Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ)CorinBuild and Guide

Corin is an A-rank Physical Attack Agent whose main niche as a main damage dealer is quickswap-styled combos relying on a few key attacks, being her Quick Assist, EX Special, Chain Attack and Ultimate. While she seems slow at first glance due to her weapon of choice being a chainsaw that looks like it’s probably twice her body mass, she can surprisingly play rather quickly and deal really high damage for an A-rank Agent provided you play her properly under the right conditions. Let’s delve into the specifics of her kit so we can understand how to do so:

Key Mechanics

Some of Corin’s Basic Attacks (3 and 5), her Chain Attack, her Ultimate, her Assist Follow-Up and her EX Special feature possible extensions by repeatedly pressing the correct attack input or holding it (this is the Basic Attack input for all instances except EX Special), during which she slashes with her chainsaw for a longer period of time, dealing higher damage to enemies. This is one of her primary means to deal damage and is essential to her combos.

When she does so, via her Core Passive, the skill’s damage dealt is significantly increased (by 37.5%) which means she always wants to use those extensions. Her Additional Ability increases her damage dealt against Stunned enemies by 35%, which would mean she ideally wants to play around strong Stun combos which will require proper preparation and execution, and while this is indeed true for her optimal playstyle, this Additional Ability’s activation condition is rather difficult to fulfill with Corin’s current meta teams, so it will go unused in favour of stronger teammates in her optimal teams.

Gameplay Focus

The highest portion of Corin’s damage is in her Ultimate. This means her utmost priority is to generate Decibels as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to have an Ultimate available every Stun window.

However, Corin’s Decibel generation is very dependent on the encounter you are facing. While Corin’s Decibel generation doesn’t work differently from the majority of the other Agents in the game, she has a few key actions that generate significantly more Decibels than other actions. The most important of these are Anomaly and Disorder triggers as well as Defensive Assists. With that being said, triggering frequent Assault Anomalies without Yuzuha in the team is rather difficult (and ideally Corin wants to play with Astra Yao and Trigger),  so outside of teams featuring Yuzuha, guaranteeing high Decibel generation from Anomalies can’t be considered.

This means that in Corin’s best teams, she will want to perform as many Perfect Assists as possible. As a result, Corin’s Decibel generation will be significantly slowed down against enemies that don’t have a lot of Perfect Assist windows, and more importantly than that, it’ll require Corin players to Perfect Assist with Corin whenever possible. This is rather difficult to guarantee all the time as Corin needs to not be the active party member in order to perform a Defensive Assist, but she also wants active field time in order to deal damage. Thus, guaranteeing an Ultimate every Stun window is very difficult and is what separates the best Corin players from the rest.

With that being said, when it comes to Decibel generation, Chain Attacks and Quick Assists can also be a big help over time, which is part of why Astra Yao is so powerful as a Support alongside her (and also because Astra has the current highest buffing potential for Attack Agents). Additionally, Corin’s EX Specials, Chain Attacks and Basic Attacks are a good chunk of her damage total and can allow her to deal good damage in all scenarios. Hence, while Corin’s potential is undoubtedly hindered against enemies that don’t have a lot of Perfect Assist opportunities, she still can perform to a certain degree, given the right team and setup.

Useful Attacks & Additional Tricks

As mentioned earlier, outside of her Ultimate, Corin’s Chain Attack, some Basic Attacks,  Assist Follow-Up and EX Special are all very useful tools for her.

Corin’s Basic Attack 1 and 2 are slow and do not deal much damage. As a result, we will always avoid using them. In any scenario, this can be done via her Dash Attack, but ideally we want to exploit Corin’s Assist Follow-Up, Dodge Counter and Quick Assist in order to immediately transition into her Basic Attack 4, and her Chain Attack to immediately transition into her Basic Attack 5.

Corin’s EX Special costs a lot of Energy when extended, but it also costs a lot of movement speed and most importantly, field time. Against more mobile enemies, it can be completely avoided mid-animation and as a result she will ideally only use it during Stun windows. However, it can also be switched out without extending it, which is useful to keep in mind in order not to waste any Energy if a Stun window isn’t readily available, as it still deals a good amount of damage.

Additionally, Corin’s Ultimate has a lot of lag at the end of the move which can be cancelled via a Dash, which is particularly useful if you want to follow it up with her EX Special during a Stun window. It can also follow up into her Basic Attack 5.

This same Basic Attack 5 can be freely switched out of. This will save a significant amount of time as Corin will still perform the attack (which is rather strong) but other actions can be freely inputted by another Agent on the field.

Unused/Redundant parts of her kit

Outside of her Chainsaw extension mechanics, pretty much all of Corin’s attacks work exactly as you’d expect them to, simply dealing damage and having slower animations. Attacks not mentioned earlier hence have no intricacies whatsoever and typically go unused.

Meta Position & Conclusion

We’ll immediately lay our cards on the table here and state that Corin is an off-meta DPS, even if she occasionally sees use in Seed teams. When played as the main carry however, she has a large performance discrepancy between her best teammates and her more accessible ones. Her reliance on Astra Yao as a Support is particularly notable, and she also strongly benefits from inactive Stun Agents such as Trigger and Ju Fufu. While she does have other options, and from a Disk Drive and W-Engine perspective she is rather easy to build, Corin’s performance depends vastly on what teammates you have access to and what enemy you are facing.

Trigger is especially worth mentioning, since Trigger’s chain attack will position Corin behind the enemy, allowing Corin to get the most use out of Steel Cushion (one of her best W-Engines) without any extra effort such as manually moving behind the enemy - which costs time and hence also damage.

As a result, Corin is a niche DPS that can function very well and has a surprisingly high skill ceiling. She is one of those characters who can definitely output some crazy scores and clear times for an A-rank DPS Agent, but it comes at a cost: her performance isn’t higher than current meta DPS and it is also extremely variable depending on the encounter and teammates. To boot, her ideal teammates are highly competitive in the meta and may end up being used with greater efficiency on other teams. 

In conclusion, Corin definitely can get good results, way better than what one may initially expect. However, this typically comes at a cost where from a pure meta perspective, resources and time spent building and learning how to play her could definitely be used on other characters. With that being said, if you really like Corin’s character or playstyle, she can definitely provide good results and can be considered as a potential addition to your DPS Agent roster!