When entering Zenless Zone Zero, every player may want to know about Ellen and Zhu Yuan in Zenless Zone Zero.

Ellen is an S-Rank / 5-Star Ice Attack Character who excels at dealing a lot of ice damage to enemies and keeping up her Flash Freeze stacks. On the other hand, Zhu Yuan is an S-Rank / 5-Star Ether Attack Character who focuses on dealing a lot of Ether damage and excels at using her Shotshells stacks to deal more damage.

Today, we will cover Ellen and Zhu Yuan’s equipment, team examples, and whether they are worth using in Zenless Zone Zero. Let’s get straight to it!

Ellen

First, let’s take a look at Ellen. Ellen is an ice attack character who is a member of Victoria Housekeeping group. She excels at using her dash attacks to get Flash Freeze stacks, turning her physical basic attacks into ice basic attacks.

Ellen can stack up to 6 flash freeze stacks at a time, so you only need to use her charged dash attack twice to get the maximum stacks.

Ellen has a nice advantage in that her critical hit damage increases when she launches a charged scissor attack from the dash or consumes Flash Freeze stacks for a freeze basic attack. You can try to hone her high critical hit rate so that she can hit critical hits more often.

In addition, Ellen’s play style is fast-paced, especially when dashing, because when you hold or double-click her dash button, she will enter a roaming state, which will allow you to travel across the map or around enemies very quickly. And it is also very useful for positioning yourself, because you can move quickly and take advantage of her charged dash attacks.

As for Ellen’s ultimate ability, this will deal a lot of freeze damage to enemies. Ellen is a very strong ice damage dealer who can provide a fast-paced fight, and her Flash Freeze stacks have a long duration, which can be fully utilized to always deal ice damage with your basic attacks.

An added bonus to picking Ellen is that if you pair her with a character of the same faction or element in your Zenless Zone Zero Account, then whenever Ellen deals ice damage, it will increase the other person’s ice damage for a certain amount of time.

When it comes to which characters have the same faction or element, Victoria Housekeeping group consists of Rina, Lycaon, and Corin. And for the ice element, you have Soukaku and Von Lycaon. For a high-level ice team, Ellen, Lycaon, and Soukaku are a good choice.

Lycaon is very good at stunning enemies, which is a very valuable mechanic that you can use to immobilize enemies to deal more damage to them.

Soukaku provides a valuable buff as a support character, and she can also help enemies go to Ice Anomaly Buildup by attacking.

As for Ellen, she is, of course, the main damage dealer of the team, capable of dealing a lot of damage to enemies, especially with additional buffs and stunning.

Ice Anomaly will freeze enemies, preventing them from taking actions, and apply Shatter at the end of the effect, which deals a good amount of ice damage. The secondary effect of Ice Anomaly is Frostbite, which will increase the critical damage taken by enemies. Triggering Ice Anomaly will benefit Ellen in dealing more damage to enemies.

If you decide to add another elemental character to the team, they can help your own element build up an anomaly to trigger Disorder. Disorder refers to two Attribute Anomalies of different attributes occurring, which will cause a large amount of damage to the enemy.

Overall, Ellen will be a very strong ice damage dealer.

Zhu Yuan

Now let’s discuss Zhu Yuan. Zhu Yuan is an Ether Attack Character and is part of N.E.P.S faction. She is the only other Ether element character currently besides Nicole Demara.

Zhu Yuan has ranged attacks and some melee attacks with her skill kit, has great mobility, and focuses mainly on her Shotshells, as she will deal huge Ether damage by consuming Shotshells stacks.

Zhu Yuan’s basic attack combines physical and ether attacks. Her basic attack also has an Assault Mode and Suppressive Mode. Assault Mode will allow her to gain Shotshells, while Suppressive Mode will consume Shotshells. In Suppressive Mode, she will consume a stack of Shotshells when launching an attack, which will deal huge Ether damage after consumption.

Her dash attack can also consume a stack of Shotshells to deal huge ether damage. As for ways to gain more Shotshells stacks besides basic attacks, she can gain them through her special attacks, chain attacks, auxiliary follow-up attacks, and ultimate skills. She has many ways to gain Shotshells stacks.

Of course, besides dealing nice ether damage when consuming stacks, Zhu Yuan can also deal extra damage when starting a Suppressive Mode. The damage is further increased when attacking stunned enemies.

As for the additional benefits of choosing Zhu Yuan, when she is paired with someone of the same attribute or faction, her critical hit rate will increase after using a special attack, ultimate skill, or chain attack.

