Disk 4
CRIT Rate% = CRIT DMG%
Disk 5
PEN Ratio% >= Physical DMG% = ATK%
Disk 6
ATK%
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Last updated: 27/May/2026
Best guide and build for Nekomata from ZZZ (Zenless Zone Zero). Nekomata is an
rank character with the Physical attribute who belongs to the
Attack Specialty and who is part of the
Cunning Hares faction.
"The best mackerel is always the one you haven't eaten yet~" — Nekomiya Mana. Spirited and mischievous, she likes to play tricks on others. Your wallet is her wallet. (Really... It's hers now.) Athletic and daring, no Hollow is too dangerous for her. "Cats love fish" is actually an incorrect stereotype. But Nekomata does love fish... She's seen a lot of cat-astrophy and "curiosity killed the cat" moments, and seen many a secret that can't be told.
Nekomata has at least one video guide available, so if you prefer this sort of medium to learn more about a character, check it out:
Last review update
Patch 2.3
Last build update
Patch 2.4
Last teams update
Patch 2.5
Last profile update*
27/May/2026
*Profile update means smaller edits to disk drives, stats or other things that don't require new calculations.
To learn more about Nekomata check the sections below. Use the tabs to quickly switch to the kind of information you're looking for.
Profile
Core Passive Stealthy Paws
When Nekomata's Dodge Counter or Quick Assist hits an enemy, her DMG increases by 30% for 6s.
CRIT Rate 0
BASE ATK: 0
Additional Ability Catwalk
When another character in your squad shares the same Attribute or Faction:
After any character inflicts Assault, increases the DMG of Nekomata's next EX Special Attack by 35%, stacking up to 2 times.
Basic
Dodge
Assist
Special
Chain
Basic Attack: Kitty Slash
Basic Attack: Crimson Blade
Dodge: Can't Touch Me-ow~
Dash Attack: Over Here!
Dodge Counter: Phantom Claws
Special Attack: Surprise Attack
EX Special Attack: Super Surprise Attack!
Chain Attack: Claw Swipe
Ultimate: Claw Smash
Assist Follow-Up: Shadow Strike
Defensive Assist: Desperate Defense
Quick Assist: Cat's Paw
Bird Hunter
Mindscape 1
Cat & Mouse
Mindscape 2
Curious Left Tail
Mindscape 3
Sharpen Claws
Mindscape 4
Lucky Right Tail
Mindscape 5
Predator Lineage
Mindscape 6
Nekomata Stats at level 60 (including Core passive bonuses).
HP
DEF
ATK
CRIT Rate
CRIT DMG
PEN Ratio 
Impact 
Anomaly Mastery 
Energy Regen Nekomata images aren't available yet. They will be added soon!
Review
This tier list assesses Agents (characters) based on their combat potential in Zenless Zone Zero's most demanding contents - Deadly Assault (DA) and Shiyu Defense (SD). Please keep in mind Zenless Zone Zero is a skill-based game and each character has a different playstyle, difficulty level and even special tricks and combos. Zenless Zone Zero is also a team based game and it's only by combining both these factors to the highest level a character can reach optimal performance.
Low-cost EX Special grants her a niche in Seed teams as a Steel Charge funnel.
Reasonable W-Engine flexibility with multiple choices available.
Some of the lowest personal damage potential of any DPS in the entire game..
No utility to redeem her low damage, further narrowing her potential niches in the meta
Nekomata is an S-rank Physical Attack Agent who specializes in executing low-damage but very swift attacks as her primary means of dealing damage to enemies. As a damage dealer, she provides no supportive capabilities in her own kit, but with the recent addition of agents like Seed she has become better than ever, even if she mainly takes on the role of a support in Seed Teams. Let’s delve into the specifics of her kit:
Nekomata is one of the simplest characters in the game with very few intricacies. However, one of them is contained within her Core Passive effect, which allows her to gain a significant, but short-term damage boost after executing a Dodge Counter or Quick Assist. To be exact, the buff goes as high as 60% general DMG Bonus for 6s.
