Wuthering Waves Echo System Guide

When defeating an enemy Tacet Discord they have a chance to drop an Echo which can be used to grant additional skills and stats to your characters.
There is a pity system to the Echo drops: 4 for common/elite Echoes, and 1 for Boss Echoes - basically every other boss will drop an Echo.

Data Bank

Every Echo has 4 entries in the databank (including Phantom "shiny" Echoes).
An entry for each rarity: Green, Blue, Purple and Golden Echoes.
Each entry will give you XP for your databank, the databank has 20 levels total.
Starting from level 15, is where you will start getting the precious Golden Echoes that give the maximum amount of stats.
The later levels will improve your chance of getting a Golden Echo over the Purple Echoes.

Basically, to level up your databank you'll need to hunt each Echo in the game and get it to the maximum rarity your databank allows you to get, in order to level it up until you reach maximum rarity (Golden).

Echo - Substats

An Echo's maximum level depends on their rarity.
Golden Echoes will reach max level of 25. Every 5 levels = a slot of substat.
Substats are a great way to increase your power.
Using 10 tuners will reveal a substat and the substats can range from:
ATK% / Flat ATK
HP% / Flat HP
Def% / Flat Def
ER%
Normal/Heavy/Skill/Liberation DMG%
Crit Rate% / DMG%

Echo - Mainstats

Echoes are separated into 3 different "costs" based on the enemy type:
Boss - 4 Cost
Elite - 3 Cost
Common - 1 Cost

Different Echo types will offer a different pool of Mainstats.
1 Cost Echoes - ATK%/HP%/DEF% + Flat HP (locked)
3 Cost Echoes - ATK%/Elemental%/EnergyRecharge%/DEF%/HP% + Flat ATK (locked)
4 Cost Echoes - ATK%/CritRATE%/CritDMG%/DEF%/HP%/HealingBonus% + Flat ATK (locked)

When equipping Echoes most characters of a similar archetype will want similar stats from the Echo types:
DPS characters prefer Crit on the 4 Cost, and Elemental% + Elemental%/ATK% on the 3 Cost, ATK%/HP%/DEF% on the 1 Cost based on the scaling of the character. Some characters don't scale with ATK.
Some characters may want Energy Recharge on the 3 Cost Echoes to charge up their ultimates more reliably.
Healers may want Healing Bonus on the 4 Cost Echo.

Echo Sets - Sonata Effects

There are different Sonata Effects which are triggered by combining 2/5 Echoes of the same Sonata Effect group.

Quick Overview:

Rejuvenating Glow 2pc - 10% healing bonus | 5pc - When healing an ally grant 15% atk to the entire team.
Great effect for healings to provide additional buffs to your DPS characters.

Moonlit Clouds 2pc - 10% energy recharge | 5pc - When triggering an Outro Skill, the next character will gain a 22.5% atk boost.
Amazing set for SubDPS/Amplifiers like Aalto, Sanhua, Mortefi, who appreciate the ER% while also supporting the MainDPS further more.

Lingering Tunes 2pc - 10% atk | 5pc - While on the field increase ATK by 5% every 1.5 seconds, up to 4 times. Outro Skills gain 60% DMG.
Lingering Tunes can be used as a replacement set to the Elemental sets or as a 2pc + 2pc combination alternative. Otherwise it's not BiS on anyone yet.

Elemental Sets (since there is 1 for each element currently, I'll make it more condensed)
2pc - 10% element DMG (aero - 10% aero dmg, glacio - 10% glacio... etc) | 5pc - 30% Element DMG upon triggering a certain condition.
It can be, triggering an intro skill, using normal/heavy attacks, a skill...
These sets are really good for most damager dealers or even amplifiers if they can deal enough damage to justify using it. It was a great set for Yinlin in CBT2, but Moonlit Clouds is also an option. We'll update this info specifically for Yinlin on her release.

Which stats to aim for? What's a good amount of Crit I should aim for?

As for stats, for most characters it follows the same principles as their desired mainstats. DPS characters really want Crit & ATK%, but the DMG% rolls are also decent.All characters want a certain amount of ER%, this will be covered in individual guides.

But what's a good amount of Crit to aim for? By using a Crit mainstat and getting enough Crit substats you can get quite a decent Crit ratio on your characters. Unfortunately, it can be really hard to get optimal Crit on your characters with how RNG it can be with Echo substats.

It really depends on what investment level you're happy with. We recommend keeping it a 1:2 Crit RATE to Crit DMG ratio (50%:200%, or more). Crit is really hard to come by in this game, but you should know it's not the only way to increase your damage effectively. Stay tuned for a detailed post from me (BIttex) about how damage works in Wuthering Waves and how to maximize it.

Farming Echoes - Coop

Your databank has the option to track multiple locations of an Echo you desire to farm.
Use this or alternatively use an interactive map to identify the locations of a desired Echo you may want to farm.

You can farm Echoes together in Coop.

Yes, you can indeed farm Echoes with your friends, and each of you has a chance to get an Echo from any enemy. Once you finish farming a specific enemy in your world, you can hop over to another friend's world to farm the enemy again over there. This is super useful if you struggle to get a specific Mainstat from a specific Sonata Set that you want.

Main Echo - Which ones should I use as my active ability?

Some characters have a specific Main Echo they prefer using, because these Echoes can grant them benefits such as buffs to Aero DMG% and Heavy Attack% to Jiyan when using Feilian Beringal.
Or Bellborne for Verina/Baizhi.

Some Echoes have issues that prevent them from being optimal to use like Crownless / Lampylumen which have really long animations that can't be swap canceled and only apply their buffs at the end. In these cases, it might be worth using a different Echo.

However, try playing around with different Echoes and see what you can pull off with different Active Skills. There is a lot to experiment with, even 1 Cost Echoes can have interesting skills so have fun playing around.