Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ)PiperBuild and Guide

Piper Wheel is an A-Rank Physical Anomaly Agent who specializes in dealing a lot of Anomaly damage quickly in short burst windows by using her EX Special - either by spinning or using it for quick Disorders. This is the core part of her gameplay and it explains a lot of her synergies and use cases.

It might sound a little simple to only reduce Piper to an Anomaly Agent who spins to deal damage, but frankly - for most players - that much is enough for her to perform at a reasonable level. Piper utilizes most of her kit to access her EX Special faster, to then apply Physical Anomaly on enemies and deal massive amounts of Assault and Disorder damage. She has a few tools to do this so we’ll explain them one by one.

Basic Attacks and Assists

First of all, let’s discuss her Basic Attacks and her assists. Her Basic Attacks are quite strong on the third and fourth hit especially, featuring some high Anomaly application. However, even though her Basic 4 has some good multipliers and high anomaly application, it is usually skipped in favor of her EX Special, as she can skip her EX Specials 2 second wind-up when used directly after her Basic 3. Because of this, her Basic 3 is frequently used especially as a direct follow-up after her Dodge Counter, Quick Assist or Assist Follow-Up. 

Chain Attack & Ultimate

Her Ultimate and Chain attacks function as simple bursts of Anomaly application and damage – overall they’re pretty good to use if you can make use of them, particularly her Ultimate during her Stun rotations and her Chain Attack for additional Decibel generation to make sure to have access to her Ultimate. This is because Ultimates circumvent the 3s inherent anomaly cooldown in between procs, as piper would otherwise often run into Anomaly ICDs. 

Key Mechanic: EX Special

While Pipers regular Special should never be used, her EX Special is the most interesting part of her kit. 

While her regular Special has a total of 3 stages, which look like a slow wind-up during the first, a proper spin during the second, and finally the third is reached once charged for about 3 seconds (she has ways to quickly access this), after which she automatically follows up with a special attack called “One Trillion Tons”

When Piper has enough Energy available however, instead of using her “One Trillion Tons”, she gets to use her EX Special afterwards. To do this quickly, using her EX Special after her Basic 3 is ideal, as using her EX Special after it instantly allows her to access Tire Spin Stage 3, which means her EX Special becomes nearly instantly usable. When Piper has completed her Spin duration or her Energy drops to 20, she automatically follows up with an enhanced version of One Trillion Tons called “Really Heavy”. The Anomaly application on this skill is similarly really high, and it’s recommended to switch out of it as this will in a lot of cases conclude her combos.

During both Spin states, Piper’s DMG Taken is reduced by 40% and her Anti Interrupt level is increased. This means she will very rarely get interrupted by enemy attacks and can keep spinning even though she’s getting hit. However, with her most popular pairing - that being Vivian - she rarely wants to actively spin for prolonged durations, and instead “tap” her EX Special after her Basic 3. This will result in her EX Special spinning just shortly and instantly transition into the Slam Down Attack “Really Heavy”. Both the initial activation of her EX Special as well as “Really Heavy” can trigger Vivian’s Abloom, which makes Piper the only agent in the game who is able to trigger 2 Ablooms at the low cost of 20 Energy. This is extremely powerful, but managing Vivian’s Guard Feathers to be able to keep up with Pipers consumption can be very challenging. 

With that being said, Piper is invincible during either of her finishing moves (whether from the Special or EX Special), so this can be used to avoid damage if necessary.

Core Passive & Additional Ability

Thanks to Piper’s Core Passive, she will gain a stack of “Power” for every enemy hit by an instance of damage of her EX Special or Ultimate. At a maximum of 20 stacks, they each increase her Physical Anomaly Buildup Rate by 4% for a total of 80% (at max level, or 120% at Mindscape 1). This is a good chunk of the reason why her Anomaly application is so high. 

On top of this however, thanks to her Additional Ability she also gives the whole squad (including herself) 18% increased damage as long as she’s at 20 or more stacks of Power. Each stack lasts 12 seconds, so the buff can last into other character rotations if they have big damaging abilities. The uptime is further guaranteed by her Mindscapes 1 and 6. Mindscape 4 also indirectly helps with EX Special uptime. However, unless you are pairing Piper with Burnice or Yuzuha, it is often advised to skip her Additional Ability in favour of better teammates.

Gameplay Summary

Piper’s gameplay can be summarized to the following simple steps:

• Watch out for Anomaly cooldowns and use your abilities accordingly to quickly fill Anomaly bars: Assists, Basic Attacks, EX Special, Ultimate and Chain Attacks.

• Make sure to quickly transition from her Basic 3 to her EX Special in order to skip her EX Special wind-up - her regular Special is really bad! 

• Chain Attacks are good to execute when possible for additional Decibel generation or Assault Procs (although Piper’s teams rarely tend to stun enemies quickly so this will only be done a few times per battle).

• Spin to Win (make sure to stay out of range of enemy attacks and keep a close eye on your HP though).

Other than that, it’s mostly a matter of ensuring your supports are used properly. Piper really enjoys having a Secondary off-field or inactive Anomaly applier such as Burnice or particularly Vivian so keep a close eye on their uptimes but beyond that, have fun spinning!

Meta Position & Conclusion

Piper’s position in the meta has a long history of people being unaware of her potential. However, Piper is without a doubt the best A-rank DPS currently and gets close to Jane and even Alice in terms of physical Anomaly potential. However, she is heavily reliant on Vivian and Yuzuha to do so and requires a very specific quick-swappy playstyle - that being rarely actually spinning and instead using her EX Specials repeatedly in short bursts to quickly proc a large amount of Ablooms from Vivian. While Piper has other options in the form of Burnice and other general Support Agents like Astra Yao, Lucy or Nicole, they tend to represent significant losses in the team’s damage potential and as a result there exist some significant power gaps between Piper’s ideal teams and her alternatives. In any case however, provided she is in the right match-up, even alternatives tend to perform fine enough.

In conclusion, while Piper can be a pretty simple spin-to-win type DPS who actually deals remarkable damage for an A-rank Agent, she also has a much more complicated playstyle which can unlock new heights of potential when learned and played properly. In spite of her simplistic gameplay, her damage pays off and while her optimal team options may require certain limited teammates and a change in playstyle, thanks to her ease of use and ease of obtention, she’s definitely a potent damage dealer you can consider building to help you with clearing endgame contents in Zenless Zone Zero.