How big is Wuthering Waves powercreep versus Genshin, Star Rail, and ZZZ?

Powercreep is the easiest argument in gacha games and the hardest one to measure. New characters get stronger. Endgame HP goes up. Old favorites feel worse. That happens in every live-service title that sells units. The real question is how fast the gap opens, whether old kits still clear full rewards, and whether the game locks content behind a new mechanic instead of just a bigger number.

As of mid-September 2026, the four games sit at different ages and different versions. Wuthering Waves is in 3.6. Genshin Impact is in 7.0 with Snezhnaya live. Honkai: Star Rail is deep into 4.x. Zenless Zone Zero is around 3.1 to 3.2. Age matters. Genshin has had six years to inflate. WuWa and ZZZ are a little over two. HSR is a little over three. The fair comparison is pace and type of creep, not raw "who has the biggest number on a boss."

What people mean when they say powercreep

There are at least four different things mixed into one word.

1. Number creep. New DPS do more damage on the same investment. New supports multiply harder.
2. HP inflation. Endgame enemies grow faster than old teams can keep up.
3. Kit replacement. A new unit does the same job as an old one, just better, so the old one has no niche left.
4. Mechanic lockout. Bosses or floors demand a new reaction, path, element, or status. You can still brute-force them, but the game is not designed for that.

WuWa and the three HoYoverse games all do some mix of these. They do not do them equally.

Honkai: Star Rail: the steepest climb

If you only care about raw output over time, HSR is not close. Community damage-per-action tracking has become the shorthand for this. One widely circulated comparison put a launch-era premium team around a few thousand DPA and a late 3.x Remembrance core above 60,000, with later 4.x talk pushing even higher. Another post in 2026 claimed a 1.x premium E0S1 team versus a 4.x premium team as roughly 5,000 versus 108,000 DPAV, about a 20x jump in under three years. Those numbers are community calcs, not official patches, but the direction is not in dispute. New teams do not edge out old ones. They leave them behind.

The structure of the game makes that worse. HSR is turn-based. Skill expression cannot hide a weak kit the way a perfect dodge window can in WuWa or ZZZ. Endgame also multiplied. Memory of Chaos, Pure Fiction, and Apocalyptic Shadow were already a three-mode treadmill. Anomaly Arbitration and higher difficulties added more HP and more "bring this path" bosses. Version 4.6 beta notes still show HP bumps on Apocalyptic Shadow and Pure Fiction even while one mode gets a mechanic tweak. That is classic inflation plus shilling.

HoYoverse did try a pressure valve. Nova Flare buffs exist so older units can come back. Some land. Many do not last a full cycle once a new path gets the banner spotlight. Direct replacements are also more obvious here than in the other three: counter DPS replace counter DPS, hunt DPS replace hunt DPS, and supports get more team-locked instead of staying universal. Robin-era Harmony value is not the same as Elation-era value.

For pull pressure, HSR is the worst of the four. You can still clear base rewards on older teams if your relics and technique are good. Full stars on the newest high-HP modes is where the game starts asking for the current patch's archetype.

Genshin Impact: slow for years, then a regional jump

Genshin spent most of its life as the control group. Bennett, Xiangling, Xingqiu, and a handful of other 1.x supports stayed relevant for an embarrassing amount of time. Main DPS rose in steps. Hu Tao did not make Diluc unusable overnight. Fontaine raised the ceiling with Furina and Neuvillette, but the social contract still held: old units cleared Abyss if you built them.

Natlan broke that pace. Nightsoul kits and raw stat budgets jumped. Mavuika became the easy example of a unit that made earlier pyro DPS look dated. Nod-Krai added Lunar reactions that only specific new five-stars could trigger cleanly, plus a Moonsign faction bonus. Snezhnaya in 7.0 added Stellar reactions on top of that. The pattern is no longer "new character does 15 percent more damage." It is "new region ships a private reaction tree, then Abyss and Theater lean on it."

That is a different kind of creep than HSR's straight HP wall. Genshin still has more room for old units because reactions are shared and four-stars still carry teams. Current 7.0 lists still have Bennett, Xiangling, Xingqiu, and other veterans in high support or sub-DPS slots, while newer names dominate main DPS. Some older characters even came back when Lunar or Stellar gave them a job. Qiqi and Wriothesley getting a second life is the opposite of HSR's usual pattern.

The cost is account planning. If you skipped Natlan and Nod-Krai, Snezhnaya content is not impossible, but it is less efficient. Imaginarium Theater makes that painful because your roster is semi-random. Genshin's creep looks smaller on a six-year chart than HSR's three-year chart, then looks worse if you only look at 5.x through 7.0.

Zenless Zone Zero: one huge spike, then a managed mess

ZZZ is the HoYoverse game people most often call "fine" and then argue about in the next sentence. Miyabi was the first real ceiling break. After that, new specialties (Rupture, later Armorer with Claret) keep adding jobs instead of only adding bigger Attack multipliers. Current lists put Claret, Sigrid, Ye Shunguang, and a cluster of Anomaly and Stun names at the top, while launch DPS like Ellen and Zhu Yuan sit much lower unless they received a kit pass.

