Unit Summaries (6★ Units)

(return to Unit Rankings) == Unit Summaries (6★ Units) ==

2B

 * Physical damage dealer with solid output.
 * Innate dual wield and varied weapon selection make her easy to gear.

9S

 * Support unit with decent stat breaks, several imperils, and a 30% party mitigation buff.
 * Unfortunately, his dual-stat breaks are split the wrong way-- ATK/DEF and MAG/SPR, rather than ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR, which means you need a second breaker to survive the first turn anyways.
 * His LB is a tad more powerful than his on-demand breaks, but only when maxed, which may not be worth the investment.

A.I. Katy

 * Physical/magical cover tank with 55% full breaks.
 * Can also buff six different elemental resistances and chain with the Bolting Strike, Stardust Ray, and Chaos Wave families.

A2

 * Physical damage dealer with solid output.
 * Innate dual wield and varied weapon selection make her easy to gear.
 * Her primary chaining move, Offensive Heal Combo, has unique chaining frames which means the chains may break depending on various factors. She's best paired with herself.

Ace

 * Without ability awakenings, he is unremarkable.
 * With ability awakenings, he becomes a good instant mana battery, which is useful for story events, as well as trial bosses that drain MP.
 * He provides powerful imperils for fire, light, and lightning.
 * His personal damage output is fairly low, or too rng-based to be practical.

Adam

 * Adam wants to be a provoke tank. Unfortunately, he can't provoke.
 * Leave him on the bench.

Adam Jensen

 * Mid-tier lightning physical chainer with innate dual wield.
 * Has a 45% full break.
 * Lacks chaining partners, and his chains always break in the middle.

Aerith

 * Incredibly powerful healer with excellent support capabilities.
 * Has Curaja and Reraise.
 * Can provide break immunity, AoE reraise, 30% general mitigation, and help to fill ally LBs.
 * Is immune to and can cure stop.

Agrias

 * Without ability awakenings, she's an average light chainer with not enough ATK.
 * With ability awakenings (more specifically, Divine Ruination +2), she can chain that 7-hit ability with Orlandeau and the rest of the DR family.
 * Her own damage is still not great due to her stats, but she'll see some use in 10-man trials if you need a chaining partner.

Aileen

 * Solid earth physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Stardust Ray and Piledriver families.
 * Has a bit of utility-- minor AoE MP regen and earth resist.

Akstar

 * Fire/ice physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity, Divine Ruination, and Aureole Ray families.

Aloha Lasswell

 * Wind/water physical chainer with innate dual wield.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Amber

 * Subpar physical finisher.

Amelia

 * Has innate dual wield for guns only.
 * Can be used as a physical chainer if you're desperate, but her damage is very low.

Ang

 * Good physical fire chainer. Unlike most units, his chaining move is delayed by a turn, but will always spark chain perfectly with a copy of himself.
 * After spending several turns chaining, use his limit burst, which is the source of most of his damage.

Aranea

 * Aranea wants to be a physical finisher. Sadly, she's not very good at her job.
 * Her damage output is alarmingly terrible.

Aria

 * Good healer with AoE 100% revive and support spells.
 * As with most 3* and 4* healers, she needs a dualcast materia (or Holy Wand) to shine.
 * Can also provide a bit of MP regen for the party, although it can be hard to fit this in since she can't heal on the turn that she uses it.

Arngrim

 * Subpar fire physical solo damage dealer.
 * Burns through MP very quickly while not dealing much damage.

Ashe

 * Non-elemental magical chainer with healing effects attached to her damage skill (Heaven's Fury).
 * She can also use Thundaja to serve as a competent (but not amazing) solo damage dealer.

Ashteroze

 * Can break ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR, but the breaks are a bit subpar. Could be useful if you're new and desperate for a breaker.
 * The rest of her kit is poison focused, so completely irrelevant.

Atoning Dragoon Kain

 * Subpar physical chainer with elemental flexibility.
 * With his ability awakenings, can chain with Graviton Cannon family.

Aura

 * Decent wind physical chainer.
 * Finding chaining partners will be nigh-impossible since friends won't be using her.
 * Her ability awakenings increase her damage significantly, but she still falls far short of being top tier.

Auron

 * Decent physical wind/fire chainer with good breaks.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Aurora Fryevia

 * Great light hybrid chainer with several chaining families.
 * Can chain with the Aureole Ray, Onion Slice, and Absolute Mirror of Equity families.
 * Burns through her MP very quickly.

Awakened Rain

 * Extremely durable magic cover tank and provoke tank.
 * Has a 60% MAG break and 60% stat buffs (120% buffs with his ability awakenings).

Ayaka

 * Healer with access to Curaja, Reraise, Esunaga, Full Life, and Dispelga.
 * Can serve as an MP battery for the team by using Dedication.
 * Is immune to Stop and can cure it.
 * With her ability awakenings, she can also slightly fill the LB gauges of teammates and grant Stop immunity.

Bai Hu & Zhu Que

 * Great fire/lightning physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination family.
 * Can temporarily unlock Q-cast.

Balthier

 * A subpar physical finisher with elemental flexibility.
 * Takes a couple of turns to ramp up as he goes through his rotation.

Barbariccia

 * Excellent AoE wind magic chainer.
 * Can provide MP regen and lightning/wind resistance. With ability awakenings, can also buff the team's mitigation by 25%.
 * Her personal MP consumption is a bit on the high side, so she may have trouble on longer fights without a battery.

Barret

 * Subpar physical chainer, hampered by terrible equipment selection, a dearth of passives, and lack of chaining partners.

Bart

 * Bizarre mix of dodge-based provoke tank, support, and physical chainer.
 * Can provide 60% AoE breaks, AoE LB fill rate, and some minor AoE MP sustain.
 * Chains with the Kingsglaive, Tornado, and Flood families.

Bartz

 * Dated physical damage dealer with a focus towards wind.
 * Can suicide to refill an ally's HP/MP. Also has Entrust.
 * With ability awakenings, can suicide to provide reraise to one ally.

Barusa

 * Physical cover tank and provoke tank.
 * Without his ability awakenings, he's mediocre at best. With them, he's extremely durable and an solid unit overall.
 * Can buff physical or magical mitigation for himself or an ally, with an accompanying DEF or SPR buff, respectively.

Basch

 * Amazing cover tank-- can cover either magical or physical attacks (but can only cover one type at a time).
 * Has an excellent gear selection, making it easy to gear him for elemental resistances.
 * Has great dual-stat breaks for ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR, as well as slightly stronger single-stat breaks for all four stats.
 * His ability awakenings make his single-stat breaks drastically stronger, making him a viable dedicated breaker.

