Chaos Zero Nightmare Team Building Guide

In this guide, we’ll be covering basic teambuilding principles, how to tailor your team to different content, and providing some sample teams you can use when you’re just getting started.

Note

These are just guidelines. Chaos Zero Nightmare is a game where most combatants can be viable for clearing content once you’ve built them properly and have secured good Save Data for them. Feel free to experiment and try new teams, after all, we’re all here to have fun!

In most teams, you’ll want to have at least one main Damage Dealer, one Defense or Support combatant, and one Flex combatant on your team. For this section, we’ll explain the logic behind why you want these roles and what they do for your team.

Pick a main Damage dealer. If you want to clear content, you need to be able to defeat enemies. To do that, you’ll want to bring at least one strong damage-focused combatant. In many cases, the damage dealer you choose will narrow down what other combatants you might want to include in your team. To help choose which damage dealer you want to bring, you can either pick your favorite, pick the strongest meta option you have, or pick one best suited for the content you’re trying to clear (AoE damage vs single target, matching element to the enemies in the content, etc).

Pick a Defense or Support combatant. More difficult content will require you to bring a combatant that can help protect your team from effects that will cause you to be defeated. In CZN, there are two main ways that you can lose in most content:

• HP Loss: If your team completely runs out of HP, you’ll lose. You can prevent this in one of two ways: either by preventing the damage with Shields and other damage mitigation, or by recovering HP with Healing.
• Stress Damage: When you take unblocked damage, one or more of your team members will take Stress damage. When their Stress bar completely fills, they will experience a Mental Breakdown. If this happens too many times, or to too many combatants at once, you will lose. To prevent this from happening, you can either block damage to prevent or reduce the amount of Stress damage that builds up, or Heal to reduce Stress that has already built up.

To avoid being defeated, we want to bring at least one Defense combatant that can generate Shields to block damage, or at least one Support combatant that can reduce Stress through Healing. In most cases, Shield seems to be more effective at both preventing HP Loss and Stress Damage, so we highly recommend selecting a strong Defense combatant here if you have one.

Pick a flex combatant. For the last slot on your team, you have quite a few options. You can bring a second DPS, Defense, or Support combatant depending on your needs. If you aren’t sure who to include, we generally recommend bringing a strong Support combatant that can offer utility and a bit of Stress Damage recovery with Healing. See the 4-Star Defense / Support combatants section below for more details on which Support to bring when.

Here are some general notes for the available 4★ Defense / Support combatants, covering why you might want to include them in your teams.

• 
  Amir - [Defense]. Amir will provide your team with Shields and reduce the damage her allies take, but Maribell is often a better choice.
• 
  Cassius - [Support]. assius has a good amount of general card draw and can search the deck for a specific card to draw. If you have a DPS that wants to get to specific cards quickly, Cassius is a good pick—just a bit AP hungry.
• 
  Maribell - [Defense]. Maribell is a lot less specialized than some other Vanguards, making her easy to slot into most teams as a Shielder.
• 
  Mika - [Support]. Mika can generate a lot of extra AP. A great choice if you’re struggling with AP management.
• 
  Nia - [Support]. Nia can cycle through decks quickly, activate cards from the Draw Pile for cheap, and prompt other Combatants to perform Extra Attacks. Complex to use, but excellent utility.
• 
  Rei - [Support]. Rei can increase damage for a variety of specific cards, like 1-cost cards, basic cards, and any selected attack in hand. She also has access to Morale, which is especially powerful.

Note

These are general recommendations and it is not always optimal to swap to these combatants in every team.

Here are some general notes for the available 5★ Defense / Support combatants, covering why you might want to include them in your teams and where they might fit.

Khalipe

• She can replace:
  
  Maribell
  
  Amir or fill as Flex Slot.
• Why add Khalipe to your team? You need Shields and/or damage mitigation, and you do not own or want to replace Maribell or Amir.
• About Khalipe: Khalipe is a powerful Shield generator who outputs decent AoE damage for a Vanguard. In most cases, you’ll want to pair her with someone who can help her utilize her Celestial mechanic by playing 2+ Cost cards

Magna

• She can replace:
  
  Maribell
  
  Amir or fill as Flex Slot.
• Why add Magna to your team? You need Shields and/or damage mitigation, and you do not own or want to replace Maribell or Amir.
• About Magna: Magna brings strong shield generation, Counterattack damage, and some AoE damage to the team. She can work as the main Defense for your team, or be paired with other Defense to increase her damage potential.

