" are also related to this trend.
    • "Echocaptor Phoebe" for Phoebe, as her animations (including riding on a winged staff and using magical cards) caused a lot of players to think of Cardcaptor Sakura.
    • Phoebe also receives numerous joke misspellings of her name (or its first syllable) such as "Feeb", "Fibi", "Peeb", "Pheeb", "Pheebs", "Pibi", etc.
    • "Cartwheel" is the usual joke nickname for Cartethyia particularly because her name is rather hard to spell.
    • "Cocaine" is the simplified joke nickname for Ciaccona.
  • Fan-Preferred Cut Content: In the first version of the game's story, many of the characters didn't trust the Rover, and in one scene Chixia even points her gun at them. The Chinese community absolutely hated this and forced Kuro Games to change it, but players from other communities, particularly those from the West, think some elements of it (though not necessarily all) should have been kept since it would've been more believable. Basically Kuro course corrected from the extreme that everyone hated and distrusted the Rover to what many consider another extreme on the opposite end.
  • Fetish Retardant: Cantarella’s trailer ends with her sensually eating a cherry, with the camera focusing on her tongue. However, due to a combination of the strange squelching sounds that her tongue makes, along with her breath fogging up the screen, many fans were turned off by that scene, calling it creepy and gross.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • With Punishing: Gray Raven due to their shared developer (Kuro Games), similar post-apocalyptic Science Fiction vibe and fast-paced flashy combat.
    • Wuthering Waves is yet another 3D action gacha that has an overlap with Devil May Cry, mostly due to this game having aerial combos, Yangyang being an Iaijutsu Practitioner, and Kuro Games once again making a DMC reference (the Closed Beta tests reveal a chair on a cliff that rewards an achievement named "POWER!" when sat on, referencing Vergil and his associated "I Need More Power!" and "Vergil Chair" memes).
    • While there is indeed an intense (and downright toxic) rivalry between Wuthering Waves and Genshin Impact, it should be noted that there are just as many people if not more who are fans of both. Wuthering Waves is similar enough that any Genshin player can easily understand the game mechanics and don't have to slog through a brand new learning curve. It helps that because Genshin has been out for so long, many players are completely caught up on content and do not have much to do outside of daily quests, Wuthering Waves helps fill the gap while waiting for more major Genshin updates.
    • Fans of the Souls-like RPG genre (especially those from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) were interested at Wuthering Waves ever since the early gameplay footage showed that there's an emphasis on dodging, and you can "parry" some enemy attacks with an attack of your own. This got some validation when an interview with PR director Anthony Chau hinted that this game took inspiration from that genre when its developer, Kuro Games, hoped that its "challenging, soulslike combat system will help it stand out from its competitors".
  • Game-Breaker:
    • Jinhsi, the Magistrate of Jinzhou, more than lives up to her title as Sentinel Jué's chosen Resonator by packing some of the highest damage potential in the game courtesy of her enhanced Resonance Skill and Forte. The former has her take to the skies and safely attack enemies from the air, while the latter is a large damage nuke that only gets stronger the more times her teammates can attack enemies with coordinated attacks. Though she experiences party restrictions due to wanting teammates with coordinated attacks, it's a small price to pay, especially since her gameplay is comparably simpler to pilot relative to the amount of damage she can deal.
    • Sanhua, Jinhsi's subordinate, isn't too far behind in terms of combat proficiency, being widely considered to be one of the best sub-DPS characters in the game. She has incredibly fast Concerto generation that lets you swap into your main damage dealer more quickly, deals pretty good damage relative to the amount of time she stays on-field, and her Outro Skill that boosts Basic Attack damage by a whopping 38% is an effect that many DPS units can take advantage of. Lastly, she's obtainable for free just by playing through the storyline. She's tough to master and has some very tight timings on her rotations, but it's more than worth the effort.
