Game Breaker / Dragalia Lost

Amongst the many options in Dragalia Lost, some Adventurers, Wyrmprints, and Weapons stand above the rest, be it through their sheer power, utility, or mechanics. While it was a common practice to use some of these Adventurers in off-element content, Legend Agito battles put a sharp end to that, so you'll have no choice but to diversify if you want to face them. Others are expected to drop off the face of the planet in the presence of the Curse of Nihility.

Also, unless noted otherwise, assume that all the stat boosts mentioned here are when the object in question is either max unbound or have all their Mana Circles/Spirals maxed.

Adventurers

Gala Adventurers

• Gala Sarisse was a strong start for Gala Adventurers, as she was considered to be one of the best Flame Bow users, and one of the most powerful Flame DPS Adventurers, in the game when she was released. For starters, she has both 100% Stun and Sleep Resistance, making her one of the most versatile DPS Adventurers in the game, giving her viability in High Midgardsormr, Imperial Onslaught, and, especially, against Volk, due to him afflicting both those effects. On top of that, her first Skill fires additional shots to enemies in front of her based on how many different buffs are stacked onto her^note Which is very synergistic in a team with the "Primed 'x'" Abilities, such as from Ramona or Emma, if she is the Adventurer controlled by the player. and a second Skill that alternates between boosting her party's Strength and Defense. She also has Abilities that synergize with her kit, such as increased buff time and increased user Strength, Critical Rate, and Energy for every 20-Hit combo, which all work amazing with her first Skill. After suffering from Power Creep, she was one of 150 Adventurers in Version 2.0 who got buffed, and her buffs have shot her back into being the Queen of Ranged Flame DPS. Her first Skill now deals 50% more damage than it did before, her second Skill now always give a Strength buff instead of alternating between Strength and Defense, and it now lasts 15 seconds instead of 10. All of this makes her an amazing Support/DPS hybrid for any and all Flame content. If you really want the best out of her, pair her with Horus^* Increases Attack and Critical Rate for Flame Adventurers, and his basic attack shoots multiple fireballs which rack up the combo counter. and Kuzunoha^* Her Chain Co-Ability extends the combo timer and her first Skill grants Overdamage to the team. and, short of extreme circumstances, all that power is never going away. It took her until February 2022 to get a Spiral, but between the first Skill's ability to dispel and Burn, the second giving both Strength and Defense Amps, and the ability to invert Stun and Sleep, it's safe to say she's back, and the loss of her Energy Chain Co-Ability in Nihility content is a price worth paying.
• Gala Ranzal suffered from Power Creep for a long time, but thanks to the changes to several Adventurers' Skills in Version 2.0, he’s become a force of nature. Both of the modifiers on his Skills were tripled, his special Force Strikes became more powerful, his Force Strike at Level 2 can max his Burst gauge almost instantly, and the Skill Damage boost from Experience's Boon went from a nice 80% to 100%. All of these rescued him from being a Junk Rare, the weakest of the Gala Adventurers, and made him into the extremely powerful Adventurer that he was clearly meant to be.
• Gala Mym, while she was merely okay as a shapeshift-based Flame Adventurer, she was simply Overshadowed by Awesome by Mana Spiral Euden, who also has a shapeshift-focused kit, but worked significantly better and unleashed far more damage. She has, however, been Rescued from the Scrappy Heap not by Mana Spirals, but her Chain Co-Ability, her Shared Skill, and the Version 2.0 update. The former is useful for Flame Element Adventurers that want to shapeshift a lot (like the aforementioned Euden), her Shared Skill is relatively useful on other shapeshift focused Adventurers^note like Xainfried, Forte, and Lathna, since it fills their Dragon Gauge and has a relatively low SP share cost. Later on, the increase to the Dracolith's level increases all Dragon damage by 50%, which she gained significant benefits from. But the biggest reason she’s here is because of what Version 2.0 brought her. Both of the modifiers on her Skills were effectively doubled, the mods on her Dragon form were doubled and she now gains an extra 20% Strength buff for ten seconds when she uses her first Skill, allowing her to not only outdamage her stronger Halloween alt, but can rival Forte. She is also one of the few Adventurers who can also make use of Wyrmprint Affinity Bonuses without gimping herself.
• Gala Cleo is flat out Merlin-level broken, considered to be one of the best Adventurers in the game thanks to her Magical Modification Ability and her Skills. To start with, after she uses her Ancient Ray Skill, which hits 3-5 times depending on which phase of Skill Shift it's on for a lot of damage, her next Force Strike creates a buff field that boosts the Strength of everyone inside it by 25%, and can stack with other buff fields. Her second Skill, Faith of the Elders, first decreases the Defense of any enemies hit by 10% for twenty seconds; then an additional 5% decrease to Strength the next time you use the Skill, and after a third time provides continuous healing for fifteen seconds. Combined with a 100% Resistance to Blindness and Paralysis, a free 100% Skill Prep, and a Shinobi, Cat Sith, or Arsene, any content involving Light enemies will shatter like glass. Her damage output is so absurd, she was even more effective at some non-Light content than superior element teams, e.g. some High Dragon Trials were done faster with four Gala Cleos then the best of their respective elemental weaknesses, such as a full Water team against High Brunhilda. It was to a point where endgame content, for a period, introduced mechanics to counter Gala Cleo tactics or came with absurd amounts of HP so enemies wouldn't melt as quickly, and quite possibly the entire existence of the Mana Spiral system to help other Shadow Adventurers catch up to her. Unsurprisingly, she was left completely untouched with Version 2.0's release. Sadly, she has mostly fallen off the meta in the current content era, as the Curse of Nihility mostly neuters her support, and her Mana Spiral changed almost nothing in her kit, leaving her with rather mediocre damage compared to the newer adventurers.
• Gala Euden. His first Skill grants a 20% Strength boost along with hitting everything in a large area around him, which works great with his second Skill Exalted Glory, which buffs both his team's Attack and Defense, inflicts Paralysis, and grants the Shield buff to everyone. He also increases Dragon Damage and the amount of time in shapeshift, and a twenty second passive Regeneration buff for every shapeshift as his Co-Ability and Chain Co-Ability respectively, along with an Ability that slows the rate the Dragon Gauge depletes, buffing the attack speed of the Dragon, and gets an Ability that charges the Dragon Gauge if they drop to 30% health during a quest. Basically, he is built around using Dragons, and he does it very effectively. Then, Version 2.0 happened, and he got some insane buffs. His first Skill's damage modifier was straight up quadrupled (from a measly 413% to 1652%), and his second Skill's damage modifier was doubled (taking it from a decent 2201% to a truly impressive 4402%), as well as doubling the rate at which it charges up, making it considerably more accessible. All of these buffs make him one of the absolute best Light Adventurers in the game! The arrival of Trials of the Mighty also gave him a spiral, and while it's nothing impressive, such as some modifier increases, strength amp on S2 to help fight Curse of Nihility, it does just help him deal more damage, even if it is just a flat buff.
• The Grand Paladyn Gala Elisanne is a downright amazing buffer for the Water element. Her first Skill Holy Accord is a massive 30% Strength buff for any Water element Adventurers, making it one of the strongest buffs in the game. But the most unique part about her is her second Skill Celestial Ascent, which not only deals damage, but also has several effects tied to it. It increases her Energy Level by three stages when it’s used, it increases the entire team's Flame Resistance by 25% for 30 seconds, and grants all teammates a shield that will prevent damage that's less than 20% of Gala Elisanne’s maximum HP.^* These two effects are so good that, before the nerf to the High Dragons starting explosion, even allowed several Adventurers that would either require the Volcanic Queen Wyrmprint to survive the opening blast and/or an HP Dragon like Poseidon to drop those for another damaging Wyrmprint or a different Strength Dragon like Leviathan, making runs much faster. Then there are her Abilities, which grant the following: Divine Oath, activating the Divine Accord effect, which causes her second Skill to passively increase its SP gain when she uses her Force Strike or gets a 10-Hit combo along with Knockback Resistance, 100% Burn & Stun Resistance, and finally a 10% Primed Strength buff, which grants a 10% Strength buff to whomever is currently being manually controlled when their first Skill is available to use. Combined with the classic Axe Defense Co-Ability and Water Combo Time Up and you can make an entire team of GlassCannons into MightyGlaciers/LightningBruisers that can tanks hits that would have killed them easily before. The only weakness she has is because of her Weapon type, which is naturally slow, meaning a slower SP gain, and the modifiers on her second Skill being pretty weak, but even that’s a minor issue with proper Wyrmprints and her status as a buffer. Version 2.0 fixed the latter problem though, quadrupling the modifiers on her second Skill making it into an amazing source of damage to complement her own buffs.
• Luca might have been rather forgettable at times but Gala Luca is anything but. His first Skill, Shining Slash, has him charge forward, then sheathe his blade for the remaining hits on what is a legitimately powerful Skill for the Light element. What makes this Skill so special is that it increases the Skill's Critical Rate by 10% for every buff with a unique icon. Then there’s his second Skill, Brilliant Booster, which increases his Critical Damage by 80%. Remember these for later. Then there’s his first Ability, which increases his Critical Rate by 4% for every buff with a different icon with a cap of 28%. In addition, it activates three special buffs, those being Sylvan Secret Arts, Human Wisdom, and Rokkan Expertise, every time he gets a Critical Hit. Each one of these buffs increase his Critical Rate by an extra 3% for 20 seconds. Finally, he has Flurry Devastation, which increases his Critical Rate further when his combo is over 15 hits, and he gains an even higher Critical Rate if he gets hit by an attack that would curse him. Because of this, once he starts gaining Buffs to cause more Crits, he’ll become a Critical Hit Class Adventurer so powerful that he manages to overpower every single Light element Adventurer in damage. Then Version 2.0 made him better by boosting the damage of his first Skill further, making him the Light Adventurer with the highest personal DPS in the game. Really the only "weakness" he has is Blades having so much of their SP gain be backloaded at the end of their auto-attack combo, but that's a mere speedbump once he gets going. Jeanne's Trial unlocks a strength amp and enables him to invert Curse and Poison, in addition to negating the flurry requirement for his boosted crit rate; somewhat underwhelming, but pumping his damage further is already a moot point. Give him Fragarach^* The Light Agito Blade, which, when refined, gives him an extra buff per stance; offer void under Nihility and either Lumiere Pandora^* Who gives four stacks of another buff at the start of the fight, and can be refreshed through Mag Mell, Brilliant Booster, and/or whatever Skill is equipped to him or Chronos Nyx^* No buff, but his 80+% Strength increase is unconditional and the crit rate bonus from Shining Slash works particularly well with him and... yeah.
• Gala Alex manages to rival Gala Cleo in terms of sheer power. She sports a noticeably unique attack string, being much more fluid and consistent than the other Sword users. With two Punisher Abilities (Reduced Defense and Poison), she's guaranteed to dish out massive damage very quickly, with the unique way her Skills charge up^note She has a gauge that fills up to three, letting her use her Skills up to three times in rapid succession, as well as an incredibly fast charge rate. And just like Gala Cleo, Gala Alex is so powerful that she sees a lot of use in off-element content. The only true drawback when using her is learning how to make the most out of her immense damage potential. She, alongside Gala Cleo, created such a massive gap in power, that Version 2.0 introduced a massive array of buffs to over 150 Adventurers to close the gap they (and the Shadow Element in general) created, while leaving them completely untouched.
• Laxi may well have been one of the worst Flame units released at the time, due to a combination of a Glass Cannon build and an unfavorable second Ability that locks the user in place to heal when past a certain HP threshold. Gala Laxi, however, lets these robots prove they can be part of the Flame creme de la creme too (and that they're most definitely not a coat rack.) They sport two attack strings, both with a long range; one, used by simply mashing the screen, delivers fast damage, and the other, activated by tapping when a spark flashes in their first combo, hits the same amount of times, but doesn't teleport onto the enemy, and gives higher SP gain and Charge Gauge fill. Their second gimmick is the Charge Gauge, which grants a 20% boost to Defense and 15% boost to Skill Damage and Strength when it's all the way filled. While these don't seem like much, with the sheer amount of times they'll be hitting, those relatively tiny buffs make a world of difference. They also have the Critical Frenzy Ability, which eventually ramps up to a 12% increase in Critical Rate and a whopping 40% increase in Critical Damage; given the blistering speed of both of her attack strings, this should be easy as pie. But the real cake topper here is Eden Mode. For twenty seconds they summon Fig, which attacks a whopping three times a second, turning what would normally just be a blazing fast attack string into a stream of nigh-constant damage. It also dramatically powers up their Skills. Code 14: Conviction is turned into Eden Code 5: Gevurah, which turns it into a flurry of heavy-hitting slashes that inflict Burning. Eden Mode 1 is transformed into Eden Code 1: Keter, which brings a ga-Laxi's worth of pain to whatever it hits, plain and simple. Overall, they're a mean machine that can even manage to squeak past Marth in terms of DPS. As an added bonus, they have the dual Resistances to Sleep and Stun, which means that they're viable in all Wind content. Their damage potential is so high, they were one of the few Adventurers who were untouched by Version 2.0's rebalances. Oh, and anyone forget about Yukata Cassandra's buff that deals damage proportional to the number of hits made? Volk better cower in a corner when Gala Laxi gets buffed this way.
• Gala Zena sets a high standard of a Combat Medic Staff Adventurer, who surpasses even Heinwald. For starters, she has a unique Ability, Auspex's Prayer, which grants herself additional passive Strength proportional to her passive HP bonuses from Dragons and Wyrmprints. This means equipping her with a max unbound Jeanne d'Arc, Liger, or High Jupiter^note who does have slightly weaker stats then Liger does but has significantly better mods on his Skill and Auto attacks will net her a total of 60% and 70% Strength respectfully (although the latter will make her less tankier and reduce her healing output in exchange for higher damage output). While her first Skill, Glorious Sanctuary, isn't too unique when compared to other Staff Adventurers, apart from the healing zone that functions as a health pack, her main appeal is her unique Force Strikes from her other Ability, Hallowed Auspex, which gains charges whenever she uses her first and second Skills. When fully charged, she gains the Twilight Moon effect, which, when landed into an enemy, deals a huge amount of AOE Force Strike damage with five hits and a damage multiplier of 1000% per hit, allowing her to nuke a huge chunk of Tatarus's Overdrive Gauge by a significant amount ^note Is 'a huge chunk' is not enough? Gala Zena's unique FS is affected by Hunter Sarisse's Shared Skill, for an extra 100% FS damage . Not only that, she even has a standard attack combo that has higher damage multipliers than a typical Staff Adventurer, meaning she can still smack a decent amount of damage with her standard attack combo. In addition, her second Skill, Holy Crown, is very synergistic with her entire Force Strike-centric kit, as it allows her to charge her Force Strikes faster, making them easier to land. And if that's not enough, she has one of the most useful Chain Co-Abilities, improving Critical Rate when the Combo Count is ten hits or higher, making it useful for Adventurers that want to maintain a combo hit count in their kit (i.e. Mitsuhide). With her strong Force Strike-centric kit and her decent healing, Gala Zena is considered to be one of the best Combat Medic Adventurers in the game. Lilith chucked a good amount of this out the window, but Zena's Spiral brought her back with a vengeance by allowing her to apply regen, overdamage and amps, as well as adding knockback immunity to her accelerated Force Strikes.
• Gala Leonidas seeks to overthrow the Dragons' rule, and certainly has the power to back it up. To start, his hard-hitting first Skill brings a new Affliction called Scorchrend. While mechanically it works like other Afflictions, it currently has one thing over the others, its relative recentness means capping out the Affliction is highly unlikely, making it easy to go the whole fight without the enemy gaining an Acquired Poison Immunity. This leans well into his third Ability, which grants both a passive Scorchrend Punisher of 30% but also a 10% Overdrive Punisher. His second Skill is also incredibly useful, dealing large amounts of damage in an area around him that causes a Status-Buff Dispel and grants him a stack of Draconian Grace. Said Grace can stack up to five times that last for forty seconds.^* At one stack, all damage taken is decreased by 10%. Two stacks gives him a 5% Strength buff. With three stacks, the damage reduction increases to 15%. Getting four stacks sees his Strength increases to 10% and the damage reduction goes up to 20%. Finally, five stacks means the buff becomes permanent. However, if you don't get another Draconean Grace stack before the 40 seconds are up or aren't at level 5, the level will only go down by 1 until they're all gone. His first Ability can affect this, no matter what Dragon he has equipped he will always transform into Gala Mars, with the same modifiers and Strength buffing Skill that can be used twice.^* But no Strength buff ability or Skill Charge, that still needs Gala Mars to be equipped. However, when Draconian Grace is at level 5 one of three things will happen when shapeshifting. First, his shapeshift time will be cut in half, the Dragon Gauge will also only go down by 25% instead of the full 50%^* Though the Gauge still needs to be at 50% or more to shapeshift, and finally, it will remove all Draconean Grace stacks. And that's not even the best part about him. Being a Rapid-Fire Manacaster means his main means of attacking is with his Force Strikes, and his is very special, having a 1.3x modifier against the Overdrive bar instead of the normal 0.3x modifier other Rapid-fire Manacasters have, on top of his passive Overdrive Punisher and Gauge Accelerator. And given how fast and how often his Force Strike hits, he can easily be called an Anti-Overdrive Adventurer, and works very well against Volk, who is at his most deadly when in his Overdrive state, especially in Legend when he goes Berserk. It's to a point where Master Volk can be done on Auto with him in the team. Oh, and he also has the standard 100% Sleep and Stun Resistance all Flame Gala Adventurers have, making him an easy fit for all Wind content.
• After two and a half years of being tiny and frail, Gala Notte hits the big time as a Wind Dagger Adventurer. While it's all too tempting to just stuff your Flurry Wyrmprints on her and call it a day, she's got more than that at her disposal. Her first Skill, Faerie Punishment, delivers 16 hits in an area and dispels one buff per target, while her second Skill, Faerie Illusion, delivers 30 hits, also dispels buffs, and actively seeks enemies in the area of effect. But the real draw is Metamorphosis, her unique Ability that enlarges her and changes how her Skills work - Faerie Glory trades dispel for Stormlash and inflicts lots of damage, Faerie Circlet trades dispel for wide AOE damage, and both are fully charged upon transforming. This gives Notte a unique niche in the meta, as it allows her to stay small to charge her Skills and shred enemy buffs, then grow big when it's time to destroy the enemy. Combine this with Carnwennan for +40% Strength and extended combo timers or Windruler's Fang for Nihility-proof power, Flurry Strength and Devastation Wyrmprints for even more damage, and Midgardsormr Zero for Flurry Skill^note she can't lower enemy Wind Resistance since that effect is from Mids' Skill or Vayu for Strength and Skill Damage, and count the minutes before Ciella turns her bow on herself.
• A surprising development is the repair and full operation of Gala Mascula, who finally gets to take to the field in his own body. His kit centers around the Master Control buff, granted by his first Ability, Accelerator Unit, so keeping that up is ideal. His first skill, Code 03: Rise Generator, grants a 30% HP barrier, a strength amp, and immunity to knockback; under Master Control, it becomes Code 08: Execution, which improves the damage and hit count of his basic attack on top of the Code 03 benefits. His second skill, Code 36: Coolant Cycle, grants Master Control, and changes into Code 06: Conclusion, which inflicts AOE damage in a massive area and dispels one buff to each target. Master Control also increases the damage and hit count of his basic attacks, causes the last hit of his basic attack chain to dispel one buff from everything he hits, increases his attack rate, and increases his strength, crit rate, and crit damage with a combo exceeding 30 hits, which he can get easily. Let's also not forget that his chain co-ability gives Water teammates an additional 15% buff time at a combo of over 10 hits, and every 15 hits to that combo adds to Mascula's crit rate and crit damage to boot. Put it all together, and Mascula can emasculate anything reliant upon buffs or hit-count protection entirely by himself, which makes him ideal for any end-game content.
• It's been three years since this journey began, but finally, Gala Zethia has decided she's done with Peach Toadstool Syndrome for good and, following Notte's lead, becomes a legitimate badass in the process and brings honor back to the Blade weapon class. Her one skill, Genesis Circlet, hits in a very wide area for a good amount of damage while blunting damage from purple AOE attacks, and... yeah, that's it, just one skill. But it becomes very clear that she only needs the one skill, because not only does her nine-stroke attack combo grant Crit Damage amps, and not only is she immune to Blind and Paralysis, but her UTP gauge summons Bahamut to help out, and this version is the exact same as the Gala dragon, down to the amp generation potential. It's your choice whether to give her the actual Bahamut for the raw power he provides or Ramiel for rapid summoning of Bahamut, but the kind of power Zethia now wields can easily make the likes of Asura and Surtr tremble - oh, and she can summon Bahamut when controlled by the AI. If you have Joker as well, you can team them up and unleash Bahamut and Arsène on your hapless enemy on top of shapeshifting with another character for maximum punishment.
• Speaking of long and winding roads, Gala Emile found some balls of silver on his and, while admittedly lousy by himself, is a worthwhile addition to any team. Since he lacks the capacity for a dragonpact, he summons Mercury^note Who uses a wide-ranging attack, and can be re-summoned multiple times due to Emile having a Dragondrive meter instead of shapeshifting, but it's his actual Skills and Abilities that are the real draw. The base Skills center on his Ego Gauge, which are charged by his basic attacks and Force Strikes, and they will not work without it. The first Skill, "Follow Me, Minions!," applies a Strength Amp when your teammates are ahead of you or a team Strength Amp when they're behind you, while "Protect Me, Peons!," his second Skill, applies a Defense Amp when your teammates are behind you and a team Defense Amp when they're in front of you, on top of one instance of damage diffusion regardless of positioning. This alone makes him one of only two Adventurers who can give both Strength and Defense Amps without Skills (the other being a Spiraled Gala Sarisse) and the only Adventurer period who can issue team amps on their own^note The only other entity that can issue team Amps without overclocking basic amps is Gala Bahamut; Zethia cannot do so without summoning Bahamut. The other distinct feature he possesses is his unrestricted use of Shared Skills; whereas other Adventurers have a limit on what Shared Skills they can equip, Emile has no such restrictions, increases the damage by 150%, inflicts Frostbite on top of whatever other afflictions the attack has, and charges them up 40% faster than normal. As long as he has a capable healer backing him up, Emile can serve whatever role the user wishes for him on top of his superb buffing skills, making him a wild card for any Water team that's just too good to pass up.

