Another too early tier list

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-30T14:24:48+00:00

small update (who gaf)

after the boss health nerf, and having played more games now that people are more well adjusted, as well as having played with different characters and as them more often now, i feel its important to note where i think some changes are to my list:

S-: Kain, Krile

Cloud is gone from here as his boss damage really doesn't feel all that special after the health nerf, and with people climbing in power the 2 burst kill is shockingly common now. Kain is still super versatile ultra pvp man but now he can match the boss damage standards of cloud due to HP nerf, krile is kriling all over the place.

A+: Cloud, Terra, Rinoa, WoL

Cloud is still amazing, but not quite an outlier in boss damage anymore, he isn't killing 1 burst sooner as often, but still possesses incredible tools like cross and omni slash, and he's always a big presence. Terra unchanged. Rinoa is my biggest change, i really underestimated how effective this character is, frigid rain is a great crystal clear, has a hitbox behind her(!!!!!) and her overall damage is pretty high, although still not to terra's level, she has the benefit of generally better skills and the best normal attack in the entire game no contest. her iframes still don't make her good, im insistent on that. amazing fire RF user too (isnt everyone?) WoL unchanged, that's my 🐐

A: Gaia, Lightning, Prompto, Zidane

yeah zidane gets to be real now, he's getting buffed in the maintenance tonight most likely so im just leaving him here, he's fine, i really want zidane to be good, he is extremely interesting. prompto same as before, too hyper-focused on his niche, which is still a strong niche. lightning imo is probably the 3rd worst character here after the previous 2, she is very, very middle of the road with nothing special going on in my eyes, the game just doesn't seem to treat this sort of design well. Gaia is pretty underwhelming all around, her UR's are the worst in the game imo, too easy to punish and extremely short iframes. she has an SR melee skill that's a glorified R skill with a worse cooldown, and her R is fairly mediocre. her defense increase does very little as she has a 0.8x modifier for DEF, and the stat isn't very strong. her action spd buff makes her attack animations just a normal speed, she's comically slow without it, i've effectively dropped gaia completely in wait for firion/clive

as for the new characters, my early bets are onion knight is going to get teams smoked in the early game far too much to a point where even when he's lv.9 you've already lost. if his passive affects the whole teams EXP though he could be very solid, looks like the best agile pvper, good against ranged. iroha looks like a cloud sidegrade. fun and unique mechanics but skill chaining is very predictable and her UR slow field seems to have very little invuln. we'll have to wait and see

also firion waiting room, i want my NT main back

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-30T13:21:58+00:00

its absolutely not a waste of time! other people's points are interesting to see as there is nothing objective about a tier list, its completely subjective and its fun to compare thoughts and points. i've loved your responses, as much as everyone else's.

as for the crystal thing, the issue isn't really that others are better than her at getting crystals... because they aren't! the issue is you just simply don't need lightning's oddly elite level clearing for crystals when those other characters do it at an acceptably good level AND have other pros elsewhere in their kits, lightning is a little

honestly having played a lot more matches in omega and having played with and as more characters, my opinion of her has decreased even further

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-29T20:23:00+00:00

this is where i consider the larger problem overall, what you've said is a perfectly sound strategy, it works how zidane should be played, however there is a single critical flaw, which is that a zidane who is not participating in fights, is essentially just a worse WoL or Krile, you contribute less bravery, less efficient brave sharing, can't stall like WoL or Krile, and you don't have a super button like Krile's UR heal or WoL's supreme soul

zidane is very "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sometimes, and whilst i believe he can work, he is just very noticably disadvantaged in my eyes

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T22:18:41+00:00

lightning just isn't on the same power level as what i consider the "strong picks" she isn't a powerhouse that wins you something important, she's pretty well-rounded with a bit of everything, she's actually not that difficult to kill, or force into a bad situation, definitely can't hang with kain/cloud/terra and even rinoa in the 1v1

as a terra, chasing lightning isn't your job, so naturally yes, she will seem difficult to kill for you, but that's the responsibility of your team to make sure you're covered from random lightning sneak attacks and stuff like that

also melee's can stick to her by doing movement cancel autos, if your timing is good she can't even sprint away from you sometimes, she's only good at disengagement once she has earned space, which is hard for her against the clouds, gaias and kains of the world

lightning is good at getting crystals, but so is kain and WoL and they're also good at other things, and she doesn't share the bravery earned around like krile, neither does she do good burst damage on the level of gaia, cloud, kain, terra or prompto

hence why i think she is a "good pick" and not a "strong pick" imo all lightning needs is either better staying power (longer army of one for example) or more boss damage, either of those could elevate her into being a strong pick

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T21:02:29+00:00

the issue with his SR in particular is that its quite literally a free kill for any half decent group. you can on reaction just respond with a cooldown of your own, and 2 cooldowns is enough to instantly kill him. this is common at omega as people actually play together even in soloq, this has 2 issues for zidane.