Beach Time Fina

 * Standard healer with a standard kit. Not awful, but nothing special, either.
 * Can provide a bit of AoE MP regeneration and aoe water resist.

Beatrix

 * Excellent AoE breaker.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family, but not while maintaining her best breaks.

Belgemine

 * Decent magic fire/ice/lightning chainer.
 * Can fill the esper gauge.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination family.

Beowulf

 * Excellent breaker with decent hybrid chaining capabilities.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Beryl

 * Excellent unit that can fill several roles.
 * Ideally used as either a tank who also chains, or as a chainer that also provides powerful breaks.
 * Chains with the Bolting Strike, Disorder, and Octaslash families.

Black Cat Lid

 * Subpar physical finisher.
 * Has killer effects that cause her to deal bonus damage to certain types of enemies, but she's very lackluster outside of those specialties.

Black Mage Golbez

 * Subpar magic chainer and summoner.
 * Chains with the Flood family.

Blossom Sage Sakura

 * Competent lightning magic chainer with some support capabilities.
 * Can provide ailment immunity, MP regen, mitigation, and some elemental resistance buffs to the party.

Bran

 * Decent physical lightning/light chainer and a competent mana battery.
 * Thunder Clap is Bran's chaining skill, dealing AoE Light and Lightning damage, while imperiling those two elements. The damage is fairly low by today's standards, but AoE physical chainers are relatively rare.
 * Elven Song provides AoE HP/MP regen.

Cagnazzo

 * Durable provoke tank who is good at his job and nothing else.
 * He can't take any other actions while provoking.
 * His equipment selection and stats aren't amazing, but the extremely high mitigation on his provoke makes up for it.

Camille

 * Physical chainer that can use water or earth.
 * She can chain with either Aileen or Tidus, both of whom are extremely powerful, making her a good budget option for players who don't have a good chainer of their own and want to pair up with a stronger friend.

Cecil

 * Physical cover tank who can only protect one ally.
 * He's badly outdated and should not be used unless you're just starting out and lack better options.
 * Can also provide a bit of AoE healing.

Cedona

 * Physical DPS with very poor damage output.
 * Has some weird counter abilities that might be useful if the proc chances weren't so low.

Cerius

 * Can provide powerful increases to fire, ice, lightning, and dark resistance.

Charie

 * Very weak support unit.
 * Can provide mediocre buffs to DEF/SPR via her LB, and has a bunch of other irrelevant skills.
 * Do not use.

Charlotte

 * Without her ability awakenings, Charlotte is an average physical-based cover tank with some additional utility (AoE MP regen), but her stats are a bit too low for her to safely soak up large amounts of damage.
 * Her enhancements aren't a massive upgrade, but they do slightly improve on every aspect of her.

Charming Kitty Ariana

 * Excellent ability-based healer with built-in dualcast for most of her moves and lots of utility.
 * In addition to standard healer fare like AoE healing and ailment cures, she can provide reraise, break resistance, and elemental resistances.

Chic Ariana

 * Weak magic chainer.
 * Also has a couple of elemental skills that are even worse.

Chizuru

 * Dated AoE physical chainer.
 * Phantom Shadow is her best skill, but that's not saying much.
 * Ability awakened Molt gets her 2/5th of the way towards full evade.

Chloe

 * Support unit that can provide 70% buffs to any elemental resistance.
 * Can also provide some damage boosts by imperiling enemies, granting magic killer effects to your other units, or breaking DEF/SPR.

Chocobo Rain

 * Jack-of-all-trades unit who can fill many different roles but isn't particularly good at any of them.

Chow

 * Excellent magic cover tank with amazing utility and great gear selection.
 * His LB is arguably the strongest skill in the game, combining powerful AoE mitigation with massive party-wide MP recovery.
 * Other useful abilities include AoE Stop and Charm immunity, powerful self healing + reraise, and Curaga.
 * Look at him. He is the best dog, and he deserves hugs and treats and love.

Christine

 * Ice magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Chaos Wave and Absolute Zero families.

Cid

 * Physical finisher.
 * Requires a setup turn in order to burst, and his damage isn't that high.

Circe

 * Magic chainer with excellent elemental flexibility but noticeable ramp up time.
 * Her damage is very low until you use her limit burst, which unlocks several much stronger moves.
 * Chains with the Bolting Strike, Absolute Zero, Disorder, and Chaos Wave families.

Citan

 * Powerful physical chainer that can choose between water and wind.
 * Requires an external imperil. Unlike most chainers, he cannot apply one himself.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Citra

 * Very weak magical light chainer with some support capabilities.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination family.
 * Her damage is terrible, but she can buff the party's magic mitigation, fill the esper gauge, and provide some extra healing.
 * Her evocation damage moves are also very weak.

Cloud

 * Physical finisher, with the bulk of his damage output loaded into his LB.

Cloud (KH)

 * Physical chainer.
 * Has no imperils of his own.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination family.

Cloud of Darkness

 * Dated physical damage dealer with some very weak ailment cure and elemental resistance skills.

Cor

 * Subpar solo physical damage dealer.
 * Has a 40% ATK/MAG break, which could be decent for new players that don't yet have anything better.

Crimson

 * Solid fire physical chainer.
 * Deals good AoE damage with his LB.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination and Absolute Mirror of Equity families.

Crowe

 * Mediocre support unit with a 30% mitigation buff.
 * Can grant single-target buffs of 100% to a single stat, provide a bit of healing, or use her LB to buff elemental resistances.
 * With her ability awakenings, she can also restore a small amount of MP to allies.

Cupid Artemios

 * Prior to ability awakenings, is an awful unit that should not be used for any reason.
 * With awakened Flash Barrage, he becomes a competent solo damage dealer.
 * Unfortunately, he has a passive that can cause him to suicide by covering female units, which is especially problematic if you're using a female tank like Mystea or Ozetta.

Dangerous Ariana

 * Weak magic damage dealer with some equally weak stat buffs.
 * Can increase LB fill rate for the party.

Dark Fina

 * Without ability awakenings, she is a very weak solo magic damage dealer.
 * With ability awakenings, she's a weak magic chainer.

Dark Knight Cecil

 * Dark physical finisher.
 * Without ability awakenings, his skills are suicidal and deal very little damage. Do not use.
 * With ability awakenings, his skills do decent damage... but will still kill him.

Dark Knight Luneth

 * Physical finisher with extreme suicidal tendencies.
 * Do not use.

