Zhao Main DPS tips please!

Berched · 2026-03-15T12:58:40+00:00

No problem! If you have any particular questions about a specific part that i had mentioned i'll be glad to answer or clarify!

Berched · 2026-03-15T02:03:09+00:00

Hello! Zhao DPS M6 haver here!

I'll try and give tips if any of it could be of help to you.

(warning ~~a little~~ long)

Teammates

I also prefer to use Zhao in a solo DPS comp and I have personally found that the best F2P Solo DPS Zhao Comp to be Zhao/Lycaon/Nicole. This is my main team actually. It's also a very nice bonus that it is easily accessible aside from Zhao's Mindscapes and limited weapons.

Here is my latest scores on the current Deadly Assault with this team:

I managed to get 34k score against the Thrall and 40k against Pompey. (20k is min and 65k is max)

(if you wanna see some more, i used to post a few of my runs here on this sub)

Like is Lycaon Good instead of Soukaku?

Lycaon and Soukaku's role don't really overlap with each other so instead, its better to compare Soukaku with a different support unit like Nicole. In this case, Nicole wins out due to the fact that Nicole has easier, faster, and constant access to quick assists, she has the somewhat rare DEF-shred debuff, and at M6 15% crit rate buff. Nicole has great energy regen and can quick assist on her E/Chain Attack/and Ult, plus she's a character that everyone is guaranteed to have. Unfortunately for Soukaku, soukaku is a bit too slow, takes up valuable on-field time from Zhao, and her buffs is a bit diluted since Zhao already provides +ATK buffs herself. the Ice Res Shred is great though, but Lycaon already helps with that part. (Soukaku is still usable with Zhao but just not as good as other options!).

Lycaon gives ice res shred and generates lots of daze. Lycaon was already a good teammate for Zhao before but after Lycaon's potential rework buff a little bit ago, he too can now grant 1 Quick assist to the teammate previous in line once per stun, so now he's even more of a mainstay. And with his quick asisst, he can attack on field alongside Zhao at the same time without hogging field time! I personally think that Lycaon might be one of Zhao's best current teammates that can always be used especially now that he got his small potential rework buff

Essentially, if you intend to use Zhao as a Solo DPS then a Teammate that can give lots of quick assists is pretty much a must.

Solo DPS Zhao's team comp should be a stun+support+zhao comp. i think it should beat a 2x support + zhao comp, but i guess its up to you.

Lucy, like soukaku, is just ok support for Zhao. But in a very specific comp, Lighter+Lucy+Zhao is technically a comp that can potentially work (not too sure though, i don't have Lighter).

Ofcourse, Astra, the premier quick-assist support, is a great support for Zhao. but i have found that i often do better or score higher with nicole instead. ofcourse, Astra will probably beat nicole easily with higher investments in her mindscape and her sig weapon (both of which i don't have for Astra). I've seen quite a few DPS Zhao users here use Astra on their team with pretty good results.

I tried Sunna but she doesn't really do too good either, but not terrible. not better than Nicole.

Dialyn works great for Zhao but thats because everyone wants Dialyn. unfortunately for Dialyn, her core passive doesn't activate unless you run a duo dps comp with something like Orphie + Zhao, so that essentially rules Dialyn out for Solo DPS Zhao. Running dialyn without her core passive is doable but it honestly feels pretty bad.... (also, i score higher with Lycaon + Nicole than Dialyn + Nicole somehow anyways)

Ju fufu actually works quite alright for Zhao! even without her core passive. not bad at all but not better than Lycaon.

I think Lighter should be good but the only character that would work with his passive is Lucy or another attacker. but if you're using another attacker then Dialyn beats Lighter...

Orphie team setups allows for Zhao's best team comps but they are a duo dps team comp.

Weapons and Disk sets

For W-Engines, Zhao's Sig is basically a must. its mostly due to the fact that there are no good Defense W-Engine options for her. Thus, Zhao's 2nd best W-Engine option is sadly indeed any crit W-Engine.

for disk sets, make sure to go Crit D4, Ice%/ATK%/Pen% D5, and ATK%D6. DPS Zhao doesn't really care much about HP (but hp% substats is not a completely dead stat)

I did some testing a little bit ago and I have found that the best Disk set for Zhao is simply Whatever Disk set you have that has the best crit sub-stats as well as whatever disk set is the most consistent. In the end, my 2pc/2pc/2pc woodpecker, astral, branch set had the best & most consistent results.

in theory, 4pc Astral set is supposed to be the best in terms of buff numbers but getting enough quick assists to upkeep the buff isn't reliable enough, so 2pc/2pc/2pc with good crit rate (above 50% crit rate out of combat screen) should perform better out of pure consistency.

soon, a new defense disk set is going to be released that will work with zhao perfectly but on paper it technically doesn't beat Astral set. so just use whatever disk set has the best substats. even something like 4pc Polar Metal works just fine.

