Jane & Piper: Design Logic of Physical Anomaly agents in ZZZ

With the addition of Jane Doe as a physical anomaly agent, we now have two physical anomaly agents in Zenless Zone Zero, Jane and Piper, and Jane has been very well received, especially with her high physical anomaly DMG, which has caught proxies' eyes.

What has made the Physical Anomaly agents so popular, and what are the similarities and differences between Jane and Piper's designs for physical anomaly agents?

1. Analysis of Jane Doe

Anomaly DMG team is an absolutely low-cost way to play in Zenless Zone Zero, and it's a perfect way to describe Jane. Without consuming too many resources, you only need to strengthen your agent's W-Engine, level up and match a reasonable set of drive discs and bring two random support agents to realize the "astronomical figures" of up to 700,000 to 1 million strong DMG.

And a lot of positive anomaly effects feedback are based on the fact that a agent can quickly put an enemy into an Attribute Anomaly debuff. Therefore, most of anomaly agents have some additional abilities to strengthen the Physical Anomaly Buildup Rate, and Jane is no exception. In Jane Doe's additional ability description, "Physical Anomaly Buildup Rate iIncrease" and "Physical Anomaly Buildup Increase" are actually two ways of expressing the same value. Therefore, when calculating the enemy's Physical Anomaly Buildup Value, these two effects are in the same multiplication zone and are added together.

Attributes that affect Anomaly Buildup Rate Value include "Base Anomaly Buildup Value", "Anomaly Mastery" and "Anomaly Buildup Resistance". "Base Anomaly Buildup Value" is only related to the skills the agent uses. Unlike DMG Multiplier and Daze Multiplier, upgrading a skill does not strengthen the Base Anomaly Buildup Rate. In a team, if you need a agent to quickly put an enemy into an Anomaly state, consider upgrading "Anomaly Mastery" regardless of whether or not you are an Anomaly agent. "Anomaly Buildup Resistance" is an enemy attribute, and some agents have skills that can reduce the enemy's "Anomaly Buildup Resistance", such as Seth's Chain Attack.

Next, let's explore the reason for Jane's high DMG when she triggers Assaults. Jane's core skill grants her enemies the "Gnawed" state, which makes her Assault DMG have a chance to be a CRIT DMG. It also extends the duration of Flinch effect after Assault. Both Jane's core skill and Basic Attack have a conversion to Anomaly Mastery, which boosts both her ATK and her Assault CRIT Rate. This is the reason Jane can deal high amounts of DMG all by herself.

There are two things we need to note about Jane in combats. One is the "Passion value". When there are normal enemies, using an agent with a high Impact to trigger the enemy's Daze state and connecting with Jane's chian attack will make Jane enter the Passion state quickly. Secondly, when Jane is in the Passion state, you should pause between every basic attacks to look for a chance to dodge and dodge counter, thus increasing the duration of the Passion state. Lastly, if you want Jane to stay in combat for as long as possible, you need to always keep your Passion value above half.

Secondly, we need to focus on the enemy's Physical Anomaly Buildup bar. Because the EX Special Attack will cause a lot of anomaly value to enemies, but the overflow of anomaly value will be cleared after Assault is triggered, so in order to avoid wasting EX Special Attacks, we should avoid using the EX Special Attack on the enemy when their Anomaly state is about to be triggered. Also, the first half of Salchow Jump Attack can cause Assaults on every damage segment, so we should try to trigger Assaults while spinning. Note that Passion state doesn't run out over time, so focus on the rhythm of the combat for a better gameplay experience.

In addition to this, Jane's Exclusive W-Engine provides not only a DMG Increase but also a 40% increase in Anomaly Buildup Rate. At this point, Jane with her Exclusive W-Engine has a 100% boost in Anomaly Buildup in Passion state. Compare this to Piper, which provides 120% physical Anomaly Buildup with one cinema, and that's without counting the W-Engine. However, since Jane's core skill increases Anomaly Mastery, Jane's Anomaly Buildup Rate is still superior in combat. It's worth mentioning that Jane's W-Engine effect is triggered by Perfect Dodge. Jane can dodge three times in a row, which greatly improves her margin for error. However, it is important to note that Jane cannot dodge continuously if she is affected by Hollow Zero's dodge cooldown increase.

And Jane's Mindscape Cinema greatly improves Jane's DMG, especially the DMG Increase, Anomaly Buildup Rate increase, Defense Ignoring, CRIT DMG Increase, etc., can show Jane's potential as a major DPS agent. This also makes Jane's damage easily reach 1 million.

So what are the weaknesses of such a strong agent Jane, which we'll explore later. Let's start by talking about another Physical Anomaly agent Piper.

2. Analysis of Piper Wheel

First of all, the most important thing you can do to fully master Piper is to familiarize yourself with her attack moves first. The most important thing to remember is the Sledgehammer Up move in the third attack of Bsaic Attack. Using the EX Special Attack after the Sledgehammer Up can significantly increase spinning speed. Also, the Dash Attack, Dodge Counter and Defensive Assist are the Sledgehammer Up of the basic attack.

Similar to Jane's "Salchow Jump", Piper's EX Special Attack can trigger Assaults every time she spins. Therefore, we should avoid wasting the EX Special Attack by making sure that the enemy is hit while spinning, so that the last hit of the EX Special Attack will give the enemy more Anomaly Value.

Piper's Core Skill provides up to 20 stacks of Power, which in combination with additional abilities can increase her Physical Anomaly Buildup Rate by 80% and her team's DMG by 18%. If Piper has one Cinema, she can stack up to 30 stacks of Power, which means she can increase the Rate of her Physical Anomaly Buildup by 120%.

Speaking of Piper's exclusive W-Engine, Piper's W-Engine offers ATK Percentage on the Advanced Stat, as well as ATK, Anomaly Mastery, and Anomaly Buildup Rate in the W-Engine effect. While the W-Engine offers so many boosts, it is also very difficult to trigger. As such, it is currently only available to Piper.

So for now, it seems that Piper is a agent that relies on EX Special Attack just like Nicole, which makes Piper need constant Energy. So it's best to keep Energy at half of the energy bar during combats, which can shorten Piper's DMG window. However, Piper's core skill upgrades will also provide more efficient Energy Regen. And the fact that Piper consumes fewer Assist points when taking high-intensity attacks is also a big advantage for Piper.

3. Jane vs. Piper Summary and Comparison

Jane Doe Summary:

• Assault, high burst DMG.
• Long standing in combats, relies on skill.
• Good solo damage, can also be used with almost every support characters.

Piper Wheel summary

• A-rank character, easy to develop.
• Infliction Physical Anomaly state on enemies.
• Can stun enemies and increase DMG to the whole team.
• Convenient to clean up the enemies, and at the same time, you can save up your Energy for Assaults to deal burst DMG.

It is worth noting that when triggering an enemy's anomaly state, if a agent with lower stats is involved in more Anomaly Buildup time it will greatly reduce the DMG generated. This is why Jane must be a standing agent and cannot be used only as a backstage agent.

On the contrary, Piper's powerful functionality and brust DMG make Piper is unnecessary to standing all the time in many situations, and Piper can give teammates DMG bonuses even on backsatge and deal Assaults when she has enough Energy.

4. Weak points of Jane Doe

Dependency Passion state

Jane does rely heavily on the high-frequency Anomaly Buildup of Passion state, which makes Jane's basic attacks do very little damage while standing. The best solution is to either increase proficiency or boost Jane's Cinema.

Becomes weak against enemies with physical resistance

This is Jane's most fundamental weakness. Since Jane will always be a long standing agent in the team, Jane's damage against physically resistant enemies is very low and cannot be changed through gameplay techniques. The only way to do this is to avoid physically resistant enemies or to form a double-anomaly team to deal disorder and multi-attribute damage to physically resistant enemies.

5. Characterization of Physical Anomaly Agents

As far as the current version is concerned, Physical and especially Anomaly agents are characterized by one thing: a higher frequency of attacks. This is true for Jane Doe, Corin Wickes and Piper Wheel. The result of this high frequency of attacks is that the agent's Anomaly Buildup Attribute is utilized at a higher rate. As long as a high frequency attack is used to hit with Assaults, there is generally no waste of Anomaly Buildup Rate.

Secondly, all DMG from Physical agents is Physical DMG, which means that all damage from physical agents accumulates Anomaly. So there is no such thing as a agent's skills failing to accumulate Anomaly. In contrast, the first two to three basic attacks of other attribute agents are unable to deal attribute damage. This is a natural advantage for Physical Anomaly agents.

• Low Training Cost, Big Numbers, High Burst Damage

The low training cost also ensures that Jane and Piper can assaults at least two to three times when the enemy is Daze, which allows many short duration buffs or debuffs to be utilized to their full potential.

• Assault damage will not be lost due to multiple triggers in a short period of time

The above is the analysis of the current Physical Anomaly agents, and we hope it can help proxies to build Anomaly agents more easily. We will also continue to pay attention to other attributes of Anomaly agents and make analysis of them.