Chaos Zero Nightmare (CZN)NiaBuild and Guide

• Decibel: Nia’s cards generate stacks of Decibel, which are displayed in the top left corner under Nia’s icon. Decibel triggers a 50% Extra Attack from each combatant when your deck is Shuffled; each stack of Decibel increases this Extra Attack’s damage. After this Extra Attack is triggered, you lose all stacks of Decibel. This means that you’ll ideally want to reach 5 stacks of Decibel per deck cycle.
• Extra Attack: Nia’s Decibel mechanic and her Skill card Mute Accent can trigger Extra Attacks on combatants, which will prompt them to automatically unleash an attack with a specified damage multiplier.
• Discard: Much of Nia’s kit revolves around actively Discarding cards from hand, as opposed to automatically Discarding at the end of the turn. By Discarding cards with her skills, she can trigger a variety of effects, such as gaining Decibel, triggering an Extra Attack, or moving the discarded card to the top of the Draw Pile. Discarding cards also helps her cycle through your deck faster to trigger Shuffles.
• Shuffle: When there are no cards in the Draw Pile and trigger a Draw effect (like Drawing 5 cards at the start of each turn), the game Shuffles all the cards in the Graveyard back into the Draw Pile. Nia wants to do this as much as possible to trigger Decibel’s Extra Attacks
• Elasticity: Unlocking Potential 3-1 adds this effect to her two basic healing Skill cards, Amp Therapy. Each stack heals 50% whenever an ally performs an Extra Attack; this amount is increased by unlocking Potential 7.
• Activate: Nia can Activate a card from the Draw Pile, which automatically plays a card without paying for its AP cost. Nia can use this to cheat out more expensive cards, especially since she can manipulate which card is on the top of the Draw Pile.

5

Rock and Roll

Ego Skill

200% Damage to all enemies.
3 Decibel.
Discard all cards from the Draw Pile.

Show Effects

Rock and Roll

Nia’s Ego Skill costs 5 EP to deal AoE damage, increase Decibel by 3, and Discard all cards from the Draw Pile. This basically guarantees a Shuffle at the start of next turn, which will then trigger the buffed Decibel Extra Attacks. The damage is alright, but you won’t be building Nia for damage.

1

Stroke

Attack

100% Damage

Stroke

Nia’s basic attack is completely standard and doesn't have any extra synergy with her kit. A good removal target.

1

Amp Therapy

Skill

Heal 100%.

Show Effects

Amp Therapy

Nia’s basic Heal card grants an Elasticity stack on use thanks to Potential 3-1, which forms the core of her sustain. Healing is very situational, though, so your mileage may vary.

1

G Chord

Skill

1 Decibel.
Activate the top 1 card(s) of the Draw Pile.​

Show Effects

G Chord

A 1-cost Skill that increases Decibel by 1 and activates the top card of the Draw Pile. This can be played with Adagio to cheat out specific cards.

1

Mute Accent

Skill

Discard 1 card(s) with highest Cost.
The Combatant who owns that card performs 150% Extra Attack to a random enemy.

Mute Accent

A 1-cost Skill card that actively Discards the highest cost card in hand and triggers an Extra Attack from the card’s owner. One of Nia’s sources of Discard, which is important for Soul Rip.

1

Soul Rip

Skill

[Retain]

Heal 120%.
When a card is discarded, Heal 100%, 1 Decibel for 1 turn.

Show Effects

Soul Rip

A 1-cost Skill card that increases Decibel every time you actively Discard a card this turn. Nia’s main source of Decibel, but it feels clunky to use.

0

Adagio

Skill

Draw 1.
Discard 1.
Move discarded card that is effected to top of the Draw Pile.

Adagio

A 0-cost Skill card that Draws 1 card and allows you to select a card to Discard, which will be moved to the top of the Draw Pile. Fantastic effect that allows you to remove the RNG of G Chord or save a card for next turn.

1

Nia's Curiosity

Skill

Check 3 random cards from the Draw Pile.
Choose one to Draw, Discard the rest.

Nia's Curiosity

A 1-cost Skill card that reveals 3 cards from the Draw Pile and allows you to choose one of them to Draw into your hand and Discard the other two options. Speeds up deck cycling to trigger Shuffles for Decibel. A pseudo-card search that gets even better with Nia’s E1, which discounts this to 0.