Collab-Exclusive Adventurers

• Marth. He's one of the closest characters to being Merlin-level Game Breaker in Dragalia Lost, as he's built specifically for High Midgardsormr (since he has 100% Stun Resistance), but to another level. For starters, his second Skill, Fire Emblem, not only deals a huge amount of damage to the opponent, but if it connects, he buffs the team based on the current Skill Shift. While the first Phase only buffs his Strength, the second and third Phases boost the entire team's Strength, with the third Phase also increase the Attack Rate of his allies (meaning attacks will have less lag time). Being a Sword user, he can already break the Overdrive Gauge pretty easily, and having an Attack Rate boost will allow him to break it even faster. But his passive, Last Boost, is what makes him so amazing, as it immediately readies everyone's Skills when his health drops below 30%, making him useful for Burst strategies since everyone can unload all their attacks and buffs all over again. Not only does Marth see use in on-element content (e.g. High Midgardsormr and Volk), he also comes in handy in off-element fights on that passive alone. Oh, and he isn't going to die that easily, as his first Skill, Flickering Flames, happens to be a self-healing Skill that doubles as an attack.
  • Post Mana Spiral he's gotten even better. His Skills not only got the standard damage boost but now his first Skill causes Burn, and his second Skill now also deals more damage against Burned foes. Given the current meta for Flame often revolves around Burning and dealing more damage against Burning enemies, he fits in perfectly. In addition, his Last Boost ability can now activate twice in a quest, he gets potent Stun Resistance, and his Flurry Devastation now only needs a 10-hit combo instead of a 15-hit combo. Thanks to all these buffs, he is a welcome sight if you're in need of a Flame Adventurer. He's so strong, Version 2.0's rebalances left him completely untouched.
• Veronica can, with her Mana Spiral, beat out any and all other adventurers in terms of burst damage. Gespent dealing absolutely ludicrous amounts of damage when she's low on HP, combined with a PERMANENT 30% Skill Damage buff the first time she hits 30% HP, leads to unfair amounts of Burst damage, especially after tanking High Jupiter's opening blast.^note It also makes for an amazing Shared Skill. Furthermore, Nosferatu is an incredibly potent damaging Skill that heals, meaning she can reliably heal herself out of the red zone after damaging down to activate Last Destruction. She also has Skill Charge, filling all Skill Gauges by 5% whenever she uses a Skill, leading to Skill chains, and this is without factoring in that Gespent charges itself by 20% if used above 50% HP (at the cost of 10% HP, which is good for making Gespent do even more damage). Her ability to burst down targets like High Jupiter, and unload unfair amounts of Skill Damage, makes her one of the only units in the game capable of rivaling Gala Gleo. Taken up to eleven when players figured out how to use her absurd burst damage to kill Master Kai Yan in under 30 seconds.
• Hunter Sarisse has quickly become one of the best Water units in the game. To start with, thanks to Bow Expertise she gets a Force Strike that decreases the targets Strength by 15% for ten seconds (but doesn’t stack), has multiple charges to increase its power, and a 20-30% increase to Force Strike damage. Her first Skill deals Water damage ahead of her and increases the damage of her next Force Strike by 60-100%. Her second Skill increases her Force Strike charge speed by 20-30%. Together, with a rare 100% Burn Resistance, she can quickly demolish Overdrive Gauges from Flame bosses like Brunhilda and Ayaha & Otoha without breaking a sweat.^note However she does suffer a little during the latter fight, as the twins’ hit box is smaller then Brunhilda, meaning less hits and, by proxy, less damage. She also cannot cause any afflictions without Skill Share, which is vital for removing their Attack/Defense buffs. It has gotten to the point where Master High Brunhilda teams opt to run two Hunter Sarisses instead of two Lilys. She has also gotten better with the 6-Star Agito Bow, as the Critical Hit Rate and Strength buff from the Weapon allows her Force Strikes to hit even harder then before. And Version 2.0 made her better, giving her a good buff to her first skill and the damage her force strike deals were up by 50%, making her into one of, if not the, strongest Water adventurer in the entire game.
• Tiki. While her Co-Ability of increased Standard Attack damage synergizes well with Adventurers who rely on Standard attacks a lot like Pipple, Durant, and Lily, she is also a hard-hitting monster. Her human form isn't as impressive, but she has her own unique "Divine Dragon" form that synergizes well with her Co-Ability, as her standard attack combo hits very hard in her Dragon form. Her first Skill in her Dragon form, Breath of Fog, inflicts large amount of damage to enemies and inflicts Frostbite. Her second Skill in Dragon form, Divine Dragon Blow, inflicts even larger amount of damage on Frostbitten enemies. Not only that, she's also incredibly tanky in her Dragon form, as any damage taken is reduced by 50%, meaning she can effectively tank several powerful attacks from High Brunhilda and Ayaha & Otoha. The downside is that Dragon-related Wyrmprints do not affect her since her Divine Dragon form isn't exactly shapeshift (more closer to the Dragondrive mechanic on some Adventurers), it takes a while to build up her Dragon form, she doesn’t benefit from the Dracoliths 50% Dragon Damage boost, and she can’t use Weapon or Shared Skills while in Divine Dragon form. But when she's in her Divine Dragon form, she'll be a hard hitting machine. This means she benefits more from Critical Hit Damage Wyrmprints and Critical Hit Class Dragons (i.e. Dragonyule Jeanne and Nimis) thanks to her Co-Ability and her Divine Dragon form, and greatly benefits from the 6-Star Water Agito Weapon, as it includes a Critical Hit Rate buff. Version 2.0 was very kind to her, more than doubling the mods on her first Skill, along with the addition of dealing more damage against Frostbitten foes. Meanwhile, her second Skill and her Auto attacks received what is approximately a 50% buff. Along with the buffed Agito Weapon now granting a more useful 20% Strength buff, she has become an excellent Adventurer who can deal damage like nothing else but tank hits like it’s nothing.
• Peony is bar none one of the best buffers in the whole game. Her first Skill Flower of Joy not only deals damage and Paralyzes but it also has a Skill Shift, the second time using the Skill increases her Defense by 10% for ten seconds, and on the third use it increases the entire party's Strength by 10% for ten seconds. Her second Skill, Gentle Dream, deals more damage against Paralyzed foes but also increases her entire team's Strength and Attack Rate by 10% each, and, as detailed below, Attack Rate Up is a Game-Breaker of a buff. She also gives a passive 20% increase to Light damage thanks to her Co-Ability, making it a must-have on any Light team. But her claim to fame is her first ability Aid of the Ljósálfar, which grants a 20% Life Shield to all allies and causes the Empowering Dreams effect every time she uses her second Skill. Empowering Dreams causes five different effects: it increases the team's Strength by 10%, increases Attack Rate by the same amount, Defense by 20%, adds 5% to Shadow Resistance, and increases movement speed by 5%, all for ten seconds. But the biggest one, upon Peony using a Force Strike, she will, excluding herself, increase the team's first Skill’s Gauge by 40%. The only downside is that the buffs don’t stack, and they take twenty seconds before all of these effects can be reapplied. But the sheer utility makes Peony a must-have for anyone who has her.
• Joker quickly rose to be being among the best Shadow Adventurers in recent memories for his sheer utility: the Rebellious Trickster boasts a Co-Ability that increases all active Adventurers attack rate by a small, but very welcome 7%, allow for both faster skill replenishes and DPS, which further increases Joker's own crazy innate DPS as a Dagger wielder. His Skills have impressive mods, with his S2, Phantom Barrage, deceasing enemy strength by 15 to 20% for 20 seconds, allowing for better survivability. Joker also possesses an insanely useful Force Strike with two charge levels, with the second level being able to dispel one enemy buff! But the best of Joker's kit lies with his signature Persona, Arsène: not only can Arsène be summoned fairly quickly thanks to both of Joker's skills filling up the Persona gauge, attack alongside Joker, and increase his Defense by 6%, Arsène can be summoned even when the player is not CONTROLLING Joker, allowing a player to switch control to another Adventurer to shapeshift into Dragon form - or have all four Persona Adventurers gang up on the enemy with their Personas in element-neutral content, or with a shadow team you can team him up with Gala Zena and have a third character shapeshift! The only downside to all this is that as a third-party collab-exclusive Adventurer with possibly little chance of returning, not many players will have the chance to play as one of the best Shadow Adventurers in the game.