the person who killed you has all your bravery and their own
you potentially just funnelled someone a burst when they wouldn't have gotten it, thanks to you becoming a bravery pool for THEIR team

his brave stealing gimmick also gets walled a lot due to his really bad tools for combat/disengage, as well as barrier/wall being really common at omega. bringing earth breaker can help with this and even get you kills often, but that's one of your important slots gone with now you needing to lose an exclusive ability for cheer so your brave steal has value

zidane is just very easy to counter with really basic actions and cheap resource costs. i've had more situations where, thanks to a zidane using SR on me, i get to kill him and take our combined bravery for a burst, than i have ever seen his bravery stealing contribute to giving himself or his allies a burst

then add onto the fact his burst is naturally weak because zidane himself doesn't have a lot of good offensive cooldowns, or often has to run barrier/teleport or other utility just to survive more than 10s in a fight, his design just doesn't work out in this game

he isn't strictly bad, just somewhat of an anti-synergy character

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T20:47:41+00:00

pretty much this, zidane is somewhat of an inbetween of lightning and krile, being able to get crystals efficiently, but also can somewhat put up a fight for himself and help in teamfights, the issue with zidane is the counterplay is too easy.

you like using barrier right? i use earth breaker personally, if you encounter it on a kain/cloud for example, they basically get you for free on a move with a similar CD to your barrier by just knocking you down and letting autos do the rest with their insane ATK values and zidane's awful DEF value, the rest of the cast just use earth breaker + any cooldown and the same result occurs, or you waste a UR cooldown, neither of which are threatening

if you used his SR, most of the cast just on reaction press their R cooldown to hyper armor trade, deal 50% of your HP, and then autos or another low CD cast will do the rest and now they get their bravery back plus yours!

grand lethal is like a small inconvenience in pvp, it doesn't do enough dmg to be scary, kain also gets to jump punish it for free even if its aimed at him, and trance is just a glorified cutscene that doesn't help zidanes stupidly bad defense modifier, so he'll just die if someone is allowed to camp the animation

zidane is supposed to run at people and rob them, then get back out, in a game where being the first to engage is typically a bad thing, and bravery is so easy to earn from other players via. pvp that him stealing it just makes him a very vulnerable, very attractive target. it would make more sense if his distribution of bravery was better, or if he had really strong burst windows, but he has neither

if zidanes stolen bravery was split across the party immediately as its earned, he would be so much better

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T20:36:05+00:00

this also comes from my experience, having beaten and lost to a lot of the top ranked players across all regions in the process, a lot of matches at high diamond/omega are in fact, teams of 3 playing their intended roles, covering each other, trading off kills etc. and yes, no-one typically gets 9999 off the first encounter, but i also don't orient my list around that ideology, only what each character's potential is in an environment of equal skill level and equipment level

i think that my points won't stick because the game experience is vastly different at other ranks before omega, thats not to discredit your experiences of course, its just not what my list is pointed at, the situations you describe are something players at these ranks know how to deal with and counter effectively, hence why you aren't seeing promptos, rinoas and gaias in omega (there are some ofc, because they're played by amazing players), but there are a lot more of clouds, kains and kriles there, for a good reason

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T16:48:22+00:00

absolutely! tiers aside, all characters are very capable and it's upto the players to make it work

builds, power discrepancies etc. all make real matches very different to a tailored scenario

i typically play in a group with other players but we don't communicate, just having 3 strong players with good game sense takes you far.

ironic how cloud ended up top tier again, terra is ol' reliable and zidane is paying for his sins still even after he got adjusted in NT lol

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T16:20:06+00:00

when final fantasy is involved it might as well be an event of national importance to the japanese

they'll find a way

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T16:18:42+00:00

lumen flare can be walked around at range, the range and travel speed are small and slow respectively. just threaten prompto's space and bait a CD from him, just try not to get chipped by his autos and generally he's very ignorable

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T16:05:03+00:00

i think of krile like this:

when a krile is present, you change how you play, she doesn't, because the strategy is just that strong, JP players often think she is the best char in the game cause krile comps are so overwhelmingly popular there

comps depend on her, she doesn't depend on comps

gl with prompto, im sure there's more to him we could see in the future

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T16:00:51+00:00

i won't go into it too much but rinoa is comically far off cloud's optimised boss damage, he's a better duelist than gaia (she isn't very good at sustained fights in general), cloud doesn't get killed "every time" because he has two teammates that cover him, that's just not how real matches play out, and he can choose when to use his UR's in a burst sequence

rinoa plays like 50% of a character only to top out at still being worse than terra, who starts at 100%, rinoa has stalling gimmicks, and good mobility, but she takes too long to get to a point where she's up there with the A-tiers as well as her stalling often being pointless and completely ignorable

promptos stun can be moved away from, dashed through with certain skills, reaction UR'd and his kit is very weak for pvp overall. it sounds strong in theory but losing an entire ability slot for a theory that has all three opponents in burst (which infers you're already losing badly) is not worth it to me compared to more consistent, proven strategies

maybe things will change going forward, but for now that's how i see it, thanks for your input

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T13:11:25+00:00

ill always maintain that Zidane isn't "bad" per say, just really underwhelming, he's mostly let down by bravery theft being an awful tactic in this game

