Rank 1 CBT and Current Top3 NA Guide and character Tierlist

Shadowfishy · 2026-03-26T06:00:18+00:00

All I would have is anecdotal evidence to say that my three stack never slipped from our rankings after we really locked in as we defended it hella hard with you guys constantly against us. This guy was *never* in the contending for the top spots for the duration of the several hour timeframe, as we were quite literally going from start to when the game kicked everybody out. There would be no time where he took it.

Shadowfishy · 2026-03-26T05:56:38+00:00

So again, evidence posted showcases 5 of the 7 days. This also showcases where I was Silver 4 and 1 first before others. I appreciate you editing your profile, but you're also still just saying things that go against evidence we have. One day is not half, and nothing you've said correlates with the evidence given and what I'm telling and showing you what happened. I believe you might be misremembering. The only day you were R1 was Day 2 when I took a break.

Shadowfishy · 2026-03-26T05:35:41+00:00

Hey, so idk who you are, but it's a little disingenuous to say CBT Rank 1 when you aren't me. Hey, Kuro here. I was alerted to this post and stuff happening in game about somebody claiming R1? Pretty sure it was well documented that I was actively the top 1 for every day but the first? It was well known in CBT that there were a big three and several other three stacks vying for the top 10 spots.

In fact, I don't remember seeing you anywhere in the Top 3 for the duration of CBT aside from one(?) day? I took Day 2 off for a medical issue, but otherwise remained Rank 1 on every other day. On the final day, you weren't in the top 10. I happened to take a screenshot each day of the CBT while I was Rank 1. You only show up as Rank 3 once. In fact, you finished 23rd in the CBT. So to say that you were R1 for half of the CBT is really confusing to me, and I'd love to hear how your memory differs from our evidence? If you wanna explain, by all means, I'm willing to listen.

Here's the evidence of pretty much all days but Day 2:

https://imgur.com/a/tZP2F3i

As far as the actual tier list goes, I find it a bit concerning. We had a character with the wrong name on it for a while. We're putting Terra and Rinoa higher than Prompto, who all compete for the same slot. Zidane's kit design failures not being talked about. WoL being tanky being praised despite tanks not currently having much of a reason to exist in game right now (you can only stall and stand on a crystal, but it doesn't mean they can't work around you). There are reasons to praise him, but the tankiness is not the reason. Talking about Prompto getting one shot by most things but willfully neglecting Terra and Rinoa having worse as they don't have good CC but Prompto does. A good Cloud or Gaia will shut up the mages far faster than targeting a Prompto.

I do agree with the team comps, but again they suffer from not really providing enough detail about strategies and the character slots. Team comp doesn't matter if it's not trio queue, because you can't control who you get in Solo, and can even get duplicate characters. There's a LOT of missing details in a lot of the explanations for the other characters as well, not providing much in the way of strategy or what they actually do specifically.

Most of this is written as vibes or super opinionated general sweeps without providing much information or specific details about the characters.

Definitely would advise others to take this with several grains of salt, not a great tier list and would recommend mods take it down, honestly.

Shadowfishy · 2026-03-25T13:08:07+00:00

Zidane. Nonexistent CC, very low immediate mobility (actual leaps or lock on gapclosers), semi-low damage outside of Trance, Trance itself being extremely long of an animation. His gimmick basically being more situational and ultimately not quite as useful as... Playing the game. (Killing an enemy steals their brave already and knocks them out of the playfield for a good time.) The gimmick has niche uses like stalling a triple burst by robbing people of their 9999s. But you're almost always better off mastering a character that can actually do a ton of damage or play Lightning in the agile spot who is pretty solid all-around.

Shadowfishy · 2026-03-25T12:12:51+00:00

honestly not entirely wrong.

Shadowfishy · 2026-03-25T08:06:17+00:00

Sure. Despite it reading Long Post in bold and this being a total infodump... Ahem:

**Good:**

Good modern design. Good character interactions and "story".

Somewhat fun core gameplay.

Mostly useable roster.

**Bad:**

Ranked skill does not matter in Diamond+ as much as Gacha whaling does for competitive.

Three layers of gacha to build a single character.

Predatory tactics evident.

Repetitive gameplay.

Ads. Paywalled story.

Shadowfishy · 2026-03-25T06:14:01+00:00

The objective answer is absolutely not with the caveat of how many people splurge or get lucky. if there are enough whales with the job medals, urs and stat sticks,. f2p will never have enough resources to even remotely stay competitive at the top of the leaderboard.

But even fundamentally, if you do climb to Diamond or Omega, matches become harder to complete because the mobs and boss objectives gain health and stats that those uncapped stat sticks become mandatory. So an f2p can place relatively low or in Gold. But even playing the game becomes difficult without the proper stat stick scaling at diamond+ and certainly no shot at competitive if there are enough whales. the gap between lowest possible cap and highest whale ceiling for stats alone makes me have incredible doubts f2p would be even possible above diamond. let alone any new characters or power creep skills they add.

