Low Tier Letdown / Dragalia Lost

While Dragalia Lost has incredibly powerful Dragons and Adventurers, there will always be some that are considered underpowered, undertuned due to Power Creep, or are overshadowed by far superior options. Though with the release of Version 2.0, many of the examples in this page were rendered obsolete.

Adventurers

Pre-Mana Spiral Adventurers

• Ezelith, at one point, was considered to be one of the worst 5-Star Adventurers in the game due to her mediocre kit. Her first Skill has an incredibly long animation, leaving her highly vulnerable to purple area attacks, and is often noted to deal less damage overall compared to simply spamming her regular attacks. Her second Skill is arguably even worse, as while a 15% Strength boost is good, a measly 15% chance to reduce the enemy's Defense by only 5% for five seconds is often very unreliable. This was changed when Mana Spirals were introduced, which jumped Ezelith from one of the worst Flame DPS Adventurers to one of the best, to the point that she is commonly used in Master High Midgardsormr and Master Volk fights.
• Hawk and Nefaria were once considered severely underpowered Bow Adventurers, to the point that there were several 3-Star and 4-Star Bow Adventurers who were considered better, due to Hawk and Nefaria having Force Strike-centric kits that puts emphasis on inflicting Stun and Blindness respectfully, Afflictions that were considered unreliable for their respective High Dragon Trial fights. They were Rescued from the Scrappy Heap with their Mana Spirals, where their Force Strikes were given larger hitboxes after using their second Skills, an added Poison mechanic with their Abilities, and a few extra quirks that allow them to be relevant in hard content^note Nefaria dispelling a buff with her Force Strike, and both of them having insane SP gain with their own Force Strikes that allow then to spam their Skills faster..
• Maribelle has a relatively decent kit as a 5-Star Wind Adventurer, with her first Skill, Save the Day!, being able to lower Defense and has 100% Skill Prep. However, what holds her kit back are two factors: her Defense Down has a 50% success rate, and her Full HP = Skill Damage Ability, which is unreliable. Even when she's at full HP, her Skills' damage output is still relatively low. Furthermore, she suffers heavily from Power Creep, like Lily, with Mana Spiral Hawk and Louise, other ranged DPS Adventuers, having better damage output with their Poison inflictions^note With the latter having better survivability, thanks to a self heal on her Piercing Wind Skill, and there are far better options for a Defense Down debuff^note Wedding Elisanne, Gala Leif, and Valentine Melody. Worse, the High Mercury Trial isn't favored for her, as many of High Mercury's attacks primarily target the furthest Adventurer (which are generally ranged Adventurers), making her a larger burden for a fight that has a high damage output check. It's better to take a ranged Adventurer where their primary role to serve as a team buffer (like Noelle), or a healer (like Akasha) instead as the main "bait" for High Mercury. Version 2.0, and her Mana Spiral that followed afterward, did help her damage output a little bit, as her Defense reduction is now guaranteed to land, but the added Energy gimmick on her second Skill, that involves a 30-hit combo count, means she still needs more outside support to maximize her full potential^note Wyrmprints that are built around Energy and combo-hit counts; a Support Party Member with Freyja; or Shared Skills that involve the Energy mechanic, such as Pia's, Valentine Hildegarde's, Annelie's, or Summer Luca's. The introduction of Meene^note a Wind Bow Adevnturer who has a combo time Chain Co-Ability, Midgardsormr Zero^note who has increased Skill Damage effect when combo count is 15-hits or higher, and the Wind Agito Weapon having Combo Time Up as an Ability, makes Maribelle even more viable as a Burst mage in the Wind Element.
• Mikoto, at the time of the initial release of the game, was once considered to one of the best Flame damage dealers for High Midgardsormr. However, with the release of Mana Spirals and new Adventurers, he was severely power crept by other Flame Blade Adventurers, such as Nobunaga and Rena. Not helping is, when the first set of Mana Spirals were released for Flame Adventurers, he was passed over; mainly because there were other Flame Adventurers that need a power boost from the Mana Spiral more (Ezelith in particular). Not even his Shared Skill or his Chain Co-Ability saved him from this status, as his Chain Co-Ability merely increases Wind Resistance, while his Shared Skill is completely outclassed by Summer Luca's, which has a slightly lower SP cost and has an extra perk of Energizing the user. Version 2.0 did give him some extra help though, as his first Skill got a nice boost, and two days later, he got a Mana Spiral that really helped him out. It made his first Skill stronger, giving him a 30% Critical Damage boost when he’s in Ruin Stance, an extra five seconds to his Attack Rate Up buff, and increases how fast his first Skill fills by 10% when he gets a critical hit (but with a 15-second cool down), making him a pretty effective at being a Critical Hit Class Adventurer like Ezelith.
• A good number of Shadow Adventurers were this, prior to their Mana Spirals, mainly because Gala Cleo simply out-damaged all of them and provides way more utility for Master High Jupiter. In fact, Gala Cleo was considered so much of a source of power creep, that most players without Gala Cleo were often locked out from doing Master High Jupiter. This was rectified with other Shadow Adventurers getting Mana Spirals that allow them to match, or even surpass, Gala Cleo in terms of utility and damage. And the changes to the High Dragon Trial fights, and the introduction to Kai Yan Agito fight, allowed a more diverse roster of Shadow Adventurers for use.