Delita

 * Without ability awakenings, he has absolutely no skills worth mentioning.
 * With ability awakenings, he can provide strong DEF/SPR breaks and minor AoE MP regen, but is still not worth using on harder encounters.

Demon Rain

 * Without his ability awakenings, Demon Rain is terrible and should not be used.
 * With his ability awakenings, he has the ability to draw attacks and mitigate damage which, when coupled with his boosted enhanced passives, allow him to tank much more effectively.
 * His counters are even more effective with boosted attack passives and damage modifiers.
 * However, if you gear him for ATK, his survivability may suffer to the point that he'll have trouble surviving, so his counters are primarily useful for the LB and esper crystals they generate.

Desch

 * Support unit with not enough to offer.
 * Learns 4 different "Spark" skills which debuff two stats at a time, but the most useful combinations (ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR, available from other units) are glaringly missing. His atypical combos are slightly useful in specific trials, but are generally a lot worse.
 * With his ability awakenings, he can consistently imbue allies with lightning, but this is typically not useful enough to be worth bringing an otherwise useless team member.

Deuce

 * Solid ability-based healer and buffer.
 * Her healing song provides significant healing and MP regen. After a couple of turns of ramp-up, it also buffs DEF/SPR by 100%.

Dietlinde

 * Passable physical chainer with Onion Slice frames.
 * Has a powerful 84% DEF break on her LB.

Divine Soleil

 * Serviceable ability-based healer.
 * Her actual healing output is lower than that of most other healers, but she can grant mitigation to specific units while healing, which helps to make up the difference if most of the damage is concentrated on a single unit (like a cover tank).
 * Has access to single-target reraise. Also, her LB grants a large stat buff to all allies and cures breaks.

Doga

 * Earth magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Quake family.

Drace

 * Weak support unit with a couple of stat buffs and minor MP restoration.
 * Can cure Stop.

Dracu Lasswell

 * Awful damage dealer both before and after his ability awakenings. Do not use.

Dragonlord

 * Magical damage dealer with the hardest hitting on-demand ability in the game.
 * Burns through insane amounts of MP (150 per turn), which makes him extremely difficult to use on any fight that lasts more than a couple of turns.

Dressy Aileen

 * Earth physical chainer with decent utility.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Duke

 * Weak ice physical chainer.
 * On top of his mediocre modifier, his chains will always break before the last hit, which limits his damage even further.

Eclipsa

 * Support unit with a powerful 65% break on her LB.
 * However, she has no access to good turn 1 breaks.

Eiko

 * Excellent healer and summoner with innate dualcast.
 * Can both heal and fill the summon gauge at the same time, or provide an LB fill rate buff and fill the esper gauge simultaneously.
 * Can AoE cure stat breaks.

Elbis

 * Terrible physical fire solo damage dealer.
 * Do not use.

Elena

 * Competent hybrid chainer with elemental flexibility.
 * Chains with the Bolting Strike, Aureole Ray, and Stardust Ray families.

Elephim

 * Decent support unit that can buff and break.
 * Unfortunately, her on-demand breaks are single-stat.
 * Her LB provides massive full breaks, but will take quite a while to fill.

Eleven

 * Fire/lightning physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Bolting Strike family.

Elfreeda

 * A mix between a breaker, provoke tank and counter-based DPS. Unfortunately, she does not excel at any of those roles.
 * The lack of mitigation on her provoke means that she'll typically die to harder-hitting bosses unless she is extremely well geared, and even that may not be enough.
 * Her ST breaks provide a dispel and are serviceable at best, but due to the low turn duration on her provoke skills she won't have that many turns to use them. Clever Smile has special mention here as it breaks both offensive stats while also having a provoke attached to it, rendering most of her other breaks null.
 * Note that the dispel attached to her single-stat breaks will dispel other breaks, which typically means that they're a very bad idea unless you have another unit to reapply an ATK/MAG break.

Ellesperis

 * Competent dark physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Bolting Strike and Aureole Ray families.

Elly

 * Subpar magic chainer with low damage output and no chaining partners.

Elza

 * Solo damage dealer/breaker.
 * Prior to ability awakenings, she's extremely weak. Even with her awakenings, though, her damage is relatively unimpressive.
 * Has good DEF/SPR breaks, but they are probably not worth the cost to awaken them.

Emeralda

 * Water/wind magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Tornado and Flood families.

Emilia

 * Weak physical chainer with innate dual wield for daggers.
 * Can chain with the Octaslash and (after a setup turn) Onion Slice families.

Emperor

 * Solo fire magical damage dealer who takes many turns to get going, but deals very high damage once he gets there.
 * Fire From Below increases in damage with each use up to a cap, reaching its maximum potential after nine uses.
 * Control is a massive MAG buff and SPR break, but also reduces the SPR of your own units, which may get them killed if you don't have a way to deal with it.

Emperor Shera

 * Competent fire physical chainer.
 * Has AoE break resistance and a decent DEF/SPR buff with attached fire resistance.
 * Finding friends to chain with will be extremely difficult.

Estark

 * Excellent physical chainer with innate wield.
 * Can chain with Orlandu's Divine Ruination, and similar attacks.
 * Has a 60% ATK break.

Esther

 * Powerful physical chainer. Even at 6 star rarity, she outdamages many 7 star units.
 * Chains with the Bolting Strike, Absolute Mirror of Equity, and Aureole Ray families.
 * Thanks to her innate 30% dodge, she can also serve as a dodge cover or provoke tank, although her physical cover only lasts for one turn.
 * Her damage skyrockets even further if you can provide her with True Doublehand gear.

Eve

 * Like his brother Adam, Eve has various skills that help him to survive damage, but nothing that lets him actually protect his party.
 * He's awful. Don't use him.
 * Those abs, though.

Exdeath

 * Weak mage with bad skills, terrible gear selection, and poor base stats.

Explorer Aileen

 * Great physical chainer. She's best off using earth weapons so that she can elemental chain with regular Aileen and take advantage of her imperil. Unless you have TDH gear, give her dual wield, rather than using her innate doublehand.
 * She's a walking chainer, which means that her chains may break on some enemies depending on where the game has them positioned.
 * Has excellent utility in the form of a 50% ATK/MAG break.
 * Can chain with Aileen, Camille, and Lara Croft.

Fayt

 * Mediocre physical chainer with great elemental flexibility.
 * He can imbue himself with several different elements, and imperils every element with his LB.
 * However, his chains always break, which severely hampers his damage output.
 * Can also function as a competent solo damage dealer with Blade of Fury.