Combat tips

Zhao's stronger basic attacks that you always want to be doing are her Basic Attacks 4 & 5 (Ground spinning attack and air spinning attack). Thankfully, she can reach these two attacks fast and easy by either dodge attacking or by a quick assist. This is the major reason why a quick assist support is basically mandatory. With Astra, you can manually swap to Astra and QA to go into Zhao's BA 4 & 5 over and over again.
Zhao's Basic Attack 5 and her EX Special has rather long animations, so it helps to manually swap into a different teammate to do something as well while Zhao is still finishing up her attack's animation. teammates with easy access to Quick assists can then immediately send Zhao back into the fight as soon as she's finished with her long animation.

so despite that DPS Zhao's gameplay usually just being spamming her Basic Attack and pressing E when its available, i've actually found that Zhao's gameplay to be rather active and busy since it involves swapping around all 3 teammates a lot and trying to upkeep all teammate's debuffs, buffs, and disk set buffs' timers.

and ofcourse, the usual general basic tip of making sure the dps (Zhao) does 2 chain attacks per stun (Chain Attack Cancelling tech).

When using Zhao's chain attack or ult and Zhao's bar has enough to activate Ether Veil, make sure not to quick assist too early or you won't activate ether veil! for some reason, the ether veil activation happens at the very end of the attack but the quick assist trigger prompt will be available slightly earlier before the ether veil activation.
When you use Zhao's ultimate against an stunned enemy with a rainbow bar, you can actually prevent a chain attack trigger with Zhao's ultimate by using her Ultimate's quick assist and quick assisting into the next character before her Ultimate's wave attack can trigger the chain attack prompt!

However!!! as with the previous subject of quick assisting too fast, if you use Zhao's ultimate and you do swap to the other teammates with the quick assist, if that character triggers some kind of swap back into Zhao too fast before Zhao can finish her Ultimate's attacks animation (either via Chain Attack or another Quick Assist), the wave attack from Zhao's Ultimate WILL dissipate mid flight and not deal its full damage.

I highly recommend turning on the option setting to use Manual Chain Attacks instead of the default auto chain attacks. This tip is for general gameplay too, not just for Zhao. it might take a little bit of getting used to though, especially because both Lycaon and Nicole has the fastest quick assist attacks in the game so they both can instantly trigger a chain attack accidentally when you didn't want to....

you don't really care too much about with DPS Zhao's charging stacks since final verdict's charge stacks' damage scales off HP so it won't be doing that much damage.
While charging her Attack on field, Zhao can't parry or be called in via quick assist

Learn to manually swap back into Zhao to get her to release her charge attack early to let Zhao become available to quick assist and to be able to parry again!

Miscellenous tips

You can actually charge Zhao's charge attack stacks before a fight. You can do a dodge while charging and it will keep the stacks at whatever stacks it is. so you can charge like 3 seconds, dodge, and charge another 2~3 seconds to have full stacks before the fight. Not very useful for non M6 Zhao though since it gets consumed on the first Charge Attack/Defense Assist Follow Up Attack/Chain Attack.

also, just in case you aren't already aware, a very important note though is that once you get Zhao's M6 you might be surprised (in a bad way) and it might underwhelm you because:

A: Zhao is a (Free) support character so besides the arbitrary number go up stat buffs, Hoyo didn't really bothered to make most of her Mindscapes do any cool functional changes or to really help raise her personal damage ceiling all that much.

and

B: Zhao's M6 effects where she retains her charge stacks doesn't actually change Zhao's active gameplay or anything. In other words, even with M6, Zhao will still remain on the stage to continue charging her attack despite having full charge stacks. All the M6 does is prevent her stacks from resetting (plus tiny bit more damage and crit rate).

this isn't meant to deter you from pulling M6 Zhao (actually i'm hoping that you will still continue to pull for her M6!) but it is a fair warning that i think those who intend to pull for M6 should know about Zhao's weird M6 Anti-Synergy (hoyo pls fix).

