Ellen Joe Guide and Best Builds

Ellen Joe Guide & Best Builds

Welcome to our Ellen build guide for Zenless Zone Zero. Ellen Joe is a powerful S-Rank Ice DPS Agent known for her fast mobility and offensive output. In our guide, we'll cover everything you need to know to get the most out of your Ellen Joe, from building the best Drive Discs and W-Engines to important stat priorities and combos.

Ellen Joe's Best W-Engines

Listed below are Ellen's best W-Engines. While W-Engines are listed in a priority order, what's best to build on your Ellen can vary slightly depending on your team composition.

Deep Sea Visitor

Lord of Seas
Increases Ice DMG by 25/31.5/38/44.5/50%. Upon hitting an enemy with a Basic Attack, the equipper's CRIT Rate increases by 10/12.5/15/17.5/20% for 8s. When dealing Ice DMG with a Dash Attack, the equipper's CRIT Rate increases by an additional 10/12.5/15/17.5/20% for 15s. The duration of each effect is calculated separately.

Myriad Eclipse

False Personas
Increases CRIT DMG by 45/51.75/58.5/65.25/72%. When using an EX Special Attack, Chain Attack, or Ultimate to deal Ice DMG, the equipper gains the Absolute Zero Death Sentence effect for 3s. While Absolute Zero Death Sentence is active, the character ignores 25/28.75/32.5/36.25/40% of the enemy's DEF when landing a hit.

Additional S-Rank W-Engines

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Marcato Desire

Get Everyone Fired Up
When an EX Special Attack or Chain Attack hits an enemy, the equipper's ATK increases by 6/6.9/7.8/8.7/9.6% for 8s. While the target is under an Attribute Anomaly, this effect is increased by an additional 6/6.9/7.8/8.7/9.6%.

Cannon Rotor

Oversized Barrel
Increases ATK by 7.5/8.6/9.7/10.8/12%. Landing a critical hit on an enemy will inflict an additional 200% of ATK as DMG. This effect can trigger once every 8/7.5/7/6.5/6s.

Additional A-Rank W-Engines

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Best Drive Discs for Ellen Joe

Woodpecker Electro

2-Piece Set: CRIT Rate +8%
4-Piece Set: Landing a critical hit on an enemy with a Basic Attack, Dodge Counter, or EX Special Attack increases the equipper's ATK by 9% for 6s. The buff duration for different skills are calculated separately.

Polar Metal

2-Piece Set: Ice DMG +10%
4-Piece Set: Increase the DMG of Basic Attack and Dash Attack by 20%. When any squad member inflicts Freeze or Shatter, this effect increases by an additional 20% for 12s.

Puffer Electro

2-Piece Set: PEN Ratio +8%
4-Piece Set: Ultimate DMG increases by 20%. Launching an Ultimate increases the equipper's ATK by 15% for 12s.

Ellen Joe's Stat Priority

Generally speaking when building Ellen, CRIT Rate is the most important while aiming to get as close to 100% as possible. Don't forget however that some W-Engines such as Deep Sea Visitor provide some additional CRIT Rate which will not be displayed out of combat.

PEN is generally the best Disc 5 option when using Ellen's newer teammates such as Astra Yao and Lighter but the value of PEN does diminish with other team compositions.

Ellen Joe's Skill Priority

Ellen's most important skills to level are her Core Skill, Basic Attack, Ultimate and EX Special Attacks.

How to Play Ellen Joe

Ellen's gameplay revolves around gaining and spending Flash Freeze Charges to deal massive damage.

Ellen can enter the Roaming state when holding/double pressing Dodge or when performing a Quick Assist. While in the Roaming state, Ellen can perform a held Dash Attack: Arctic Ambush as a Dash Attack. This allows her to deal Ice DMG and gain Flash Freeze Charges.

What are Flash Freeze Charges?

Flash Freeze Charges are a mechanic unique to Ellen. They are shown under Ellen's HP and have a max stack of 6. These can be gained and spent in several ways:

The Flash Freeze state is active whenever Ellen has Charges. This is also indicated by her weapon having an Ice effect.

Ellen Joe's Combos

Ellen's default combo is the following:

• Dash Attack: Arctic Ambush (hold)
• Basic Attack: Glacial Blade Wave
• Basic Attack: Flash Freeze Trimming
• Basic Attack: Icy Blade

This both generates and spends 3 Flash Freeze charges because Ellen's Dash Attack can chain directly into Glacial Blade Wave. Ellen's Dash Attack requires you to be in the Roaming state which can either be entered manually, through a Perfect Dodge or through a Quick Assist. This combo can also be extended on further using Ellen's EX Special: Tailswipe into another Basic and Icy Blade for as long as you have energy. That being said the animation for Icy Blade is long as you should swap to other Agents.

Ellen's stun combo is a little more complicated however and does want you to manually cancel your chain attack to go into an EX Tailswipe and EX Sharknami at the beginning of the stun.

Ellen Joe's Best Mindscapes

Ellen's Mindscapes have not stood the test of time, often providing much smaller damage gains compared to more recently released characters. This means that you will generally see a much larger performance increase by investing further into Ellen's best supports.

That being said, if you do want to invest directly into your Ellen then M1 and M3 are still decent power upgrades. M2 does not bring too much in the way of direct damage increases, however the increased AoE can be great depending on the content.

Ellen Joe's Best Teams

To learn all about Ellen Joe's synergies and best team compositions, check our dedicated Ellen Joe team page below:

Changelog