Orphie & MagusBuild and Guide

This tier list assesses Agents (characters) based on their combat potential in Zenless Zone Zero’s most demanding contents -Deadly Assault (DA) and Shiyu Defense (SD).

SD is a similar mode to Genshin Impact’s Spiral Abyss or Honkai Star Rail’s Memory of Chaos and requires 2 teams of 3 Agents with good Disk Drives and W-Engines. This mode offers a reasonable mix of Boss encounters (single-target) and Elite packs (2-3 targets), allowing multiple characters to find a niche. With that being said, there is a bias towards single-target performance, which may reflect in select character ratings. Additionally, since this content’s goal is to kill all enemies within the shortest time frame possible, Agents who dish out lots of damage quickly instead of damage over time are favoured. This Tier List focuses on Agents’ ability to clear within 150s (2m30s) out of the 300s (5m) needed to obtain all rewards.

DA is a very unique mode in Zenless Zone Zero which offers Boss encounters exclusively, meaning other types of damage than single-target are rarely impactful (if ever). It requires a total of 3 teams to maximize all possible rewards, however only 2 well-geared teams are necessary to maximize Polychrome (premium pull currency) rewards (which are the most important and as a result are what we consider for this Tier List). The goal of this gamemode is to inflict as much damage to a boss as possible in a total time span of 3 minutes, meaning sustainable damage within long time windows is favoured. A maximum of 65000 score points can be obtained by fully depleting a boss’s HP, however this is unrealistic for the overwhelming majority of players while being unnecessary to maximize rewards. Only 20000 points is needed to maximize said rewards, with up to 5000 points being obtainable via Performance (obtained via performing certain actions on specific Boss enemies). Agents’ ability to reach this threshold of 20000 points is what the Tier List focuses upon.

Please keep in mind Zenless Zone Zero is a skill-based game and each character has a different playstyle, difficulty level and even special tricks and combos. Zenless Zone Zero is also a team based game and it's only by combining both these factors to the highest level a character can reach optimal performance.