Buzz
Astra Yao is the first S-rank support character in Zenless Zone Zero, offering significant value to any player's team. In this article, let's explore the optimal Astra Yao build for Zenless Zone Zero 1.5, brought to you by Mytour!
Astra Yao, the singer character, is the latest S-rank addition to Zenless Zone Zero, debuting as a support character with the Ether element. However, this doesn't mean she's just a support for Zhu Yuan—Astra Yao is a valuable teammate for everyone in Zenless Zone Zero. Here, Mytour will share why she's highly rated and how to make the most of her abilities.
What can Astra Yao do in Zenless Zone Zero?
To answer this question, the best way is to list all the buffs Astra Yao provides to the team. At constellation level 0, Astra Yao already grants the team 1200 attack from her core passive, 20% damage and 25% crit damage from her combat skills, and 24% damage from her Astra Echo set. Additionally, if you have her W-Engine rank S, the entire team gains an extra 20% damage. Altogether, Astra Yao can buff the team with 64% damage, 1200 attack, and 25% crit damage. Not to mention her ability to quickly spam support and trigger follow-up attacks, which is extremely useful for various DPS characters in Zenless Zone Zero.
In addition to her massive buffs, Astra Yao is also the first healer in Zenless Zone Zero, allowing players to heal their team without relying on recovery points during battles. When using her ultimate, the singer can deal significant damage and heal 2950 HP for the entire team (at level 12), which is especially useful when climbing towers or facing tough bosses in Shiyu. This is a highly beneficial "insurance" feature that makes Astra Yao comparable to Caesar in terms of protecting her teammates. Furthermore, the next two quick supports will trigger follow-up attacks, benefiting DPS characters like Harumasa, Jane Doe, Soldier 11, and more.
But what about Astra Yao's own damage? She primarily contributes damage through the "Soundwave" and "Chord" effects found in her Moon Dance ability, as for most of the battle, Astra will remain on the sidelines in Free Solo mode, providing buffs to her allies. You won't need to worry about this unless you're willing to invest in leveling Astra to constellation 6, as that's when Astra Yao's damage truly becomes formidable.
How can you effectively use Astra Yao's skillset in Zenless Zone Zero? Despite the lengthy description, playing as Astra Yao is surprisingly easy. You only need to press the combat skill button once at the start of the match (even without energy) to activate Free Solo mode, allowing you to "forget" about her while still gaining all buffs. In this mode, Astra Yao cannot be hit, even though she will still be visible on the battlefield. Only when healing is needed will you need to switch to Astra Yao and use her ultimate, but players already familiar with enemy moves in Zenless Zone Zero will likely never need to use this feature.
It’s also worth mentioning Astra's Harmony, which lets players spam quick support abilities without restrictions. The mechanism works like this: for every 25 energy points, Astra receives 1 Harmony, with a maximum of 4 Harmonies. While in Free Solo mode, when a character on the field hits an enemy by any means, you can consume 1 Harmony (and 25 energy) to trigger a quick support every 3 seconds, with the added bonus that charged attacks can trigger this once per second. Some characters greatly benefit from Harmony— for example, Qingyi can bypass physical attacks, Neko gets a 60% damage buff, and Zhu Yuan gains additional bullets... You don't need to worry about energy consumption preventing Astra from using her Ultimate Skill because she doesn't even have one!
In short, when playing as Astra Yao, all you need to do is activate her Free Solo mode using her combat skill, ultimate, or follow-up attacks, then focus on using other DPS characters.
How should Astra be built?
The first thing to note when building Astra Yao is that you should aim to maximize attack, ideally reaching 3429 atk at scene 0 to provide the team with 1200 attack points. While this can be challenging without the W-Engine "charm", since Astra Yao doesn't require critical hit or Ether damage stats, you can easily reach 3000 atk by using attack discs. At this level, she'll provide a 1050 atk buff to the team, and losing around 150 attack points isn't a problem.
As a support character, Astra Yao doesn't necessarily need a rank S weapon to be highly effective. So, if you must choose between scene 1 and the W-Engine charm, the recommendation from Mytour is to pick M1. While W-Engine grants Astra more energy and a 20% damage boost for the team, M1 gives her 1000 Decibels, applies a debuff reducing the enemy's resistance to all attributes by 18% for 30 seconds, and adds an effect to her ultimate that makes teammates invincible.
When upgrading Astra Yao's skills, you should prioritize her combat skill and follow-up attacks, followed by support, evasion, and normal attacks.
Building Discs for Astra in Zenless Zone Zero
As mentioned by Mytour earlier, players should focus on maximizing attack. Therefore, when choosing the main stats, it’s best to use attack for positions 4, 5, and 6. Additionally, if you’re using Astra Yao in a team with Qingyi, Neko, Zhu Yuan (essentially characters who benefit from fast support), you can swap disk 6 for energy recovery. Once you reach scene 6, you can change disk 5 to Ether damage. The preferred sub-stats should be attack, critical hit or abnormal (depending on your team), and armor penetration.
The only disc set you should use for Astra right now is the 4-piece Astra Echo Set. It grants 10% attack and 24% damage for the entire team, making it an excellent fit. The remaining 2 discs can either be Jazz Groove if you want to spam Echo more frequently, or Punk Hormone if you aim to maximize Astra’s attack buffing capabilities.
Building W-Engine for Astra in Zenless Zone Zero
Here are the W-Engine items you can use for Astra:
- Fashionable Makeup Box: Naturally, this is the best choice for Astra, as it helps our singer recover energy and significantly boosts team damage without requiring any special conditions.
- Shy Demon Face S5: The best A-rank item for Astra. While you can’t use its ice damage increase effect, Astra Yao will constantly buff 12.8% attack for the team whenever using fast support.
- Kaboom Warrior Spirit S5: Another solid A-rank option for Astra due to its self-energy recovery stat and the 12% attack boost effect, but it requires constant switching between the other two characters. Astra herself can contribute a continuous 4% via her Soundwave damage.
- Treasure Chest S5: Nicole’s A-rank item is a good alternative if you need energy. Although its buff lasts only 2 seconds and requires players to keep Astra dealing damage to enemies, it provides nearly all the stats Astra needs.
- Timepiece S5: A free-to-play option for Astra Yao, granting her extra energy and helping teammates use their ultimate skills more often.
Summary of Astra Yao Build
Overall, Astra Yao is a straightforward character in Zenless Zone Zero, easy to play despite having a seemingly complex skill set. When you add her to your team, you gain a powerful support character and a healer who helps maintain the team's combat efficiency in the game's more challenging sections. We hope the tips shared by Mytour have helped you understand how to build Astra Yao in Zenless Zone Zero 1.5, and we look forward to seeing you in our next articles!
- Zenless Zone Zero 1.5 has enough content for you to recruit two S-tier characters
- New content for Zenless Zone Zero during Lunar New Year 2025
- What to prepare to upgrade Astra Yao and Evelyn in Zenless Zone Zero 1.5?
For the smoothest gaming experience in Zenless Zone Zero, players can check out the following top-quality gaming phone models:
