One of the biggest barriers to progression in Zenless Zone Zero is a lack of resources. The higher in level your characters and gear become, the more expensive they are to upgrade, and when you start needing to farm Crystallized Plating Agent and other materials, how fast you can do new content in the game can slow to a crawl.
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Zenless Zone Zero: Character Tier List
Find out which characters are best to use in our Zenless Zone Zero character tier list.
There are thankfully plenty of ways to get materials and store up lots of Battery Charge, but there will come a point when you’ll need to wait if you want to keep grinding. You will want to start collecting as much Crystallized Plating Agent and other consumable upgrade materials as possible long before you need them to save yourself time and alleviate inevitable aggravation.
Everywhere You Get Crystallized Plating Agent
You’re likely to unlock the ability to get and farm Crystallized Plating Agent around the time you unlock the ability to farm for Drive Discs or shortly after your first Inter-Knot ascension commission. Like most upgrade materials, there are more ways to get Crystallized Plating Agent than the Drive Discs they upgrade, and they aren’t locked to a specific character or Drive Disc type.
The Crystallized variant, as well as the C-Rank Molded Plated Agent and the A-Rank Ether Plating Agent, can upgrade any Drive Disc, regardless of who it’s equipped to. The four ways to get your hands on Crystallized Plating Agents are as follows:
|
Material |
Source |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Crystallized Plating Agent |
Routine Cleanup |
Routine Cleanup is the main activity where you’ll be farming for Drive Discs. While the Discs you get will be random in quality, you’ll always get at least a few Crystallized Plating Agent for completing them, with more awarded at higher difficulties. |
|
Combat Simulation – Basic Upgrade Materials |
Combat Simulation is the main way you’ll be farming for Plating Agents, Crystallized included, as you can specifically farm for them rather than relying on other sources. |
|
|
The 141 Convenience Store |
The 141 Convenience Store begins offering Crystallized Plating Agent When you reach Inter-Knot level 20 for 4,000 Dennies per unit, to a maximum of 30 units per week. |
|
|
Dismantling S-Rank Drive Discs |
Dismantling S-Rank Drive Discs won’t be on your list of things to do for a while, but when you do start, you get one Crystallized Plating Agent per Drive dismantled. |
You’ll want as many Crystallized Plating Agents as you can get because the higher the rarity of the Drive Disc, the more EXP it takes to level it up and the more levels it can gain. If you plan to reach the Zenless Zone Zero endgame, you’ll want two teams of fully-built characters with max-level, S-Rank Drive Discs, with each Disc providing optimal stats.
Getting to that point is expensive in terms of time, Battery Charge, and Plating Agent materials. The amount of Drive Disc EXP these Agents provide depends on their rarity. Specifically:
- Molded Plating Agent (C-Rank): 100 Drive Disc EXP
- Crystallized Plating Agent (B-Rank): 500 Drive Disc EXP
- Ether Plating Agent (A-Rank): 2,000 Drive Disc EXP
Free-to-play players will need to take an understandably longer time amassing a large collection of Crystallized Plating Agent, and those who pull for more than a few characters every few updates will need much more. A lucky S-Rank on a random 10 pull, or an early S-Rank on the banner for the character you’ve been saving for, will, of course, necessitate additional Plating Agent farming, provided you’re running low.
Those willing to spend real money on Zenless Zone Zero have more freedom to spend their resources, as they can turn Monochrome into Battery Charge and bypass the wait between resets.
No matter how you farm your Crystallized Plating Agent, keeping up with a regular schedule is best in the long run, as the content is unlikely to stop coming any time soon.
