CalcharoBuild and Guide

Calcharo is a 5-star Electro Broadblade wielding DPS that can function as either Main DPS in a Hyper Carry styled team with other units meant to support his kit, or as a dual DPS in Quick-Swap teams. Regardless of which scenario you pick, Calcharo usually dominates most of the teams’ focus due to either his kit’s extreme demands in regards to field time, a lot of precision and tricks, or in some scenarios, both.

If you prefer Hyper Carry Calcharo, he is in a bit of a weird spot. When played at the highest level possible, he wants his burst rotation to be Swap-Cancelled in the middle of his Ultimate buffed state. This ultimately limits his potential as a Hyper Carry, as he loses the majority of outro amplification buffs when played like this. The only way around this is to pair him up with characters whose outro amplifications linger even during swaps, such as Verina and Baizhi.

On the other hand, Calcharo is much more often played in Quick-Swap double DPS teams that facilitate his desire to Swap-Cancel his Empowered Heavy Attacks. In these he is most often paired with Yinlin, as she also wants to be swapped often, but can also find solace in teams with Encore or Havoc Rover.

Everytime Calcharo uses his Resonance skill, his Forte Gauge is filled and accumulates Cruelty charges. Upon acquiring the maximum of 3 charges, he is able to execute an empowered Heavy Attack (Mercy). In addition, during Calcharo’s Ultimate his Forte gauge is enhanced and he loses access to his standard gauge.

Calcharo’s skill consists of 3 parts which can be used independently of each other, however should you wait too long or switch him off the field, they will enter a cooldown. His skill’s primary usage is to generate Resonance Energy and “Cruelty” charges for his standard Forte Gauge.

Lastly, his Ultimate skill deals a huge amount of Electro DMG, as well as transitioning him to Deathblade Gear state, which empowers his basic attacks, Forte Gauge and Heavy Attacks. Furthermore, using his Ultimate allows him to gain an immediate stack of 5 “Killing Intent” (his empowered Forte Gauge) and upon consuming 5 "Killing Intent" stacks he casts Death Messenger - a high Electro DMG nuke, which makes up for bulk of his damage. Otherwise, for every enhanced basic attack used, Calcharo gains a single charge of “Killing Intent”. Calcharo’s goal during his ultimate is to build and spend as many killing intent stacks on Death Messenger’s as possible.

As you might have guessed from the information above, Calcharo features a highly complicated kit requiring a lot of skill. This translates to his field time varying vastly depending on the playstyle you have chosen and your skill. While using Calcharo as Main DPS, his optimal burst rotation includes 3 Heavy Attack Death Messengers, each of which have an animation of 2 seconds, however all of them can be Swap-Cancelled immediately after starting, making a less skilled player amass a 6 second field time gap. This is further extended if you include his warm-up rotation that contains another 2 second cast from Mercy. As a consolation to the high level of skill required to play him optimally, when being played at perfection, he competes for some of the highest DPS in the game.

If the previous paragraph wasn’t clear to you, yes, Calcharo is currently by far the hardest character to play in the game to his max potential, and the second place is not even close. To play him at peak condition, you will need to perfectly time his burst rotation when it can be fully executed, while timing the Swap-Cancels just right. Failure to do so will cost you a large portion of his damage, Concerto and Resonance energy generation. Pairing him in team compositions such as Yinlin-Calcharo will increase the skill required even further than this.

Calcharo is a trick-intensive character, much more than anyone else in the roster. Adding to the Death Messenger complexity, you will want to Swap-Cancel them not only to protect him during animation, but also to increase team DPS, as you can quickly spam other characters’ skills.

If this wasn’t daunting enough, playing him optimally also requires mastering his Basic Attacks, which are needed before Death Messenger can be executed. His Basic Attacks 4 and 5 have unfortunately long animation times, which need to be avoided to provide optimal DPS. To that end, executing the first 3 Basic Attacks, then interrupting his Basic Attack chain using a dash or a skill to reset back to Basic Attack 1 results in overall faster access to Death Messenger. Thus optimally, you would be using Basic Attack 1, 2, 3, Interrupt 1, 2 instead of Basic Attack 1-5 chain, allowing you to save precious seconds leading to his Ultimate.

Regardless of how you use Calcharo or your skill level with him, he will always be focused on dealing as much damage as possible, thus he will always make great use of DPS echo and accompanying set bonuses.

Overall, Calcharo is currently one of the best DPS in the game for Tower of Adversary, especially when paired with his ideal teammate Yinlin, but as stated earlier, this raises the difficulty of playing him substantially. While he is still a competitive pick when not played to his maximum potential, he simply loses edge compared to some easier to play characters.