Zenless Zone Zero Deadly Assault Guide: Introduction

Deadly Assault is a high-stakes endgame challenge in Zenless Zone Zero, introduced in Version 1.4, designed to push players’ combat skills to their absolute limits. As a permanent game mode, it functions as an advanced enemy simulation within Hollow Zero, utilizing real-time battle data to generate encounters with exceptionally powerful foes. Unlike standard commissions, Deadly Assault demands a deep understanding of combat mechanics, precise execution of abilities, and well-optimized team compositions to survive its relentless battles.

This mode offers a significant difficulty spike compared to other content, requiring players to master skillful dodging, efficient combo execution, and strategic resource management. Every battle is designed to test not only individual performance but also the synergy between Agents, Bangboo, and W-Engines. Additionally, Deadly Assault alternates biweekly with Shiyu Defense: Critical Node, providing a continuous cycle of fresh and evolving challenges.

For those seeking the ultimate test of their abilities, Deadly Assault offers an intense and rewarding experience. With careful preparation, strategic planning, and mastery of the game’s mechanics, players can take on this formidable mode and reap valuable rewards. This guide will help you understand its mechanics, optimal strategies, and key preparations to succeed in Deadly Assault.

Unlocking Deadly Assault

To access Deadly Assault in Zenless Zone Zero, players must first reach Inter-Knot Level 40 and unlock Shiyu Defense, both of which serve as prerequisites to ensure that participants have sufficient experience and combat proficiency before tackling this challenging mode. Reaching Inter-Knot Level 40 requires consistent gameplay, as experience is primarily earned through daily and weekly activities, completing commissions, and participating in Hollow Zero challenges. Additionally, certain progression milestones are time-gated, meaning players must steadily advance through key missions and complete prerequisite content before Deadly Assault becomes available.

Once unlocked, Deadly Assault stands as one of the toughest endgame activities, designed to push even the most skilled players to their limits. Unlike standard combat encounters, this mode demands a deep understanding of enemy patterns, optimal team compositions, and efficient resource management. The challenge alternates with Shiyu Defense: Critical Node, refreshing every two weeks, ensuring a dynamic rotation of high-level content that keeps veteran players engaged. Those who conquer Deadly Assault will be rewarded with valuable materials and currency that contribute to character and gear progression, making it a key activity for those seeking to fully optimize their Agents.

Location

Deadly Assault in Zenless Zone Zero is accessible near the Squad Outpost, positioned within the central hub of New Eridu. This location serves as the entry point for this high-difficulty combat mode, allowing players to engage in intense battles against powerful foes. Once unlocked, players can visit this area to initiate Deadly Assault attempts, review their previous performance, and refine their strategies. Given the mode’s challenging nature, ensuring your squads are well-prepared before stepping into battle is crucial.

Understanding How Deadly Assault Works

Deadly Assault in Zenless Zone Zero presents players with a high-intensity combat challenge featuring three consecutive time-trial battles against powerful, level 70 versions of major story campaign bosses. These formidable foes are not simple repeats of their original encounters; each boss features enhanced aggression, modified attack patterns, and a significantly increased health pool, requiring players to adapt their strategies accordingly. Unlike other game modes, Deadly Assault does not implement level scaling, meaning lower-level characters will struggle against these high-tier opponents, making proper team composition and investment essential for success.

The core objective of Deadly Assault is not necessarily to defeat the bosses but to accumulate the highest possible score within the strict three-minute time limit per battle. Since each boss possesses a staggering 30 health bars, fully depleting their HP before time runs out is nearly impossible. Instead, players must focus on maximizing their damage output, utilizing efficient combos, synergy attacks, and ultimate abilities to rack up points. Performance is evaluated based on factors such as damage dealt, successful dodges, and effective ability usage, encouraging both offensive prowess and defensive awareness.

Mastering these battles requires not only strong Agents and well-upgraded gear but also a deep understanding of enemy attack patterns and timing to sustain high damage throughout the fight.

Scoring System

In Deadly Assault, points are primarily earned by dealing damage and completing boss-specific objectives, making strategic play crucial for achieving high scores. While continuously attacking the boss is essential, the most efficient way to maximize points is by fulfilling unique challenges tied to each encounter. For example, when battling Notorious – Marionette, destroying its summoned duplicates provides additional score bonuses, up to a set limit. Successfully completing these special tasks can significantly boost your overall ranking.

The scoring system is divided into three tiers, rewarding players based on their performance:

One-star (B-rank): Achieved by earning 6,000 points

Two-star (A-rank): Requires at least 14,000 points

Three-star (S-rank): The highest tier, granted at 20,000 points

Reaching higher ranks demands efficient time management, precise execution of attacks, and mastery of boss mechanics. Players must balance raw damage output with strategic objective completion to maximize their scores within the strict time limits.

Strategies for Success in Deadly Assault

Success in Deadly Assault requires more than just raw power—understanding boss modifiers and strategic buff selection is essential. Each boss has unique mechanics that influence the flow of battle. For instance, Notorious – Marionette deals 25% more damage, but destroying its summoned duplicates reduces this increase by 5% per duplicate, down to a minimum of zero. Additionally, eliminating these duplicates increases the Ice and Electric damage it takes by 10% per duplicate, stacking up to 50%.

Alongside these boss-specific modifiers, players can select from three buffs before each battle, allowing teams to enhance their strengths or mitigate weaknesses. Choosing the right buffs can significantly impact survivability and damage output, especially when dealing with aggressive bosses.

