Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) Tier List

Shiyu Defense

This tier list assesses characters based on their combat potential in Zenless Zone Zero’s current most demanding content, Shiyu Defense (SD). SD is a mode similar to Genshin Impact’s Spiral Abyss or Honkai Star Rail’s Memory of Chaos and requires multiple teams, Disk Drives and good 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 but in the end, there is a bias toward single target focused characters at the top-end and tier list ratings will reflect that.

Skill Ceilings

As an action-combat game, Zenless Zone Zero offers many combat options to players - some of which are not easily executed but boost certain characters' powers substantially. The Switch Cancel is an example of such a technique allowing you to switch out a character mid-attack to a new character while still fully executing the move you interrupted, essentially allowing you to attack with two characters at once. Such techniques won't be for everyone but a tier list must assess characters on their maximum potential and best teams. Each character is assessed with only the easiest and most powerful switch cancels included. Techniques such as efficient Parrying, Rotations, Dodging and Dodge countering are also expected.

Criteria

• All characters are assumed to be utilized in their full best 3-man team, played with optimal rotations without mistakes and using best Disk Drive main sets.
• All characters are using maximum level
  
  S-Rank Disk Drives.
• All Disk Drive main stats are considered to be best in slot for that characters build,
• Characters are assessed with good but not perfect sub-stats on Disk Drives. Out of the 48 total sub stats possible on a fully built characters Disk Drives, 20 will be evenly distributed between all 10 different sub stats (2 subs in each). The remaining 28 sub stats are assigned to the characters best sub stats with a restriction that out of these 28 no more than 12 can be allocated in a single sub stat (E.g. 12 CRIT Rate, 12 CRIT DMG, 4 ATK%).
• Characters are all rated at Mindscape 0 unless otherwise stated. We will increase the
  
  A-Rank characters Mindscape limit in the future.
• All characters are assessed as if they have access to P5 of all
  
  A-Rank and
  
  B-Rank W-Engine’s and P1 of the standard
  
  S-Rank W-Engine’s. The best out of all these choices is used for their assessment.
• All characters are considered to be the maximum possible level with all Core Skill Enhancements upgraded to maximum rank, with a maximum level Weapon and all abilities leveled to level 11/12.

Roles

We compare characters within their role - so DPS are compared to other DPS and the ratings are adjusted based on their performance within the role. Don't try to compare characters between roles, because their ratings mean different things.

Pure DPS

Pure DPS characters cover the Attack unit class and focus on dealing direct and immediate damage usually through CRIT Scaling as opposed to their Anomaly DPS counterparts. Pure DPS characters usually find the most success on teams completely built around empowering them as the sole damage dealer of the team with the most common composition containing a synergistic Stun and Support character. Pure DPS characters can sometimes be paired with Anomaly characters if their kit interacts with a specific anomaly or very rarely be played in double Pure DPS compositions. Usually If a character’s best build focuses on improving their own damage at the cost of most else such as Anomaly and Support and are responsible for a large chunk of the team’s final damage in a fight you’ll find them in this category.

Main criteria that impacts ratings for Pure DPS:

• [Major Influence on Rating] Character damage output within best possible team and ability to achieve max star rating or better in Shiyu Defense,

Anomaly DPS

Anomaly DPS characters cover the Anomaly unit class and focus on dealing their damage through the various Elemental Anomaly effects and Disorder with their builds usually focusing on Anomaly Mastery, Proficiency and any other Anomaly boosting effect. Anomaly DPS characters usually find the most success on teams consisting of multiple characters of the same element going all in on maximizing that Elements Anomaly damaging effect or alongside another Anomaly character of a different element in order to trigger huge Disorder reactions. Usually If a character’s kit is focussed on improving the strength and frequency of Anomaly applications and the bulk of their damage stems from that you’ll find them in this category.

Main criteria that impacts ratings for Anomaly DPS:

• [Major Influence on Rating] Character’s Anomaly damage contribution (Elemental or Disorder) within best possible team and ability to achieve max star rating or better in Shiyu Defense,
• [Medium Influence on Rating] Ease and frequency of Anomaly application on one or multiple enemies.