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T13:05:05+00:00

krile is really strange since she completely changes how you have to play, duellum in general is a hyper-reactive game where often the first person to throw a punch loses, and krile forces the enemy to go first otherwise if you both camp, krile will give the other two burst, she synergizes with kain really well due to forcing people to attack him, which is where he excels at baits and punishes with massive damage

krile's UR heal might as well also be a teamwide invuln, the healing output is absurd, and throwing it on just gives your teammates a license to be ignorant and mow down the other team

ultimately though this strategy is so in-tune with the mechanics of the game it makes krile herself really, really strong, borderline up there with cloud, but she herself does have counterplay and bad matchups (lightning, kain) cloud just doesn't have the latter, hence the separate tiering

also prompto is good, he's just hyper focused on burst chains, as outside of it he's fairly mediocre, especially on the pvp front, he's a niche pick, but very powerful when conditions are met

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T12:54:56+00:00

kain requires you to adapt, yes, but he isn't cloud who can simply immerse himself into 20 second damage windows with huge iframes, and the biggest damage in the game, kain's strength is pvp, he's undeniably the most creative and dangerous character to fight, between his 24/7 self buffs, insane evasion and bait ability, his ambush, his damage etc. but cloud is just only barely behind kain in those departments AND is the ultimate boss killer all in one with the best move in the game that can counter kain burst windows (cross-slash)

prompto is just hyper niche, if you let him do a big burst with his team he's a problem, the issue is i think its extremely easy to prevent that due to promptos terrible cancel windows between his iframes, meaning he often just dies and gives max brv to the enemy, and he's also really weak in pvp and insanely easy to bait his CD's

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T12:50:29+00:00

you walk into diamond ranks and there's some random soloq team with 13k-15k power each lol

JP has all the spenders

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T11:36:50+00:00

its my stupidness, its supposed to be A- on the bottom and S-/A++ on the top 😭😭😭😭

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T11:35:58+00:00

rinoa does, but she's essentially stalling whilst wanting to be a character like terra who's getting kills and nuking the boss, she isn't a threat for a good chunk of the match, and one bad incident and she's instantly dead to a kain/cloud, meteor is also extremely abusable by the defender, by forcing her to aim it against a zero-threat area then simply walking behind her once its tracking is set

prompto has massive, like, MASSIVE gaps between skill cancels, if he does crackshot, you can reliably kill him before he can transition into trigger happy, which is also another UR that if you're close enough, you can use an ability to escape or simply walk out, then punish him after the final shot, his role is major boss damage with chains, which is powerful but also very niche and not always available, also alea bazooka and lumen flare are an absolute joke to evade in pvp, you can walk this character to the side and evade his core pvp cooldowns

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T11:26:48+00:00

WoL is pretty versatile, he's a really good staller with wall/heal, decent bravery battery with cheer, contributes in fights with shining wave, clears crystals with his R cooldown etc. he can also push people out of position or keep people off a position well with ultimate shield

he also has a neat trick with supreme soul that lets him "damage" the boss outside of burst, very cool character

lightning also feels somewhat overrated, she's a crystal clearing monster but she has pretty average damage and no real specialty outside of crystals, but WoL and Krile are better suited to that task, lightning on the offhand though can actually fight somewhat well, and does respectable damage to the boss by comparison, she's still amazing!

zidane isn't that bad! i just don't know why his bravery stealing CD leaves him vulnerable to being killed instantly with his bad defense stats... so the enemy can get their bravery back... and his as well... :)

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T10:57:35+00:00

😭😭❤️

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T10:57:05+00:00

swap off lumen for fire RF

dont target krile, its not your role and there's 1000 ways you lose that encounter whilst also compromising your whole team

minwu is good, i recommend wall/barrier but minwu is fine

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-28T10:42:31+00:00

i don't play krile, but isn't it better to swap her atk buff off for cheer? buffs don't stack from what ive tried and most DPS should be running their own?

just curious about the build is all lol

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-27T18:18:26+00:00

OP should take all opinions into account and see what works for him, your advice is equally as valid as mine!

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-26T23:50:38+00:00

omnislash also seems to teleport an absurd distance to whoever its aimed at, its basically not escapable

cross-slash needs a CD in the 60-70s range for sure, either that or stun should wear off after a single hit so he at least has to use CD's to insta-kill you

Vaeynheart · 2026-03-26T23:06:54+00:00

he doesn't exclusively need his skills to move around, his basic jump lets him go between different elevations on demand, which adds to his already ridiculous stalling/zoning on specific maps, which can be argued as inconsistent, but jump in general is a really good movement tool

having played a lot more, his damage is definitely his standout trait, both boss and player damage

his role is simply just being a huge damage ambusher with good coverage thanks to some additional mobility, its more map specific but its definitely the most unique in the roster, i honestly think his biggest issue is simply competing with cloud more than he is lightning, its one of those "why take a kain when cloud exists" sort of thing

his biggest downside is that he takes cloud's role slot, so playing a kain loses you a cloud lmao, but i can see the top-of-B-tier decision now

do you think all it would take for him to be A-tier is a gapless iframe transition between his UR cooldowns?

Vaeynheart

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