While high-tier DPS units can brute-force their way to 20,000 points, engaging with the boss’s mechanics makes reaching score thresholds far easier. For Marionette, capitalizing on the 50% increased Ice and Electric damage by breaking duplicates will yield better results than relying on sheer damage alone.

Expect a steep difficulty curve, as Deadly Assault is designed to push players to their limits. Mastery comes with time—learning boss attack patterns, identifying safe damage windows, and optimizing team compositions are key to consistent success. Don’t be discouraged by early setbacks; adapt, refine your strategy, and aim for higher scores with each attempt.

Team Building Considerations

A key challenge in Deadly Assault is the requirement for three distinct, fully built teams. Once a team and its Bangboo are assigned to a boss, they cannot be reused for other encounters. This means players must carefully plan and distribute their strongest Agents, ensuring each squad can handle the high-level enemies effectively.

Since all bosses are level 70, while the maximum character level is 60, players will experience reduced damage output due to level disparity. To compensate, every Agent should have fully upgraded skills and a well-optimized set of Drive Discs that complement their role.

When structuring teams, there are two main compositions to consider:

Hypercarry Teams – These focus on enabling a single high-damage dealer to carry the fight, with the rest of the team providing buffs, debuffs, or energy generation. For example, Jane Doe or Ellen can serve as the primary DPS, supported by units that amplify their damage potential.

Double DPS Teams – Instead of relying on one unit, this approach uses two damage dealers, where one supplements the other’s abilities. An example is Yanagi supporting Miyabi, applying Disorder/Fallen Frost to maximize damage output.

Selecting the right team for each boss while managing resource distribution across all three battles is key to clearing Deadly Assault efficiently. Balancing damage, survivability, and synergy between teammates will greatly improve performance in this demanding mode.

Team Recommendations

Deadly Assault rewards teams that can efficiently apply Anomaly effects and exploit boss-specific mechanics to maximize Performance Points. Understanding each boss’s weaknesses and tailoring your squad accordingly is key to securing higher scores. Below are recommended team compositions for each major encounter:

Sacrifice – Bringer

Recommended Team: Yanagi, Seth, Rina

Buff Choice: Spirit Break

Strategy: Bringer is weak to Ice and resistant to Physical damage, making Anomaly application crucial. Focus on stacking Disorder to weaken the boss over time. A key objective in this fight is interrupting Bringer’s Chant channel, which awards 2,000 points per successful interruption. Managing stuns and applying heavy burst damage at the right moments will help control the fight.

Corrupted Overlord – Pompey

Recommended Team: Soldier 11, Caesar, Lucy

Buff Choice: Swift Resolution

Strategy: Pompey is weak to Fire and resistant to Electric damage. Applying Anomaly effects grants 150 points per proc, making consistent debuff application vital. Additionally, Pompey’s Battle-Hardened stacks increase its resistance—removing these stacks via Anomaly application makes it take increased damage, speeding up the fight and improving your score.

Notorious – Marionette

Recommended Team: Ellen, Lycaon, Soukaku

Buff Choice: Swift Resolution or Interrupt

Strategy: Marionette is weak to Ice and Ether with no resistance, making Ice-based teams highly effective. Destroying the summoned twin grants 200 points, and frequent stuns help control the fight. Prioritizing interrupting Marionette and eliminating its twin will significantly boost your score while ensuring a smoother battle.

Building the right teams with proper Anomaly application, debuff management, and crowd control is the key to dominating Deadly Assault. By leveraging boss weaknesses and maximizing point-generating mechanics, you’ll improve your performance in this high-difficulty challenge.

Rewards for Participation

Engaging in Deadly Assault offers valuable rewards, making it a worthwhile challenge for players looking to test their skills and earn exclusive in-game currency. The rewards system is structured based on the number of stars earned, with a maximum of 300 Polychromes, 720 Investigation Merits, and 225,000 Dennies up for grabs.

Each performance tier grants incremental rewards, ensuring steady progression and incentives for improving your score. For every star earned up to six stars, players receive 50 Polychromes, 80 Investigation Merits, and 25,000 Dennies. Beyond six stars, the Polychrome rewards stop, but players can continue earning Investigation Merits and Dennies for reaching up to nine stars in total.

With Deadly Assault alternating biweekly with Shiyu Defense: Critical Node, maximizing rewards during its active period is essential. Polychromes remain one of the most valuable resources for progression, while Investigation Merits contribute to unlocking other endgame content. Players aiming for consistent high-star completions should focus on optimizing team compositions, understanding enemy mechanics, and refining their combat efficiency to maximize their rewards.

Reasons to Engage with Deadly Assault

Deadly Assault is designed for players who crave a high-stakes combat challenge, making it an ideal mode for testing skill, refining strategies, and pushing team compositions to their limits. If you enjoy overcoming the most difficult battles in the game, this mode provides an excellent opportunity to engage with high-level content that demands precision, adaptability, and mastery of mechanics.

Additionally, Deadly Assault serves as a proving ground for new characters or team synergies, allowing you to gauge their effectiveness in an endgame environment. If you’re looking to identify weaknesses in your squad, this mode’s difficulty will expose any shortcomings in your Agents’ builds, Drive Disc setups, or synergy. Fine-tuning your team composition here can significantly improve overall performance in other challenging content.

However, if your primary goal is to maximize efficiency in earning rewards, Shiyu Defense: Critical Node may be the better option. It offers a more structured difficulty curve, a wider variety of enemies, and generally more lucrative rewards. For players seeking progression resources rather than sheer challenge, focusing on Shiyu Defense might yield a smoother and more rewarding experience.