Stun

Stun characters directly support the entire team and are generally made up of the Stun and Defence unit class. Their goal is to grant faster access to the incredibly potent Chain Attack window where many team compositions deal the majority of their damage. Stun characters are brought to the team to deal a tremendous amount of Daze, but also with the secondary role of providing buffs, debuffing enemies or contributing Anomaly Buildup.

Stun characters can be played as on field characters taking up much of the teams combat time until the enemy is stunned in order to tag out and allow a fully charged damage dealer with all their resources ready to completely decimate the stunned enemy. They can also be played as a compliment to a damage dealer allowing for continual incredibly potent Defensive Assists (Parries) which allow for extreme Daze accumulation while also still giving time to a damage dealer on the team outside of the stun window. Sometimes teams and characters end up using a mix of these as well. If a character is focussed on parrying and building Daze as a priority you’ll find them in this category.

Main criteria that impacts ratings for Stun:

• [Major Influence on Rating] How much Daze a character can deal to enemies in a variety of different endgame situations.
• [Medium Influence on Rating] Whether a character grants any buffs or applies any debuffs and how strong they are, the stronger the effect the more impact on rating.
• [Minor Influence on Rating] How much Anomaly and/or Damage a character can accumulate/inflict on enemies while still outputting their maximum Daze potential.

Support

Support characters directly buff the team or debuff the enemy in a major way, enough that bringing them equals or outweighs the benefit of bringing another DPS or Daze-focused character. The best support characters take up as little time as possible while granting full access to their suite of buffs maximizing both damage/daze and field time for your Stun and DPS characters to do what they do best.

Criteria that impact ratings for Supports:

• [Major Influence on Rating] How powerful the support characters buffs are and how many other characters they can directly benefit. The stronger the buffs and more universal the better the rating.
• [Medium Influence on Rating] How much or little field time the support character requires in order to perform their role.
• [Minor Influence on Rating] How much Anomaly, Daze and Damage a character can accumulate/inflict on enemies while still fulfilling their role as a support.

Special tags

Tags represent the most defining features of a character's kit and what archetype they may belong to.

• Combo - the character's gameplay contains one or multiple combos outside of the usual button mashing playstyle that should be followed in order to maximize their contributions in combat.
• Charge - the character's kit contains one or many Charged Attacks they must perform in order to unlock their kit’s full potential.
• Minion - the character's kit contains minions that linger on the field and apply debuffs, buffs or deal damage and Daze. Minions may or may not need to be resummoned periodically.
• Sub-DPS - the character's kit does not lend itself toward being the sole damage dealer of the team or are much stronger when paired with another damaging character. These characters are usually capable of fully utilizing their kit with very little field time needing another character to fill in the blank spot.
• Shock - the character's kit is focused on dealing damage through, relies on or buffs Shock damage. The characters with this tag require Shock to be present on enemies in order for their kit to be fully utilized.
• Assault - the character's kit is focused on dealing damage through, relies on or buffs Assault damage. The characters with this tag are focused on inflicting Assault on enemies as often as possible.
• Buff - the character can apply various Buffs to help their teammates
• Debuff - the character can delay enemies and hinder their actions in battle
• Shield - the Character can apply Shields to themselves and or teammates to absorb damage.

24/07/2024

• [Zhu Yuan] has been added to the tier list.
• [Koleda] T1 T0.5. We've tested her and the difference between the pre-hotfix version and the fixed one is like night and day and Koleda now is closer to Lycaon than Anby when it comes to the ability to Stun enemies. So we're raising her up one tier.
• We're also retesting [Nicole] as now with Zhu Yuan release, she finally has a team she can call home and her rating will be revaluated in a few days.

18/07/2024

We are currently looking into [Koleda] as apparently she was bugged since release and her Core Passive decreased the amount of Daze done instead of increasing it - and the difference is quite big: 30-60%. This bug has been fixed in a hotfix 3 days ago and once we're done with testing her, we will revaluate her position on the tier list.