    • Carlotta has quickly proven to be one of the game's best damage dealers, able to dish out enormous amounts of ranged punishment on enemies. When fully buffed, her Resonance Liberation can rip even a Tactical Hologram to pieces in short order. She's also highly maneuverable thanks to her Skill, allowing her to gun-vault over enemies while also briefly freezing them in place, and this freezing effect even works on bosses. And like Jinhsi, she's relatively easy to master, not relying on complicated quick-swap mechanics since she's best played on-field for lengthy periods.
    • Camellya presently has no equal when it comes to dealing with multiple enemies at once. Her attacks hit in a very wide area, and thanks to her floating in the air, she's afforded some reasonable safety while performing her Spin Attacks. Though her mobility is a bit quirky and she's not quite as easy-to-learn as Jinhsi or Carlotta, Camellya reigns as the current best main DPS in Whimpering Wastes and a heavyweight contender in Tower of Adversity. She also has excellent synergy with the aforementioned Sanhua, whose Basic Attack buff provides a massive damage boost to the crazed Bloom Bearer.
    • The Shorekeeper is the game's current best Combat Medic, able to keep the team alive through most fights while also providing some very useful buffs. Her Resonance Liberation creates a large field that not only provides healing over time, but also boosts Crit Rate and Crit Damage when allies use Outro skills in it. She's also able to do a decent amount of damage via her special Intro Skill, and her fully-charged Heavy Attack can even provide a minor vacuum effect, leaving her loaded with all kinds of utility.
    • Cartethyia has proven to be a monstrously powerful Lightning Bruiser right from the get-go. Her damage output scales off her maximum HP, giving her more survivability than most other characters, and she pairs well with Sanhua since much of her damage comes from her Basic Attacks (though she's better when paired with Ciaccona). Once you transform her into Fleurdelys, however, is when she starts dealing ridiculous damage, eclipsing both Jinhsi and Carlotta, all while being airborne and thus afforded even more survivability. As Fleurdelys, she also has a vacuum capability, letting her group pesky enemies that would otherwise spread out and force you to chase them, and her gameplay is flexible enough that she can be used in a quickswap or hypercarry style, depending on who she's teamed up with. She is, however, a high-investment character, needing her signature weapon and to be paired with Ciaccona and Aero Rover to be most effective due to her dependency on inflicting Aero Erosion on the enemy, and she's not as easy to learn as Jinhsi or Carlotta, but when all set up and played properly she is a total juggernaut.
    • In the Illusive Realm, when you go through the "Memory of Dreaming" door, you're supposed to pick one of two breakable rocks and hope you get the White Cat. There is an exploit where if you stand in the middle between the rocks and do a large enough AOE attack, you both break and reveal two White Cats. Nothing stops you from purchasing buffs from both, so you can rack up bonuses from 6 Cats instead of the intended 3 and become stupidly strong far earlier.
    • For weapons, Yinlin's Stringmaster is widely regarded as one of the best limited 5★ weapons for its sky-high 36% Crit Rate stat, unconditional 12% boost to all types of damage, and easy-to-trigger passive ability that boosts Attack after using a Resonance Skill and can even increase Attack further if the equipped Resonator is off-field. While only a few Resonators can take advantage of all the buffs it provides, most Rectifier units can still make use of it in some way or another, to the point where some would argue that if you manage to get one copy of Stringmaster, you don't have to pull another 5★ Rectifier every again.
  • Genius Bonus: This game uses a ton of music or sound-related terms in its In-Universe terminology. Several are easy to spot (Echoes, Reverberators, Forte), some are less common in layman's terms (Tacet), and some appear to be wordplays (Waveworn for "waveform"). Then there's "Threnodian", which at first sounds like it's a made-up fantasy term for an alien race, but is actually derived from the word "threnody", which may mean "a song of lamentation for the dead".
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • During exploration, if you pause the game or open the menu while a character is speaking a voiced dialogue line, that character will repeat their line when you unpause. This can happen ad infinitum if you rapidly pause and unpause before the character finishes saying their line.
    • Despite being officially released on May 22, 2024, the game was not yet fully optimized or polished for all devices, leading to users noticing and reporting bugs that can be hilarious, annoying, or both. For instance:
      • Smartphones with a display notch may have trouble displaying the full text that you would type with the on-screen keyboard, which includes the name you give to the Rover, something that you will do as soon as you start playing the game.
