Anomaly is the sneaky half of Zenless Zone Zero's damage math. While the rest of your roster is busy filling a stun bar and waiting for the daze window, an anomaly carry is stacking a status effect that detonates on its own, ignores the whole stagger game, and scales with how tanky the enemy is rather than how fast you can stun it. That is why anomaly teams quietly run the harder half of the endgame: against a boss with a mountain of health and a stubborn stun bar, sustained status damage does not fall off the way a burst window does.
This list ranks the anomaly carries, not the supports, and it draws one line first, because it decides how you read everything under it.
On-field carry or off-field applier? Learn the split first
Anomaly Agents come in two shapes, and mixing them up is the most common team-building mistake in the archetype:
- On-field carries hold the screen, build their own Anomaly buildup, and detonate it themselves. They are the center of the team.
- Off-field appliers drop a status and leave, doing their damage from the bench while someone else drives. They are partners, not centerpieces.
Two off-field appliers with nobody to hold the field is a team that does nothing. One on-field carry plus one applier, capped with a support, is the shape that wins. Keep the anomaly teams guide open for the deeper mechanics, and remember the goal underneath all of it: Disorder, the burst you get from overwriting one anomaly with a second, is where the real numbers hide.
S tier: the carries you build a whole team around
Hoshimi Miyabi (Ice, on-field carry). Still the high-water mark for the archetype. Miyabi applies her own Frostbite and then shatters it for a follow-up burst that reads more like a hypercarry than a slow-burn anomaly unit, which is why she covers both endgame nodes rather than just the tanky one. Pair her with a second Ice or off-element applier and a buffer like Astra Yao.
Remielle (Lumiflux, on-field carry). The newest anomaly hyper-carry and the ground floor of a brand-new reaction core. Remielle drives a Lumiflux loop that pairs naturally with Velina, giving you a modern on-field detonator whose ceiling scales with how well you execute the reaction rather than how hard you mash. If you want to be early on a fresh archetype, she is the pull.
Yanagi (Electric, on-field carry). The Disorder specialist. Yanagi can set up and trigger Disorder largely on her own, which turns her into a self-sufficient engine that punishes any fight with enough uptime. Slot her with an Electric applier like Grace or a flex partner and a support, and she posts elite clears on Electric-weak sides.
Jane Doe (Physical, on-field carry). The Assault-anomaly benchmark. Jane builds Assault, goes aggressive, and rewards a frantic, high-tempo playstyle with enormous sustained numbers. She wants a stunner-adjacent enabler and an off-field applier to keep her ceiling up.
A tier: elite in their lane, usually as the engine's other half
- Burnice (Fire, off-field applier). One of the best partners in the game, not a centerpiece. Burnice sits off-field, keeps Burn ticking, and enables Disorder for an on-field carry. She lifts almost any anomaly team she joins, which is exactly why she is a partner rather than a solo carry.
- Piper (Physical, off-field applier). The budget engine that overperforms. Piper spins up Assault buildup from the bench and pairs beautifully with a physical or Disorder-hungry carry, and she does it at four-star accessibility.
- Grace Howard (Electric, off-field applier). A reliable Shock applier who feeds Yanagi or any Electric-Disorder core. Dependable rather than flashy, and a clean answer when you need a second anomaly source.
B tier: functional, matchup-dependent, or waiting for a partner
- Older single-element anomaly units without a modern partner. They still apply a status and still contribute, but without a Disorder loop or a strong support they settle for a comfortable clear rather than a fast one. Give them the easy node.
- Any applier with no on-field carry to detonate for. This is a reminder, not an Agent: an S-tier applier in a team that cannot hold the field drops straight to the bottom. Roles first, rarity second.
Who to pair them with
The carry is half the team. The other half decides the ceiling:
- Astra Yao / a premium buffer multiplies whatever the carry is already doing and fits nearly every S-tier build.
- Caesar trades a sliver of damage for survivability and shield uptime, which is the safest cap for an aggressive on-field anomaly carry you plan to pilot in the harder endgame.
- A same-or-off-element applier is the non-negotiable second slot for Disorder. This is where Burnice, Piper, and Grace earn their A-tier spots.
The free-to-play anomaly board
Anomaly is the most F2P-friendly damage archetype in ZZZ, because the appliers that make it sing are cheap:
- A well-built Piper as your applier plus a standard on-field carry clears more of the endgame than its rarity suggests.
- Prioritize clean Anomaly Proficiency and attribute-matching drive discs; anomaly damage lives and dies on those substats far more than on raw CRIT.
- Grab the current redeem codes for Polychrome, and when you do pull a premium carry, check the banner schedule so you catch its best partner in the same window.
Pick your on-field carry from the top of this list, hand it one applier and one support, and lean into Disorder. Anomaly is the archetype that turns a fight's health bar from a threat into a longer runway, and against the endgame's tankiest targets, that runway is where the highest scores live.