Fei

 * Physical chainer who is not part of any chaining families and lacks any decent 7* chaining partners.

Felix

 * Mediocre earth/fire hybrid chainer.
 * Has good damage for a 6* unit, but chains very poorly with anyone other than a dupe. Not even a 7* copy of him will make a good partner.
 * Has a strong 60% ATK/MAG break on his LB.

Fidel

 * Subpar physical chainer.
 * Only really notable for chaining with Fayt, but the chains will always break.

Fina

 * For a starting healer she is quite serviceable with Curaga, Raise and Superior Healing (which can cleanse most ailments). She can provide additional utility with Entrust.
 * She can equip her exclusive equipment which provide decent stats, but more importantly a steady source of MP regeneration.
 * Her enhancements aren't particularly necessary, and it may be better not to spend the crysts and gil on such minor upgrades.
 * As you begin to move into endgame content, she falls off in effectiveness, and you'll want to look for other, better healers.

Firion

 * Dated solo physical damage dealer.
 * Without his ability awakenings, his damage is awful.
 * With them, it's something approaching usable against the enemy types he has killer passives for, but is still not great.

Flammie

 * Buffer that is missing some standard buffer utility.
 * Can buff stats, typed mitigation, and elemental resistances.
 * Can buff general mitigation for one turn with his LB.

Fohlen

 * Mid-tier physical wind chainer.
 * Gets Mirage (physical evasion) as a bonus from his chaining move.
 * Finding chaining partners will be difficult.
 * Can reduce encounter rate in exploration missions.

Folka

 * Incredibly powerful healer with excellent support capabilities.
 * Has Curaja and Reraise.
 * Can provide break immunity, ailment immunity, stop immunity, charm immunity, and barriers.
 * Can restore the party's MP.

Franis

 * Very weak chainer.
 * Do not use.

Freya (VP)

 * Competent magic chainer.
 * Burns through MP very quickly.

Friese

 * Niche breaker who can greatly reduce enemy stats.
 * However, she cannot break both ATK and MAG on the first turn, which will often get you killed.

Fryevia

 * Hybrid ice chainer able to reach high MAG and deal excellent damage.
 * Despite her innate Doublehand effect, she's better off being built for dual wield with an emphasis on the MAG stat.
 * Her frames change with her enhancements. With Frost Flower Blitz +2, she chains perfectly with Orlandeau and the rest of the DR family.
 * Is locked into dealing ice damage, which can cause problems against ice immune bosses.

Gaffgarion

 * Without ability awakenings, he is a poor dark attacker with suicidal skills. Do not use.
 * His ability awakenings increase his damage somewhat, but not by enough to make him worthwhile.

Garland

 * Awful damage dealer both before and after his ability awakenings.

Garnet

 * Prior to enhancements, she's an average healer/summoner combo. She has access to the basic Curaga and Raise. She does extra damage when evoking espers, which can help to one-shot bosses from certain thresholds when used to cap a chain.
 * Prayer to the Eidolons and her LB (coupled with her innate High Tide) allow her to build the esper gauge quickly (and without your units needing to attack).
 * After enhancements her Raise turns into a Full-Life (essentially) and her Curaga receives a slight boost in effectiveness. Her summoning damage is also boosted considerably.

Gilbert

 * Mediocre buffer/MP battery.
 * Requires his ability awakenings to be good-- without them, he is trash tier.

Gilgamesh

 * Without ability awakenings, he is a poor physical chainer.
 * His ability awakenings significantly improve his ATK and damage, but his damage is still subpar at best.
 * Finding chaining partners will be nigh-impossible.

Gladiolus

 * Gladiolus is a physical cover tank.
 * Unfortunately, he has no utility, and the 3* and 4* physical cover tanks are usually a better option.
 * He does have some damaging moves, but if you gear him for ATK, he has trouble surviving, and if you gear him for survivability, his damage will be awful.

Glauca

 * Weak dark/light physical chainer.
 * Daybreak Darkness can chain imperfectly with Knight Delita.

Goken

 * Subpar physical chainer.
 * Do not use.

Grace

 * Terrible physical finisher.
 * Do not use.

Gravey

 * Terrible physical finisher.
 * Do not use.

Great Dragon

 * Terrible fire physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination family.

Grim Lord Sakura

 * Fire/dark/lightning/light Magical chainer.
 * Has some good utility. AoE break immunity, several elemental resist buffs, a DEF/SPR buff, single-target reraise, and a handful of AoE ailment immunities.
 * Chains with the Chaos Wave, Disorder, and Bolting Strike families.

Grinfield

 * Extremely weak physical/hybrid chainer.

Hayate

 * Very poor solo hybrid damage dealer, both before and after his ability awakenings. Do not use.
 * Can reduce encounter rate in exploration missions.

Heavenly Technician Lid

 * Powerful support unit with very strong breaks.
 * She can also provide AoE MP regen and (somewhat unreliable) 30% mitigation.
 * With her ability awakenings and latent abilities, her strongest breaks become much easier to maintain.

Helena

 * Physical solo damage dealer with poor stats and even worse modifiers.
 * Has innate dual wield, but only for guns, daggers, whips, and throwing weapons-- none of which have high ATK in the first place.

Heliarc

 * Ice magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Octaslash and Freeze families.

Heltich

 * Subpar magical chainer or awful solo damage dealer.
 * Liberation is likely to get him killed, so don't use it.

High Seraph Ultima

 * Non-elemental magic chainer.
 * Personal damage is unimpressive, but she can unlock quad-cast and chain well with certain 7* units.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity and Tornado families.

Hyoh

 * Strong fire/lightning physical chainer.
 * His damage will skyrocket if you have access to True Doublehand gear, putting him on par with some 7* units. Without that gear, though, dual wield may be preferable-- it does very slightly less damage, but cuts his MP consumption in half.

Ignacio

 * Finisher with some support capabilities.
 * Can imbue other units with fire.

Ignis

 * Good buffer who requires setup turns.
 * His clunky rotation can be a serious problem on many fights, especially if units are dying, but if you can work around it, he gets the job done.
 * Consider using Cradle of Horns for buffing on turn 1 before his buffs are set up.
 * Can imbue allies with certain elements.

Ilias

 * Support unit that covers several uncommon niches.
 * Capable of using any item (most notably Elixir) on the whole party.
 * Can make allies fully immune to ailments via Immunization, provide break immunity, restore MP, cure ailments, and buff DEF/SPR.
 * However, most of his skills must be unlocked by using another skill first, and many of them only last for one turn.