As a result, due to the short duration of this buff, Nekomata likes playing in teams that offer speedy access to Quick Assists during stun (this means Astra/Nicole) and she also enjoys staying actively on-field, dodging enemy attacks. It is key to maximize Nekomata’s damage output to ensure uptime on this buff on all of her highest damage abilities (being her Ultimate, EX Special and even her Chain Attack if possible). Nonetheless, the uptime on this buff is very short so it can be difficult to play around over the course of lengthier combos — but with agents who can provide near-instant access to Quick Assists like Astra Yao and Nicole, it isn’t impossible.
Via her Additional Ability, Nekomata could gain an extra 35% DMG boost to the next EX Special that follows an Assault Anomaly trigger, stackable up to 2 times. Unfortunately however, none of her teams apply enough anomaly for this to ever work out, which makes her additional ability pretty useless. Hence, in her best teams, this Additional Ability effect can and should be safely skipped out on without much issue.
Nekomata’s EX Special is a low 40 Energy cost. This is one of the lowest cost EX Specials in the game and it deals only an okay amount of damage as a drawback to its low cost. In addition, the animation is rather slow compared to the rest of her kit, but Nekomata can be switched out of this animation on cast in order to mitigate this effect.
Nekomata’s Basic Attack has 2 different mechanics: Her 5-part Basic Attack has a special mechanic on the 5th hit that allows it to repeat up to 3 times with a 1 in 3 chance. This same mechanic also exists on her Crimson Blade attack triggered by holding Basic Attack during any of the first 3 hits. It essentially acts as a weaker version of her Basic Attack 5 which means it’s not worth executing over her regular Basic Attack string.
Additionally, these potential extra hits may not always be desirable depending on your W-Engine choice. Nekomata’s Steel Cushion W-Engine, one of her top choices, provides extra damage when dealing damage to enemies from behind. These extra hits will have you bounce back and forth between the enemy’s front and back which can prove problematic if trying to capitalize on this W-Engine’s effect.
All of Nekomata’s Dodge and Assist-related moves work as you’d expect them to so we won’t go in detail over them. However, don’t forget about maximizing on her Core Passive’s DMG buff via her Dodge Counter and Quick Assist.
In the current meta, Nekomata is in a rather difficult spot. Her damage has always been on the low end since her release, and stronger and stronger characters releasing over time did not help her stand out much. That is, until Seed came around.
With Seed’s release, Nekomata’s low-cost EX Special came to light once again, since Seed’s Steel Charge mechanic which allows her to unleash a lot of her damage can be replenished by expending Energy as the active Agent. Nekomata does this pretty well, and since her damage has become significantly overshadowed by every DPS Agent since Nekomata’s initial release, she tends to run supportive Disk Drives and W-Engine builds, but her potential to funnel Steel Charge to Seed is rather appreciated and a good F2P alternative to her teams. This is Nekomata’s only current meta position, but she is still overshadowed in this team by other, better premium options or Corin.
We can conclude Nekomata is rather replaceable in the meta, yet does hold some niche use cases for Proxies who want to make use of her.
Build and teams
The W-Engines are listed in order of priority. Sometimes the percentages appearing near them won't reflect their performance as pure damage or Stun output isn't the only thing we're looking at - the utility of the W-Engine might be more important than the calculations imply.
The top number shows team-buffed calculations, while the bottom number in the 'vacuum', so just their performance solo. For the team-buffed calculations, here's the team setup we used for them:
106.63%
103.30%
106.15%
103.59%
104.70%
101.92%
100.00%
100.00%
94.81%
97.35%
90.82%
92.41%
1
Puffer Electro usually falls behind other sets, but this changes if Dialyn is present on the team. With her, it is possible to always have Puffer's buff up in critical burst periods, and even maintain 100% uptime in stun despite its 12s duration by staggering Dialyn's Ultimate conversion with Decibel Ultimates.