However, when it comes to having someone of the same faction or attribute, Zhu Yuan now has only one choice, and that is Nicole. However, the good news is that Nicole is free and a very good support character.

Therefore, you can definitely make F2P team with Zhu Yuan. You can choose Anby as your stun character, which is also a faction that matches Nicole. And Nicole as Zhu Yuan’s support to fill the ether attribute condition, Zhu Yuan as your main damage dealer. This is an excellent choice for all free to play players.

Overall, Zhu Yuan will also provide a fast-paced combat style with more ranged attacks, and have a pretty good F2P team that you can use right away.

Analyzing The Future Potential Of Ellen And Zhu Yuan

Speaking of the value of Ellen and Zhu Yuan, both characters are good choices, but I want to talk about some important aspects of their future potential.

Ellen’s current faction is already quite full, and unless we get more Victoria Housekeeping characters, Ellen already has potential partners in faction.

In terms of attributes, the ice characters that can be released in the future may help Ellen or compete with Ellen. In closed beta 1, an ice character named Hoshimi Miyabi was shown. We are not quite sure when she will be released, but she may become a rival to Ellen in the future.

As for Zhu Yuan’s situation, her faction is actually not fully fleshed out yet. We did get some hints of characters that will join her faction, but we don’t actually know what they will do. So Zhu Yuan may get stronger synergies in the future, thus improving her future value.

However, if you end up getting Von Lycaon from the discounted standard banner, then this improves the value of choosing Ellen. Because you will have one of her best partners who can help you with amazing abilities, this ice team will be very powerful.

Overall, in the future value scenario, I think Zhu Yuan has more future synergies and advantages in comparison, but it also ultimately depends on which play style you prefer between the two.

Either way, honestly, both are sound choices for your account. But I will say that if you decide to skip Ellen, I recommend waiting until near the end of Patch 1.0 to look at the potential characters in Patch 1.1, as they may actually be more interesting to you compared to Patch 1.0 lineup.

Personally, I really liked how Ellen played in the previous beta, so I’m more interested in Ellen. So which one would you like to get the most from Ellen or Zhu Yuan, or is there a chance you’d skip? Hope to see you guys next time!

With Zenless Zone Zero launching on July 4, everyone is probably wondering how Free-To-Play Friendly it is? Today, we’re covering what players need to know about the free characters in ZZZ, how they benefit team building, how many pulls F2P players can get in Zenless Zone Zero 1.0, and more! Let’s get started now!

Free Characters Overview

First, I want to quickly cover each of the free characters we’ll get in Zenless Zone Zero, as well as some examples of teams with free characters.

Based on the latest beta, there will be Anby, Billy, and Nicole as the starting characters in your Zenless Zone Zero account, followed by Corin Wickes, Soukaku, and Ben as your freebies.

Nicole

Nicole is an Ether Strike Support character with an AoE ability that creates an energy field that gathers enemies together and deals Ether damage to them. This is a good supportive utility for Nicole, and can help you build up your Attribute Anomaly to gain an advantage in combat.

You can use Nicole to crowd enemies, then utilize Crowd Control Ability to switch to another character that can hit multiple enemies. This can help you stun enemies or build up an Attribute Anomaly on an enemy to quickly increase your team DPS with Nicole’s utility.

Nicole is also the only Ether Element character besides Zhu Yuan. Zhu Yuan is the second limited 5-star character after Ellen, and with Nicole on the team, you have a support that pairs well with Zhu Yuan.

As I mentioned before, whether you can get additional bonuses depends on the characters on your team. Assuming Nicole retains her bonus for having another Ether Element ally, she will gain specific additional benefits from having an ally, Zhu Yuan. Overall, Nicole will be a good support character for your team, and can provide quite useful overall utility.

Anby

Next we have Anby. She is an Electric Stun character that excels at accumulating Daze Meter, which is used to stun enemies and chain attacks.

Having a character that excels at accumulating Daze Meter can help the team increase damage output, as chain attacks allow you to deal a lot of damage to enemies. And according to the previous beta, there are a lot of mechanical enemies at the beginning of the game, which are weak to Electric Element.

Overall, Anby definitely helps build up Daze Meter for your team and is a wonderful asset in the early stages of the game.

Billy

As for the third starting character, you have Billy. Billy is a super cool robot with a super cool gun.

Billy is a Physical Attack character, essentially a Ranged Physical DPS. Billy has a very fast attack speed and can be a very strong starting DPS on your account. According to the previous beta, Billy has excellent damage output and can help you progress in the game.

Corin

However, I personally prefer Corin. She is also a Physical Attack character. More importantly, Corin will be gifted to us from the pre-registration rewards.