Illusionist Nichol

 * Unusual support unit able to turn any ally into an AoE physical cover tank, although whoever he picks will be significantly less durable than a "normal" tank.
 * Can break ATK/MAG by 45% (50% with ability awakenings).
 * He works best with provoke tanks and particularly durable non-tank units, such as Zargabaath.
 * He can dualcast most of his abilities.
 * His LB grants two stacks of AoE mirage, as well as HP and MP regen over 3 turns.

Immortal Flame Katy

 * Barely competent healer.
 * Can also break ATK/MAG by 55% or 60%, although the skill is random and will sometimes break DEF/SPR instead, making her an unreliable support unit.

Iris

 * Decent ability-based healer.
 * Her actual skills are pretty good, but she periodically has to spend a turn to unlock the ability to dualcast them, and taking a turn off from healing can get your units killed.
 * MP costs are quite high, causing her to run dry very quickly.
 * Can restore the MP of allies.

Jecht

 * Powerful water physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination and Quick Hit families.

Jiraiya

 * Mediocre hybrid fire/lightning hybrid chainer.
 * After setup, can chain with the Octaslash and Kingsglaive families.
 * Can AoE buff elemental resistances and provide mirage.

Joachim

 * Great buffer who relies heavily on his LB.
 * Once it's up, he provides 124% DEF/SPR, 30% mitigation, and HP/MP regen.
 * His non-LB skills are a lot less useful.
 * Consider giving him Cradle of Horns for turn 1 buffing. Items that help him to fill his LB more quickly are also a good choice.

Kaede

 * Subpar physical chainer.
 * Has a slight amount of utility. Minor ATK/MAG buff and very minor LB fill rate buff.

Kaito

 * Physical solo damage dealer with AoE mirage.

Kaliva

 * Prior to his ability awakenings, he is basically unusable.
 * With his ability awakenings, his damage is still unimpressive. His healer skills are even worse.
 * Has a good water/ice imperil.

Karlette

 * Solid hybrid chainer with elemental flexiblity and support capabilities.
 * Can buff elemental resistances and mitigation.
 * Chains with the Quick Hit and Absolute Mirror of Equity families.

Kefka

 * Mage with very low damage.
 * Can escape from battles, so that you can go replace him with a better unit.

Kelsus

 * Very weak delayed physical chainer.
 * Has innate dual wield for fists only.

Kihana

 * Weak support unit.
 * Has access to some powerful breaks and buffs, but they are locked behind multiple turns of setup, making her borderline unusable.

Killian

 * Physical fire solo damage dealer with poor output.
 * Relies on unlocking the ability to quadruple-cast his abilities, but his modifiers are low enough that his damage is still unimpressive.

Kimono Ayaka

 * Physical chainer whose damage scales off of SPR.
 * Requires an external imperil.
 * Can provide some AoE healing/MP regen.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Kimono Fina

 * Ice/light magic chainer.
 * Has some utility in the form of heals and some AoE LB fill effects, as well as a few other goodies that are locked behind a random skill.
 * Chains with the Chaos Wave family.

King

 * Absolutely awful solo physical damage dealer who focuses on using his basic attack.
 * Output is very, very low and his attacks take forever.
 * Has innate dual wield for guns only.

King Edgar of Figaro

 * Powerful support unit with very strong breaks.
 * Can imperil several elements and chain with the Stardust Ray family.

Knight Delita

 * Without ability awakenings, a mediocre damage dealer. With them, he's an excellent physical lightning chainer.
 * His limit burst is one of the strongest ATK/MAG breaks in the game and will drastically reduce the damage of bosses who are not immune to it. He also has a much weaker on-demand break for those two stats.
 * He gets a massive amount of %ATK from his passives post-enhancements, which makes him quite strong even with minimal gear.
 * Is locked into dealing lightning damage.

Kryla

 * Breaker with 70% on-demand single-target breaks.
 * Can buff and imperil elemental resistances for allies and enemies, respectively.
 * Can AoE dispel all allies and enemies.
 * Chains with the Absolute Zero, Bolting Strike, and Chaos Wave families.

Kuja

 * Subpar magic lightning solo damage dealer. Requires his ability awakenings.
 * Can buff lightning resistance for the party by 100%.

Kurasame

 * Very strong hybrid ice chainer.
 * Chains with the Quick Hit family.

Kunshira

 * Mediocre hybrid chainer with lots of elemental flexibility.
 * Has innate dual wield for swords and rods.
 * Can buff various elemental resistances.
 * Finding friends to chain with will be nearly impossible.

Kupipi

 * Mid-tier healer with innate dualcast.
 * Can buff DEF/SPR by 109% via her LB.

Kupolkan

 * Weak support unit that can buff elemental resistances.

Kyanos

 * Physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Octaslash family.

Lara Croft

 * Physical chainer with low modifiers.
 * Can chain with enhanced Aileen and Explorer Aileen, making her a decent budget partner.
 * Has innate dual wield for daggers, whips, throwing weapons, and guns.

Lasswell

 * Extremely weak physical damage dealer.
 * Do not use.

Lenneth

 * Mediocre dark physical chainer.
 * Burns through MP very quickly.

Leopold

 * Competent physical tank.
 * Can AoE buff mitigation by 42% for three turns via his LB.

Lexa

 * Solid magic wind chainer with Tornado and Aeroja.
 * Has innate dualcast.

Libertus

 * Competent physical cover tank who typically requires a setup turn.
 * His cover is extremely weak unless you use his provoke the turn before.
 * Can AoE buff mitigation by 30%.

Lightning

 * Terrible physical damage dealer, both before and after her ability awakenings.
 * Do not use.

Lila

 * Physical damage dealer with unusual mechanics.
 * Her strongest skills scale off of SPR rather than ATK, and she should be built accordingly.
 * Can imbue and imperil several different elements, and triplecast her abilities after a setup move.
 * With her ability awakenings, she chains with the Graviton Cannon and Stardust Ray families.

Lilith

 * Good physical/magic cover tank.
 * She's better at covering magic than physical, due to her lower DEF.
 * Can grant AoE break immunity and chain with the Kingsglaive family.

Ling

 * Excellent support unit with a versatile kit.
 * Can break ATK/MAG (45%), restore MP to allies, cure ailments, raise dead allies, and use Entrust.
 * With her ability awakenings, she also gains the ability to buff mitigation and elemental resists after setup.

Livid Shantotto

 * Weak magic solo damage dealer and an even worse chainer.
 * Her chaining moves all cost LB crystals, which she can't generate without using them in the first place, and her stacking abilities are lackluster.
 * Her HP is alarmingly low, sitting at around 3k in BiS gear, which means that she dies to almost anything that hits her.