Orlea

• She can replace:
  
  Mika
  
  Nia
  
  Rei or fill as Flex Slot.
• Why add Orlea to your team? You need more AP flexibility on your team, or you could benefit from passive damage recovery and buffs.
• About Orlea: Orlea is able to passively provide buffs and Healing to your team by holding cards in hand to trigger various effects. This can free up AP for other cards and also set up some exceptionally strong burst turns.

Below you’ll find recommendations for getting through some of the earlier game content that you’ll encounter while you work on filling your roster with stronger combatants. You can use this information to help you clear that content if you’re struggling to do so with your main team.

As a general rule, it’s a good idea to bring a DPS whose Attribute matches the enemy’s Attribute Weakness so you can benefit from Breaking the enemy for free AP and Stress reduction. You can also bring off-Attribute combatants who can apply their own Attribute Weakness or deal Tenacity damage directly.

Chaos Recommendations

These teams can be built using only the 4★ available at launch.

F2P Guarantee

This team utilizes only the combatants that everyone is guaranteed to get for free.

Damage

Tressa is a strong F2P Damage option that does Fixed damage via DoT. This means she does consistent damage regardless of enemy damage reduction

Support

Mika is easily the strongest F2P Support option given to you, and you won’t regret building her even after you get higher rarity combatants. She brings Healing and AP generation to the team.

Defense

Amir brings damage reduction and additional damage to the team. She isn’t the best option for this role at the 4★ level, but she’ll make due until you pull Maribell or a 5★ Defense combatant.

F2P 4★ Only

This team utilizes only 4★ combatants.

Damage

All of these Damage dealers are good main DPS options to hold you over until you can pull a 5-Star Damage combatant. Tressa stands out in particular as a very accessible and consistent option.

Defense

Maribell is better at generating Shields than Amir, the other 4-star Vanguard. If you don’t have a 5-star Defense unit, Maribell’s a good pick.

Support

All of these Support combatants bring good utility to their teams and are worth investing in, depending on your playstyle and chosen Damage combatant. Mika is particularly strong thanks to her AP generation.

Note

These are not the ONLY teams you can play with these combatants.

Below is an example team for each 5★ Standard Banner combatants that can be pulled at launch, paired with 4★ recommendations in the other slots.

DPS 5★ Characters

Hugo (Budget team)

Damage

Hugo builds up stacks of Hunt Commence when allies play Skill or Upgrade cards, and consumes a stack when an ally attacks to deal an Extra Attack. He likes allies that play both Skills and Attacks frequently.

Damage

Tressa has a lot of Skill cards that then generate Attack cards that can be played for free, helping Hugo both stack up and trigger lots of Hunt Commence.

Flex

Mika’s AP generation makes her a great support in most teams.

Maribell is great at shielding, which is crucial for Chaos (roguelike) runs. For Basin of Hyperspace, pick a support instead.

Kayron (Budget team)

Damage

Kayron is a strong Damage combatant who does good single-target damage and great AoE damage. His cards are expensive, and it takes a lot to get him going, though, so he wants a team that helps with that.

Support

Mika’s AP generation helps Kayron afford his expensive cards.

Flex

Maribell is great at shielding, which is crucial for Chaos (roguelike) runs. For Basin of Hyperspace, pick a support instead.

Kayron’s Brand of Annihilation discounts its cost when cards are Exhausted, making Tressa’s high number of free Exhausting Shadow Daggers a good way to help Kayron afford the card.

Luke (Budget team)

Damage

Luke is a high hit frequency, low multiplier attack focused DPS that appreciates help from +% scaling buffs which take his multi-hits to the next level.

Support

Mika’s AP generation helps Luke play more cards per turn.

Defense

Maribell is great at shielding, which is crucial for Chaos (roguelike) runs. For Basin of Hyperspace, pick a support instead.

Mei Lin (Budget team)

Damage

Mei Lin is very AP efficient, plays a lot of Attack cards, can quickly break enemies, and is mainly focused on single target damage. Mei Lin already has a well-rounded kit, giving her the option to run most supports available in the game effectively.

