Chaos Zero Nightmare (CZN)TressaBuild and Guide

• Agony: Where the majority of Tressa’s damage scaling stems from. Agony is a debuff applied to enemies that has a duration that ticks down at the end of each turn. When ticking down deals 50% ATK as Fixed DoT damage. Agony can be applied multiple times to the same target and is removed when the duration reaches 0.
• Fixed Damage: Fixed Damage cannot be increased or decreased by the usual additive or multiplicative +% bonuses.
• Shadow Dagger: One of Tressa’s signature mechanics is her Shadow Daggers, which are 0-cost single-target attacks that inflict 1 stack of Agony for 2 turns and exhaust after use. Shadow Daggers are generated via many of Tressa’s abilities and are core to most of her damage.
• Advanced Shadow Dagger: A harder-hitting version of Shadow Dagger, which inflicts 2 stacks of Agony instead of 1 and costs 1 AP, not 0. In exchange, it has Retain, allowing you to hold onto it, and Retrieve, allowing you to add it back once after use.
• Weaken: A debuff that reduces enemy damage by 25%. Upon an enemy dealing damage, reduce Weakness by 1.

5

Wave of Darkness

Ego Skill

Create 2 Shadow Dagger.​

Wave of Darkness

Costs 5EP and simply generates 2 Shadow Daggers on use, nothing groundbreaking but is even more access to shadow daggers which is never not useful. A likely lower priority than most other Ego skills on your team but still solid.

1

Dagger Throw

Attack

100% Damage.​

Dagger Throw

Tressa’s Basic Attack is mostly standard but becomes far stronger than most Combatants’ thanks to her Potential that allows it to apply Agony. Thanks to this, it becomes a serviceable tool for Tressa’s strategy.

1

Touch of Darkness

Skill

Heal 100%.​

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Touch of Darkness

Tressa’s basic heal is completely standard and doesn't have any extra synergy with her kit.

1

Unsheathe Dagger

Skill

Create 2 Shadow Dagger.​

Unsheathe Dagger

The highlight of Tressa’s Starting Deck. Costs 1AP and generates 2 Shadow Daggers on use, making it 1 cost for 2 hits and 2 Agony. This is a deal that is very much worth it with how the rest of Tressa’s kit scales.

0

Curse

Skill

For 1 turn, when using Attack Cards, 1 Agony.​

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Curse

A Skill card that causes any Attack cards played to apply 2 stacks of Agony for one turn. Solid all around and always playable unless you have no Attack cards in hand. Works especially well if you’re able to generate a bunch of Shadow Daggers in the same turn.

1

Shadow Reload

Skill

Heal 100%.
Create 1 Advanced Shadow Dagger.

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Shadow Reload

A 1AP Heal that also generates an Advanced Shadow Dagger for the current combat. An effective choice if you’re lacking access to Agony-applying attacks, but gains most of its value through Epiphany upgrades.

2

Vital Attack

Attack

80% x 3 Damage
If the target is in Agony, +50% Damage.

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Vital Attack

A 2-cost Attack that hits three times for 80% damage per hit, or for 130% per hit if the target has any Agony stacks. Most enemies you target with this will have at least one Agony stack, making it a powerful damage-dealing option if you have the AP for it.

1

Cursed Gouge

Skill

2 Engrave Agony.
2 Weaken.

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Cursed Gouge

A 1-Cost Skill card that applies 2 stacks of Agony and Weakness. Building Agony stacks is Tressa’s main goal, and the Weakness debuff will reduce the damage enemies deal, allowing more time for Agony stacks to deal damage before your team winds up in a dangerous situation.

Tressa’s potentials are excellent. You’ll want to pick up her 3-1 ASAP, and the rest when possible.

• 3-1: Causes Dagger Throw to apply Agony to the target. This is a HUGE upgrade to the card and should be a high priority to acquire as soon as possible.
• 5-1: Adds +5% extra damage to Dagger Throw. Additionally, if Tressa’s Damage Over Time is greater than 15%, an additional +5% is added.
• 7: Adds +4% Void Attribute Damage. If Tressa’s Damage Over Time is greater than 30% another +4% is added.