Loren

 * Physical lightning/wind chainer with innate dual-wield and good utility, but mediocre damage.
 * Her strongest attacks are locked behind a setup.
 * Can break ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR by 45%. Her ability awakenings increase this to 50%.
 * Finding chaining partners will be difficult.

Lotus Mage Fina

 * Excellent healer with Curaja and Reraise.
 * Can also apply AoE reraise.
 * With her latent abilities, she can provide good buffs and elemental resistances via W-Ability, although the low healing on the turns that she refreshes these effects might be a problem.

Lovely Katy

 * Healer with access to Curaja.

Lucian

 * Subpar physical chainer.
 * Do not use.

Lucius

 * Mediocre physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Kingsglaive and Octaslash families.
 * Has innate dual wield.

Luka

 * Competent ability-based healer. Requires ability awakenings to be worth using.
 * Has a powerful 20-turn heal over time effect, and can heal and cure ailments at the same time.

Lulu

 * Competent AoE magic water/lightning chainer.
 * Has innate dualcast.
 * Her damage is heavily reliant on her counter imperil proccing, which makes her inconsistent.
 * Finding chaining partners will be very difficult.

Lunera

 * Requires her ability awakenings.
 * Elven Song turns her into a good support unit, capable of providing powerful stat buffs and massive HP/MP recovery.
 * She also has a few offensive skills, including a chaining move, but their damage is very low.

Luneth

 * Mediocre solo physical damage dealer.
 * Requires ability awakenings to deal decent damage.

Machina

 * Amazing support unit with extremely powerful breaks.
 * Can break ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR by 70% on-demand, although this only lasts for one turn and will decay into weaker breaks over the next several turns.
 * His LB breaks ATK/MAG by a massive 74%.
 * Can AoE buff physical/magical mitigation and provide SPR break immunity.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Macmedi

 * Very weak physical chainer with some minor support capabilities.
 * Can grant immunity to ailments and has a 45% full break.
 * Has an attack with Onion Slice frames, but it's a walking chain, so it will break with dual wield.

Magna

 * Decent magic light chainer.
 * Requires a turn of setup if he wants to dualcast his chaining move.
 * Can chain with the Divine Ruination family.

Malphasie

 * Competent powerful dark or wind hybrid chainer.
 * Can chain with the Divine Ruination family and the Bolting Strike family.

Maria (Xenogears)

 * Competent non-elemental magic chainer.
 * Has significant ramp-up time.
 * Chains with the Graviton Cannon family.

Marie

 * Specialized support unit that excels at her niche.
 * Has innate dual cast.
 * Can provide powerful elemental resistance buffs.
 * With ability awakenings, can grant ailment immunity and AoE healing.

Mario Frigo

 * Subpar physical chainer.
 * His primary attack has the same frames as Divine Ruination, giving him several possible chaining partners.
 * Can break ATK by 45% and buff LB fill rate by 100%.
 * In the absence of TDH TMs, he should be built for dual wield, not Doublehand.

Maritime Strategist Nichol

 * Extremely powerful support unit with access to a wide range of potent abilities.
 * Can massively buff all stats, regenerate HP/MP for the party, provide mitigation, buff elemental resistances, and cure breaks. Almost all of his abilities can be dualcast via Linked Stance.
 * Burns through a lot of MP, so try to give him gear that will help to sustain his usage.
 * With his latent abilities, he can provide 50% mitigation on most turns.

Marquis de Léon

 * Terrible damage dealer.
 * Do not use.

Maxwell

 * Terrible physical damage dealer.
 * Do not use.

Mediena

 * Powerful ice magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Freeze

Medius

 * Extremely weak physical chainer with a death wish.
 * His damage is terrible, and his innate Draw Attacks will frequently get him killed.
 * Do not use.

Melete

 * Support unit that can buff elemental resistances.
 * Can also provide some low-grade stat buffs and HP/MP regen.

Meliadoul

 * Mediocre support unit who becomes significantly better after her ability awakenings.
 * Has slightly subpar breaks (40%) and can provide single-target reraise.
 * Her ability awakenings bring her breaks up to 50%, which is a significant upgrade. She still doesn't have a ton of versatility, however.

Mercedes

 * Very weak water physical solo damage dealer.
 * Has a large water imperil.

Mercenary Ramza

 * Prior to ability awakenings, he is a terrible excuse for a damage dealer.
 * With his ability awakenings, he becomes an extremely powerful provoke tank with immunity to all ailments and excellent utility.
 * He can break ATK and MAG by 45% with Blade of Justice, which then unlocks even stronger 60% breaks.

Minfilia

 * Support unit that can buff any elemental resistance and provide decent stat buffs.
 * Also has access to AoE immunity buffs for Stop and certain ailments.

Miyuki

 * Hybrid chainer with poor equipment selection and very, very weak damage output.
 * Has innate dual wield for katanas, daggers, and throwing weapons.
 * Do not use.

Monk Sabin of Kolts

 * Competent physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family, and can triplecast.

Moogle

 * Terrible physical chainer.
 * Can provide AoE stop immunity.
 * Chains with the Quick Hit family.

Mordegon

 * Ice/dark magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Absolute Zero, Chaos Wave, and Disorder families.

Morgana

 * Competent evoke chainer that suffers from insufficient orb generation.
 * Chains with the Absolute Zero and Chaos Wave families.

Myra

 * Excellent healer that can also provide buffs.
 * Can bring stat buffs, partial ailment immunity, break immunity, and charm immunity.
 * Has a version of Entrust that works with W-Ability.
 * Her healing output is slightly lower than that of most other healers.

Mystea

 * Magic cover tank with excellent utility.
 * Has limited equipment selection and mediocre base stats, which can leave her a bit squishy.
 * Can provide AoE resistance to ailments and stop, as well as 42% mitigation.

Nagflar

 * Subpar physical chainer with versatile yet weak support capabilities.
 * Can chain with the Piledriver family, fill the esper gauge, fill the LB gauge, and buff physical/magical mitigation for individual allies.

Nagi

 * Light/dark hybrid chainer.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination and Graviton Cannon families.

Nalu

 * Physical lightning chainer.
 * Chains with the Quick Hit family.

Nameless Gunner Jake

 * Weak physical chainer with elemental flexibility.
 * His strongest moves require an unlock and their damage is subpar even then.
 * Has 45% breaks.

