by DuckArchon

tl;dr

• E7’s most impactful Speed booster
• Can fill other niches as an alternative to more popular heroes
• Distinctive waifu traits

The most what?!

Seriously. Speed Up is a rare team buff:

• Sinful Angelica and SC Roozid have some really great qualities, but they aren’t personally doing much beyond making their allies look good.
• Yuna is obviously powerful, and she’s great AOE DPS. She doesn’t do much on her first turn and she doesn’t debuff or disrupt, she really doesn’t overlap with W.Silk.
• Jecht does basically nothing beyond slow-grinding Banshee hunts. Try him, I dare you.
• Genki Silk is a mess. Her kit should be great, but by some cruel coincidence she is hard-countered by basically all content. Banshee Hunts might be her only strength, but everyone else is stronger or cheaper to build (or very often both). Poor Silk.
• SC Rikoris is famously hard to place in a team. I actually found a niche for him (Counter set, Speed + HP + Effectiveness) but he is at his best when he supports another Speed Up hero. He fills in their downtime and before that they enhance his Counters, it fits his rhythm nicely.

Yes, but the Buff Stripping EE…

Ah, yes, here is where we get into the promised “too long” part. There are some obvious perks when building W.Silk, but she has never become very popular. Let’s start the actual guide by examining her Exclusive Equipment, which has clues about why she is so uncommon.

1. Skill 3 strips a buff after damage but before other debuffs. Hell yeah! Immunity is Wanderer’s biggest weakness, especially if she takes the first turn, and now she can bypass it. This EE seems like a sure pick, but wait–this makes her extremely inconsistent and RNG-dependent. You are going to stop using her because you are angry about all the “death by 15% Resist” moments. I know you are because everyone has. That said, it could work OK as a side benefit on a DPS build. Buff stripping is powerful.
2. Skill 2 always shoots twice. This is for DPS builds, which need consistent S2 damage and which work best with an external speed booster. This is not my favorite way to build Wanderer, but it could work. Something like Roozid -> Vivian -> Wanderer -> Cidd would result in a brutal machine gun of single-target DPS while also crippling anyone who is not Immune.
3. Skill 3 grants Speed Up to the team for 2 turns. I like this one. It gives her the consistent use of a rare team-wide buff, while not requiring a full DPS build. It’s a shame her S3 does not get the damage bonus from it, but her next couple of rounds will arrive fast and hit hard. If you chose Wanderer because you wanted a speed buff, all the better: She does not have the wasted turn of other speed buffers, she is delivering harsh crowd control while she buffs you.

How does her main kit work?

Strengths:

1. Awakening + Self-Imprint gives her 53% bonus Effectiveness. Nice.
2. She has a solid attack chain, even on Auto. It’s basically S3 -> S2 -> S1 -> S2 -> S3. However, with Soul Burn, she can do things like (S2+S3) -> S2 -> S1 -> (S2+S3). I find that in a close battle, using Soul Burn to get her second S3 up can be a game-winner.
3. At high speeds, she gets nice enough bonuses to be a secondary DPS.
4. S2 hits as hard as a normal S1, but it gets a Speed-based damage bonus and (sometimes) shoots twice. That’s actually quite a bit of damage, especially if the first shot applies Target via Song of Stars. It also has only a 2-turn Cooldown. Burn for an extra turn, and you can take 5 shots in 2 rounds. If the first shot kills the target, then the second shot will hit someone else, and the second shot apparently can’t be counter-attacked.
5. She can be very fast. With her EE, she effectively has the same speed as a hero with 119 base speed. That’s not as good as A.Cidd, but it’s still good.
6. S3 is a bit more consistent than some other disabling attacks. If the CR reduction doesn’t stick then the Silence might stick, and vice-versa. By comparison, if Fire Lidica’s S3 gets caught by 15% resistance then she’s screwed. Wanderer also does more damage on her S3 than Lidica does.
7. Her base HP and Defense are somewhat high for a Ranger, although still not great. She can survive a little more than A.Cidd can, ignoring his potential Evasion buff.

Drawbacks:

1. She gets countered somewhat harshly by Holiday Yufine, and R.Violet is also rough to work around. S2 can set off Roana, although that’s usually a minor issue. Still, I am a little late to the party in building Wanderer now.
2. Strong Counters or Dark attackers can ruin her day in general, she’s not especially durable.
3. Heavy Immunity/Cleanse teams can be rough. They can be–if you nail the cleanser with S3 it can suddenly swing things in your favor.
4. S3 doesn’t benefit from Speed Up unless she gets another hero to boost her.
5. Low base Attack.
6. Slower than A.Cidd, fewer RNG tricks, no Soul-stealing. Skinny Cidd is probably better for Defense teams.

