After several beta testing periods leading up to an upcoming release in May 2024, Wuthering Waves is shaping up to be a major rival to ARPGs like Genshin Impact. One such way that Wuthering Waves sets itself apart from Genshin Impact, and arguably has the upper hand, is the game’s complex combat systems.

While each character’s skill set between the two games is seemingly too different to compare, there are several explicit ways that Wuthering Waves builds upon Genshin Impact’s foundation for combat with unique or alternative features. This isn’t to say that combat in Genshin Impact feels incomplete, but that Wuthering Waves shakes things up in new and complex ways that might be more appealing to new fans.

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How Wuthering Waves’ Combat Builds Upon Genshin Impact’s Combat

Ultimately, Wuthering Waves introduces a ton of new improvements to Genshin Impact’s combat and character progression systems that can seem overwhelming at first, though after mastering, they offer a much more fluid and rich combat experience. The most notable of these new combat features so far are:

• Evasion Counter Attacks
• Parries
• Enemy Stun-Meters
• Resonance Circuits
• Concerto Skills
• Concerto Effects
• Echoes

Parries

In Wuthering Waves, players can sometimes cancel an incoming attack by interrupting it with a precisely timed counter-attack, indicated by a golden ring around an enemy. There are a few specific enemy attacks and characters in Genshin Impact that allow players to parry in combat, but this kind of feature is only available to these specific characters, whereas parrying in Wuthering Waves isn’t restricted to any particular character or enemy.

Enemy Stun-Meters

Stunning enemies is another feature that is highly situational in Genshin Impact, yet it’s a more universal occurrence in Wuthering Waves. This stunned status is achieved when players attack an enemy enough times to deplete their stun-meter, with parry attacks providing significantly increased stun-meter progress.

Resonance Circuits

Aside from standard, heavy, and plunging attacks, character kits in Genshin Impact are primarily comprised of a character’s unique Elemental Burst and Elemental Skill, which would be Resonance Skills and Resonance Liberations in Wuthering Waves, respectively. However, Wuthering Waves builds onto this by adding Resonance Circuit abilities to each character’s arsenal, which allows players to consume Resonance Circuit Energy to activate an additional skill, such as a buff, healing ability, shield, or another unique attack.

Concerto Skills

Concerto Skills are another ability that players have at their disposal in Wuthering Waves, allowing players to consume Concerto Energy to perform an attack upon switching to a new character. This kind of collaborative attack is quite common in multiplayer fighting games, but it’s still quite a rarity among other gaming genres that allow players to swap between characters mid-combat. Consequently, this kind of feature would seemingly be a natural progression for future Genshin Impact updates to bring to the game.

Concerto Effects

In addition to Concerto Skill attacks, swapping characters in Wuthering Waves will also provide a temporary buff, known as a Concerto Effect. The Concerto effect that players activate will be based on the Element of the two characters that are being swapped. This feature is quite similar to Elemental Resonances in Genshin Impact, except Concerto Effects are temporary buffs that are activated by swapping characters, instead of being permanent, team-wide buffs.

Echoes

Players can earn Echoes in Wuthering Waves by defeating certain enemies and bosses, which are used to replicate some of the abilities and skills of these enemies on command. This feature seemingly replaces Genshin Impact’s Artifacts equipment, whereas players can equip multiple Echoes to benefit from each of their passive stat benefits, while the ability or attack provided will come from only one equipped Echo.

Wuthering Waves

Kuro Games' Wuthering Waves is a mobile and PC action RPG set in an open-world.

Platform(s)

Android , iOS , PC

Released

May 22, 2024

Developer(s)

Kuro Games

Publisher(s)

Kuro Games

Genre(s)

Action RPG , Open-World