Other Adventurers

• Elisanne is bar none considered the best buffer in the entire game, all because of her first Skill, Brave Bastion, which gives an impressive 20% Strength buff to the entire team, no matter what element they are, making her easy to drop onto several teams. She also has a Buff Time +20% passive, meaning the buff lasts longer, all while being a Lance Adventurer, which have the best SP gains in the game. Her only real weaknesses is that she only has a 50% Burn Resistance and 25% Stun Resistance, but with proper dodging this can be a nonissue. She’s considered so good that it took several months after Ayaha and Otoha were released to get a Mana Spiral. When she did, it gave her a lot of what she was missing, including 100% Burn and Stun Resistance, a stronger Buff Time ability, and giving her a stronger Strength buff on her first Skill, though it was turned into a damaging Skill in the process, meaning the uptime isn’t as good as it once was. But thanks to her increase to Buff Time, this is effectively negated.^* However, it comes at the cost of making it a far worse Shared Skill thanks to it’s really really low modifiers and without the buff time gives the strength buff some pretty poor uptime.
• Halloween Mym. Not only does she retain all of her Gala self's basic abilities, she now possesses new, more powerful Skills that benefit the whole team. The first Skill deals Flame damage and creates a 10-second debuff zone that lowers enemy Defenses by up to 15%. Her second Skill boosts the Strength of Flame Adventurers for fifteen seconds, while increasing her own Critical Rate by 5%, with a special effect known as "Dream Boost." The same Skill also increases her Dragon Form's Strength while Dream Boost is active. She also now has a Defense buff in Dragon Form, as opposed to her Gala variant's Strength buff, meaning she can't be forced out of Dragon Form by enemies easily. When combined with the Dream Boost effect, this effectively results in a much tougher Dragon Shift. Lastly, she boasts a brand new Co-Ability that increases the team's Critical Damage modifier up to a whopping 30%. All this combined potentially results in both a Gala-strength-level unit, and a powerful DPS Flame-attuned Adventurer. Version 2.0 also doubled the modifiers on her Dragon Forms. The only downsides to Halloween Mym are the lack of Shapeshift Extend and the high SP cost of her Skills, which can both be easily mitigated via the meta's most commonly used Wyrmprints.
• Mitsuhide is one of the Light Element's best Adventurers, with an incredibly synergistic kit with a focus on Paralysis and combos. Her first Skill, Mouse’s Revenge, not only hits up to twelve times, but it can also cause Paralysis. This Skill alone synergizes with her first and third Abilities perfectly, as they increase Strength by 20% when the combo count is 15 or more and deals more damage against Paralyzed enemies respectively. Her second Skill Calamity Drop not only deals damage but increases her Attack Rate by 10% for ten seconds, which, while a small value, is an incredible assist, because Attack Rate Up is a Game-Breaker of a status already, due to it increasing how fast the user attacks, and by proxy, how fast their Skills will recharge. In addition, it deals 50% more damage when her combo count is over 30, and, being a second Skill on a Dagger user, means she’ll definitely be at that point. Combine with the classic Dagger Critical Rate Up Co-Ability and a rare Combo Time Up Chain Co-Ability, and she’ll be dealing damage as easy as she sleeps. And just as an added bonus, both of her Skills received a 50% buff when Version 2.0 was released, making her even better.
• Pipple. This utterly adorable living vegetable quickly proves himself to be one of the best Water Adventurers in the game, easily rivaling Hunter Sarisse. He has no damaging Skills, having a Defense buff as his first Skill, and a party-wide Energy booster as his second Skill. Instead, he packs the punch with his standard attacks, thanks to his first passive more than doubling the potency of his standard attacks. His third passive boosts his Strength and Critical Rate up to an impressive 40% and 15%, respectively, depending on his Energy levels. And since he lacks damaging Skills, he gets to keep the powerful Strength buffs throughout the quest once he's at max energy! That's not even getting into how well he synergizes with Wyrmprints with Doublebuff abilities, further boosting his damage potential. Add Tiki or Gala Laxi’s Co-Ability of increasing Standard Attack damage, and he'll become a hard-hitting monster with basic attacks. And the best part? He's only a 4-Star Adventurer, making him easier to pull than the other premier Water units. Pipple got even better when the Water Agito Weapons were released, since their Weapon Skill alternates between a Defense boost and a Critical Rate boost, which fit Pipple perfectly. Since Agito Weapon Skills charge very quickly, Pipple can trigger the Doublebuff abilities of Wyrmprints even faster, which also makes Pipple more viable as an AI-controlled Adventurer. And in Version 2.0, he gets better, gaining a massive 30% Strength buff for himself that lasts for fifteen seconds on his second Skill, as well as a 20% Strength buff from a max unbound Water Agito Wand. Not even the Curse of Nihility shutting down his buffs can bring this cute little guy down, because his standard attacks still hit like a truck.
• Mitsuba is an impressive Critical Hit Class Adventurer for her element, with her two unique stances, each bringing something incredibly useful for not only herself, but her team. Her first Skill, Chef's Special, is simple. It causes Frostbite when in Sashimi Stance, or deals more damage against Frostbitten enemies when in Tempura Stance. Her second Skill, Hearty Helping, buffs the entire team's Critical Rate by 10% and increases Inspiration by two stages while in Sashimi Stance, while in Tempura Stance it increases Critical Damage by 50% and increases Inspiration by three stages. Inspiration works similarly to Energy: When five stacks are acquired, the user will be Energized and their next Skill will be a guaranteed Critical Hit. However, unlike Energy, which increases Skill Damage/Healing by 50%, Critical Hits increase damage by 70% before factoring in any other outside buffs like Critical Damage, and being a Dagger Adventurer, she has Critical Rate as a Co-Ability, meaning she isn't forced to rely on Inspiration for her crits. Her Tempura Stance also carries amazing SP gain, so long as her combo is above 20, and thanks to Mitsuba being a Dagger, she can keep her combo up as easy as breathing. Speaking of comboing, she also has Flurry Strength as her first Ability, increasing her Strength by 20% when her combo is above fifteen, and has Combo Time as a third Ability, letting her keep her combo counter up without issue. Bring along an Adventurer that can cause a lot of Frostbite like Spiral!Xainfried, Fjorm, Lily^note All three of them can cause the Frostbite status with their first Skills, meaning it'll give good up time for her Frostbite Punisher, compared to her having to inflict it herself., and Tiki^note Who, despite being a Dagger Adventurer like Mitsuba, has a different Co-Ability, Standard Attack Damage up, compared to Critical Rate up, meaning the only overlap is their Weapon. while staying in Tempura Stance and she'll become, bar none, the most powerful Water Adventurer in the game, an element that was severely lacking in personal DPS. Heck, she's even a major linchpin in cheese comps when against Ayaha & Otoha, thanks to her sheer damage output. Version 2.0 further buffs up her damage output, making her even better. She's so busted that she is now integral to cheesing MASTER KAI YAN AND TARTARUS in under 30 seconds despite the two of them being built to counter their respective elements and Mitsuba being off-element.^* Though this was in part because of her Inspiration allowing other Game-Breaker teammates to deal such ludicrous damage
• Grace isn't as flashy as other Adventurers on this list, but she still has her uses. She's a rare breed of Staff user; one that doesn't specialize in healing her allies. To compensate for this, her Skills grant a special shield called a Life Shield. Normal shields only nullify one attack that's less than a certain percentage of an ally's health, making them pretty useless in most boss fights for multiple reasons. However, a Life Shield is different; it basically gives the ally it was bestowed upon a metric ton of extra health, without having to suffer that pesky side-effect of certain Adventurers' efficacy falling if they go below a (usually very high) HP threshold. For example, she can allow the two Shadow Dragondrive Adventurers, Bellina and Aldred,^note who specialize in a Critical Status Buff when their health drops below 30% to pummel away at the enemy with pumped-up DPS without fear of keeling over or having to be healed, which gimps their damage, and she can allow Nefaria to keep her damage top-notch due to it relying on her being at full health. She's proven herself to be so hardy and versatile that she sees use in just about every endgame content, particularly the Agito, higher levels of the Mercurial Gauntlet, and even giving teams the ability to Auto both Agito and the Master High Dragons. The Sinister Dominion, however, can wipe her life shield clean, and Thor decided to follow their example, effectively nerfing her into the ground against them.
• Forte has a Dragon-focused kit similar to Lathna, but more superior. Her first Skill, Dragonbrood Demonspear, is almost similar to Lathna's, with a Poison Punisher damage effect, but has a shorter animation frame, meaning her DPS output is significantly higher than Lathna. Her second Skill, Flawless Formation, grants herself a 20% Strength boost for fifteen seconds, and can reposition herself during the attack by changing direction, allowing her to avoid certain otherwise unavoidable attacks during the animation frame. Furthermore, both of her Skills help fill her Dragon Gauge thanks to her own passive, allowing her shapeshift sooner than later. Unlike Lathna, most of her damage isn't dependent on Poison. This is because she also has a Dragon Claws Chain Co-Ability, which permanently grants herself Strength Up whenever she shapeshifts, meaning she does extremely well in longer-sustained fights like Master Kai Yan, as it's very easy for her to shapeshift three times. Thanks to Forte's more synergistic kit, she ends up dethroning Mana Spiral Lathna as the best Shadow Lance shapeshift-focused Adventurer.^note Unsurprisingly, Lathna's and Forte's Chain Co-Abilities synergize well with each other, as the former has a Dragon Haste Chain Co-Ability, while the latter's Dragon Claws Chain Co-Ability synergizes well with Lathna While she was one of the few Adventurers untouched by the mass Balance Buff in Version 2.0, she benefits significantly from the Dragon Damage affinity.
• Ilia, the established "Goddess of the World," shows what's she's really made of, being a powerful gun-toting badass, who brings on the pain with rapid fire. For starters, she's immune to both Curse and Poison, and double Resistances are usually reserved only for Gala Adventurers, while she's a permanent addition. Her first passive, Enigma, fires off a shotgun blast whenever she dodge rolls, and said shotgun blasts, while not too damaging, rack up her combo count very quickly, making it quite easy to maintain her combo count. Her main selling point in her kit is her unique Alchemic Cartridge mechanic, which starts off as a gauge that fills up whenever she attacks, with the gauge filling up much faster if her combo count is 30 and above. With the gauge filled, she can then use her second Skill, Alchemic Enhancement, to grant her up to three Cartridges, which all provide powerful effects. Her first Skill, Drive Buster, deals increased damage with a Cartridge consumed, and inflicts a unique and unresisted affliction, Flashburn. Her second Skill, with a Cartridge used, becomes a very powerful nuke blast that deals massive damage. Alternatively, she can also choose to consume all of her Cartridges at once with her unique Force Strike, which greatly increases in power the more Cartridges that are consumed in the process, and has a drastically raised Critical Rate. But wait, there's more! Her third passive, Critical Output, grants Ilia a 30% boost to her Critical Rate whenever she consumes a Cartridge with her Skills or her Force Strike, which means Ilia can easily enjoy a whopping 90% boost to her Critical Rate, and that's not even counting other potential buffs she can receive from other Adventurers! Ilia's not just a Goddess of the World, she's also a goddess on the battlefield! Oh, and we have to mention again, she's a PERMANENT Adventurer. When the Curse of Nihility was introduced, her alchemic cartridges were disrupted, but that was eventually fixed.
• Pecorine, the new overpowered addition from Princess Connect! Re:Dive happens to be a new take on the Super Mode playstyle, but with a lot more overpowerdness. Her super mode works like this: She has a Gourmand Gauge that fills by half whenever her second Skill, Lunchtime, is used, and automatically depletes over the next 20 seconds when it fills to full. While it is depleting, Pecorine's Abilities get jacked through the roof. Her first Skill, Princess Strike, gets upgraded to Princess Valiance, which ups the mods from a decent 1785% to an insane 3792% and trades its fairly passive 10% Shadow Resistance buff for a 40% Strength buff for 5 seconds. But she also gets a unique Force Strike, which has a whopping 1700% mod and gives 800 SP. Said Force Strike isn't much slower than her normal one, making it quite spammable, yet it hits harder than many Adventurers' full-on Skills, provides ridiculous SP generation along with respectable range. Oh, and when you cast Princess Valiance right before a Force Strike, you're also getting that juicy 40% Strength buff on it. To take this up to eleven, since you're pretty much guaranteed to get 3800 SP during your 20 seconds of overpowered mode, you'll have Lunchtime ready when it ends, meaning as soon as your Gourmand Gauge bottoms out, Pecorine'll be able to nonchalantly munch on an onigiri and fill the Gourmand Gauge by half again, leaving her only 3800 SP and another Lunchtime cast away from another crazy rampage. And we haven't even mentioned the fact that she isn't dependent on Paralysis (which can become a problem on some Light Adventurers, as while they deal more damage to Paralyzed foes, foes tend to be Paralyzed so much they become immune),^* In addition, some of the most common Adventurers used in Tartarus don’t regularly cause Paralysis (while Gala Euden can cause it, he’s not reliable at it due to his long cooldown on his second Skill), meaning it’s surprisingly rare to find a dedicated Paralysis user or the fact the Lunchtime acts as a self-heal and a self-buff? Sure, her standard combo line is strictly inferior to other Swords due to being laggier, but who cares when her mods are so high?
• Bellina mainly owes her position on this list to fellow Game-Breaker Grace, but she's so ridiculously good at fulfilling her role in an Enmity-heavy meta that she still makes her way to this list. As a Dragondrive Adventurer specializing in abusing CriticalStatusBuffs, all her attacks (including normal ones) deal massively increased damage when her HP is low. Her second Skill, Renegade Gambit, drops her HP down to 30% instantly (though if you know what you're doing, you can exploit her lack of Paralysis Resistance to drop her to 1HP), her first Skill, Renegade Descent, has impressive crisis modifiers and when she Dragondrives, things get silly. Renegade Dragonfall, the Dragondrive version of Renegade Descent, now multitargets, like Gala Cleo's Ancient Ray, so Kai Yan's Supreme Spheres are a non-issue^note Except on Legend, where hit count does become a concern. but more importantly, instantly fills itself at the cost of 25% of the Dragondrive Gauge while also dispeling a buff (a godsend in Kai Yan's Wrath). While Renegade Shadowblade (her upgraded second Skill while in Dragondrive mode) is no longer worth it, due to instantly kicking you out of Dragondrive, her standard attacks more than make up for it. Not only do they deal heavy damage, they also refill her Dragondrive Gauge, and with Audric on the backline for Co-Abilities, Renegade Dragonfall, becomes very, very spammable. Surprisingly, for a Critical Status Buff reliant Adventurer, she's also surprisingly durable. With Grace on the team (and if you're using Bellina, you absolutely will have Grace on the team), the 75% Defense bonus for being in Dragondrive, and optimally, Andromeda as the Dragon of choice, Bellina can end up with more bulk than an equivalent Adventurer at full HP with good healers. As long as Grace gets her job done, watch bosses melt before your eyes. While the Curse of Nihility spell makes Bellina a liability, thanks to purging Grace's shield, and Elysium is immune to Dragondrive, which means she cannot do more than warm the bench against them, but she still has her uses everywhere else.
• Humanoid Midgardsormr ends up being among the top choices for facing endgame bosses due to his Chain Co-Ability and Ancient Tempest Skill allowing for more frequent shapeshifting. Ancient Tempest doesn't fill as much of the Dragon Gauge as Gala Mym's Dragon Claw, and doesn't increase the user's Strength, but it trades in those effects for almost three times the pure damage. Catastrophic Blast, his second Skill, also inflicts Stormlash. His Co-Abilities also increases how fast the team's Skills and Dragon Gauge fill. Like Gala Mym, he can make use of Wyrmprint Affinity Bonuses without a loss use. Being a Bow user means that he gets a boost to how often he can use his Skills as well. Not only that, but his regular Abilities include a 10% Shapeshift Prep and an 18% damage boost when shapeshifted.
• Alberius proves that he is one of the greatest heroes. Both of his Skills, Circlet Dawn and Exalted Inception, are unaffected by the Curse of Nihilty debuff and because he transforms into a Dragon briefly (Chthonius and Midgardsormr respectively) to launch the attack, they count as Dragon damage, meaning he can power himself up with all those Dragon Affinity Wyrmprints and deal even more damage. As if that wasn't enough, those Skills also inflict Shadowblight and Stun respectively. In case you wanted to hit even harder with Dragon damage, his Co-Ability fills his Dragon Gauge faster, while his Co-Ability gives all Dragon attacks (including his Skills, remember) a damage boost. Not enough? His regular Abilities fills 25% of the Dragon Gauge as soon as the battle starts, increases his Defense when in Dragonform, and allows his Dragon attacks (again, including his regular Skills) to dispel a buff from the enemy.
• Out of the apostles, Regina proves herself to be the most powerful and worthy of being the leader. The effects of her first skill "Tactical Skewer" has a different effect based on what protocol she is in^Effects Preservation Protocol grants her a defense amp, Restoration Protocol restores her health greatly, and Purification Protocol removes all ailments. Her second skill, "Imperial Castling" is essentially the best per-cast ailment inducing skill in the game as it not only inflicts frostbite but also two of any other damage over time ailment except bleeding. As for the previously mentioned protocols, they alter in order of "Preservation Protocol," "Restoration Protocol," and "Purification Protocol" after every force strike. This is all while her sigil is locked, mind you. After enough time has passed for her sigil to unlock, she gains access to all three protocols at once. While it takes 5 minutes by default for the sigil to unlock, the time can be shortened with each use of "Tactical Skewer". Oh, and did we forget to mention she has a punisher ability that boosts her attack against enemies that are afflicted with ANY ailment, and it does even more to enemies afflicted with more than one^note up to 4?
• As if Regina joining wasn't crazy enough, Sandalphon is to Water what the twins below are to Fire. She's only immune to Stun and her basic attack is laggy and melee-oriented where healers tend to attack at range (the twins again being an exception), but then you get to her Skills and Abilities. Starting off is her core ability, Heavenly Wings, which grants a unique shapeshift alongside with the Coordination and Concentration Protocols; she starts with Coordination, but a second and a half of charging a Force Strike will switch between them. It also grants a charge gauge with three levels, one of which is used by her skills, which is charged by using the basic attack and landing the Force Strike; yes, using the basic attack will charge the gauge even if it doesn't hit anything. Using her skills will also grant a defense amp with a 20-second cooldown, and healing Sandalphon will charge her UTP gauge on a ten-second cooldown thanks to her third skill. This will be on the quiz. Both skills heal, but the extra effects differ: Angelic Praise grants regen at all times, grants overdamage during Coordination Protocol and a stack of Rapid Analysis during Concentration Protocol (up to three), while Angelic Wings cleanses afflictions (also boosting max HP to its 30% limit if this happens) during Coordination Protocol and boosts the UTP gauge during Concentration Protocol. Still listening? Next are her skills after her unique transformation - Angelic Praise changes to Celestial Skewer which does a good amount of AOE damage, while Angelic Wings changes to Celestial Castling which does AOE damage and applies frostbite and one other DOT affliction. On top of that, each transformed skill will heal the party and reboot instantly as long as you have at least one stack of Rapid Analysis. That's a lot of information to keep track of, especially when fighting the twins and Surtr, but if you pull it off, Sandalphon can easily keep the team at peak performance no matter what is thrown at her. She's even better against Surtr, because the instant reboot granted by Rapid Analysis means she can effectively spam Celestial Castling to erase eight stacks of Fiery Resistance, all but removing the need for a dedicated afflictor against him!^note To put this in perspective, even with Shared Skills, Regina can only wipe out seven stacks, and Gala Emile can only take out six if the base skills don't apply frostbite. All Sandalphon needs is a dispel Shared Skill and she can theoretically do everything you need against Surtr... or anyone else, for that matter. Any other questions as to why she commands the Archangels?
• Being the only members of the Agito crew to join as adventurers, Ayaha and Otoha may be the strongest among the combat medics in the game. For starters, the two of them utilize a dagger and a axe respectively despite their power being based off of the staff and they each possess a unique force strike with Ayaha being able to lower foes attack, and Otoha striking foes multiple times around her. Their first skill Nabe Nabe Sokonuke allows them to swap between each other while dealing damage while also healing the party of all afflictions AND filling the dragon gauge, and each has their own unique secondary skill that heals and gives buffs while doing damage as well. Ayaha's Onigokko stuns the enemy and gives the team the Blue Hagoromo effect which increases wind resistance and adds HP regen, while Otoha's Kagome Kagome burns AND scorchrends the targets while also giving overdamage to the team. Not to mention the secondary skill of the twins can be chained with their shared first one, readying the other twins secondary skill IMMIDEATLY for use after switching. They have amazing passives with Warabe Asobi increasing their affliction resistance every time they switch and giving a strength amp every time they use a skill every 8 seconds. Their other passive Teosenbo and Toryanse reduces damage as long they are not afflicted as well as increasing strength and healing up to a 3 time stack. Finally, for their dragon form, Union automatically gives them a 25% increase in shapeshift time and they will always transform into their beast mode which is INSANELY useful. Their shapeshifted standard attacks alone gives the enemy both lowered burn and scorchrend resistance they get a dragon strike that inflicts both stun and scorchrend, and their dragon skill draws in and damages enemies while inflicting stun, burn, AND scorchrend while healing the team relative to the damage dealt. Oh, and it gives the team a strength amp, a buff that gives the team stun, burn, and scorchrend punishment, hp regen, AND increases their maximum hp on top of that! The only thing that slows them down somewhat is the fact that unlike other adventurers the two have NO resistances to sleep and stun themselves so if they enemy goes for debuffs as soon as the fight start it will be hard to build it up, but that can easily be negated with wyrmprints which work surprisingly well with the two considering how strong they are already. Jaldaboth be warned, your rule means NOTHING to the Twin Wings of Freedom.
• Bondforged Prince is one of the two final adventurers to be released and as expected of the one who holds the pacts with the now Primal Greatwyrms, is ridiculously strong. Serving as the ultimate shapeshifting unit for the wind element he gives a massive boost to shapeshifting time and haste for the dragon gauge and just like his Gala light version, he gains a 50% boost to it when he falls below 40% and reduces shapeshift depletion time by 20%. His two skills also take some notes from Alberius as he transforms into Primal Midgardsommr for them, meaning dragon damage affects his skill attacks as well. He also has a unique attack chain, with a ranged force strike, and if he uses his force strike in the middle of his attack he will continue the combo if he keeps attacking normally. He even fires off a gigantic and more powerful version of the force strike if he attacks after the fourth attack in his chain. His first skill, Blazing Tempest, creates a giant tornado which deals wind damage, then deals wind damage in a line and inflicts stormlash. Vortex Circlet is his own version of Exalted Inception, which stuns enemies, creates a bunch of tornadoes to hit enemies all around him, and it even severely damages overdrive gauges of bosses for a significant amount. Finally there is his shapeshift itself, which causes him to take the form of Primal Midgardsommr, and just like Alberius, his attacks in this state inflict dispel. He even gives his whole team a crit amp. And his skill in this form is even BETTER than the original equippable Primal Midgardsommr. United Tempest does the same giant AOE blast as before and lowers wind reistance, but it also fires 3 tornadoes that move in a boomerang motion AND inflicts stun on top of that. The best part though? Like the reborn gala dragons, Primal Midgardsommr can use this skill TWICE if he deals enough damage after hitting enemies with it once (which considering how long he stays shapeshifted is not very hard to do.) With all the shapeshifting you will be doing, lowering the enemies resistance to you and your teams attacks, cancelling out their buffs, and inflicting DOT and stun, the Princes final form is probably the best one yet and a fantastic unit to go out on for the games finale. Power of bonds indeed.

