Tressa Best Build Guide: Cards, Teams, Setup | Chaos Zero Nightmare

If you like watching bosses slowly melt while you sit back and throw tiny purple knives, Tressa is absolutely your girl. She’s not the loudest carry in Chaos Zero Nightmare, but she’s one of the comfiest: low-cost cards, super smooth turns, and a gameplan that feels better the longer the fight goes on.

In this guide, you’ll get just enough detail to understand why her kit works, plus clear build, stat and team directions you can actually follow.

Tressa Overview

Tressa is a 4✦ Psionic combatant from the Void attribute and Terrascion [Planet-Born] faction, built around stacking Agony and letting that damage-over-time do the heavy lifting for your team. In practice, that means she isn’t trying to win through one huge nuke; instead, she layers debuffs that deal Fixed damage at the end of the turn, chipping away at even the tankiest enemies. Because Fixed damage is unaffected by normal damage buffs and reductions, Agony remains reliable against high-defense or damage-reduction targets, giving her a very steady damage profile in longer fights.

Her entire kit is tuned to make that gameplan as smooth as possible. Tressa’s starting cards already create Shadow Daggers, 0-cost Exhaust attacks that apply Agony, and her Epiphanies upgrade this engine by adding Advanced Shadow Daggers, improved Agony application, and tools like Curse that let all your Attacks pile on extra stacks for a turn. She also has access to cards such as Cursed Gouge, which apply both Agony-related effects and Weaken, cutting enemy damage by 25% whenever they attack. Once your stacks are set up, finishers like Vital Attack convert those debuffs into meaningful burst, so her damage curve feels like “set up with daggers, then cash out” rather than pure front-loaded hits.

In endgame content, this kit translates into a very flexible role: Tressa can serve as a primary single-target DPS or as a DoT-focused enabler who feeds other carries. We rate her highly in Dimensional Twilight and solidly in Chaos Manifestation, depending on how well she performs when you give her the right Epiphanies, Memory Fragments, and teammates.

She has excellent Cost efficiency thanks to so many 0- and 1-cost cards, plays nicely with multi-hit and follow-up attackers like Hugo or Cassius who benefit from all those extra card plays, and forms powerful F2P-friendly cores with supports such as Mika and Rei. The trade-off is that her damage peaks after a few turns of setup and Agony only triggers at end of turn, but if you manage the pace of the fight, she becomes one of the most satisfying and dependable DoT specialists in Chaos Zero Nightmare.

 

Tressa Skill & Card Anlysis

Core Mechanics: Agony

Agony is the debuff that Tressa’s entire kit revolves around. In Chaos Zero Nightmare, Agony is a fixed damage over time effect: at the end of the turn, each stack of Agony deals Fixed DoT (50% per stack by default), then that stack is reduced by 1. Importantly, when you “add Agony,” you’re usually adding another instance of Agony rather than merging everything into one big number—e.g., a Shadow Dagger with Agony 2 creates two separate stacks, and using another Shadow Dagger adds two more stacks on top, so the enemy will take multiple small fixed hits at turn end instead of one giant one.

This is why Tressa cares more about how many times she can apply Agony than about single hit size: every dagger, Curse turn, or multi-hit card translates into more fixed ticks that ignore normal damage buffs/reductions and stay reliable into high-defense content.

Starter Cards

Dagger Throw (1 Cost, Attack)

A basic attack card dealing 100% damage. With Potentials unlocked, it can gain 2 Agony and bonus damage, turning your basic attack into a cheap DoT applier.

Touch of Darkness (1 Cost, Skill)

Heals for 100% of her healing value. Simple but important: it keeps the team stable and also synergizes strongly once you pick Shadow Reload Epiphanies that care about healing with Skill cards.

Unsheathe Dagger (1 Cost, Skill)

Creates 2 Shadow Dagger. This is the backbone of her starting deck: 1 AP to generate two 0-cost Agony cards. Most of her Epiphany tree either upgrades this directly or adds new ways to generate daggers just like it.