Nia’s Signature Potentials focus entirely on healing, which isn’t really a priority.

• 3-1: Causes Amp Therapy to accumulate 1 stack of Elasticity on use. Good passive healing.
• 5-1: Improves Amp Therapy’s heal by 5% and an additional 5% if Nia’s Ego Recovery is greater than 30.
• 7: Increases Elasticity’s healing by +30% and another +20% if Nia’s Ego Recovery is greater than 70.

Standard Playstyle

Nia’s gameplay revolves around building up Decibel stacks, cycling through your deck very quickly, and triggering Extra Attacks when the deck Shuffles. She primarily gets Decibel stacks by playing Soul Rip together with her active Discard effects—Mute Accent, Nia’s Curiosity, Adagio, and her Ego Skill. At 2 Decibel, she can activate her Ego Skill to stack up to 5 and also Discard the entire Draw Pile to trigger a Shuffle. She can play a card in hand for cheap by combining Adagio’s Draw Pile manipulation and G Chord together. Nia’s Curiosity is a great pseudo-card search card that also improves your cycling speed to get to your Decibel Extra Attacks faster. Run her with well-built DPS characters to capitalize on their stats with Extra Attacks from Decibel and Mute Accent.

Note

For every Epiphany, we're colored their name based on how useful we think it is compared to the other variants. Here's the key to the colors:

• Epiphany Name - the best variant,
• Epiphany Name - a good variant,
• Epiphany Name - a niche variant.

Recommended Loadout

2-PC Bonuses

• 

  Tetra's Authority [2-PC]

  - 12% defense passively, which boosts healing a good amount but also contributes to the whole team's tankiness. Best 2P option for Nia.
• 

  Healer's Journey [2-PC]

  - A solid boost to overall team survivability via a 12% HP boost, not game-changing, but will help survive large one shots.
• 

  Seth's Scarab [2-PC]

  - Boosts Basic Heal, Shield, and Damage cards by +20% multiplicatively. Strong if you’re leaving in any of Nia’s basic cards, but solid even if you’re not when playing Zero System. Mainly used because there are very few viable set options left.

Weapon

• Flex

Armor

• 

  Reinforced Combat Suit
• 

  Assault Boots
• 

  Survivor's Hood
• 

  Standard Gas Mask

Trinket

• 

  Water Drops of the Goddess
• 

  Grey Orb
• 

  Magic-Infused Sapphire

Comments - Weapons

1. Flex - As a Support not focused on damage, most of the shop weapons lack much impact or synergy with Mika’s kit. Instead, this slot is ideally taken up by an Event/World item, but if you don’t find any, feel free to fill it with any equipment you see fit.

Comments - Armor

1. 

   Reinforced Combat Suit
   - Grants a 60% fixed shield at the end of every turn as long as you have no shield before clicking the end turn button. Solid for granting a little extra sustain every turn in shieldless teams. Multiple instances of this equipment also work and stack together, allowing for up to 180% end-of-turn fixed shield. Useless when run with active shielders, though.
2. 

   Assault Boots
   - Deploys a 200% fixed shield on the 2nd turn of combat. A strong one-off shielding option that triggers on a turn when enemies are very likely to be attacking you. An okay option in short fights, but loses value in longer ones.
3. 

   Survivor's Hood
   - Offers a 140% fixed shield on the 1st turn of combat. A smaller shield than Assault boots, which, when combined with the fact that many enemies use their first turn to buff themself or debuff you, makes it slightly less appealing. Still a reasonable choice, though, and better than nothing.
4. 

   Standard Gas Mask
   - A non-shield option that grants 1 stack of immunity, blocking a debuff incoming from enemies. If you’re having no issues with survivability, it can actually be more beneficial than shielding, also stacks with other characters using it, granting up to 3 immunity at the start of battle.

Comments - Trinkets

1. 

   Water Drops of the Goddess
   - Applies one stack of the Save buff at the start of battle, which preserves AP for as long as it persists, but one stack is removed at the end of each turn you conserve any AP. Unless you always perfectly spend your AP will eventually net you at least 1 spare AP. It can also be stacked if you have it on multiple characters, allowing you to start with multiple save stacks, therefore saving AP across multiple turns.
2. 