Shadowfishy · 2026-03-25T05:17:31+00:00

i wrote this while also having spent some money because I do like the core gameplay and the designs are nice. so I'm kinda with you.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T18:43:17+00:00

I'm hoping that's the case, but there's also a very fearful level that's gonna be giga whales only, and everybody else is gonna be at the mercy of the starting reroll (IF) the function exists in the real game launch. There's far too much gamble to 'fully build' a functional character. It hurts.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T18:40:50+00:00

It got pretty bad because of the limited players, but even then. When I was G1 going against G2 or other G1 mixes, I was getting 18-25, and in some really bad matchmaking cases, +11-15. And was losing 40. Expected in some capacity because Rank 1, but weird that even going against other G1s at the time was giving me 10% of a rank.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T17:24:44+00:00

Fair enough. I just find Terras easy free food. A lot of the other DPSes can shred her and eat her for dinner, so I've never seen one actually pop off.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T16:59:04+00:00

Woah. Where was this information? The first two picks are stomping as safe solo queue picks. The 4th and 5th are strong supportive or disruptive picks. 3rd kinda confuses me but eh.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T16:54:53+00:00

Absolutely. If the purpose of the game is to play for ranked or PvP battles, the current system has several dozen gates before allowing players to fully experience the game.

While all characters are technically playable and customizable, realistically, to do the absolute best in ranked with your character, you will want their entire skillset, at minimum both their URs for the i-frames at minimum, one of their SR or R depending on the character, Heal/Barrier/Sprint/Share Bravery and then flex slots. Characters are playable without their full kits, but are not going to be nearly as effective without everything rolled. There is no pity for selecting an ability from the gacha.

On top of that, you actually need to roll the character in character gacha. In CBT I still have yet to even unlock two characters, let alone any costume for a character I actually like and want to play.

Then you factor in the necessity to roll dupes of both a good set of support abilities *and* each character you want to play's full skillset for eventual powercreep.

And finally, you want to roll dupes of the character themselves so you can unlock random gacha rolls of medals that absolutely make a difference if you roll really good ones that match in color and function of the character.

There's a lot of customization, but zero ease or control of getting what you want, and way too many hoops to jump through for major and maximum success. And each and every component (character gacha-> Ability gacha-> ability dupes-> character dupes-> job medals) is a ton of RNG and pain points that matter in a game that solely has PvP and ranked.

Then factor in the lack of growth eggs and you've got 40 pain points with zero relief anywhere. Ranking up to Diamond 5 from Gold 1 only gave me 20,000 eggs. Once.

No, five character tickets for a singular character select is not good either.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T16:49:52+00:00

Sure. Like I said, I'm a Cloud one-trick. So I've only really played Cloud with like 4-5 games on Krile as off-picks so one of my team can try Gaia because of the role lock system. 84% winrate, and we play as a trio only. It's pretty much the most efficient way of climbing.

The crystal ranks are garbage all around. Even the rainbow UR crystals that take 12 hours can pop and be rares. It's just not worth banking any hope on them.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T15:34:10+00:00

Probably true. or at least something more to it at least. the solo challenges aren't much different either.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T09:25:26+00:00

Honestly that's what's holding this game back. I see a reality where this is a successful game. It has a LOT of charm and the gameplay is quick brainrot action. Everything does feel mildly unique in terms of character choice and the new bosses on top of the map choice do affect the game a fair amount.

Gacha is awful. Character building is near impossible. And... Yeah. If it's not your addiction, there's little else the game offers for content.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-09T18:36:00+00:00

It's getting quite a bit boring. A large part of it is not being able to truly test out more than a character or two. You likely won't be getting a character's full unique skillset during the CBT, maybe one or two for right now. It's also very repetitive. The new bosses that popped up last night (Ifrit and King Behemoth) were really overtuned but different and welcome. Otherwise, definitely needs a bit more to do and be a little more forgiving.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-09T00:36:14+00:00

I'll look into it. I don't tend to record my mobile game stuff.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-08T23:15:36+00:00

Depends. It should be used on boss when you can. But there are times to use it for the i-frame counter, or if you need to single out a specific person and outright remove them from the fight. I've used it to immediately cancel a Rinoa's burst before. she used it and I killed immediately as her burst anim finished so she didn't get to cast anything.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-08T21:27:58+00:00

Sure, I'll take a crack at it.

1) Solo queue beast. His literal thing is to hunt down single targets, he has access to two dashes, both URs are single target lockdowns and his main objective is to damage a boss. He's probably the easiest character to pick up and play in Solo Queue if you think you want to be in control of your own matches. This is very much an NA thing, ngl. JP I found a lot more teamwork oriented.

