Game Breaker / Granblue Fantasy

With its RPG mechanics and mostly multi-player gameplay, some obtainable characters and items from the game tend to stand out from the rest, to the point that they could make some aspects of the game trivial, as well as being copied and emulated by the competitive players until the individual game-breaking parts combine and gradually evolve into a Metagame.

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General Metagame

• With weapon grid power having grown much stronger over time, endgame damage considerations all ultimately revolve around circumventing the Damage Cap, since modern teams are easily going to hit the base damage cap if they go without significant cap up options. Many of the modern damage-centric examples listed here are likely going to either feature one or more such cap-breaking mechanics, such as Assassin buffs, supplemental damage, bonus damage on autos, or outright damage cap up buffs, or otherwise enable cap-up options, like multi-hit nukes synergizing with supplemental damage buffs.
• Supplemental Damage is a highly powerful mechanic coveted by every element in the meta. Its numbers might not seem very significant (30,000 or 50,000 might not look very good on paper), but it applies to every hit, and is also affected by buffs that increase damage cap and amplify damage dealt. Paired up with multihit attacks, the supplemental damage adds up very quickly, and is significant enough to free up some investment into some weapon grids.

Classes and Skills

• Ground Zero, the third skill of Threo is incredibly useful in the Arcarum. In this mode, the enemies have a high health pool, with a majority having a high resistance to damage. Add the fact that you only have 100 Turns (Normal) or 50 Turns (Hard and Extreme) for completing an entire expedition - Moving blocks, taking turns during battles, and even retreating will reduce the counter. With Ground Zero however, Arcarum battles end up as quickly as clicking a single button. To elaborate, it is a skill readily available at Turn 1 that can deal a massive amount of damage (up to a million) based on how high Threo's health is. Being a Plain-damage attribute, it ignores enemy defenses, while also allowing the player to one-shot almost all low-tier mobs on the Normal difficulty, while saving the remaining turns for the more challenging and difficult bosses at every 3rd expedition. However, any sources of Non-Elemental damage were Nerfed to deal only half of their supposed value in the mode's Extreme difficulty, as Cygames' measure to prevent Ground Zero from breaking all of the mode's content.
  • Any unit capable of copying Threo's Ground Zero also counts. And because of her Facsimile skill, even an R rarity character like Lunalu became a game-breaker. Note the above-mentioned Nerf where Arcarum Extreme halved Plain Damage values? That would mean nothing to Lunalu when she has the chance of making you unleash two Ground Zeroes in the same turn. She later received an SSR version where Facsimile is no longer chance-based, but guaranteed to succeed. This combo makes the tedious grind of Arcarum Extreme a piece of cake to those who have both characters.
  • Threo is commonly used in Slime quests as her Ground Zero can easily bypass the absurdly high defense of the otherwise low-HP slimes, killing any of them in one hit. This even includes their "King" variants, which makes her very useful when it comes to Money Grinding or Level Grinding your other party members' levels and EMP.
  • Since the solo Slime Quests are composed of two waves, Threo may not be sufficient enough for farming as her ability can mostly clear out one wave. For that, any other character with Non-Elemental damage gets added to the party to clear the rest. Or if the player doesn't want to sacrifice other slots, any weapon with a Non-Elemental damage ability such as Disparia and Spiked Baseball Bat can be utilized by the Swordmaster or Glorybringer classes to farm slimes alongside Threo.
  • Ground Zero can also be used to annihilate the six Daily Hard Omega raids for farming their respective animas and fodders. Because almost all of them have HP values lower than the skill's soft damage cap of 1.2 million, it can be guaranteed that Threo can kill them with one press of a button. Among the six, only Celeste has a higher HP value which exceeds the skill's damage cap, but she can still be easily killed on Turn 1 with a follow-up Berserker's Forge, Arcarum Summon Call, or the Swordmaster/Glorybringer's Awaken Blade ability from the two aforementioned anti-Slime weapons Disparia and Spiked Baseball Bat. It is also worth nothing that while Yodarha's Ultimate Flash also deals up to 999,999 Plain Damage that makes these early game raids trivial, he requires a full Charge Bar and 3 Triple Shrouded stacks to use its highest possible damage. However, it is even inferior to what Threo's Ground Zero can do - up to more than a million Plain Damage in just one press of a button, readily available at the first turn with no other requirements.
  • Slightly less powerful but taking much less effort to invest is Aletheia's Discord post 5★ uncap. At level 95, Discord now also provides 999999 plain damage, which is much faster and practical than both Yodarha's charge attack and Threo's Ground Zero. What's better is that the plain damage is also affected by the Velocity buff from his charge attack, which means you can deal almost 3 million plain damage in two turns. Discord can also be copied by any Facsimile skill, which means he's synergizes well with Alilah/Golden Knight and every Lunalu variant. The only reason why Discord is not as powerful as Ground Zero in a vacuum is Threo's own Transcendence boosting Ground Zero's power even further. At level 130, casting Ground Zero also grants her Triple Strike and reduces the cooldown to 6-turn, and her passive grants her guaranteed TA and 30% earth echo when she's below 25% health, which boosts her firepower even further at minimal health, with the only drawback being that Threo lack any form of defense besides the Undying buff.
• The Campaign-Exclusive Quests have a Fake Difficulty that Caps the damage instances that you use against it, essentially making the fight a bit longer since the damage formula gets thrown out of the window for a bit and you'll have to prioritize multi-hit damaging abilities. However, the release of the Gladiator class breaks this questline's rule as it offers Decimate, a single skill with up to 10 damage instances. With a single press of a button, you can say goodbye to that Fake Difficulty.
• The Luchador class, almost entirely because of its Tag Team skill: Tag Team has the simple effect of letting every party member auto attack, as if it were a normal use of the Attack button. In other words, for a team designed around powerful auto attacks, this single skill effectively doubles their damage per turn. And since auto attacks are already the fastest source of damage, this is a nearly equally huge boost in damage per second. In content where you're racing other players to deal enough damage to secure blue chest rewards, Tag Team Luchador is among the most popular strategies around.
• The Relic Buster completely redefines burst strategies with its EMP skill Limit Burst, which converts Machine Cell stacks on the MC (which are granted by Relic Buster's first Skill "Engage Augments") into charge gauge and a charge attack specs buff: if 5 Cells are converted (the default amount granted by "Engage Augments"), this is 100% gauge, 50% charge attack damage, and 20% charge attack cap up. Relic Buster can instantly and effortlessly grant a Full Burst to your party with just two buttons and any support summon, whereas Chrysaor requires some management of charge bar generation and/or reliance on the likes of Huanglong's aura. Moreover, unlike Instant Charge effects—which simply set a character's charge bar to 100%—Limit Burst actively gives 100% extra charge bar, which plays nicely with 200% charge bar characters with special charge attacks. And that's not to mention its inherent auto attack amplification, and if Machine Cells are still on MC, even more amplification and guaranteed triple attacks if using a sword mainhand or skill nuke on autos with a gun mainhand. While Chrysaor still has a niche with Dual Arts, Relic Buster is much more accessible and powerful for early game players, and has plenty of power beyond charge attack builds—it's almost unquestionably the best choice for a player's first Row IV class. And unlike other Row IV classes, Relic Buster can be unlocked even by players who have yet to reach Rank 100+, by clearing the "Home Sweet Moon" side story.
• The Row V Paladin class takes what made the Spartan a good defensive class and loads it up on crack. Unlocked by mastering both the Spartan and the Cavalier classes to level 30, the Paladin boasts incredibly loaded defensive skills that ensure your party stays safe. Its default skill, Elemental Phalanx, is a straight upgrade from the Spartan's Phalanx III, sporting an 80% Elemental Damage Cut based on the superior element you're using, and also grants an Elemental Switch buff based on the superior element, ensuring the damage is mitigated. Its EM skills are also just as loaded. Noblesse Proteger is a Sub-All buff combined with a massive 10000-point Shield to help tank powerful attacks, Boosted Resistance grants the party a hefty 200% Debuff Resistance and Dispel Cancel for 5 turns (note that the Dispel Cancel only works once), and Sacred Protection grants the whole party a Damage Mitigation buff that chops 10000 damage off the enemy's attacks within that turn. Now, all this defensive prowess might seem to be a case of Crippling Overspecialization, but the Paladin manages to avoid it with its passive, The Best Offense Is A Good Defense. Aside from capping all damage taken to 10000, the Paladin also utilizes Shields, a new kind of equipment exclusive to them that can be crafted and also farmed from certain raids. For every Shield you collect, the Paladin gains 5% ATK, 10% Double Attack Rate, and 5% Triple Attack Rate. Currently, there are 21 Shields to collect, and if you manage to collect the maximum of 16, the Paladin gains a hefty 80% ATK, 100% Double Attack, and 80% Triple Attack Rate. What's more, 7 out of the 21 Shields are very easy to obtain, letting you benefit almost right away from the increased offensive stats.