13/07/2024

• [Corin] T3 T2. After completing Corin’s damage calculations and testing her, it’s become clear she has some of the highest burst damage potential in the game during enemy Stun window, but only when she has her Ultimate and EX Special Attack available. To offset this strength however, she has one of, if not the worst standard rotation, in the game - being so bad fully executing it without interruption is a serious challenge and even if you do, it’s damage is poor. Not using Corin’s standard rotation should be the go-to move but there are some issues with avoiding it completely.
• Corin’s EX Special as mentioned earlier is essential to her Burst rotation - without it her damage plummets and unfortunately it has a very high energy cost of 90. Most characters' Burst rotations can do without 1 or even 2 of their EX’s, filling the remaining time with their standard rotation or alternatively they can act as a mainfielder for a period of time executing their standard rotation against a non-stunned target to build up resources to ensure they have full energy.
• Both of these options are bad for Corin. Playing her main field outside of Stun isn’t appealing and not having her EX ready immediately during the Stun window is even worse, meaning she needs a lot of off-field Energy Regen or will need to forego using her Burst rotation every time the enemy is Stunned.
• Corin has high burst damage potential especially in singular boss encounters so we’re raising her up a tier, but her unwieldy kit and weak standard rotation are preventing us from placing her higher until we or the community comes up with a solution.

12/07/2024

• Anomaly characters are currently being used in a far wider variety of teams than in the closed betas with an equally diverse array of combat strategies. Pure Elemental Anomaly, Crazy Disorder reactions or a mixture of both are all seeing a good amount of success in endgame even with just two Anomaly characters currently in the game Grace and Piper. After testing these characters and after numerous conversation with the community, we feel it appropriate to update the tier list and split the DPS into Pure DPS and Anomaly DPS. The fact these characters deal their damage differently, stack different offensive stats and prefer different team compositions all on top of actually playing differently in the combat means we think it best they be moved to their own category on the tier list. You can find a breakdown of what the Anomaly Category entails in the Tier list Criteria - Grace and Piper’s ratings have been updated with this in mind.
• [Soukaku] T0.5 T0. Soukaku has the strongest offensive generic buff in the game and excellent specialized elemental buffs, boosting up the current strongest element Ice, but with the downside of having a somewhat awkward ramp-up time and a slow Chain Attack which can eat into valuable Stun time on bosses. A week after ZZZ’s release it’s clear now though that these slight downsides are easy enough to play around and in some cases even can be completely nullified. On top of this, Soukaku is seeing use even outside of her Ice niche thanks to the raw Flat ATK she offers without the need to activate her additional team bonus giving even Lucy a run for her money with a Vortex buffed Fly the Flag buff (Lucy grants 600 ATK, Soukaku grants 1000 ATK). For these reasons we’re raising her to T0.
• [Nicole] T2 T1. The community feels Nicole is rated too low for how many teams she finds use in and how smooth she feels to play - and we agree! Nicole specializes in finishing off a teams chain attack sequence with her own, taking up the least amount of field time in the game (and it’s not even close) after which she can immediate enable a Quick Assist - your damage dealer can then take advantage of to execute their Burst Damage Combo while the enemy is fully debuffed by Nicole. This is a very strong interaction and even if Nicole’s debuffs can’t be active for a full Stun window, they’ll still be there for a good chunk of it offering large damage gains. Nicole also has great future prospects with Zhu Yuan - an upcoming Ether Pure DPS. For these reasons we’re moving her up but will also be revisiting her after Zhu Yuan releases.
• We're also looking into [Corin]. She calcs really well, but her kit only lets her shine during the burst phase when enemy is stunned. So for now we have left her where she landed on release and we will perform some additional testing. Similar thing with [Anton] and [Billy] - their calculations and testing will be finished soon and we will take another look at their ratings.

11/07/2024

• [Anby] T2 T1. Stun, specifically main field Stun characters, have proven incredibly strong offensively and defensively in the hands of the community for the endgame Shiyu Defense progression. And when it comes to Main Field stunning characters, Anby finds herself wanted in many teams as she performs exceptionally well, outputting very competitive Daze which allows her to closely compete with Lycaon and Koleda despite only being an A-Rank Agent. For these reasons we're raising Anby up a tier to sit with Koleda. Anby and Koleda play quite differently but we feel Anby has a few stand out traits when comparing the two - namely, greater Dodge flexibility and attack speed all while finding synergies in different teams and keeping up in Daze output. In our eyes this is enough to warrant Anby's move.
• DPS and Support changes to the tier list will happen tomorrow as we want to finish our calculations first, but in our draft we're looking at at least 6 characters changing their ratings, moving either up or down.

03/07/2024

Initial release of the tier list.