• Fjorm, when she was first released, was the ideal Adventurer for speed clears on High Brunhilda's Trial, due to her Counter-Attack mechanic of Ice Mirror and her Last Bravery Ability, allowing her to cheese the fight during the opening blast phase of the attack. However, the introduction of Expert and Master difficulty fights makes it incredibly difficult for her to speed clear High Brunhilda due to the higher HP pool of the bosses and her weaknesses shining through. Her Skill animation was also relatively long, making her incredibly vulnerable to several of High Brunhilda's purple attacks, and Freeze is irrelevant for High Brunhilda since she is resistant anyways.
  • After her Mana Spiral was introduced in the rerun of the "Fire Emblem Heroes: Lost Heroes" Event, her Frigid Smash Skill was given Frostbite to increase her damage output, and her Ice Mirror Counter-Attack was given significantly higher damage, in addition to a self-healing effect based on the damage inflicted on the Counter-Attack, allowing Fjorm to speed clear High Brunhilda on Master and Expert difficulties. Shortly after her Mana Spiral, however, the High Dragon Trials were changed, where the damage of the opening blast was significantly reduced, making it even harder to trigger her Last Bravery effect with her Counter-Attack mechanic without certain Shared Skills^note like Durant or Yue's. She has, however, found a new home in the Ayaha & Otoha Agito fight. While her damage does not match up with Monster Hunter Sarisse, Tiki, or Pipple, her Freeze and Frostbite infliction are relevant to punishing Ayaha & Otoha's gimmicks; and there are numerous unavoidable attacks that gives her ample opportunities to punish the boss with her Ice Mirror Counter-Attack. Version 2.0 improved her significantly, doubling her mods and adding Frostbite Punisher on her first Skill.
• Lily was considered to be the worst Water Adventurer in the game, due to her long Skill animations, her very low damage output that does not make up for said long Skill animation, her dependence upon being at full HP to maximize her damage output, and her Freeze mechanic being useless against High Brunhilda. In fact, her long Skill animations are considered to be a huge hindrance in the Ayaha & Otoha fight, since they have numerous unavoidable attacks that would effectively punish Lily for launching any Skills. With Lily's low damage output, it just makes it harder for her to meet the damage check for Ayaha & Otoha. Not helping the matter is that Pipple, a 4-Star Wand Adventurer, has far better damage output with simply his basic attacks; and with the introduction of Yurius, another Burn Resistant 5-Star Water Wand Adventurer, many players feel that Cygames have effectively given up on her. She was eventually given a Mana Spiral, and while it doesn't make her a Game-Breaker, she is more usable in hard content. However, she is more dependent on the Game-Breaker Gaibhne & Creidhne Dragon due to her emphasis on her second Skill, Frozen Gale. Version 2.0 further amplified Lily's overall damage by adding a Frostbite Punisher effect on her first Skill, alongside with improving her damage with her standard attacks and Frozen Gale, making her more viable as a Burst mage, and adding more versatility to her kit.
• Lucretia is considered one of the worst Wand Adventurers. To start: she is naturally built around Energy and its lacking mechanics (see below but to shorten it: Energy requires a lot of work for very little reward), her first Skill is a travesty, only having three hits of 322% on its mods, for a total of a 966% modifier, which is very low, with a animation as long as Lily’s, and all you get for using it was a single Energy level. Her second Skill is also pathetic, as it only increases her Strength by a measly 10% and increases her Energy by two levels, meaning without a proper rotation, she’ll waste Energy.
  • However with her Mana Spiral, which not only doubled her first Skill's mods and gives a party Critical Rate Up, increased her Strength buff by an extra 5%, an increase to the amount of Energy Levels her Skills got, and the existence of Gala Thor, she is considered one of the strongest Adventurers in Light.^note However that’s only possible thanks to Thor having, bar-none, the best synergy with her. Any other Dragon drops her damage by a significant 10,000, according to Sims.
• Both Verica and Summer Verica are not actually bad Healers. In fact, they have pretty powerful healing spells at their disposal. The problem is that they are ill-equipped to handle late game content. This was remedied for Summer Verica when she got a Spiral through Trials of the Mighty, but regular Verica still has yet to get one.
  • Regular Verica has Stun Resistance, which is seen as not as valuable as Sleep Resistance, and her Abilities offer only mild boosts to her capabilities. Both Halloween Lowen and Valentine's Hildegarde got massive upgrades thanks to their Mana Spirals, most notably to their Abilities, which makes them far more valuable going up against Volk. Her second Skill, Time's Respite, is also considered more situational, since it only heals whoever has the lowest HP, whereas Valentine's Hildegarde offers up a powerful shield while Halloween Lowen increases the max HP by 10%. When the game first launched, Verica was considered a top tier healer, but since she's one of the few healers who hasn't had a Mana Spiral, she's been left in the dust. This was made even worse during Cursed Connections, where Kuzunoha showed up; the fox can do everything Verica can do and better, with her main party heal granting Overdamage and having resistance to all Wind damage.
  • When Summer Verica first dropped, she was considered the best Healer in the game. Not only was her first Skill, Everlasting Summer, one of the more powerful regenerating healing Skills, but her second Skill, Moment of Passion, essentially gives the entire team a life drain ability. However, her Abilities, all focused around increasing the power of her healing, combined with her having a Resistance to Blindness instead of Paralysis, severely limits her damage output and versatility. Regular Cleo, post-Mana Spiral, also has a regenerating heal spell that also increases Defense, and she has the ability to dispel enemy buffs, not to mention having a Potent Paralysis Resistance. And then there's Grace, who is arguably the best healer in the game and used in off-element content quite a lot. Fortunately, getting a mana spiral improved her value by granting her the ability to provide overdamage among other things.