Standard Playstyle

Tressa stands out as one of the characters with the highest access to 0-cost attack skills in the game, making her synergistic with many other combatant playstyles. That aside, Tressa is perfectly functional by herself. When playing Tressa with a focus on her own kit, your goal should be to maximize Agony application by aligning Shadow Dagger use with Curse if possible. Outside of this leverage her high AP efficiency cards when available and use her Agony payoff cards when you can.

Note

For every Epiphany, we're colored their name based on how useful we think it is compared to the other variants. Here's the key to the colors:

• Epiphany Name - the best variant,
• Epiphany Name - a good variant,
• Epiphany Name - a niche variant.

Recommended Loadout

2-PC Bonuses

• 

  Black Wing [2-PC]

  - A 12% unconditional ATK% increase benefits all of Tressa’s abilities and Agony damage, while being a stat she can’t get anywhere else apart from gear, making it a top priority.
• 

  Cursed Corpse [2-PC]

  - Grants +10% Multiplicative DMG% to all of Tressa’s abilities (except Agony) as long as there is Agony on the target. Not the multiplier type Tressa prefers, but with few other options, it's the next best thing she can use.
• 

  Executioner's Tool [2-PC]

  - Agony cannot Crit, but with correct equipment and teammates, her Shadow Daggers and other abilities can be boosted enough to deal impactful damage. Because of this, building Crit on Tressa, while not as optimal as other combatants, is still fine until better set options are released. This is especially true if you can scale dagger multipliers high enough through means like the Dimensional Cube accessory.

4-PC Bonuses

• 

  Offering of the Void [4-PC]

  - When Tressa exhausts a card, usually a Shadow Dagger, she gains a +15% multiplicative damage boost for the turn. Only slightly better than 2P Cursed Corpse, but still an upgrade if you’re not interested in any of the other 2P sets available. This set does not boost Agony damage.

DoT DPS

Crit DPS

Weapon

• 

  RFS-17
• 

  Bone Cutter
• 

  Obsidian Sword

Armor

• 

  Psionic Combat Suit

Trinket

• 

  Dimensional Cube
• 

  Amorphous Cube

Comments - Weapons

1. 

   RFS-17
   - All of Tressa’s generated Shadow Daggers are 0-cost attacks, which can benefit from RFS’s 10% Crit Rate boost. If you’re confident you can get a high enough multiplier on these daggers and aren’t relying purely on DoT to deal your damage, this can be a strong option over Bone Cutter or Obsidian Sword.
2. 

   Bone Cutter
   - Grants a +30% Additive damage multiplier to all of Tressa’s abilities while they have the Weaken debuff. Cursed Gouge, one of Tressa’s core cards, applies Weaken, helping the uptime of this equipment, although depending on your build, it may still not be permanently up. It's important to note that this bonus does not improve Agony damage.
3. 

   Obsidian Sword
   - Grants +12% Multiplicative damage to Tressa’s non-Agony damage. While better than nothing, this weapon isn’t as strong on Tressa as others, as her base multipliers on her cards and Shadow Daggers are on the low side, making multiplying them instead of adding to them weaker in most cases outside of very high values.

Comments - Armor

1. 

   Psionic Combat Suit
   - Any time Tresa exhausts any card, she grants the team 30% fixed shield. This is a great defensive option that’ll consistently help you every turn, granting you shield for each Shadow Dagger/exhaust card used. Depending on your build, this can range from incredible to just okay, but it’s still her best shop option in this slot, though.

Comments - Trinkets

1. 

   Dimensional Cube
   - An option that stands above the rest, but requires specific teammates to function, or else it’s useless. Grants the wearer +10% additive damage whenever any character discards any card anywhere, with the exception of the end-of-turn discard. When paired with characters like Nia and Cassius, this option can outperform all other Shop damage choices. This doesn’t boost Tressa’s Agony damage, but it can allow her daggers to climb to very impressive damage numbers for how many times they hit.
2. 

