Zwei Guide & Review

A closure to the studious trio, Zwei from Elysion embarks on her military journey as a Supporter that can continuously repair the team's cover HP and provide Pierce Damage buffs. She can also transform her weapon into a one-shot rifle that fires a compressed laser in a straight line, penetrating enemies. Besides her special weapon, her signature dual shotguns are one of a kind, but will that translate into greater power?

Can you give a brief summary about this unit?

Zwei is a highly situational unit with no solid foothold. Design wise, her kit's foundation is to buff pierce damage dealers, especially nukes such as Snow White's or Maxwell's. From our perspective, she is intentionally made to be a filler unit as her performance seems to lag behind most if not all meta units. Or, if she does somehow become performant, she will be far from versatile and unprofitable for most players. Despite this, she may have some uses for endgame players, but do note that she is extremely Raid-focused with some hints of presence in Elysion Tower. Her objective is strictly for damage min-maxxing.

Objectively, her cover repair is nice, which can be considered a Healing Effect for the team, so ideally you should not need to run healers anymore (assuming your cover can sustain). This can be helpful for clearing Elysion Tower when Cover HP is the sole formula for success. However, why use Zwei when Marciana's healing is more reliable and much easier to use for the vast majority of stages? We also have Diesel (Treasure), who is already a superb alternative. Sure, Zwei pairs better with Guillotine, but at the same time investing in Guillotine for just Tower is impractical.

Now, as for her Pierce Damage, it is huge, but it is only effective for one shot and whatever is after that will only be subject to half of its maximum strength. Snow White and Maxwell are pretty much the only two units that can capitalize on this, and for others, there are usually better options (like D:Wife, Liter, FrimaT for Laplace etc).

All things considered, Zwei's immediate impact is weak, and she will likely only fancy collectors.

Should I pull this unit?

Only pull one copy if you are a competitive Solo Raid player, and that too only if you fancy using Snow White teams. Otherwise, to put it simply, no. Not worth spending hard-earned resources on an expendable unit who dilutes what's already an underperforming Elysion pool into a more disappointing contingent. Ideally, if you do not care about Solo Raids that much, wishlist her and save for the upcoming Evangelion collab.

Zwei plays a supportive role and lacks notable offense capabilities. Her skillset revolves around Pierce Damage and just Pierce Damage, literally! In total, she can grant up to ~45.7% Pierce Damage for your team, which is substantial, but its niche usability relegates her into a secondary role. She also helps with survivability but there is some catch.

Heaven of Penetration

Zwei's S1 consists of two components.

• The first component grants modest Pierce Damage boost to the next shot fired by every unit in your team. This favors SW and Maxwell as all their Burst Damage is contained within that one shot, not so much for others and can even be deemed trivial.
• The second component grants continuous Pierce Damage for 10s to everyone in the team upon entering Full Burst. This synergizes well with Red Hood, Alice, Laplace, and literally any units with Pierce capabilities.

Although Zwei pairs best with SW and Maxwell, she can still be paired with these other Piercers. You are only missing ~20% Pierce Damage, and her ~25% is still greater than D:Wife's ~18.61%. But, please do note that she does not offer CDR nor ATK buff, which we believe is a tangible downgrade from D: Wife's complete arsenal. Her usage may also lead to "slot pressure".

What is Slot Pressure?

Using Zwei almost always necessitates the inclusion of B2 CDRs, creating what pros call "slot pressure", where a slot is occupied by a less impactful unit and thus wasted. This is because B2s generally have weaker kits compared to B1s (like Dolla having borderline zero impact and SHelm being effective against Electric bosses only).

Gacha Inside Gacha!

Zwei also provides Cover HP Recovery, which is useful when Cover HP is more effective than regular healing (such as against Nihilister & Ultra). However, in other situations, it functions similarly to regular healing that does not interfere with HP mechanics (like Guillotine) with reduced reliability due to potential breaches and mandatory "take covers" that can lead to DPS loss. They are inefficient against bosses that pierce covers or deal repetitive attacks in a short window (your units in cover for too long = DPS loss). Besides that, destroyed covers cannot be healed, so if they were breached, Zwei would lose her regenerative powers.

Since Zwei's basic attack is classified as only one instance of attack (despite her being Dual SG), her Cover HP Recovery should theoretically trigger every ~4.08s on average without any buff/debuff, but Cube, Max Ammo, Reload Speed, and Attack Speed will all shorten the interval. Note that this number has already incorporated her base reload time.

All of these help Ein Zwei also increases the team's Critical Rate, but it is negligible except on units that already have lots of Critical Damage; wield weapons that have poor accuracy (SGs, SMGs); or have Skill Damage a major portion of their DPS (Summer Sakura). Why so? It is because the formula dictates that CRIT is more valuable against bosses without core or outside optimal range as these dilute multipliers.

But, Zwei's CRIT Rate only lasts 5 seconds! It barely matters for anything but intermittent attacks with concentrated firepower. Take Snow White's Burst Skill, for example. When playing her, you can technically fish for CRIT, making CRIT Rate more of an RNG attenuation tool than a DPS boosting tool. In other words, you still need to "gacha" for critical hits. Furthermore, you still have to land SW's Burst Skill within 5s of activating Zwei's Burst Skill (note that the cycle from B1 ➔ B3 takes time!).

First Summer Nostalgia

Our initial impression is simply "what". Her special charged weapon lowers her DPS. Sure, it helps reload her magazine, but why? Is that one piercing SR ammo with barely any damage going to do anything? It is like having a flashback to Nikke's first summer when a particular Water-element DPS unit was released. She was supposed to melt Fire bosses but, even after buffs, she was no better than eye candy.

Well, at least Zwei's Burst Skill still provides a meaty Pierce Damage boost, which actually rocks depending on whom you match her with. It lasts 10 seconds too, which is plenty for the duration of common Burst Skills.

Campaign (LD) - A | Campaign (HD) - B

Zwei buffs piercers, which makes her a niche buffer. However, in Campaign, you only need one team. That one team usually has 2 B3 DPS slots which are used up by pierce units most of the time anyways, such as Red Hood, Alice, Maxwell, and sometimes even Snow White! Hence, we believe Zwei is an okay unit to use alongside the campaign meta units, but she is NOT better than the current existing meta units such as D: Killer Wife, Liter, Dorothy etc. This is because Zwei lacks some key things a B1 should have in Campaign, with the main abilities being ATK buffs and CDR. In High Deficit Campaign, this become extremely apparent as Zwei falls off in usability by a decent margin.

Boss (Solo) - A | Boss (Adds) - B

Against Bosses, we will be focusing on Raids. In Union Raids, Zwei does not have a spot. However, in Solo Raids, Zwei has a strong case to be used in the Snow White - Yulha team against Solo Bosses over Miranda for the average player who do not like to mald for crits. Miranda's crit buffs carry her hard as they substantially increase Snow White's damage, provided you press the reset button enough times. However, if you do not crit your shots, SW's nuke with Zwei hits harder! Another reason to use Zwei is possibly as a pair of Tia, when Naga is stolen by Crown. This gives both Tia's Attack Damage buffs and Zwei's Pierce Damage Buff to the team, allowing for hard hitting nukes by SnowWhite. One final use-case for Zwei over Miranda is when Maxwell is used over Yulha as a pair of SW, which was seen in the StormBringer Solo Raid. All of this can add towards pulling one copy of Zwei for competitive players who want to try and do better in Solo Raids! Against Bosses with Adds, SW is less usable, and hence, Zwei herself is less usable in the meta.

PVP - B

Dual Wielding Shotguns!? Initially sounded juicy burst gen for PvP, right? Unfortunately that is not the case. Zwei wields Dual SG, each ejecting 5 pellets every time she shoots. The Burst Generation is 0.35% for each pellet, so she generates 3.5% energy for each shot as a whole. This places her on similar levels as Nihilister in 2RL, and at xMica level in other speeds in PvP. To compare, ordinary clip SGs generate 4.5% energy per shot.

Her normal attacks still only hit 10 pellets in total, 5 each from both guns. Hence, her Burst gen is on average below most units, and is more or less comparable to xMica. While xMica provides a decent ATK buff for the whole team, Zwei provides pierce damage buffs, which, while Alice and Red Hood appreciate them, are not much of a benefit to them since: firstly, these 2 units already do enough damage without buffs to kill opponent teams, and secondly, they have their own problems that they deal with. Hence, the decision we have come to is that Zwei is unneeded in the current meta in PvP, but is usable as a mid tier unit for when you lack good PvP units.

Gear Investments

There is no need to OL Zwei's gear.

• Essential: None
• Ideal: None
• Passable: None
• Priority: None

Skill Investments

• Skill 1: 4/7/10
• Half of her buffs lie in this skill. You can leave this skill at 7, but eventually max out this Skill if she stays relevant for your account.
• Skill 2: 4/7
• This skill does not have offensive buffs other than crit rate. Hence, it is expensive to upgrade this skill. We recommend upgrading it to 4. At max, upgrade it to 7.
• Burst Skill: 4/7/10
• The remaining pierce damage buffs are in Zwei's Burst Skill. Hence, we also recommend upgrading this to 10 ideally, but you can definitely leave it at 7.

Suggested Progression Path

 

PVE Investment

PVP Investment

Priority

Zwei

PVE investment

1/1/1 → 4/1/4 → 7/4/7 (→ 10/7/10)

PVP investment

1/1/1

Priority

Low

Cube Investments

Any cube works on Zwei. Zwei is not a good damage dealer herself, but to maximise the number of bullets shot, the best cubes are either Bastion or Resilience Cubes.

Team #1: Snow White goes to school

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst Flex

Diesel

Burst 3

Burst 3

Bossing team. Direct subsitute for Miranda. Weaker to Miranda if the player does fully optimised crit runs. Upgrade to Miranda in average runs where players do not mald for crit.

Team #2: Yulha leaves for work

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst Flex

Flex

Bossing team again. Miranda cannot buff 2 units, a severe drawback that Zwei does not have. Whenever there is a possibility of Yulha being hard to use, which was something we saw in StormBringer Solo Raid, Zwei is the better option of the two!

Team #3: Zwei comforts Tia in Naga's absence

Burst 1

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Bossing team yet again. Since Naga can possible leave for the Crown team sometimes, Tia and Zwei are a good combination due to the fact that Zwei has insane cover heals! These cover heals not only proc Tia's CDR, they also help her to survive the possible onslaught from the boss!

Team #4: General Team Comp

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

B3

Burst 3

B3

Burst Flex

Flex

General Team setup, where the B3s need to be Pierce Damage dealers for Zwei to be effective.