The chaotic combat in Zenless Zone Zero combines both frantic button mashing with team-swap tactics, measured ability usage, and a number of defensive options to keep the players' Agents alive. One such defensive option is the Defensive Assist, which is one of the staples of the game's combat and one of the best things you can do while fighting Ethereals and other undesirables.
There's a ton of terms to remember in this game, and if you want to master your characters in ZZZ, you'll need to know which thing does what so you can take full advantage of their abilities. This guide covers Defensive Assists, including what they are, how to do them, and how they differ from other assist types in the game.
Yixuan Team Composition Guide In Zenless Zone Zero
Yixuan is a powerful DPS in Zenless Zone Zero, possessing both offense and good survivability.
What is a Defensive Assist in Zenless Zone Zero?
A Defensive Assist is what most players refer to as the parry maneuver in ZZZ. If you see the yellow flash and hear the iconic soound effect of an incoming enemy attack, you can press Space (shoulder buttons for controllers) or whatever button the Switch Character action is bound to. This will cause the next Agent in your lineup to block that incoming attack and potentially follow-up with their own.
When you parry an enemy with a Defensive Assist, that enemy's attack gets interrupted, and they receive a significant amount of Daze, which is represented by the yellow bar under their health bar. If the Daze meter reaches 100, hitting an enemy with a heavy attack (Special, EX Special, Ultimate, final hit of a combo, etc), they will become Stunned.
Defensive Assist vs. Evasive Assist
Defensive Assists can only be performed by melee characters. If you try doing this with a ranged or range-focused character like Zhu Yuan, your Agent will instead perform an Evasive Assist — instead of blocking, the Agent will swap places with your active character and evade the incoming attack. Doing so will activate Vital View, which slows down all enemies for a short period of time.
Character restrictions on Defensive and Evasive Assists aren't strict. For example, Nicole, whose attacks are all ranged, performs Defensive Assists. Meanwhile, Pulchra, who is primarily a melee character, performs Evasive Assists.
One isn't necessarily better than the other, though each of them does open up different opportunities.
- Defensive Assists are great if you're using a Stun-reliant character like Silver Soldier Anby, Zhu Yuan, or Harumasa, as the extra Daze build-up can let them do their attack rotations earlier.
- Evasive Assists are generally good since they let you deal damage safely. These are especially useful against difficult bosses like Bringer and the Marionettes.
Both Defensive and Evasive Assist count as Perfect Assists. To perform them, you need to have Assist Points ready. You can track your Assist Points by checking the notches on the Ultimate button. Using Chain Attacks will restore 1 Assist Point, while using a Defensive character's Ultimate will restore 3 Assist Points. If you have no Assist Points (or if you do a Perfect Assist when an enemy attack flashes red), your character will do an Evasive Assist, minus the Vital View effect.
You can swap to either the next character in your lineup or the previous one with C/Space or LB/RB respectively. This lets you choose which type of assist you want to do based on which characters you're using.
Zenless Zone Zero
- Released
- July 4, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T (Teen) - Suggestive Themes & Violence
- Developer(s)
- HoYoverse (Formerly miHoYo)
- Publisher(s)
- HoYoverse
- Engine
- Unity
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PC, Android, iOS
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