• Iatromantis, the Row V version of the Sage, is unlocked by reaching Master level 30 on both the Sage and Apsaras, and ramps up its healing and support capabilities to whole new levels, while also being capable of powerful offense. Notably, their playstyle varies based on which weapons they are dual wielding. Healing Aura when wielding two Staff weapons grants a boost to the healing cap, permanent debuff immunity, and Autorevive, making them incredibly potent and resilient supports. Purging Aura when wielding two Spear weapons grants guaranteed triple attacks and a 30% Bonus Damage buff, turning them into a fearsome Combat Medic. Aiding Aura when wielding both a Staff and Spear is more of a general supportive role, granting a boost to the party's DATA rate and a chance to cleanse a debuff every turn. Their skills are also no slouch, with their base skill Vita Brevis being a direct upgrade to the Sage's Panacea III, with a larger heal amount and also decreasing the duration of debuffs by a turn to aid with cleansing. Their EMP skills are also incredibly powerful, starting with Amyntiko Fos, granting the whole party debuff immunity and guaranteed triple attacks, as well as a special buff that automatically casts Vita Brevis when the enemy uses a special attack, Pneuma which grants a permanent and undispellable massive 100% Attack/Defense buff, guaranteed double attacks, and a 20% boost to Triple Attack Rate to a selected ally, and Megali Fotia, a superpowered emergency nuke that fully heals all allies and cleanses all debuffs.
• The Manadiver, the Row V upgrade to the Warlock, is unlocked by reaching Master level 30 on the Warlock and the Chaos Ruler, and takes their relatively decent nuking potential and elevates it to a modern standard. Their base skill, Aether Siphon, drains a charge diamond from a foe and grants +30% charge bar, and also grants a Crest to the party. Their EMP skills are also fantastic, starting with Wild Magica, a damage skill that grants guaranteed triple attacks, and if 50% charge bar is consumed, additionally grants Double Strike for 2 turns. Secret Triad fills 3 charge diamonds on all enemies, grants the party +30% charge bar, 20% Bonus Damage, and a Crest, which might seem a little reckless, but it allows Aether Siphon to always have a charge to drain. Overtrance is a very loaded skill that requires 3 turns before it can be used, but what it does is instantly fill the charge bar and grants a buff that makes said charge bar effectively infinite for 6 turns, where it won't be consumed when using charge attacks or skills that consume charge bar. And that's not even getting into their unique mechanic, the Manaturas, small sprite companions that aid the Manadiver in battle with their own unique effects. Powerful manaturas of particular note are Leviathan Mino, considered the most reliable of the manaturas, which consumes 30% charge bar to damage enemies and inflict the Submerged debuff, which acts as free Supplemental Damage against the enemy, and passively provides 10% Bonus Damage against Submerged enemies, and Lu Woh Mino, which consumes 30% charge bar to heal the party and cleanse a debuff, and passively boosts charge bar gain by 30%, for a more supportive role. Months later, the Ouroboros Mino was introduced and is a direct upgrade to the aforementioned Leviathan by dealing more damage while lowering the enemy's defense and provides supplemental damage to allies based on the crest level and stacks with all other sources. The one downside is that the Manaturas are very rare drops from certain raids, and crafting them aside from the Leviathan and Yggdrasil Minos, is extremely expensive (The Bahamut Mino costs 1000 Primeval Horns!).
• The Berserker Class comes back with vengeance thanks to the Class Master Level that boosts their already superb offensive power and further empower the already strong Full Arsenal III, but they also gain three new skills from the Ultimate Mastery update, two of them were game changer for the class line as a whole. Beast Fang is basically powerful nuke that inflict Mist-tier ATK and DEF Down to the target and granting them 50% DMG Cap Up, the largest amount so far tied with Summer Korwa, only much more practical and largely accessible, and it synergizes with Ulfhedinn and activates after every attack when the buff is active. Bloodzerker grants them special buff that expends 25% of their current max HP after executing charge attack in exchange of 1-time 50% Assassin buff on their next turn (or their next attaack if Multistrike is active). Both skills kicked the class offensive power up to the roof rivalling (if not surpassing) Relic Buster with menial cost. Combined with new and powerful mainhand like Excalibur that gives them the sustain for Bloodzerker (which you can get for free during 2023's new year Excalibur event), or those that further churn out their damage like Hrunting and Ereshkigal mentioned below, the class become one of the most powerful attacker in the game, even surpassing their Row V counterpart. It's no wonder during Unite and Fight (Dark) with Mars as the boss, the class become the cornerstone meta for Honor racing, and performed admirably well with and/or without Ereshkigal.

Characters

• With her rebalance in early 2021, Summer Korwa eclipses her original self to an obscene degree, becoming the best enabler in modern Wind. Her first skill "Ligne d'Ete" grants an ally a massive Wind attack and DATA buff with an indefinite duration, as well as Dual Strike and an obscene 50% cap up buff for a turn, making her the best damage enabler in Wind. Her second skill "Soie Elegante" grants an ally another indefinite buff to defense, Armored damage reduction, and 100% debuff resistance; given enough time, this buff can be applied to the whole party and make them all ridiculously tanky, allowing clears of some of the hardest content in the game with minimal effort. Her third skill "Croquis d'Ete" grants the entire party a much coveted assassin buff, and finally her ougi gives partywide bonus damage on autos and passively increases the party's charge attack specs with each use of it. This is quote-unquote balanced by each of her skills costing stacks that generate over time and not working in full auto, but for manual play S. Korwa starts with enough stacks to still be unparalleled at what she enables even at Turn 1.
• The Eternals' Transcendence/6★ uncap is a huge upgrade to their overall power, but only a few of them truly stand out to be worth the investment.
  • Threo becomes a total beast when transcended. At level 120, Threo gets a passive that gave have a guaranteed triple attack and bonus damage as long as she have a quarter or lower of her HP left, which can be achieved by using Ground Zero. This passive works extremely well with her rebalanced Supernatural passive which gave her 300.000 supplemental damage on her third hit, and 3 stack of Undying effect. At level 130, Threo gets a massive upgrade to Ground Zero with higher damage cap, 1 less cooldown, and when casted while Threo have 25% or less HP, it gives Threo Triple Strike. The cooldown reduction puts it in line with Vorpal Rage, ensuring either a massive amount of heal with Axe mode, or insane damage output with Sword mode. The Triple Strike essentially turns low HP Ground Zero into an absurd amount of burst damage. Transcendence also gave her extra damage cap, 4 node worth of HP EMP, and resets the cooldown of her Berserk Forge after charge attacks. Transcendence Threo cranks up her offensive power to the point that she can output burst damage that is similar in power to Christmas Narmaya, while being nearly unmatched damage output on a consistent basis.
  • Seox stands out for still being quite powerful even at his 5★ uncap, having insane damage buffs that ramp up incredibly fast, defensive buffs that protect him from damage (and losing his most powerful buff), additional damage whenever he has Mirror Image (which is easily provided by his charge attack) and a potent fourth skill that gives him four turns of invincibility and attacking twice per turn to wail on the enemy. His Transcendence ramps up his power even further by allowing him to start with up to 3 stacks of Heavenly Howl from the get go, giving him an increased offensive prowess, and his charge attack also increases his Heavenly Howl level, letting him ramp up much faster for absolute devastation.
  • Eahta, just like Seox, is still quite powerful with his 5★ uncap, generating immense amounts of charge attack meter between his multiattack buffs, massively increased charge bar generation, and skills that give him even more charge bar on top of that. All that meter can either be transferred to other party members or used for himself with no cooldown, making him a perpetual charge attack battery on demand. And if it isn't enough, his ultimate gives him a permanent 20% uplift. His Transcendence ramps up his utility, greatly boosting chain burst damage alongside granting the party debuff immunity and dispel cancel when triggering chain bursts, and additionally gains a new EMP passive that cuts his skill cooldown by a turn whenever he uses a charge attack.
  • Niyon, when Transcended ramps up her already potent support even more. Not only are her buffs even stronger, she also grants free buffs to the party just by being in the frontline, and at level 150, makes it so that their buffs can never be dispelled.
• Summer Alexiel outclasses her Grand version in sheer defensive prowess. Her signature defensive skill is "Uncrossable Waters": for three turns (on a seven turn cooldown), Summer Alexiel will be the sole target of all enemies' attacks, have complete immunity to debuffs, will convert all non-plain damage taken to Water damage (which as an Earth character she takes less damage from), and cap every single damage instance at 1500 damage. When even mid-game HP values in Earth can be around 20,000—Summer Alexiel can turn anything but huge multi-hit attacks into Scratch Damage, while avoiding the debilitating debuffs Water bosses are known for, for three out of every seven turns. She can easily trivialize bosses who were designed before her debut in 2019, and having her on your team is often the difference between newer bosses being manageable and That One Boss. Moreover, she's no slouch offensively, with a charge attack that activates a skill damage nuke for two turns after it's used, which is one of the strongest damaging effects a charge attack can have.
