HoYoverse’s urban action RPG Zenless Zone Zero is in for a major update very soon. Version 2.0 is just a couple of months away and, judging by the dev radio, it will bring some massive changes.
The game’s older siblings, Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, have previously received a new Element and a Path respectively, which would translate to the new Attribute and Specialty in ZZZ. While both of the above have gotten it as a part of their 2nd major expansion, Version 3.0, ZZZ showed itself to be unafraid to break the usual HoYoverse patterns.
So, before the official reveal and any crumbs shared during the upcoming V1.7 Special Program and beyond, why not speculate on what else might await us in the future of ZZZ? Note that this is purely a speculation, and you should treat it with the seriousness it deserves, which is none. It’s all for fun.
Let’s start with the Genshin Impact way, as in the new Element or an Attribute in Zenless Zone Zero’s case. In Version 3.0, Genshin introduced Dendro, a new Element that introduced various reactions, revitalized some less desired Elements such as Electro and even buffed older, less used units such as Kuki Shinobu or Yae Miko. Over the 3.x cycle, the game would add more and more Dendro characters of various roles, from damage dealers to healers, which strengthened the position of the newbies. Especially when you take the Archon, Nahida, into account.
However, it was all possible due to the Elemental Reaction system present in Genshin, something that Zenless Zone Zero lacks. Instead, the game’s elements apply Anomaly, a special effect that occurs when you fill out the Anomaly meter, such as Shock for Electric Attribute. Further, it can cause Disorder, an effect that occurs when two anomaly effects overlap. Notably, Yanagi is a character that can proc Disorders in mono-Electric squads and Miyabi’s special Attribute, Frost, allows her to proc it with a full Ice team.
During the beta, the game had a Wind Attribute (with Soukaku being one of its users, which explains the giant fan-like weapon), so let’s run with that as an example. Say, HoYo added the Wind Attribute to the game in 2.0, what would change?
Admittedly, not much. It will be yet another Attribute you’d need to build a party for in Deadly Assault/Shiyu Defense, or just brute force your way through with a busted enough damage dealer. With the potential characters filling one of the five already existing roles, you’d be able to use one of the crafted/previously pulled generalist weapons if you decide to ignore the signature.
Gear-wise, chances are that there will be new sets regardless of whether ZZZ introduces a new Attribute and/or Specialty or just new characters, but the generalist 2-pieces like Freedom Blues (+30 AP), Swing Jazz (Energy Regen +20%), and the rest would still be useful. Either way, the farm for perfect stats never stops!
Where it becomes tricky is ZZZ’s Core Skills, which frequently require a certain Attribute, Specialty, or Faction. Take Soldier-11 for example. To activate her Core Skill, you need to have another character in the party that is either Fire Attribute or OBOL Faction (which for the longest time was just her). Or the resident Void Hunter, Miyabi, with the requirements for a Support or her own faction, Section 6.
Say there is a brand-new Wind Anomaly that you’d like to pair with Miyabi that also has similar restrictions: Attribute and Faction. Then your best bet would be to find a Wind Support or a Support from the new character’s Faction so that both Core Passives were to be activated, and that’s where the catch is: what if there isn’t one? Or what if it is another S-rank Agent that you’re not sure about pulling?
Sure, you can ignore the Core Passive even now, with playing something like Miyabi-Lighter-Burnice, but only because Miyabi is that strong and able to dish out enough damage even without it. Throw in Lighter’s unique double element buff, and you’re golden, but can the same be said about others?
On the other hand, the game might as easily introduce a new Attribute, in our case Wind, Support that would end up being Anomalies’ best, and bring along more opportunities for party-building by freeing Astra from one party and ready to join another.
That leaves us with a potential benefit of being able to use old generalist W-Engines, and let’s say inconveniences as they are not really negatives: not innovative enough due to the way ZZZ employs Attributes, and making teambuilding more challenging. Unless, of course, Zenless Zone Zero surprises everyone by reworking how the Attribute system works at some point and/or making a potential new Attribute’s Anomaly something different. Instead of a DoT, or an instance of damage on hit, it could do something like a small grouping similar to Nicole’s ultimate.
Another drawback comes from the game currently being quite new, and us Proxies not even having access to a roster that covers all of the Attribute x Specialty combinations. Adding another Attribute would mean we’d need at the very least five characters to cover the new element: Anomaly, Attack, Defense, Stun, and Support respectively. And there is no saying that they will be released in swift order, either. For example, there is no Ether Stun agent yet, while there are already three Electric stunners (Anby, Qingyi, Trigger).
And last but not the least: prepare to farm a million of the new Chips, because you are going to need them in this case!
Now, let’s take a look at Honkai: Star Rail’s way, which is the introduction of a new Path, or in Zenless’ terms, Specialty.
In V3.0, HSR added a new Path: Remembrance. Its unique feature is the summons that have their own HP, turns, and can be buffed, debuffed or killed. The summoning character has unique ways of interacting with the Memosprite: buffing, healing, charging, pushing the turn forward and so on. There is also a bit of a muddy identity when it comes to it: so far there are two Remembrance damage dealers (one scaling with Attack, another with HP), one Remembrance buffer and an upcoming healer.
To develop that thought further, let’s imagine a scenario in which Zenless introduces a new class, and it’s entirely focused on summons. Not only to compare it against HSR, but also because summons are already in-game and employed by both Rina and Lucy in a limited capacity. The developers have also been introducing quite a few off-field characters (Pulchra, Trigger, upcoming Vivian) and have expressed the desire to see a visual presence from such characters going forward. What is more visual than having a turret busily blasting away or CC’ing mobs in Shiyu Defense?
