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Last updated: 22/May/2026
Best guide and build for Nine from Chaos Zero Nightmare (CZN). Nine is a 5✦ character from the Vanguard class and Order attribute.
Last review update
Season 2
Last build update
Season 2
Last profile update*
15/Mar/2026
*Profile update means updates done to reviews/builds/gear within a season - showing the last date we changed anything on this page.
To learn more about Nine check the sections below. Use the tabs to quickly switch to the kind of information you're looking for.
Profile
Slash
Attack
Back-Edge Parry
Skill
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Hew
Attack
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Experienced Strike
Attack
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Fatal Strike
Attack
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Counterblade
Upgrade
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Fighting Spirit
Skill
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Hew Lv. 1
Attack
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Hew Lv. 2
Attack
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Hew Lv. 3
Attack
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Hew (Ironclad) Lv. 1
Attack
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Hew (Ironclad) Lv. 2
Attack
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Hew (Ironclad) Lv. 3
Attack
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Hew (Extreme) Lv. 1
Attack
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Hew (Extreme) Lv. 2
Attack
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Hew (Extreme) Lv. 3
Attack
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Hew (Extreme) Lv. 4
Attack
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Hew (Extreme) Lv. 5
Attack
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Hew (Flash) Lv. 1
Attack
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Hew (Flash) Lv. 2
Attack
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Hew (Flash) Lv. 3
Attack
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Hew (Massacre) Lv. 1
Attack
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Hew (Massacre) Lv. 2
Attack
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Hew (Massacre) Lv. 3
Attack
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Hew (Ambush) Lv. 1
Attack
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Hew (Ambush) Lv. 2
Attack
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Hew (Ambush) Lv. 3
Attack
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Exploit Opening
Skill
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Reflection: Zero
Ego Skill
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Epiphany cards are special evolutions for the cards you can obtain while playing the roguelike mode. Only some cards in the character's deck can get Epiphany effects. Since there's quite a lot of them, we don't display them by default - press the button below to show them.
Epiphany Bonus
Potential 1
Basic Card Upgrade
Potential 2
Common Card Upgrade
Potential 3
Basic Card Proficiency
Potential 3-1
Unique Card Upgrade
Potential 4
Critical Chance Proficiency
Potential 5
Basic Card Proficiency
Potential 5-1
Divine Epiphany Adaptation
Potential 5-2
Critical Damage Proficiency
Potential 6
Unique Stat Upgrade
Potential 7
Sleeping Memory
Manifest Ego 1
Awakening Memory
Manifest Ego 2
Vivid Memory
Manifest Ego 3
Inner Memory
Manifest Ego 4
Complete Memory
Manifest Ego 5
Liberated Memory
Manifest Ego 6
Review
Nine is an Order attribute Vanguard who excels at dealing high single-target damage, positioning her as one of the strongest OTK (One Turn Kill) units in the game, thanks to her signature card Hew, an attack you’ll always have in your hand and which levels up as you use it. Nine also has the potential to sacrifice some of her standard single-target damage to branch out into different playstyles through her varied Epiphany options. Doing this can allow Nine to act as a Shielder, AoE damage dealer, or even counterattack specialist.
In all modes of play, Nine’s game plan is simple but effective. Her main card, Hew, has initiation and will start in your hand. It also has exhaust and the new mechanic incinerate, which triggers when the card it’s on is exhausted, and in the case of Hew, adds another copy of Hew to your hand, but at a higher level (which deals more damage).
One way to play Nine effectively is to activate Hew as many times in one turn as possible. Hew does have a limit on how many times it’ll add back in a single turn from incinerate, but you should try to max that out every turn you can when playing this way. This can be hard in Chaos, but it should be your target in Save with this strategy. The catch with this plan is that Hew has a high AP cost of 3, so you’ll have to use the rest of Nine’s kit in order to activate it multiple times per turn. The main card that helps with this is Fighting Spirit, a 1AP card that activates the highest cost Nine card in hand. So the basics are spam Fighting Spirit as much as possible to activate Hew as many times in one turn as you can!
The other way to play Nine is aiming for a single massive hit with Hew by stacking buffs and debuffs while levelling Hew up to maximum through other means. This can either be achieved in a single turn or by waiting multiple turns, with the trade-off being that those turns skipped are lost damage but result in a stronger hit at the end. This playstyle is a valid alternative to using all levels of Hew each turn, but needs more specific builds and a large amount of buffing/debuffing in order to compete.