      • There may be LOD (level of detail) errors where the game loads the low-quality model instead of the proper high-quality one, leading to hilarity and a break in immersion if this happens during cutscenes.
      • Other hilarious glitches that have been compiled include textures not loading properly, a "floating head" NPC missing her entire body, and your character clipping through the environment. Strangely enough, that last one was also a bug acknowledged during pre-release, yet it still happened post-launch.
    • It's more of a weird interaction than an erroneous glitch, but the Resonator menu reflects what's happening in real-time during exploration. Specifically, players have found out that approaching the Bell-Borne Geochelone, then opening the Resonator menu while the boss is still waking up causes the character model in the menu to rapidly shake or shiver. However, the shaking will stop once the boss properly stands up.
  • Growing the Beard: While the Huanglong arc was viewed as a Slow-Paced Beginning for the game, the Rinascita arc has been seen as a drastic improvement. The story features a lot more intrigue, doesn't leave characters out (such as what happened with Danjin, Calcharo who actually receives his first ever storyline appearance for the climactic fight, albeit a short cameo, Yuanwu, etc.), and the action and production values are far greater. In addition, the overworld mechanics in Rinascita, such as the ability to fly, have been highly praised by fans, who feel the version 2.0 update is a substantial upgrade over the game's launch.
  • Ho Yay:
    • Characters of both genders will flirt with the Rover regardless of theirs and yes you can flirt back as well.
    • Augusta and Iuno, in keeping with their Solar and Lunar motif, share a moment atop Septimont before heading off to a hunt at the end of v2.5, with their banter suggesting they're more than just friends.
  • I Knew It!: Many players had correctly guessed that Galbrena was Augusta’s Childhood Friend Angel, as revealed in Dawn Breaks on Dark Tides.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: The Rover is this in spades. Regardless of whatever gender the Rover is, they will attract the attention of just about every man and woman they meet. Most ships include but are not limited to: Yangyang, Changli, Yinlin, Scar, Jiyan, Jinhsi, Camellya, Zhezhi, and Shorekeeper. With each new update the list grows and grows.
  • Low-Tier Letdown:
    • Taoqi is largely considered one of the weakest characters in the game thus far. Her attacks are slow and don't hit very hard, her Rocksteady Shields only mitigate damage rather than block it outright, and she has poor Concerto Energy generation, making it time-consuming to prepare her Outro Skill. Additionally, her defensive playstyle isn't particularly valuable in a game where dodging attacks is always better than trying to tank them, especially since her Rocksteady Shields can only block up to 3 hits before needing to be refreshed. While not unusable, Taoqi struggles to find a use outside of buffing Resonance Skill-focused DPS characters like Jinhsi and Carlotta, and even there she tends to be outperformed by others.
    • Yuanwu is a free character players can add to their roster after progressing through enough floors in the Tower of Adversity, but compared to other free characters, he is undoubtedly the worst of the bunch. His kit sounds interesting on paper, providing off-field coordinated attacks through his Resonance Skill, giving interruption resistance (and later a shield at Sequence Node 4) with his Resonance Liberation, and dealing increased damage to the Vibration meter to stagger enemies faster. In practice, however, these attributes provide little value, as his damage scalings are low even with proper investment, and since Vibration damage is already tied to a character's ability to deal damage, it becomes more worth it in the long run to use other characters with Outro Skills that buff damage. Currently, Yuanwu only sees use in Jinhsi teams to quickly build up stacks for Jinhsi's damage, and while he is simple to use, his low damage means he is not even the best option there.
    • Aalto is an unfortunate victim of circumstance. He is the only character in the game that can buff Aero damage through his Outro Skill, but the Aero DPS units he is meant to support have other 4★ teammates that offer more utility than Aalto as Mortefi can provide off-field coordinated attacks in Jiyan teams while Sanhua takes less field time in Cartethyia teams. While Aalto's kit has its own perks, such as being able to spawn a taunt from his Resonance Skill, his attacks are strictly single-target focused, which is a terrible trait to have when endgame modes like the Tower of Adversity and Whimpering Wastes feature waves of enemies. As a result, Aalto is outshined even in the niche he is supposed to excel at, leaving him without a best-in-slot team.