HoYoverse has been more willing to touch old ZZZ kits than old Genshin kits. Ellen got a direct revision. Potentials act like a F2P mindscape track. Some limited agents can be added to the 50/50 loss pool. Those are real anti-creep tools. They do not stop Deadly Assault HP from climbing, and they do not stop new Stun agents from becoming default best-in-slot for most teams.

Action combat hides some of this. A well-played older agent can still full-clear Shiyu and a lot of Deadly Assault because dodge, stun windows, and anomaly timing are player skill, not just multipliers. The gap shows up when the new mode asks for a specialty the old roster barely has. ZZZ's creep is real. It is closer to WuWa than to HSR, with one important difference: ZZZ had a sharper early spike (Miyabi) and then tried to patch the roster. WuWa tried to keep the roster flatter and then let endgame floors do the selecting.

Wuthering Waves: less raw multiplier, more floor design

WuWa's reputation at launch was "almost no powercreep." That was true in 1.x relative to HSR. Jiyan, Yinlin, Jinhsi, and Shorekeeper stayed useful for a long time. Kuro also shipped account-wide lifts such as Nightmare Echoes, which raised older resonators without a banner. That is closer to a systems buff than to HSR's occasional Nova Flare.

By 2.x and 3.x the argument changed. Current 3.6 tier lists still put a handful of newer names in T0: Qingxiao, Hiyuki, Aemeath, Lynae, and similar 3.x cores, with Cartethyia and Shorekeeper still high. Launch and early limited DPS such as Jiyan, Jinhsi, Encore, and Calcharo sit in T2 or lower on many lists. Yinlin went from default Electro enabler to a budget or nostalgia pick. That is ordinary aging for a two-year gacha. It is not "no creep."

The more accurate complaint in WuWa is not that Cartethyia does 20 times Jiyan's damage. It is that Tower of Adversity and Whimpering Wastes keep adding HP, element bias, and floor buffs that line up with the current banner. Sub-DPS amplification has climbed more steadily than raw hypercarry numbers. A 1.0 main DPS with a 3.x amplifier can look fine. A 1.0 main DPS with a 1.0 amplifier starts missing timers. Skill still matters more than in HSR. Parries, intro/outro timing, and echo sets can carry a "dead" unit through mid endgame. Top-score WhiWa and the last ToA floors are where older teams fall off.

Kuro's gacha is also slightly kinder on paper (0.8 percent rate, 80 pity, weapon banner with a fate point), so replacing a crept DPS costs less than replacing one in Genshin or HSR. That does not delete the feeling that last year's premium team is this year's comfort pick.

Side by side

If you rank "how fast a well-built launch team becomes a bad investment," HSR is first. Genshin is second if you start the clock at Natlan. ZZZ and WuWa fight for third, and the winner depends on whether you care about full-clear comfort or leaderboard scores.

So how big is WuWa's creep versus the HoYo three?

Smaller than HSR by a wide margin. HSR is the only one of the four where a serious player can point at a 10x to 20x team-output jump across a few version families and not get laughed out of the thread. WuWa has not done that. A 1.0 Jiyan clear of early ToA and a 3.6 Qingxiao clear of current ToA are different worlds, but they are not 20 times apart in the way HSR's published community DPA charts are.

Against Genshin, WuWa looks worse on a per-year basis and better on a "can my favorite still exist" basis. Genshin protected old units longer, then introduced private reaction clubs that older characters cannot join without a new five-star. WuWa rarely says "this boss only takes Lunar." It says "this floor buffs Aero Liberation and the HP is fat." That is still shilling. It is less of a hard lock.

Against ZZZ, WuWa is close. Both are action games, both launched in 2024, both now have launch DPS in the lower half of tier lists, and both inflate the mode that prints the premium currency. ZZZ's early Miyabi spike was larger than anything WuWa did in 1.x. WuWa's later floor design is more consistently tuned to sell the current element. ZZZ has been more aggressive about rewriting old kits. WuWa has been more aggressive about giving the whole roster new echoes.

The part that actually matters for your account

Powercreep only becomes a problem when it changes what you have to pull to keep the same rewards.

• In HSR, that line moved the most. New paths and three-team high difficulties make skipping a version expensive if you care about full clears.
• In Genshin, that line moved during Natlan and stayed moved. You can ignore Lunar and Stellar in the overworld. You will feel it in Abyss and Theater.
• In ZZZ, that line is "Deadly Assault and the newest specialty." Story and most Shiyu still belong to whoever you play well.
• In WuWa, that line is "last two ToA towers and high WhiWa scores." Overworld, holograms at normal investment, and mid ToA still respect older resonators if your hands are good.

WuWa is not the low-creep paradise 1.0 players remember. It is also not the HSR situation with a different coat of paint. Relative to the three HoYoverse games, WuWa's powercreep is moderate: faster than classic Genshin, slower and less replacement-heavy than modern Star Rail, and roughly in the same band as ZZZ once you ignore each fandom's need to win the comparison.

If you want the shortest version: HSR sells you the next archetype. Genshin now sells you the next region's reaction. ZZZ sells you the next specialty after one early god unit. WuWa sells you the next amplifier and a floor that likes them. That last one is real creep. It is just not the biggest in this four-game field.