 

Epiphany Cards

Curse (0 Cost, Skill)

For 1 turn, when you use Attack cards, you inflict 1 Agony. This is your classic DoT ramp tool: drop Curse, then spam Shadow Daggers and other Attacks to massively increase Agony stacks in a single turn.

Shadow Reload (1 Cost, Skill)

Heal 100% and Create 1 Advanced Shadow Dagger. Shadow Reload both sustains your team and upgrades your dagger economy by converting AP into Advanced Shadow Daggers. Its Epiphany line turns it into one of the most important cards in advanced builds.

Vital Attack (2 Cost, Attack)

Deals 80% × 3 damage. If the target is in Agony, damage +50%. This is Tressa’s core payoff card: after you have stacked Agony via daggers and Curse, Vital Attack converts that tempo into direct burst.

Cursed Gouge (1 Cost, Skill)

Apply 2 Agony Imprint and 2 Weaken. Gouge supercharges your Agony scaling (via Imprint) while cutting enemy damage output through Weaken. It’s ideal for opening against elites and bosses.

 

Generated Cards & Ego Skill

Shadow Dagger (0 Cost, Attack)

[Exhaust] · 50% damage · 2 Agony.

Advanced Shadow Dagger (1 Cost, Attack)

[Retain][Retrieve] · 100% damage · 2 × 2 Agony.

These two are created by Unsheathe, Shadow Reload, Epiphany variants, and the Ego. They are the main carriers of Tressa’s damage plan, and a lot of her Manifest Ego bonuses explicitly buff Shadow Dagger usage.

Wave of Darkness (5 Cost, Ego Skill)

Create 2 Shadow Dagger. A simple but very relevant Ego: when you run low on daggers or need one more big Curse turn, Wave of Darkness refills your hand with two extra 0-cost Agony tools. Later Manifest Ego levels also increase its Agony output.

 

Tressa Card Removal & Dupe Priority

Removal Priority

First optional cut is Touch of Darkness, but only if you already run a strong healer, since it adds sustain without advancing your Agony plan.

Next cuts are generic low-impact attacks or defensive cards once your tank and healer cover survival, trimming the deck just enough to make your core pieces show up more often.

Dupe Priority

Top priority: Shadow Reload Epiphany that generates Shadow Daggers on healing.

Second: upgraded Unsheathe Dagger (more or stronger daggers).

Third: Curse Epiphanies that extend duration or add extra Agony.

Fourth: your chosen Vital Attack upgrade for more reliable finishers.

Character growth: prioritize upgrades that increase Shadow Dagger damage and lower Cursed Gouge’s cost to directly buff her main rotation.

 

Tressa Stat Priority

In CZN’s current stat curve, flat stats are often more efficient than small percentage rolls for HP/ATK/DEF, but your main stat lines still matter a lot.

DoT-Focused DPS

• Main Stats: ATK% (Body) → Void DMG% (Slot that allows it) → ATK% / flat ATK
• Substats: DoT% > flat ATK > ATK% > Crit Rate% ≈ Crit DMG%

A DoT build leans into what Agony actually scales with: Tressa’s base attack and DoT modifiers, not big crit spikes. Stacking DoT% and ATK makes every Shadow Dagger, Curse turn and Vital Attack DoT bonus hit harder, giving you stable, defense-ignoring damage that ramps consistently in long boss fights.

Crit-Hybrid DPS

• Main Stats: Crit Rate% → Crit DMG% → Void DMG% → ATK%
• Substats: Crit Rate% ≈ Crit DMG% ≥ DoT% ≈ flat ATK > ATK%

A crit-hybrid setup shifts part of her damage away from pure Agony ticks and into the initial hits of daggers and Vital Attack. Prioritising Crit Rate/Crit DMG plus Void DMG lets her punish low-HP windows and clean up faster, while Agony still provides background pressure instead of being the only damage source.