What about artifacts?

Necessary

• None, fortunately. Wanderer is not totally dependent on having a certain artifact available.

Recommended

• Song of Stars is very nice with her single-target attack spam. It softens the blow of enemy Evasion, and a good SoS will apply Target on the first S2 hit (to the benefit of the second attack). It also makes her S1 less useless.
• Mrs. Confille is similar to Song of Stars. However, I like it better on heroes who can defend themselves a little more (like Wanda or Cerise). It’s unfortunate to have your Defense Breaker be made of paper. Try debuffing Martial Artist Ken with W.Silk, for example; it doesn’t turn out well.
• Guiding Light could help keep her alive for longer. She can already survive an AoE or two, but her status as Dark Bait is what usually gets her killed promptly.

Niche

• Sword of Judgement seems nice for a DPS build, and I guess it is. I’m not sure it can even proc on S2, and S1 is of little value when there’s no artifact to boost it. Still, spamming single attacks does fit her style.
• Sashe Ithanes is an under-valued artifact because it doesn’t help cleave teams. For a single-target Bruiser/Nuker playstyle, turning any Ranger into a CR pusher has some benefits. Comps with C.Dom, Cidd, Cermia, Melissa, etc. can all count on some kills. If your Wanderer is already playing CR games, this would be nice.
• Portrait and Tonfa do have some value for a DPS build. I worry that they are a bad match for S2, and in general they are less effective on someone who spams small attacks.
• Bloodstone might work for a DPS build. It’s better on an AoE hero, really, but it could work.
• Andre’s Crossbow seems like a terrible artifact to me; but if you’re really salty about lacking A.Cidd, go for it. Wanderer would hold it better than most.

Actively Discouraged

• Rosa Hargana, Infinity Basket and Ambrote are all for Rangers with nice S1s or frequent S1 spam. Wanderer spams her S2 and her S1 is weak, so this is bad.

How do I build Wanderer Silk?

• All builds benefit from Effectiveness. Fortunately, you do not always need much, she has a lot built in.
• A DPS build should pump Crit Damage more than Attack. Do put some focus on Speed. Wanderer’s base Attack is quite low, and she has decent Speed bonuses to her damage, so there is little motivation to focus on her Attack.
• A pure support build could probably use Def% in the ring/neck and HP% in the other. She has more defensive stats than most Rangers, and she has so much Effectiveness that you can probably get enough in your substats. (Survival substats with an Effectiveness ring would also work, if that’s the setup that maxes your speed.) In any case, Speed is your #1 priority here, she’ll never really be a tank.
• A “high risk high reward” build, which is currently my favorite, is very fast. I hit 100% crit chance but not much Attack or Crit Damage. The objective is to juggle the enemy team with disruption while allies kill them, but do enough damage that an Immunity/Cleanse team does not totally shut her down. This build works in a wide variety of scenarios, but it is mildly difficult to keep Wanderer alive for very long.

How do I build Wanderer’s team?

• For support, Wanderer should take the first or second turn. I favor the second, to give my true opener a couple of turns worth of Speed Up. Depending on what they do (and if it works), Wanderer might adjust her tactics. This is probably also true with the Strip Debuff EE, which is too unreliable to plan with on your first action. If your opener wasn’t a pusher, you can put a pusher after Wanderer to cycle up a quick second turn.
• For DPS, Wanderer should go around third. Spend a couple of actions on the setup, Wanderer weakens/kills something, “real” DPS brings the pain. Wanderer could be buffing speed here (such as for Cidd or Kawerik), but it might work better if Roozid or Sinful Angelica or even Yuna did the buffing. S3 has a nice Speed bonus to damage.

Summary

Wanderer Silk is a versatile hero whose wide range of tactical options makes her fun to play. She can do heavy disruption while managing useful DPS and she can hit very high Speed scores, yet she is a little more durable than some other options.

She suffers against recent popular heroes and she is out-performed by other heroes in most rolls. However, she is not purely a case of “she’s weak but she’s waifu.” She can grant the rare Speed Up buff while also contributing to the team’s damage and disruption potentials, which has some definite value in a non-cleave meta. If she survives long enough to use her S3 a second time, she can squash any surprise victories or shocking comebacks.

Wanderer Silk is a bit niche, but until we have better Speed buffers she will likely remain a good support choice for a fast-moving bruiser-type team.