With the release ofWuthering Wavesversion 2.2, Cantarella makes her Resonator debut, and she’s quite a unique character. If you want to get started building Cantarella, you’ve come to the right place.
Best Cantarella build in Wuthering Waves
LikeBrant, Cantarella is ajack-of-all-trades, meaning she can play any role you need on any given team, all at the same time. She wields theHavocelement and uses aRectifieras her weapon of choice. Due to her kit, I recommend you build her as aMain DPSorSub DPS, which I’ll dive a bit more into later in this guide. She also has access to a unique mechanic calledHazy Dream, which significantly alters how you’d play her in most teams. Let’s jump right into her gameplan.
Cantarella gameplan in Wuthering Waves
Cantarella is astance dancer; changing stances alters most of her kit/moveset. Her main goal is to land as manyPerception Drainsas possible while she is in herMiragestance. Both of these mechanics are tied to herForteCircuit.
Forte Circuit
Cantarella has two stances that change her kit:
Technical names aside, Cantarella’s Forte involves herlanding attacks to build up her bar so she can enter her Mirage Stance as often as possible. When landing specific attacks, Cantarella gains a resource calledTrance, her Forte Bar. Trance is gained when you:
As long as Cantarella has at least one Trance, she can enter her Mirage Stance at will.
Mirage Stance
While in Mirage Stance, Cantarella’s whole moveset (minus her Resonance Liberation) changes to be much faster and deal more damage. Each time she deals damage with one of her Basic Attacks in Mirage Stance, she loses one Trance to heal herself and her teammates. When she loses a Trance, though, she also gains a secondary resource calledShiver, which can be stacked up to three times.
At three Shiver, Cantarella’s Resonance Skill becomesPerception Drain, which can be activated only in Mirage Stance.Cantarella’s primary goal is to land Perception Drain as often as possible.
Resonance Skill
Cantarella has access to three different Resonance Skills that are all crucial to utilize. She has one in her Default Stance and two in her Mirage Stance. All three Resonance Skills should be used in conjunction with each other in order to gain access to Perception Drain more often, while it’s not on cooldown.Failing to use all three is a DPS loss.
For clarity, I’ll start with the Default Stance Skill first:
Graceful Step
This Resonance Skill is Cantarella’s most basic one, and it propels Canterella forward, allowing her to hit any enemies in front of her twice with her umbrella.
Graceful Step deals mediocre damage, but its true value comes from grantingone stack of Trance. Shedoesn’tneed to hit a target to gain this stack, so it should be used on cooldown when possible. Graceful Step can onlybe used when Cantarella is in her Default Stance and has asix-second cooldown.
Flickering Reverie
Cantarella gains access to the Resonance Skill while inMirage Stance, regardless of resources.
When used, it deals decent damage in a fairly large AoE instantly. Most importantly, however, it inflicts Cantarella’s most unique status to the target:Hazy Dream. Flickering Reverie has a12-second cooldownand can only be used while Cantarella is in Mirage Stance with less than three Shiver.
Perception Drain
This is Cantarella’s most powerful Resonance Skill, and it can only be used while inMirage Stancewiththree Shiver.
Perception Drain deals massive damage to any targets hit by its AoE, provides a large burst of healing to her entire team, grants Cantarella herself a large amount of Concerto, and appliesHazy Dreamto any target hit by it. Perception Drain is her primary goal and should be used on cooldown. Its cooldown is the longest out of her Resonance Skills at18 seconds.
Resonance Liberation
Cantarella’s Resonance Liberation isn’t as complex compared to the rest of her kit, but it’s still just as important. It’s calledFlowing Suffocationand when it is used, it does moderate damage to everything around her, while applying theDiffusionbuff to all of her teammates.
Teammates with Diffusion triggerCoordinated attacks from Cantarellawhen they attack a target. These Coordinated attacks deal minor amounts of damage and are largely not impactful except in situations where characters can utilize Coordinated attacks to benefit themselves, such as in the case of Jinhsi.Lastly, when cast, her Resonance Liberation rewards her withthree Trance, makingit an important rotational tool.
Unique Abilities
Beyond her standard kit, Cantarella has a couple of extra abilities that are special to her alone.
Hazy Dream
Cantarella has access to a uniquely powerful mechanic calledHazy Dream. Hazy Dream is a debuff status effect that, when applied to an enemy,dramatically slows their ability to perform actions.
Unlike the Stagnate status, Hazy Dream does not completely freeze enemies, and because of this, its effect lasts dramatically longer, rendering enemies affected largely helpless for6.5 seconds. To compensate for this longer crowd control time, when an enemy under the Hazy Dream effect is hit, the effect ends early. Coordinate attacks (from any source) and Utilitieswill not break Hazy Dream.
Cantrarella can inflict the Hazy Dream debuff in two different ways throughout her kit:
Jolt
When Cantarella attacks an enemy affected by Hazy Dream, she gains access to a second unique mechanic calledJolt, a large instance of damage that only takes effect if Cantarella breaks a Hazy Dream. It’s asignificant portion of her DPS, so ensure to only break Hazy Dream with Cantarella herself, or you won’t get the Jolt effect.
In Summary
Cantarella’s kit is quite expansive even when compared to other characters in the game, so here’s a quick summary of how you should approach playing Cantarella:
Wuthering Wavesis an action game first, and not all rotations will go as planned. Simply alter your rotation as needed. Ultimately, you want Cantarella to land Perception Drainevery timeit comes off its 18-second cooldown. Anything less is a DPS loss.
Best Echoes for Cantarella in Wuthering Waves
As a Havoc Resonator who can dish out damage, support, and heal teammates, you have several options you’re able to choose from for Cantarella.
As a Rectifier user, Cantarella has several viable weapon options:
Best Team Compositions for Cantarella in Wuthering Waves
Cantarella released without her perfect teammate. Her Outro buffs Havoc and Skill Damage, but there are currently no characters inWuthering Waveswho use that specific combination. This puts Cantarella in a weird place where she doesn’t actually belong anywhere perfectly.
Jinhsi/Cantarella/Zhezhi
This composition is, without a doubt, Cantarella’s best team; she works together with Zhezhi to greatly empower Jinhsi’s Forte generation. Both Cantarella and Zhezhi supply Jinhsi with the Coordinated attack she needs to deliver her massive damage. Cantarella also provides the team with plenty of healing through her damage, which makes this team safe against everything in the game.
Camellya/Cantarella/Shorekeeper
Cantarella plays the role of a Sub-DPS in this composition, aiming to supportCamellyaby supplying her with Havoc damage and additional healing on top of Shorekeeper’s buffs and healing. Camellya and Cantarella work together better than you’d expect, and Irecommend this team over her best, if you have access to it. As always,Shorekeepercan be replaced with Verina if you have the stats to do so.
Cantarella/Sanhau/Shorekeeper
This is Cantrarella’s best Main DPS team composition and it’s a solid option to use her for. Since Cantarella’s damage is almost all considered Basic Attack, Sanhau is perfect for supplying her with a large Basic Attack buff and a lightning-fast Concerto rotation. Shorekeeper continues to do Shorekeeper things, by applying huge buffs and constant healing.Sanhau can be replaced withRoccia, and Shorekeeper can be replaced by Verina, as you see fit.
Best Sequences for Cantarella in Wuthering Waves
I’d like to say Cantarella is a strong character at S0, but she’s far more capable at S1. Her Sequences are frontloaded in general, giving her considerable performance boosts, with the best stopping point being S3. Here’s a bit of summary for each one, for your reference.
