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%).
• 
  S-Rank Characters are all rated at Mindscape 0.
• 
  A-Rank Characters are all rated at Mindscape 6.
• 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.

DPS

DPS characters cover both the Attack unit class that focuses on dealing direct and immediate damage (usually through CRIT Scaling) and the Anomaly DPS counterparts who instead focus on scaling Anomaly Proficiency and Mastery. Their main 'job' is to kill stuff - as efficiently and fast as possible.

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,
• [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.
• Quick Swap - The character's kit benefits greatly from swapping to another character during one or many of their abilities that have incredibly long animations. This allows this downside to be mitigated.
• Hybrid (Stun) - the character's kit allows them to fulfill multiple roles in the team. In this tag's case, the additional role the character can perform well at is Stun.
• Hybrid (Support) - the character's kit allows them to fulfill multiple roles in the team. In this tag's case, the additional role the character can perform well at is Support.
• 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.
• Burn - the character's kit is focused on dealing damage through, relies on or buffs Burn damage.
• Shatter - the character's kit is focused on dealing damage through, relies on or buffs Shatter damage.
• Disorder - the character's kit is focused on dealing damage through, relies on or buffs Disorder damage.
• 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.

18/12/2024

• [Miyabi] has been added to the tier list,
• [Harumasa] has been added to the tier list,
• We have combined the Pure DPS and Anomaly DPS columns into one column - DPS. We’ve intended on doing this for a while now but the release of Miyabi solidified the decision. The Anomaly Category was created under the premise that Anomaly characters would play vastly different to Attack characters much like Grace is different than a character like Soldier 11. This is not how things played out post release. A lot of Anomaly characters function as direct damage dealers akin to Attack characters with the main distinction being one stacks Anomaly related stats and the other stacks CRIT but now with Miyabi even that line is blurred. In ZZZ under the current meta we feel Attack and Anomaly characters can directly be compared in terms of performance, their roles are not different enough to keep them separate and so we have combined them. As a result of this change some characters ranking have been updated to make sense. As always we’ll be reading your feedback,
• We have added the meta-lines that are already present in our other tier lists. They split the tier list into 3 groups, showcasing roughly how they are currently used in the meta: Apex (best of the best), Meta (great characters) and Niche (characters with issues that require more work to achieve good results). There's no Forgotten Ones group yet as the meta isn't in as bad state as HSR and everyone is viable - more or less,
• We have added a new tag - Quick Swap. The tag highlights characters that benefit greatly from swapping to another character during one or many of their abilities that have incredibly long animations. This allows this downside to be mitigated,
• We have changed the color of the Anomaly related tags like Shock, Burn and Disorder to make them stand out a bit more.

27/11/2024

• [Lighter] has been added to the tier list.
• [Rina] T1.5 T1. Rina is proving to be a popular choice for Yanagi teams and has a solid position in a top endgame content meta team. We’re raising her up one tier for now, but she might need to go up again in the next update.
• [Grace] T1 T1.5. Despite Anomaly’s power level as an Archetype surging as a whole, Grace is seeing decreased play and success in endgame content. Yanagi’s release has also had a significant impact on her Electric damage niche as she does more Anomaly damage, can deal it immediately and has far more powerful team compositions. As such we’re lowering Grace to reflect her current status in the meta.

06/11/2024

• [Yanagi] has been added to the tier list.

In addition to placing Yanagi on the tier list we're following through with adjusting the placement of the characters we previously placed on the watch list.

• All "DPS" characters were moved down 1 rank to reflect the gap in power between direct damage dealers and and the ever more powerful Anomaly Archetype.
• Soukaku moved down one rank - her position in the Meta is no longer as prominant due to a combination of stronger options being released and a shift in team building toward Anomaly and double damage.

16/10/2024

• [Burnice] has been added to the tier list.

As Patch 1.2 draws to a close by popular demand we’ve made the decision to rework our Tier list to include

The toggle to switch between M0 and M6 for

On top of the transition from M0 to M6 we’re also making adjustments based on recent endgame meta developments stemming from the release of Jane, Caesar and now Burnice. Each of these characters impact the meta in their own way but share the fact they all display a large power increase compared to their peers in their respective top teams and niches resulting in some additional adjustments being needed.

Since 1.0 Anomaly/Disorder teams have received continual support and gained significant meta relevance taking the top spot in many endgame encounters convincingly. With the release of Burnice, Anomaly transforms once again seeing new top Anomaly teams and power combos emerge, pushing the archetype further but also adjusting other characters meta relevance as a result. With Yanagi - another Anomaly character - slated for release in 1.3 we don’t expect Anomaly’s power gains to stop any time soon.

The tier list rework includes consideration for each of the points listed above alongside our usual updates based on performance, feedback and continued testing. In conclusion:

• 
  Agents with weaker Mindscapes will not see as large a move as Agents with them.
• Some
  
  Agents will move down the tier list or join
  
  Agents due to the average power level of many of the lists characters increasing
• Characters that directly benefit the strongest Anomaly meta characters, will retain or achieve high positions on the tier list.
• Characters that belong to a niche with increased competition or teams with power below the new bar set will see their placements impacted.

With the newly bolstered Anomaly archetype raising the bar in terms of top-end power, we’re currently keeping an eye on all Agents in the DPS category (and dedicated supports for them like Soukaku) to see how their average performance fares against similar Anomaly teams. If 'pure' DPS characters are too far behind the bar Anomaly sets we may adjust the entire category down to better reflect the state of endgame - that's why we have added the 'watchlist' marker to Ellen, Zhu Yuan and Soukaku, but in reality everyone in the column should have it. Please send us your feedback about the Anomaly vs Pure DPS 'battle' and who you feel is stronger!