    • Lingyang is widely regarded as the worst standard 5★ character you could to lose your fifty-fifty to, often compared to Qiqi from Genshin Impact or Yanqing from Honkai: Star Rail. Unlike Taoqi and Yuanwu, he is a DPS character who therefore has to compete for the spotlight against all the other damage dealers in the game, and compared to all of them, his damage is low even compared to fellow standard banner DPS units Encore and Calcharo. His unique aerial-focused kit can let him avoid enemy attacks, but it is difficult to get the hang of it, which leaves players feeling that mastering his gameplay isn't worth the investment in the long run.
    • Jianxin suffers from being a Jack of All Trades, but a Master of None who gets easily outshined by others. She can generate shields for her team, but this requires standing still for a significant period to channel her Forte Circuit, which is almost never a good idea in endgame content, and you're usually better off dodging attacks instead of relying on shields. While her Resonance Liberation might seem like a good choice for Whimpering Wastes for vacuuming up enemies, she suffers from poor Resonance and Concerto Energy efficiency, and there are various other Aero characters with vacuum capabilities who can do better than her, including Yangyang, a 4★ available for free right from the start. Her Skill is also hard to use since it's a block, requiring good timing to use efficiently, and a block isn't particularly useful in content that encourages aggression, such as Tactical Holograms or Tower of Adversity. All of this is compounded by Jianxin having poor damage output, making her more suited for overworld farming and not useful for late-game content.
    • Lumi fell out of the spotlight very quickly despite her prominent appearance in the marketing for v1.4. She was initially touted as a more offensive version of Taoqi, trading the latter's defensive support for more personal damage while still providing the same buff to Resonance Skill damage. However, Lumi has a few glaring weaknesses that prevent her from being a valuable pick. First, she shares the same problem as Taoqi of having poor Concerto Energy generation that necessitates long field time. Second, most of her damage is single target focused outside of her Resonance Liberation, which is detrimental against the AOE-focused floors of Tower of Adversity and Whimpering Wastes. Third, her buff to Resonance Skill damage lasts 10 seconds as opposed to Taoqi's 14 seconds, meaning that the DPS characters that Lumi is meant to support like Jinhsi and Carlotta are susceptible to having the buff run out before they can unload all of their damage, which is an issue that even Taoqi doesn't run into. While she has a small fanbase that were endeared by her unique gameplay, most would agree that it's not enough to stand out, with some arguing that she is even worse than Taoqi.
  • Memetic Badass: Danjin and her players has developed this reputation among the fanbase - her Cast from Hit Points combat style is pure Difficult, but Awesome as it leaves her very vulnerable yet also very hard-hitting as a DPS. It's not uncommon to see ridiculous feats being posted on the Wuthering Waves subreddit, such as doing no-hit runs against difficult bosses or playing her one-handed in the endgame Tower of Adversity, with no healers.
  • Memetic Loser: Calcharo. Despite having a fearsome reputation in-universe, he is often treated as a laughingstock by players for not only being one of the more noteworthy recipients of nerfs following the closed beta, but also being the first unit who was effectively powercrept by another character, that being Xiangli Yao. All this resulted in a character that, while still capable of dealing good damage, is too difficult and impractical to pilot effectively for most players, causing people to make plenty of jokes at his own expense (such as the many misnomers of his name in Fan Nickname above).
