For this Returners character lore, we will be featuring Sun Wukong! Sun Wukong is one of the top heroes in Returners and you can get her as a 30-day login reward. In the game, she is just a cute monkey girl who fearlessly charges at her enemies, but what about the original Sun Wukong that she is based on? What sort of character is he?

The Sun Wukong in Returners is based on a fictional character named Sun Wukong the Monkey King from a 16th-century Chinese novel, “Journey to the West”. The popularity of this novel was so great that it spread all across Eastern Asia.

In the story, Sun Wukong was a monkey born from a magic stone placed at the top of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. This monkey joined a group of other monkeys and made himself their leader, calling himself “the Monkey King”. He was known as a powerful and mischievous demon and went about causing a whole lot of trouble. He went in search of a weapon, eventually stumbling upon and stealing a magical golden staff owned by the Dragon King. This new weapon made Sun Wukong even more fearsome, as it could grow and shrink to massive or minuscule size and could also move and fight according to Sun Wukong’s will. He continued his escapades, defeating the dragons of the four sea and taking their treasures. Eventually, his misdeeds were reported to the Jade Emperor, the first god, who invited him to the heaven in the hopes that it would make Sun Wukong behave. However, when Sun Wukong found out that he was treated with much less respect than the other gods and goddesses, he grew furious; out of anger and spite, he stole and consumed the Peaches of Immortality. Sun Wukong was captured but managed to survive his execution, defeating all of the armies of Heaven that were sent after him. Pushed to the brink, the Jade Emperor asked the Buddha for his help, who imprisoned Sun Wukong for 500 years.

When a monk was sent on a journey to the West in order to retrieve the Buddhist sutras, Sun Wukong offered to escort the monk in return for his freedom after the journey was finished. In order to keep the wild Monkey King under control, the monk was given a circlet to place on Sun Wukong; when the monk chanted a certain sutra, the circlet would give Sun Wukong an unbearable headache. They were also accompanied by Pigsy and Sandy, who, along with Sun Wukong and the dragon prince who acts as the monk’s horse, had committed grave crimes and were taking part in the journey as a means of atonement. Together they protected the monk from all kinds of threats during their journey and managed to accomplish their goal. This story was meaningful to people back then since they saw the power of evil being used to achieve something good in the story.

It is said that Sun Wukong in the novel had great strength and speed, as well as the power to transform his hair into clones of himself or into various other things. He used his magical golden staff to fight off his enemies, which is the same for Sun Wukong in Returners. Not only that, the Sun Wukong in Returners also makes clones of herself and can summon a nimbus, just like the original Sun Wukong did. One thing that is different between the two would be that Sun Wukong in Returners is depicted as a cute girl with a monkey tail instead of a fearsome monkey demon like the original one.

While the Sun Wukong in Returners may seem cuter than most depictions of the Monkey King, she still has a fair measure of the original’s strength. She is an AoE fighter whose basic attack deals physical damage; she has high physical defense and HP compared to other fighters, which means she can act as a tank if equipped with the right gear. Her default stats are fairly high, making her one of the top fighters. Also, her ultimate skill, Divine Punishment, can stun several targets within the AoE, while one of her other skills, Nimbus, has a charge effect which decreases the target’s physical defense. This Nimbus skill makes Sun Wukong very popular in Raids; when upgraded to level 10, using Nimbus will decrease the physical defense of Wukong’s targets for 7 seconds, during which other physical attack-based heroes on your team can inflict a lot of damage. She is a great hero, especially when paired with Jumong; Jumong will be able to inflict more physical damage with Sun Wukong lowering the enemy’s physical defense. Adding Cassandra to the team to decrease Jumong’s skill cooldown will allow your team to deal even more damage. If you want to use Sun Wukong, place Jumong and Cassandra together with her.

Since it is important for Sun Wukong to keep decreasing the enemy’s physical defense for ally heroes to deal more damage, she should be equipped with gear that decreases her skill cooldown. The Spell-forged Heavenly Blade set will suffice; replace the shoe with Cursed Pirate King Boots and you will get increased physical attack, skill cooldown, attack speed, HP increase, and hit damage recovery, as well as the set effects, which are physical defense and skill cooldown.

Sun Wukong, as mentioned previously, is great on a physical damage-based team, and shines in Raids. She can also be used in Adventure mode, but she is not a recommended pick for PvP since her skill sets are not as good as some of the recommended heroes for PvP.

That’s it for Sun Wukong! This cute monkey would make a great choice for your boss raid team so once you get her, invest your time in scaling Sun Wukong and she’ll be well worth the effort.