25/09/2024

• [Caesar] has been added to the tier list.
• [Nicole] & [Soukaku] T0 T0.5. Well, it was fun while it lasted, but there's a new Queen of Supports in town - Caesar. And sadly, at M0, neither Soukaku nor Nicole can perform on Caesar's level, so we dropped both half a tier.
• We are nearly done with testing M6
  
  A-Rank characters and within the next few weeks the tier list will be updated with a toggle that allows you to check how the
  
  A-Rank characters perform at M0 and M6 (and someone might jump back to the spot taken by Caesar today).

04/09/2024

• [Jane Doe] and [Seth] have been added to the tier list.
• [Nicole] T0.5 T0. Nicole has proven herself a force to be reckoned with in Shiyu defense thanks to her incredible synergy with Zhu Yuan. Nicole boasts some of the strongest performances and highest play rates and holds similar meta relevance to Soukaku. For this reason we feel it's appropriate to pair the two in the same tier and will be raising her rating for now.

When characters perform unexpectedly — either exceeding or falling short of expectations—our team places them on an internal "watch list." This approach helps us avoid hasty tier adjustments and ensures that any changes we make are well-considered and accurate. Here’s a transparent look at the characters we’re currently monitoring and the reasons behind it. We welcome your feedback! (We have also marked those characters with an eye symbol to spot them easier on the tier list).

• [Nekomata] hasn’t performed quite at the level we’ve expected of her in recent Shiyu Defenses when compared to Soldier 11 she shares her tier placement with. We’re not making any changes yet but are keeping an eye on her performance as we move forward to see if it improves or if it goes in the opposite direction as a result of the release of the new Physical damage dealing powerhouse Jane Doe.

14/08/2024

The second Shiyu Defense phase is well under way and more players have far better Disc Drives and higher level Agents and W-Engines to work with. When updating our tier lists we like to align them with the release of endgame character play rates and score data to ensure what we’ve observed in the community and tested ourselves aligns with the bigger picture. As we’ve now got our first batch of proper endgame data with players close to or at max level with reasonable Disc Drives we feel it necessary to make a few changes to the tier list.

• [Nicole] T1 T0.5. Nicole is currently one of the most dominant characters in Shiyu Defense, thanks to her incredible synergy with Zhu Yuan - one of the strongest damage dealers in the game. And with the release of Qingyi and replacement of Anby this powerhouse team gets even stronger, further boosting Nicole’s power level and meta relevancy. On top of this Nicole also has a number of other lower power team compositions she see’s regular use in such as Nekomata or Billy teams making her a flexible unit if need be as well. We feel even at Mindscape 0 Nicole has proven herself to be one of the top supports in the meta and are raising her up a tier.
• [Rina] T0.5 T1. Rina currently feels like she’s falling short of her placement on the tier list when compared to the power houses of Soukaku and Nicole who each have a solid spot in the two most powerful meta teams (Ellen and Zhu Yuan teams). Rina can be played alongside Soukaku and Ellen in double support set-ups or as a substitute for Soukaku if desired but neither option is currently the go to or highest performing variant of this team. Alternatively, Rina can be played in Anomaly based teams as well, but unfortunately these teams haven’t quite seen the same success as the two aforementioned powerhouses just yet. We’re downgrading Rina from tier 0.5 to tier 1 for now given the sheer dominance of Nicole and Soukaku but are keeping a close eye on her as more anomaly and electric characters are released.
• Stun Characters: With the release of Qingyi we thought about making large adjustments to the Stun category. Thanks to her easy to activate additional ability requirements and her completely generic Stun damage amplification she can be played in literally any combat based team to very great effect. For these reasons we considered placing her as the sole T0 character above Lycaon as even in Ice teams she isn’t too far behind his damage amplification. For now though as we expect both Lycaon and Qingyi to achieve incredible Shiyu results and as Lycaon does still have a small edge in one of the two best teams we’re placing Qingyi alongside him but keeping an eye on the situation.
• M0/M6: Considering that the banners in ZZZ feature only 2 A-Rank characters compared to the usual 3, it's easier to obtain their dupes. Because of that we're planning to introduce a toggle switch similar to the one we have in Honkai: Star Rail tier list that allows you to switch between A-Rank characters at M0 and M6. This feature will be introduced most likely with Jane Doe release, so in a few weeks - as we need to test all the characters at M6 now to judge their power level.

11/08/2024

• [Billy] T3 T2. Billy’s kit has many tricks and a fair few obscure interactions which aren’t immediately apparent to most who try him out. Over time players have made big progress with Billy’s combos and rotations the biggest discovery of which is the ability to execute his Ultimate and EX’s in quick succession while still being considered to be in the crouching state. This allows him to apply his up to 50% damage bonus core passive to his hardest hitting abilities. This optimization alongside a number of other smaller ones makes Billy feel much stronger to play and improves his damage output significantly. Because of this we feel comfortable moving Billy Tier 2 alongside Corin and Anton for now. Shout out to SUPERCOW/Donovahkiin for their work on testing out Billy’s kit.

08/08/2024

• [Ben] has been moved from Stun to Support. In the endgame the community and our team are finding more success with Ben in the support role compared to the Stunning role. Ben's stunning capabilities, while passable if you have nothing else, pale in comparison to characters dedicated to the role such as Anby, Lycaon, Koleda or the upcoming Qingyi. Alternatively the combination of Ben's Shields, CRIT RATE buff and low field time requirements make him a reasonable F2P supportive choice. On top of this Ben also sees some of the most use paired with Koleda - again in the supportive role offering all the aforementioned benefits on top of also providing kit enhancements to Koleda herself. For these reasons we’re moving Ben over to the Support category for now and updating the build on his profile page.

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.