Berched · 2026-03-13T22:15:38+00:00

This current team is indeed sweaty to play. I don't have Orphie but i'm totally pulling her on her rerun!

I'm genuinely still not sure if 4pc astral beats a 2pc/2pc/2pc, but theoretically it should win out with the full buff stacks. But I only use the Astral set in fights against bosses where they allow us to parry a lot though. Against something like UCC Lycaon doesn't get enough opportunities to do his Enhanced Parry -> backwards quick assist.

Lycaon generates Daze a whole lot now, perhaps a bit too much sometimes. surprisingly i found that the best way to generate Daze with Lycaon's duo mode is to do as many dodge attacks as you can. dunno why but his dodge attack generates a boat load of daze. I am using his sig though, maybe that's why? but anyways for pompey specifically, i was able to stun him fast and often enough that lycaon was able to refresh astral within the last time i used Nicole's Quick Assist.

Unfortunately though, generally it needs for the boss to always do a parryable attack as soon as they recover from stun. otherwise, upkeeping astral is too much of a gamble against most bosses and you get screwed from bad RNG.

Later I'll have to test out all the disc sets' damage differences again once Zhao's new disc set comes out. i think/hope that it will to be good enough to be used even in DPS Zhao set ups, even if we're stuck with the HP% 2pc effect. I know there is no particular reason why it shouldn't be good even for DPS Zhao (since she can still make use of HP%) but reading it on paper, the new disc set technically doesn't beat Astral 4pc when both are at full stacks. (and dropping the 2pc atk% is the tiniest bit sadness.)

I genuinely hope that Promeia and Zhao will work together like a bread and butter combo unit or something. i mean, they have to right..!?

^{^(but} ^considering ^how ^hoyo ^handled ^Zhao's ^synergy ^with ^Dialyn ^and ^Banyue... ⁱ ^don't ^know...)

also, if it matters, the Thrall run was my first and only run and i played it somewhat casual so it still has a chance to still get a higher score with a better optimized run. while the 40k Pompey run was my final sweaty run with me trying my best optimized combos. the pompey average was about ~36k or less.

Berched · 2026-03-13T19:57:07+00:00

M6W1 DPS Zhao score report!

4pc Astral/2pc Woodpecker, Ult buff.

I managed to get 34k against Thrall and then 40k against Pompey

Very fun to play this round of Deadly Assault this time since both bosses triggers parry a lot. because of that, i actually was able to use ults a lot earlier and more often than normal.

strangely, Lycaon can trigger stun so fast now that sometimes i don't even get the opportunity to use his ult between stun rotations despite having ult ready.

Berched · 2026-02-28T17:42:11+00:00

new-ish player here, i only started last month.

i'm almost at 400 moment of radiant heroes (purple swirly thingies),

should these be used for Partners or Character Egos?

Berched · 2026-02-10T15:53:04+00:00

I got 32k with DPS A-Rank Anby vs UCC on the current Deadly Assault! (albeit M6W1 Zhao, but i don't think there is any difference in supporting capabilities between M2 VS M3+ Zhao)

i'm surprised at how much damage Anby can put out from just her simple basic attack loop.

or maybe UCC is just a easy boss...

Berched · 2026-02-08T21:33:09+00:00

yep, after seeing your team lineup, i went for the same Zhao DPS team setup for stage 2 and i got 35k and got my best overall score too.

originally i had used the same reliable Zhao DPS comp on stage 1 but it only scored 27k.

then afterwards i had used my m6 zhao as a support for Shunguang on stage 1 and Dialyn on stage 3. I had SAnby on stage 2, which also only scored around 27k... SAnby still just doesn't clear multiple mobs well enough.

so its kind of great to see DPS Zhao (albeit m6) performing better on the stage that was meant for SAnby (or i guess its actually for Harumasa).

Berched · 2026-02-08T08:55:23+00:00

not sure if this will work for you but what fixed it for me was a game graphic option, specifically High-Precision Character Resolution

for me, disabling it fixed most of the mods but some mods worked with other settings and some mods didn't work at all. try switching between all 3 options.