Post-Mana Spiral Adventurers

• Halloween Elisanne's Mana Spiral is considered to be a Power Up Letdown. Originally, she was merely OK damage-wise, but had a unique playstyle that lets her spam her first Skill, and its Skill Shift effects, in rapid succession.^note Those being a Strength buff and a heal However, after her Mana Spiral, her first Skill gained Paralysis Punisher on the third Skill Shift and all of 2% added to its modifier, for well over double the SP cost. This effectively removes her unique playstyle and instead has her deal more damage not with her own Skills, but instead with any Shared Skills.^note Mind you, a majority of Shared Skills have SP costs of 10,000 or higher and deal 30% less damage It was considered so bad that many a player would never upgrade her Spiral past the Level 90 node. Cygames was made aware of her underwhelming Mana Spiral in July 2020 This Month in Dragalia article, and will address this in a future update.
  • Thankfully, during the August 11th 2020 patch, her Spiral was finally changed and she's now no longer considered a letdown. In fact, she is now great, all thanks to her second Skill and it’s new buff. After using Mischief Maker, not only does she still keep the free SP gain after using the Skill, but she now gains a new buff called Vampire Maiden. This decreases the damage caused by her auto attacks by 35%, but gives her a downright insane Skill Haste of 50% to compensate, counteracting the sheer SP cost that her first Skill now has. This also lets her have effectively infinite uptime on Vampire Maiden, allowing her to not only use her own Skills just as fast as before, but also lets her fire off her Shared Skills much faster. Later in Version 2.0 gave her another buff to her Modifiers, making her a great support/dps adventurer for the Light element.
• Celliera, at the initial launch of her release, was considered a decent free 4-Star Adventurer, obtainable from the "Loyalty Requiem" Event. Her Mana Spiral, however, was considered to be the most controversial. One of her Abilities was changed from HP 70% = Strength +8% (an HP gated passive that is considered to be decent), to a Critical Status Buff Last Offense +60% that only triggers once per quest. Her second Skill, Winter's Blade, allows her next Force Strike, or Ardent Stream, Frostbite alongside with Freeze, but she also inflicts herself with Frostbite. While the self-infliction of Frostbite synergizes well with her new Last Offense Ability, the Water Element isn't that Element that focuses on Critical Status Buff, as opposed to the Shadow Element. Water is more focused on buffers^note Karina, and both Elisanne and Gala Elisanne, standard attack-focus Adventurers^note Tiki and Pipple, or Adventurers with strong Force Strikes^note Hunter Sarisse and Xander. Overall, Celliera is a Square Race, Round Class Adventurer, where she has a Critical Status Buff function, but in an element that doesn't focus on this kind of playstyle; if you see any iteration of Celliera, it's her Summer incarnation, which is leagues better.
• Gala Cleo, who was initially seen as a High-Tier Scrappy before getting a spiral, had been considered this by many fans regarding her spiral due to it changing little to nothing in her kit. Not only that, but the materials for the spiral involve fighting Lilith in Trials of the Mighty, who quite a few have considered harder there than in her regular Sinister Dominion fight, resulting in a fair number of people not even seeing Gala Cleo's spiral as being worth the trouble.
• Naveed's Mana Spiral is considered very decent for a Sleep Resistant Flame Sword Adventurer, where his Crystalline Blades can dispell a buff, and has further increased Defense with Flame Blades' Protection Ability (an upgrade to his 100% Skill Prep Ability) when Crystalline Blade's buffed effect is active. However, he's simply Overshadowed by Awesome by Euden, a 4-Star Flame Adventurer that can also dispel buffs when in Dragon form, has better damage output, and can inflict Burn. Worse, several months after his Mana Spiral, Monster Hunter Berserker and Chrom were released, both of whom are also Sleep Resistant Flame Adventurers with far more superior kits than him. His Shared Skill is also irrelevant when Ranzal's Tornado Bash (an attack Skill that can dispell buffs and inflict Poison after Mana Spiral) is available for players for free. Version 2.0 gave him a little help by not only doubling the mods on his first Skill, but also an additional 20% Strength buff that last for ten seconds on his second Skill, which culminated in him instead becoming a Game-Breaker.
• Xander's Mana Spiral, while powerful under the right circumstances, has one major flaw that is considered a huge disappointment for his kit. His first Skill, Majestic Tide, grants himself a "Born Ruler" self buff that synergizes well with the buff stacking damage effects on his Skills (as well as granting him additional 5% Strength when the buff is active), and it also amplifies his Force Strikes, allowing him to act as a ranged Sword fighter. However, all stacks of his Born Ruler self are consumed whenever he uses a Force Strike or uses the third variation of his Majestic Tide Skill. Since Xander has his own Force Strike damage Ability, and in a weapon class that wants to Force Strike as often as possible in their attack combo, he is effectively punished for his own playstyle. The Mana Spiral forces the player to choose between building up Born Ruler stacks for his Majestic Tide Skill, or maintain combo damage with Force Strikes, at the cost of losing those stacks. Not helping is that Karina, a 4-Star Water Axe Adventurer that is easily obtainable for most players, also got a Mana Spiral, which not only has better synergy with her kit, but is also better at dealing damage when compared to Xander. Thankfully Version 2.0 gave him some help by doubling both the mods on his Skills with his powered-up Force Strike, helping to somewhat offset the awkwardness his kit has.
• Vice, after his Mana Spiral, was an amazing option for Shadow, with damage comparable to Gala Cleo. He gained respectable damage post-Spiral, which increases when the enemy is Poisoned. His second Skill is also rather unique. Not only can it now cause Sleep status, it’ll also cause his next Force Strike to inflict Poison, not only giving him a source of Poison, but it also means he won’t cause so much Poison the enemy won’t be effected by it anymore. In addition, he also has a higher Critical Rate thanks to him being a Dagger, once allowing him to deal damage comparable to Gala Alex. Unfortunately, Version 2.0 was released, and was merciless to him, as he was the only Adventurer to get a Nerf, having all of his mods cut in half, which dropped his damage significantly compared to how he was before.
• Serena got shafted with her Spiral. For how expensive Mana Spirals are, you get all of 7% and 3% added to the modifiers on her first and second Skills respectively. Nothing else changed in her Skill set. Her Abilities also got the barest minimum of a buff to them, with a 1% and 2% buff added to her first and third Ability respectively. Even more jarring is that Yuya, who got a Spiral at the same time she did, received an above average Spiral. While not gamebreaking, his Spiral still made him into a legitimately good Adventurer.