   Grey Orb
   - An always useful option which grants you 3 stacks of damage reduction at the start of the fight, reducing the first 3 hits you take by 15%. Strongest against single-hit bosses, not as useful against many small or multi-hit foes.
3. 

   Magic-Infused Sapphire
   - Inflicts 1 full bar of Tenacity to all enemies at the start of the battle, assuming you have an Initiation card in your hand, regardless of which combatant it belongs to. A good way to accelerate breaking enemies and accessing extra AP, also stacks between multiple combatants, allowing you to inflict up to 3 bars at the start of the battle if all your characters have it. Nia herself doesn’t have any Initiation cards, but she can still trigger this off of other characters.

Important!

CZN is a game of randomness; sometimes you’ll be offered generic or Divine epiphanies that are stronger than a character's standard five options. In these cases, breaking the listed build can result in an even more powerful save. Adjust as you see fit!

Build Comments

Nia’s ideal build changes depending on whether you have her at E1 or E0. At E1, Nia’s Curiosity is reduced from costing 1 to 0, making it far more potent. After E1 Nia’s Curiosity digs through 3 cards, discards 2, and allows you to draw one of your choice, compared to Adagio V, which discards 1 and draws 2 of the owner's cards for 0 (A pseudo search). At this point, both are fairly close, but Curiosity’s ability to see more cards, not need a discard outlet, and also discarding more total cards usually allows it to pull ahead for most strategies; however, Adagio V can still be considered for E1+ as well if you want to keep the semi-searching.

Card Removal Priority

• Stroke: Nia doesn’t do meaningful damage herself, so removing her Basic Attack is usually at the top of her priority list.
• Amp Therapy: Delivers sizable healing thanks to multiple upgrades in Nia’s potentials, making it ok to keep in some endgame Nia decks. If you don’t need the pure healing, though, both should be removed as the next priority.

Card Dupe Priority

Dupe Priority

E0: Adagio V

E1: Nia’s Curiosity

At E0, Adagio V should be your target for dupes thanks to how much card draw/search it grants for 0 cost. After that, you can dupe Nia’s Curiosity instead for more discards and better card cycling in exchange for the semi-searching of Adagio.

Epiphany Alternatives

• Mute Accent: Mute Accent III is the most universal and nets you a heal plus card activation for free, which, when played around, can result in some extra AP efficiency. But Mute Accent V, while niche, can also offer some incredible combo potential for some characters that function well off of discards.
• Soul Rip: Soul Rip II has retain and is a heal on demand, which also grants you additional healing every time you discard, making it excellent for sustain. Alternatively, Soul Rip I can be used instead for free when discarded, but loses retain, making it more efficient when played around but less flexible. Finally, Soul Rip III can be used as a combo piece in some discard-based strategies if you find it applicable to the kind of deck you’re playing.

Renoa

• Fantastic damage amplification for Renoa thanks to Decibel triggers, extra attack from Mute Accent, and huge combo potential with Soul Rip.
• Renoa has multiple active discard outlets, which activate many of Nia’s effects.
• Discarding Dirge Bullets is essentially gaining discard effects for free, as you’ll want them discarded anyway, eliminating a big cost of Nia’s cards.

Cassius

• Both Nia and Cassius have incredible card draw, which, when combined, grants supreme accessibility to your deck.
• Nia scales off of active card discards, which Cassius’s Shuffle does on the entire hand. This combo adds a potent burst effect to whatever build you’re playing.

Kayron

• Great card search/draw to get Kayron’s most efficient Futility generators and payoffs.
• Ability to cast cards off the top of the deck for 1 AP, allowing for cheating of Kayron’s more expensive cards, netting you an AP gain.
• If not usable, Futility cards can be used as discard fodder for Nia’s cards, eliminating much of their potential cost.

Important!

If you’re losing runs when playing a damage-focused composition either to sanity or dying, consider using a team with more defensive characters - so including both a shielder and healer. This is especially important in the Zero System mode.

Renoa Team

Damage

Support

Support

Kayron Team

Damage

Support

Support