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "Vergil Chair" / "Motivated Chair" Explanation
    • "Scar's Cock Zipper" / "Scar's Onigiri Manko" Explanation
      • "RIP Scar's Cock Zipper" / "RIP Scar's Onigiri Manko" Explanation
    • "DEVS LISTENED!" Explanation
      • Devs Listened Edits Explanation
    • "Why would Genshin do this?"/"Psshhh....Hoyoverse spy here...." Explanation
    • Genshin killer? No. Genshin symbiosis? Yes.Explanation
    • Stuttering Waves/Withering Waves Explanation
    • NPC FemRover 🤖Explanation
    • Wuthering 76/Wuthering 2077 Explanation
    • "It's just so...Peak..." Explanation
    • Baizhi's sentient booba Explanation
    • Bro thinks he's part of the squadExplanation
    • Powerpuff GirlsExplanation
    • They're already pulling a Dr. Ratio?!Explanation
    • Zhezhi getting underpaidExplanation
    • Zhezhi's CanvasExplanation
    • Booba gun/Raiden Shotgun Explanation
    • She's a ChuuniExplanation
    • Fem-Rover checking herself out Explanation
    • Tiny Carlotta Explanation
    • More useful than Emergency Food Explanation
    • Scar Sewing Explanation
    • Calcharotta Explanation
    • WuWa is a HoYo game. Explanation
    • John Wick is back Explanation
    • Squishy Phoebe Explanation
    • "We promise, we deliver!" Explanation
    • "It's Genshin's anniversary all over again!" / "You're supposed to beat Genshin, not joining them!" Explanation
      • "W, this is so player-friendly." Explanation
    • Yukkuri shiteitte ne~ Explanation
    • Phoebe Chupi~ Explanation
    • Did we almost get Rick-Rolled? Explanation
    • Kuro: "Fine, we'll leak it ourselves!" Explanation
    • Camellya brainrotExplanation
    • Ishtar, is that you? Explanation
    • "Haiyaa" Explanation
    • MY PORSCHE ARRIVES Explanation (spoilers for Version 2. 5 story!)
    • Pero's Bugatti Explanation
    • 7/10 Explanation
    • "Who?" "Iuno." "No, I don't." Explanation (Spoilers!)
    • Now Dante has to pay child support! Explanation
    • Abby: "Rover fed me food, so I betrayed you."Explanation (spoilers for Version 2. 7 story!)
  • Moe: This is a gacha game, so plenty of characters qualify.
    • Encore is an adorable, innocent, friendly Cheerful Child who is accompanied with (and loves) stuffed animals, and enjoys fairy tales, even if- or depending on your view, especially because- she is able to maturely grasp emotionally-taxing topics (as seen in her Companion Mission). This even extends in-universe, as many children like being around her, and the Black Shores, through her first Character Story, introduce her as a bright spot in the organization's otherwise shady themes.
    • Verina, much like Encore, is a precious Nice Girl that cares for people as much as she does all things botanical, and much like Encore, is also considered this in-universe since many in Jinzhou adore her, with an NPC wishing that she was her granddaughter.
    • Phoebe has a pretty design that comes off as adorable, a gentle personality, and round (or squishy) cheeks. It also helps that she is a Shout-Out to Cardcaptor Sakura, among the codifier for adorable, huggable characters.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • The loud, metallic "ting!" after a successful parry returns from Punishing: Gray Raven, and it's just as satisfying here. There's also the sound that plays once you've broken an enemy's toughness gauge, leaving them wide open to your attacks.
    • When you complete an achievement, a delightful jingle plays that you feel like you accomplished something.
  • Narm:
    • Before her lines were re-dubbed to sound infinitely better, FemRover's English voice acting (as aforementioned) was… not great. So you can imagine how much her underacting would completely ruin tense and emotionally sensitive scenes with her trademark Dull Surprise. The contrast of voice acting was so ridiculous, WuWa fans took the piss out of it in a "So Bad, It's Good" category.
    • Roccia is able to perform three chain Plunging Attacks, with the English voice having her say an Italian phrase. However, the phrases themselves make no sense. In order, she says "Mamma Mia", "Avanti", and "Figurati". Each respective phrase translates to "My mother"/"Oh my God!", "Forward"/"Let's go", and "Forget about it".
  • Nausea Fuel: What makes Cantarella eating a cherry at the end of "Resonator Showcase | Cantarella — PROPER ETIQUETTE" so off-putting to many is the weird... squelching noise her tongue makes, along with the unintended Gross-Up Close-Up, making what was supposed to be Erotic Eating instead severe Fetish Retardant.
