Version 3.6 reshuffled the top of the Wuthering Waves roster. Jingran arrived as a Fusion hypercarry, Qingxiao brought a boss-melting Tune Strain kit, and Suisui landed as a support strong enough to rewrite three separate team sheets on her own. The result is a meta where the gap between a well-built premium comp and an improvised one is wider than it has been in a while.
Quick answer: The strongest all-round team in 3.6 is Yangyang: Xuanling with Chisa and Suisui. If you own all three, build that first — Chisa and Suisui stack DEF and Havoc RES reduction on the enemy, which pushes Xuanling’s damage above every other main DPS in the game right now.
Version 3.6 DPS team rankings (1 to 10)
Every entry below is a hypercarry structure: one main DPS, one sub-DPS feeding buffs, and one support holding the team together. The element listed is the main DPS’s attribute, not the team’s.
| Rank | Main DPS (element) | Core team |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yangyang: Xuanling (Havoc) | Chisa, Suisui |
| 2 | Qingxiao (Aero) | Denia, Mornye |
| 3 | Hiyuki (Glacio) | Lucilla, Suisui |
| 4 | Jingran (Fusion) | Iuno, Shorekeeper |
| 5 | Aemeath (Fusion) | Lynae + Mornye, or Denia + Chisa |
| 6 | Sigrika (Aero) | Qiuyuan or Lucilla, Shorekeeper |
| 7 | Luuk Herssen (Spectro) | Denia, Mornye |
| 8 | Cartethyia (Aero) | Ciaccona, Chisa or Aero Rover |
| 9 | Augusta (Electro) | Iuno, Shorekeeper |
| 10 | Iuno (Aero) | Lynae, Mornye |
The top three teams in Version 3.6
Yangyang: Xuanling sits at the top for a mix of raw output and low friction. Her multipliers and self-buffs already carry the team, and because Suisui now handles the general damage and Havoc-specific buffing, Chisa is free to play a pure sub-DPS role instead of splitting her time. The pairing also strips enemy DEF and Havoc RES, which is why the comp scales so hard. Xuanling is also the most forgiving pick here — she does not demand a premium roster to function.
Qingxiao is the specialist. Her damage builds through the Tune Strain mechanic, so the longer a fight runs, the better her numbers get — which makes her the best single-target option in the game against bosses. Denia and Mornye are effectively mandatory to keep that ramp going, and she loses some ground in multi-wave content where fights end before the ramp pays off. Her AoE attacks keep her usable there, but it is not where she shines.
Hiyuki holds the Glacio crown. Her team runs on Glacio Chafe, with Lucilla supplying the mechanic support and Suisui layering on negative status effects and team-wide buffs. Suisui is a straight upgrade over Chisa in this slot, since she interacts with Glacio Chafe directly rather than just adding generic damage.
Jingran, Aemeath, Sigrika and Luuk Herssen teams
Jingran is the new arrival and slots in at fourth. He scales off both HP and Attack, and his whole rotation revolves around Heavy Attack damage plus shield generation. Iuno is the ideal partner because her buffs unlock with multiple shields, handing him 50 percent Heavy Attack DMG and 40 percent All DMG Amplification. Shorekeeper rounds it out with a team-wide damage amp, stacking Crit Rate and Crit DMG, and steady healing from Stellarealm.
Aemeath earns fifth place on flexibility rather than a single ceiling. She runs two genuinely competitive setups: a Tune Rupture version with Lynae and Mornye, and a Fusion Burst version with Denia and Chisa. Owning either pair is enough to get her working, which matters more than it sounds when supports are the real bottleneck in 3.6.
Sigrika deals her damage through Echo Skill hits, and her team is one of the cheapest to assemble in the upper half of the list. Qiuyuan is the preferred partner as a fellow Aero unit, since the team’s Aero buffs all land on the right targets, and Sigrika herself adds a squad-wide Aero DMG buff on top. Lucilla works as the alternative. The comp handles both single-target and multi-wave content without changes.
Luuk Herssen is the most adaptable Spectro option. Denia is his best partner, but he functions on a much thinner budget than most of the field, and he does not fall apart in multi-wave rooms the way pure boss-killers do.
Cartethyia, Augusta and Iuno teams
These three still clear endgame content, but they need the right partners to stay relevant. Cartethyia, an HP-scaling Aero DPS, has slipped noticeably from where she once sat. She remains workable with Ciaccona alongside Chisa or the Aero Rover, though she no longer competes with the top half.
Augusta is still the best Electro DPS available, and most of her ceiling comes from Iuno’s 40 percent damage amplification. Shorekeeper is the premium support choice; Mortefi covers the same heavy-attack buffing role at a fraction of the cost.
Iuno closes out the list as a main DPS, which is a little misleading — she is far more valuable as a sub-DPS for Jingran and Augusta. Played as the carry, she leans heavily on Lynae’s universal buffs and Resonance Liberation damage bonuses, with Mornye filling the support slot.
Best budget and free-to-play teams in 3.6
Not every comp on the list demands a wallet. Several of the top DPS units keep most of their performance with cheaper partners, and two of them are genuinely accessible from the start.
| Main DPS | Budget partners |
|---|---|
| Yangyang: Xuanling | Chisa and Suisui, with no premium weapon requirement to stay competitive |
| Jingran | Rebecca and Shorekeeper in place of Iuno |
| Luuk Herssen | Sanhua instead of Denia |
| Augusta | Mortefi instead of Iuno |
| Sigrika | Lucilla or Qiuyuan, both cheap to gear |
Note: Shorekeeper appears in more budget setups than any other unit. If you are deciding where to spend limited resources, building her once pays off across Jingran, Augusta and Sigrika teams simultaneously.
Tower of Adversity and Whimpering Wastes: where rankings shift
A ranking of main DPS units and a ranking of teams are not the same thing, and the two diverge in a few places. Aemeath sits fifth on raw DPS output but occupies the very top tier in Tower of Adversity team ratings thanks to her Rupture build with Lynae and Mornye. Sigrika lands sixth by damage yet shows up just below the apex teams because her comp is consistent across both single-target and wave-clearing floors.
The practical takeaway is simple. Long boss encounters favour Qingxiao and Hiyuki; floors full of smaller enemies favour Xuanling, Sigrika and Luuk Herssen. Building one of each category gives you coverage for both halves of the endgame rotation, which matters more than squeezing the last few percent out of a single comp.
Version 3.6 Phase 2 is live with Jingran as the new banner unit, alongside reruns for Hiyuki and Mornye — meaning three of the top four teams on this list have their key pieces available at once. A Version 3.7 livestream is scheduled for September 19, which is the next point at which any of this is likely to move.
