Zenless Zone Zero: Best Stable Channel S-Rank Agents
There are 6 possible standard S-rank agents that you can pull from the Stable Channel in Zenless Zone Zero—or from the Exclusive Channel if you lose your 50/50 when searching for any of the limited agents.
In this guide we break down the strengths and weaknesses of each of these standard S-rank agents and show you the best options to hope for from your guaranteed beginner S-rank after 50 pulls on the stable channel as well as your 300 pull S-rank selector.
S Tier: Lycaon
Lycaon is an Ice Element, Stun agent from the Victoria Housekeeping Co. Faction and he is the best standard S-rank agent in Zenless Zone Zero on launch. While his personal damage output is low, he is the best character in the game at building up the daze bar and inflicting stun on your enemies which is crucial for enabling your main damage dealer to do maximum damage.
He’s the perfect character to combo with the first limited S-rank character, Ellen, since they both share the Ice element and the Victoria Housekeeping Co. Faction. Lycaon passive lowers the enemy’s Ice RES, letting any Ice agent do much more damage against them. To complement this team, you can add a support agent from either the Ice element or the Victoria faction for maximum bonuses: right now, Soukaku is the ideal third member since she is from the Ice element, and she has the added benefit of being boosted on Ellen’s banner.
The ideal team for Lycaon is the mono-ice team: Ellen, Lycaon, Soukaku.
A Tier: Rina
Rina is an Electric Element, Support agent from the Victoria Housekeeping Co. Faction and she is the second-best standard S-rank agent in Zenless Zone Zero (but only by a small margin). Rina excels as a universal support agent by boosting your entire squad’s PEN Ratio with her core passive, which will give a large damage boost to every damage dealer in the game. The value of PEN Ratio will be higher as players continue to level up and fight against higher level enemies with higher Defense stats.
As a member of the Victoria faction, she’s a good partner for Ellen, the first limited agent, providing her powerful damage buffs. She is also the key member of any Electric teams thanks to her additional ability which increases the duration of Shock by 3 seconds and increases all squad members’ Electric DMG by 10% while Shock is active.
The ideal team for Rina is the mono-electric team: Anton, Anby, Rina.
A Tier: Grace
Grace is an Electric Element, Anomaly agent from the Belobog Heavy Industries faction. Grace specializes in applying the Shock anomaly and can be run as a powerful sub-DPS: Shock will continue dealing damage even when Grace is swapped out, allowing her to contribute significant damage even when you swap to your other characters.
As the best Anomaly agent currently in the game, it is expected that Grace’s value will climb as more Anomaly agents are added since this will allow you to build powerful Disorder teams instead of teams based on Attack or Stun agents (a disorder is triggered when two different anomalies are applied at the same time).
Another downside of Grace on launch is that her ideal partner for enhancing Shock is Rina, who is also an S-rank agent, and it could take you a long time to pull both.
The ideal team for Grace is the mono-electric team: Anton, Grace, Rina.
A Tier: Koleda
Koleda is a Fire Element, Stun agent from the Belobog Heavy Industries faction. As a stun agent she excels at building up daze and stunning enemies, enabling your damage dealers to perform to their full potential. Although she is not considered as powerful as Lycaon, Koleda brings a different faction and element to the table, making her the best option for those teams.
Koleda has a unique aspect to her character where her moves are greatly empowered when she is on the same team as Ben, who is a Fire Defense agent from her Belobog faction. Due to this synergy, the power of both agents is enhanced when you run them on a team together. Alternatively, you could run a Sons of Calydon team alongside Piper for damage and Lucy for support, who are also accessible A-rank options.
If you are building a mono-Fire team, the best Fire damage dealer right now is Soldier 11 who is also an S-rank character, so unless you are incredibly lucky it might take a while to be able to assemble this team.
The ideal team for Koleda is the mono-fire team: Soldier 11, Koleda, Ben.
A Tier: Soldier 11
Soldier 11 is a Fire element, Attack agent from the OBOLS Squad faction. She is a straightforward damage dealing character and is currently the best Fire damage dealer in the game.
She is currently the only member from her faction in the game and is also the only Fire Attack agent in the game. Luckily, Ben and Lucy are A-rank agents that can fill out her mono-fire team with Stun and Support roles, making it surprisingly easy to build a good team for Soldier 11 despite her having no faction teammates. Koleda can be added to make the team even stronger if you pull her too, but she isn’t necessary.
The main challenge for Soldier 11 is her unique timing-based basic attacks: by doing your attacks with the right rhythm you can turn them into Fire damage which massively boosts her damage output.
The ideal team for Soldier 11 is the mono-fire team: Soldier 11, Koleda, Lucy.
A Tier: Nekomata
Nekomata is a Physical element, Attack agent from the Cunning Hares faction and she’s the first standard S-rank character you will meet through the story.
The main drawback for Nekomata right now is that she has very few options for teammates to run with her: there are no Physical stun or support agents, and the Cunning Hares faction is accessible but lacking in Physical Anomaly. Nekomata’s passives scale her EX Special Attack damage substantially by applying Physical Anomaly to enemies, which means other Physical agents are highly recommended to combo with her.
Despite that, Nekomata has an agile playstyle and is the best Physical damage dealer in the game, meaning she is still worth building as your main damage dealer if you pull her. As more characters are added to the game, her roster limitations will also improve dramatically.
The ideal team for Nekomata is: Nekomata, Piper, Nicole.