Post-Version 2. 0 Adventurers

• Xainfried was always considered a rather...weak Adventurer. Boasting pretty poor modifiers on his Skills and, despite his shapeshift-based playstyle, was never truly good at it. While his Mana Spiral patched up several of his problems,^note Such as a way to cause Frostbite, an increase to his Dragon's Claws Ability, and the ability to increase his Dragon Gauge with his second Skill he was still held back by his choice of Wyrmprints and the Water Element's all around lacking damage. Version 2.0 changed that, doubling his first Skill's modifiers, gaining Frostbite Punisher on said Skill, and more than tripling the mods on his second Skill. He also can now use all of the Wyrmprints he wanted to use, not only Dragon and Tamer but also An Ancient Oath, Red Impulse, His Clever Brother, and/or The Bridal Dragon, just to name a few. All Dragon Forms also received a x2 multiplier to their mods making each shapeshift he does even stronger, truly showing off the draconic power that the Aegis tribe has.
• Naveed was always a unique attempt at a Stone Wall Adventurer, with his lithomancy and the Defense buffs, but was held back by the game's base mechanics, where taking down the boss as fast as possible is preferred. And though his Spiral helped bring him some use, he was still outclassed. Version 2.0 brought a lot of what he was missing, as the modifiers on his first Skill were not only doubled, but also got an additional 20% Strength buff thanks to his second Skill. But the Wyrmprint changes gave him what he needed most. Before, he was rather limited with his options as he, like many other Adventurers, had to pick and choose between different valuable effects. But now that problem is removed, and can now not only run powerful prints like The Shining Overlord, but several different Doublebuff prints, like Brothers in Arms or First Rate Hospitality, for a bonus Strength buff, Felyne Hospitality for more Critical Damage, and Odd Sparrows for healing, all of which activate when receiving any defense buffs, which happens whenever he uses his second Skill.
• Yaten was mostly seen as a quirky little Sword unit; his reliance on Energy and getting buffs over time from it was pretty nifty and paired well with Shinobi, whose Skill Energizes everyone, but was ultimately useless due to Energy's firm Low-Tier Letdown status, the existence of Gala Cleo, and Adventurers that had Mana Spirals. However, come 2.0, his mods were significantly boosted. Combine this with a whopping 40% Strength buff at max Energy, and the explosive Skill Damage buffs from Cat Sith, and he turned from a mediocre Shadow unit into a force of nature that can smack around Light bosses with huge numbers.
• Audric was a unique attempt at a shapeshift-heavy playstyle held back by his own lacking damage both inside and outside of his Dragonform. But Version 2.0 brought a lot of what he was missing. Both of his Skills, Exaltation Terminus and Circlet Denouement, received impressive boosts to their modifiers and could deal more damage against Poisoned enemies, which Circlet Denouement can inflict now. He also benefited significantly from the new Wyrmprint changes, as he no longer has to pick and choose between his best prints^* Those being: The Shining Overlord, The Plaguebringer, An Ancient Oath, A Suit of Midnight, or Levin's Champion. All of them complemented his playstyle and patched any weaknesses extremely well.. In addition, all Dragons had their modifiers doubled, making each Dragonform stronger, which gets insane with his Cursed Blood Ability increasing his Critical Rate. His shapeshift-heavy playstyle also benefits from Wyrmprint Affinities as well, particularly the Dragon Damage Affinity, and the more niche Paralysis Resistance Affinity.
• Templar Hope is a bit of a strange case. He was essentially a clone of Patia, being an efficient buff-bot who gave their team a hefty Defense boost, but had lousy personal DPS. Therefore, he was formerly a very niche Adventurer, useful but lacking in Co-Op stages, but essential in Solo maps due to the ever-presence of Artificial Stupidity. After the rework, however, he rocketed to the top of the charts because of two tweaks; he gained an extra 15% Strength buff on his first Skill, Knight's Spirit. Thanks to this, he brings a lot of what a team could ever need in terms of buffs; he heals thanks to his third Ability, he increases Defense, and he increases everyone else's DPS. And his second Skill, Blessed Sword, gained what is approximately an extra 1000% to its modifier, patching up his problem of being a Stone Wall in a game where damage is a must have. While other Staff users, such as Lowen, might do more of the same, Hope is favored since he's a Sword user, and thus gains SP faster than said Staves. His Co-Abilities also synergize quite well with his overall playstyle; his HP 60% = Strength 5% Chain Co-Ability works wonders with the sizable Defense and HP Regen boosts he hands out like candy, and his Dragon Haste +15% Co-Ability greatly benefits him when he has Ariel or Freyja equipped. As a bonus, he also got full immunity to both of Water's status effects, Freeze and Bog, which is an honor normally reserved for Gala Adventurers. Rise of the Sinister Dominion took this to another level, as the introduction of Dominion prints pushed THope's buff spam potential to a new level. An actual strategy is to deliberately give an offelement Caladbolg (Light Agito Sword) to THope so he could use Dominion prints, which had everything he needed to get 4pc Bow Boon along with his Buff Time needs met as a pure buffer.
• Su Fang was an Adventurer who was mostly looked over, despite getting a fancy new Mana Spiral after the Resplendent Refrain Event's rerun. However, the change that brought him into the spotlight strangely wasn't to him specifically, but rather to the playing field; Ciella was classified as a Therion. Since Su Fang has a hefty 35% Therion's Bane, that means an unconditional 35% damage boost against Ciella for free. Combine this with newly increased mods on his first Skill, Gale Slice, a whopping 30% Strength boost on his second Skill, Crackling Pyroblossom, a 35% Skill Damage boost from his Abilities, and suddenly Su Fang was able to dish out some massive pain on the poor post-Paladyn. He's relatively useless in all the other hard Water content, due to his damage falling off significantly without the help of Therion's Bane, but in the context of Ciella, he's a hard-hitting monster.
• Lin You, while her Mana Spiral managed to give her some great buffs, particularly by turning her into a powerful Critical Hit Class Adventurer, Version 2.0 put her over the top. Her first Skill, Typhoon's Fist, got a buff to its modifiers, along with the ability to create a tornado for the next three Force Strikes afterwards.^* Which, while extremely weak with a 50% modifier, allows her to hit targets that are too far from her to hit with her standard Auto-attacks, letting her keep her combo up for longer. Along with a passive Combo Time Ability, she can also increase her Critical Hit Rate by 20% when her Combo Count is at 25 or at 40% when at 50, making her into an impressive damage dealer. Version 2.0 further increased the modifier on Typhoon Fist, added a 15% Strength buff on her second Skill, Heaven's Breath, and allowed her many more means to boost her personal damage thanks to being able to equip more Wyrmprints, to a point where she's considered the best damage dealer in the Wind Element, once she gets her combo up. A later update with also allowed Axe Adventurers to move while charging their Force Strike, which helped with positioning her tornadoes. The only real weakness she has is dropping her combo, which is a severe issue in Ciella thanks to her Mist Veil. But with the existence of Agito refinements giving another second of combo time and Primal Dragon weapons providing even more combo time, the right Chain Co-Abilities, along with her own attack speed buff, makes this into a minor annoyance.

