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Now that Zenless Zone Zero has been out for a few weeks, people all over the world have been getting stuck into the combat, vibes, and characters the latest gacha game from HoYoverse has to offer. A big part of ZZZ is the combat and each character comes with a unique kit that has specific abilities and attacks, with every character having an Ultimate move that requires a resource called Decibels to use.
While each character has an Ultimate, a discussion on Reddit has highlighted a huge problem with tying your Ultimate to Decibels, a shared resource needed to use your Ultimate. The problem here is that Decibels are shared, so not all of your characters will be able to use their Ultimates often, if at all. This is an interesting problem because Ultimates are unique to each character and have something to offer in combat.
Exploring this issue, a post on Reddit titled ‘So it seems most characters we play will never use their ultimates?’ has been gaining popularity, with many commenting and discussing the inherent problem with the shared Decibel pool and how limiting that can be for your teams and characters.
It’s a good point when you consider that each Agent’s Ultimate attack has a little intro cinematic animation when you use the move. With 16 characters, it’s incredibly unlikely you’ll see each Agent’s Ultimate when you are incentivised to use the Ultimate that’s going to deal the most damage – and this will always be your Attack-type characters. On top of this, Decibels takes a long time to accrue to 3,000 and reset to 0 when you use your Ultimate.
The post begins, “Seems weird to me, unless I am missing something, that if playing this game to try and clear content properly that most characters awesome burst/ultimate animations would never be seen. You just use your attack’s burst”. And even if you did build a support as a main or something and made a perfect team for them, the other 2 would never use theirs”.
Other people on Reddit are mixed in their replies, with one person pointing out: “Your Chain attack is actually an ultimate”, alluding to the fact that the attack animation for your character’s Chain Attack is the same as their Ultimate. While this might be good enough for some, you really don’t want to miss out on some of the wonderfully stylish Ultimate activation animations.
This issue has raised some questions, namely a discussion about the most optimal way to play, including when and whose Ultimate you should use in combat. There are clear benefits using your Support or Impact Agents’ Ultimates over your main DPS, because you can provide energy for your team or build up your foe’s stun gauge respectively. You don’t always want to use your main DPS Ultimate, and this could be part of why the Decibel resource is shared.
Having this limit might annoy people, but it arguably opens the game up more to you and gives you more agency to play the way you want. Your character’s Ultimate you like to use the most might not be the best way to do things, but it doesn’t matter if that’s how you want to play.
We’re now approaching the end of the first phase banner in Zenless Zone Zero, with the arrival of Zhu Yuan coming very soon. Elsewhere in ZZZ, people are complaining they haven’t received the 180 free pulls that were promised.