When it comes to team building, Nine is usually looking to be your primary damage dealer thanks to her high damage output. Her build can be altered to support shielding and sustain, but that’s not the norm. She also doesn’t have any AP generation or Draw. Because of this, she is best paired with characters who can provide one or the other or both, ideally at the same time, as also bringing some buffs to the table. But if you decide to go for the counterattack variant, you’ll want characters who excel at generating counterattack stacks.
For accessing Nine’s different playstyles, it can be done so by swapping out Hew’s max damage option for utility variants, which change the way you build your deck, and who you support her with. Nine has counterattack synergy with her Hew (Ambush) epiphany; whenever your Ally counterattacks, it also triggers your Hew, opening up an entirely different playstyle. Hew (Massacre) offers AoE damage, at the cost of single-target damage. Hew (Ironclad) generates a large amount of shield every time Hew is used. Lastly, Hew (Flash) can be used to solve AP issues when played in Exhaust-based combo decks.
When thinking of scaling Nine’s damage due to her much higher than average base numbers on her cards, she benefits greatly from multiplicative damage buffs over smaller additive buffs, such as Morale stacking. Nine also has a low hit count, which allows her to maximize Vulnerability to its fullest. You’ll want to be looking for as many multiplicative buffs to maximize her damage output while avoiding additive ones.
Strong single-target damage.
Very easy deckbuilding, not reliant on divine epiphanies like some other characters.
Flexible playstyles, able to swap to strong AoE or shielding.
Absurd ability to do ridiculously large single hits of damage with set-up
Her main combo card will always be in hand.
Best decks don’t require many points, so many Neutral cards can be used if desired
No card draw.
Most builds are AP heavy.
Take a bit to get going in Chaos due to Hew’s high cost.
The ratings below are based on the Season Save Data, Chaos Manifestation, and Great Rift modes. Each of the modes values different mechanics, so some characters may shine in one of them, while being underwhelming in the other.
Incinerate: Cards with incinerate trigger additional effects when exhausted.
Honed Edge: Honed Edge provides a 20% (multiplicative) damage buff to all of Nine’s defense-based damage per stack, up to a maximum of 3.
Honed Edge+: Can be obtained from one of Nine’s epiphanies and replaces Honed Edge. Is functionally identical to the standard Honed Edge but also affects teammates as well as Nine.
CRIT RATE% = CRIT DMG% >= Unique Card DMG% > Common Card DMG% = Basic Card DMG%
3-1: Nine’s 3-1 potential adds an additional effect to her starting attack card “Slash”. When using Slash, it grants a buff that lasts until the end of the turn that increases the damage of cards that have the [Exhaust] tag by 15% (Multiplicative) per stack, to a maximum of 2. This can help in the early stages of Chaos for some extra damage. Not relevant in most cases in Save modes, though.
5-1: Nine’s 5-1 potential grants an additive 5% damage to Nine's basic attack card “Slash”, and if Nine's defense is greater than 250, it adds an additional 5% for a total of 10%. This isn’t a crucial node to be taking, but it can help in the earlier stages of Chaos.
7: Nine’s 7 potential grants +5% Order Attribute damage if her Defense stat is over 300, for every 10 defense over 300, it will also grant an additional 2% up to a maximum of 10%, meaning 350 defense will be the breakpoint to fully utilize this potential node, granting a total of 15% order attribute damage. This node provides a solid damage boost across the board for Nine and is worth capitalizing on.
Tip: Make sure you’re always hitting 350 DEF on the character sheet if possible to fully unlock this potential’s power; if you’re not, consider swapping some memory fragments around.
Base
Ego 1
Ego 2
Ego 3
Ego 4
Ego 5
Ego 6
Reflection: Zero
Ego Skill
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Reflection Zero is Nine’s Ego Skill. It costs 6 Ego Points to use and will deal DEF-Based damage to every enemy. Furthermore, it will also increase the damage it deals by 50% by Exhausting the two highest cost cards in your hand. The damage increases per cost of the cards you exhausted (e.g., exhausting a 3 cost Hew + a 1 cost card will result in a 200% damage increase) - This can be a double-edged sword as you don’t get to choose the other card you want to exhaust. A fine tool for levelling up Hew, but it can be awkward to use due to its downside. Doesn’t meaningfully affect Nine’s damage output, though.
Slash
Attack
Slash is Nine's basic attack. It deals moderate defense-based damage, and when you have her potential node 3-1 activated, it also increases the damage of Exhaust-based cards by 15% for the turn, stacking up to twice. This basic attack is better than most characters thanks to its higher-than-average damage and buffing, which can be solid in Chaos, but once you get deeper into runs or are aiming for save decks, this card is usually removed.
Back-Edge Parry
Skill
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Back-Edge Parry is Nine’s other basic starting card; it provides a shield with no other effects. This card is always the first removal target.
