Zenless Zone Zero has unique and stunning visuals in its gameplay. The team behind Genshin and Honkai also introduced a series of new attacks in the combat system, such as chain attacks, assists, and more. As much as it is unique, it can be a bit confusing for a beginner to understand how the combat mechanics work.
The game has a slight resemblance to a few other HoYoverse games, such as the ones already mentioned, in terms of combat mechanics. Nevertheless, to give you a detailed account of the ways fighting is done in Zenless Zone Zero, here is a thorough guide.
Combat Buttons Explanation
You will see that your screen has five buttons, and you have to use them to play and engage in the battles. You can press these buttons to unleash special moves, perform chain attacks, and so on. These are all the buttons:
Basic Attack
This is one of the typical attacks where your character just keeps attacking the enemy, dealing powerful blows. Astandard attack combo will end with a heavy attack, which can then be followed by an assisting character in the combat.
Dash
By pressing this button, your character will dash forward or backward. To dash backward, simply click on the dash button without pressing any movement keys. To dash forward, just simply tap the movement keys depending on the direction you want to move and click on the dash button.
For instance, if you want to dash forward, hold the W button and click on the dash button .
For mobile users, point the joystick in the direction of where you want to move and click on the dash button to dash in that direction. For dashing in a backward direction, simply don't touch the joystick or put it in the backward direction and press the dash button to perform a backward dash.
You are invulnerable to enemies while dashing.
By pressing the dash button, it will also dodge your opponent's attacks while in combat. However, it is easier said than done, since you have to match the perfect timing to perform a dodge.
If you press the dash button early, you will simply dash in the direction your character is. However, this can also help you save yourself from taking a huge blow from the enemies, but if you press the dash button late, then your character will take the damage.
It is all about perfect timing to perform a dodge in combat.
Switch Character
Thisbutton is used to switch characters between a fight. This button can also help you to trigger a counter-attack in the game by accumulating assist points. You can see the assist points around the switch character button.
You can have a maximum of six assist points.
Special Attack
Itdeals more damage than the normal attack and can be done by pressing the gray-colored special attack button on your screen. The special attack button will only turn gray when you don't have enough energy.
Once you have sufficient energy, the gray button will light up, indicating that you can perform an extra special attack that will do more damage than the normal special attack. You can simultaneously gain energy for all three characters.
You can perform an extra special attack from the first agent and then switch to another agent and perform again. The only condition is that the other agents should also have sufficient energy.
Ultimate
This button unleashes the character's most powerful attack. While performing the ultimate, the character will be invulnerable and inflict a massive amount of damage on the enemies.
Ultimate can be unlocked when you have earned 3,000 decibel points. You can see these decibel points underneath the HP bar of the character. Once you have reached the threshold, you can press the ultimate button to perform an ultimate.
Decibel points are shared by every teammate. That means, once you have performed an ultimate, the decibel points will reset for all the teammates in the battle.
How To Do A Counter Attack
You can perform a counterattack in several ways. This can be done by using the dash button and the switch character button. But it is not as easy as clicking one button. You need to know Perfect Assist, Assist Follow Up, and more to do a counterattack.
Perfect Assist
When you are fighting with enemies, many times you will get a cue of golden shimmer from the enemy shortly before they attack. These cues are an indication to perform a Perfect Assist with the help of your characters that are in the battle.
To make a Perfect Assist, you need to press the switch character button as soon as you see the golden shimmer. Like always, timing is the key. If you are early or late to press the button, then you won't be able to perform a Perfect Assist.
There are two types of Perfect Assist:
- Defensive Assist: In this, your character will only defend the attack. This happens when you are using a melee agent.
- Evasive Assist: In this, the enemies on your screen will be slowed down for a second. This happens when you are using a ranged agent.
You will also need the assist points to make a Perfect Assist.
There will also be an instance where you will see ared shimmer instead of a golden shimmer from the enemy shortly before they attack. This happens when you don't have enough assist points to make a perfect assist. In this case, you will just dodge the enemy attack upon clicking the switch character button.
Assist Follow Up
Once you have done a Perfect Assist, you can now counter the enemy by clicking on the basic attack button.
Assist Follow Up can only be done after a defensive assist by melee agents.
Dodge Counter
This is another way to perform a counter-attack and inflict decent damage on the enemy. In this, you have to click the dash button to dodge the incoming attack and just after that click on the basic attack button to perform a Dodge Counter.
How To Stun Enemies
In order to stun enemies, you have to look out for the daze meter situated beside them. This meter fills in as you inflict more damage to the enemies. When the meter is full, the enemy will be temporarily stun.
When an enemy is stunned, it will take increased damage from the characters.
Chain Attack
Chain attack is a type of attack that is triggered after you perform a heavy attack on the stunned enemy. However, it doesn't trigger every time since it has a certain limit. You can perform a number of chain attacks based on the different types of Ethereals. Here are the limits based on different Ethereals:
- Normal Ethereal — One Chain Attack
- Eilte Ethereals — Two Chain Attacks
- Boss Ethereals — Three Chain Attacks
What Is an Attribute Anomaly
Attribute Anomaly is an indicator that is situated beside the daze meter of an enemy. Before diving deeper, you should know that there are five types of attributes available in Zenless Zone Zero.
- Fire
- Ice
- Electric
- Ether
- Physical
Each attribute brings a different combat style to a fight. And like every attribute, you can deal damage to the enemies differently.
Attribute Anamoly will automatically trigger the moment you attack with your character. Once you attack, you can see a small circle beside the daze meter resembling the symbol of the specific attribute that is attributed to that character.
Each attribute has its own unique fighting style in the game.
Upon triggering the Attribute Anomaly, you will inflict more damage on the enemies and if more than one character triggers an Attribute Anomaly to the same enemy, the disorder effect will be triggered.
The disorder effect inflicts huge damage to the enemies as well as generates daze.
