Xiangli Yao’s Biggest Problems (And Why He Might Still Be Good)
New characters always bring excitement with fresh moves and playstyles.
Xiangli Yao, the latest addition, is even more exciting because he’s free till the event is live. But as they say, there’s no such thing as free. While getting Xiangli costs nothing, making him powerful will take work.
In this post, I’ll explain some of the biggest problems you may face –
Who is Xiangli Yao?
At first glance, Xiangli Yao feels like a highly flexible character with built-in abilities that streamline his damage delivery, similar to Calcharo but offering far more adaptability.
If you’ve tried him in the story, you’ve probably noticed how much easier he is to use than Calcharo. However, things get a bit tricky when you look closer, especially with his mechanism and skills.
Xiangli Yao Mechanics and Play Style
Xiangli Yao’s play style heavily revolves around the constant casting of his Resonant Skill to deliver massive damage. His Forte Circuit fills up with basic attacks and regular Resonant Skill casts, enabling him to release designated Resonant Skills once the circuit is filled.
Upon casting his Resonance Liberation, his Forte Circuit gains a special state that intensifies his abilities significantly.
Rotation
Xiangli Yao needs to cast his skills to maximize his damage output continually. His baseline Resonant Skill has a cooldown of just 5 seconds, and he gains an upgraded version with a similarly short cooldown during his Liberation state. This feature works well with his first inherent skill, which grants stacking Electro damage with each cast.
One promising gear set, Void Thunder, fits nicely into his play style. Void Thunder boosts Electro damage that increases upon casting a skill—ideal for Xiangli Yao’s frequent skill usage. However, Void Thunder’s two activation conditions, which involve casting a resonant skill and using a heavy attack, complicate things.
Gear Optimization
The complexity of fitting Void Thunder into Xiangli Yao’s setup comes from his inability to use heavy attacks during Resonance Liberation. This limitation requires use of a heavy attack before entering this state, leading to an unmanageable and often suboptimal rotation. Improving Xiangli Yao’s gear synergies while maintaining high DPS will likely require complex, carefully timed rotations and planning.
Considering these issues, you might find it easier to use other gear sets like Lingering Tunes, even if it results in a slight DPS drop.
Choosing the Right Extra Skills
Xiangli Yao’s Echo skill, Thundering Memphis, poses additional challenges. Despite offering some of the best buffs for Electro and Resonance Liberation damage, it suffers from a long cast time and high exposure to attacks.
As such, many of you might opt for Tempest Memphis instead due to its shorter cast time and more efficient swap-canceling, though it lacks synergy with heavy attack boosts.
Balancing Critical Hits
One of the primary difficulties in maximizing Xiangli Yao’s potential stems from his stat profile.
Unlike other limited five-star characters, he lacks critical rate bonuses, only featuring critical damage. His best weapon, Verity’s Handle, also provides a lower critical rate than comparable options like Stringmaster, though it compensates with the higher base attack.
This discrepancy means that players will need to rely heavily on crit rate boosts from other gear pieces. Balancing critical rate and critical damage alongside his need for high energy regeneration due to his frequent skill usage adds another layer of complexity. Optimizing substats will be no easy accomplishment, requiring notable effort and potentially some sacrifices.
Wrapping Up
Xiangli Yao is a strong damage dealer introduced in the Wuthering Waves update 1.2.
But he needs a lot of work to reach his full potential. He’s a great free character, but getting the most out of him takes effort. Still, if you put in the work, he can be incredibly powerful.
Thankfully, his attack animations being so fast helped compensate for some of his issues. The heavy attack animation is fast, making it easier to weave into rotations. His basic attacks are also really fast and have no recovery, so you can likely deliver so many that the number of attacks makes up for the slightly lower instances of landing a crit.
Remember, he’s free, so it’s hard to complain about the effort needed to make him shine. Thanks for reading! If you liked this guide, do check out this guide to using Aalto in Wuthering Waves.
