Zas M21

Overview

Zas is an AR built around being a support for the other DPS units in her formation, leaving her with an overall good statline. Her Skill, Howl of the Nightingale, launches a grenade that deals a small amount of damage in a large sized AOE, and then either debuffs enemies or buffs her own Damage depending on how many enemies the grenade hits. This Skill is much, much better when it applies debuffs, as neither the raw grenade damage nor the Damage increase are comparable to others of Zas’ class. When used properly, this grenade allows her team to decimate a large group of enemies in a shorter amount of time. Finally, while her buff tiles aren’t the best among 5 star ARs, the Evasion boost she offers to SMGs is useful to dodge or offtanks. Overall, when used to support other ARs from tile 4, Zas is a good addition to general purpose AR teams.

Strengths

Good Debuff

• Zas’ debuff is brought on when her grenade hits multiple targets, causing them to take more damage from all sources. This results in an exceptional DPS increase from her and others in her formation.

Decent Buff Tiles

• Zas buffs Evasion and ROF for SMGs. While the ROF boost isn’t particularly useful due to SMGs already firing quickly, the extra EVA can give dodge or  offtanks a some extra survivability in battle.

Fast Grenade

• Zas’ grenade has a shorter Initial Cooldown and deals less damage when compared to other 5 star and 4 star ARs, however it has a special animation that makes it impact near instantly, making Zas great for shorter battles.

Full Analysis

Zas has good stats. Her 55 Damage, 74 RoF, and 48 Accuracy allow her grenade to pack a decent punch, and utilize the second portion of her skill properly.

Zas’ Skill, Howl of the Nightingale, is really the feature that makes her an interesting unit. It launches a grenade that does 300% her Damage in a 2.5 unit AOE, featuring an Initial Cooldown of 4 seconds and a Cooldown of 16 seconds. If this was all Zas’ Skill did, it would be downright weak compared to other grenades, but fortunately it does has some additional effects that are contingent on how many enemies the grenade effects. If it hits less than 3 enemies, Zas will receive a 60% Damage increase, which, again, is nothing stellar -- but considering the upfront burst her grenade deals, it adds up to a very strong Skill with consistent Damage. If it hits 3 or more enemies, all the damage they take (from all your units) will be amplified by 15% for 3 seconds. While this may seem like a short time period, with timely Skill activations this can prove devastating to any afflicted foes.

Zas’ buff tiles, while definitely not the best in her rarity, are still somewhat useful, giving a 15% Evasion and 12% ROF buff to SMGs While the ROF buff isn’t particularly useful except when using SR-3MP, the Evasion buff is useful for dodge tanks and is one of the better Evasion buffs among 5 star ARs. Unfortunately, the tile’s positioning only allows her to realistically buff one SMG, but at the very least it allows her to be placed anywhere in the backline and still buff the main tank or offtank.

Overall, Zas possesses good potential when she’s used to fill the role of DPS support, so it’s best not to build an Echelon specifically around her --using her to purely be a damage dealer in a formation is unwise since there are many ARs that have quicker Skill activations for their Damage increase, or have higher Damage grenade.

Team Options

Vector

ST AR-15 (Star)

OTs-14

Gr G11

Type97

SR-3MP

ARs with Good DPS: To make good use of Zas’ support potential, it’s best to pair her with ARs who easily and effectively fill a DPS role. Examples of these include G11, G41, OTs-14, AR-15 and Type97..

SMGs with a DPS Focus: While not necessary, one can take additional advantage of Zas’ utility by bringing along a DPS focused SMG. SR-3MP, Vector, and Skorpion are examples of such SMGs.

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