Card Review with Chu2: Zela

Zela was the first 7 star GFE great witch and the herald of a new wave of power creep. Between her two evolutions Zela covers just about every mechanic under the sun, but has she truly carved out a niche? Let us investigate her thoroughly.

Active Skill: +2 combo count for 1 turn. Removes lock status on orbs. Change all orbs to & orbs. (16 CD)

In exchange for a high cooldown of 16 turnsbicolor boards with no secondary effects are 12 cd, Zela creates a bicolor board with , unlock, and +2c. A bicolor board with any one of these secondary effects would already be a reasonably good active, and Zela has it all. This isn’t necessarily a good thing though, as often times not every one of her effects are relevant or needed and only serve to inflate the cooldown. Her active isn’t something to use lightly, as it will likely be the only time you can use it in the dungeon.

The places where her active truly shines are floors with multiple spawns with various mechanics like combo shields, resolve, gravity/big preempt, board lock, or straight up damage checks. Zela’s active is able to answer all of these obstacles so as long as the board isn’t terribly unbalanced.

Currently there are only a few bicolor boards with +combo effect , and Zela is still the only one to add 2 combos. With this effect, it is much easier to make rows, (super)FUA, or VDP and still do enough combos for 7c awakes or enemy combo shields. Reaching exactly 7 combos for a leader like Amen can be done simply by making 5 rows/columns of alternating hearts and greens, which is particularly useful when solving for FUA.

Overall, it’s a powerful active that’s helpful in a wide variety of situations, but the long CD and lack of non-green orbs greatly limits the number of teams where Zela’s active is applicable.

When considering Zela for a sub on any team, her active skill should not be ignored as it’s difficult to inherit anything over the long cooldown. If a bicolor isn’t what your team needs then it’s best to look into other subs that do similar things like Bride Rushana for VDP or Green Cotton for FUA.

Base Zela: lv99+297: HP 4480 ATK 3001 RCV 1048

At a glance, base Zela’s awakenings seems very unfocused, but given that both VDP and SFUA activate on 3×3 squares of orbs it’s sometimes easier to fit VDP box and SFUA box than VDP box and FUA column. Although Zela is the only card who naturally has both VDP and SFUA, the later is found on assist evos and thus “available” to any given card. Zela herself is able to make good use of SFUA assist evos for damage amplification.

Zela has the highest base attack of any green VDP cards and while she isn’t able to take any latent killer type, her coverage is only missing Machine, Balanced, and Healer. Her appeal diminished due to recent super awakening buffs that gave double 7c and balanced type cards like Ney or Cotton a VDP, but unlike those cards, Zela is usable in coop farming builds.

Ult Zela: lv99+297: HP 6992 ATK 2797 RCV 417

Ult Zela was the first card to have triple 7c and FUA. Even on teams that seemingly prefer rows, the sheer power of triple 7c usually puts ult Zela ahead of base form as a sub. Much like her base form, Zela’s killer selection is wide but incomplete; thankfully she is still able to take God killers for the tanky Metatrons/Kalis in Alt Arena and her ability to take Machine killers makes killing Scheat/Eschamali in 3pa2 a breeze.

Her strengths as a sub is readily apparent, but she has a significant flaw in that she only has 1 SB. It’s difficult to get Zela’s own active up on turn 1, sometimes requiring help from skill boost equips . For this reason, there are times where the base form is preferable for having the same active but 2 SB.

Both Zela forms have a ≥50% HP conditional 4x ATK (to Green att.) and 35% shield, with each having a different damage amplification method to distinguish themselves. HP dependant shields are better for stalling than shields that depend combos or colors as you do not neccesarily have to be clearing the whole board but running out of heart orbs is still a concern, especially with Zela’s lack of RCV mult.

Although she is an HP conditional leader, her own active does not recover HP. Thankfully green has a nice selection of self-healing actives, including Odindra , Nees , and Michael .

Base Zela: Wood attribute cards ATK x4, 35% all damage reduction when HP is greater than 50%. ATK x2 when simultaneously clearing 6 connected orbs. ATK x0.5 for each additional orb, up to ATK x3 at 8 connected orbs [1/144/1 Resist 57.75%].

Base Zela is a green row leader with scaling from 6 orbs to 8 orbs. Her multiplier is average and she costs too many orbs to use without constant green making actives, but as a swipe lead Zela offer some distinct advantages. Having VDP and SFUA built into the lead is convenient in dungeons with both mechanics, and a passive shield removes need for a healing active when faced with preemptive gravity followed by a hit.

Aside from Dios based swipe teams, Zela can also utilize a Enishi system quite well. Her multiplier at 6 is only 64x, but that’s usually sufficient with the massive number of rows 4 Enishis brings to the team. Her multiplier is actually a bit too high for a3 damage control thresholds, but she can be used for dungeons like A4 where her +2c bicolor with hearts active and VDP helps with all the combo shields, resolves, and voids.

Ult Zela: Wood attribute cards ATK x4, 35% all damage reduction when HP is greater than 50%. All attribute cards ATK x2.5 when reaching 2 set of combos. ATK x1 for each additional combo, up to ATK x3.5 when reaching 3 combos [1/196/1 Resist 57.75%].

Ult Zela’s damage depends on multiple green combos, requiring 6 for 100x and 9 for the full 196x. Although her HP dependent 16x multiplier and her triple 7c is often sufficient to kill weaker floors, she won’t be able to handle consecutive tanky floors without a constant stream of green orbs.

Ways to amend her orb hungriness include green skyfall actives and 7×6 pairings, but I personally feel that Zela shines the most in shorter content like most 3p mode dungeons where as long as she has enough skill boosts and actives, she blast through every floor much like Yog-Sothoth .

A specific dungeon where Zela is popular for is 3pa2. Being a mono-green lead allows her to bypass the numerous dark/light absorbs troubling to teams that require matching those colors, and her high personal damage coupled with a good selection of killers including machine for the two bosses makes her excellent at demolishing each floor. Some 3pa2 videos featuring teams with 3+ Zelas are out there, but high SB subs like Avalon Drake and Whaledor are usable in lieu of multiple Zelas and SB equips.

Zela is a powerful leader when used correctly, but she isn’t quite self sufficient and needs SB solutions and/or ways to constantly generate green orbs for consistency. As a sub she’s a relatively good VDP in base form and a powerful damage stick in ult form, but can be difficult to slot her on teams over subs with lower CD for assists.

Don’t feel discouraged if your box has low synergy with her at the moment, either form of Zela may serve you well down the road as you obtain more cards that synergises with her and the powerful active is great for any mono-green team even if Zela herself (somehow) doesn’t fit.