Zenless Zone Zero: Which Character Is More Worth Pulling? - Ellen Or Zhu Yuan

When entering Zenless Zone Zero, every player may want to know about Ellen and Zhu Yuan in Zenless Zone Zero.

Ellen is an S-Rank / 5-Star Ice Attack Character who excels at dealing a lot of ice damage to enemies and keeping up her Flash Freeze stacks. On the other hand, Zhu Yuan is an S-Rank / 5-Star Ether Attack Character who focuses on dealing a lot of Ether damage and excels at using her Shotshells stacks to deal more damage.

Today, we will cover Ellen and Zhu Yuan’s equipment, team examples, and whether they are worth using in Zenless Zone Zero. Let’s get straight to it!

Ellen

First, let’s take a look at Ellen. Ellen is an ice attack character who is a member of Victoria Housekeeping group. She excels at using her dash attacks to get Flash Freeze stacks, turning her physical basic attacks into ice basic attacks.

Ellen can stack up to 6 flash freeze stacks at a time, so you only need to use her charged dash attack twice to get the maximum stacks.

Ellen has a nice advantage in that her critical hit damage increases when she launches a charged scissor attack from the dash or consumes Flash Freeze stacks for a freeze basic attack. You can try to hone her high critical hit rate so that she can hit critical hits more often.

In addition, Ellen’s play style is fast-paced, especially when dashing, because when you hold or double-click her dash button, she will enter a roaming state, which will allow you to travel across the map or around enemies very quickly. And it is also very useful for positioning yourself, because you can move quickly and take advantage of her charged dash attacks.

As for Ellen’s ultimate ability, this will deal a lot of freeze damage to enemies. Ellen is a very strong ice damage dealer who can provide a fast-paced fight, and her Flash Freeze stacks have a long duration, which can be fully utilized to always deal ice damage with your basic attacks.

An added bonus to picking Ellen is that if you pair her with a character of the same faction or element in your Zenless Zone Zero Account, then whenever Ellen deals ice damage, it will increase the other person’s ice damage for a certain amount of time.

When it comes to which characters have the same faction or element, Victoria Housekeeping group consists of Rina, Lycaon, and Corin. And for the ice element, you have Soukaku and Von Lycaon. For a high-level ice team, Ellen, Lycaon, and Soukaku are a good choice.

Lycaon is very good at stunning enemies, which is a very valuable mechanic that you can use to immobilize enemies to deal more damage to them.

Soukaku provides a valuable buff as a support character, and she can also help enemies go to Ice Anomaly Buildup by attacking.

As for Ellen, she is, of course, the main damage dealer of the team, capable of dealing a lot of damage to enemies, especially with additional buffs and stunning.

Ice Anomaly will freeze enemies, preventing them from taking actions, and apply Shatter at the end of the effect, which deals a good amount of ice damage. The secondary effect of Ice Anomaly is Frostbite, which will increase the critical damage taken by enemies. Triggering Ice Anomaly will benefit Ellen in dealing more damage to enemies.

If you decide to add another elemental character to the team, they can help your own element build up an anomaly to trigger Disorder. Disorder refers to two Attribute Anomalies of different attributes occurring, which will cause a large amount of damage to the enemy.

Overall, Ellen will be a very strong ice damage dealer.

Zhu Yuan

Now let’s discuss Zhu Yuan. Zhu Yuan is an Ether Attack Character and is part of N.E.P.S faction. She is the only other Ether element character currently besides Nicole Demara.

Zhu Yuan has ranged attacks and some melee attacks with her skill kit, has great mobility, and focuses mainly on her Shotshells, as she will deal huge Ether damage by consuming Shotshells stacks.

Zhu Yuan’s basic attack combines physical and ether attacks. Her basic attack also has an Assault Mode and Suppressive Mode. Assault Mode will allow her to gain Shotshells, while Suppressive Mode will consume Shotshells. In Suppressive Mode, she will consume a stack of Shotshells when launching an attack, which will deal huge Ether damage after consumption.

Her dash attack can also consume a stack of Shotshells to deal huge ether damage. As for ways to gain more Shotshells stacks besides basic attacks, she can gain them through her special attacks, chain attacks, auxiliary follow-up attacks, and ultimate skills. She has many ways to gain Shotshells stacks.

Of course, besides dealing nice ether damage when consuming stacks, Zhu Yuan can also deal extra damage when starting a Suppressive Mode. The damage is further increased when attacking stunned enemies.

As for the additional benefits of choosing Zhu Yuan, when she is paired with someone of the same attribute or faction, her critical hit rate will increase after using a special attack, ultimate skill, or chain attack.

However, when it comes to having someone of the same faction or attribute, Zhu Yuan now has only one choice, and that is Nicole. However, the good news is that Nicole is free and a very good support character.

Therefore, you can definitely make F2P team with Zhu Yuan. You can choose Anby as your stun character, which is also a faction that matches Nicole. And Nicole as Zhu Yuan’s support to fill the ether attribute condition, Zhu Yuan as your main damage dealer. This is an excellent choice for all free to play players.

Overall, Zhu Yuan will also provide a fast-paced combat style with more ranged attacks, and have a pretty good F2P team that you can use right away.

Analyzing The Future Potential Of Ellen And Zhu Yuan

Speaking of the value of Ellen and Zhu Yuan, both characters are good choices, but I want to talk about some important aspects of their future potential.

Ellen’s current faction is already quite full, and unless we get more Victoria Housekeeping characters, Ellen already has potential partners in faction.

In terms of attributes, the ice characters that can be released in the future may help Ellen or compete with Ellen. In closed beta 1, an ice character named Hoshimi Miyabi was shown. We are not quite sure when she will be released, but she may become a rival to Ellen in the future.

As for Zhu Yuan’s situation, her faction is actually not fully fleshed out yet. We did get some hints of characters that will join her faction, but we don’t actually know what they will do. So Zhu Yuan may get stronger synergies in the future, thus improving her future value.

However, if you end up getting Von Lycaon from the discounted standard banner, then this improves the value of choosing Ellen. Because you will have one of her best partners who can help you with amazing abilities, this ice team will be very powerful.

Overall, in the future value scenario, I think Zhu Yuan has more future synergies and advantages in comparison, but it also ultimately depends on which play style you prefer between the two.

Either way, honestly, both are sound choices for your account. But I will say that if you decide to skip Ellen, I recommend waiting until near the end of Patch 1.0 to look at the potential characters in Patch 1.1, as they may actually be more interesting to you compared to Patch 1.0 lineup.

Personally, I really liked how Ellen played in the previous beta, so I’m more interested in Ellen. So which one would you like to get the most from Ellen or Zhu Yuan, or is there a chance you’d skip? Hope to see you guys next time!