Hew
Attack
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Hew is Nine’s bread and butter skill, which her entire kit revolves around. Hew starts as a 3-cost attack card with 4 tags, [Unique], [Exhaust], [Ephemeral], and [Initiation]. It also has another pseudo tag called [Incinerate]. Outside of that, it deals Defense-Based damage to a single enemy. Incinerate is an additional effect that occurs when the card is exhausted. What makes Hew worth using, and Nine a functional character, is this card's Incinerate effect, which, upon triggering, creates a new copy of Hew to your hand but with a higher level, so base Hew will add Hew Lv1 upon incineration. Each level of Hew increases the base damage of the card up to a limit depending on the epiphany you’re using (All Hew variants go up to Lv3, with the exception of Hew (Extreme), which goes up to Lv5). When using the maximum level Hew, the Incinerate effect changes to creating a new base copy of Hew, but at the start of the next turn. Note: Divine and Standard epiphanies on this card are not applied to levelled up versions and therefore have much less effect on Nine’s most important card.
Experienced Strike
Attack
Show Effects
Experienced Strike is a 1-cost single-target attack card that deals Defense-Based damage and also provides 20% of the damage dealt as shield. It also has an added effect that provides a 20% (multiplicative) damage boost to Exhaust cards for 1 turn. This effect changes with the various epiphanies, which can change the way you build your deck. The main choice, though, is usually similar to its base effect, as buffing Hew’s damage usually comes out as the top priority.
Fatal Strike
Attack
Show Effects
Fatal Strike is also a 1-cost single-target attack card that deals Defense-Based damage. It has the added effect of dealing increased damage by 20% for each cost of the highest-cost card in your hand that has the [Exhaust] tag, and will then also exhaust that card. Eg, Exhausting a 3-cost Hew will increase the damage by 60%. This card helps provide an additional source of exhaust for Hew to ensure you’re cycling through every Lv. each turn to maximize your damage output. Very useful in Hew (Extreme) decks that have 6 full Lvl’s of Hew to get through per turn.
Counterblade
Upgrade
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Counterblade is a 0-cost Upgrade card that has the [Unique] tag. When a shield is gained through an ability, you gain 1 Honed Edge stack, up to a maximum of 3 stacks. Honed Edge provides a 20% multiplicative damage increase to attack cards that deal Defense-Based damage. This buff only lasts a single turn and will need to be built back up each turn. Certain Epiphanies allow Nine to gain Honed Edge, so be on the lookout for those.
Fighting Spirit
Skill
Show Effects
Fighting Spirit is a 1-cost Skill card that activates the highest cost attack card(s) of Nine in hand, and then exhausts the card(s) used. This card allows you to bypass the high cost of Hew and is the key card you’ll want to duplicate during your Chaos runs. When using this card, the main downside is that you are not able to choose your target for Hew, unless you have Nine at E1 or above.
Best Epiphanies
Note
We have given a star rating for each Epiphany, showing how strong and useful it is - with 1 being the lowest rating and 5 the highest.
Hew (Extreme)
Attack
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Hew (Ironclad)
Attack
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Hew (Massacre)
Attack
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Hew (Ambush)
Attack
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Hew (Flash)
Attack
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Epiphanies:
Divine Epiphanies:
Similar to Neutral Epiphanies, Divines will only be applied to the base version (the starting version and the version created through max level Hew Start of Turn effect). While this makes Divines significantly less valuable on Nine, if you have excess Save Data, which is common on Nine, you can consider taking the ‘Vulnerable 2’ Divine for up to 2 Vulnerability per turn.
Experienced Strike I
Attack
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Experienced Strike II
Attack
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Experienced Strike III
Attack
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Experienced Strike IV
Attack
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Experienced Strike V
Attack
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Epiphanies:
Divine Epiphanies:
The best Divines to aim for are -1 Cost Reduction and Vulnerable 2 on hit. These aren’t mandatory, but are both nice inclusions if you can hit them.
Fatal Strike I
Attack
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Fatal Strike II
Attack
Fatal Strike III
Skill
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Fatal Strike IV
Skill
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Fatal Strike V
Attack
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Epiphanies:
Divine Epiphanies:
The best Divines to aim for are -1 Cost Reduction and Vulnerable 2 on hit. These aren’t mandatory, but are both nice inclusions if you can hit them.
Counterblade I
Upgrade
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Counterblade II
Upgrade
Show Effects
Counterblade III
Upgrade
Show Effects
Counterblade IV
Upgrade
Show Effects
Counterblade V
Upgrade
Show Effects
Epiphanies:
Divine Epiphanies:
Divine Epiphanies provide negligible value on this card; therefore, an Epiphany that synergizes with your build should be prioritized over Divines.