Miscellaneous Adventurers

• Prior to Version 2.0, the Water Element itself was noticeably weaker then the other Elements, with several Adventurers being far weaker then their counterparts. Not helping is that many Water Adventurers released don't have very strong kits, as opposed to what most Flame, Wind, and especially Shadow Adventurers have. With the release of Hunter Sarisse, this became significantly more noticeable, as she was leaps and bounds ahead of her Water peers, and it took until the "A Dash of Disaster" Event for there to be permanent Water Adventurers that are considered good. Yet despite that, the Water Element is still far below the others.^note For comparison, the four strongest non-buffing Adventurers in Water are less then half as strong as the 16 strongest ones in Shadow. Even the best damage dealers that don't rely primarily on their team buffs for most of their damage, such as Pipple, Tiki (Who deal more damage with their standard attacks, and in Tiki's case, can't use Shared Skills in her far superior Dragonform), and Hunter Sarisse (who uses Force Strikes for well over 70% of her damage) rely on Skill Sharing for a pretty decent chunk of their damage, despite Shared Skills being 30% weaker then normal and taking nearly 5 times longer to charge. It has gotten to the point that many players half-joke about how Cygames hate the Water Element, not only for the reasons mentioned above but because none of the Water Adventurers were given Mana Spirals with the release of Ayaha & Otoha Agito fight, barring three Adventurers who got them long before the fight was released. Not helping this joke is how, often times, it’s better to use a Shadow team instead of a Water team in Flame content, excluding Expert Ayaha & Otoha because of the sheer number of unavoidable AoEs. This is exemplified with the two Dragons on the June 2020 Gala banner being worlds apart, with Styx being so weak (see below) and Gala Cat Sith being such a Game-Breaker (See here). Topping it off is that the 6-Star Water Agito Weapons are the weakest of the Agito Weapons (also see below). The biggest irony, however, was that Water Adventurers and Dragons were once in a decent spot upon the initial game launch, before the Shadow Element was supremely beefed up. Thankfully, as of the September 2020 "This month in Dragalia Lost" announcement, Cygames announced that they have plans to buff all the other Elements, excluding Shadow. And with the release of Version 2.0, Water is no longer considered weak at all, as 42 Water Adventurers got significantly stronger. Hell, we could even make a case that Water is actually one of the strongest elements in the game now, with the combination of the adventurer buffs, the utterly monstrous powerhouses that are Karina and Mitsuba, and fantastically powerful dragons like Gaibhne and Creidhne, and recently, Gala Reborn Poseidon.
• As of the release of Tartarus’s Wrath, the entire Light Element is seen as underpowered. While the mostly Light-exclusive Curse Resistance was seen as necessary against the previous Shadow Element Superboss High Zodiark, due to his unavoidable curse-inflicting attacks, Tartarus lacks any unavoidable status-inducing attacks that need to be Resisted. As such, players found that using Adventurers of other elements, predominantly Shadow, increased DPS to the point where it takes much less time to use an off-element team to beat Tartarus than to use a Light team, which he’s supposed to be weak against. It got so bad that in the "This Month in Dragalia Lost" following Tartarus’s release, the game’s Director Yuji Okada announced that the game would be entirely rebalanced to bring the rest of the elements up to Shadow’s level.
  • Thankfully Version 2.0 was very kind to Light, as amongst the 150 Adventurers that received buffs, 44 of them were Light, with several of said buffs effectively doubling their damage modifiers, along with additional bonuses. In addition, max unbound Light Agito Weapons got their Strength buff doubled to 40%.
• Student Maribelle is a 5-Star Flame Wand and also shares the same strengths and weaknesses as her normal version (although the Student version has Broken Punisher instead of 100% Skill Preparation), and she's far more usable in her respective High Dragon Trial and Agito fight than her original version. However, much like her normal version, Student Maribelle suffers from Power Creep with Mana Spiral Xania (a 3-Star Wand Adventurer), who can inflict Burn on her Skills. Version 2.0 significantly helped out two of her biggest problems, as her Defense debuff is now guaranteed to happen, as well as increasing the damage of her second Skill.
• Halloween Melsa is a 5-Star Wind Lance Adventurer that’s extremely outclassed. To start, her Skills bring a 25% Strength buff for any Wind Adventurers, which is pretty good, as Noelle and Tobias can attest to. Her second Skill is unique, as it deals damage and temporarily decreases Poison Resistance of any enemies hit by it. Now, this doesn’t seem so bad, but things start to fall apart with her first Ability. Upon reviving, instead of coming back with 30% of her health, she will instead come back with 80% of HP, once. Activating only once per quest is bad enough, but many quests, including Master-level High Dragon Trials and Agito, don't feature reviving at all. It’s effectively a dead Ability. And remember her Strength buff? It’s no different then Noelle’s or even Tobias’ Skill, and they’re considered amazing Adventurers already. Similarly, her closest competition as a Wind Lance is Sylas, who is the best Support Party Member in the game, after maxing his Mana Spiral, thanks to his second Skill having a chance to give several different buffs, along with a guaranteed Skill Gauge Full Rate, making him hard to overthrow. Even the unique effect on her second Skill isn’t worth using, because if the Poison Resistance is being capped, then either the fight is taking far too long, almost timing out, or there are way too many Adventurers with Poison. Because of all this, she only tends to find use by people who really enjoy Melsa as a character, rather than as a legitimately great Adventurer.
• Typically, when trying to get new players into the game, one of the sales pitches by fans is "You can tackle most content with any Adventurer, even the basic 3-Star ones." Elias is the exception to that rule. His kit relies entirely on support from his showcase companions (Lucretia, Vixel, and Pia), so if you have him in any other team combination, he becomes extremely pathetic. The only saving grace is that he's a welfare Adventurer, meaning he won't clog up the Summoning pool.
• Philia is probably the least liked of the launch Adventurers. Her kit mostly relies on Paralysis, but her first Skill inflicts Poison instead, for some reason. Her Co-Abilities are OK, but nothing spectacular and is outgained by Wyrmprints. However, her Abilities are extra junky. Two of the three are dedicated to Paralysis Resistance, which only adds up to 75% rather than 100%, and the third relies on her having full HP to activate. Making things worse for her from a narrative standpoint, her Adventurer Story pretty much relies entirely around her falling in love with Euden and being a member of his harem, something already filled by Mym. And unlike Mym, she never gets an alternate or any Event spotlight to give her any kind of personality other than "in love with Euden." The player is expected to outgrow her fast, one way or another, before long.
• Raemond and Ryozen get this as well, though not to a huge extent as the above. As launch Adventurers who haven't gotten a Mana Spiral yet, they have weak stats, attacks, and Abilities and can only really hold their own in easier content. Ryozen at least has 100% Curse Resistance, but many much better Adventurers have that as well. This is only exacerbated by their lack of visual appeal, being elderly characters who most certainly look the part; in a game where the vast majority of the other characters are either Mr. Fanservice or Ms. Fanservice, they stick out like a sore thumb, and many players never bothered using them once they got better Adventurers. Cygames seems to realize this, as all elderly Adventurers since then (Audric, Cassandra, and Yoshitsune) have various means for them to access their younger, prettier forms, but that is its own can of worms.
• Any Manacaster wielder that isn't Rapid-fire tends to fall into this. While most of them aren't outright bad, and do have their own strengths, they just tend to be outclassed by the sheer utility and power of the Rapid-fire mode, with its rapid firing force strike that absolutely shreds Overdrive gauges and dishes out tons of damage without being reliant on skills. So far, only Ilia escapes this fate, even as a Long-Ranged Manacaster, thanks to her potent Critical Hit Class playstyle and her unique rapid fire dodge roll that lets her really rack up combo count. It also doesn't help that Rapid-fire Manacasters are practically a requirement in certain endgame fights that have huge hitcount based mechanics (Legend Ayaha and Otoha being one very prominent example).
• Poor, poor Myriam. As one of the very first Amp adventurers, pretty much everyone agreed that she was dead on arrival the moment her kit was revealed. Her first skill deals no damage, and only grants a strength amp, but said skill charges too slowly for Myriam to consistently keep the buff up and increase its potency. And her second skill can dish out impressive damage... assuming all of the hits land anyway, as the skill's hitbox is rather small, and the animation is painfully slow to boot, which means bosses like T.O.T.M. Poseidon and Iblis will have easily dodged the attack. Even her passives are very unimpressive, with an unreliable 30% chance to activate Reflexive Evasion when a team strength amp is active, and also granting a measly 10% skill haste with a team strength amp, which really does no wonders for her, especially with the buildup required to even reach a team strength amp in the first place. With that, every Wind Amp adventurer and dragon released after her would completely blow her out of the water, such as Cecile and Gala Volk.

Dragons

Welfare Dragons

• The Five Greatwyrms, all considered the most powerful dragons of their respective elemental domains, are all rather disappointing in gameplay. Midgardsormr and Jupiter give +15% mixed Strength/HP to Wind and Light respectively, Brunhilda and Zodiark give Strength +20% to Flame and Shadow respectively, and, the worst of them all, Mercury who gives +20% HP to Water Adventurers, and that's when they are maxed! And because they’re available for free^note Midgardsormr is given after Chapter 1, the others easily gotten in the Treasure Trade, they come with pitifully weak stats. For newer players, by the time they can fully unbind them, they will most definitely have superior 4-Star Dragons, even without having the latter be max unbound. However, the introduction of Midgardsormr Zero, released during the "Forgotten Truths" Event, has given many players hope that these Dragons could see some legitimate usage in the Meta with their possible ‘Zero’ versions.
  • While forgettable due to the way players can acquire them as playable Dragons, the five High Greatwyrms, High Midgardsormr, High Brunhilda, High Mercury, High Jupiter, and High Zodiark are all pretty lackluster, only having a Mixed +35% Strength/HP and Dragon Time +20% when fully unbound. And these are the stronger versions with some of the most difficult fights in the game! Only High Zodiark and High Jupiter have gotten some actual use, thanks to them doing what Nidhogg and Liger do, but have much stronger Dragonforms. This is a shame, because they’re all considered amazing looking Dragons that players wish to use, but can’t, due to them being worse choices then nearly every other summoned Dragon. High Jupiter has it better than the others since he's one of a few dragons that remains viable against Lilith, due to having no buffs for Curse of Nihility to wipe away, but that's his only saving grace. All five of them are given a fifth unbind in the third anniversary which gives them an ability called "Surge of Strength" granted players a 40% boost of power for 3 minutes at the beginning of the fight, but not much else has changed other than their strength/HP boost being lifted to 40%.
• The free Raid Event Dragons, those being Pele, Sylvia, Martimus, Shishimai, Peng Lai, Phantom, Yulong, Erasmus, Parallel Zodiark, Ebisu, Rathalos, and Barbatos, are almost completely worthless. Each of them boast pitifully weak stats and Abilities. At most, they have either +40% Strength/HP or +25% Mixed Strength/HP, excluding Rathalos, Shishimai, Parallel Zodiark, and Barbatos, who instead have +30% Strength/HP, Critical Damage +70%, Strength +25% & Critical Damage 40%, and Strength +20% & HP below 30%=+40% Strength respectively. Because of this, outside of fresh, brand new players, they are worthless. The only exceptions are Ebisu, just because he’s the only pure HP Shadow Dragon^note useful for healers and allowing Grace a stronger Life Shield, but even he’s horribly outclassed by Azazel and Nidhogg with their better stats, and Pele back during the early months of the game against High Midgardsormr, where getting an Ifrit, let alone maxing one out, was much harder. Eventually the developers decided to stop giving away free Dragons during Raid Events (outside of reruns and the compendium), instead introducing Convictions, which are used for the Mana Circles of welfare Adventurers.