Neverending Hope

 * Versatile buffer who can grant a wide variety of elemental resistances.
 * Excels at charging up the LB gauges of allies.
 * Also has some subpar breaks that could be useful in rare situations.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Nine

 * Terrible solo physical damage dealer.
 * Do not use.

Noctis

 * Terrible support unit.
 * Do not use.

Nyalu

 * Weak support unit/healer.
 * Has AoE heals and 40% ATK/MAG breaks.

Nyx

 * Decent fire physical chainer who is hampered by his limited equipment selection.
 * Has 45% dual-stat breaks, but they're split the wrong way and are thus largely pointless. These become 50% breaks with his ability awakenings.
 * Innate dual wield.
 * His ability awakenings increase his damage significantly, but his damage is still lackluster compared to the competition.

Ohga

 * Provoke and physical cover tank (with ability awakenings).
 * Has terrible stats that will cause him to die very easily.

Olberic

 * Physical cover and provoke tank.
 * Can provide 35% AoE mitigation via his LB.
 * Chains with the Aureole Ray family.

Olif

 * Solid support unit.
 * Can buff elemental resistances, mitigation, and provide MP regen.
 * Also has some weak stat buffs and killer buffs.

Olive

 * Physical lightning solo damage dealer with high output.
 * Has a powerful lightning imperil and DEF break.

Onion Knight

 * Excellent physical chainer with elemental flexibility.
 * Innate dual wield.
 * Onion Cutter, unlocked via equipping his TM, is his strongest skill.
 * Has an extremely powerful DEF break (74%) attached to his LB.
 * His ability awakenings significantly increase his damage and allow him to imperil and imbue four different elements.

Onion Knight Refia

 * Excellent physical chainer with elemental flexibility.
 * Innate dual wield.
 * Can chain with the Onion Slice family, but not very well due to requiring repeated unlocks for that skill.

Orlandeau

 * Excellent light physical chainer.
 * Ability awakenings increase his damage significantly and give him a 45% ATK/MAG break.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination family.

Orochi

 * Mediocre physical solo damage dealer.
 * With ability awakenings, can AoE chain with C-C-Cold Breath.

Orran

 * Mediocre and very niche support unit.
 * Can slightly buff all elemental resists, restore a bit of MP to allies, and buff certain stats.

Ozetta

 * Solid provoke tank with built-in mitigation.
 * Powerful AoE mitigation on her LB.

Papalymo

 * Extremely weak magic damage dealer.
 * Do not use.

Pecciotta

 * Niche support unit that, when geared appropriately, can double as an evasion provoke tank.
 * Can break ATK and MAG by 45%, or by 40% in an AoE. Also has ST charm attached to the 45% break, although most bosses are immune.
 * The combination of innate evasion and innate draw chance make him easier to gear as an evasion provoker than most units.
 * Has Barblizzaga.

Pirate Jake

 * Mediocre physical chainer.
 * Innate dual wield for guns and swords.
 * With his ability awakenings, he chains with the Quick Hit family.

PNK-2

 * Doesn't fit into any role because he's absolutely terrible at everything.

Popoi

 * Very weak magical damage dealer.
 * Its ability awakenings give it some weak breaks (40%) that are split the wrong way.

Popstar Katy

 * Incredibly terrible magical damage dealer.
 * Do not use.

Primm

 * Weak hybrid and magic damage dealer/healer.
 * Do not use.

Primrose

 * Buffer with slightly subpar buffs.
 * Can buff stats by 130% (up to 170% via her LB) and mitigation by 20%.
 * Chains with the Chaos Wave family.

Prishe

 * Subpar physical chainer with some utility.
 * Utility includes AoE MP regen, on-demand single-target reraise, and AoE reraise at the end of a three-turn combo.

Prompto

 * Mediocre physical chainer with excellent utility.
 * Can dualcast his abilities, but this causes him to burn through his MP very quickly.
 * Can AoE break ATK/MAG by 50% (65% with ability awakenings), imperil several different elements, break DEF by 45% (70% with ability awakenings), and raise allies.

Pure Summoner Rydia

 * Magic wind/earth chainer and summoner.
 * Damage output is mediocre at best, but she does have a few chaining partners, such as William and Barbariccia.
 * Her esper gauge skills aren't that impressive.

Pyro Glacial Lasswell

 * Easy to gear and has innate dual wield, but has lackluster damage output.
 * He doesn't chain, and he doesn't work well as a solo damage dealer, so he will sit on the bench for almost every endgame trial unless you're severely lacking in options.
 * His damage relies heavily on his limit burst, which takes a long time to fill.

Qin

 * Solid support unit.
 * Can provide stat buffs and breaks, but the breaks vary wildly in magnitude each turn.

Queen

 * Without ability awakenings, she is nigh unusable, as having to go under 3% HP is very risky, therefore do not use.
 * With her ability awakenings, she becomes a solid solo damage dealer with excellent AoE MP recovery.
 * Berserk also gives her massively increased DEF/SPR, making her hard to kill.

Radiant Lightning

 * Breaker with chaining capabilities.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Raegen

 * Fire/ice physical chainer.
 * Can buff almost any elemental resistance by 50-70% and provide mediocre breaks.

Rain

 * Poor support unit with outdated skills.
 * Can break and buff various stats, but not by much.
 * Do not use.

Ramza

 * Is absolutely awful until you awaken his abilities, particularly Hero's Rhyme. Once you do, though...
 * Can provide powerful stat buffs and restore HP/MP to the entire party while singing, making him one of the best support units in the game.
 * He can also break the enemy's ATK and MAG by 60%, drastically reducing their damage, although these two breaks are on separate skills and he can't use them (or anything else) while singing.

Randi

 * Subpar physical wind chainer.
 * His best skills are locked behind a setup move.

Rasler

 * Prior to his ability awakenings, he's an awful cover tank with a very weak chaining move.
 * His ability awakenings make him into a viable and durable cover tank, although he lacks meaningful utility.
 * Can AoE buff light resistance.

Ravus

 * Weak physical chainer.
 * Can buff dark resistance by 70%.

Ray Jack

 * Physical light chainer with a habit of killing himself and party members.
 * Despite doing decent damage, his cover passive can interfere with your tanks and cause serious problems.
 * His ability awakenings improve his damage and reduce the cover chance, making him less of a danger, but he's still risky to use.

Reberta

 * Physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Bolting Strike and Divine Ruination families.

Red XIII

 * Physical chainer with elemental flexibility.
 * Can grant AoE mirage.
 * Chains with the Stardust Ray family.

Refia

 * Decent healer with a very standard healer kit.

