Please, I Need Help Clearing Da🙏
Normally as a zenless zone zero veteran who's been playing deadly assault since it came out, I can always six star or even 9 star it on occasion. However, there's a big problem.
See, normally I use the greatest agent of all time, Hoshimi Miyabi, for my ice anomaly team. I've adored her ever since she was teased in the betas and trailers. Once she finally released, her whole demeanor and character only made my love for her soar. And her design, oh her design. The blue coat with the effects from the katana, and an overall outfit looking like something you would wear to work while also looking very cool. And her face. She's the epitome of beautiful with those red eyes, black hair, and those cute fox ears. She's genuinely perfect with no other way to describe it.
So when my eyes first witnessed the sheer divinity of her new skin in that Livestream, it was like I fell in love once again. The outfit only served to increase her beauty by what felt like infinity and I counted down the seconds until I could finally have that masterpiece of a skin on my account.
Then when the promised date finally arrived I acquired the skin and the sheer euphoric feeling of completeness I felt was incomparable to anything else. I immediately put it on. But then as I was going to the area for deadly assault to witness this new gorgeous digital masterpiece, I noticed something.
The new skin had exposed armpits.
At first I thought nothing of it. “Oh cool,” I said. “That’s a neat detail.” Fool that I was. Absolute buffoon. Complete and utter clown. Because the human mind is not equipped to handle this level of detail rendering. The moment Miyabi did her first combat animation, my brain began operating at temperatures normally only found inside industrial machinery.
You don’t understand. The sweat implications immediately became catastrophic.
This is a woman sprinting through Hollow Zero at approximately mach 7 while carrying enough emotional baggage to power an entire city grid. She’s swinging a katana bigger than my future. She’s fighting Ethereals for hours. And now the game expects me to believe she’s doing all this with perfectly dry skin? Impossible. Unrealistic. Immersion-breaking. My mind rejected it instantly.
I started noticing things.
The subtle movement in the fabric after combat. The way the lighting hits her during idle animations. The microscopic possibility of one singular bead of sweat existing somewhere offscreen. Suddenly every animation became a forensic investigation. Every mission felt like I was conducting scientific research sponsored by the Department of Advanced Perspiration Studies.
And then my imagination truly betrayed me.
I began envisioning post-training Miyabi. Fresh from combat. Slightly exhausted. Tiny strands of black hair sticking to her forehead. Fox ears twitching in annoyance because the air conditioning in New Eridu clearly doesn’t work. The kind of tired where someone wipes their brow and goes “man, that mission was rough.”
And then my brain zoomed in like a wildlife documentary narrator.
“Observe the apex predator in her natural habitat after 47 consecutive dodge counters. Note the hydration loss. Remarkable.”
I could practically hear the sweat particles forming. Not normal sweat, either. Oh no. Miyabi sweat would probably have an entire ecosystem. There would be weather reports about it. The humidity levels alone could alter local climate conditions. NASA satellites would detect a mysterious atmospheric anomaly directly above New Eridu headquarters.
At this point Deadly Assault stopped being a game mode and became psychological warfare.
I’d load into a mission and instantly start overanalyzing everything. “Wow, she just did six consecutive slashes. That’s at least a 0.3% increase in body temperature.” “Oh no, she adjusted her sleeve. Is she overheating?” “Good heavens, she exhaled after sprinting. The perspiration calculations are becoming unstable.”
Meanwhile the enemies are beating me to death because I haven’t pressed a button in 45 seconds.
My score plummeted.
My rotations became nonexistent.
My supports were standing there unemployed.
At one point I accidentally spent two entire minutes staring at the victory screen because Miyabi slightly moved her shoulder during the animation and my brain instantly went:
“THE SWEAT EVAPORATION DETAIL…”
It got worse.
Now every tiny inconvenience reminds me of this. If my room gets warm, I think of Miyabi training. If I see deodorant at the store, I think of Miyabi. If someone says the word “humidity,” I experience psychic damage. I can’t even drink Gatorade anymore because my brain goes “wow, electrolytes… important after combat exertion…”
Yesterday I opened Deadly Assault and got so distracted imagining how absolutely miserable and sweaty the Hollow would realistically be that I forgot to actually fight the boss. I just stood there getting hit while internally narrating:
“After hours of intense combat, Agent Hoshimi Miyabi faces her greatest enemy yet: insufficient ventilation.”
The worst part is that HoYoverse absolutely knows what they’ve done.
Someone sat in a boardroom and said:
“Let’s give Miyabi exposed shoulders and armpits.”
And another person replied:
“Brilliant. This will reduce player productivity by 83%.”
And they were RIGHT.
I used to be a warrior. A competitor. A six-star achiever.
Now I’m just a man staring at cooling fan particles during combat wondering if New Eridu has industrial-strength antiperspirant technology.
Does anybody have any help or tips so that I can 6 star DA again? Currently my only strategy is turning the brightness down and pretending everyone is completely dry at all times.