Corin is able to accumulate Daze Meter a lot, and her attack frequency helps with the accumulation of Attribute Anomaly.

Based on the previous beta, her skill set will have some anti-interruption function on some of her attacks, which can make it easier for her to frequently output damage.

However, Corin players need to know when to use her attacks to attack enemies. Because her animation is long when you continuously click or hold Chainsaw attacks button, you have to be aware of how much damage she can take in a fight.

Based on the previous beta, her Physical Anomaly is also very good, as it will deal huge physical damage to the enemy. Based on her full equipment, if they keep this aspect from the previous beta, Corin has the ability to reduce the physical resistance of the enemy, which will make her a useful asset to pair with other physical characters.

Overall, Corin looks like she will be a great F2P DPS option in Zenless, and she is a lovely maid, so I will give her a bonus point.

Ben

Next we have Ben. This is a Fire Defense character, and from what we’ve seen so far, he’ll be the only Defense character so far.

Ben’s strong defensive abilities make it easier to fight enemies, especially when you’re just starting out in the game. What’s unique about Ben, though, is that he has special combos with the standard 5-star character, Koleda.

Koleda and Ben are a great pairing, as the combos Koleda unleashes will include Ben, and her attacks will now be stronger. If you do end up getting Koleda from the standard 5-star banner, I highly recommend investing in Ben. That way, not only do you get the cool duo animations, but you also get a stronger DPS output, making this Fire-centric team composition even more powerful.

Soukaku

As for the last free character we’ll get, that’ll be Soukaku. Soukaku is an Ice Support character that does a great job of increasing Daze Meter and even helps trigger Ice Anomaly, which allows you to freeze enemies.

Soukaku is also a great support character for the first limited 5-star character, Ellen. If you end up getting Von Lycaon, Soukaku can also be a great boost for him and you can combine all three into a team.

Speaking of Soukaku’s value, I think she’s a great support character that’s worth considering once the game is released, especially for all those who are interested in Ellen.

Speaking of the free nature of the game’s characters, I personally think that the free characters we get can really help clear content and create a team based on the characters you end up getting from the 5-star selector.

Overall, when it comes to free characters and the potential team combinations you can make, I do believe that they will be a valuable asset to make team building smoother and provide a good foundation for your team, which can be seen as F2P-friendly in a way.

How Many Pulls Will F2P Players Get?

In addition, as of recently, we have also summarized all the pulls that we will roughly get in Zenless Zone Zero 1.0. You should definitely check them out.

On average, F2P players will get 129 standard pulls, 152.9 limited pulls, and 142 Bangboo pulls in patch 1.0.

You will be able to get your first 5 star guaranteed in the starting banner using 40 standard pulls, and then use the remaining 89 pulls to get your second 5 star character on the normal standard banner. Being able to get two standard 5 stars is a great start for every account.

As for limited pulls, if you end up getting the maximum 90 pity, you will be guaranteed to hit pity at least once. I think this is great because this can help you get Ellen or Zhu Yuan as soon as possible.

As for Bangboo banner, this is a completely free banner, as the currency can only be earned by progressing in the game, playing quests, etc. You can also earn pity on Bangboo banner, so if you are interested in one of the limited banner bangboos, you can try to get them as well.

Overall, when looking at the free characters we’re getting and the projected pulls of the game, I do think that if you get all of them, your team will be pretty solid. See you next time!

Zenless Zone Zero is coming out on July 4th, and every player might be wondering what they need to know. Today, we’re going to cover all the information about Zenless Zone Zero, including what Zenless Zone Zero is, Combat System, Gacha System, how character pulls work, how to level up characters, assemble a team, and more! Now let’s get started!

About Zenless Zone Zero

First, you might want to know what Zenless Zone Zero is. It's an urban fantasy free to play Action RPG that combines fast-paced combat with a hub world. Here you can interact with NPCs, take part in side quests, and even have the opportunity to hang out with some of the game's characters occasionally.

Overall, the hub world has a lot of features that you can fiddle with and eventually unlock more as the story progresses. If you want to experience all the features as quickly as possible, getting a proper Zenless Zone Zero Account is a good choice.

Combat System

If you’re looking for a more dynamic aspect of the game, Combat System is more worthy of your attention.

Combat in Zenless is flashy, fun, and fast-paced, and it has several important mechanics to pay attention to, such as your HP, to ensure that you don’t take too much damage.

The energy you build up during combat allows your character to use special enhanced attacks, Daze Meter. As your character attacks an enemy, Daze Meter goes up, and once it’s full, the enemy is stunned, meaning they can’t move, and now you can do more damage to them.