Gacha Dragons

• Generally, HP Dragons, Dragons that only increase maximum HP rather than Strength or HP/Strength, are frowned upon, outside of Healing/Support Adventurers, mainly because damage Dragons are preferred, as most content, such as Raid Bosses, Agito fights, and High Dragon Trials, are a Timed Mission. The only HP Dragons that manage to escape this fate are Phoenix^note Provides tons of health regeneration, and an easily accessible budget option for newer players since she's a 4-Star Dragon, Freyja^note Provides health regeneration like Phoenix, but also provides five stacks of Energy to the entire team, and has a passive Skill Haste buff for Wind Adventurers, Halloween Maritimus^note creates a buff zone that increases Skill Damage for allies standing in it, and has a passive Skill Haste for Water Ability, Azazel^note increases the entire team's damage against Poisoned enemies for forty seconds, and gives a passive Skill Haste buff for Shadow, Tie Shan Gongzhu^note energizes the entire team, and gives a passive Skill Haste buff for Light and more recently, Jeanne d'Arc^note though this is only for Gala Zena, who also gains a Strength boost equal to the HP bonuses gained.
  • A specific mention should be given to Simurgh, who is not only power crept by Halloween Maritimus, but Simurgh is designed akin to a Combat Medic, where she inflicts damage and heals, and has an Overdrive Punisher Ability. The problem is, out of the current Water healers, only Sandalphon has potential as a Combat Medic that would effectively utilize Simurgh's setup. The only saving grace Simurgh has is that she is more easily accessible than Halloween Maritimus, since she isn't a limited Dragon.
  • Garuda is also a HP-based Dragon like Freyja, but her active Skill only heals the user.
• Mixed HP/Strength Dragons like Liger, Poseidon, and Nidhogg, are considered Master of None, as their HP and strength boosts aren't as extreme like more dedicated HP or Strength Dragons^note In comparison, most of the former generally have 20-35% HP and Strength boosts in one Dragon, as opposed to 50-60% HP and Strength boosts individually for the latter. Though Nidhogg and Liger have since improved a bit thanks, to Grace and Gala Zena respectively. Grace appreciates the extra HP for her Life Shields, and Zethia can use Liger as a Glass Cannon option for her^* This is because of his 35% HP boost Ability instead becoming a 70% Strength and 35% HP but even then, they’re both still outclassed by High Zodiark and High Jupiter respectively, who, despite having weaker stats due to them both being welfare Dragons, have better modifiers, significantly in High Jupiter’s case, meaning even a single shapeshift or two can already make High Zodiark and Jupiter better.
• Takemikazuchi is considered the poster child for a dragon outclassed by other options all because of his Abilities. He has a 30-40% strength buff and Overdrive Punisher 20-25% for Light Adventurers. Now this isn’t too bad on paper, but in practice, there’s a few problems. To start, his Strength buff is weaker then Lindworm's, meaning during those times when a boss isn’t in the Overdrive state, Takemikazuchi is a worse option then a 4-Star dragon. And even when the boss is in Overdrive, the Strength bonus is the equivalent of 50-65%, which, while being just a little above Cupid, suffers greatly by the inability to make use of the extra damage that’ll be lost when the boss exits Overdrive and enters the Break state, which is where one's damage really spikes. While later Shadow bosses have Overdrive gauges that last for much longer, such as Tartarus, there have been other dragons that have been released after him that deal far more damage by default, like Corsaint Phoenix, Daikokuten, and especially Gala Thor, while still being able to make use of the damage boost when in the Break state that Takemikazuchi cannot. Lilith saw a rise in Takemikazuchi's use, thanks to Curse of Nihility gimping Thor quite a bit.
• Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, and one of the more famous characters from the tales of H. P. Lovecraft, is pretty pathetic as a Dragon, let alone a dragon in the Shadow Element. Boasting a measly +35-50% Strength buff so long as the User is above 30% HP. Then there’s his second Ability, Last Bulwark, which grants the Adventurer a single use shield that blocks damage worth less then 50% of the user’s max HP. This effect was so bad it later received a buff into Moonlit Howl, which now adds a 20% buff to the user's Strength when the aforementioned shield was active. Sadly, it's still worthless when compared to just about every other Shadow dragon, like Marishiten or even a regular MUB Juggernaut, because of their constant Strength buff not having any conditions attached to them. While still having a much stronger buff. When he got a fifth unbind, his first ability was changed to provide a 50% Strength buff regardless of HP, allowing it to stack with his second ability, which now increases Strength by 30% instead of 20%. His first ability also has Surge of Strength II, which increases Strength by 40% for the first 3 minutes of the quest. While Nyarlathotep can potentially boost strength by 120%, that amount drops to 90% without his second ability, which only lasts 20 seconds and is instantly lost if the shield is lost, and it ranges from 50% to 80% once Surge of Strength runs out. Unfortunately, while Nyarl's buff does make it overall more useful, the numerous other super powerful Shadow Dragons continue to make him pretty mediocre. Though in his favor, many of said Shadow Dragons are Limited (either via crossovers or Galas), so if one doesn't have them, Nyarl can find some use.
• The Primed Strength Dragons, those being Kamuy, Kagutsutchi, and Hastur. They give a 45% Strength at MUB, then another 15% Strength for 10 seconds when the controlled Adventurer’s first Skill becomes available. The problem is that the temporary Strength buff has a 15-second cooldown upon activation, but only lasts 10 seconds, meaning it has an uptime of 66% tops. But even if you played optimally and had the first Skill ready as soon as you could buff again, you'd still have only 60% Strength from your dragon, when dragons that just give you 60% Strength without any strings attached exist. Yep. Even using them as a back-line dragon isn’t worth doing, as there are much, much better options for the AI to use that’ll give better results.
• Styx is considered one of, if not the, worst Dragons in the entire game. Even the other dragons mentioned on this page can have some use even if they are outclassed. Her only Ability is (Water) Compounding Skill Damage, which gives a Skill Damage buff of 40-50% after 15 seconds, that goes up to a max of 160-200% after a full minute. At first, it sounds pretty good, but the problem is that it's only going to work on one Skill. Because it's always better to use attacking Skills as soon as possible, unless you need the invincibility frames, you would, at best, have a 40-50% Skill Damage boost for just the one single Skill. Waiting for the higher Skill Damage buffs after 30 seconds isn't worth getting either because, in that time, your Skills could have been used several times already. Even her Dragonform is pretty lackluster, it doesn’t have very strong modifiers and in order to max out her Ice Spirits, you require something with Dragon Time, be it with a Wyrmprint or through something like Gala Euden’s Co-Ability. Compared to say, Siren, the dragon with the closest equivalent in terms of use, who gives a permanent 70-90% Skill Damage buff and a small 10-20% Strength buff along with a 30-40% one time Skill damage up with her skill. Many players would practically consider her the poster Dragon for how much the Water Element is shafted. To rub further salt into the wound, she was released on the same banner as Gala Cat Sith, a Game-Breaker of the highest order. The only saving grace is that her Ability is a buff bracket, meaning it’s calculated multiplicative, instead of additive like Siren, and the Dragon is designed specifically for two Adventurers in her showcase (Eugene and Catherine). But even then, Eugene and Catherine have much better Dragon options for their kits.^note Eugene would want Gaibhne & Creidhne since the Dragon's buff zone synergizes well with his own buff zone and her ability allows him to spam his more frequently, while Catherine would prefer Nimis or Dragonyule Jeanne since her "perfect escort" buffs amplifies her standard attacks and Force Strikes, and it takes a very long time to build up her second Skill, Perfect Order, anyways due to the high SP cost. Unless a future buff somehow reworks Styx, she's gonna stay really bad.
• Uriel is generally considered to be the worst of the Archangel dragons, as he suffers from Crippling Overspecialization far more than the other Archangels. His secondary effect boosts Strength and the chance to inflict scorchrend when the character dodges and attack, up to +30% Strength and +80% affliction rate. Sounds okay... except it only lasts for 20 seconds. 20 seconds is generally not impactful enough in the long run, especially considering how the buff is triggered only by dodging attacks, which only Faris specializes in. Unlike Ramiel and Gabriel who offer a great degree of versatility to their adventurers, Uriel is far too niche to be overall useful. But hey, at least he's hot!
• Gala Thor seems awesome on paper what with +50% unconditional Strength, auto-charging Energy and extra Strength based on the Energy saved up. He does have use in Light-centric events and against High Zodiark and non-Legend Tartarus, but then the Curse of Nihility became a major endgame staple and he fell hard. Several dragons boast Light-based or unconditional Strength bonuses surpassing his (Chronos in particular surpasses his Energy-based Strength boost at three unbinds, let alone four), and Reborn Jeanne is offensively competitive in addition to providing a max HP boost, which by its nature is Nihility-proof. Extra nails were hammered into the coffin when various dragons gained their fifth unbind (including normal Jeanne and Cupid), enabling them to mop up what was previously considered late-game content before Surge of Strength expires. Many players who once sung his praises are now mocking him for his lack of use, to the point aforementioned Cupid (a healing Dragon) is considered better than him. Mechanics remaining the way they were up until shut down rendered Thor being considered the dud pull of Gala Dragalia. And Valyx doesn't count; while Valyx always shapeshifts into Thor, it's his own abilities as an Adventurer that leave him permanently energized, and said ability doesn't synergize with standalone Thor at all.

