Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ)Nangong YuBuild and Guide

Intro & Unique Mechanic

Nangong is an Ether Stun Agent, but don’t be misled by her class, as she also offers hefty buffs to Anomaly teams and is able to function as a pseudo-Anomaly Agent herself, with high damage and Anomaly build-up rates.

Rather than having a single unique mechanic, Nangong has multiple, with a variety of buffs and resources, each dealing with a different aspect of her kit: The bar underneath her portrait in combat tracks her “Downbeats”. She starts combat with 30 and it has a cap of 100 and builds passively, at a rate of 3.8/s, but also gets a boost of 12 Downbeats whenever an Attribute Anomaly is triggered, with a 6s cooldown.

Nangong has a 3-part Charged Basic Attack, with the 2nd and 3rd hits consuming 50 Downbeats each. If her Additional Ability is active, then landing the 3rd hit (or her Ultimate) will apply “Misstep” to enemies, a debuff that increases their Stun DMG Multiplier by 30% and extends stun durations by 3s.

In addition to Downbeats, another resource is tracked via the bar, with 2 pips on the right side representing “Dance Prowess”. Whenever enemies are stunned, Nangong gains 2 stacks that last 15s. When landing her EX Special, Charged Basic Attack or Quick Assist on enemies in stun, she will then trigger a Polarity Disorder dealing 25% of the to-be Disorder’s DMG as well as a reverse Quick Assist.

To make it easy to trigger this, while Dance Prowess is stocked, swapping to Nangong will have her rush towards the enemy with an instant cast of her Charged Basic Attack, resulting in an immediate Polarity Disorder.

Note: If Aria is on the team, then Dance Prowess is triggered automatically with her stomps, no other skill use needed.

On top of Polarity Disorders, she also has access to Ablooms: every Abloom, Disorder or Attribute Anomaly that triggers on an enemy in stun will build a “Vibrato” stack. When either 4 are built or stun ends on an enemy, Nangong will trigger an Abloom that has increased scaling the more Vibrato stacks are present, happening at most once per stun.

All of this combined creates a gameplay loop of building Downbeats, expending them on Charged Basic Attacks, then once enemies are stunned, using up Dance Prowess stacks for Polarity Disorders while working up Vibrato stacks by bursting with Nangong herself and a main Anomaly damage dealer.

There are still plenty of other gimmicks tied to her Core and Additional Ability that help with the above.

Core Passive & Additional Ability

It’s in Nangong’s Core Passive that her Downbeats and Vibrato stack scaling is determined, but it has additional effects.

By default, it increases her Anomaly Proficiency by 120, which goes a long way at helping her function as a sub-DPS. It also gives Nangong 1 Impact for every point of Anomaly Mastery over 110, giving her some absurd amounts of Impact without sacrificing on Anomaly build-up rates. For context, a max-level Impact D6 is an 18% increase to Impact, whereas an Anomaly Mastery D6 is giving 30 flat Impact! 

Nangong also has general buff value, as if she lands her Charged Basic Attack or EX Special, her personal Anomaly Buildup Rate and Daze dealt increase by 35% and 20% respectively, and she bestows a team-wide 25% DMG Bonus for 30s. Her Additional Ability demands either Anomaly or same-faction characters, and it’s through it that she gets the Misstep debuff and Dance Prowess stacks for Polarity Disorders. To make it easier to trigger, whenever an enemy is stunned, if Nangong uses an EX Special within the next 15 seconds, it will consume no energy (with a 15s cooldown).

On top of these, she further buffs the team by increasing all Agents’ Anomaly Buildup Rate by 30% against stunned enemies, with Chain Attacks getting an extra 30% on top, doubling the total bonus.

Basics

Nangong’s regular Basic Attacks are unremarkable, but much of Nangong’s kit revolves around its Charged variant (Downbeats, Misstep, Dance Prowess…), which is accessed by holding down the Basic Attack button. It has a long charge time, but it can be released early. By timing the release to when her Morning stars flash, it will trigger a “Precise Charging” that increases its Daze dealt by 20%. Nangong is fully invulnerable when releasing, and if she’s hit while dashing towards an enemy to strike, it will also gain the Precise Charging bonus.

As previously mentioned, it is a 3-part attack, with the 2nd and 3rd hits consuming 50 Downbeats and also having their own Precise Charging timings. The first hit can be skipped if the Charged Basic Attack is used after a Chain Attack, Ultimate or EX Special, and doing so will always guarantee Precise Charging bonuses. It is also possible to interrupt the Charged Basic Attack with these 3 moves, and doing so does not reset the sequence: so it is possible to do an EX Special into Charged Basic 2, then EX Special again and go straight into Charged Basic 3.

Specials

Nangong’s Special has no redeemable qualities and rarely sees use. Her EX Special has no unique properties, but it has a high Daze multiplier and as she gets a free use of it every stun, is useful to build Anomaly, trigger Chain Attacks and effects/statuses that demand EX Special casts.

Dodge

None of Nangong’s Dodge skills are all that noteworthy, but she does deal a lot of Daze with her Dodge Counter, which makes on-fielding with her possible even when low on resources.

Assist

Unlike most characters, Nangong’s Defensive Assist will only consume 1 Assist Point instead of 2, no matter how heavy the attack. Her Assist Follow-Up also has great multipliers; it can be a little slow, but parrying on her can be an effective way to build Daze and Decibels quickly.

Chain & Ultimate

As for her Chain Attack, it isn’t very fast, but it can build a lot of Anomaly so it’s usable on teams that need quick Ether application.

Her Ultimate has absurdly high Daze multipliers and triggers Ether Veil: Delusion Reprise, increasing all squad members’ ATK by 50 for 30s.

Nangong may have a lot of different resources and triggers, but her gameplan amounts to:

• Build-up her Downbeats gauge to 100, making use of Anomalies every 6 seconds to boost it faster.

• Land a full Charged Basic Attack or her Ultimate to apply Misstep, with either a Charged Basic Attack or EX Special hit to activate her Core Passive buffs.

• Once an enemy is stunned, use up her Dance Prowess stacks by swapping to her and/or landing EX Specials - the latter of which gets one free use every stun - and inflicting Ablooms/Disorders/Anomalies to trigger a max-Vibrato stack Abloom.

This then repeats between every stun, making sure that all of her buffs and debuffs are maintained. 

Since a lot of Nangong’s Daze is loaded on resource-consuming skills, like her Charged Basic Attack, EX Special, and Ultimate, look to make use of her low-cost Defensive Assist where needed. With how loaded Nangong teams’ damage output is in stun, prioritise getting as many stuns as possible in a fight to maximise her value.

As Nangong builds Anomaly quickly, managing her resources in-stun can be important depending on the team: a Miyabi team, for example, would demand clever use of EX Specials to sustain the Ether Anomalies required to get the multiple Disorders to fuel Shimotsuki casts. Aria teams, however, may benefit more from having Nangong’s EX Special come around when Anomaly gauges are high up, as despite her high damage, it would still partially dilute Corruption when compared to Aria’s own build-up.

Each team will have its own distinct priorities, so tailoring how much Energy is needed on Nangong before going into a stun, how many parries each Agent gets for Decibel management as well as who on-fields and for how long will vary. Since her kit is rather straightforward though, it isn’t too difficult to be flexible and work around different character needs.