  • Older Than They Think:
  • Play the Game, Skip the Story: From the post-launch first impressions alone, the gameplay is considered the primary selling point of Wuthering Waves, as it's being repeatedly praised for its fast-paced, somehow complex combat mechanics and similarly fast Le Parkour traversal. On the flipside, the story was immediately criticized for its Slow-Paced Beginning, or that the player needs enough time and effort to understand the whole Worldbuilding and fictional terminology. This got to the point where player feedback urged the literal Skip feature itself to be implemented for more storyline scenes. However, this sentiment started subsiding after players reached the later acts, which got significantly better for those who weren't fans of lengthy dialogues without action or better execution. While things start picking up the moment Scar appears, Act V and VI notably were especially praised.
  • Realism-Induced Horror: The Black Alley in Zani’s Companion Quest. The world of Solaris-3 is barely recovering from an apocalypse called the Lament, there are entities called Tacet Discords roaming the wilds, and the Threnodians waiting to bring about the end of the world once again. But unlike all of them, the idea behind the Black Alley is a very real possibility, as the Black Alley is a criminal organization that took advantage of the devastation caused by the Dark Tide to “recruit” people into their ranks, and for a time, they were virtually untouchable due to the Order of the Deep being stretched too thin. It was only thanks to the Blazing Nightwalker, Zani, bringing them down that they no longer have the reach the once had.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Yangyang got this treatment following the introduction of the Whimpering Wastes endgame mode. While Yangyang's low damage output and lack of buffing capabilities make her weak in Tower of Adversity and against Tactical Holograms, her vacuuming capabilities, rapid Concerto energy generation, and ability to provide Resonance Energy to her allies make her perfect for non-stop waves of weaker enemies. In Whimpering Wastes, she's almost as good as Roccia, who is the current best sub-DPS for that mode.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Before Tacet Discords can be absorbed as your own Echoes, they will first leave behind brown-orange holograms that you have to interact with. The problem is, the Echo may become unintentionally missable because its hologram blended with specific parts of the environment like the sandy beach as seen in this screenshot.
    • There's a skip feature in storyline scenes for those who want to focus on the gameplay instead, but its implementation in this game has been immediately criticized at launch for being inconsistent (i.e. some storyline scenes can be skipped but others cannot), or not intuitive enough (i.e. the skip button's size and design make it hard to realize what it does). You'd know this is such an issue when one of the earliest official statements to address player feedback includes the plan to "Optimize the Skip function".
    • The "Data Merge" feature of the Data Bank lets you sacrifice five unneeded Echoes to get a random new Echo. At best, it helps in freeing up your Echo inventory space, as its reliance on the player's Data Bank level means low-rarity (green and blue) Echoes are often saved up for the chance to get higher-rarity or better (purple and gold) Echoes. Its flaws can become apparent in the end-game however as you start accumulating high-rarity Echoes through other means (such as killing monsters in the overworld or clearing out Tacet Fields). Because it depends on luck and Echoes have random main stats, there's the chance that the end-result is an Echo you won’t be using anyway, creating a cycle of sacrificing old trash Echoes only to receive new trash Echoes.
    • Blobflies are every completionist's nightmare. Each map in Huanglong has a small number of flying gremlins known as blobflies hidden throughout the map, and shooting them down awards you 10 astrite for your trouble. Doesn't sound too bad, right? Well, if you get too close to one, it'll start darting all over the place. If you still don't shoot it down, it'll despawn entirely, only returning once you teleport far away from the map and force it to reload. That, combined with the fact that there's no auditory cue that a blobfly has appeared or vanished, means you might miss them entirely without even knowing it. Hope you have a guide handy.
    • Out of all the gameplay concepts Wuthering Waves copied from Genshin Impact, this game somehow even retained some of the latter's own scrappy mechanics.
      • There's the mechanic wherein enemies in the overworld have their entire health bar replenished if they get too far away from their spawn point. You can accidentally trigger this if you knock them far away enough, but there's also the possibility that the enemy will simply "reset" itself to its initial full health and spawn point if it got "stuck" on the scenery during combat.
