Credentials: I am the top wind main on my server. While I'm not F2P, I am not a mega spender, my teams remain viable without an army of premium ninjas.

While there is no guaranteed win build, I found that these forums severely lack viable Wind Main builds and I notice a lot of people on my server running the oft heralded "Empress Build" (Kurenai, Wind Main, Hinata, Karin). I'll propose a few builds and hopefully more people will chime in with their input.

While most top level wind players on my server are in the know, I still see plenty of people running this build. Here is why it's bad:

1) Easily countered combo init. Requires your main to be alive/active for combo initiation. If your main is paralyzed, acupunctured, etc. you no longer have a reliable combo starter. As most wind mains are hesitant to deploy their main in the front row, the positional initiative advantage tends to to go the other team's front row initiators and your main will be disabled fairly promptly.
2) Relies heavily on Kurenai reflect and Karin heal for debuff clears. This gets easily overwhelmed by any AOE.
3) Deals very little damage overall. Karin poison is a turn 3 skill (turn 1 Hinata, turn 2 Main, turn 3 Kurenai&Karin) so you don't have stacked DOTS kicking in until late.

Early on, both Karin and Kurenai require a lot of time to collect. While Kurenai remains useful, Karin consumes a lot of resources that can be better spent elsewhere.

Here are some F2P builds followed by some builds that require some semi-premium (Pain Gakido) ninja. I generally prefer using reset along with low chakra consumption for rapid casts on both turns 2 and 3. Your primary combo starter (top right ninja) should have the most refines in order to maximize initiative.

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Tobi for damage dealing:
Main Skills: 33212
Summon: High float to Repulse (Tigers)


Why is this good? You can target your acupuncture by using Tobi's mystery and combo-ing into Hinata. Hinata is a great tank and absorbs turn 1 damage so that you can fire your Tobi damage skill, Kurenai heal/shield, and your main reset turn 2. On turn 3, you can fire Tobi, Kurenai, and Hinata all over again.

What innately counters this build? Anything that disables your Tobi from casting that can happen on round 1. Generally speaking, Fire builds that have their main on the top row will sleep your Tobi. Most acupuncture clones (or Fire clones that combo into acupuncture) will be taunted by Hinata, but Fire sleep ignores the Hinata taunt and can disrupt your combo game.

So the next question is, how do I deal with this?

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The answer is simple, integrate somebody with debuff clear! Here is an example:
Main skills: 33312
Summon: High float to Repulse (Tigers)


Tsunade can clear the sleep debuff on Tobi and she also replaces the low-float to high-float chase on your main, allowing you to utilize the high combo chase instead.

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What is probably the best possible version though? This one requires a premium ninja, but almost guarantees back-to-back casting of the Tobi skill
Main skills: 33212
Summon: High float to Repulse (Tigers)


This team follows almost the same combo flow as the first team, but allows for full team single layer debuff clear at the end of each round. While it may be tempting to cast the Gakido shield on round 1 to either Tobi or Hinata, I recommend casting it on your main to guarantee that your round 2 reset is guaranteed, allowing for maximum Tobi skill usage.

Used properly, these teams built around Tobi can utilize these skills (and his mystery on turns 2, 3, 4, and 5) as follows:
Turn 1: Hinata Taunt, Gakido Shield on Main
Turn 2: Tobi Skill, Main reset, Gakido Shield (Best judgement), re-queue Tobi Skill to minimize cooldown
Turn 3: Tobi Skill fires again having been cast the turn before, Hinata taunt
Turn 4: Tobi Skill fires again (cooldown has cleared)
Turn 5: Gakido shield on Main, Main resets, Tobi Skill fires again, Hinata taunt

This deals an unreal amount of damage and also will combo into an acupuncture every time that Tobi's mystery fires.

While this build solves several of the main problems with the Empress build, there is still only a single primary combo starter (Tobi). Disabling Tobi or paralyzing your main will severely interrupt your damage output.

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Here is my high damage build for Wind Mains:
Main Skills: 33231
Summon: Repulse to High Float
Note: Ensure that you add the Kankurou (either GNW or regular) last so that his puppet is behind Guy. If his puppet spawns in the middle, remove him from your team completely then re-add him so that he creates his puppet after your clones have spawned.


To ensure that your puppet stays alive to get that juicy guaranteed launch, your deployed team should look like this:


While normally the Wind Clones are pretty terrible, they serve a purpose in this build: Orochimaru gains 20 chakra per defeated body including clones. If a Lightning Main runs assassination blade and blood thirst, you can enter the 2nd turn with 80-100 chakra easily! Utilizing the reset allows for you to cast all of your skills on both turns 2 and 3 provided you have enough chakra. While this build has plenty of weaknesses (mainly there is only a single debuff clear on your main), it deals terrific damage and is a fairly good starting point for other builds. The bottom row is stacked to maximize exposure of clones to the enemy; you want them to tear up your clones!

All of these builds can be countered, but figuring out how to beat those counters makes this game so fun!

I'd love feedback! My team is constantly evolving, but I wanted to end the scourge of the Empress Build once and for all.