ZZZ Skill Priority — Which Skills to Level First by Role | Zenless Zone Zero

Every Agent has 5 combat skills you level individually with chips: Basic Attack, Dodge, Assist, Special Attack and Chain Attack. On top of that sits the Core Skill (Core Passive), which levels on a letter scale A→F using entirely different materials.

You won't have the resources to max everything, so you have to prioritize. The five combat skills cap at level 12 for most Agents (a few, like Anton, reach 14), and each promotion (ascension) unlocks a higher skill cap — up to 5 promotions and Agent level 60.

Your whole account should invest in this order: Agent level > W-Engine > Skills (the W-Engine is the Agent's weapon). Within skills, follow this sequence for every key Agent:

• Push the Core Skill to C first — it's usually the biggest damage/effect chunk, and it uses Expert Challenge materials (a boss mode) you have spare.
• Take Special Attack and Basic Attack to level 7, then stop. Level 8 onward is where pricey Specialized chips kick in — the 8→12 stretch of a single skill alone eats roughly 50 Specialized chips — so it's far more efficient to bring several Agents to 7 before pushing one to 12.
• Save Dodge and Assist for last — they add almost no damage.

An Attack (Tiên Phong) Agent is your primary damage source and stays on field the most, so this is the unit most worth investing in. Level Basic Attack, Special Attack and the Core Skill — most of their damage combo comes from these three. If the Agent finishes rotations with Chain Attacks/Ultimate a lot, add Chain Attack too.

This is the one Agent worth pushing to level 12 (rather than stopping at 7), once the Core Skill and W-Engine are handled. To see exactly where your levels sit, open any Agent's build through gamevika's UID lookup tool.

A Stun (Khống Chế) Agent builds the daze bar to trigger the Stun window. Daze buildup does scale with skill level, so prioritize the Core Skill and Special Attack, adding Basic Attack if they daze mainly through basics. Many Stun units value the Core Skill even above Special.

A Rupture (Mệnh Phá) Agent — the newer role — plays like a half-DPS: put Special Attack + Core Skill first, Basic after. For both roles, taking skills to level 7 and stopping is plenty for most content.

The Anomaly (Dị Thường) role is special: their biggest damage source is the attribute anomaly itself (Burn, Shatter, Shock, etc.). That anomaly damage scales with the Agent's level and Anomaly Proficiency, NOT with skill level. To be precise: higher skill levels still make the anomaly build up a little faster, they just don't increase the damage of the anomaly proc itself — so leveling their skills returns less than it does for other roles.

For an Anomaly Agent, funnel resources into the Core Skill and Special Attack (usually their anomaly trigger) and keep Basic Attack low. The real priority is Drive Discs and Anomaly Proficiency — check your disc stats with gamevika's Drive Disc scorer.

Support (Chi Viện) and Defense (Thủ Hộ) Agents spend only a few seconds on field per rotation, so their Basic Attack is nearly useless. Their value is buffs/shields/healing, which scale off Special Attack and the Core Skill.

So keep Basic Attack at level 1-3 and pour everything into Special Attack + Core Skill. Maxing a Support's Basic Attack to 12 burns roughly 50 Specialized chips — the scarcest chip tier — plus a Hamster Cage Pass and a big pile of Dennies, for almost no team-damage gain. Those Specialized chips go much further funding Special + Core on other supports.

The 5 combat skills need Skill Enhancement Chips matching the Agent's attribute (Ice, Electric, Ether, Fire, Physical), in three tiers — Basic → Advanced → Specialized — plus Dennies. Farm them mainly in Combat Simulation (Agent Skill mode) at the HIA, which costs Battery Charge. You can craft up: 3 Basic + 100 Dennies = 1 Advanced; 3 Advanced + 300 Dennies = 1 Specialized. Fully leveling ONE skill from 1 to 12 costs roughly 5 Basic + 15 Advanced + 50 Specialized chips plus Dennies, and the final step to level 12 also needs 1 Hamster Cage Pass. All 50 Specialized chips fall in the 8→12 stretch — which is exactly why stopping at level 7 saves so much.

The Core Skill is different: it levels with Dennies + boss materials from Expert Challenge and Notorious Hunt — no chips. That's why the Core Skill is often easy to raise, since you tend to have those materials to spare.