ZaniBuild and Guide

Zani is a 5-star Spectro Gauntlets DPS who specializes in dealing high damage during the stance she enters in her Ultimate called “Inferno Mode”. Her kit is centered around certain key elements, the most important one being Spectro Frazzle which she passively and instantly converts into “Heliacal Ember” in order to charge her Ultimate Forte points, called “Blaze” which she needs in order to execute her combos to access her damage. Generally speaking, Zani has attacks that have a good Cleave range, meaning she’s able to handle clumps of enemies well, and she has increased damage resistance as well as parries built into her kit, all of this making her tanky while able to deal lots of damage.

When put this way, this type of character sounds a lot like a tank, slow and tanky but hits hard — however, worry not as while Zani has some animations that are pretty lengthy, she actually ends up rotating pretty smoothly. With that being said, Zani has a very complex kit packed with details, so we’ll focus on explaining what’s being used in her actual rotations in detail (we’ll only mention other elements briefly).

As said earlier, Zani’s main focus will be to build up Blaze for her to use during her Inferno Mode stance. It stacks up to 150 points, so the goal with Zani will be to reach that threshold. There are a few ways to do this:

• Entering Inferno Mode (via her Ultimate, 50 points);

• Using her Enhanced Skill “Crisis Response Protocol” (10 points);

• Converting Spectro Frazzle into Heliacal Ember (5 points per stack).

Heliacal Ember works as a variant to Spectro Frazzle which stacks up to 60 times, but any Spectro Frazzle-related buffs don’t apply (for things such as Spectro Rover’s Shimmer effect, Confession Phoebe’s Spectro Frazzle depletion extension rate, Absolution Phoebe’s DMG Amplification on Heavy Attack Starflash etc). The only exception is they serve as a way to activate the Eternal Radiance set effects. However, the damage granted by Heliacal Ember is instantaneous and equivalent to the damage Spectro Frazzle would’ve normally dealt.

As Zani cannot apply any Spectro Frazzle by herself and this is dependent on the gameplay of her teammates, the main point of interest is casting this Enhanced Skill. To do this, she needs to build 100 points of “Redundant Energy” which is her Forte bar outside of her Ultimate stance. Additionally, it gives her an extra Heliacal Ember to activate Eternal Radiance Echo bonuses and a 20% Spectro Frazzle DMG Amplify effect for 14s to further increase her Inferno Mode damage potential, making it especially important to build before using her Ultimate. There are a few ways to do this:

• Using her Basic Attacks;

• Using her skill “Standard Defense Protocol” and its parry variant “Pinpoint Strike”;

• Using her Intro Skill.

Zani’s Resonance Skill indeed allows her to first do a small hit of damage (Standard Defense Protocol) and then enter a parry stance that she can hold for up to 2 seconds, during which she takes no damage for 1 attack (and 30% reduced DMG in the 2 seconds that follow). If an attack is successfully parried, she will execute Pinpoint Strike for extra damage and Redundant Energy, which is enough to cast her Enhanced Skill after an Intro. To get all 100 Redundant Energy points without a parry, following an Intro Skill with Standard Defense Protocol into Basic Attack 3 should be all that’s needed for quick access to her Enhanced Skill. However, in the case that all hits don’t connect, Basic Attack 4 may also be necessary (which is still fine to do). Regardless, once this is achieved, Zani is ready to activate her Ultimate and enter Inferno Mode.

During Inferno Mode, Zani gets a new kit featuring new Basic Attacks, a new parry Skill with a new counter (which also doubles as a Dodge Counter), and she utilizes her other Forte bar to execute all of these actions. She gets 50 Blaze points which she’ll consume to execute her combos in Inferno Mode (with the cap extended from 100 to 150 and her Ultimate filling those missing 50 points). All of the damage she can deal during this stance is considered Heavy Attack DMG and Spectro Frazzle DMG simultaneously, so all related buffs apply. In total, factoring in the Enhanced Skill’s 10 and the Ultimate’s 50 Blaze, 90 points need to be filled via Spectro Frazzle application which requires 18 Spectro Frazzle to be converted into Heliacal Ember in total. Luckily, for her main Ultimate combo, only 140 points are needed which lowers the total down to 16 Spectro Frazzle. She also gets a 25% multiplier increase to her Basic Attacks, but this doesn’t apply to the new ones she acquires so it can be ignored (it only applies to her regular Basics that only occur if Forte points aren’t available to consume).