Your character can also unleash Ultimates, which light up when your damage rating reaches 3000. Each character has their own unique Ultimates, and I have to say the animations are pretty cool.

Zenless also features Assist Attacks, which are very useful when the character you’re playing as is being knocked back, and can put you in a better position in combat.

Some other things involved in combat are parrying and dodging enemy attacks, so taking advantage of parrying and dodging will be crucial, especially in the later game modes. Because enemies will eventually hit harder, not dodging or parrying their attacks can cause your entire team to go down.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that you also have a cute little buddy fighting alongside you. They are called Bangboos and can provide valuable perks or buffs to the team.

Combat Mode Explained

Combat is required to advance the storyline, play Combat Commissions, Exploration Commissions, as well as Shiyu Defense, Hollow Zero, and Rally Commissions. Basically, every major mode in the game involves combat, especially for the endgame modes.

Shiyu Defense

For those familiar with Honkai Star Rail, Shiyu Defense is similar to Memory of Chaos. Your goal is to defeat the enemy within a limited time, and you will be awarded 0 to 3 stars based on how fast you beat the stage, and the more stars, the more rewards.

Shiyu Defense currently has 10 stages, and when you complete a stage with 3 stars, you will be rewarded with 300 Polychromes, which is the premium currency for the gacha element of the game.

As you progress in Shiyu Defense, the later stages will require you to enter with two teams, which means you have to deal with multiple characters the deeper you get into the mode.

The best part is that Shiyu Defense resets periodically, so you will earn more premium currency after the mode resets. This will be a very important mode to keep in mind as you build your characters, as it will be one way you will keep earning premium currency over time to attract new characters.

Hollow Zero

The other ultimate mode is Hollow Zero. For those familiar with Honkai Star Rail, Hollow Zero is basically Zenless’ version of a Simulated Universe. Hollow Zero is a fun roguelike mode where you collect buffs for your characters and you will have negative or positive encounters as you go through the mode.

You can form a team of three. You can only choose one character at the beginning, and as you collect buffs through the mode, you will gain two more team members.

At the end, you will fight a boss, and the fight will become very challenging as you fight the mode harder and harder.

Personally, Hollow Zero is actually one of my favorite modes in Zenless, because the buffs and results are different every time you run through it. What’s pretty nice, though, is that there’s a weekly reset, as well as commissions that allow you to earn premium currency from playing the mode, as well as materials to upgrade your Bangboos.

Basics Of Characters

Now that we've covered the basics of some of the game's modes and combat, let's discuss the basics of characters.

In Zenless, characters will be called Agents, and you can have a team of up to 3 Agents at a time. Each Agent has their own element, faction, and a role and attack type they specialize in.

Elements include Fire, Physical, Ice, Ether, and Electric. Each element has a unique Attribute Anomaly that’s very useful to trigger in combat.

As for factions, they are the groups that characters belong to. For example, Nicole, Anby, and Billy are part of Cunning Hares, while Ellen, Rina, Lycaon, and Corrin are part of Victoria Housekeeping.

Roles in Zenless are very important, as are character elements. Roles can include Anomaly, Attack, Defense, Support, and Stun. Attack characters will deal powerful damage and knock down enemies quickly. Support characters can provide buffs, utility to allies, or provide enhancements to the team.

As for attack type, it will include Strike, Slash, and Pierce. Agents will also be able to gain additional benefits depending on the team they are with, which is mainly based on character element and attack type.

Gacha System

Next, I want to discuss the basics of Gacha System. It will include a limited character banner that has a pity of 90 and a 50/50 chance of getting a limited character. If you fail to get a limited character, the next attempt will guarantee getting them.

There will also be a W-Engine banner where you can get more W-Engine as well as limited ones. With a pity of 80, you will have a 75/25 chance of getting a limited W-Engine.

We also have a Bangboo banner, but this banner does not consume premium currency like the limited character and W-Engine banners. Bangboo banners consume Coup-Ens, F2P resource that can be earned from missions, events, and various modes in Hollow Deep Dive. This currency cannot be acquired with real-life currency, so it’s essentially just a free banner.

In addition, at the beginning of the game, you will also have a starter banner that allows you to get one of the standard characters for just 50 standard pull currency.

So as long as you keep progressing in the game and get more pulls, you should be able to get your first 5 stars relatively quickly.

Final Thoughts

In my opinion, this game does have a lot of potential in terms of gorgeous combat, interesting events, and improvements over previous betas.

And a recent developer interview mentioned that they are working on multiplier modes, which is very exciting, and it’s also very fun to be able to play with friends. Let’s wait and see!