Support

Mika’s AP generation is less valuable for Mei Lin because she’s so AP efficient, but AP generation is still a very good effect.

Flex

Selena applies Mark to enemies that trigger when attack cards are played, applies Passion Weakness, and benefits a lot from breaking the enemy. Her Passion attribute helps Mei Lin trigger Combo more consistently.

Maribell is great at shielding, which is crucial for Chaos (roguelike) runs. For Basin of Hyperspace, pick a support instead. Her Passion attribute helps Mei Lin trigger Combo more consistently.

Renoa (Budget team)

Damage

Renoa generates Bullet cards that she generally avoids playing in order to generate Extra Attacks at the end of the turn. Many of her cards play into having bullets in her hand or deck, so she likes to play her own cards and cycle through the deck frequently to trigger those effects.

Support

Mika’s AP generation helps Renoa play more cards per turn.

Flex

Nia can cycle through decks very quickly, and she can also prompt Renoa to perform more Extra Attacks. Renoa’s active Discard effects and Dirge Bullets synergize well with Nia’s kit.

Cassius’ card draw and deck search can help Renoa get to key cards when her deck is filled with Dirge Bullets.

Maribell is great at shielding, which is crucial for Chaos (roguelike) runs. For Basin of Hyperspace, pick a support instead.

Rin (Budget team)

Damage

Rin is a powerful Damage combatant who likes to play her own cards as much as possible, and who benefits from damage buffs and extra AP to play as many cards per turn as possible.

Support

Rin wants to play as many of her own cards as possible on her turn and has some more expensive cards in her base deck and Epiphany choices. Mika provides bonus AP generation, which can help set up big turns for Rin.

Flex

Nia’s kit is almost entirely made up of Skills, which helps Rin get the extra hits from Dark Mist Secret Art: Black Dance.

Maribell is great at shielding, which is crucial for Chaos (roguelike) runs. For Basin of Hyperspace, pick a support instead.

Veronica (Budget team)

Damage

Veronica functions more as a Support or Sub-DPS combatant for most teams, but if you want to build around her as a DPS, you’ll want to focus on buffing her Ballista cards, which count as Extra Attacks.

Support

Mika’s AP generation pairs well with Veronica’s card draw.

Flex

4★ DPS

Maribell is great at shielding, which is crucial for Chaos (roguelike) runs. For Basin of Hyperspace, pick a support instead.

Cassius can draw more cards and search for Veronica’s Upgrade cards so you can play them early.

You can also run a 4★ DPS in this spot to help out Veronica in the damage department at the cost of supportive/defensive abilities.

Khalipe (Budget team)

Defense / Damage

Khalipe can work as a Shielder or an AoE DPS, allowing her to run multiple supports without sacrificing too much team damage or survivability.

Support

Mika’s AP generation helps Khalipe play multiple high-cost cards per turn, allowing her to afford her expensive cards and trigger Celestial.

Support

Cassius can use his card draw and card search effects to help Khalipe find her Celestial cards. His 2-cost cards can also help trigger Celestial, and his Morale Down effects help Khalipe’s Shields last longer.

Non-DPS 5★ Characters

For the characters below, they are supports that can be slotted in most teams, and the examples below are just that.

Orlea (Budget team)

Support

Orlea provides great healing, some damage buffs, and surprisingly high personal damage for a Support through her three types of Creations. Fantastic general support who can work on just about any team.

Defense

Maribell is great at shielding. While Orlea can generate some Shields and a lot of healing, shields are crucial for Chaos (roguelike) runs. For Basin of Hyperspace, pick a support or another DPS instead.

Damage

Pretty much any 4-star DPS can work here for a budget team, but Tressa is less ideal due to Orlea taking up lots of hand space. Beryl in particular benefits from Orlea being able to trigger her Retain effects directly.

Magna (Budget team)

Defense

Magna is a generic Shielder that is versatile and can be played instead of Maribell if you like her more.

Support

All of these Support combatants bring a ton of great utility to their teams and are worth investing in, depending on your playstyle and chosen Damage combatant.

Damage

Any of the 4★ damage dealer works here.