Now to get into the details, Zani’s new Basic Attacks are called “Daybreak”, “Dawning”, and “Nightfall”. These are the center of her Inferno Mode kit. The simplest possible rotation only requires you to perform her Basic Attack string 2 times, which casts each of these skills twice. Simple and effective. Daybreak consumes 10 Blaze, Dawning consumes 20 Blaze and Nightfall consumes up to 40 Blaze, with each Blaze consumed giving an extra multiplier increase to Nightfall specifically (other attacks do not benefit from this). So as said earlier, her standard combo consumes 140 Blaze.

However, other options are available. Her Skill allows you to immediately enter a parry stance for up to 2 seconds during which she will take up to 70% reduced damage. Parrying any attack triggers an equivalent to Dawning called “Lightsmash” which consumes 20 Blaze, after which Zani can immediately follow with Nightfall. This combo therefore only costs 60 Blaze. The exact same thing occurs if a Dodge Counter is executed. This can be important to factor in if your team can’t generate the full 150 Blaze consistently for Zani.

Finally, once Zani has consumed enough Blaze and has 30 left or less (the threshold is indicated above her Forte bar), then she can cast another Ultimate called “The Last Stand” which deals noteworthy damage, stops ingame timers and prevents you from switching out during it like any regular Ultimate would, and this also ends her rotation as it ends Inferno Mode at the same time. Note that this may not deal more damage than a fully powered Nightfall as Spectro Frazzle and Heavy Attack DMG buffs do not apply to The Last Stand. Once she has performed all of these actions, she’s ready to switch out and cast her Outro which is considered Spectro Frazzle DMG as it deals a final burst of damage dependent on the stacks of Heliacal Ember present on enemies, consumes all Heliacal Ember stacks present on targets, and also amplifies the Spectro DMG of all characters except Zani by 20% if they have Heliacal Ember applied, which is typically a small DMG boost for your Supports but has little usage beyond that.

This explains Zani’s kit, so let’s further detail her potential as a character. She deals a lot of damage, this much is undeniable, however it comes at a cost. Confession Phoebe is currently the only character able to quickly and consistently apply all of the Spectro Frazzle Zani needs by herself; this makes her especially desirable in Zani teams as without her it’s difficult to fully execute Zani’s Ultimate combos. But on top of this, Confession mode Phoebe also gives 100% Spectro Frazzle DMG Amplify on her Outro and an extra 30% with her Signature weapon, making her a necessity in Zani teams to reach her maximum potential. Zani can still easily function as a character when separated from Phoebe due to really high baseline damage but it does undeniably strip away a lot of her potential. Additionally, Zani’s weapon is an especially important grab as it gives an extra 50% Spectro Frazzle DMG Amplify effect and an 8% DEF reduction on enemies with pretty much permanent uptime. In other words: she’s expensive, as all of those upgrades contribute loads to her potential. We will reiterate this does not strip away your possibilities of using Zani without any of these upgrades involved, but her damage will tank a significant amount. This is her biggest weakness.

Beyond this, her team comps are pretty restrictive as a Spectro Frazzle applier needs to be present in some form on your team. Finally, as Zani will end up dealing a lot of the team’s damage potential, buffing her own damage as heavily as possible is highly recommended, so she’ll pretty much always end up in a core of Zani herself, a Spectro Frazzle applier, and a generalist Support. It’s difficult to justify other team comps in the current meta and makes her playstyle much more restrictive than other characters we’ve previously seen — while teambuilding freedom exists around Zani, her performance will take a hit as a result of attempting that.

However, it’s absolutely undeniable that as things currently stand, Zani’s damage potential is very high and under the right conditions, she can carry your account across all forms of currently available endgame content. She’s an amazing DPS that has all the tools she needs for all kinds of players, whether competitive or casual, to enjoy playing the game.

In conclusion, while Zani has a couple of weaknesses in regards to her restrictiveness, it is undeniable that her strengths far outweigh those weaknesses. Her damage potential is high enough to justify her being a top tier DPS character without a doubt, and as she has no issues with receiving damage, or dealing damage in both AoE and single-target situations, she’s suited to all kinds of enemy encounters and is likely to make your gameplay experience smooth and easy!