• Valentine's Grimnir doesn't seem like too much at first, being a pure attacker that can't be used with his Grand version, requires a unique stack to use his 2 and 3, plus having a skill that gives the enemy a buff as well. However, a few things stand out: he has guaranteed triple attack, those attacks are each three instances rather than one instance with three numbers appearing, and all his skills have a cooldown of one turn, albeit linked so you can't use more than one per turn. However, this goes out the window later on due to one thing: supplemental damage. His 3 deploys a field effect that gives 30k supplemental damage per hit instance, which he's capable of doing fifteen times a turn from his 1 and basic attack. In other words, he gets a free 450k damage per turn. Combine this with Belial below and it's 900k, not taking into account that his 2 hits 20 times and applies a number of debuffs. He also has his CA give him a buff that not only makes his crit chance 100%, but gives him Keen, which gives him an additional 50k per damage instance whenever he crits, which is now every single hit he lands. All together, that gives him 1,650k additional damage per turn for just attacking. To say this is insane is an understatement.
• Rei stands out for having two game-breaking abilities that would alone make a character top tier, on top of being in the already powerful Dark element. Her first skill, "Alaya-Vijnana," grants another Dark ally Double Strike indefinitely, in exchange for sacrificing her own auto attack—she literally doubles a strong auto attacker's output, for no cost at all. Her second skill, "Moksha," switches her out for the first character in your backline, and then gives the subbed in character the buff "Moksha" indefinitely, which increases attack, guarantees triples, increases damage cap, and increases dodge rate, in exchange for a large defense penalty. Again, for no cost or setup required, Rei offers another way to massively buff a character; she enables even weak characters and makes already game-breaking characters even more so. And on top of both of these excellent utilities, she can completely nullify an enemy's elemental damage for one turn with her third skill "Cold Stare," as well as accelerate the turn count by five turns with her fourth skill "Ama no Sakate," which effectively serves as a way to speed up cooldowns on potent abilities. Lastly, her charge attack "Clairvoyant Bliss" inflicts a number of useful debuffs, and most importantly the debuff "Celestial Vision," which indefinitely grants 30k supplemental damage for all attacks on the debuffed foe. Rei is stuffed to the brim with unique, powerful utilities, any one of which would make her an excellent unit, and all combined make her a contender for most powerful enabler in the game.
• Caim, the Evoker of the Hanged Man, is a significant core member in Earth teams for one reason: his "The Hanged Man Reversed" backline passive. If every weapon in your grid is unique—named a "highlander" grid by fans—then Caim instantly grants every member of the team a 20% boost to attack, a 50% boost to defense, and 10% damage cap up, so long as he is in the backline. Although in theory highlander grids are weaker since they can't stack the best non-unique weapons available, nowadays a plethora of powerful one-off weapons—most particularly 5* Dark Opus weapons—means that building one just as strong as a non-highlander grid is very attainable by endgame. Easy access to damage cap up means a Caim grid is head and shoulders stronger than an equivalent grid without that cap up, and synergizes with the Scales of Dominion, a farmable weapon that also grants a boost to Attack and 10% damage cap up in a highlander grid.
• Grand Sandalphon completely shifted how Earth element teams approach null-element fights when he was introduced in late 2020. His first skill "Ethereal Prison" introduces a brand new mechanic into the game: the ability to change an enemy's element—in Sandalphon's case as an Earth unit, to Water for five turns. This means that Earth units gain elemental advantage against foes afflicted by "Ethereal Prison," as well as the damage cap breaking effects of Seraphic weapons and damage-boosting Arcarum summons. Although enemies retain their innate elemental resistance (e.g., Wind foes who are naturally resistant to Earth damage remain so when under "Ethereal Prison"), this is a massive advantage against null-element and even Dark bosses, who typically have no elemental resistance to Earth. A 4* Seraphic weapon and a 4/5* Arcarum summon together grant 33% damage and cap up, meaning Sandalphon instantly makes Earth teams that much stronger against null-elements enemies just for using his first skill. And that's not all: he can gain up to four instances of bonus damage on auto attacks with his second skill "Ecliptica", his third skill "The Vice" fills his charge bar and massive amplifies his charge attack damage at the cost of dispelling all buffs on allies and enemies (but it can be used turn 1 anyway when there are no buffs yet), and his passive grants him guaranteed crits, double attacks, a 20% boost to damage cap, increased defense, and some passive healing. His only drawbacks are that "Ethereal Prison" is naturally only active for 5 out of every 8 turns, his bonus damage instances are gained randomly and he may not get all four in a timely manner, and that he cannot be healed except by his passive, making him very vulnerable to plain damage attacks. Sandalphon's first skill alone vastly increases Earth's power against null-element, while still remaining a monstrous attacker for on-element content.
• Water Zeta is one of Water's most potent attackers, taking a page from SSR Predator. Her differences from Predator include teamwide bonus damage on triple attacks and an increase to the damage cap on critical hits; exceptionally strong echoes at 100% bonus damage (with the caveat that she must have first hit the target with her first skill "Spear of Arvess" and inflicted the "Arvess Fermare" debuff); and the standout change: unworldly charge attack damage that then also activates her first skill "Spear of Arvess" for even more damage. Zeta is simultaneously a top tier auto attacker and charge attack user, and Bonito being a Water summon allows Zeta to immediately have her charge attack on turn 1, and then proceed to attack with her massive echoes and assassin-boosted damage.
• Nehan debuted as the undisputed best enabler in Light, massively increasing the attack power of all other allies on his team. His first skill "Enlightenment" grants an attack buff, an echo, and supplemental damage, his second skill "Six-Wolf Tonic" grants guaranteed triples attacks and a boost to charge bar gain and dodge rate, and his third skill "Nirvana" grants Dual-Strike. The trade off is that Nehan himself gains nothing, his skills also reduce allies' defense, debuff resistance, and max HP, and Nehan's own HP and defense are reduced by his passive. But Nehan does have an increased dodge rate, "Six-Wolf Tonic" also grants increased dodge rate, and Nehan's second passive lets all other allies survive a single lethal hit. Nehan is the epitome of Glass Cannon strats in Light, and even then he provides some ways of surviving incoming massive damage.
• Lich gives the Dark element a ridiculous amount of sustain while also dealing huge damage herself. Her first passive is similar to Earth Sandalphon in that it gives her a bunch of built in buffs (additional attack and defense, higher Charge Attack damage and damage cap, guaranteed double attacks, healing from turn-based damage, and passive healing) in exchange for not being able to be healed by normal means. Her second passive deals damage and gives her 5% charge bar for every debuff on her and her allies, capping at 10 times for half her charge bar and nearly one and a half million damage every turn. This ties in nicely with her second skill, "Corruption", which gives all enemies and allies a light attack debuff, a dark defense debuff, poisoned, and putrefied. All of these debuffs hinder the enemy, but the first two debuffs are a non-issue in most on-element/non-elemental fights, while the later two debuffs are turned into pluses by Lich's first skill, "Phantom Pain", which gives the entire party Death's Grace (a buff that turns turn-based damage into healing) and Light Switch, along with dealing damage. Both her first two skills are on a 5 turn duration with an 8 turn cooldown, which syncs nicely with her Charge Attack, which in addition to being boosted by her first passive, inflict delay on the enemy and reduces skill cooldowns by one turn. And since her second passive will be charging her charge bar by half after every turn, this means that she'll be using her charge attack nearly every other turn, giving her skills near 100% uptime. And as the cherry on top, her third skill "Cursed Spirit" gives her an auto-revive (albeit with the penalty of getting the impurity debuff after the revive) on the off chance that she somehow dies even with all her built in regeneration.
• Two of Narmaya's variants have incredible power, turning her into a staple powerhouse in the relevant elements.
  • Christmas Narmaya stands out as the single strongest auto attacker in Earth. She can have guaranteed triple attacks if she has a Counter buff on her, which both her charge attack and her first skill "Apex of Nothingness" give her. "Apex of Nothingness" also gives her massive bonus damage on auto attacks for 30% of her charge bar—which is always guaranteed at fight start with the proper crew skill—and if she instead has a full charge bar, that bonus damage will last the full length of the skill's cooldown, making it trivial to sustain so long as she doesn't have to spend her charge bar for a charge attack. And her third skill "Mind at Peace" is absolutely insane: it gives her massively boosted damage for her one turn, while also allowing her to take damage for all allies with 99% damage repel—unmatched offensive power and defensive ability all in one skill.
