Best Burnice build in Zenless Zone Zero – Best Drive Discs, W-Engines, Mindscapes, and Team Comps

Burnice, Zenless Zone Zero’s newest five-star pyromaniac, has finally touched down with quite the explosive hype behind her. If you’re planning to pull her, or already have and are looking to build from scratch, here’s everything you need to know to ensure Burnice can utterly cremate your enemies.

Best Burnice Build in Zenless Zone Zero

Starting with some surface-level details, Burnice is a Fire Anomaly character with a huge focus on Fire DoT (Damage over Time) and Off-field damage. You read that correctly: Burnice deals a large portion of her damage while not on the field, contrasting with every other character in Zenless Zone Zero. That isn’t to say she isn’t capable of playing like a standard DPS, however, as all of her abilities have very high damage scaling. This means that Bunrice is very flexible with her role, and has several teams and gear setups where she can excel.

Burnice’s Gameplan

Burnice’s most fundamental game plan is to come on-field and apply Burn and her unique Afterburn mechanic to as many enemies as possible. Enemies afflicted with Afterburn take additional Burn Build-up and Fire Damage when hit by any of her allies, allowing her to fight off the field while taking up as little field time as possible.

Afterburn can only be applied when Burnice has enough Heat, which is her secondary resource that determines how long Afternburn can stay applied. When she has more than 50% Heat, she will enter Nitro-Fuel Cocktail State, which, while active, allows her to apply Afterburn to enemies.

When Afterburn is triggered, Burnice uses a portion of her Heat gauge. To regain Heat, she must use Energy by using EX Specials, creating a constant need to balance both her Energy and Heat gauges. If her Heat is fully drained, she loses her Nitro-Fuel Cocktail State, drastically weakening her overall abilities. Without Heat, she can no longer activate Afterburn or use her Enhanced Basic Attacks, making careful resource management crucial to maintaining her strength.

Best Drive Disks for Burnice in Zenless Zone Zero

Since Burnice is an Anomaly character, she values ATK% and Anomaly Proficiency (AP) above all other stats, thanks to Burn being such a large part of her damage. However, because of her overall stat scaling, can she be built viably with Crit, Crit DMG, PEN Ratio, Anomaly Mastery (AM), and Energy Regen (ER) as secondary stats to look out for on Drive Disks.

• Disk 4 – AP or ATK%. Note that ATK% should only be used if you have good AP sub-stats on it.
• Disk 5 – ATK% or Fire DMG%. PEN Ratio% is an option if you have other sources of the stat already.
• Disk 6 – ATK%, AM, or ER.

The Drive Disk sets you should use on Burnice depend on how you plan to build her and how much investment you’re willing to put into her.

Sub-DPS Burnice

Burnice is at her strongest when she is played with ATK% and AP as her focus while serving as a Sub-DPS for team compositions. With this in mind, Burnice has a few options.

• 4p-Chaos Jazz / 2p-Piece Freedom Blues – This provides a walloping 60 AP to Burnice while also boosting the power of her EX-Specials when swapped in from being off-field. For a majority of roles, this is Burnice’s best setup.
• 4p-Chaos Jazz / 2p-Swing Jazz – Instead of the 30 extra AP, Burnice will gain more Energy Regen, making it easier to maintain her Heat Gauge. Only use this if you’re having issues with Energy.
• 4p-Chaos Jazz / 2p-Puffer Electro – Puffer Electro offers Burnice some extra PEN Ratio for ignoring enemy defenses. I only recommend this if your Burnice already has additional sources of PEN Ratio from weapons, buffs, or Cinemas/Mindscapes.

Hypercarry Burnice

If you plan to play Burnice on-field as your main DPS character, then there are a few more options open to her for Drive Disks outside of Chaos Jazz. However, as a warning, Hypercarry Burnice is very expensive to build optimally, as she wants ATK%, AP, CRIT Rate, and CRIT DMG on as many Discs as possible to be truly effective. Note: I don’t recommend this setup unless you’re prepared to invest significant time farming for Burnice’s gear.

• 4p-Inferno Metal / 2p-Chaos Jazz or Freedom Blues – Gives free 28% CRIT Rate to Burnice when any target is Burning, while providing 30 additional AP.
• 4p-Inferno Metal / 2p-Swing Jazz – On-field Burnice may need additional energy, which Swing Jazz will provide.
• 4p-Inferno Metal / 2p-Puffer Electro – As before, the additional PEN Ratio from Puffer Electro will be more effective if Burnice already has additional sources of the stat.
• 4p- Chaos Jazz / 2p-Inferno Metal – Provides Burnice with the largest amount of Fire DMG% she can possibly get. You will also still want to swap characters on occasion to gain the full benefit from Chaos Jazz.