   Amorphous Cube
   - Grants Tressa a permanent +25% Additive damage bonus to her non-Agony abilities. A nice boost to Shadow Dagger and multi-hit ability damage, which makes it worth picking up, but as it doesn’t impact Agony isn’t a game changer.

Important!

CZN is a game of randomness; sometimes you’ll be offered generic or Divine epiphanies that are stronger than a character's standard five options. In these cases, breaking the listed build can result in an even more powerful save. Adjust as you see fit!

Card Removal Priority

• Dagger Throw: Tressa’s Basic Attacks are much better than most characters as they apply Agony. With that said, they aren’t needed or even preferred in her strongest endgame decks, making them one of the first cards you can consider removing.
• Vital Attack: An incredibly potent damage tool for Main DPS Tressa builds, but very expensive, making it a heavy card to use when playing her in a Sub DPS role. For this reason, when using Tressa as an attack spamming enabler, consider removing this card, but it’s worth keeping when playing Tressa as the main carry.
• Touch of Darkness: Tressa’s Basic Heal is actually useful to her when playing the Shadow Reload IV build, as it can be used as another Dagger generator, creating 1, 2, or even three daggers or more on use. It’s not the most efficient healing source, but it can be worth keeping even in endgame Tressa decks. Not useful without Shadow Reload IV, though.

Card Dupe Priority

Dupe Priority

Shadow Reload IV

Shadow Reload IV is the heart and soul of endgame Tressa builds and allows her to generate obscene amounts of Shadow Daggers for free after setup. The goal of most top Tressa decks is to get as many copies of this card as possible.

Epiphany Alternatives

• Unsheathe Dagger: When playing Tressa’s most common endgame set-up, the Shadow Reload IV build, most Unsheathe Dagger options end up worse than simply using a heal card, especially if that heal card has an extra effect. Unsheathe V is the exception to this, as it generates 4 daggers and then exhausts itself after thinning the deck. If you’d prefer not to solely rely on heals, though, Unsheath I, II, and IV are all also viable options.
• Curse: Curse I is most universal, but Curse II can offer higher damage potential if the amount of non-attacks you’re using isn’t that high. For most Shadow Reload IV builds, Curse II is the better option, though.

Mika

• Has a Retain and upgrade card, which, after set-up (and if held), makes cycling the remainder of her deck very quick.
• If you’re using Shadow Reload IV, one of Tressa’s best cards, Mika can generate an absurd amount of daggers thanks to her many low or no-cost heals.

Hugo

• Tressa generates many 0-cost targeting attacks with very little effort, all of which trigger Hunt Commence on use. This makes Tressa an absurdly efficient enabler for Hugo, adding huge damage to each dagger she uses.
• Tressa has a good amount of skill cards, all of which generate Hugo Hunt Commence stacks, which feed back into damage after using Tressa’s Shadow Daggers.

Nia

• Has access to multiple healing cards, either baseline or through epiphanies that also have other effects, granting value and Shadow Daggers simultaneously.
• Great card searching and deck churning ability to get to the cards that matter most fast.
• Allows Tressa to take advantage of Dimensional Cube due to all her discards boosting the damage of all of her numerous shadow daggers.

Cassius

• Tressa is one of the best activators of the Cassius Triple 0 quest and can simultaneously stack the multiplier of the quest reward incredibly high, turning Cassius into a real sub DPS.
• Has a little healing to trigger Shadow Reload (not enough to be a sole activator though),
• Fantastic low-cost card cycling and searching.

Important!

If you’re losing runs when playing a damage-focused composition either to sanity or dying, consider using a team with more defensive characters - so including both a shielder and healer. This is especially important in the Zero System mode.

Main DPS Tressa Team

Tressa is strong enough to be played as a solo DPS even if that’s not her strongest role. When doing this, bring either a shielder of your choice to maximize survival or another support to boost damage or utility.

Damage

Support

Flex

Shielder

Support

Hugo Tressa Meta Team

Tressa’s role in this team is to generate as many Shadow Daggers as efficiently as possible to trigger Hugo’s Hunt Commence stacks.

Damage

Damage

Support