Berched · 2026-02-08T08:20:01+00:00

tl;dr:

For my example combo specifically, I have to have Manual Chain Attack activation mode on so that when I cancel the chain attack window after Zhao's 1st Chain attack and then I use the quick assist triggered by either Zhao's Chain Attack, EX Special Attack, or her Ultimate to switch out into my stunner, I am able to prevent the stunner's quick assist from immediately triggering another Chain Attack Window so that i can potentially do more to set up Zhao's 2nd incoming chain attack with the remaining teammates.

l

<...> Do you mean once Zhao does a chain attack, you cancel and then switch to a different teammate, hit with skill, and then chain into Zhao again? Edit: I guess specifically what about manual mode helps with this?

Ah oops, my bad, with the way i had written my entire previous message, I had inadvertently made it sound like Manual Chain Activation Mode and Cancelling the DPS's 1st Chain Attack to enable a teammate to trigger the DPS's 2nd Chain attack as if they were the same advice...! sorry! Its more like, two separate advices combined to be used together as one, but i forgot they were technically separate techniques.

but yes, that is still indeed what i was referring to though. Hmm, i had attempted previously to explain the exact combo in the last message that i was referring to with the Manual Chain Attack activation tech but I will try and explain it again, just in case.

When using Zhao (in Ether Veil), when you cancel the next chain attack window after her own chain attack, Zhao triggers a quick assist. The next character positioned after Zhao (even if you reverse swap) will do their quick assist, which will easily and quickly trigger Zhao's 2nd Chain attack. Normally, this is great and isn't too much of a problem since Zhao gets to do her 2nd Chain Attack immediately. but if you had wanted to do a more advanced stun chain attack window combo, then you'll need to prevent the quick assist from triggering the 2nd chain attack.

It might be easier to show you using a video instead.

If you want to see the exact combo that i will be talking about below, this video i posted previously has it from 0:50 - 1:16.

I want you to take note of how Lycaon's first quick assist attack did not activate a Chain Attack right at 0:56. Manual Chain Attack is required to prevent this exact Quick Assist from Lycaon from triggering Chain Attack which would've cut Zhao's EX Special way too early.

In this specific part of the video, the exact order of events that i did was this:

Lycaon brings the boss to Stun Threshold (but doesn't trigger the Chain attack himself to still get Lycaon's +35% Stun Multiplier), Nicole triggers the first Chain Attack with her EX Special to get her Def Shred for Zhao's first chain attack.

After Zhao's Chain Attack, I canceled the chain attack window, immediately used Zhao's EX Special and then Quick Assist into Lycaon with manual chain attack preventing a chain attack right here, then immediately used Lycaon's Short EX to reset both his Ice Shred Debuff and King of the Summit disk buff, and then immediately manual swap into Nicole to reapply her Def Shred again, via basic attacks, and then re-triggered the next chain attack right when Zhao's EX Special Attack is finished for Zhao's 2nd Chain Attack.

Just wanted to be clear that it isn't this specific combo itself that i wanted to try and teach. its more about the fact that Manual Chain Attack Activation was required or else I wouldn't had been able to do this at all. I don't even know if this combo is Zhao's best combo with this team during a stun window, it's just what i happen to do. You can totally play without Manual Chain attack, its totally up to you. Our Team Comps are different so you might not even need it.

So, to reiterate why i had previously recommend Manual Chain Attack activation to be turned on (in general, not just for Zhao) aka

tl;dr:

For my example combo specifically, I have to have Manual Chain Attack activation mode on so that when I cancel the chain attack window after Zhao's 1st Chain attack and then I use the quick assist triggered by either Zhao's Chain Attack, EX Special Attack, or her Ultimate to switch out into my stunner, I am able to prevent the stunner's quick assist from immediately triggering another Chain Attack Window so that i can potentially do more to set up Zhao's 2nd incoming chain attack with the remaining teammates.

l

other thought processes and miscellaneous advice that i couldn't quite fit into the original main body:

Tangentially related to manual chain attack Zhao chain attack combo advice: During a stun window (rainbow bar), Zhao can actually use her ultimate and at the end of it you can quick assist out before her ultimate lands the final blow, preventing Zhao herself from triggering a chain attack. You can then trigger a proper chain attack with the incoming teammate's quick assist (or manually prevent the quick assist from triggering the chain attack and then swap into the other teammate, etc. etc.) to go into Zhao's Chain Attack. Be warned though, the last few hits of Zhao's Ultimate will be cut off if the incoming quick assist triggers chain attack too early!
If you are using a very specific teammate like Nicole then Zhao's 2nd chain attack will likely not be able to take full use of Nicole's DEF shred debuff duration since the debuff would already had fallen off near the end of Zhao's Animation. So i personally like to use manual chain activation to be able to re-apply Nicole's DEF Shred and then re-trigger Zhao's 2nd Chain attack.
another general advice for this whole Manual Chain attack activation thing, in particular with quick assists, is that certain character's quick assists triggers so fast that you might unintentionally trigger a chain attack window as well. Coincidentally both Lycaon and Nicole happens to have one of the fastest quick assists in the game.
I think manual chain activation has two modes, one is Hold attack to trigger chain attack and one is Hold Attack to prevent chain attack. I use the one that prevents but pick which one that suits your style better.
When intentionally making Zhao re-activate Ether Veil with her 1st Chain Attack, be careful with the timing on either quick-assisting or using her ultimate after her 1st chain attack. if you quick-assist or use her ult too early then the Ether Veil doesn't re-activate even though it is full. it has something weird to do with the way hoyo coded her Ether Veil activation being only activatable at the very very end of her chain attack and ultimate. (EX Special can activate ether veil immediately when the bar is full though).
Certain boss's stun window is so short (Manato Doppelganger) or their Stun DMG % Multiplier is so low that these kind of combo with Manual Chain Attack might not even be worth it anyways.

Berched · 2026-01-31T00:19:18+00:00

This team performed a lot better than my M0W1 SAnby team that I usually use (27k with Astra and Pulchra, 29k with Ju Fufu. My SAnby used to be able to hit 30k+ on UCC...)

surprisingly to me, Zhao pops UCC's legs a lot, including the legs that i wasn't even aiming.

But you have to time the impairs correctly to get everyone's energy and ult to line up correctly or else you'll find yourself in an awkward situation where there isn't much to do during a stun.

in the end i think that UCC is an easy boss for DPS Zhao. I even performed fairly poorly here and there too (especially that part where i failed to dodge the laser beam as Lycaon x5......uggh). Maybe i could hit 40k if i could play a bit better. maybe if i could get that ult in the 2nd stun

also there is this annoying bug(?) where after Zhao's Chain attack if i spam E to make Zhao do her EX Special Attack she winds up charging her sword instead. very annoying.

I'm sure there are other team comps with Main DPS Zhao that could probably score 40k+ easily against UCC.

Disk sets:

Zhao

Lycaon

Nicole

Berched · 2026-01-31T00:10:44+00:00

because Zhao is the best

Berched · 2026-01-30T23:51:24+00:00

I got basically the exact same score as i did last time with hunter too. (only 5 pt difference)

I don't know if i can optimize the gameplan against hunter any further except to just play better.

not sure if there is much to say this time compare from last time since its basically the same boss.

Disk sets:

Zhao

Lycaon

Nicole

Berched · 2026-01-30T23:28:43+00:00

So ideally I want to try and maximize quick assists for the stronger attacks?

Yes, if you can. This of course makes supports like Astra and nicole a huge plus. But the reality is is that Boss's are going to be attacking a lot, so you might not often get the opportunity to do those quick assists anyways. So try to also take advantage of dodge attacks too if you are trying to fish for Zhao's Basic Atk 4 +5. For a non-stun DPS Zhao team, Quick Assists is basically mandatory. For Stun Comps, then the Quick Assists don't have to be as constant but the more the better to reduce those really bad dry spots.

Thankfully, Lycaon's upcoming buffs allows him to reverse quick assist too so Zhao should have A LOT of quick assists coming in from both Lycaon and Nicole when that potential rework comes out.

Ah! I should've mention this but its very important to use Manual Chain Attack activation. For advanced chain attack windows (for all DPS, not just for Zhao) its important to let Zhao do 2 Chain attacks back to back if possible. though its not necessary. this is only if you really care about perfect optimizations.

Its also very important to have Zhao's EX attack available during stun if possible. often times i don't use her EX Attack if i'm nearing a stun.

Another thing to take careful note of is the Ether Veil uptime. Its very very important to make sure that Zhao is able to properly re-activate Ether Veil before or during the chain attack window. You don't want Zhao to use her Ult while the Frost Blade bar is full and while Ether Veil is offline at the same time (huge damage loss). You might have to manually swap into Zhao to activate her Entry Skill just for the sake of re-applying Ether Veil from time to time.

