Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ)CissiaBuild and Guide

Intro & Unique Mechanic

Cissia is an Electric Attacker who works especially well as a “sub-DPS” of sorts, able to buff her team with CRIT DMG and providing team-wide Electric DEF shred.

Rather than being a specialist-type character, her kit brings with it a wide range of benefits besides buffs. True to her role, she does a fair amount of personal damage, with her having an ear 50:50 split in damage distribution with a primary DPS, depending on the team.

She has decent Decibel build and can even keep up with Stunners in terms of Daze application, owing to her Corrode Bone mechanic.

It’s a Basic Attack that is triggered automatically when consuming Venom, the unique resource tracked as a set of 6 diamonds underneath Cissia’s health bar. She can build it in various ways:

• 2 from the 4th hit of her Basic Attack (+1 if on a Stunned enemy).

• 3 from using EX Special, with another 1 Venom per 20 additional Energy consumed.

• 3 from Chain Attack and Ultimate.

Each Venom consumed will tick for an instance of Corrode Bone, which happens automatically every 5 seconds. This also happens when overcapping: so if already at 6 Venom, building an additional 3 will immediately use them for Corrode Bone triggers, meaning that there’s not much need to be mindful of stacks for this.

It is worth noting how many Venom is generated however, as every 6 points gained will give 1 stack of Serpentine Shadow, which can be consumed to do a heavy hitting dive attack that triggers a Quick Assist and instantly consumes all Venom stacks in stock (which in turn, leads to a burst of Corrode Bone hits).

Cissia’s general gameplan then becomes a cycle of generating Venom with various skills, which gives her Serpentine Shadow stacks, that are then used to burst enemies down and consume Venom for Corrode Bone triggers.

Core Passive & Additional Ability

Much of Cissia’s Corrode Bone mechanics are tied to her Core Passive, with the former’s damage scaling with the latter’s level. It gives her 3 Venom stacks when entering the battlefield, and gives up to 25% Electric DMG DEF shred to the whole squad when Venom is stocked, scaling with initial Energy Regen.

This buff lasts for a full 30 seconds, so even when zeroed out, it is unlikely to ever fall off in a fight. The base value of the buff is only 6%, so building a lot of Energy Regen is important for gearing to get the most value out of this Core Passive, requiring both an ER mainstat W-Engine and a 2-piece ER set to cap out (3.68 on the stat screen).

It also provides a 40%/60% buff to Daze inflicted by Corrode Bone, depending on if 1 or 2 Electric characters are in the squad. It’s in large part due to this that Cissia has such a competitive Daze application.

As for her Additional Ability, it’s triggered by having Stun or same attribute characters in the team and provides a simple 40% teamwide CRIT DMG buff (with Cissia getting an extra 10%, for 50% total) when Venom is in stock. Like with her Core Passive, this lingers for 30s.

Basics

The vast majority of Cissia’s damage comes from Basic Attacks, as her Corrode Bone is classified as one. While it is true that levelling her Core Passive increases the damage of Corrode Bone, so too does levelling her Basic Attack, as its multipliers are tied to Basic levels.

Corrode Bone triggers also increase Cissia’s CRIT Rate, by 6% for 15 seconds, stacking up to 3 times (18% total).

Basic Attack: Serpent’s Kiss is the aforementioned dive attack that comes from using up Serpentine Shadow stacks, whereas Basic Attack: Tongue Flick is the regular string.

Between Serpent’s Kiss’ decent damage multipliers and the rapid triggering of Corrode Bone, Cissia has great burst damage if there are Venom stacks to consume. Tongue Flick isn’t a particularly good string, but as its Basic 4 can generate 2 (or 3) Venom stacks on hit, it sees frequent use in both sub-DPS (by shortcutting to it) or main-DPS playstyles (by on-fielding Cissia with it).

Specials

Her regular Special has very poor multipliers, but is quite fast as far as attacks go. As it is a Heavy Attack, it can be situationally useful to trigger Chain Attacks, but given Cissia’s high Energy Regen stat, her EX Special is more likely to be used instead.

It costs 60 Energy by default, and as previously mentioned, it builds 3 Venom stacks on use. Unlike most other EX Specials though, it refunds 5 Energy on use and can be extended by holding down the button, using 20 Energy up to 3 times (for a total cost of 120 Energy) to deal more attacks and build additional Venom stacks.

Regardless of whether one uses the single or extended cast, it will trigger a Quick Assist and allow for a shortcut into Basic 4. As that can give even more Venom stacks, it’s usually worth doing before making use of the Quick Assist.

Dodge

Cissia’s Dodges are very standard and unlikely to see much use given her tag-in, tag-out style of play, unless she’s played as a main-DPS on-fielder.

Assist

Although Cissia does build a fair bit of Daze, it’s mostly due to her Corrode Bone ticks. Her Defensive Assist and Assist Follow-Up aren’t particularly good, but can be used to top her up in Decibels, while her Quick Assist is mostly unremarkable but can shortcut into her Special, EX Special or Basic 2.

Chain & Ultimate

Both Cissia’s Chain Attack and Ultimate deal good damage for the time they take and trigger Quick Assists on use. As they generate 3 Venom, it can lead to even more burst from Corrode Bone stacks when overcapping, with using at least 1 Cissia Chain Attack in a stun rotation often being optimal for damage.

The Ultimate has an additional effect of activating Ether Veil: Cold-Blooded for 30 seconds, which gives a 5% CRIT DMG increase to the whole squad.

Cissia’s primary playstyle is one that takes the role of a sub-DPS. Since she can provide a decent amount of Daze, it makes it easier for double Attacker teams to run a Support while still managing enough stuns in a fight.

Owing to Cissia’s high Energy Regen, it’s good to use her EX Special frequently to build Venom, both with its own cast and the shortcut to Basic 4. As Serpentine Shadow stacks build, spend it on her enhanced Basic Attack dive for Corrode Bone to quickly build Daze and deal damage.

It’s better to make use of multiple EX Specials rather than extending it when out of stun, as this gives more opportunities to shortcut to Basic 4 and is slightly more damage and Daze.

Try to have enough Energy for an EX Special (perhaps even an extended one) when Stun arrives. Use it, her Ultimate and Chain Attack to build Venom quickly, as overcapping stacks all lead to Corrode Bone triggers, then spend it all with her enhanced Basic Attack dive. As her burst is decently fast and has multiple swap points - like from an early Quick Assist off her EX or while she does her dive - balancing her burst with that of a main-DPS’ combo is ideal.

She can be played as a main-DPS, but not much changes. It’s easier to manage as there is no longer a need to swap in and out of Cissia to spend her Energy, and the fundamental goal of building and spending Venom stacks is the same.

Here’s a sample combo with Seed/Sunna/Cissia

• Seed Enhanced Basic Attack

• Swap to Cissia

• EX Special: Venomous Bite

• Cissia Ultimate

• Cancel Chain

• Enhanced Basic Attack: Serpent’s Kiss

• Quick Assist to Seed

• Seed Ultimate

• Cissia Chain Attack

• Seed Chain Attack

• Seed Enhanced Basic Attack

• Swap to Cissia

• EX Special: Venomous Bite

• Enhanced Basic Attack: Serpent’s Kiss