Post-Mana Spiral Adventurers

• Xania, post-Spiral, has become the most Boring, but Practical options for both Flame ranged Adventurers and for applying the Burn status. Both of her Skills now cause Burn, and her second Skill, Pyreblossom, also received a boost to its modifiers. Her first Ability also went from a pretty good 20% Skill Damage to an impressive 35% Skill Damage, with no strings attached. Give her a Dragon like Apollo or Konohana Sakuya, and just enjoy the chaos from her Skills.
• Euden has become one of the most reliable units for shapeshifting. His first Skill, Blazing Circlet, can now increase the Dragon Gauge by 3%, letting him become a Dragon faster and can cause Burn. His second Skill also causes a 5% Defense debuff. He also gains Dragon Claws IV which, after three shapeshifts, gives a permanent 40% Strength buff, and his worthless Player EXP Ability becomes Dragon Dominance, which lets him remove a buff off of an enemy while attacking in Dragon form in addition to the previous effect of granting extra Player Experience, making him the premier choice for Master High Midgardsormr^note who gains a stronger Defense buff the lower his health gets and both forms of Volk, thanks to his sheer damage output. In Version 2.0 he gets even better, having his Skill Damage mods be doubled, and guarantees that his second Skill will cause the Defense debuff, at the cost of making it not stack, and almost every dragon got their modifiers doubled making his damage reach insane heights. He becomes insanely desirable in Jaldabaoth's Piercing Gale due to his ability to freely atomize Fallen Gabriel's buffs, which makes Mother's Love far more bearable in case it can't be interrupted in time.
• Ezelith, once a Low-Tier Letdown, has become a deadly Glass Cannon. Her passive Ability Flurry Debilitator becomes Flash of Genius, which will also increase her Critical Hit Rate by 20% when she uses her first Skill twice. This, in combination of both her active Skills dealing not only more damage, but also a Defense debuff on her second Skill, and a free 10% Critical Rate buff with her Co-Ability, has quickly shot her into the DPS role she was supposed to be. Version 2.0 makes her even better, with her first Skill dealing more damage, and her second Skill's Strength boost going from 20% to a hefty 50%, further ramping up her damage potential!
• Lathna has become one of the best shapeshifters in the whole game, with one of the best Dragon forms as of this writing. To start: both her first and second Skills now deal more damage against Poisoned foes, letting her deal great damage outside of Dragon form. Her first Ability, The Faceless God III, is what makes her so amazing though. By default, it causes her to always turn into Nyarlathotep, gives a passive Regeneration effect that lasts for twenty seconds, and now gives her a constant 15% Damage boost against Poisoned foes that stacks with her Skills' Poison Punisher effects. But when she shapeshifts, her Damage boost against Poisoned foes goes from a decent 15% to 215% and has her Dragon form's Auto attacks and All-Encompassing Darkness Skill deal more damage(while also still Poisoning). Bring her onto a team with someone that inflicts Poison like Delphi^note who is built to deal and support Poison Punishers, and can help boost her Dragon Gauge faster like Audric, and just enjoy the true power that a Dragon can bring. Unfortunately, several months later, after her Mana Spiral was released, she was significantly power crept by Forte, another Dragon-focused Shadow Lance Adventurer, who does almost the same thing Lathna does, but far better. Version 2.0 also gave her a pretty nice buff with her skills, almost tripling their damage against poisoned enemies.
• Nefaria, once one of the worst Adventurers in the game thanks to her Crippling Overspecialization, becomes one of the best after her Mana Spiral. Her first Skill, Night of Antiquity, now causes Poison and deals more damage when used against Blind and Poisoned enemies.^note Though the damage boost doesn’t stack. Her second Skill can now also dispel buffs and boasts insane SP values, letting her fire her first Skill off immediately, giving her insane Burst damage. And because it takes a moment for her Force Strike to land, she can fire Night of Antiquity, have it and the Twilight Oblivion-boosted Force Strike hit, she ends up dealing more damage because they were Poisoned and/or Blinded, then be able to use Night of Antiquity again because the gauge was technically empty when the Force Strike hit the foe; to that end, her best combo for Burst damage is S2->FS->S1->S1. In addition, her Blindness Punisher also became Blindness/Poison Punisher. However, her damage falls off the longer the fight goes on, because enemies will eventually gain a Resistance to Poison and Blindness. But thanks to her sheer damage output, the odds of the enemy surviving that long aren’t likely. Even if Legend Kai Yan survives the Poison and Blind buildup, he still isn't safe because Twilight Oblivion post-Spiral gains a Dispel property, which when combined with Fantastic Flight gives Nefaria the power to deny him buffs with absolute impunity, making her an excellent counter to him.
• Hawk received a buff similar to Nefaria. His first Skill, Savage Hawk, now deals extra damage against Poisoned enemies along with Stunned enemies. But unlike Nefaria, who will only receive a lone bonus, Hawk will receive two bonuses if they're both Stunned and Poisoned. His second Skill also causes Poison and has the insane SP gain that Nefaria has, and when using the Skill a second time, will deal Wind damage in a straight line that deals more damage towards Poisoned foes. He also has an increased chance of causing Stun and Poison status thanks to his first Ability, which now no longer has an HP conditional, meaning it’s always working, and his third Ability deals 40% more damage towards Stunned foes and 30% more damage towards Poisoned enemies. His sheer damage output was so insane he saw use in non-Wind content like Master High Midgardsormr, High Zodiark, High Jupiter, and Expert Tartarus ^note  in offelement cheese comps , thanks to Stun. The only weaknesses he has is fights that last for too long, because of enemies eventually gaining a Resistance to statuses like Stun and Poison. But that’s only if they survive that long.
• Sylas once a Junk Rare becomes a premier all around support option for Wind content. His first Skill not only deals more damage against Poisoned enemies but now has a 50% chance to cause a massive 30% Strength debuff, which is absolutely fantastic damage mitigation against the likes of Ciella. His second Skill's values have been increased as well; Strength and Defense to 25% for fifteen seconds each and an increase max HP to 20% for the remainder of the quest. There’s also a chance for all the effects to activate at the same time, while still filling the team's Skill Gauges by 30% and now removing any afflictions. His Last Recovery Ability will also now activate three times per quest, and offers Freeze Resistance. It’s to a point where he is considered a major linchpin for Autoing Expert Ciella comfortably.
• Karina, after her Mana Spiral, has been pushed into to a self sufficient Lightning Bruiser. While already decent on her own, her Mana Spiral pushes the buff scaling effects of her first Skill, Raging Tide, further by adding Frostbite damage. Her second skill, Black Flag, however, also adds a Defense buff of 30% for thirty seconds. This not only synergizes well with her her Raging Tide, where the damage is scaled on how many buffs the user has, it also synergizes well with her Healing Doublebuff Ability (that lasts for 25 seconds), which triggers whenever the user receives a Defense Up buff, meaning she's guaranteed to have increased damage with her Raging Tide Skill and becomes almost unkillable with both her Defense buff and her Healing Doublebuff Ability. Given that the Water element is filled with strong team-wide buffers such as Gala Elisanne, Pipple, and Eugene, this allows her to easily abuse the buff scaling damage with Raging Tide. Throw in Doublebuff Wyrmprints and Gala Elisanne's Shared Skill^note Or Patia/Summer Cleo’s Shared Skill as an alternative, since Patia's Shared Skill also provide a Defense Up buff that synergize well with her Healing Doublebuff Ability, while Summer Cleo causes multiple different buffs meaning her first skill can hit stupid high levels., and the Water Agito Axe, and she'll be a hard-hitting machine, unless she is Burned. But with the right set-up, it’s still possible to out-heal the Burn damage anyway.^* Excluding Expert Ayaha & Otoha because the amount of health lost because of burn just can’t be healed fast enough, though it doesn't really matter because Quad Karina is the most frequent type of PUB room for that fight because it kill the boss in under thirty seconds Alternatively, you could take advantage of Wyrmprint Affinities (The Synthetic Dragon and Beach Battle grant 100% Burn resistance when paired together) to grant her Burn immunity without sacrificing her damage output. In fact, with the right set-up, a team of four Karinas, with a lot of team buffs, can even melt Ayaha & Otoha in Expert difficulty within 1-2 minutes. Then Version 2.0 buffed her further, where both of her skills had their modifiers buffed further, along with the addition of having Five wyrmprints letting her get even more buffs at once with Doublebuffing. It’s gotten to a point where a good chunk of pub rooms have at least one or more Karina’s in them, if not a full team of just her. She’s so powerful she’s seen use in fights like Tartarus (to the ire of many players because of this). The Curse of Nihility effect introduced in Rise of the Sinister Dominion eliminates most buffs, including every buff Karina can be subjected to, effectively sinking her ship in that particular series of quests.
• Julietta, formerly a niche Stone Wall, becomes a deadly Lightning Bruiser wih her Spiral unlocked. Her niche Slayer's Strength Ability gets upgraded to grant her a free 20% boost to Defense, which, combined with her Co-Ability that also boosts Defense, makes her a good tank from the get go. Her first Skill, Impending Sky, not only has its damage modifiers doubled, it also heals her for half the damage received should she take damage during the attack, letting her tank a significant amount of damage. Her second Skill, Glorious Guard, grants her Knockback Immunity and a hefty 50% boost to both Strength and Defense for twenty seconds, making her both an incredible tank and damage dealer at the same time. Finally, her Last Recovery Ability gets upgraded to activate up to three times per quest, ensuring that she still manages to stay healthy in longer quests. Version 2.0 made her even better at being a bruiser, increasing the modifiers on her first skill and giving a 30-50% strength buff on her second skill. Unlike fellow axefighter Karina however, Curse of Nihility doesn't dispel her Glorius Guard, letting her climb to the top of tier lists while her competition getts killed off due to a lack of buffs.
• Patia, a defense buff spammer that happens to have almost everything align in her favor even before her spiral. She uses the best weapon type for a pure buffer (due to good SP gain and reach), has access to the best Agito Weapon skill (30% attack rate, which is also a Game-Breaker) and is frequently deployed with fellow Game Breakers Grace (who wants to abuse Healing Doublebuff to help spam Life Shield) and Bellina (who wants to abuse Strength/Crit Dmg doublebuff to deal even more damage) in addition to having access to a 35% Skill Haste dragon to excaberate it further. This would already have been impressive, even if her personal DPS was zero, but her Spiral makes it even worse. Sparrow's Guard now gets an extra 15% strength buff, meaning allies are getting +25-28% strength per use, and her inherent Buff Time was upgraded from 25% to 35%, helping pile on the defense to improve survivability. All this makes Patia a mainstay on any Shadow team, and it is for this reason that most endgame shadow PUBs won't run without one.
• Botan tends to be overshadowed by fellow Shadow Lance users Forte and Lathna, but she can easily hold her own. Once her Mana Spiral is fully unlocked, her Petal Piercer Skill not only lands several powerful hits, but inflicts Bleed, and has a fast recharge. Her second Skill, Perennial Grace, increases the team's Strength by 15% and the Critical Rate by 10% for 15 seconds. She also has a Potent Paralysis Resistance, which increases her Strength even further if she's hit with an attack that would normally Paralyze her. She also has 100% Skill Prep, meaning she can boost her Attack Rate and use Perennial Grace immediately, and a Skill Charge Ability that refills her gauges by 5% every time she uses a Skill. Pair her up with the Attack Rate boost from the Agito Lance Weapon, some Striking and/or Skill Haste Wyrmprints, a fast-charging Shared Skill, and either Arsene or Shinobi (which would power up her Petal Piercer even further), and you have a Lightning Bruiser that can mow down Light enemies just as well as her compatriots. Her only weaknesses are that she's Limited (she is the welfare Adventurer for the "New Year's Tidings" Event), her Thaumian's Bane Ability is only really useful against a single boss, her Chain Co-Ability is a minor Defense buff, and that she doesn't really have any way to take advantage of a Bleeding enemy.^note There are only two Wyrmprints that have the Bleeding Punisher effect, which add up to 12% out of a max 15%, compared to the 20-30% Paralysis and Poisoned Punisher Wyrmprints give. While those weaknesses may keep her from the top of the Shadow mountain, she's still pretty close to the top and can deal out a ton of damage.
• Hildegarde is easily the ultimate healer in Light, with her Mana Spiral being very well designed to keep your entire party alive even through the toughest attacks. Radiant Savior now has a regeneration effect, and grants her the Devout Oracle effect, which makes her next two Force Strikes greatly heal an ally that has taken the most damage, adding even more healing to the mix. While all of this might seem overkill, Hildegarde proves to be an insanely good choice against Lilith and her tendency to spam Creeping Corrosion, that rapidly eats away at the party's health, letting her dispel the debuff with ease with her sheer healing output.
• Whereas Hildegarde is the ultimate healer in Light, Summer Verica is the ultimate healer in Shadow. She provides incredibly strong healing with her Everlasting Summer, that also provides a very potent overdamage buff of 50%, ramping up Shadow's already infamously high DPS to even crazier levels. Furthermore, her first passive is upgraded to Beach Beauty, granting her 100% Skill Prep, which frees up her wyrmprint choices for more flexibility. The only problem is that Summer Verica's Mana Spiral is tied to the timegated Trials of the Mighty, against the very difficult Shadow Legion, but if you're willing to put in the effort to invest in her, she will absolutely not disappoint.
• Catherine, the perfect acting mayor of Quinbell who was mainly Difficult, but Awesome, becomes a lot more perfect with her Mana Spiral, thanks to the very strong changes it grants her. Her "Perfect Escort" buff now also buffs her attack rate by 5% per stack, and the stacks do not decrease anymore when she takes damage. This makes her a much more consistent damage dealer who can attack without fear of taking forced damage, and with the nature of her attack combos, she utterly shreds Surtr's Blazing Resistance with ease. She also gains utility with her Perfect Order skill, which now dispels a buff from the enemy. The only thing that stops Catherine from being completely perfect is her lack of afflictions to aid against Surtr, and like all newer Mana Spirals, Catherine's is timegated to fighting Iblis in the Trials of the Mighty, but she is worth the investment or the Omnicite.

Dragons

4-Star Dragons

• Phoenix is considered to be one of the best Dragons for healers in the game, due to her insanely powerful Regeneration Flame Skill, which restores a massive amount of HP to everyone in the party, and continues to heal them for that same amount for fifteen seconds. Even if her Skill is nerfed, along with other healing skills, during Raid Battles, it still heals a substantial amount, which makes her invaluable for the higher difficulties. And to top it off, she's a 4-Star Dragon making her easy to obtain.
• Ifrit, Vodyanoy, Roc, Lindworm, and Juggernaut, the 4-Star Strength Dragons, give a good 30% boost to Strength for their respective elements (45% when fully unbound), and have very good stats for their rarities, making them more accessible alternatives to players who don't have rare 5-Star Dragons yet.

5-Star Dragons

• Marishiten is one of the stronger Dragons in the game. Aside from offering a hefty 40% Strength boost to Shadow units (60% when fully unbound), her Dragon Skill inflicts the powerful Bleed ailment, which is completely unresisted by all enemies so far, and boasts fantastic range on all of her attack strings. She pairs exceptionally well with Ieyasu and Botan, two Shadow Blade and Lance Adventurers respectively, who also specialize in inflicting Bleed. The only caveat is that she's mainly limited to the New Year's summon pools, which limits her accessibility considerably. And unfortunately, while she is still a potently powerful Dragon, she suffers from Power Creep thanks to the introduction of Ramiel and later High Chthonius, both of which are more powerful without any drawbacks (see their entires below).
• To a slightly lesser extent, Agni, Cerberus, Cupid, Leviathan, and Zephyr are all Boring, but Practical Dragons, with each boasting a hefty 40-60% Strength boost to their respective elements. Despite the Power Creep when it comes to Dragons, these six are still great one size fits all options for any Adventurer. They can all also be unbound a fifth time for even more power and a three-minute Strength buff to make short work of mid-game content. In addition:
  • Agni’s Skill deals great damage in an area ahead of him.
  • Cupid’s Skill can heal the whole party and increase the party's Critical Hit Rate by 20-25% for fifteen seconds, along with an attack combo that hits half a stage away and homes onto a target.
  • Zephyr’s Skill can deal massive damage in an AOE around him, and possibly Stun any survivors.
  • Leviathan’s Skill can hit in a gigantic area and afflict Bog, decreasing Defense and slowing any enemies hit by 50% each, along with one of the best attack combos in the whole game.
  • Cerberus’ Skill lets her deal damage to a target and any nearby enemies with a 5% Strength and Defense debuff.
• Dragonyule Jeanne is a very powerful Water Dragon for many Water DPS units that rely on Critical damage (like Blades and Axes), or those who rely on basic attacks^note Pipple and Tiki/Force Strikes^note Monster Hunter Sarisse since she bestows the Adventurer 45% Strength and 20% Critical Rate when max unbound, allowing their attacks to critical hit more often. Her Skill also inflicts Freeze, which is a nice small bonus in hard fights. The only downside is that she's a limited Dragon, meaning players can only pull her around Christmas time.
• Konohana Sakuya, Siren, Vayu, and Shinobi, the Skill Damage Dragons, boast some of the highest damage in the game. While they only boost Strength by 10% (20% when fully unbound), they also boost Skill Damage by 70% (90% when maxed), causing offensive Skills to easily overpower the 5-Star Strength Dragons. Shinobi, in particular, has a Skill that damages the enemy and fully Energizes the entire team, while the remainder give a straight one-time 30-40% Skill Damage Up with their Skill. While their focus on offensive skills means they're not the best fit for every Adventurer, those with fast charging attack Skills will become absolute powerhouses when teamed up with these Dragons.
• Freyja is an incredible Wind Dragon whose Skill, Breath of Life, is a powerful HP regeneration on par with Phoenix's, on top of granting a full five Energy stacks to the entire party, which lets them deal boosted damage or healing with their Skills. She also grants a hefty 25% boost to Skill Haste (35% when fully unbound) and a decent 20% boost to HP (30% when maxed), making her absolutely fantastic for Wind healers, as it lets them charge their healing Skills much faster.
  • In a similar vein, Halloween Maritimus, Azazel, and Tie Shan Gongzhu all boast the same Ability but for Water, Shadow, and Light Elements respectively, making them great for Supporters such as Patia, Grace (another Game-Breaker on this page), Elisanne, her Gala counterpart, and Chitose. In addition, Halloween Maritimus’ Skill not only heals the party but also creates a buff zone that increases Skill Damage by 20-30%. Azazel deals damage, inflicts Poison, and increases damage dealt against Poisoned foes for the entire team by 10-15% with his Skill. And Tie Shan Gongzhu Energizes the entire team.
• Conditional 80% Strength Dragons boast some of the stronger Abilities compared to other Dragons. Each of them are able to increase their respective Adventurers' Strength by a colossal 80% at MUB. However, they do have to be played in a certain way to get said 80% Strength buff.
  • Daikokuten will increase the Strength of any Light Adventurers by 45-55%, but the remaining 20-25% Strength can only be utilized when your combo count is at 15 or higher, meaning slower attacking Weapons like Axes will struggle a bit, while Daggers and Swords will shine.^note This gets mitigated thanks to certain Chain Co-abilities i.e. Combo Time, which gives extra time in between hits. His dragon skill can also create a buff zone that increases Attack Rate by 20%, along with one of the strongest dragonforms in the Light element.
  • AC-011 Garland will increase any Wind Adventurer's Strength by 35-50%, but the last 30% can only be gotten so long as you don't get knocked back from an enemy attack. He also gives a one-time shield that will nullify any damage taken, so long as it would have dealt less then 30%-40% of their Health. However, if you can get past those hurdles, then you'll have a powerful Dragon available.
  • Fatalis can increase any Adventurer's Strength by 45-50% no matter the Element, along with a bonus 25-30% Strength boost for Shadow Adventurers, making Fatalis amazing for Adventurers who deal their damage via Auto attacks or Force Strikes, such as Durant and Linnea. But shapeshifting will cause a curse status that'll remain for the rest of the quest.^note That can be avoided however by using him on an Adventurer with 100% Curse Resistance, using Hildegarde's first Skill, using certain Wyrmprints or a Wyrmprint affinity that'll nullify Curse, getting blinded by Kai Yan, using him on Shadow Adventurers who can't shapeshift (Dragondrive or Persona users), or simply giving him to a backrow Adventurer you won't be controlling in Solo or Raid battles.
  • Andromeda will increase the Strength of Shadow Adventurers by 30-40% by default, but the remaining 20-40% can only be gotten when the Adventurer she is equipped to is below 30% HP, a position of health few Adventurers want to actively be in. However, in exchange, she’ll also give a massive 75-100% Defense buff, effectively doubling their Defense, making her the best Dragon for Adventurers like Valentine's Addis, Belina, and Aldred.
  • Lumière Pandora is the new addition to the ever-growing list of conditional 80% Strength dragons. At MUB, for every Joyful Radiance stack the user has, she provides 20% Strength, up to a total of 4 stacks. However, these Joyful Radiances will deplete once every 20 seconds, meaning you will run out eventually... if one stack wasn't replenished every time the user self-buffed ANY of the following with a skill: Strength, Defense, Elemental Resistance, Critical Rate, Critical Damage, Energy Level, Inspiration Level. Given most Light Adventurers will have at least one of the above, especially due to the abundance of Energy, popping one buff every 20 seconds should never be a problem, enabling you to keep that 80% Strength buff without keeping a combo in order to use Daikokuten. That said, keep her away from Lilith and Iblis whenever possible.
• Mini Mids, Mini Zodi, Mini Hildy, Mini Mercs, and Mini Jupi, while not as great as the above Dragons, do have one thing going for them: Their buff is granted no matter what Element the user is, making them good welfare Dragons, as the +30% to both HP and Strength is a blessing in late game content.
• Since he was introduced in the "Monster Hunter: Primal Crisis" (Part II) summon pool, Dreadking Rathalos quickly grabbed the title of one of the strongest Flame Dragons in the game. To start with, he gives a 45-55% Strength bonus to Adventurers of the same Element, which is a mere 5% weaker than older Flame 5-Star Dragons like Agni & Cerberus, and a 50-60% increase to Force Strike damage. This unique Ability is already amazing, but then there’s his second Ability, which increases the user's Skill Gauge by 20-30% when their Force Strike connects. These Abilities are wonderful boons on their own; together, they're absolutely divine. He has incredibly good synergy with Flame-attuned Adventurers that benefit from good Force Strike kits (especially the ones that have access to Mana Spirals), such as Sword users (Euden, Naveed, Karl, Marth, and, of course, Hunter Berserker)^note Swords have very good Force Strikes that can deplete a good amount of Overdrive Gauge, some Blade users^note such as Aoi and Nobunaga (with the later having a unique Force Strike gimmick of dispelling buffs), and even some Bow users^note such as Chelsea and Joe, a Weapon type that traditionally had bad Force Strikes. His only real drawbacks are a decrease to the rate his user depletes a boss's Overdrive Gauge (though, with his sheer damage output, and with the right Wyrmprints and Chain Co-Abilities, this can be a non-issue), and him being Limited, with a high probability of not reappearing again for a long time.
• Nimis is a far more accessible alternative to Dragonyule Jeanne since, while his Dragon Skill isn't that impressive, the 45% Strength and 55% Critical Damage boost makes up for it. making him a good fit for Adventurers who manage to get a 6-Star Agito Weapon^note bestows the player an increase in Critical Hit Rate, especially with characters that can hit naturally high levels of Critical Rate without needing Dragonyule Jeanne.^* The reason why is because your Critical Rate can end up high enough that giving more Crit rate would be a worse choice then just increasing your Critical Damage. All with one of the Strongest dragonforms in the entire game.
• Gaibhne & Creidhne: Despite their silly appearance, these two Dragons are quite powerful. To start: their Abilities are 40-45% Strength Up and Skill Recharge 25-35%. At first, the Strength value is just the same as 4-Star Dragon Vodyanoy; but with their second Ability, when an Adventurer uses one of their Skills, they get a free 25-35% Skill Prep every time^note  45-55% if this is a level 4 Gespent as a Shared Skill. This may not seem like much, but because you’ll need to attack less to fill up the Skill Gauge, this lets you fire off your Skills much, much faster, rocketing everyone's DPS through the roof^note Crunching the numbers on just how efficient it is reveals that the overall effect is the equivalent to a 53% Skill Haste.. This makes them great for any Water Adventurers that specialize in buffs or debuffs, but also want to deal a ton of damage, like both Elisanne and her Gala version, Xainfried, Lily, or Lazry. In addition, their Skill also creates a buff zone that increases the Skill Gauge of any Adventurers inside it for ten seconds, allowing for even more rapid-fire Skill hijinks. It's to a point where the skill gauge can be filled up again with enough buff zones in the time it takes for the skill animation to end. That said, the Curse of Nihility makes G&C dead weight, so limit them to High Dragon and Agito fights.
• Ramiel can basically be described as Marishiten, but better. Not only does he provide the same 40-60% Strength boost for Shadow, he also offers a 10-50% Shapeshift Prep, which means at max unbound, the user can shapeshift into him right from the start. His Dragon Skill is also very powerful. Aside from inflicting Poison and lowering Defense, he also immediately charges up the user's second Skill, and steadily fills up the Skill Gauges of the user's first and second Skills for 90 seconds, which greatly improves damage uptime. And the best part is, unlike Marishiten, Ramiel is a permanent Dragon. Just to put the cherry on top, his Shapeshift Prep even applies when he's equipped on a helper, making him the best Dragon for Shadow helpers.
• Midgardsormr Zero truly shows off the power the mighty Greatwyrms have. Having the same 30% Strength and HP Ability his High Dragon version has, along with the unique (Wind) Flurry Skill Ability, which increases Skill Damage by 50-70% when the combo count is fifteen or higher. This alone just barely edges him over fellow Skill Dragon Vayu, but the real kicker is his Skill Primal Tempest, which is not only an extremely hard hitting attack that covers the entire screen, but also causes anything hit by it to suffer a permanent 5-10% Wind Resistance debuff, effectively giving the whole team free damage, making him a must have to have even a single one in the party. If Mids is this jacked, imagine what the other four Primordial Dragons are like...
• Gozu Tenno is what is best described as a Flame-element cross between Mids Zero and Gala Poeseidon/Zephyr. He gives the same 70% strength buff though his Flame Damage Up buff is instead triggered by holding down a force strike for 3 seconds (which can be impractical, but is nonetheless still worth it). His dragon skill is a snowclone of Mids Zero's with the 10% Flame Resistance down. The result? An overpowered monster that combines the best of both recent game-breaking dragons with almost none of the drawbacks (for comparison, there is some level of debate whether or not to equip Mids Zero or Gala Zephyr in the Wind element) who is about as good if not better than Gala Mars.
• Arsène is a downright incredible "dragon", boasting an amazing 70-90% Skill damage up for Shadow adventurers, a la Shinobi, but also a second 70-90% Skill damage up that works on any element for an amazing 180% Skill damage up, comparable to Gala Cat Sith without the combo count being so vital. This makes him not only an exceptional dragon for Shadow's endgame on characters such as Bellina and Gala Alex, but also for any newer players as an exceptional One size fits all dragon, especially for the Light element which currently lacks a Skill Damage dragon. The only flaws he has is the lack of a strength buff, meaning he isn't great for all adventurers and basically makes him a potato once Legend Kai Yan goes Berserk, and his buff being technically weaker then Gala Cat Siths despite having the same value due to it being a passive ability is calculated additively instead of Cat siths having an icon being calculated multiplicatively. But for those without the Cat or don't wish to worry about keeping up the combo count then you'll still have an amazing dragon in your hands.
• If Ramiel is best explained as Marishiten but better, then Gabriel is Leviathan but better. Not only does she have impressive attack mods, her 3rd tap in combo is a heal, her skill hits almost as hard as Thor and applies frostbite and she's still a 60% strength dragon. But that's not all. When you get healed, Gabriel's Love gets applied, increasing strength by another 10%, defense by 50% and provides a 1-use 10% shield. That last part is especially useful in the hands of the player as players usually only get hit by two types of attacks - Unavoidables and really painful attacks because they made a mistake. That 50% defense buff makes playing DPS, which is almost always a Fragile Speedster or Glass Cannon build much, much safer and forgiving, and the extra strength just rewards good play.
• You thought Ramiel was Marishiten+ and that was it? Sorry, but High Chthonius (abbreviated to HCT) also happens to powercreep Marishiten and put up some serious competition with Ramiel. With a base strength buff of 65% that increases by 20% per shift (up to a total of 105% after 2 shifts), any adventurer that manages to shift will be slamming bosses around with huge numbers. 105% strength is already as ridiculous as it is, since the Gala Reborn dragons only reached 104% strength with numbers crunched, but upon a second shift, HP also increases by 30%. While it will take a while to ramp up 2 separate shapeshifts, both the damage and durability increase are just plain unfair when they come online, and this is to say nothing of Raid battles (which offer lots of Shapeshift Prep) or dedicated dragon specialists (who can ramp up to and buff the shapeshift itself) taking further advantage of this.