  • Grand Narmaya is a very close analogue in Wind to her Christmas version in Earth above, with slightly different strengths and weaknesses, but equally unmatched in attacking power in her element. The same core is there: massive echoes, guaranteed triple attacks, and a one-turn assassin skill that massively boosts all her auto attacks for the turn. Notable advantages unique to this version of her: her charge attack "Butterfly Effect: Dragonsbane" gives her Dual Strike on the next turn for even more attacks and reduces her skill cooldowns, her first skill "Effervescent Hibiscus" gives her the unique buff "Piercing Sight," which always gives her elemental advantage while it's up, her second skill "Isolated Idling" gives her all-ally Substitute, 50% repel, and counters all-in-one instead of being split between skills as for C. Narmaya, her third skill "Dance of Pink Petals" gives her an assassin buff, guaranteed crits, and Keen, her first passive gives her guaranteed triples (not conditional on having a counter buff) and damage amplification, and she gives herself and all Wind allies a bit of extra cap up and an echo on crits, which is trivial for Wind. In exchange, her repel isn't as strong as C. Narmaya's, she can't maintain 100% uptime on her echoes, she lacks the skill nuke counter and Perpetuity attack modifier C. Narmaya gains over time, and most importantly, she can't generate charge gauge with her own attacks and counters—she can only gain charge bar from buffs like Uplifted or effects that instantly fill her charge bar, or by receiving a bit of gauge every time an ally uses their own charge attack. Despite that, her downsides do nothing to hamper her monstrous auto attack gameplay, and the lack of charge bar can actually be an advantage where using charge attacks might slow you down.
• Fediel of the Six Dragons takes the playable stage as among the godliest Dark characters in the entire game, with a skillset that is quite straightforward but extremely potent. Her first skill, Cursed Funeral, grants a massive 10000 point shield to all allies, and the Peace in Death buff, which grants permanent debuff immunity, Dispel Cancel, and charges their charge bar by 10% every turn until they take damage twice, already establishing a very powerful defensive presence. Her second skill, Miasma Hands, is a multi-hit nuke that debuffs the enemy's Dark DEF and DATA rate, further boosting the party's damage output. But the real fun begins with her third skill, The Black's Encroachment, which puts up the Malice of Despair as a permanent field effect, and drastically boosts the party's power. Under the Malice of Despair, both ally and foe suffer a 25% DEF debuff and take damage over time, but Fediel confers some incredible benefits in the field to counteract that with her first passive, Wedge of Darkness. The passive grants 100% Defense, guaranteed double attacks, 30% Triple Attack rate, and 100% Charge Attack damage and 50% CA Damage Cap when the Malice of Despair is active. That alone is already absurdly powerful, and Fediel personally takes it further by having her Charge Attack activate twice, and automatically casts Miasma Hands after every attack she deals. And as the cherry on top, her second passive Limitless Black outright resets her cooldowns when activating a Fated Chain in V2 battles, letting her refresh Cursed Funeral in the rare event it does fall off. To say that Fediel set quite the standard for the other Six Dragons is a huge understatement. ^note For reference, the only Dragons who have managed to make a significant impact on their playable release are Wilnas, Galleon, and Ewiyar's Grand version (and Wilnas still needed a rebalance to make him highly powerful!), with Wamdus and Lu Woh unfortunately falling flat. She has insane synergy with fellow Dark Game-Breaker Lich, as Lich provides Death's Grace to turn the damage over time from Fediel's field into gradual health regeneration instead, and Peace in Death helps charge Lich's charge bar quickly to keep her cooldowns consistently up to speed. The one downside Fediel does have is that her Cursed Funeral is noticeably much more difficult to maintain in non-V2 battles due to its extremely long cooldown, and the growing prevalence of extremely hard-hitting Light bosses (particularly in Unite and Fight) exacerbates this.
• While seasonal limited units tend to be very powerful, Halloween 2022 units introduced a trio of units that are absurdly powerful.
  • Halloween Florence's first skill, Maschera, alone utterly broke the meta of the Light element. It's a assasin-type buff that buffs the attack of a Light ally by a massive 50% for one turn at the cost of 40% of said ally's HP. What makes this so broken is that it synegizes amazingly with the aformentioned Relic Buster and Nehan, the former being able to attack up to six time a turn with the Mastery Skill Blitz Raid and the latter buffing the same character with other very powerfull buffs, including double strike. Even better, add Qilin to the mix and you can tear holes in a boss' HP on the first turn! Additionly, her other skills are also fantastic, with Burlone inflicting a powerful offensive debuff on the enemy that lasts for six turns and Casa dei Fantasmi giving an ally a free charge attack and cooldown rest at the cost of 5 Aurora Crests (which can be fulfilled thanks to the likes of V. Aglovale). Nevertheless, they pale in comparision to how godly her first skill is.
  • Halloween Lich proves to be just as powerful as her Grand version. Her first passive applies a 20% boost to attack and charge bar gain, a 10% boost to damage cap, and turn-based recovery on all allies depending on the number of debuffs they have, which is immediately fulfilled by Razzling Corruption. Haunting Specter is also where the bulk of Lich's power comes from; a 6-hit skill that removes a buff and inflicts a stack of attack and defense down each cast, and when you activate Cursed n' Spooky, this skill will active at the end of each turn as well as grant Lich a 20% boost to her charge bar. Finally, her second passive Ghost Parade consumes 30% of her charge bar to when its at 50% or above and casts an attack that deals 400% Wind damage and inflicts the very useful delay debuff. All of this makes Halloween Lich an incredible unit as she deals a ton of damage each turn while debilitating the enemy and lets premiere Wind attackers likes V! Grimnir and G! Narmaya deal even more damage while healing them each turn.
  • Halloween Mugen quickly became a must have for Light burst teams, helped by his incredible synergy with Nehan, the cornerstone of such teams. His Surprise Practice passive adds Bonus Light Damage to allies based on how much their Max HP has been lowered (maxing at 60% when lowered by 90%) which can already be fulfilled two-thirds of the cap with Nehan's own skill and Mugen's second skill. Speaking of, Mugen's Song of Sweetmeats also imparts a series of attack buffs that lasts for five turns to give burst teams more power. He can also help with survivability thanks to his Clocked Guardian and Tricky Constitution skills, the former letting him take hits for another will gain a pair of buffs that helps him tank Dark damage, and the latter giving him three stacks of Undying that helps him survive from lethal damage. All of this doesn't mention that his own dps is very potent thanks to the aformentioned "Tricky Constitution" buffing his damage greatly for a turn and his first passive Happy Pancakes letting him counter attacks with six-hits of attacks while boosting his hostility.
• The Arche passive skill exclusive to Grand Primarchs is an amazing skill that grants a free 20% boost to Omega and Primal skills, which stacks with other modifyers like the Main Auras, the Exalto weapon skill (detailed under "Weapons"), and the Six Dragons' Sub Aura, making your party much more powerful even by just putting said units in the back. This skill is just one reason why the Primarchs are listed on this page:
  • Michael, befitting the Primarch of Fire, is ungodly powerful. She provides excellent support to Fire allies, starting with her first skill Pantera, granting Instant Charge and CA Reactivation to a selected ally. Her second skill Basilica, is a powerful nuke that also grants the party Ignis Ward, a buff that grants 20% Bonus Damage, a 30/10 buff to charge attack specs, a 30% buff to charge bar gain, and capping Wind damage taken at 10000 until the ally takes damage 3 times. Her third skill Fotia Dynata, takes cues from her summon version, being a plain damage nuke combined with a buff dispel, granting her great utility. Her first passive, Ekrixi, grants Michael a stack of Ekrixi every time an ally uses a charge attack, and automatically casts Fotia Dynata when she has at least 3 stacks. Her charge attack, Ignis Iudicium, grants Uplifted and a Fire Attack buff to the party to further accelerate their charge attack spam.
  • Gabriel's entire kit is more defensive than her sister Michael, with her Kitrino Nima providing a 70% Fire DMG Cut and the Glacies Ward buff, which boosts DEF by 100% and triple attack rate by 50% alongside capping fire damage taken at 10,000, and a free 20% echo. Her main form of offense is her passive Pagos, which grants her one stack of Pagos everytime other allied unit deals triple attacks, and four stacks are consumed after she attacks, which activates Marturion, a 2-hit nuke that deals massive damage, dispels a buff, and raises the enemy's Glaciate level. She also has Judgment Sphere, a 5-hit attack that deals decent damage and inflicts Pureflow (which is slightly different from the Pureflow from her summon call) that debuffs the enemy's ATK and DEF and also provides her team with extra supplemental damage from any source, making her excellent in all comps that need an extra damage push.