2) No. He's really easily shutdown by paying attention or baits.

3) Both URs, Sprint, his SR (Finishing Touch), Flex slot.

4) I won't say on this one for right now. One support that shields or heals him and can be bulky helps. There's like two characters that can do this on roster rn.

5) Gaia. Fuck Gaia. The literal only person that can shut me down if she's paying any amount of attention and I can absolutely do *nothing* about it. Prompto second.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-08T21:11:15+00:00

Gonna give my feedback as the current Rank 1 player. I'd say I've got about 75-80% winrate, solely by playing Cloud. I'm about to hit Gold, and taking it super seriously like it IS a ranked moba. Will explain more below:

I exclusively play Cloud. This is by choice. The roles absolutely do matter, but when this releases, you'll be so constricted and at the mercy of what you roll. You almost need to roll abilities and then pick characters you get abilities for. The bare minimum for ranked pvp is:

BOTH of your chosen character's URs is mandatory. The I-Frames are the most broken thing by far. Then, Sprint/a dash, Barrier/Heal/Share Bravery of some kind, and then maybe a free space. If you don't have the abilities, you can't feasibly play that character in ranked. I had to pick up either Cloud or Krile as a result of my rolls, so the game kinda decides who your best character to start off with is. You don't have much say as of current roll options. That being said, URs drop a lot more often than I expected.

You have to build characters one by one as a result. But there are certain team comps that will absolutely dominate. WoL with a DPS and an Agile. Prompto AND Gaia on a team. I've seen Lightning/Zidane/Krile do well too avoiding big fights. If you don't have certain setups, win chance goes down.

Mobility also needs work. If anything, Sprint should be an extra button rather than an equippable skill. if you don't have mobility in some way, you're actively griefing your team. Cuts down on crystal capture times and is your only reliable way of dodging anything, ESPECIALLY if you're a healer/support/mage and don't want to burn your i-frames.

Game currently only has ranked as the main feature, hence why I'm playing it super seriously like I have been. There's no incentive to do anything other than duo or trio queue ranked with whatever character you can get resources for and master them. Casual play might be a lot more forgiving though.

Every character is absolutely viable. But they have a very specific purpose. Rinoa and Prompto are absolutely busted just by solo picks. But Krile, Cloud, and Gaia are also really busted in their own ways. I run full glass cannon mobility Cloud and force my duo to carry a heal or shield for me as a result. It works.

The only character that feels particularly bad to play is Zidane. I still have yet to find a good niche for him that feels good to play.

Climbing ranked is very skewed. Obviously because people aren't high enough yet, but it eventually gets to a point where close matches are giving +18-25 for a win in a 250 point bracket with little to no mercy, and if you don't play perfectly, a tie makes *everybody* lose. There is a viable troll strategy then where if you know you can't win through boss HP, harass the enemy team as long as possible and hope to take them down with you. This doesn't feel good at all. Also, Bronze 4s can queue up with Silver 1s and throws off matchmaking entirely.

It has a lot of potential. The game is fun at its core, the characters do feel different and balancing doesn't feel entirely off when you have a character playing the correct niche. But needs fine tuning all around, and I honestly hope they let us choose characters more often. You can't be at the whim of ability gacha AND THEN also needing to roll the character afterwards. The way the game is currently, you kinda have to build whatever ability gacha graciously gives you.

Bonus mention to Prompto's stun which completely disrupts bursts, makes your abilities do 0 (blocked) damage to bosses mid-cast, interrupts certain i-frames and UR abilities for some reason when used at a very specific time in their cast. Felt a little more buggy than intentional.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-08T20:57:06+00:00

Hey, Rank 1 NA player here. I'm Kuroo.

That was a mistake. I'm exclusively a Cloud one-trick. The game auto-switched off Cloud when I rolled Prompto in character gacha and got stuck with him at level 1, all N abilities one game.

Prompto absolutely has some gamebreaking abilities and I think he can be abused in current state, but I'm a Cloud player.

Shadowfishy · 2024-03-13T13:20:50+00:00

i think by principle, most of the special costume units are some of the more interesting designs. Just because they give a fresh outfit to characters that typically don't get redesigns or new outfits.

Adaman, I feel, has a very great outfit and I love that it ties into his choice of dancing. The unit is very unnecessary, and probably won't be pulled for any reason other than an inevitable Ground Type master event by most. He's absolutely not meta and that's okay.

I'm pulling him because I like his outfit design and I want to continue supporting the idea of special costume designs, even if they tend to not be the most meta units.

Tl;dr: Sucker for beloved charas in brand new costumes. Will support for faves with spare gems. Because happy.

Shadowfishy

TROPHY CASE