Gala Dragons

• Gala Mars, the first Gala Dragon, sets the bar high for future Gala Dragons. To start: he gives a natural Strength boost of 40-70% by default for Flame Adventurers, with no strings attached. He also gives an extra 20% Strength so long as the Adventurer he is equipped to has their HP above 50%, which is not hard at all to keep up especially given the current endgame^note  cheifly the fact that Volk's Plague mechanic effectively forces you to bring a healer. His Dragon Skill also gives an additional 15-20% Strength buff for 20 seconds, that can be used twice, like Pop Star Siren can. Finally, upon exiting his Dragonform, the Skill Gauges of the Adventurer he is equipped to is increased by 50-100%, letting the adventurer using him to fire off their skills back-to-back for even more damage. His Dragonform is also pretty darn good as well with some of the highest modifiers on a dragon, even without factoring the Skill. He's considered so good that he leaves nearly every Flame Dragon, save for Phoenix, in the dust!^note The only Flame characters who don’t have Mars as their best choice are Hunter Berserker and Chelsea, who, thanks to their Force Strike heavy playstyles and low HP playstyle in Chelsea’s case, still want Dreadking Rathalos.
• Gala Cat Sith is just downright insane. To start: Thanks to her first Ability she gives a natural 120-180% Skill Damage boost in a stack of 15, which is double what the Game-Breaker Shinobi gives at max unbinding. Using any attacking Skills decreases the stack by one, and in order to increase it back up one of two things must be done: either get your combo to a multiple of 30 (or 25 at max unbound)^note 30/60/90/120 & 25/50/75/100 respectively, which will increase the stack by one, or by exiting her Dragonform, which will increase the stack by five (or eight at max unbound). And it's MULTIPLICATIVE, making each Skill deal even more damage than what’s listed, meaning she’s amazing right out the box without a single unbind. Her Skill hits thirty-two times, and just as an added bonus, she can inflict Sleep just by using normal attacks. Her only weaknesses is that, despite having modifiers stronger then Leviathan, her Dragonform’s Auto attacks aren’t very strong due to the lack of Strength buff, and Adventurers who don't use skills to damage the enemy like Patia^note who functions as a Support Party Member and would prefer Azazel for his Skill Haste Ability, or even Nidhogg, Linnea, Durant, Gala Chelle^note The three of them would prefer strength dragons (Fatalis, Ramiel, Marishiten, Andromeda etc.) instead, since Linnea's and Gala Chelle's kit are built around their own Force Strikes, while Durant is built around basic attacks, or Gala Alex and Bellina^note Who burns through the stacks too fast to recharge it via combo's, and would rather use Shinobi or Arsene as a more practical option. Though when they still have stacks, the Skills they use hit like trucks. On shorter quests or extreme speedrun compositions where the stacks don't burn out however, Cat Sith is instead an optimal pick. are not best fits for her. In addition, in longer fights such as Master Kai Yan most Adventurers burn through the stacks far too quickly. And let's not forget that the Curse of Nihility dispels her stacks, which makes her dead weight in most Trials of the Mighty and against the Sinister Dominion.
• Like his fellow Gala Dragons before him, Gala Thor is a damn impressive beast. His first Ability, by default, gives a passive 30-50% Strength buff, which isn't super impressive, but the second half is where things get interesting. Upon gaining a single level of Energy, the Adventurer he is equipped to gains an extra 25% Strength buff, which can increase by an extra 5% per level, up to 45% when fully Energized, giving a grand total of 75-95% Strength, higher then Mars. At first, it seems pretty useless as Energy is a Low-Tier Letdown of a mechanic^note Due how long it takes to build up Energy Levels for a majority of Adventurers and those that do gain Energy often gain a small amount all for a single 50% damage/healing buff for a single Skill. But Thor bypasses that by giving a free level of Energy every five seconds, making him comparable to Daikokuten after only ten seconds, and that’s before adding in the numerous sources of Energy that Light has. And his Dragonform is considered by many to be the best in the whole game, with his Auto combo being an infinite Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs and the second most powerful Dragon Skill in the whole game, only behind Mini Zodi, who has significantly weaker stats.^note Granted reaching that amazing modifier is Difficult, but Awesome as the screen must pressed multiple times rapidly, à la Lathna, which charges the Skill up to three times to deal more damage, but unlike Lathna, who has an extremely generous window to do so, Thor has a pretty small window to reach that level. But reaching that level is well worth it, as it has a ridiculous 1105%-1780% modifier at MUB Just as an added bonus, he also gives a level of Energy (or fully Energizes the whole team at MUB) after exiting his Dragonform. The only real weakness he has is that, after using even a single damaging or healing Skill he’ll be back down to 50% Strength and has to build back up to his full 95% boost, which can be an issue on adventurers with two damaging/healing skill. But given how Light has so many options for gaining Energy, this can be easily mitigated. He was so powerful that when version 2.0 doubled the modifiers of every single dragon he was the only dragon that didn’t get a buff, and like Cat Sith, he actually fell out of favor in Rise of the Sinsiter Dominion thanks to Curse of Nihility shutting off his energy.
• The Gala Reborn Dragons: Poseidon, Zephyr, Jeanne d'Arc, Agni, and Nidhogg are incredibly powerful dragons that offer +50-70% Strength and a +25-30% damage modifier against their opposing element and non-elemental foes for 45 seconds whenever the dragon gauge is increased by 10%, ensuring their wielder deals huge damage. They also boast a very damaging dragon skill that gets activated a second time when their shapeshift time runs out, adding more to their huge damage potential.
• When his name was first uttered, Cygames fans wondered what kind of awesome, game-breaking power Gala Bahamut would bring, and they were not disappointed. Right off the bat, he gives a whopping 120% unconditional Strength increase at max unbind, he has a dragon strike like Beast Volk, his shapeshift duration is double that of other dragons, and his Skill, Cataclysm Beam, does a large amount of damage in a wide area. This alone is impressive, but as Bahamut builds power while shapeshifted (or summoned by Zethia), this Skill also becomes able to apply Defense and Strength team Amps, which gives an immense incentive to hold off on firing right away as is typical with most dragons. The downsides are that he requires a full shapeshift gauge in order to invoke and that he caps Shapeshift Prep at 50% (which he provides alone at max unbind), but many consider it a small price to pay.
• In a surprising move, Chronos Nyx ends up being the newly introduced Gala Dragon for Halloween 2021, and he is about as powerful as you would expect one of the earliest, strongest, and most commonly reoccurring villains you would expect him to be. To start with, he gives a nice flat buff to Light-based Adventurers, but it's his Time's Transcendence Skill that makes him utterly busted in the hands of a Dragon-oriented Adventurer like Gala Euden. Unlike other dragons, Chronos Nyx does not lose his shapeshifting gauge automatically. Instead, he loses a bit every time he attacks, auto-dodges a move that is about to hit him, is hit by a move while charging his dragon strike, or uses his Dimensional Oblivion Skill, which also does some very impressive damage. This means that as long as you are careful not to get hit, you can stay in dragon form for almost as long as you want and make the most out of the increased damage through dragon damage, buffing Skills, and Wyrmprints. And the dragon strike has 3 levels of charge that home in on locked on enemies that do a hefty amount as well. Time is very much on your side with this dragon and it makes fighting the likes of Lilith almost a joke in the right hands and build. The only thing that can stop you when transforming into this beast are the rare attacks that disrupt your shapeshift. Otherwise, you are going to be bringing some SERIOUS pain. ^note That being said, since you are locked in dragon mode during some Onslaught quests, Chronos' abilities become Cast from Hit Points instead and the self-inflicted damage is lethal, making him far from ideal for those fights.

Other:

Shared Skills

• Dispel skills are increasingly important in the metagame, as endgame foes like Volk, Ciella, and Lilith are prone to buffing themselves and making your life miserable. If you have at least one of them, the fights will become so much easier, and these are the ones that can be shared.
  • For sheer rapid ready response, Lapis presents Fantastic Flight; it doesn't do as much damage as the others, but at a dirt-cheap 5750 SP, you will be able to cut Kai Yan and Ciella down to size on demand. It also doubles as a melee disengage if either of the two are about to hit you up close and personal.
  • If you are willing to trade readiness for power, Notte's Faerie Illusion has you covered. It costs about 50% more SP than Fantastic Flight, but does nearly twice the damage if every hit lands, and you can safely retreat once it's deployed if you need the space.
  • Gala Mascula's Code 06: Conclusion is a modestly powerful Dispel attack with a massive AOE range, which lets you purge Jaldabaoth and all of his minions in one go. Combined with Gala Emile and Overdamage, it can also cripple Primal Brunhilda's hitcount Red Hot Soul and vaporize the rest.
  • If you can't get Lapis or Notte, there's always Ranzal's Tornado Bash. It may require a Mana Spiral, but it is the only Dispel skill that doesn't require Tomes to unlock, as Ranzal is a campaign character. Also, it's an impressive nuke in its own right with over 2700% in mods, which is really impressive for both its tiny footprint of 3 and cost of around 11.5k SP.
• Shared Skills that cause Defense Down. The main reason being how the damage formula works as the defense stat is factored in as a denominator, meaning defense down effects increase DPS by far more than they advertise. ^Explanation  The damage formula takes the result of all offensive effects and divides it by defense so that it results in (total of all offensive effects)/defense=damage dealt (Henceforth, both Total of all offensive effects and Defense are set to 1 for explanation purposes). Should defense be reduced, by, say 10%, the damage formula now becomes 1/(1*9/10)=damage dealt, or 1/1=10/9 damage, equating to an 11.11% increase in damage. Stacked defense debuffs are even better since the increase in damage does not scale linearly, since in comparison, a 20% defense debuff would result in 1/1=10/8 damage, equating to 25% more damage.
  • Sha Wujing's Obstruction Armament is the most widely used, being a fairly large 15% stackable defense down zone for 10 seconds. 1 Sha is 17% more damage and 2 Sha is almost 43% more damage.
  • Seimei's Onmyodo Excorcism also sees use. The Do-It-All of skill share, it provides a hefty 2500% mod nuke, Dispel, Scorchrend and 10% defense down for 20 seconds. While the 11.11% damage increase from it's defense down isn't as high, and it can't stack, it's versatility as a nuke, dispel and Scorchrend enabler more than make up for its exorbitant SP cost as a Shared Skill.
• Durant's Biting Revenge Skill is an amazing choice for any DPS Adventurer, such as the aforementioned Gala Alex. It offers one of the highest Strength buffs in the game, at +40%, but decreases the user's Defense by 25% with an insane SP cost of over 14,000. While these drawbacks may seem like a tough pill to swallow, when used on an on-meta choice like Marth or Gala Cleo, their damage output is greatly amplified, and they aren't horribly hampered by this due to being able to sustain themselves. When this is taken in context of extreme speedrun compositions with Skill Prep, well...
• To a lesser extent than Durant’s Skill, Karl's second Skill Soul Ignition and Elisanne’s pre-Mana Spiralled Brave Bastion are both the most Boring, but Practical Shared Skills. At Level 3, they both increase the party’s attack by 20% for fifteen seconds no matter what element they are. Soul Ignition has a cheaper SP cost than Brave Bastion, meaning you can use it much faster. Brave Bastion, meanwhile, is available without the need for using Tomes which, as of this writing are only available via real money, Onslaught Events and for completing Omega level raids.
  • Patia's first skill Sparrow's Guard upon maxing her Mana Spiral, is also great. While the party Strength buff it offers is a bit lower (15% when compared to 20%), the Skill Point cost is also lower (5 when compared to 6). Not to mention, the 25% Defense Up buff is a nice addition to the Strength buff, especially when dealing with opening blasts from the High Dragon trials, certain Agito fights with unavoidable attacks (i.e. Volk and Ciella), or teams that use Doublebuffs to help keep their buffs active.
    • Then there's Templar Hope's Knight's Spirit which gives 25% defense and 15% strength to the party for 15 seconds, but unlike Patia's skill share, this one only costs 4 Skill Points. Now, if you run both together...
    • Valentine's Orion's post-spiral Sweet Protection functions exactly like Templar Hope's shared skill with the same buffs for the same amount of time and only costs 3 skill points.
• Certain Skills that give a hefty team-wide stat buff to certain Elements are commonplace on endgame boss runs. Those being: Emma’s Pom-Pom Pump (Flame/Strength buff), Gala Elisanne's Holy Accord (Water/Strength buff), Tobias’ Eternal Grace (Wind/Strength buff) and Chitose’s Love & Acclaim (Light/Strength buff). While several of these Adventurers (save for the aforementioned Gala Elisanne) range from off meta to outclassed in the endgame, their Skills most definitely aren't.
• While their kits aren't as impressive as Adventurers, the Skills that Yue and Summer Luca share, Wild Instinct and Summer Spirit, increase the user's Critical Rate and Attack Rate respectively. Wild Instinct is more useful on many Adventurers that are built around critical hits (most Axes and Blades) and is also useful for Adventurers with self-sustaining abilities (i.e. Marth and Gala Cleo), since it also bestows the user Lifesteal, in exchange for significantly lower Defense. Summer Spirit is also good on several Adventurers that rely on maintaining their combo hit count (i.e. most Dagger users). Durant and Pipple, however, benefit with both of said Skills, as their kits are built around standard attacks and the increased Critical and Attack Rate from the respective Skills will allow them to hit very hard with standard attacks (and the Energize buff from Summer Spirit is a nice additional niche to Pipple). Since both Skills cost five Skill Points, they can both be used at the same time even.
  • Wild Instinct also has another extremely useful point in that it decreases the user's defense. While normally this seems like a detriment, it is crucial in allowing Marth to take enough damage to trigger Last Boost, which in turn is mandatory in multiple cheese strategies for several high-difficulty bosses. The added lifesteal allows Marth to immediately heal himself back up so he can take another hit... to proc Last Boost again, giving everyone full skill gauges whenever it happens.
• For Adventurers with strong Dragon-centric kits (i.e. Euden, Lathna, Forte, and Xainfried), many of these Adventurers will benefit from Gala Mym's Dragon Claw, as it fills a portion of their Dragon Gauge, has relatively low Skill Point cost for a Shared Skill, and can boost strength by 20%.
  • To a lesser degree, Post-Spiral Euden’s Blazing Circlet also fills the Dragon Gauge, just with a smaller value (3% compared to Gala Mym’s 5%) and a higher SP cost, but in exchange can also cause Burn and doesn’t require Tomes to unlock, making it useful for Adventurers who not only want to shapeshift, but also for Adventurers who can’t cause Burn, such as Chrom, Ezelith, or Nobunaga.
• Post-Mana Spiralled Summer Cleo's Tropical Breeze. Not only does it give a plethora of buffs, such as strength, critical rate, skill damage, and skill gauge fill rate, depending on the number of allies that are buffed, including the user, bonus effects will be added. One ally gives a Defense buff, two a Skill Damage buff, and the biggest buff at three allies outright fills your S1. Period. This turns already monstrous DPS'ers into even more ridiculous damage machines able to slam bosses much faster than they would otherwise have been able to, especially adventurers that want several different types of buffs to deal even more damage such as Xander, Karina, Gala Luca and Gala Sarisse. To take this even further, some adventurers are very dependent on their S1 being available, so being able to possibly use two in a row is a massive plus.
• Shared skills that cause the Frostbite affliction, such as post Mana Spiralled Xander’s Majestic Tide Karina’s Raging Tide, and Pinon’s Sanctus Arrow, have quickly grown in popularity thanks to the wyrmprint changes allowing all adventurers to make use of His Clever Brother and the Frostbite punisher on it to create some easy damage no matter the element. And it’s all thanks to how long Frostbite itself lasts for, more then twice as long as Burn, Poison or Paralysis, allowing for excellent uptime with a shared skill, famous for having incredibly long charging times.
• Isaac's Wealdfury is a downplayed one. It provides one of four buffs - Strength Up, Attack Rate Up, Skill Prep and HP Regen - determined entirely at random. This randomized nature hurts it in regular battles, since if there's a specific buff you want, there are much easier ways to get most of them with shared skills alone, and the last one (Skill Prep) can be gained from a dragon. However, in content where the Curse of Nihility runs rampant, you will be scrambling for any buffs you can get, and all of these as provided by Wealdfury ignore Nihility, making it an excellent addition to any party fighting the Sinister Dominion or the Primal Dragons.
• Overdamage skills are quite useful in general and especially welcome in Nihility content due to regular Strength buffs being negated regularly. Dragonyule Lily's Crystalline Magic, Yukata Cassandra's Goldfish of the Hereafter and Sandalphon's Angelic Praise don't require a Mana Spiral while Akasha's Akashic Repose, Summer Verica's Everlasting Summer and Gala Zena's Glorious Sanctuary do, but all of them can bloat your hit count for Flurry effects and inflict bits more damage that can help accelerate any fight they're involved in. That all of them also restore HP makes the high SP costs a small price to pay, considering they all can ease the burden Creeping Corrosion can induce. The one biggest downside is that none of them stack, so if you know a teammate's running Overdamage in their skill kit, wait until it expires before applying your own.

Wyrmprints

• Skill Damage Wyrmprints are integral to cranking out as much damage as possible from your Adventurers. They're so vital to your output that the Newcomer Tips and Tricks page even puts in writing that you should get one as soon as possible.
  • The best general-purpose Skill Damage Wyrmprint is Hitting the Books, which gives +30% Skill Damage. It's considered a Welfare Wyrmprint, which reduces the Eldwater cost to unbind and reproduce it, and you get it early on in the "Accursed Archives" event, which was moved to the Event Compendium on January 31st, 2021, so there's no excuse not to go after it. All the others are not considered Welfare Wyrmprints, and thus must be bought and expanded full-price; the only exception is Caged Desire, which has Crown Affinity and comes fully upgraded and copied, but is directly linked to the crossover event of the same name, so those who play after February 12th, 2021 are out of luck.
  • The only way to get more Skill Damage out of a single Wyrmprint is through the specialized (Weapon) Skill Damage Wyrmprints, which give +40% instead of +30%. The're one for every weapon type now - The Shining Overlord (Sword), One-Winged Journey (Blade), Forest Bonds (Bow), Dragon and Tamer (Lance), Candy Couriers (Wand), Twinfold Bonds (Dagger), Summer Paladyns (Axe), Springtime Breeze (Staff) and Rivalry of Kings (Manacaster) - so use it once you get it, and Hitting the Books until you do.
  • The arrival of Rise of the Sinister Dominion broke Skill Damage even more, with the addition of Tutelary's Destiny and Crown of Light. With both prints in the two Special Wyrmprint slots on a compatible 6-Star Weapon, the 40% Skill Damage cap can be reached without any 5-Star prints, freeing up space for more broken combinations (as due to limited number of Special Wyrmprints, the potential contribution of two others is generally less than that of an extra 5-Star Wyrmprint).
    • Similarly, running Tutelary's Destiny/Crown of Light in one Special Wyrmprint slot, Mask of Determination (Bow's Boon) in the other, and A Small Courage (4-Star 20% Skill Damage Sword Affinity) in a 4-Star slot is also a very strong combination, providing 40% Skill Damage, Sword Affinity (+8% Strength) as well as 1/3 Bow Affinity needed to activate. This can easily be ramped into a Bow Affinity DPS build with Chariot Drift or Seaside Memory in the other 4-Star slot and some kind of Bow Affinity in the 5-Star slot like Jewels of the Sun to activate two Affinities and 40% Skill Damage at once, producing a DPS build with multiple quirks in their favor.
• The Punisher Wyrmprints are all debatably comparable, if not better than, the [Weapon] Skill Damage prints mentioned above. They all grant the Adventurer that have these prints equipped a free damage boost, so long as the enemy is under an Affliction^note Poison, Burn, Scorchrend, Freeze, Frostbite, Bog, Paralyze, Bleed, Sleep, Stun, Stormlash, Flashburn, and Shadowblight, respective to the print in question. Given just how easy it is to cause one of these statuses with certain Adventurers or Shared Skills, they are also considered must haves on any Adventurer, meaning every Adventurer, even those that don't deal damage with skills, can use them effectively.
  • Spirit of the Season gives a 20% damage boost against Paralyzed enemies.
  • The 5-Star A Man Unchanging gives a 30% damage boost against Poisoned enemies, and the 4-Star The Plaguebringer gives a slightly lower boost at 25%.
  • The 5-Star Dragonyule Dreaming gives a 10% damage boost against Bleeding enemies, and the 4-Star Catch Me In The Sunflowers gives a slightly lower boost at 4%.
  • The 4-Star Treasury of Knowledge gives a 20% damage boost against Sleeping enemies.
  • His Clever Brother gives a 20% damage boost against Frostbitten enemies.
  • The 5-Star Memories of Summer's Dusk gives a 20% damage boost against Stunned enemies, and the 4-Star To My Dear Child gives a slightly lower boost at 15%.
  • Elegant Escort and Me and My Bestie! both give a 30% damage boost against Burned enemies, with Elegant Escort having weaker stats but is free during the Valentine's Confections Event and is already maxed, while Me and My Bestie! cost Eldwater, but has better stats.
  • Welcome to the Opera!, The Cutie Competition, Sweet Surprise, and Extreme Teamwork all provide 25% extra damage against targets with the newer set of afflictions, being Shadowblight, Scorchrend, Stormlash and Flashburn respectively. Do note that Welcome to the Opera! and Extreme Teamwork are welfare prints though, and have lower-than-usual base stats, though their DPS addition more than makes up for it.
• To a smaller degree, Gale of Beauty, An Indelible Date, Sniper's Allure, and Worthy Rivals all make for good filler Wyrmprints when you're not sure what your fifth Wyrmprint could be, as they also give an impressive 30% (25% with Sniper's Allure) damage boost when the enemy is in the Break state, allowing the Adventurer equipped with the print to deal some excellent bonus damage, especially if they have high Burst damage. In addition, Broken Punisher is calculated multiplicatively, meaning it can get stronger then other boosts of the same value. An Indelible Date is available for free from the Valentine's Confections Event, already maxed out, but has weaker stats when compared to Gale of Beauty.
• Lord of the Skies, meanwhile, has 10% Overdrive Punisher, making it a good choice of Wyrmprint against the Cubes, Sentinels, and the Agitos, bosses who are in Overdrive for most of their fight.
• Doublebuff prints, such as Brothers in Arms, First-Rate Hospitality, Sisters of the Anvil^* increase strength by 10-13%, depending on the print's rarity., The Dragon Smiths, Odd Sparrows^* Grants an HP regen buff, Felyne Hospitality, and Super Soaking Androids^* Grants a 15% to the modifier applied to Critical Damage, which raise specific stats when a Defense Up buff is activated, have become very effective the past few updates thanks to the advent of Skill Sharing and several Adventurers with Defense buffing kits such as Patia, Pipple, and Templar Hope^* Who also has Team Healing Doublebuff as an Ability, meaning every Defense buff he gets will give the whole team a regen buff. Not only do you gain more survivability via the defense and healing buffs but you also gain other damage increasing buffs so quickly that a properly set up team can even auto Expert Agito's just because of sheer immortality. Particular mention goes to Wind, which has several Adventurers that can cause defense buffs such as Lowen, Templar Hope, Ranzal, and Sylas; characters with Doublebufff-type Abilities in their base kit like Louise or Wedding Elisanne; in addition to their own buffs from their skills or Chain Co-Abilities that it's possible to have 10 or more regen buffs along with other buffs, as well as Karina who can gain several buffs at once as mention above.
• Flurry Strength prints, those being Wily Warriors: Air & Crash, Primal Crisis, Breakfast at Valerio's, Flash of Genius, and Memory of a Friend are all great Wyrmprints on several Adventurers, especially against bosses that don't move a whole lot, like the Agito. Each one of these prints gives the same effect: they increase Strength by 20% when the combo count is 15 or higher, the highest available via Wyrmprints. And on weapons with fast attacks such as Daggers, Swords, Lances, Blades, and Bows, you can easily increase the combo count quickly. And with the existence of Abilities and Chain Co-Abilities that gives Combo Time Up and refining the Flame, Wind, Water and Light Agito weapons to give a passive Combo Time Up after using their Strength buffs, effectively remove the biggest weakness on these prints, dropping the combo time because of downtime like dodging, allowing for easy ways of boosting ones damage. In addition, Wily Warriors: Air & Crash and Primal Crisis are both extremely cheap to level up and unbind for a minimal stat difference compared to the other options. Meanwhile Flash of Genius and Memory of a Friend both have a Force Strike Affinity, giving an alright way to increase Force Strike damage.^* Which is great for Force Strike-based Adventurers like Xander, Albert, Rapid-fire Manacasters, and even Hunter Sarisse, though she does need a maxed Combo Time Up Chain Co-Ability to make use of it.
• Here's a Wyrmprint combination your healers are going to love - Hospitality & Harmony + Promised Piety (Staff) + Ravenous Fire (Crown). The first maxes out your Recovery Potency at +20% for incredible healing potential and has Bow affinity; Promised Piety gives Staff affinity and Bow's Psalm for Skill Haste +10%, and Ravenous Fire gives Staff's Psalm for +15% Buff Skill Time. Add in a few Crown affinity Wyrmprints for Skill Damage +10% and you have a killer combination right there for Gala Zena, or fill it out with other Wyrmprints for a more rounded support setup.
• Portrait Wyrmprints, gained via the Kaleidescape side mode, can really energize your Adventurer. The HP and Strength boosts are minimal, even for the high-end ones, but the Abilities can be great. If you manage to complete all 50 floors, you'll have a great chance at getting prints that will instantly give you the maximum allowed boost for Strength, Skill Damage, Critical Rate, Force Strike, HP, Dragon Damage, and Dragon Haste, allowing you to specialize your Adevnturer with a further variety of prints. And, as an added bonus, these prints can have two Abilities instead of one! Even the ones you get from only completing lower levels or via the Expeditions can have value, such as boosting the HP of a Healer or giving a slight Skill Haste boost. The only issues are that what Abilities you get are randomly determined and the higher end ones tend to be locked to a specific element and/or weapon.

