The first Banners in Wuthering Waves arrive pretty much when the game launches. If you want to use your valuable currency properly, you will need to know whether you should pull for Jiyan or Yinlin or if it is worth being a big spender and going for both.
Should you pull for Jiyan or Yinlin?
You should pull for Jiyan if you want a strong, focused DPS character to act as your main battle DPS, and you should pull for Yinlin if you already have a strong DPS that needs to be backed up by solid support. This is a really simplified version of what you should do, but it’s also the best way to look at things.
One important thing to note is that all these opinions are based on beta builds and that some buffs are coming in the full release. I’ll update my thoughts accordingly based on those buffs, but I’m not expecting anything too wild to happen.
Because both characters are available so early in the lifetime of Wuthering Waves, you really need to consider which of the 5-Star Selector characters you went for. For example, Calcharo is a great damage character and could be easily backed up with Yinlin. Meanwhile, Jianxin is a good all-around character who could back up Jiyan nicely if you opt for the paring, or Verina would be an excellent dedicated support for Jiyan and could buff his DPS.
As such, I would break it down like this:
- If you go for Verina or Jianxin from the 5-Star Selector, then Jiyan makes a lot of sense as they can back him up pretty well.
- If you go for Calcharo from the 5-Star Selector, then Yinlin makes a lot of sense. Yinlin also likely has a strong life in the game, as she can back up ANY damage character, so you are likely to get more value from resources invested in her.
The other factor to think about here is the 4 Star characters. You are likely to rack up a couple of them, at least, before you get your hands on the 5 Star that you want. Danjin, Mortefi, and Chixia are all on the banner, and Mortefi works really well with Jiyan, so there is some built-in synergy in this Banner. The only real downside to Jiyan as the center of your team will be that his single target damage is not as good as it would be against groups, as he can gather up enemies and dump them all in one spot to damage them all with the same attacks.
If you are worried about boss fights, Calcharo is better, and using Yinlin to back him up would work a lot. There is also an argument to be made here that there is less synergy within this Banner overall. That said, if you plan on running the deeper difficulties of content early, then you will just need different characters to make up teams, so you might want to pull on both Banners.
Important things to remember for early pulls
If there is one thing we have seen in a multitude of other games, it is that character power is not set in stone. You can spend a lot of time, money, or effort to get a character and then see them nerfed into the ground later or dismiss a character who is buffed to instant proportions after a few updates.
It can also be easy to get weapons and equipment for characters that we just don’t know about yet that can really change the appeal of a character with some testing. Finally, at this stage, we just don’t have enough information about the build that is about to go live to make firm decisions right now.
The best advice I can give you, for now, is that the Jiyan will be around until mid-June, so it might be better to wait and play the game for a while to figure things out and then proceed from there. You have time to figure things out a bit and learn what you want from your characters and teams before you need to commit to spending resources on anything.
Finally, one of the most important elements is to pull the character that you like the most. If a playstyle appeals to you, or you like the character art and voices, then just buy in. As much as I enjoy the math behind these games, trying to get the most out of everything, and a bit of min-maxing, I still think you need to put fun first. I am a Razor main in Genshin Impact, after all.