  • Uriel is even more offensively oriented than his sisters. His bread and butter is his first skill, Upheaval, and is a powerful, two-hit attack that also leaves a debuff on the enemy that amplifies damage taken by 30% six times. The kicker is that his first support skill, Oreikhalkos, revolves around procing Upheaval whenever he attacks while having three stacks of Oreikhalkos, which are gained when allies cast red-border skills. This has has amazing uptime when paired with units like Cidala and Skull and Balurga, since they can cast multiple skills with but a single tap. His second skill, Earth Crash III, not only grants Terra Ward, which functions like Michael and Gabriel's wards, but it's also a multiple hit attack that increases the team's charge bar by 30%. Then, there's his third skill, Uriel Piledriver, a massively powerful nuke that also removes three buffs from the enemy that also grants Uriel guaranteed triple attack and double strike. Finally, his charge attack, Terrablaze Tectonics, supports both his first and third skills by granting three stacks of Oreikhalkos and cuts Piledriver's cooldown by two turns, alongside granting the party an earth attack buff. All of this makes Uriel a heavy hitter that also enables his allies to dish out more damage as well, and this is without mentioning his unlock weapon, which is like his sisters' weapons but for fists.
  • Light Grand Sandalphon might just take the cake by being an incredible damage dealer and buffer for light parties. His first skill, Entrusted Resolve, applies the "Supreme Wings" buff to the entire party that adds 20% bonus light damage to their attacks, increases their defense by 30%, and cuts the duration of debuffs by one turn. It also directly supports his second skill Righteous Deed by letting him recast once each turn after using it and said skill perform a normal attack for free and apply a stack of attack and defense debuff on the enemy as well as remove a buff, meaning that Sandalphon can theoretically attack up to 4 times a turn. His last skill, Along in Heaven, not only gives him an instant charge attack and a reactivation, but also grants him the "Lucant Refuge" buff which makes it so that his first skill grants Dodge All to the party and, with "Supreme Wings", causes normal attacks to deal 4 hits to random enemies. The only problem is that both his first and last skills have high cooldowns and the latter takes twelve turns to be ready but his charge attack, Paradise Lost, comes in to fix that problem by increasing "Supreme Wings" duration by 2 turns upon use and adding a Revitalize buff to the party, which causes a one turn cut to "Along in Heaven's" countdown, and it becomes nearly three time more potent when Sandalphon is under the effect of "Lucant Refuge". This makes Sandalphon an excellent addition to Light parties due to the abundance of units that can help enable charge attacks.
• Yukata Ilsa completely proves that once again there is no tax for Dark. Her entire kit revolves around her third skill, Diva Satanica, which grants her Double/Triple/Quadruple (!!!) Strike buff based on her Diuturna stacks, which can only be obtained if a character in your party is knocked out, for 1 stacks per character. Sounds like another example of Awesome, but Impractical, right? Well, it just so happens that Dark happens to have easy setups that you can use to get rid two of your front row members, and two of them are easy to obtain (one is Luna, a free SR character you get from a Side Story, and one is the Death SSR summon), ensuring that you can get the Quad-strike buff as early as turn 1. But that's not all, Yukata Ilsa also has all the needed supportive skills to boosts her burst potential further; War Eternal gives everyone in the party elemental crit booster, echo boost, and damage cap up, while Wages of Sin is a powerful nuke that scales on the current Diuturna stacks. Combined with multiple offensive setups for Dark, and many other ways to reset her skills cooldown (like Qilin), and you can even grind high level bosses into paste for less than 10 turns.
• Yukata Vania combines absurd burst for Wind every turn with powerful defensive utility. Her Queen's Charge III passive has her gain a stack of Regal Drop whenever any ally drains a charge diamond, up to 3, and she gains guaranteed triple attacks, echoes, and amplified auto-attacks in the process. Vania's main source of power comes from her skill Reaping Wings, a skill nuke which removes an enemy's buff and drains a charge diamond, but also grants her an assassin buff when she drains a charge, letting her dish out some serious damage. Her second skill, Crimson Order, fills 3 charge diamonds on a foe, ensuring she has a charge to drain, grants the party the Drain buff, and: a 50% boost triple attack rate, 15% to damage cap, 100% to debuff resistance, and 20% echoes. Its cooldown is long at 13 turns, but Vania's charge attack reduces its cooldown by 2 turns, greatly improving its uptime. All of this is further compounded by her second passive, Pure Royal, which makes her buffs unremoveable and makes her activate Reaping Wings at the end of the turn when she drains HP from an enemy, which means as long as there is a charge diamond to drain, Vania gets an assassin buff every turn for insane damage! And to cap off her defensive prowess, she has her third skill Queen's Decree, completely sealing an enemy's actions for a turn and also making their attacks highly inaccurate for six turns. All this power makes Yukata Vania a highly powerful ally to have, capable of smashing bosses with burst that almost rivals Grand Narmaya's, on top of having great defensive utility for longer and difficult battles. Once again, Vampy is core!
• Haaselia, the Evoker of the Moon was already a very solid support on her own, but her 5-star uncap turns her completely bonkers. The majority of Haase's power now revolves around maintaining the Full Moon phase, which she automatically grants to the party when The High Priestess Upright triggers post-uncap. Her level 90 passive, Lunar Reflection, grants a 40% echo during a Full Moon, granting more additional damage on top of the strong damage buffs she already granted to begin with. Her charge attack also extends the duration of Full Moon by one turn, letting her maintain her potent buffs more easily. But then there's more with her fourth skill, Lunatic Vendetta! She gains the "Beams of Lunacy" buff, which dishes out a multihit skill damage nuke whenever an ally deals multiattacks, and also makes her charge attack activate twice. On top of adding more damage and making her powerful buffs last indefinitely, Haaselia easily beats out Caim for being the highest priority Evoker to farm for their fifth uncap.
• Alanaan, the Evoker of the Sun have a long history of being a game breaker. On release, he was considered one of the best Evoker owing to his Renatian Creed, a skill copied from Light Ferry which grants 100% Triple Attack rate, and 30% Echo for 4 turns by consuming 100% Charge Bar from the entire team. Sun-Touched Paradise allows Alanaan to set a field condition that debuffs defense, increases attack power, and lets critical hits to happen even off-element. "Wrath of the Goddess" was also quite good, being a nuke with massive damage cap tied with a attack and defense debuff, local petrify, and a lingering damage over time effect. For a very long time, Alanaan had a stranglehold over the burst damage set of of Fire. With Renatian Creed, he ensures the entire team to output their optimal damage and due to its usage of Charge Meter, Fire become one of few elements who can actively made use of Strike Time during the time when Strike Time was considered sub-optimal.Sun-Touched Paradise allows him to apply a selfish debuff for the raid, on top of further increasing firepower, and Wrath of the Goddess can be useful to apply even more selfish debuff. Alanaan also had surprising amount of usage of what his skills are able to do. Since Wrath of the Goddess applies debuff to the party, it allows him to see off-element usage by using it to fulfill debuff conditions in the party. Similarly Sun-Touched Paradise can debuff any enemy regardless of their debuff resistance on top of giving extra power. Alanaan's The Hierophant Upright adds to his surprisingly diverse kit, being a powerful defense buff with drain attached into it with permanent uptime. Alanaan only started to fall off after the release of Michael and Wilnas which combined with Percival offers more modern mechanics for burst damage, without having to deal with giving him the charge bar to activate Renatian Creed.
  • And then his 5-star uncap drops. His The Sun's Benevolence now gives 50,000 supplemental damage on Critical hits when Sun-Touched Paradise is active, that stacks with other sources of supplemental damage since its tied into his field condition. The Hierophant Upright buff become much stronger, and immediately activates Sun-Touched Paradise upon entry. And finally Day of Redemption, his fourth skill, gives the entire team Flurry, a buff that splits your hits into 2 separate instances, which lets them benefit from Supplemental Damage twice, guaranteed 20% Critical Damage modifier to activate his field condition bonus, and activates Renatian Creed without requiring 100% Charge Bar condition. Alanaan's combination of efficient skill activation and powerful buffs was so overwhelming hes responsible for near singlehandedly pushing Fire into the best burst element upon his uncap's release without Fire having similarly powerful Illustrious weapons to leverage their power level.