Other

Weapons

• The Water Agito Weapons, prior to Version 2.0, were considered to be the weakest of the Agito Weapons, since it granted the user a 8-12% Critical Rate buff (comparable to a maxed Dagger Co-Ability) or 25-35% Defense buff (which is the weakest of the Agito Weapon Defense buffs). The Critical Rate buff is considered to be useful for six Adventurers, those being Elisanne, Catherine, Pipple, Lily^note The four of them deal a majority of their damage via standard attacks. Elisanne, because a majority of her personal damage comes from her auto attacks instead of her second Skill. Cathrine, however, would rather just go for the Boring, but Practical Gala Elly/Ranzal combo, and for Lily it does depend on if you're using Gaibhne & Creidhne, instead of Siren, for more Break damage., Monster Hunter Sarisse^note Who deals about 70% of her damage with her Force Strikes, and Tiki^note Because she can’t use Shared Skills in her Dragon form. All other Adventurers are better off utilizing Shared Skills if they equip the Agito Weapon. Not helping is that Ayaha & Otoha is considered to be the hardest Agito battle, often taking 6-8 minutes to clear, and it's generally better to use the materials to maximize the Water Tree Facility first, and get the materials from the weekly treasure chests instead. Thankfully, Version 2.0 gave it a pretty useful buff. When max unbound, the user would now gain a permanent 20% Strength buff along with the 12% Critical Rate buff, significantly improving the Weapon's capability.
• Amongst the game's various Weapon Classes, many players consider the Blades to be the weakest of the bunch for various reasons. While they do have one of the best Co-Abilities in the game, that being Strength, a lot of Blade Adventurers often didn’t have a very powerful Skill set to take advantage. Blades also have a vast majority of their SP gain placed at the very end of their combo, which makes you vulnerable to getting hit and get knocked out of said combo, gimping ones damage. They are also the only Weapon type that lacks a 40% Skill Damage Wyrmprint, which hurts their damage even further. While there was several powerful Blade Adventurers like Ieyasu, Victor, Rena, and Yachiyo, powercreep was not kind to them, such as stronger Adventurers or more ways to cause Afflictions that were on stronger Adventurers. They did still have some use, because they were still needed on the front lines to give their Co-Ability to the team, but when Cygames revamped the Co-Ability system, their Strength buff wasn’t needed on the frontlines, making them much better for the backlines. They also don’t receive a lot of buffs, with few receiving rather poor Mana Spirals that didn’t do enough for them. Version 2.0 didn’t give many Blade Adventurers buffs to their modifiers, leaving only one Blade Adventurer as a Meta option.^* That being Gala Luca, who has some of the best damage in his element. Blades would later finally get a Skill Damage Wyrmprint for their weapon type, and the release of the fantastically powerful Gala Zethia in the 3rd Anniversary would bring the weapon back to speed.