Best combined with your choice of 2-PC Set:
Woodpecker Electro
Branch & Blade Song
Fanged Metal
Astral Voice
Hormone Punk
2
Always a great option for CRIT-scaling Main DPS characters who will remain on the field for extended periods of time, this Disc Drive set provides extra CRIT Rate and lots of ATK% which can be triggered using very general conditions, making this set versatile and effective.
Best combined with your choice of 2-PC Set:
Puffer Electro
Branch & Blade Song
Fanged Metal
Astral Voice
Hormone Punk
Substats: CRIT RATE = CRIT DMG > ATK% > PEN = ATK
ATK: 2500 - 3100+ (Optional)
HP: 9500+
DEF: 800+
CRIT RATE: 70% - 80%+
CRIT DMG: 140% - 160%+
Special Attack
Chain Attack
Basic Attack
Dodge
Assist
Teams & Synergy
Below we list only the most important synergies for Nekomata. The character can work with others if you know what to do and how to use them.
Dialyn - Dialyn is easily the best Stunner for Nekomata and far surpasses any double support comps at the time of her release. Her strong all-around buffs are good as is, but the Ultimate conversion she offers is particularly great, given that Nekomata's damage is loaded on EXs, Chains and Ultimates. As Dialyn is a Physical Agent, she both enables Nekomata's Additional Ability (despite its limited value add) and simultaneously contributes to its activation through Physical Anomaly build-up. When paired with a fast time-to-stun and Nekomata's accessible burst, she's the most optimal choice.
Seed - Nekomata's only real use case is in Seed teams as an Energy battery. Her low-cost EX Special with the possibility to run a W-Engine like Housekeeper and a supportive set like Astral Voice makes her a good Support to boost Seed's damage, where her main role will be to funnel Steel Charge via frequent EX Specials so that Seed can shine and deal good damage on her own.
Trigger 
Pulchra - When played with the intent to deal damage Nekomata highly values her fieldtime and stun windows something both Pulchra and Trigger provide thanks to their ability to inflict daze and their buffs without soaking up too much of it.
Astra Yao 
Nicole - Astra provides an easy access to quick assists even during stun windows and due to the short duration of Nekomata's self-buff and her inability to self-access quick assists and dodge counters during the enemy stun window, Astra is one of the better choices for Nekomata, allowing her to maintain her core passive even during stuns. Nekomata also pairs extremely well with DEF Shred sources such as Trigger or Cordis Germina and with DEF Shred Stacking being a valuable choice for a substantial damage increase, Nicole can do extremely well as well. Nicole can also provide up to 15% crit rate at Mindscape 6 in addition to yet again easy access to quick assists by her EX Special, Ultimate and Chain Attacks.This section lists most popular teams featuring Nekomata in the current phase of Shiyu Defense.
Rank 162
App. rate: 0.06%
Avg. time: 29289
Rank 216
App. rate: 0.03%
Avg. time: 31073
This section lists most popular teams featuring Nekomata in the current phase of Deadly Assault.
Rank 158
App. rate: 0.05%
Avg. score: 24765
Rank 183
App. rate: 0.04%
Avg. score: 28214
Rank 242
App. rate: 0.02%
Avg. score: 25706
Calculations
Don't use the damage output calculations as an indication on who is worth pulling or investing as those are just simulations and in day-to-day gameplay there's a lot variables and also the skill of the player is important. As usual, don't compare the numbers between characters.
ZZZ has changed a lot from 1.0 - many new mechanics, enemies characters have been introduced and biggest of all the game has a new competitive endgame mode Deadly Assault. Deadly Assault is based around dealing as much damage as possible in 180 seconds, because of this we're changing our calculation style away from a focus on burst to instead focus on extended fights over 3 minutes (180s). Also, many Mindscapes, Disc Drive and W-engine calculations can meaningfully change when factoring in the buffs of an Agents best team, for this reason we're also adding a new feature, allowing you to see damage output with one of the agents best teams buffs factored in.