• After years of being an average unit at best and being cursed with mediocre alternate versions, Europa finally rises back up to relevance with her fifth uncap and rebalance. To start, her Fountain Lotus stack system is increased to 10, and it now also increases when Europa uses a skill alongside triple attacking, letting it ramp up faster. Her Aldebaran's Afterglow buff from her charge attack is upgraded to grant 50% triple attack rate to the whole party, making their offense a lot more consistent. Her Star Sanctuary buff was also upgraded to last for 3 hits and grants permanent Dispel Cancel while it's active, and she also grants the party a shield to help maintain its upkeep. Europa also now interacts with the Glaciate debuff, which is raised by her charge attack, and also determines the power of her damage skills. Her Mana Blast now raises Glaciate level, and its hit count doubles when the enemy's Glaciate level is at 5 or above, dealing humongous damage alongside being a very sizeable heal, and her first passive reduces its cooldown by 1 turn alongside a 2 hit skill nuke whenever she deals a triple attack, improving its uptime. Her Pleiades remains relatively the same, but at Glaciate level 10, it also grants Europa a 3-hit Flurry buff for even more damage potential. To top it off is her fourth skill, Thermo Fos. Once she reaches 10 Fountain Lotus stacks, she can use this skill to grant herself and the ally next to her the Celestial Compassion buff, Autorevive, and Double Strike all at once. Celestial Compassion amplifies normal attack and skill damage, grants guaranteed triple attacks, and also grants Double Strike every 5 turns for the rest of the battle, which is an amazing boon to anyone that receives this buff. And as expected of their close relationship, Europa has truly insane synergy with her Primarch Gabriel, whose Glacies Ward greatly boosts DEF and triple attack rate to further strengthen the upkeep of Europa's Star Sanctuary, and also ensures a 100% triple attack rate for the party in tandem with Aldebaran's Afterglow. On top of that, Europa's emphasis on triple attacks helps to gather up Gabriel's Pagos stacks consistently, letting her blast the enemy with Marturion quite often for more damage. With all this newfound power, Europa cements herself as one of Water's strongest units, packing incredible offensive prowess, defensive utility, and healing support all in one.
• Payila is the Dragon Divine General, and takes the cake as easily the most overpowered Zodiac unit on release. Payila's power revolves around stacks of Trove's Luster, granted by her second passive For the Hoard whenever an ally has a Multistrike buff active, and also grants her 20% charge bar, which are consumed by her first skill Sleeping Talent, a 10-hit nuke that grants her up to Quadruple Strike at max (5) Luster stacks. Her second skill Shine like a Dragon grants the party the Cloudwalk buff, which amplifies normal attacks and grants Drain, 2000 Damage Mitigation, and Dispel Cancel, giving her great defensive utility. She further strengthens her defensive utility with her third skill Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained, which redirects all attacks towards her and dodges all attacks for a turn, and additionally grants all other allies Double Strike, building up her Trove's Luster stacks quickly. All of this is assembled together very nicely with her first passive, Queen of Dragons. It removes charge bar gain from her regular attacks and reduces her max HP by 20%, but compensates with guaranteed triple attacks, amplified normal attacks by 30%, and a massive 50% perpetuity boost to ATK and 150% to DEF, making her a lot tankier than she looks. Additionally, starting with the second attack from a Multistrike buff, she also gains a 100% Assassin buff, which combined with the potential Quadruple Strike she can get, results in utterly monstrous damage output. With truly insane damage potential and incredible defensive utility to boot, Payila is easily one of Water's best units.

Weapons

• The Dark Opus weapon series as a whole. They give a big boost to HP and attack of whatever element you make them, can be either Primal or Magna (and thus fit perfectly no matter what your grid is like), and get pendulums that act like the Ultima weapons' keys, but without the usual weapon specialty restrictions. Which is great, because with an Opus weapon, your damage is definitely going to improve. And lastly, Dark Opus weapons can be uncapped to 5* and have a weapon skill level of 20, making them a core piece in any grid. Their one downside is that their final uncap is gated behind Dark Rapture (Hard), a challenging lategame raid that requires a different setup and grid from the usual compositions.
• The Ancestral Weapons are weapons dropped from the late-game Six Dragons raids, and all feature skills that grant different kinds of supplemental damage, which is always worth examining for endgame players hitting the damage cap. Some are niche, but some are also very good.
  • Fediel's Spine in Dark grants up to 600,000 supplemental damage to charge attacks depending on how close units' HP are to 100%, and can stack with two copies up to a total of 1 million extra supplemental damage. It also has a weapon skill that boosts units' attack the more HP they have. Combined, Fediel's Spines are a powerful alternative to the standard Enmity builds in Dark that revolve around S. Zooey—since Magna Dark does have a charge attack boosting weapon, the Abyss Spine—and are especially good for fast charge attack based strategies like Chrysaor builds.
  • Ewiyar's Beak in Wind grants a normal attack buff equivalent to a Bahamut weapon's, and more importantly grants 100,000 supplemental damage to skills. While this doesn't sound particularly impressive, it's important to remember that supplemental damage applies to each individual hit of a skill. And Wind has a number of units with powerful multi-hit nukes, most notably V. Grimnir described above. Using two Beaks with V. Grimnir is over a million extra damage every turn from his first skill, let alone other powerful skill-centric units like Monk MC.
  • Wamdus's Cnidocyte defines Water's modern meta for both Magna and Primal, after the skill unification in mid-2021. The weapon simply grants 50k supplemental damage to all critical hits, as well as a flat 20% critical hit chance. Two copies maxes out the generic supplemental damage available in the grid, and both Magna and Primal can easily build the remaining 60% critical hit chance needed to guarantee crits. Combine with units that synergize well with crits like S. Cagliostro and Water Zeta, as well as supplemental damage synergies like Poseidon whose autos have three hits per attack and has guaranteed triple attacks like V. Grimnir, and Water Crit builds rack up obscene amounts of damage quickly.
• Weapons that provides stackable supplemental damage type boost when there are multiple weapons that shares the same weapon's type tend to be balanced around the fact that the weapon type usually didn't match the current elemental metagame, especially if you can't grind them willy nilly like some examples (though they can still get stacks from the weapon's itself as they tend to count itself as a stack). If they did, then they quickly conquer the metagame.
  • Lich's unlock weapon, Pain and Suffering, is one hell of a weapon that provides a lot of things in one package that it became the groundwork for other grid-support Grand weapons released for each element, up including Fire (Crimson Scale), Water (Gospel of Water and Sky), Earth (Pillardriver), Wind (Piercing Galewing), and Light (Harmonia). The weapon provides stackable attack boost based on how many specific weapon type equipped in the grid (in this case the Axe), supplemental damage boost, and boost to damage cap, the latter two being important to lategame grids where bypassing the damage cap is important in the current metagame. The supplemental boost stacks up to 100k with each weapon provides 50k, while the damage cap stacks additively with other sources (like Qilin Bow or the corresponding Cosmos weapons). Of course the effectiveness of the weapon's effect depends on your grid setup and the element's weapons (Piercing Galewing and Crimson Scale is less effective because there aren't many farmable daggers and axes for Wind and Fire you can fill into your grid of choice, unlike Crims, Gospel, and Harmonia where the weapons needed can be farmed and quite common), but even at two copies and without the required weapons to take advantage of the stacking buff, two copies of each weapon is enough to bring you throughout the metagame, even at fresh copy.
  • Out of all Revan Weapons, Sette di Spade is considered one of the best, and not just for Wind, but for off-element strat as a whole. The weapon has the ability to boost your EX Attack, HP, Multiattack Rate, Charge Attack Damage and Cap and special CA cap to all allies, stackable for each Sabre weapon type equipped in the grid. Looks tame, considering the percentage provided is relatively small, but the weapon is not restricted to the element, and all of it's passive skill stacks with non-Voltage skills, including itself, and it stacks additively. This alone allows the weapon to be slapped on any elemental grid that favors Sabre as their core booster (Wind alone has Primal Evanescence and Windhose, Light has Omega Lumi Swords and Dark Opus Blades for their core grid, and Fire has AES that syncs well with the Sword, which is rather ironic) even if it's just one fully uncapped copy, as the weapon counts itself as a single stack. It's considered worth it to stack up to 5 Spade in the grid for it's boost alone. It's so powerful that Cygames decided that enough time has passed that stacking five+ Sette's into off-element grid is too powerful and nerfed it (and every other Revans weapons) so that their awakening bonuses only works on matching element grids in the upcoming patch, with Cygames fully aware the ramifications of their choice that they start issuing refunds to everyone who had invested a lot of resources to obtain and uncap them (whether farming it regularly or spending valor badges for a full uncap set of 1). Even if the Wind element itself doesn't sync well with the weapon since there aren't many farmable swords that synergizes well with it, the weapon still sees rotation often, especially after the Mk-II update that boosts it's firepower into kingdom come, just not as mainstream as before.
• The Optimus Exalto series of Grand weapons are a must have for Primal Grids due to granting Primal weapon skills an extra 30% boost (stackable up to 90% at three copies). This effect alone justifies building the normally expensive Primal Grids because it skyrockets the value of all Primal weapon with just a single copy alone, since the Primal skill boost provided is at a flat 30% boost rate regardless of the weapon's skill level. Upon it's release later, the Omega Exalto series of weapons are basically the same, except it's for Omega Grids and it's only 20% per weapon but caps at 100%, which boosts the free-to-play grids significantly.
  • Kaguya's recruit weapon, aptly named Kaguya's Folding Fan, introduces this weapon skill and buffs the power of Wind's premire Grand weapons (Evanescence, Claihm Solais Dion, Piercing Galewing, to name a few). Additionally, at full uncap does it gain a weapon skill that boosts amplifies normal attack damage by 3% (caps at 30%) and is affected by summon aura, which is godly on attackers like Grand Narmaya. Finally, it also counts as dagger, which synergizes with Piercing Galewing's stacking weapon effect. Suddenly Wind Primal grids weren't such a joke anymore.