Gameplay

• Energy was a unique idea for a mechanic that fell flat on its face within the first few steps. Energy by itself didn’t do anything, only by gaining five stacks of it would your Adventurer be Energized, adding an extra 50% to the damage/healing modifier of the next Skill used. Sounds pretty good, so what’s the problem? A few things:
  1. It only buffs a single Skill. Want to use your powerful second Skill, but it’s not recharged yet? Then you can’t use any other damaging or healing Skill until then.
  2. Getting afflicted will automatically remove all energy buffs immediately, effectively making you waste your time.
  3. Energy caps at five, meaning you cannot gain anymore Energy Levels until you’ve used a healing/attacking Skill. This makes the Skills that gain two levels of Energy always waste a level.
  4. It takes a long time for Energy to fully charge up. Just about every single Skill that gives Energy only increases the level by one or two, meaning it can take quite a while to be Energized. And you gain nothing from it until you’ve been fully Energized.
     • Because of all of this Energy has, at most, become a secondary bonus and not something to actively build around. Thankfully, it has since gotten slightly more worthwhile using, thanks to Adventurers that actually use Energy well. Not only do they gain Energy much faster, but they can gain something from individual Energy Levels instead of having to be fully Energized. Adventurers such as Pipple^note who has no attacking Skills, Yaten^note has two Skills that give him Energy and has passives to to make use of each individual energy gaine Yukata Curran^note Makes Energy by comboing with his first Skill, Nadine^note Gains Energy just by hitting enough times with her first Skill, has a chance of getting a free Energy Level, and gains a Strength boost every time she gains Energy and both versions of Sarisse^note Their Chain Co-Abilities grant an Energy Level for every 25/20 hits for Flame and Water, along with having one attacking skill that benefits from energizing, who have fast charging Skills, can take the most advantage of it. For Dragons, Gala Thor^note Gets a stronger Strength buff the more Energy the user has, and passively gains a level of Energy every five seconds, Pop Star Siren^note Who gives three levels of Energy with her skill, Shinobi, and Freya^note both Energize the whole team immediately make Energy worthwhile.
  5. The Curse of Nihility renders it completely useless. This seriously kills the viability of Energy-centric adventurers and dragons, ESPECIALLY Gala Thor.
• Affinity Bonuses are considered by many to be an Awesome, but Impractical mechanic. Certain Wyrmprints have Affinities attached to them, letting the Adventurer they’re equipped to gain a bonus buff, like increased Strength, Force Strike damage, Status Resistances, or Buff Time Up, when the Affinity is high enough. Each Affinity also has certain levels needed to activate, such as Skill Damage needing exactly four prints with the correct Affinity, or the Force Strike Affinity needing 2-4 prints, with two prints giving a small 5% buff, 8% with three, and 15% with four. But it’s held back by two things: Only certain Wyrmprints can give the Affinity Bonus, not a lot of prints have it, and often times these prints don’t have the best synergy due to their values often being worse then other options or share the exact same maximum value. For example using Resounding Rendition, Heralds of Hinamoto, Valient Crown, The Wyrmclan Duo, and/or Luca’s Prank^* Which all give the same 30% Skill Damage. Using two of these prints means you’ll only get 40% Skill Damage instead of 60% because of the Wyrmprint cap of 40% Skill Damage, Teatime^* Which gives 20% Skill Prep, inferior to the 50% of Rouge's Banquet, Forbidden Relic^* Gauge Inhibitor +20%, which makes the Overdrive Gauge increase slower, which is largely worthless especially with bosses that automatically enter overdrive, and How To Flee Properly^* Last Defense 50%, all to get a bonus of 10% Skill Damage. In addition, because it’s only possible to equip two 3/4 star wyrmprints you'll have to use two of the Skill +30% prints which, as mentioned before will force the cap of 40%. Meanwhile using, say, a single 30/40% Skill Damage print and four other prints that are considered legitimately useful like Affliction punisher or Flurry Strength. Because of this, it’s just not worth building for the Affinities at all.
  • The only major exception is the Dragon Damage Affinity, as several Wyrmprints with that Affinity not only have great synergy, but don’t have the exact same effect. Workable Wyrmprints include Red Impulse, An Ancient Oath^* Dragon Skill and Dragon Claws respectively, Pecorine’s Great Adventurer^* HP 70% =Strength 13%, Blossoms on the Waters Edge^* Dragon Haste 5-8%, The Bridal Dragon^* Dragon Damage 10-18%, and/or Duelling Dancer^* Flurry Devastation 5-10%, which are all great Wyrmprints for shapeshift-heavy Adventurers like Mym, Audric, Xainfried, and Euden, to name a few. Though building for the maximum level of four isn’t always worth going for because you’ll lose out on using the one of the two biggest Gamebreaker prints.^* Those being the [Weapon] Skill Damage Print and an Affliction Punisher print for a measly 12% more Dragon Damage, over three Dragon Damage Affinity prints.
  • The Buff Time Affinity is also usable, because healers and buffers don't have many use for the higher-tier Wyrmprints, such as Skill Damage or Punisher prints.
  • The various Affliction resistance affinities do see some use occasionally, particularly when one is trying to Auto the Expert Agito's such as Stun res for Volk and Burn res for Ayaha and Otoha.