 

Tressa Best Setup

Best Memory Fragments

2-pc Black Wing	2-pc Cursed Corpse	2-pc Executioner’s Tool
ATK +12%	+10% damage to enemies with Agony	Crit DMG +25%

This setup leans into Tressa’s natural strengths: Black Wing boosts her base ATK, which indirectly scales Agony and all her attack cards, while Cursed Corpse gives a direct multiplier against Agony targets—something she maintains almost permanently on bosses. Executioner’s Tool then adds cheap Crit DMG to make Shadow Daggers and Vital Attack hit harder when they do crit, without forcing you to stack too many offensive sets at once.

 

Best Equipment

Weapon – RFS-17	Armor – Psionic Combat Suit	Accessory – Dimensional Cube
+10% Critical Chance of Attack Cards with cost 0	When a card is Exhausted, 30% Fixed Shield.	When discarding a card, +10% Damage for 1 turn.
RFS-17 is an ideal weapon for Tressa because it enhances her ability to keep attacking every turn without running out of steam. Its offensive stat line complements her need for frequent, low-cost card plays, and any extra ATK directly strengthens both Agony scaling and Shadow Dagger damage. Compared to more niche weapons, it reliably improves her output in every mode, from story to Chaos runs.	Psionic Combat Suit is a natural fit for Tressa as a Psionic unit who sits on the field for long periods. It gives her enough bulk to survive while she sets up Agony stacks, and the stat distribution doesn’t waste rolls on things she doesn’t care about. In harder stages where enemies can still take a turn before DoT finishes them, that extra survivability is often the difference between stabilising and getting one-shot.	Dimensional Cube leans more into raw damage and consistency, which helps her daggers and Vital Attack push thresholds faster.

 

 

Best Team Compositions

Recommended Core Team

Main DoT	Support	Support
Tressa	Mika	Rei

This trio is featured in multiple early meta builds: Tressa stacks Agony and burns enemies down, while Mika’s healing cards trigger Shadow Reload Epiphanies to generate even more daggers. Rei contributes Void-card damage buffs like Resonating Darkness and Dark Condensation and can also supply Morale and card draw, raising both dagger damage and Vital Attack turns.

 

Follow-Up Core Team

Main DPS	Sub DPS	Support
Hugo	Tressa	Mika

Tressa’s kit is perfect here. Unsheathe Dagger and her Epiphanies generate 0-cost Shadow Daggers, so she can easily play 6–8 Attack cards in one turn. Each dagger both adds Agony (good sustained damage) and triggers Hugo’s Hunt follow-ups, turning her low-cost chip attacks into a cascade of extra hits. Mika then keeps the whole engine running: her Skills provide healing and AP recovery, letting you draw and play more cards each turn, and some of her healing setups incidentally synergise with Tressa’s Shadow Reload Epiphany line by creating more daggers as she heals.

 

Beginner-Friendly F2P Team

Main DPS	Support	Support
Tressa	Mika	Amir

This is one of the easiest teams for new players to pilot. The idea is very straightforward: Tressa keeps stacking Agony with Shadow Dagger, Curse, and Vital Attack to slowly wear down elites and bosses regardless of their defenses; Mika provides frequent healing and extra AP so your rotations never stall; and Amir brings shields and damage reduction so she can soak incoming hits and protect your shared HP bar.

 

Conclusion

If you build her properly, Tressa becomes that teammate who never panics: she keeps stacking Agony, quietly handles the scary targets, and makes your whole run feel a lot less stressful. Once her cards, Epiphanies and gear start clicking together, she turns into a tiny Void blender that carries story, farming and Chaos without demanding perfect hands every game.

And when you’re ready to push even harder content, you know where to go—swing by LDShop for safe, fast and budget-friendly CZN Crystals top-ups so you can grab more pulls, more upgrades and more gear for your favorite DoT gremlin. More resources, more shiny toys, and many, many more Shadow Daggers to throw.