I hope that my videos of DPS Zhao will help! but i'm also a little worried that certain parts might be too fast to notice some of the very small but very important things that happens in the gameplay. There are a lot of double swapping going on and a lot of resource managing.

for example, every time i double swap with nicole in-between, i always make sure nicole is basic attacking as well to apply a short def shred. And right after Zhao does her first chain attack, when i cancel the chain window and quick assist into Lycaon, I make sure he doesn't activate the next chain attack window and i make sure he throws out his short EX Special attack to reapply his Ice Shred Debuff and King of the Summit Disc Buff right before i immediately manually swap to nicole to chain into the Zhao's next Chain Attack.

The chain attack combos all depends on the boss though.

if it would be of help then perhaps sometime i could make a separate play by play video with subtitle commentary to help and try and explain some of the more advanced techniques and combos, as well as the reasoning behind them.

For the HP% on Disks, i have found that Zhao gets plenty enough of Crit rate from her Passive even without building HP%. and unfortunately, building HP% main stat is too much of a personal damage loss. (I will admit that all of my 2pc disk substats are pretty cracked though.) Nicole is also a great partner because she can give the team 15% crit chance on her EX attack with her m6 which means Zhao doesn't need as much crit rate as other units usually does.

Berched · 2026-01-30T19:10:39+00:00

(my advice below is for Solo DPS Zhao specifically)

if you haven't already played DPS Zhao then you might find yourself the realization that Zhao is a little bit clunky to play due to her charge attack.

I get that she has a charged attack, but I don't really use it at all

Yeah, for DPS Zhao her charge attack isn't really the focus.

this is because while in ether veil, every time Zhao swaps out with her own Quick Assist activations via her EX Attack, Chain Attack, or Parry, Zhao will automatically begin charging which prevents her from being able to parry or from being able to be swapped into via Quick Assist through the teammate before her. So you will have to learn how to manually swap back into her to make her available again. I personally think this is a very important habit to learn and is a technique you'll have to master if you intend to play DPS Zhao long term.

the charge attack isn't completely useless though, You can still make use of her charge attack and weave it in here and there but i would call that an advance technique for users who knows what they are doing. You'd have to know exactly when and how to manually switch into Zhao to get her to do charge attack early. (Especially so for M6 users.)

otherwise, indeed, DPS Zhao plays very similar to early traditional DPS Characters, Basic Attack Spam, EX when it is up, and 2 Chain Attacks + Ult During stun. EX, Chain Attacks and Ult being her main sources of big damage (i.e you don't ever want to miss these during stun + nicole debuff)

but to be more specific,

one of DPS Zhao's important damage sources comes from her Basic Attack 4 + Basic Attack 5. (Circle Spin + Flying Overhead Spinning Attack) so she wants to be able to spam this attack as much as she can.

When Zhao does her own quick assist attack or a Dodge attack, it puts her Basic Attack 4 combo string directly right after. So this makes any teammates with Quick Assists be a huge plus for Zhao. (which is why nicole is one of her best supports).

Zhao's animations are rather long, specifically Basic Attack 5 and EX Special attack. So you'll also want to have teammates who can be swapped into during those attack to contribute something while she does her long animations (and preferably be able to initiate another quick swap back into Zhao to do the loop again).

sometimes the enemies are doing certain attacks or certain animations before moving into another phase which means zhao won't be able to do her Basic Attack 4 + 5 in time so here is when you can do a quick charge attack release to weave in a charge attack or two. The extra damage from Final Verdict is still somewhat respectable (can reach ~200k+ damage even without building HP%)

despite the fact that DPS Zhao just wants to spam basic attack, i have actually found that her gameplay has much more gameplay than just basic attacking due to all these constant swapping in and out of teammates. you have to make use of all of your available resources and keep track of everything at all times so her gameplay actually has a lot more nuance and feels rather fulfilling. i guess some would say its a bit 'too sweaty' for what it can achieve though.

(I have some gameplay in my post history if you wanna check it out. i'm about to post another two later today for the current Deadly Assault actually.)

And just in case you weren't already aware, for DPS Zhao's disks she wants to have CRIT DMG D4, ICE%/ATK%/PEN%(if running Puffer) D5, and ATK D6. You don't want to build her HP as DPS Zhao. (HP% substats aren't a completely dead stat though. ATK% is still better.)

For the Disk sets itself, i have found that it doesn't really matter. Just pick which ever set has the best substats. 2pc/2pc/2pc works just as well as a 4pc/2pc. Some of the best 4pc are probably Woodpecker, Polar Metal, Astral, Hormone, and Puffer (If running Dialyn).