Weapons

• The Agito Weapons are the pinnacle of weapon design in the game, bar none. With crazy attack power and Dominion wyrmprint slots to push your Adventurers to the limit, you want to get your hands on these bad boys as soon as possible. You have to fight the Agito repeatedly to gain them and power them up and almost all the buffs disintegrate under Nihility, but once equipped, you'll find that they are well worth the investment.
  • The Shadow Agito Weapons are, bar none, the best in the game. Qimen Dunjia is a permanent Attack Rate increase. Every single Weapon benefits from a higher Attack Rate, since attacking faster increases damage output, fills Skill Gauges faster, and shortens Skill animation. It helps that the materials needed to make them are from Kai Yan, who's fairly easy to beat, even on Expert, due to how simple it is to exploit his Battleground Ability against him. In fact, the Shadow Agito Weapons are so strong that it's better to craft the Shadow Weapon first, over maxing the Shadow Tree Facility instead (as opposed to the other way around for other elements, where the element Tree is prioritized over the Weapon).
  • The Light Agito Weapons are very brutal. Mag Mell increases the user's strength by 10/40%, then becomes Tír na nÓg which charges the dragon meter and even allows the healer to do some damage as well, and then increases Skill Haste by 8/10%. After being refined, Mag Mell also gives Fhiannaíocht, which extends combo time by one second until Tír na nÓg is next used (this makes the weapons ideal for combo-dependent fighters and dragons like Gala Luca, Mitsuhide and Daikokuten), while Tír na nÓg adds Rúraíocht, which regenerates 2% health every 3 seconds until Mag Mell is used again. While not as busted as their Shadow counterparts and their weapon skill perks disintegrate under the Curse of Nihility, you want these handy when you face Lilith and Tartarus all the same.
  • And in third place you have the Flame Agito Weapons. What makes them awesome is that their skill actually works under the Curse of Nihility; Megingjoro gives a 10/40% Strength increase, which Jarngreipr expands with a one second combo extension, but Idunn's Apple is the real draw with 3/5% Regen - and Regen is one of the effects that Nihility cannot remove, giving you a permanent source of gradual recovery against the likes of Jaldabaoth and Volk (not enough to overcome Poison or Creeping Corrosion, but it can prolong your survival if you're good at dodging the dodgable attacks). Svalinn increasing Defense by 20% on top of the regen is icing on the cake.
• The Primal Dragon weapons are parallel to the Agito weapons in terms of base power, but their skills are more vanilla: it's an attack that increases Strength and grants Primal Dragalia on top of that, granting further Strength and Attack Rate increases, the latter perk immune to Nihility. What makes them so awesome is that their performance does not disintegrate in the hands of the AI; the Agito weapons have stance skills which require a human touch to optimize the performance of, and the AI will set them off when they are prepared, even to their detriment. With Primal Dragalia skills, there's no need to worry about the AI's trigger-happy nature, so you can equip them to your AI partners and let them go to town while you and your Agito or Primal Dragon weapon does all the heavy lifting.

Kaleidoscape

The Kaleidoscape is a Rogue-Lite Marathon Level and after the first ten floors the difficulty starts ramping up significantly, to the point where regular enemies will cause problems, nevermind the Boss in Mook Clothing you will encounter every so often. As a result, you'll need all the help you can get...

• Any class with substantial range (Bows, Wands, Manacasters, and combat-oriented Staves) will allow you to avoid a lot of melee attacks just by virtue of being able to stay out of range if need be, which is an enormous boon for your ability to survive, while still being able to get closer for more optimal damage if you can afford to. This usually only applies to normal enemies and not boss fights, however, but that's still a big deal.
• The Apostles (Nevin, Pinon, Ryszarda, Faris, Basileus and Regina) are all busted in their own ways for one simple reason: buffs carry between floors provided their timers do not run out, and the Sigils the Apostles use to lock their powers are considered unlimited buffs once Released. Thus, so long as you do not retry or suspend your run, you can keep the buffs going for as long as you are able, which can be the entire run if you're good enough.
  • Faris deserves special mention, thanks to his nifty ability to evade and counter enemy attacks. As later enemies start going for a Zerg Rush and spam their attacks, repeatedly spamming his unique Force Strike counter attack lets him avoid a ton of damage and dish it back out. His Prudens Knowledge Skill also gives him automatic evasion to further aid his survivability.
  • Basileus has three different fighting styles dependent on his range and his Sigil, and his Skills play in a similar way. Releasing the Sigil gives him a fighting style that is fit for massive crowd control while losing nothing against single targets, and he can stop worrying about his proximity to the enemies. Also, he gains Overdamage based on how many hits he inflicts in a given combo. You see where this is going?
• Overdamage is just as useful here as it is in endgame content. In particular, Akashic Repose offers regeneration, a Strength buff, and is the only Skill that grants Overdamage (specifically 50%, meaning 1.5 times more damage overall) and can either be found on weapons or Shared Skill drops, meaning any weapons that drop with it are incredibly useful, and for more than just the usual reasons - some enemies in this mode only take a single hit point of damage per hit. Overdamage effectively allows you to take them down twice as fast.
• Any Adventurer with a Rapid-Fire Manacaster, such as Gala Leonidas or Gala Chelle, can lay waste to enemies pretty easily. It's not as automatic a win as Tiki or Notte, but they are practically one tier below. The only cause for concern would be certain boss fights, especially if you didn't manage to get the right baby Dragon to gain their Resistances. Leonidas and Chelle, like the Apostles mentioned above, even have potential for permanent buffs; the former gains offensive power to mulch his enemies faster, while the latter gains damage reduction to make it even harder for enemies to bring her down.
• Dragondrive Adventurers of all stripes also benefit from being able to use their Super Mode states without worrying about stocks - being able to use some kind of transformation with impunity is a massive boon in itself.
  • Ones that summon a Dragon, like Gala Zethia and the Persona 5 characters Joker, Panther, Mona, and Sophie can cut their way through the floors thanks to their mechanics. Because Bahamut and the Personas are autonomous, it's almost as if you've got two fighters taking down enemies, and it's incredibly easy to refill the meter once it runs out. And unlike regular transformations, these don't use up stock, so you can transform and de-transform virtually at will. Boss battles, in particular, can be made much easier with your Dragon slaughtering the boss while you're avoiding their attacks.
  • Tiki can absolutely slaughter the mode thanks to her Dragondrive granting her the ability to transform into her Dragon form, as not only can she tank hits from enemies, but she's also immune to Afflictions in this form. And if she gets kicked out of the mode for whatever reason, her own Skills can recharge her meter very quickly, getting her back in the game even faster. Even better, this mode has all innate Skills slowly recharge automatically, meaning that Tiki can recharge her own meter once all the bad guys are cleared out in Exploration floors in order to prepare for the next floor. She even has a built-in Frostbite Punisher, which can be added onto with Wyrmprints if you're lucky. The only issues that hamper Tiki are Thor^note As she lacks any kind of rapid-fire attack pattern, the Weak Point Orb countdown for Thor's Hammer will slaughter her unless she has a Shared Skill like Perfect Order. and Kai Yan^note Tiki has no natural way to dispel buffs, so she'll need to use Dispel Shared Skills-Perfect Order, Candy Cane Offensive, Splendid Spring, and Road to Glory-to break his shield, but otherwise very little in this mode will trouble her.
  • Gala Notte is one step below Tiki in this mode. She can last just as long in her adult form as Tiki can in her Dragon form, and her attacks do just as much damage, and at a wider range to boot. Plus, she can de-transform to dispel buffs and even when not transformed, her Skills actually do some decent damage, unlike Tiki's Divine Wings. Her only real issue is that, should she run out of Dragondrive meter, she has no way of automatically refilling it on her own like Tiki does, requiring her to stay relatively vulnerable until she can fill the meter back up. Still, it's not like this is a major disadvantage, and Notte can steamroll through Thor and Kai Yan much better than Tiki.
  • Sandalphon is a sort of mix between Tiki and Notte. On the one hand, she can't dispel and her melee attack is cumbersome for a healer that isn't Ayaha & Otoha. On the other hand, she has literally everything else you can ask for - she can heal herself with impunity, give herself overdamage, afflict enemies with tons of damage to boot, cleanse most debuffs, and recharge her own Dragondrive gauge, transformed or otherwise. Once a player learns to balance her protocol depending on what the situation requires and keep her energy topped off when not in combat, there is nearly nothing the Kaleidoscape can offer that she cannot overcome, and a pack of dispel shared skills or dispel weapon can erase almost the rest of it.
  • If you joined the game too late or don't have the Wyrmite to get any of the above, Origa has you covered. She's basically what happens if a Dragondrive unit fuses with an Apostle - you can use Banish Evil to break her seal right away, which unlocks her Dragondrive for use and gives her absolute affliction immunity to boot (and since you don't need a dragon for Dragondrive, you can pick out dragons for stat buffs instead of affliction resistance), and her skills excel at crowd control and affliction application (she has Regina's innate Affliction Punisher on top of that) and can keep her Dragondrive gauge up while boosted. And if for some reason she has to leave Dragondrive, the gauge builds back up fast on its own, meaning she won't be out of it for long even in the middle of a boss fight. Keep her packed with heal and dispel skills, and she'll cut right through even Bahamut with little difficulty; with Advent of the Origin now in the Event Compendium, you now have no excuse not to pick her up, so what are you waiting for?
• Any Adventurer with a locked Dragon transformation can utilize transformations more freely, without worrying about transforming into a weaker Dragon (such as the Baby Dragons or Phoenix), allowing you to focus on their passive Abilities. You have to use stock to transform, but it's a small price to pay, and the game will still allow you to gain their passive Abilites even when they've run out of stock.
  • Gala Mym in particular benefits from this, and she gets a permanent strength boost after her first transformation as long as you don't die.
  • Ayaha & Otoha are just as busted in the Kaleidoscape as they are out of it. Everything that applies to their section outside the Kaleidoscape applies here, except their Playtime, Purple Hagoromo, Union and Warabe Osobi having no time limit means they can last you the entire run if you don't die. And given your skills instantly reboot when you switch floors, you can build everything you need in the early going and steamroll through the rest of the joint. Their one problem is a lack of innate dispel, meaning you better stock up on dispel skills or have a weapon with one or Kai Yan will end your playtime quick.
  • Bondforged Euden does pretty much just as well as he does in the main game in the Kaleidoscape as well. Thanks to his incredibly powerful skills which have very wide range, the ability to boost his dragon gauge, and the fact that his transformation is basically a better Midgardsormr Zero, he has everything he needs to clear the dungeons right from the get-go and can blitz past everything they can throw at him with ease. As long as you have dragons left, you can just transform anytime you feel like you need to and not even Kai Yan will be able to stop you due to his dispels with his skills and dragon attacks. Just make sure you got a heal skill and you're all set.
• Both Gala Laxi and Seimei have the ability to summon a helper that will attack automatically. While not to the level of, say, Zethia's Bahamut, the automated drone can be a big help taking down enemies, and once both run out, it's pretty easily to recharge the meters and get them going all over again. They'll even continue attacking if you are caught in some sort of trap and unable to move. Seimei's other skill lets him discard his helper for dispel, Defense Down, and Scorchrend, so if he's running out of time, he can chuck his helper and grab another without a significant loss of DPS.
• Yukimura makes for a great character to use in this mode. Thanks to her super mode being tied to using her first Skill 3 times and the fact that Skills charge automatically, she can go full ham on her run even faster than the Apostles. She will also keep her fighting spirit on for her entire run provided you don't die or suspend, so getting through in one go is surprisingly easy as long as you don't get carried away.
• While a full auto-run of the Kaleidoscape is only reliable to a certain point, Shingen makes the tactic more reliable than most other Adventurers. Shingen's kit is basically built for survivability in most floors, to the point that it'd be easier to list what he doesn't have: Dispel skills and a custom shapeshift, and both are easy to overcome.
• Gala Zena after maxing out her Mana Spiral becomes an absolute beast of a Combat Medic here as long as you don't get carried away. Her standard attack, aside from being a ranged attack that allows her to attack from afar, hits multiple times and has a decent attack speed (meaning she can tackle one-damage-point enemies and Thor just fine), her main offensive skill targets lots of enemies nearby, her healing is continuous and provides overdamage (meaning you don't need Akashic Repose and can swap out Fafnir Roy IV's healing for explosion since Zena's healing skill recharges quickly), and once you have protections against afflictions and dispel skills loaded up in case Kai Yan is the run's boss fight and you're basically golden. Oh, and her extremely powerful charged Force Strike can be prepared ahead of time, as she can move while charging, meaning you can charge the attack fully, walk up towards a group of enemies before you draw their attention, and nuke them before they have a chance to do anything once the auto-target locks on.
• Valyx is possibly even more suited to auto-tanking his way through every floor than Shingen. His first skill stuns, his second dispels, an auto-heal, defense amp and a shield that triggers when his health drops below 70%, and when he transforms even once (as long as you don't suspend or die) he becomes permanently energized and can heal himself by tanking hits while using skills or attacking. Give the man a weapon with Akashic Repose and he is basically unstoppable.
• If you thought any of the above were busted, get a load of Gala Nedrick. He has literally everything you could ever want in a Kaleidoscape adventurer by himself - permanent attack increases thanks to Oblivion Overload (with a downside that may as well not exist), Gala Bahamut's team amp potential, DOT and dispel in one attack, wide AOE damage, and thanks to Soul Charge he doesn't have to worry about HP at all as long as an enemy attack doesn't do more damage than 20% of his maximum HP, which in practice basically means he can't take damage from anything short of mid-bosses and bosses unless he's severely under-leveled. Previously only Beast Agito could actually hurt him with this setup, but with the floor 60 update if you level him high enough even they can't scratch him, and if you get his maximum HP high enough nothing short of Bahamut can hurt him, so it's less a matter of if you complete the run compared to when or if you don't indulge in Soul Charge. Just be careful against the beast Agito, Fallen Angels, Thor at floor 50+ or Bahamut, however, as they can knock off Soul Charge levels, though the first two can be tanked if you have enough HP updates and are suitably leveled. Don't rely on him for full auto runs, however, unless you have his max HP and EXP gain fully upgraded, as bosses can be a problem for him if he doesn't have a high level level to give him enough maximum HP to tank hits, and when auto-play is active the AI has a tendency to ignore enemies that aren't directly in the way, which can significantly reduce EXP gain and leave him under-leveled at higher floors. Basically, if you want him to be truly busted, boost his HP as much as possible and make sure he's roughly at or above the level curve for whatever floor you're on, or just steer him towards enemies, get him to max level as soon as possible, and watch him be an unstoppable juggernaut that, fittingly, only Bahamut is a problem against. Get his max HP to 30,000 or higher and he is literally invincible, as the only attacks capable of surpassing the threshold don't come often enough to exhaust his Soul Charge levels before they regenerate.
• As far as Skills go, Perfect Order is one of the best, slightly behind Akashic Repose. The attack summons dozens of butlers to demolish whatever enemy was targeted, and the wide radius means other enemies can get caught pretty easily. In particular, if you use a single one when Thor is charging its Weak Point orb, it will take out two entire levels and over half of the third! Obviously, it also does a number on 1-Damage enemies and even Menaces.
• Impeccable Service isn't as good as Akashic Repose, but though it lacks Overdamage and won't stack with the Fafnir's heal, it still gives a nice 15% Strength boost that will last for 60 seconds, longer than the dedicated Strength boost Skills. It is also a lot more common as a Weapon Skill than Repose is.
• One of the best Wyrmprint Abilities you can get is Slayer's Strength, which can go as high as 8%. Because most of the floors have you tackling wave after wave of enemies, it's incredibly easy to get the max boost, and unlike other Strength boosters, this one won't run out unless you die or suspend your run. If you're lucky enough to get the ultra rare 8% variant, you can give yourself a permanent 40% Strength boost! The best part? They're stackable, so you can raise it even higher with multiple copies!
• Attack Rate Up is one of the best Weapon Abilities you can get. If you get lucky and grab a 4,800 Weapon with Attack Rate 20% on it, there is very, very little that will stand in your way, as your attacks will be blindingly fast. Pair this up with Horus and watch as all enemies, even Menaces, are torn to shreds.
• Some Dragons you can acquire will have incredibly useful Abilities:
  • The baby Dragons (Homura, Fubuki, Tsumuji, Hinata, and Hikage) offer 100% resistance against two particular Afflictions. This can be a lifesaver, especially against afflictions like Freeze or Burning, which can be practically fatal. Only Valentine's Chelsea and Ayaha & Otoha don't have a use for them due to passives that gradually make them immune to all afflictions.
  • Tie Shan Gongzhu comes equipped with 80% Recovery Potency. If you're playing a Healer or have a weapon with one of the two healing Skills, this can increase your survivability enormously, especially against the Agito fight on the final floors, and pairs especially well with Akashic Repose as a means of keeping you alive, on top of giving you Overdamage.
  • Horus gives you a 10% Attack Rate boost, which isn't much, but you will still notice how fast your combos suddenly get, especially if you use Blade or Dagger Adventurers.
  • Shishimai gives a 40% Critical Damage boost, which will be very, very helpful to Adventurers who specialize in getting crits.
  • Nimis adds 50% buff to Dragon Damage, and unlike the main part of the game, those with Dragondrive meters are affected by this, which means Tiki and Notte can wreck house even harder than they could before.
  • Hastur, AC-011 Garland, and Nyarlathotep all provide a 15% boost to Skill Damage, which can make a huge difference against the more troublesome bosses.
  • Midgardsormr Zero is a very rare drop, but in addition to giving you a 15% Strength boost, you also gain the ability to turn into Mids himself, and his Dragon Skill is just as effective as in the main game, especially in Arena rooms. Use Akashic Repose or some other Overdamage skill before you unleash him to really pile on the pain. Thor and Mars aren't quite as useful when shapeshifted, but they're still powerful and will give you the same 15% Strength boost.
• Of all things, Fafnir Roy IV can be this. His healing move can allow you to survive an onslaught, or recover some health between enemy packs, without wasting a healing Skill, while his explosion move can provide some much needed offense for pure Healers. While neither of them are miracle workers, they will allow you to survive much longer during the harsher runs.