  • Grand Zeta's recruit weapon, Overrider, follows the above and, at full uncap, gains a skill that add a 4.5% bonus fire damage effect to allies (caps at 50%).
  • The Tiamat Bolt Aura and Luminiera Bold Credo are the first two Omega Exalto weapon released and provides the Exalto skill for the Wind and Light Omega grids respectively, but they also have the Vivication weapon skill, which provides Voltage-like stackable damage and damage cap boost per specific element Omega weapon in the grid, which caps at 20% total boost for each stats. For five Omega weapons (including those two weapon) in the grid, you gain 20% damage boost and 10% damage cap up, which can be easily achieved since there are a lot of easy to obtain meta Omega weapons to stuff into your grid. Combined with the Exalto skill, these two weapons become one of the must get for any Omega grid you build.
• Illustrious Weapons is a special series of weapons that was meant to be Purposely Overpowered for their respective elements that you can only get from trading 150 gold moons (equivalent of a sierotix). Naturally, some weapons tend to be more powerful than others, and three among them stand out.
  • Continuing the trend of Dark being cracked as all hell, the Ereshkigal is among the most powerful Illustrious Weapons in the game. It amplifies normal attack damage by 30% and boosts its damage cap by 20%, at the cost of a humongous 200% penalty to charge bar gain and a 40% cut to skill damage cap. Its charge attack grants all other allies Double Strike to take advantage of that potent attack damage boost. When uncapped to 4*, it grants Tell Ibrahim, a buff that sets the MC's charge bar to 100% at the start of battle, and also charges it to 100% for 2 additional turns, completely bypassing the 200% bar gain penalty and allowing for Double Strike shenanigans from the get go. The sheer damage output that can be pumped out more than justifies the very expensive 150 Gold Moon cost to get it in the first place. Additionally, being an axe, it synergizes perfectly with Pain and Suffering for extra crunchy numbers.
  • The second contender of the most picked Illustrious Weapon is the Hrunting, an Earth Sabre so powerful that the community joked that the weapon itself is currently the best Earth unit in the game, and it's not without merits. For starters, when used as the main weapon, it gives you Savage Mythology special buff, which grants you flat 30% ATK up that stacks with other sources, a massive 250% DEF up, and permanent Double Strike effect, with the only drawback being that you take 3000 damage at the end of the turn, but that's not all, because the weapon has second passive; it reduces all active allies turn-based damage taken by half, then grants them 30% Echo buff for 1 time, ensuring that you only take 1500 damage every turn, which is rather negligent and can be easily healed back. Best yet, it gains a mini Enmity skill at level 150 as a little bonus, in case that you don't really worry about being in under half health all the time. The charge not only deals Unworldly-level damage, but also inflict all allies with Blood Sacrifice debuff, which inflicts turn-based damage to those afflicted, ensuring that everyone in the team get the benefit of the weapon's second passive. To cut short, it basically turns anyone holding it into Fire Siegfried, and it ensures that you don't need to worry about your personal sustain.
  • The Hraesvelgr is widely regarded to rival Ereshkigal in terms of the sheer power it provides. Its first passive kills off the MC's charge bar gain from normal attacks, but compensates by amplifying their normal attack damage by 30%, and turns their normal attacks into a 4-hit flurry, and its second passive grants all allies a humongous 80% echo on their first normal attack, for huge damage potential right off the bat. Its third passive grants a massive 100,000 supplemental damage and a 10% boost to the damage cap, but reduces everyone's DATA rate by a nasty 100%. Now, that last drawback might seem very crippling, but Water has numerous ways to boost multiattack rate to help mitigate it (e.g. Haaselia, Europa, Gabriel, the Street King class), not to mention several very powerful characters have built in or consistently guaranteed multiattacks to begin with (e.g. Poseidon, Water Zeta, Grand Lancelot, Vajra, Payila), which makes the drawback not nearly as prominent. And even with single attacks, you're already dishing out so much damage that it's still an overall DPS gain!
    • Now, if you really want to make the Hraesvelgr absolutely bonkers, consider its six rifle bullet slots for the Soldier class. The optimal bullet loadout consists of five Expert Model: Chaos Legions from Beelzebub, and an Expert Model: Genesis Nova from Super Ultimate Bahamut. These Expert Model bullets are extremely difficult to craft,^{The full material costs are...}18 Full Metal Jacket Vs, 750 Abyssal Wings, 150 Ultimate Memories, 60 Damascus Crystals, and a Gold Brick. Yep. but once you manage to assemble it all, you're looking at five shots that can inflict the broken Bore debuff from Bubs's summon, finishing with an extremely high powered shot before reloading. With Soldier's already absurdly front-loaded burst potential, the damage this all deals combined with the truly insane power of the Hraesvelgr simply cannot be underestimated, making Water capable of such extreme burst damage that easily beats out Dark of all elements.
• Fenie's unlock weapon, the Phoenix's Torch, is one of the most loaded mainhand weapons released so far. Its charge attack from the get go reduces all of the MC's skill cooldowns by a turn, and at max uncap grants all allies Mirror Image for further utility. And that's not getting into its exclusive weaponskills at max uncap; Flame of the Godrender dishes out a 6-hit attack at above 50% HP that raises an enemy's Singed level by 1, giving it excellent synergy with Grand Percival and Wilnas, and Prayer of the Phoenix heals the entire party and boosts their charge bars by 10% at Singed level 7, further adding to the weapons great utility. It is overall, an amazing mainhand weapon for the Manadiver and Nekomancer classes.

Summons

• Two of the Genesis Series summons are quite powerful and are quite handy to have in any fight:
  • Shiva provides the "Path of Destruction" buff which raises the damage output of the characters' next attack by 110% and also raises the damage cap. This essentially means that the next source of attack will deal more than a double of its original value. With this buff, Charge Attacks will deal a lot until they reach their upper "hard" damage cap values, easily allowing you to deal millions of damage per character. Yet, you can still deal higher amounts of damage other than Charge Attacks if you've managed to optimize your grid and team buffs to the point where you can deal millions of damage per auto-attacks. This strategy is more viable, since auto-attacks take lesser time to cast than the longer animations of Charge Attacks. Fully uncapped, he also provides a massive 100% boost to triple attack rate, to ensure that insane burst happens.
  • Godsworn Alexiel initially provides 70% guaranteed damage reduction to the party for 1 turn, which can then be combo'd and stacked with other character abilities that provide further damage reduction. When you uncap the summon to 3★, the buff is strengthened to 100% damage reduction... or in other words, a complete invulnerability to your entire party for 1 turn. Even the notorious 999,999 damage from Proto Bahamut's Skyfall would mean nothing if you can simply take it without risks. The only things that could render it useless are Plain Damage attacks that ignore defense buffs. She starts to fall off starting with the Six Dragon raids, who ignore All Elemental Damage Cuts by default... but when she's uncapped to 4☆, she buffs the party's DEF by 1000% and gains a new and powerful utility by also dishing out a 3-hit attack and dispelling an enemy buff whenever the MC attacks.
• The Providence Series summons are considered to be the best and most sought after (mostly) unticketable summons in the game, thanks of plethora of reasons backing their claim and rarity, to the point that when Bahamut and Lucifer become ticketable, players immediately pick them for their suptix choices as their effects are much more worth it in long term. Generally speaking, you want to dump your Sunlight Stones to them until they reach 3★.
  • Bahamut grants you up to 150% boost to your Dark units attack at full uncap with its aura, grants bonus 20% attack power on call, and it's 4★ to 5★ also provides extra boost to your C.A. damage and cap for single use. What makes it downright demonic is it's Transcendance upgrade, which allows you to essentially uncap them to Lv 250. What does the Transendance upgrade do to it? Not only it boost its stats to the skies, it also makes the main aura applies to all elements similar to Bubs below, but much, much higher, and it also amplify other summon call damage by 30-50% when used as sub summon. The upgrade not only combines all of the summon call buff so far into a single undispellable buff that no longer consumed on Charge Attack, and it lasts 4 turns, but it also cut down every other summon's cooldown for 1 turn. Ruler of the Blue Skies indeed.
  • Lucifer also grants the same amount of damage boost with its aura for Light allies, but he opts for more sustainable option than Bahamut and grants the party healing and revitalize buff which helps Stamina builds a lot. His Transcendence loads him up to a truly ridiculous level, combining his ATK and Revitalize buff into one unique and undispellable buff, alongside granting Dispel Cancel. His main aura also becomes incredibly powerful, adding in a huge 50% max HP boost alongside the 150% elemental damage boost, combining both power and survivability without compromise, and he gains a sub aura that boosts healing specs by up to 30%, allowing for even more powerful healing.