Best W-Engines for Burnice in Zenless Zone Zero

Unsurprisingly, Burnice’s best W-Engine is her signature Flamemaker Shaker, as it provides Burnice with everything she needs to be a strong DPS in any team role. That said, Electro-Lip Gloss(R5) and Fusion Compiler are strong competitive options that allow Burnice to dish out large sums of damage. Fusion Compiler, in particular, works exceptionally well if you can stack Burnice with other sources of PEN Ratio %.

Beyond these three options, I don’t recommend using anything else outside of niche situations.

Best Mindscapes for Burnice in Zenless Zone Zero

It’s important to note that Burnice is already fully viable and highly effective in the current meta, even at M0. She doesn’t require any of her Mindscapes to excel. However, her Mindscapes amplify her existing strengths and role options, making them even more potent. If you aim to invest in a few, M2 is the ideal stopping point for most players. For your convenience, here’s a breakdown of how each of Burnice’s Mindscapes enhances her effectiveness.

• Kindred Flames (M1) – Burnice’s M1 is highly potent, as it allows her more leniency on how much Heat you can use, while simultaneously increasing the damage multiplier of Afterburn by a massive 100%. Said Afterburns also accumulate 25% more Burn status. This is a silly strong M1 and is worth the investment if you can get it.
• Extra at No Additional Charge (M2) – This M2 is strong by default, effectively giving Burnice and her allies a free 20% PEN Ratio at all times if playing around Afterburn correctly. However, this Mindscape gets considerably more powerful if running with additional, outside sources of PEN Ratio %.
• Optimistic by Nature (M3) – An across-the-board multiplier boost to most of Burnice’s kit. Nice, but not worth the investment if you’re planning to stop here.
• Ultimate Fuel Supply (M4) – This Mindscape enhances Burnice’s ability to dish out direct damage by giving her Assist and EX Special Attacks a free 30% CRIT Rate at all times. Honestly, this is a really strong Mindscape if you’re playing CRIT, but if your focus is on AP, then this is, at best, a nice little extra. It’s… okay.
• Dance of Fire and Ice (M5) – This Mindscape is exactly the same as her M3, just even more of a boost.
• Burning Invitation (M6) – M6 is a game-changer for Burnice as it allows her to ‘proc’ her own special version of Afterburn that doesn’t consume Heat and without the need of her teammates. Additionally, using EX Special Attack Double Shot causes Burnice’s special Afterburn, Double Shot, and Burn effects to ignore 25% Fire Resistance. If that wasn’t insane enough, Double Shot’s end fireblast will deal a colossal 1800% additional DMG to Burning Targets, once every 20 seconds. Needless to say, this Mindscape is ridiculously strong, if you can get it.

Best Team Comps for Burnice in Zenless Zone Zero

Burnice has several strong team compositions that she works very well for thanks to her versatile build options.

Burnice/Jane/Caeser

This is Burnice’s strongest team composition, and it functions with Burnice herself acting as sub-DPS for Jane Doe. The team’s goal is to cause Disorder, a status effect that occurs when two different Anomalies are applied to an enemy. Ideally, you want Burnice to inflict Burn first and then have Jane ‘pop’ the Burn with an Assault, which triggers Disorder for massive damage. Caeser’s part in the team is for the additional 1000 flat ATK she gives to the on-field Agent, which will mostly be Jane in this composition.

Burnice/Piper/Lucy

This composition is also powerful and has the same goal as the Jane team previously mentioned: Disorder. The main difference is that both Burnice and Piper will be playing the sub-DPS role together, and you’ll switch back and forth between them far more often than the Jane team. Lucy and Caeser are largely interchangeable in this team, though M6 Lucy offers more damage output specifically for Piper and Burnice because of the continuous nature of their EX Specials.

Burnice/Caeser/Lucy

If you’re playing Burnice as a Hypercarry, this is the strongest composition she has access to thanks to the considerable ATK buff both Caeser and Lucy can consistently provide. This results in a Burnice that will dish out massive damage through her Afterburn, Burn status, and direct damage abilities. Caeser’s shield also protects her while she is channeling her flamethrower, and flamethrower hits also activate Lucy’s M6, simultaneously.

Burnice/Koleda/Lucy

This team comp also features Burnice as the main damage dealer, aiming to make use of Stun windows for the highest possible Burn damage. As a mono Fire team, her Burns will be diluted between all three characters, which is why you want to ensure that Koleda and Lucy are built with damage in mind (CRIT sub-stats, etc…). Additionally, having CRIT sub-stats on Burnice will also help.

Burnice/Rina/Lucy or Caeser

If you’re running Burnice with Fusion Compiler and/or are using her M2, then PEN Ratio becomes a highly competitive stat for her to stack. Rina provides a large amount of additional PEN Ratio, and large amounts of it make it stronger overall. Lucy/Caeser continues to provide competent levels of damage while still providing Burnice with her large ATK buff. Ideally, Rina should be M1 and Lucy should be M6 for this team to be competitive with the other comps mentioned.