Zenless Zone Zero players play as Belle or Wise but a good case can be made that Nicole is ZZZ’s true mascot; here’s the best way to build her.
HoYoverse games are not particularly generous when it comes to free characters. The majority of them are locked to limited-time banners. Readily available characters and those given to players for free are scarce and tend to be underwhelming in battle.
Nicole might end up going down as one of the biggest exceptions. The leader of the Cunning Hares is one of the most versatile characters in the game and fits into a wide variety of team compositions. Assuming, of course, that ZZZ players give Nicole a proper build including the right Drive Discs and W-Engine.
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How to play Nicole in Zenless Zone Zero
Nicole is an ether-support character with multiple options that make her viable on a variety of different teams, against various types of enemies.
Nicole’s primary means of contributing to fights is lowering the defense of enemies with her core passive. This can be upgraded further by having Nicole alongside other Cunning Hares, or by putting her alongside other ether agents. When this is activated, she adds the Hare of Many Burrows passive, which increases all ether damage on enemies affected by the defensive debuff.
The trouble with this ability is that it lasts for just a short duration; just 3.5 seconds after she lands a basic attack. Players can work around this to some degree with Mindscapes or her signature W-Engine.
Though Nicole’s ability is powerful, there’s no build, W-Engine, or Drive Disc set in ZZZ that can turn her into a viable DPS option. That means Nicole is locked into a supporting role.
Best Drive Disc build for Nicole in ZZZ
Nicole’s best Drive Disc set is four-piece Swing Jazz with two-piece Chaotic Metal, Chaos Jazz or Freedom Blues.
While there are a few different ways to build Nicole, the discussion should start with a four-piece Swing Jazz Drive Disc set. The combination of 20% energy regen and a damage boost after chain attacks and ultimates makes it so Nicole can regularly contribute major buffs to her DPS. This is especially the case if players can get to Mindscape 6. Players have a few options for the two-piece, depending on their main DPS.
Extra damage with four-piece Swing Jazz, two-piece Chaotic Metal
This is the default option, though it’s not necessarily the best one. Two-piece Chaotic Metal gives Nicole a modest boost to her ether damage alongside the boosts to her chain attacks with four-piece Swing Jazz. While more ether damage is nice, especially when Nicole can basically spam her EX special after a point, other stat boosts may be more impactful.
Extra anomaly buildup with four-piece Swing Jazz, two-piece Chaos Jazz or Freedom Blues
Two-piece Freedom Blues and Chaos Jazz both offer the same thing; a flat +30 anomaly proficiency boost. This is particularly useful when pairing Nicole alongside Zhu Yuan, as it makes it so her regular EX specials can contribute more corruption buildup.
Best W-Engines for Nicole
The Vault is decisively the best W-Engine to give Nicole. Signature W-Engines are typically the best to give to an agent, but the difference between The Vault and every other option is stark. While options like Soldier 11’s The Brimstone are hypothetically useful on any attack agent, The Vault is meticulously designed to work with Nicole.
Other options are workable, of course. But there’s no excuse for choosing anything over The Vault when building out Nicole in Zenless Zone Zero.
The Vault
Nicole’s signature W-Engine increases her off-field impact and boosts her energy regen on two fronts. The Vault offers loads of energy regen which combines with four-piece Swing Jazz to let her regularly use her EX special attack. The W-Engine then makes this move even more powerful by increasing incoming damage to enemies hit by the move and boosting Nicole’s energy regen even more. This W-Engine is central to any build and is key to keeping Nicole as a viable support option in ZZZ.
Slice of Time
Cutting through the technobabble of the Slice of Time’s description, the W-Engine basically makes ultimates charge faster and gives the equipper more energy regen. Nicole actively builds for plenty of the latter. As for the former, this helps teams, but not more than what’s offered by The Vault.
Best ZZZ team compositions for Nicole
Nicole is a strong support option for a few different teams, most notably the all-Cunning Hares squad and those with Zhu Yuan as the primary DPS.
Assuming players go with a proper support build on Nicole, she stands as an excellent flex option for many teams. If players have two solid heroes with the same faction or attribute, with one of them being a viable DPS, Nicole can be plugged in as the third. A few compositions are more notable than others, though. Here are the best options available:
Free-to-play all-stars: Nicole, Anby, Billy/Nekomata (Amillion)
The default squad of Zenless Zone Zero is Nicole, Anby, and Billy. Pairing the trio with Amillion gives them a major boost, and picking up Nekomata as a replacement for Billy makes the group even stronger.

This squad isn’t particularly strong. As HoYoverse players know, a stack of free-to-play characters isn’t going to hold up especially well in the meta. Still, this squad can do work and works well in any style of fight.
Zhu Yuan tag-team: Nicole, Zhu Yuan, Anby/Qingyi (Amillion/Officer Cui)
As an ether DPS, Zhu Yuan works very well together with Nicole. There are a few different options for rounding out the team that make sense
Anby fits in just fine alongside Nicole, and having Nicole and Anby together lets Amillion work its magic. Qingyi is the superior electric stunner, though. Combining Qingyi and Zhu Yuan lets players use Officer Cui, one of Zenless Zone Zero’s best Bangboos. While it’s a bit of a whale team, a team with properly built Nicole, Zhu Yuan, and Qingyi is one of the strongest in ZZZ.

Cunning Hares, but better: Nicole, Seth, Jane Doe (Officer Cui)
Jane Doe invalidated all other physical DPS options upon release and she came packaged alongside Seth, a defense agent she has extreme synergy with. The team is fully optimized with a support that doesn’t need much field time. Enter Nicole.
With a build for maximum energy regen, Nicole’s combo of ally buffs and enemy debuffs works extremely well with Jane Doe and Seth. This can help set up the massive seven-figure critical hit assault procs that Jane is designed for.