The potential is much more exciting than an Attribute, but so are the drawbacks. On the brighter side, it might add a whole new way of playing – or even several, depending on the implementation. While something with summons just screams sub-DPS or a support, there is a room for other roles if you give it a touch of creativity (and steal HSR’s homework in the process).
Even less damage-oriented, but having something like a turret repeatedly aggro mobs and draw them in a tighter crowd (think Ororon in Genshin), would work wonders for someone like Zhu Yuan or even Harumasa.
But, while the thought of a new class is exciting, thinking of how one might be incorporated into the gameplay is less so.
The first and the most major drawback are the W-Engines. Even within the existing Specialties, there were already three outliers that have very specific build requirements, making their signatures exceptionally powerful compared to other options: Caesar, Miyabi and Trigger. Sure, chances are you could get away with not pulling for a signature W-Engine by giving them a different S-rank weapon or even a stat stick of another Specialty just for that sweet main stat, but a whole new Specialty won’t give you the wiggle room due to a smaller number of options. At the very least, early on.
Even if we’re talking about a purely damage-dealing specialization, nothing else, some characters would prefer a high Crit Damage (Harumasa, Evelyn), or a high Crit Rate (Ellen, Zhu Yuan), or even simply Attack% (Soldier 11) focused weapon. That is even without delving into specific Attribute or attack type bonuses, like, Electric + Dash Attack or Fire + Chain Attack, and so on.
Even if we get great craftables like the Gemini A-rank W-Engine had been for the Anomaly characters, there will still come a time when there’s a character that doesn’t use it as well as the rest, like the aforementioned Miyabi. Sure, the old tactic of using a non-matching W-Engine as a stat stick still works, but it’s a last-ditch effort.
And this point of concern stems from HSR: there is a potential for a new Specialty to have a problem with its role. It is already somewhat present with the current classes that are starting to step on each other’s toes. Check out the parapharased descriptions of the classes taken straight from Zenless Zone Zero itself:
- Attack – formidable damage output capabilities, dealing damage directly through attacks to defeat enemies;
- Anomaly – exceptional at applying debuffs, accumulating Anomaly buildup;
- Support – aid and enhance other agents in battle, buffing and improving the combat effectiveness of the whole squad;
- Stun – excel at building up Daze to cause enemies to be stunned and create opportunities for the squad to deal damage;
- Defense – strong survivability, excel at tanking attacks to counterattack and seize the upper hand.
In particular, the latter two. Despite being a Stun agent, Trigger both buffs the group’s damage output with her own abilities and reduces the enemy DEF with her signature, which are the Support and Anomaly roles respectively. Caesar, in addition to her Defense role of reducing damage, providing a shield and anti-interrupt resistance, also improves the shielded target’s Attack stat by 1,000. Seth’s shield increases Anomaly Proficiency by 100. Toss in the general buffer Drive Disc set like Swing Jazz, and those bonuses can be even greater. And let’s not even bring Lighter into this discussion!
Looking at examples above, just doing damage, daze or providing a shield is not enough. There is always something extra on top for a Stunner or a sub-DPS. There is no guarantee that a potential new Specialty, especially if it is something generalist like “summons”, won’t step on other characters’ roles’ toes.
As far as the characters’ Core Passives and gear goes, it is the same thing as it would be with a potential new Attribute, perhaps even more demanding depending on the character. Let’s take the example of Miyabi again, and call this speculation of a Zenless Specialty an “Artificer”.
Miyabi’s Core Passive requires a Section 6 member or a Support, and you want to put her in the party with one such “Artificer” who is neither Section 6, nor Support. In an ideal world, this new character would need a Support or a certain Attribute to activate theirs, and then you can mix and match accordingly: Nicole or Astra for Ether, Soukaku for Ice, Lucy for Fire, and so on.
But what if we’re talking about something like %Faction% or Attack, like Qingyi’s passive? That way you either have to get the Support from the new character’s faction, choose whose Core Passive to activate, or have to rethink this comp. Sure, it’s me being picky right now – because that already happens in-game as is, for example with you choosing from 4 characters: Miyabi, since she’s been mentioned so much, Lighter, Burnice and Lucy. Do you go Miyabi + Burnice + Lighter, ignoring her passive? Or Miyabi + Burnice + Lucy to activate it but go without Lighter’s buff?
Another variable, be it Attribute or Specialty, will simply increase the overall number of options and make such requirements more important to build around. Finally, gear-wise, it’s the same thing. There will likely be new sets introduced in Zenless 2.0 regardless, and the generalist 2-pieces offering AM, AP, Energy Regen, Attack, and so on will still be useful. Still, be prepared to farm!
However, that is not all that Zenless Zone Zero has the potential to introduce. The developers might focus on the agent-to-agent interactions more, introducing more Faction bonuses, Ultimate or ability interactions (think of the paired Ult for Ben and Koleda, but perhaps affecting more than just visuals), more mono-Attribute focused characters like Grace or high-Mindscapes Rina. They could also work on the idea of Attribute variants, like Miyabi’s Frost, to offer more unique interactions there as well.
In my opinion, be it a new Specialty, or a new Attribute, such an expansion is a welcome one if introduced carefully, more like Genshin’s Dendro over Star Rail’s Remembrance that is. Revitalizing older characters and working with a variety of comps vs being its own thing with questionable identity. As long as the developers pace themselves with the new releases, it should be more than fine.
The possibilities are endless, so make sure to tune in for Zenless Zone Zero Xbox Spotlight & Version 1.7 Special Program – we might hear something exciting for things to follow! And if that doesn’t happen, we for sure know that Zenless Season 2 teaser will be dropping this Sunday, April 13, with the first look at new characters coming in the 2.x cycle. Don’t miss it for the first look at Yixuan, the factions, and more!
Check out the official site to find out more and start playing for free if you aren’t yet!