This character uses our new calculation format for this reason, do not compare her calculations to older character. We'll be updating all DPS characters soon.
The top number shows team-buffed calculations, while the bottom number in the 'vacuum', so just their performance solo. For the team-buffed calculations, here's the team setup we used for them:
Rotation time: consistent DPS over 180s.
Shiyu Defense / Deadly Assault
This section contains information about Nekomata performance in the latest Shiyu Defense and Deadly Assault cycles (2.8.1). The page will be automatically updated every patch once enough data is gathered.
If you want to share your clear information with us, you simply need to fill the form below and provide us with your UID and make your Hoyo profile public - we will automatically parse the Shiyu Defense clear information from your profile after that!
Shiyu Defense Stats FormCharacters are ranked with appearance rate, which is how often a character was used in Shiyu Defense by the players who we have scanned, regardless of whether they own the character or not. Ownership rate currently cannot be obtained.
72.28%
65.84%
60.18%
57.36%
57.26%
55.89%
44.07%
43.8%
42.62%
41.81%
30.46%
28.43%
22.96%
20.75%
18.66%
18.63%
16.08%
14.85%
6.59%
5.82%
5.16%
4.65%
4.2%
4.05%
3.39%
2.53%
2.51%
2.49%
2.24%
1.79%
1.77%
1.34%
1.22%
0.77%
0.76%
0.73%
0.54%
0.51%
0.44%
0.43%
0.43%
0.3%
0.28%
0.26%
0.2%
0.16%
0.15%
0.05%
0.04%
0.04%
0.02%
0.02%
Characters are ranked with appearance rate, which is how often a character was used in Deadly Assault by the players who we have scanned, regardless of whether they own the character or not. Ownership rate currently cannot be obtained.
69.4%
63.98%
58.14%
56.39%
55.74%
48.73%
47.83%
47.04%
42.66%
29.34%
26.08%
20.64%
19.96%
19.15%
15.15%
14.05%
12.01%
10.41%
9.24%
7.08%
5.96%
5.5%
4.83%
2.83%
2.57%
2.37%
1.98%
1.91%
1.91%
1.89%
1.64%
1.55%
0.96%
0.84%
0.83%
0.76%
0.65%
0.49%
0.46%
0.25%
0.24%
0.24%
0.23%
0.19%
0.19%
0.15%
0.1%
0.06%
0.04%
0.02%
0.02%
0.01%
This section lists the characters that were most commonly paired with Nekomata in the current phase of Shiyu Defense.
29299
80.49%
28785
39.02%
27770
21.95%
29998
19.51%
28186
12.2%
28819
9.76%
0
4.88%
25522
2.44%
This section lists the characters that were most commonly paired with Nekomata in the current phase of Deadly Assault.
24589
63.16%
24825
39.47%
24146
31.58%
26656
23.68%
21695
13.16%
22147
10.53%
21230
10.53%
0
2.63%
Mindscapes data comes from players who used Nekomata in the current SD cycle (41) or in the current DA cycle (38).
SD
DA
1.14%
0Mindscape 0
3.12%
3214612.62%
2875919%
3098310.34%
3325719.3%
3098534.49%
32038W-Engines usage data comes from players who used Nekomata in the current SD cycle (41) or in the current DA cycle (38).
SD
DA
92.1%
276311.41%
01.41%
01.41%
01.13%
01.13%
30498Disk Drives usage data comes from players who used Nekomata in the current SD cycle (41) or in the current DA cycle (38).
SD
DA
33.32%
2663414.98%
2765411.58%
345364.22%
03.4%
02.54%
0
CRIT DMG%
ATK%
CRIT Rate%ATK%
PEN Ratio%
Physical DMG%ATK%
Impact
HPATK
DEFCRIT Rate%CRIT DMG%Physical DMG%
Energy Regen%
Anomaly Mastery
Anomaly ProficiencyPEN Ratio%
PENHPATKDEFCRIT Rate%CRIT DMG%PENAnomaly Proficiency