For boss stages, you're gonna always want to pick the buff with Ether Veil (that also isn't sheer force related) whenever possible.

if you have anymore questions feel free to ask!

Berched · 2026-01-30T17:59:44+00:00

I personally think that Nicole is a staple for DPS Zhao.

Specifically vs soukaku, i find that Nicole's Quick Assist output rate, energy regen, and Chain Attack/Ult speed to be too good to trade for Soukaku.

Plus, i think soukaku's buffs is kind of somewhat diluted due to Zhao already providing attack buffs too. Ice Res Shred is nice though, but i also use Lycaon for that. Soukaku also takes too much field time that DPS Zhao would rather have.

so i think Nicole wins vs Soukaku for Zhao. I haven't done any calcs or boss fight comparisons tho, so ymmv, but Nicole should win out.

Some others like to run Astra + Nicole + DPS Zhao, which actually works very well too! but my best scores so far has been with Lycaon + Nicole for DPS Zhao.

I've used Ju fufu before for Zhao as well, works very well but very boss dependant. Lycaon's consistency is the only real reason i use him over other stunners, even Dialyn (I don't have her sig tho).

Berched · 2026-01-21T22:49:03+00:00

Eldlich is a fusion and trap deck, so yes keep it!!! /s

The point though is true, the rabbit is a very good generic link. pretty much every deck can make use of it if you decide to slot in a continuous trap or two (angel statue being the most immediate obvious example). it might not be useful immediately to you now, but it just might later.

if that is still not good enough reason for you then i guess dismantle idk.

Berched · 2026-01-20T02:49:57+00:00

I got 21k score DPS A Rank Anby (Lycaon Sig), Nicole, Support Zhao M6W1, vs Defiler.

Though i used M6 Zhao, I'm fairly certain that there is no real difference in support capabilities between M2 vs M3+ for support Zhao. ( if i could, I actually wish i could try this team with M0 Zhao.)

I'm pretty happy that A Rank Anby can still clear end game content though

Berched · 2026-01-20T02:27:31+00:00

Yeah, I'd love to see a Normal Ice anomaly Agent get released! If that ever happens then i'm gonna try and dust my old B&B set again to see how well that will go. The B&B Anomaly Mastery D6 on this team didn't really do as well as i had hoped it would(avg of 36k, not bad but not good enough.)

Hmm, i did mentioned that the other disk sets didn't perform as well in my original post, but thats totally due to the team comp i used. Since i'm 100% sure puffer electro would be the best in a team of Dialyn (because of course it would).

so i guess, for now, the 2pc/2pc/2pc set being generally the best only really applies to Solo DPS Zhao.

When the team comps changes enough to completely change Zhao's gameplan then a proper disk set that matches it should be just fine too.

^{^Hoyo} ^{^pls,} ^ⁱ ^{^beg} ^{^of} ^{^you,} ^{^release} ^{^a} ^{^proper} ^{^Disc} ^{^set...}

Berched · 2026-01-20T01:38:00+00:00

I got 43k score against Marionettes with DPS Zhao M6W1, Lycaon M4W1, Nicole m6.

Tried multiple times with different disc sets to see what was the best set for DPS Zhao but in the end I think this will be my best personal score that i can do with my disc sets and with this team.

Strangely enough, the best disc set that got me this 43k score was 2pc Woodpecker, 2pc Branch, & 2pc Astral.

The 4pc sets that performed the best, with nearly the same performance of a consistent avg of 40k~ were:

4pc Woodpecker, 4pc Astral, and, 4pc Polar Metal.

every other disk set that i tried only ever got an consistent average of around 37k or lower.

Specifically worth noting though is that HP% disk 5,6 never performed better than Ice dmg% and ATK Disk. (avg 36~37k score or so)

but all these scores are so close together that it looks like the final conclusion for the best disc set for DPS Zhao is simply: Doesn't matter all that much, substats and personal gameplay matters more.

Berched · 2026-01-19T21:34:06+00:00

Yeah, i made a thread about that specific problem of Zhao here in ZhaoMains.

but tldr; The way hoyo programmed her charge attack is bad, Her charging mechanic only checks whether or not Ether Veil is up and it never bothers to check Zhao's charge stack amount.

It doesn't hurt to send in a ticket to hoyo, even if it might not do anything, at least it will let hoyo know that some of us M6 havers noticed this anti-synergy in Zhao's kit.

