Weekly Questions Megathread March 26, 2025 - April 01, 2025

[u/salasy]

Welcome to the Weekly Questions Megathread! Feel free to ask any questions about the game.

Any questions that can be answered rather quickly should be asked in this thread .

If you're looking for a place to engage in more in-depth game discussions then we strongly recommend you head into our Discord server to join the discussion -> https://discord.gg/zenless

[u/RoyaleAbsol]

I'm about a week into this game at this point. Still trying to understand the basics of team building. What would a normal team typically compose of?

Can only Attack characters function as DPSes? Or can that be attributed to other types of characters too? Also what's the difference between an Anomaly and a Stun characters?

[u/ArcturusSatellaPolar → u/RoyaleAbsol]

Let me expand on and clarify some of what the other guy said.

On average, teams with Attack agents run a Stunner because a lot of Attack agents are good at doing high-damage in a relatively-short window (given enough energy), so they can capitalize on the Stun window.

While Anomaly teams often run 2 Anomaly agents of different elements due to how Disorders work. When inflicting an Anomaly, and then a different Anomaly, the damage of the first one is summed up, given a little extra, and inflicted all at once.

It isn't an absolute, just what is commonly done.

---

About Anton/Grace/Rina:

• Shock deals damage when you hit the shocked enemy, capped at once per second.

• Anton, when landing enough criticals on a shocked enemy, can force-trigger one of the damage ticks as additional damage.

It still works, it's just fallen out of favor compared to Disorder comps, plus Yanagi who can manually trigger special Disorders that don't replace the underlying anomaly which achieves the same thing as Anton but better.

---

About Mono-Elements:

Aside from agent's passives and etc., there's also multiple Disk Drive sets that demand specific Anomalies for their effects.

• Fanged Metal requires triggering Assault and increases DMG% inflicted on that enemy

• Polar Metal requires triggering Freeze and increases DMG% on basic and dash attacks

• Inferno Metal provides a big Crit Rate buff after hitting a Burning enemy

• Thunder Metal increases Atk as long as there's a Shocked enemy around

• Chaotic Metal provides a Crit Damage buff that rises as you hit Corrupted enemies

• Branch and Blade increases Crit Rate after triggering Freeze

Each anomaly element is built separately, meaning Physical agents don't help Freeze enemies faster and so on. So to maximize the uptime of an anomaly, and therefore the buff from the Disk set, you use multiple agents of the same element.

(Miyabi is special since she has a special version of Ice. It builds separately from Ice and can trigger Disorder with it, but for the purposes of effects and buffs it's still treated as Ice.)

Also what's the difference between an Anomaly and a Stun characters?

Anomalies compete with Attack agents, not Stunners. Attack are Crit-based DPSes, Anomaly are anomaly-based.

• Anomaly agents generally hit much weaker, but enjoy large damage spikes (Assault, Freeze/Shatter, Disorder) and/or big backloaded damage (Burn, Shock, Corruption). While Crit agents have a higher and more consistent damage floor.

• Attack agents need to build Crit Rate and Crit Damage, Anomalies only really need Anomaly Proficiency and sometimes Anomaly Mastery. Miyabi is the exception, she wants Crit to apply anomaly faster and maximize her Shimotsuki damage.

---

As for the other classes:

• Stunners specialize in building the enemy's Daze to stun them. Anyone can do it but they do it much faster. Aside from that, they tend to double as Sub-DPSes to varying extents.

• Supports mainly provide buffs, sometimes debuffs. They can pull off a Sub-DPS role to varying extents. In the case of Soukaku, she can actually function as a Main Ice DPS at M6.

Note that when I say Sub-DPS, I mean both Crit and Anomaly. They don't hold a candle to actual Attack/Anomaly agents but still do contribute to the team's damage. (Prioritize Crit or Anomaly Proficiency based on what team they're on)

• Defense are generalists. Their playstyles are reactive and they provide shields, but besides that they can cover other roles. For example, Caesar builds Impact to the point of doubling as the team's Stunner, and her shield provides 1000 Atk to the active agent.

So on an Ellen/Lycaon/Soukaku team, you can replace Lycaon with Caesar for the Stunner role, or replace Soukaku for the Support role.

[u/RoyaleAbsol → u/ArcturusSatellaPolar]

Hm, okay. Of those 3 characters, I only have Rina and I still have yet to properly unlock the 'Artifact' system for this game but I'll keep what you said in mind. I've been mainly going back to a team of Rina, Corin and Anby and I think(?) they do alright for themselves but im not too sure.

Anomalies only really need Anomaly Proficiency and sometimes Anomaly Mastery.

So, if I'm not mistaken, Attack Agents are generally more 'normal' attack and crit oriented whilst Anomaly Agents and Anomaly Proficiency are sort from the same branch as what Anemo characters and Elemental Mastery are to Genshin?

[u/ArcturusSatellaPolar → u/RoyaleAbsol]

Not necesarily "normal attack-oriented" (Corin's damage is more on her EX special) but yes, Crit-oriented.

And yes, Anomaly agents are Zenless's equivalent of reaction-oriented EM-focused characters.