Gear
The Memory Fragments & Equipment suggestions below are based on calculations we did. If you want to check the damage formula and how scaling the damage works in CZN, check this guide.
The theoretical maximum damage set for Nine, but only after you achieve sufficient Card DMG% (multiplicative) from other sources. The reason for this is that the Crit Rate from this set affects Hew, even if you trigger it with Fighting Spirit and at high Card DMG% saturation, it becomes more valuable as Crit Rate isn’t a stat that is easily accessible.
If you're struggling to hit 350 DEF on your Nine use 2P Tetra's Authority but if you can hit it without that use 2P Executioner's.
Beast’s Yearning at standard levels of Card DMG% (multiplicative) and gear levels is about on par with the damage output of 4P Line of Justice for Nine in save data game modes. But in Chaos, it’s usually able to pull ahead as the equipment and decks of your combatants are usually much weaker, leading to less saturation of Card DMG%, diminishing Line of Justice’s advantage. The higher your Card DMG%, the more this set falls behind Line of Justice in save data modes. This is particularly relevant when running with characters like Orlea with huge buffs.
If you're struggling to hit 350 DEF on your Nine use 2P Tetra's Authority but if you can hit it without that use 2P Executioner's.
A worse version of Beast’s Yearning in almost all scenarios; you should only use it if you already farmed it. Has all the same strengths and weaknesses as Beast’s Yearning, will be more useful with a low amount of Card DMG% (multiplicative), but falls off when you have a lot of it.
If you're struggling to hit 350 DEF on your Nine use 2P Tetra's Authority but if you can hit it without that use 2P Executioner's.
2/2/2 is also a viable option on Nine and allows her to maintain okay damage while also having the flexibility of choosing between many options for the third 2P. Black Wing is being used for the displayed calculations, but if you’re able to consistently secure Agony on your target, Cursed Corpse should be used instead. This will lead to a large increase in damage compared to what is shown. All up 2/2/2 has the potential to beat out 4P Bullet and 4P Beast if you have a lot of Card DMG% or if you’re able to apply Agony. Otherwise, it’s just a nice, flexible choice to use if you don’t want to farm new sets.
If you can keep Agony on targets use 2P Cursed Corpse for maximum damage, if you can't but still want a bit more damage use 2P Blackwing otherwise you can use 2P Seth's Scarab for some early Chaos power, 2P Healer's Journey to boost team survivability or use no Flex 2P and just target high sub stat pieces instead.
In a lot of cases, flat sub-stats are better than percentage ones when it comes to HP, ATK and DEF. The reason behind this is that in CZN the characters stats are pretty low and you get more value from flat bonus rather than percentage one based on calcs.
CRIT Rate% = CRIT DMG% > DEF > DEF% >>> ATK > ATK%
To fully activate Nine's Potential 7, aim for 350 DEF or higher on your character screen (before combat) in order to gain the full 15% Order DMG% from the Potential. To do this, consider swapping around 2P set bonuses.
Our best Partner recommendation try to balance both the raw damage boost they provide based on our calculations with the additional utility provided by the skill - combined with how it interacts with the character's kit. We have rated each Partner based on how much additional damage and the utility they provide. Read the comments under each Partner to better understand our reasoning.
No calculations in Chaos Zero Nightmare are completely accurate for all scenarios, including the ones below. What team, decks, epiphanies, gear, equipment, and enemies you're facing all impact them. Because of this, take the results as guidelines and combine them with the explanations to make your decisions. Calculations use endgame save data set-ups, including 5 turns of combat using the whole deck with all Ego skills unless otherwise stated.
In the Zero System, it's incredibly easy to access all items acquirable via the shop thanks to the five free refreshes you get each shop node - that's why the recommendations below are limited to them only. ATTENTION! Area-specific items can sometimes be more powerful than shop items, but are far less consistent to get or require running a specific world or giving up certain event options. Use the shop list as a starting point for building up your deck saves.
The equipment recommendations are based on items obtainable in Season 2’s Chaos - Burning Life. If you’re running content outside of Season 2, it’s possible some options may not be available for acquisition, or that other options not obtainable in Burning Life may be better.
We're currently working on updating all builds for Season 3.
Deck & Teams
Check the best builds for Nine below.
Extreme Hew Spam Deck
Extreme One Hew Wonder
Hew (Extreme)
Attack
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Experienced Strike
Attack
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Fatal Strike
Attack
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Counterblade I
Upgrade
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Fighting Spirit
Skill
Show Effects
Base performance of the character.