  • Belial is different than the others. If you're weaker, he seems downright awful - his main aura is great, but caps your HP at 20k. In exchange, he also caps each damage instance at 5k per hit, but that's not enough to survive stronger raids because you're mitigating the big damage that would break that cap anyway (though it does have niche use). His sub aura allows you to deal 15/20/30k supplemental damage on each hit depending on how many stars he has...but also cuts your party's max HP by 30%. Considering the entire lategame meta is about finding ways around the damage cap, up to 90k per turn per character is godlike. The HP penalty also isn't actually that huge since it's an additive reduction, which means enough investment into your grid renders the HP loss completely trivial. He can also only be called once, but his effect activates every 6/5/4 turns after you call him. The call also provides a number of effects, which would be easier to just link to an explanation than type it all out.
    • Though it's not the part of the Providence Summons, Summer Belial grants nearly the same aura as his regular counterpart but for Fire summon. Since it's not part of the Providence Series, you can dump all of your Sunlight stones on him until fully uncapped instead of having to farm the Primarch's animas or using a Providence Globe, which severely cuts farming time and resource for uncapping him. The catch is that unlike the regular Belial, his debuffs are undispellable here.
  • Beelzebub stands as the most powerful Providence series summons to date, up until Bahamut Transcendance and Yatima eventually released. His main aura grants relatively decent attack buff to all elements, and his summon call pre-4★ grants a powerful yet still modest 40% DEF Down and Debuff resistance down. His true power lies in his sub aura, which grants the captain a single Trance stack everytime they perform their Charge Attack, up to three stacks. The Trance stacks grants multiattack buffs and in 4★ also grants the Captain bonus 50% perpetuity modifier attack buff and 20% damage cap up at maximum stack. The summon call also grants extra effects based on how many stacks of Trance the Captain get, which dispels up to 3 buffs from enemies, an extra 3 million plain damage, and a unique debuff that adds 100k damage to every single instance of damage for even better burst. Beelzebub singlehandedly becomes the cornerstone of Captain-centric builds at 4★ uncap, and it's perfectly fit into any elements and teams.
  • Yatima grants your team the benefits of having Lyria in your party without actually having Lyria in your team, allowing you to summon another extra summon stone per turn when set as your secondary or sub-aura summon. Her summon call activates up to 2 every other equipped non-sub-aura summons at random (excluding single-use summons like the Genesis series or Qilin), but the activated effects won't deal damage. Sounds pretty tame, right? Well it so happens that the effect itself allows her to copy 3★ Bellringer Angel's summon call effect, which allows you to be able to activate a random used summon that isn't a single-use summon. Basically the strategy is to equip Yatima with 1 reusable summon on cooldown, Bellringer Angel, and 2 single use summon that Yatima won't copy, so Yatima will always activate those two summons including Bellringer Angel's, allowing you to essentially summon one more time that turn. This exploit is so potent that in less than 24 hours they patched it so that Bellringer Angel is now a single use summon that can't be copied by Yatima. Even without the exploit, being able to activate 2 summon effect at once is just bonkers, and you can set it up so that she will always copy those two summons as long as you have other 2 single use summons in your team.
• The Primarch Series summons are also sought after in their own right due to their subauras which give a 5% boost to their respective elements damage cap , which rises to 15% when fully uncapped, and their powerful call effects. It helps that unlike the Genesis series summons, they’re like the Providence series summons and can be reused after cool-down.
  • Michael deals plain damage to all enemies based on their current HP, drains a charge, and dispels one buff. While the damage may not seem like much, the delay and dispel are always a welcome addition to fights with deadly triggers and reliance on buffs. Fully uncapped, she also grants the party an Uplifted buff, charging their charge bar by 20% every turn.
  • Uriel is considered to be the best Primarch series summon due to his call which gives all Earth allies Uriel’s Favor, a unique multiplier that boosts attack up to 30% and defense up to 50%. He also gives all allies a 30% charge bar boost which is useful for charge attack-centric teams. Fully uncapped, he also boosts the party's charge bar gain by 10% to help accelerate charge attack spam.
  • Gabriel is considered to be the second best Primarch series Summon after Uriel due to her call, which inflicts Pureflow on all fire enemies, an effect which boosts the damage taken and lowers damage dealt on water allies from fire enemies. The effect is local and has a 5 turn up-time. This along with the fact that she grants a 70% fire damage shield to all water allies which lasts one turn. When fully uncapped, she also grants Veil to the party, for further defensive utility.
  • Raphael inflicts the Undaunting Gale debuff, which prevents the enemy from using their special attack for a turn or two, and grants the party Mirror Image, making it very useful for delaying what would have been a nasty trigger attack to allow for some breathing room. Fully uncapping him also grants the party Raphael's Favor, a direct copy of Uriel's Favor, granting a strong buff to ATK and DEF.
  • Sariel is the dark Primarch summon that combines Uriel’s 30% charge bar battery, and Gabriel’s Pureflow effect to significantly boost damage dealt. Fully uncapped, he also grants the party a Supplemental Damage buff to further amplify the damage they deal.
  • Metatron is a powerful Light Primarch summon that combines Uriel's buffs to ATK and DEF, and Michael’s ability to remove one buff from the enemy.
  • Halluel and Malluel unlike the other Primarch series summons, they can only be summoned once per battle and have a lower boost to elemental attack as a main aura or a respectable increase to double attack as a sub aura. However, what makes them good is their call which inflicts on an enemy 15% attack down, 15% defense down and Everbane, a permanent and unremovable debuff which boosts damage taken to an enemy by 10,000 damage and lowers its HP every turn. Fully uncapping them increases the ATK/DEF debuff potency to 30%, and boosts Everbane's supplemental damage to 30,000.
• The damage increasing Arcarum summons have a subaura that amplifies elemental advantage damage by 10%. While this is similar to the Primarch Series summons, you don't need to cap to get the damage increase so long as you are fighting with elemental advantage. The Arcarum summons also do skill damage instead of standard summon damage, further improving their ability to contibute towards your damage output.
  • The Sun call is particularly powerful, giving Double Strike to the first 3 Fire Elemental character in the frontline. In essence this is effectively a reusable Shiva call, which is already quite ridiculous, but while Shiva call can't be stacked with Assassin type skills, Sun can.
  • Death call knocks out an ally at fourth position to give 4 turns worth of a guaranteed Triple Attack. While this seems like a very risky call to use, it turns out to be a very versatile call, not only having perfect synergy with the switch in mechanic of the Evoker, and effectively being Nighthound's Tactical Relocation to allow extra skill uses. The 4 turns of guaranteed Triple Attack effect itself allows a consistently strong damage output at the start of a fight. And as mentioned above, using it to kill off Nier cancels out the multi-attack rate demerit of her death while the other downside of disabled healing allows you to stay at enmity range, which can be used to enable a powerful burst damage strategy. Alternatively, Death is the easiest way to bring Nier out of the backline, which can often be troublesome for other elements and their Evokers.
• Huanglong and Qilin are extremely common support and sub summons for good reason. Both of them can only be called once per battle, but they enable a huge amount of burst damage in exchange. Moreover, they are farmable from the Huanglong and Qilin raid, though hosting them is gated by drops from the periodic Rise of the Beasts event.
  • Huanglong simply grants 100% charge bar to every party member, which means you can instantly unleash four charge attacks and a charge burst. For charge attack focused teams like Chrysaor mentioned above, this is the fastest way to set them up. Moreover, its support aura grants an extra 30% charge bar at the start of the fight, which means that units who can give themselves charge bar like the Chrysaor class again or Lyria can quickly activate charge attacks without even using Huanglong's call. An extremely common Chrysaor burst strategy is to do so on the first turn for one charge burst, then use Huanglong on the second turn right after. It's often one of the most accessible strategies for farming raids.
  • Qilin resets all skill cooldowns on call. There are several skills in the game that are balanced against a long cooldown, and Qilin simply waves that aside. Strategies revolve around unleashing huge amounts of damage via very quickly after calling Qilin, and it can also be used tactically or defensively by resetting defensive cooldowns in a pinch. Prior to it's nerf, it's a cornerstone for some of the hardest content in the game (Belial, Beelzebub, Super Ultimate Bahamut) and is generally a viable strat to have more than 3 of them, and possibly the reason why a lot of Earth characters shot up to high tier because of it. Eventually it got reworked so players can no longer have more than one of them in the current grid (including support summon).
• The Six Dragons already have a great call that deals a ton of damage and applies supplemental damage to your party, but what really pushes them into must have territory is their sub aura, which boosts Primal weapon skills by up to 40% at four stars. This makes the dragons incredible additions to Primal Grids as it stacks with the Optimus as a Main/Support Summon, and it also stacks with the Grand Primarchs' Arche passives that boost weaponskills by 20%.