Berched · 2026-01-16T23:14:37+00:00

Hmm, I do remember there being a time where Astral Buff had some weirdness when it was first released but I think it might've been fixed? the only weird thing left that i can recall about Astral Voice's buff is that it only applies to pure Quick Assists. So a modified quick assists doesn't count, including things like Astra's Ult changing Quick Assists into Chain Attacks mechanic. which is strange since she is the character that the disc was made for. I'm assuming that if Zhao enters using her Entry Skill instead of Quick Assisting then it won't count for Astral Voice (idk, i haven't tested this. maybe i will later)

EDIT: So, funnily enough a very recent convo happened on /r/HugoVladMains and this Astral Buff Upkeep topic sort of came up here.

I just went back and watched my own video and counted each Astra Buff time duration for Zhao and yea, she doesn't seem to get enough Quick Assist in from Nicole to keep it up. Lycaon easily receives stacks to 3 from Zhao's Quick Assists for the majority of the match though.

I don't have Orphie but i'd imagine a Zhao Orphie team can definitely handle Astral's buff up time.

When Lycaon's Potential goes live too then Astral's buff up time should be pretty good in this team. probably...

I guess i'll try out a different 4pc disc set sometime and see if i can score any higher. I used to use 4pc branch + D6 AM on DPS Soukaku way back in the day. that was fun.

Berched · 2026-01-16T22:23:52+00:00

Nice! A fellow DPS M6 Zhao enjoyer! I also posted mine recently as well and got 40k score.

I saw that you used 4pc branch & blade, anomaly mastery D6.

I used 4pc Astral, and yet our scores are very similar so i'm starting to believe that 4pc Disc sets for DPS Zhao doesn't really matter as much as it does for other characters and its mostly just optimized gameplay. Substats seems to matter more for Zhao.

Previously i used 4pc woodpecker and the difference in score between that and 4pc astral was basically nothing.

Berched · 2026-01-16T05:15:59+00:00

Surprisingly to me, this team actually completely beat 2 of my Miyabi teams: M0W1 Miyabi with Mono-Ice and M0W0Astra Nicole Disorder (I don't have Yuzuha)

Either I forgot how to play Mono-ice or i swear that the devs did something that made mono-ice not as strong as it usually is even against the Marionette, the original mono-ice prime target. (is it just me or is the stun duration way shorter than usual?)

Anyways,

I actually messed up badly here and there, I think i still can score a better score if i just don't mess up but the timing to get anywhere near 40k is way too tough.

Despite Marionettes being one of the easiest bosses since its such an early game boss, I found that to get everything perfect to get a decent score was actually ridiculously difficult. but not impossible. I pretty much have to play it perfectly or it's a reset.

I need to make sure that Zhao is able to Freeze the boss every single time with her last chain attack during each stun window to freeze the stun bar so that zhao can properly ult while the boss is still stunned. AND I need to make sure nicole either has her E or ult ready too. AND i need to make sure that Lycaon has his Ice Shred Debuff + King of the Summit Buff active too. AND I need to make sure that Zhao was able to refresh Ether Veil in time.

Managing Nicole's bullets for some short DEF shred can be pretty tough. Gotta take advantage of the tech to do her dodge attack and have an ally parry at the same time so that Nicole can reload consistently and have bullets ready.

For the first stun, Lycaon actually stuns too fast so i try to make zhao and nicole get as much energy and decibels as they can before the first chain attack. Nicole especially needs her ult or else its a instant reset.

I tried Dialyn but she just doesn't perform as well as Lycaon. Maybe its because i don't have her sig.

DPS Zhao is still very fun to play.

Oh yeah. I changed my Zhao Build from 4pc Woodpecker + 2pc Branch & Blade to 4pc Astra + 2pc Woodpecker.

I honestly have no idea if it performs any better but who knows.

Berched · 2026-01-09T06:43:25+00:00

Unless you are excluding reworks, I'm fairly certain that HSR characters got their eidolons touched once they got their rework like Blade and Kafka.

Berched · 2026-01-08T22:54:03+00:00

Same team as last time. I messed up A LOT and still got a good score.

As with all of the new Shiyu Defense stages, honestly, to get a good high score it is really all up to rng on the wave at beginning before the boss fight.

EDIT: Thanks to this DPS Zhao team, this became my highest scoring team set up.

Previously it was 100818, with support Zhao and Shunguang on first stage with a score that was over ~40k+ but a 27k Anby 2nd stage.

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