      • There's a menu feature that lets the game automatically detect the location of the enemy or Echo type you wish to hunt. Just like Genshin however, it only shows one enemy spawn point at a time; you have to defeat the currently-shown target(s) in that spawn point before the game shows the next one.
      • Some quests (like "Secret Investigation") will lock you out of the Co-Op Multiplayer until they are cleared, and this restriction becomes annoying if the quest itself is rather complex or difficult.
    • The total lack of new 4-star characters since Lumi's release has been met with understandable criticism by the fanbase, as it presents a lack of "sidegrade" or "discount" characters who could act as substitutes for the 5-stars in various builds. This trend was ended with the announcement of Buling as a 4-star character, almost a full year after Lumi's release.
  • Shocking Moments:
    • When Brant and the Rover drag Aldric out of Captain Drake's vault, Aldric breaks free of Brant's grip and rushes back in, unable to let go of his obsession with the treasure within. Before anyone can react, Aldric is crushed by a boulder and Killed Mid-Sentence.
    • For many players who thought Kuro Games wouldn't kill off playable characters, Phrolova's "death" in v2.5 came as a definite surprise, especially since she was killed by the Rover, no less. This ended up being lessened by v2.7 when it turned out that Phrolova was Back from the Dead.
    • "Dawn Breaks on Dark Tides" has a few shocking moments, but the biggest one that shocked players is Rover seeing the rock from the log-in screen while the original music, "Saving Light", is playing in the background. Galbrena then explains that this is the Rover's Mindscape.
  • Slow-Paced Beginning: The storytelling in the prologue and first few acts within Huanglong are criticized for relying too much on text-based Infodump, exposition, or long conversations for their quick attempts at Worldbuilding... which can be a bore to those who prefer action and spectacle over lengthy reading. For many, the plot became intriguing only after you formally meet Scar in "Huanglong I Act III: Ominous Scar" where you are truly introduced to a persistent adversary. This also applies to the progression systems, as the majority of the game modes and features (especially the Boss Challenges in the overworld) would only "open up" after you clear Huanglong I Act IV.
  • Spiritual Successor: Wuthering Waves and Arknights: Endfield are open world gacha games perceived as Anime versions of Death Stranding due to their open-world nature, post-apocalyptic Science Fiction settings, and bleak environments with muted colors.
  • That One Boss:
    • While any of the hologram bosses could qualify, special mention goes to Tempest Mephis. Even on lower difficulties the boss is no joke, having a beefy health meter and using several fast, hard-hitting moves that give little time to follow up with your own attacks, only broken up by long wind up moves that will likely instantly kill you if they land. However, all of that is child's play compared to what the later difficulties introduce. Starting at difficulty III, a clone of the boss will occasionally spawn in, use a random attack from his moveset in tandem with the actual boss (and yes, that includes the instant kill ones), and vanish, effectively turning what was already a tricky single boss fight into an absolutely brutal double boss fight. And of course, as with all of the hologram boss fights, you're on a tight timer. Good luck.
    • The Tactical Hologram of Fleurdelys puts nearly every other current hologram to shame. She's fast as the winds she commands, and will often hover above you out of reach until she strikes. Her Vibration meter is also very sturdy and only takes real damage from Intro skills or parries, so you're not gonna hurt her easily until you stun her. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for how she summons multiple swords around the battlefield that release some very nasty and very frequent shockwaves that will kill you pretty much instantly if you get hit by them, and the only way to stay safe from them is by staying in the air yourself. You will be constantly starved for Stamina from needing to dodge so often while having very short windows of opportunity to parry Fleurdelys's attacks or hit her with Intro skills without getting hit yourself. She's also virtually immune to Aero damage, so Cartethyia and Iuno don't work against her.
    • If you thought the Tempest Mephis was bad, the Kelpie hologram is much nastier. At the start of the fight, it will create a clone of itself, and then will create another one after it recovers from the first time you Break it. Each clone will fire wide and hard-to-dodge attacks at long range, or they'll dash in for some very quick and hard-hitting melee attacks that will probably two-shot or one-shot you if you don't dodge. Once there's three of them, they'll start launching an almost unending slew of coordinated attack chains that will give you basically no room for error. Additionally, just like Fleurdelys, you're going to do next to no damage to its Vibration meter outside of Intro skills and parries, and any slip-up in timing a parry will likely result in you losing a party member, especially if you parry one of them only for another to punish you for it. And if you thought Carlotta or Cartethyia would pull you through against them, don't bother—the Kelpie is almost immune to Glacio and Aero damage. The only saving graces are that the Kelpie and its clones have a Shared Life-Meter, so damaging any of them will count, and that you recover Stamina and get extra Concerto Energy upon successful dodges.
  • That One Sidequest: "We Promise, We Deliver". If you've progressed enough to the point where the Inferno Rider gets an impenetrable barrier, you won't be able to freely farm the boss’ Echoes and the Ascension materials for Fusion characters until you've cleared this quest. Unfortunately, it's also criticized for its extreme length despite being a sidequest (because it also involves several instances of backtracking, Fetch Quests, and Unexpected Gameplay Changes), making it longer than some of the earliest main story chapters. At the very least, the payoff for clearing this quest allows you to explore the Sea of Flames without worrying about the health-sapping pollens anymore.
  • They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Wuthering Waves has been quickly labeled as a Genshin Impact "clone" (due to having similar or near-identical concepts as that game), something that even Kuro Games wanted to dismiss, as mentioned in this interview article.
    • Pre-release footage and first impressions from the Closed Beta tests point out the obvious similarities between the two (especially the user interface and placement of HUD icons), but this led to a Fandom Rivalry regarding originality. When later gameplay videos and tests reveal this game has mechanics that aren't core features in Genshin, or that the combat generally feels faster, more complex or different, the pre-release debates shifted on whether this game is still a clone, or if it deviated enough to stop being one.
    • Post-launch, the accusations of this game being a Genshin Impact "clone" became harsher as more gamers got access to it. It was immediately common for Genshin players to make side-by-side comparison images and videos only to find out that indeed, several of the gacha and progression systems in this game have counterparts in Genshin. The UI and HUD comparisons are more volatile, as it was pointed out that even the smaller icons look like they're copied from Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. You'd then have fans who wish that Kuro Games would at least change the UI so that it doesn't "look" like a one-to-one copy of Genshin.
  • Trans Audience Interpretation: Kuro Games gave players the option to switch Rover’s gender once a day when 2.0 was released. Because of this, there are some fans who have come to view Rover as being genderfluid.
  • Unfortunate Names: In the English version of Wuthering Waves, the main character is given the name-slash-title of Rover. On paper, this sounds good (as it is meant to invoke their status as a wandering hero traveling unknown lands in search of knowledge), but in many English-speaking countries, Rover is a stereotypical name for a dog and when applied to people, it's usually an insult, implying that the person is overly obedient to authority and shamelessly willing to please others, like a dog. The odd thing is that while Rover is an accurate translation of 漂泊者 (Piāobó zhě), a much closer translation would be Drifter, which not only sounds better as a name, it is a title you see being used a lot in media with unnamed protagonists.
  • Viewer Name Confusion:
    • For English speakers, it's a very common mistake to misspell Jinhsi's name as Jinshi.
    • Cartethyia's name often gets misspelled as Cartethiya.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The "SAVING LIGHT" Featured Cinematic blends 3D model animation with 2D effects so well, best seen when Yangyang swings her sword around and produces light blue arcs.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?:
    • The initial design of Scar's primarily gray pants was immediately memed to hell and back because of the black strip of zipper on the center making it look like an Onigiri, or that it looks so tight, his crotch is easily noticeable. It's also jokingly described as "the line in between his thighs", or called a "peak" and "Rated R" design. However, a patch later quickly removed said black strip.
    • To a lesser extent, Jiyan. While his overall design is very well-received, the earrings have garnered a fair amount of ridicule from mainly Western fans for "looking like Christmas tree ornaments".

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