Regina

 * Good physical finisher.
 * Can also serve as a pseudo-chainer with her limit burst.
 * Has very, very poor survivability.

Reimi

 * Very weak physical chainer.
 * Do not use.

Reis

 * Very weak magic chainer.
 * Do not use.

Rem

 * Good healer with innate Dualcast.
 * Can also deal decent damage with Dagger Boomerang, which will hit twice with dual wield.
 * Has innate dual wield for daggers.

Rena

 * Excellent healer and support unit.
 * Has massively powerful AoE heals, is immune to stop, and can cure stop/all ailments. Most of her abilities can also be dualcast.
 * On top of that, she can buff SPR and magic mitigation, and her LB provides massive buffs to all stats, along with HP and MP regeneration.
 * Unfortunately, unlike most healers, she cannot dispel enemies.

Rico Rodriguez

 * Competent physical chainer.
 * Innate dual wield.
 * Can AoE chain, and has Octaslash frames, giving him several chaining partners.
 * Has ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR breaks (45%).

Rinoa

 * Competent magic finisher.
 * Chains with the Tornado family.
 * She can AoE break ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR by 45%, and has Curaga, Full Life, and Aura.

Rikku

 * Niche support unit.
 * Can provide AoE reraise via her LB.
 * Can also buff mitigation by 30% and elemental resistances by 40%, but this is locked behind a setup turn.

Riku

 * Dark physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Rivera

 * Unusual support unit able to turn any ally into a provoke tank or AoE physical cover tank, although whoever she picks will be significantly less durable than a "normal" tank.
 * Can provide AoE Mirage, restore MP, chain, and heal.
 * Chains with the Bolting Strike family.

Rosa

 * Solid healer with excellent AoE MP restoration.
 * Can cure breaks.

Roselia

 * Solid healer with innate triplecast.
 * Can restore MP to allies.

Roy

 * Support unit with powerful buffs and breaks on turn 1.
 * However, he cannot maintain the breaks at that magnitude past turn 5, and is best paired with another unit who can take over that job later on in the fight.

Rubicante

 * Mediocre solo fire magic damage dealer.
 * Has innate dualcast.
 * Niche magic damage counters.

Ruggles

 * Very weak physical chainer.
 * Can buff earth resistance by 70%.

Ryumynui

 * Good support unit with decent buffs.
 * Unfortunately, her best skill is locked behind a setup turn, so there will be gaps in her buff coverage.
 * Also provides HP/MP regen and an LB fill rate while providing stat buffs.

Sacred Shield Charlotte

 * Excellent provoke and magic cover tank with incredible support skills.
 * All of her skills last four turns, instead of the more common two or three, giving her more spare turns.
 * Can buff general mitigation by a whopping 45%, magic mitigation by 30%, fill LB gauges, buff light/ice resistance, buff DEF/SPR, and more.
 * Can chain with the Absolute Zero and Disorder families.

Sandee

 * Very weak healer/support unit.
 * Can grant AoE break immunity and ailment immunity for one turn.

Santa Roselia

 * Competent healer with a pretty standard kit.
 * Does not have Raise.
 * May counter enemy hits with heals.

Seabreeze Dark Fina

 * Very weak magic damage dealer both before and after her ability awakenings.
 * Has a 45% AoE full break.

Seaside Nichol

 * Support unit focusing exclusively on defensive buffs.
 * Can provide significant DEF/SPR buffs, all three types of mitigation, and some minor barriers.
 * Unfortunately, his physical/magical mitigation buffs cannot be dualcast, which means he cannot provide much in the way of HP/MP restoration while maintaining those.

Sephiroth

 * Dark/light physical chainer with many chaining partners.
 * The Heavens Wept is from the Divine Ruination chaining family, Aeolian Onslaught chains with Onion Slice, and Octaslash chains with Circular Saw.
 * Is very durable for a damage dealer, and, in a pinch, he can help sustain his own HP/MP with Reunion.
 * Has a massive 100% light/dark imperil on his LB.

Sephiroth (KH)

 * Light/dark physical chainer with 60% breaks.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination, Bolting Strike, Octaslash, and Aureole Ray families.

Serena

 * Healer with solid utility.
 * Can buff magic mitigation by 30%, provide AoE reraise, grant ST ailment/charm/stop/break immunity (with AoE on a cooldown), and restore MP.

Setzer

 * Very weak physical chainer.
 * Has abilities that deal fixed (non-scaling damage), which can be useful for cheesing enemies with very high DEF/SPR.

Seven

 * Support unit who, with her ability awakenings, can imperil fire, ice, and lightning by 70%, but doesn't bring anything else of value to the table.

Seymour

 * Weak and terrible solo magic damage dealer.
 * Has a couple of EVO MAG passives which increase summon damage, but has no way to efficiently fill the esper gauge.

Shadow Lord

 * Dark damage dealer who burns through his own HP.
 * His damage is mid-tier, but the fact that he tends to kill himself is a significant problem.

Shatal

 * Solid provoke tank with built-in mitigation.
 * Powerful AoE mitigation and break resistance on his LB.

Shine

 * Weak dark physical damage dealer with poor stats and a terrible equipment selection.
 * Do not use.

Shinju

 * Terrible earth physical chainer.
 * Do not use.

Shylt

 * Magic cover tank with excellent utility.
 * Has limited equipment selection and mediocre base stats, which can leave him a bit squishy.
 * Can provide AoE resistance to breaks and stop, as well as 42% mitigation.

Sieghard

 * Physical cover and provoke tank.
 * Has a 60% full break.
 * His LB provides a powerful 42% mitigation buff for three turns.

Silvia

 * Support unit that can provide a wide variety of elemental resistance buffs, as well as AoE immunity to breaks and Stop.
 * Her skills do very little damage, so it's not worth focusing on her offensive stats.

Snow

 * Snow serves as an object lesson in how there's more to being a provoke tank than just making the boss attack you-- you have to be able to survive.
 * Has terrible defensive stats and poor equipment selection. Also, he doesn't have mitigation, which leads to him taking a dirt nap if he tries to tank harder bosses.
 * Has a decent counter chance, so if he somehow survives the onslaught (spoiler: he won't), he'll generate some LB and esper crystals for your party.

Sol

 * Light/dark magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Chaos Wave and Absolute Zero families.

Soleil

 * Without her ability awakenings, Soleil is basically useless.
 * With them, she becomes a solid buffer, with high stat boosts to the entire team, along with some weak breaks.
 * However, she is locked into a constant rotation and does nothing else, which may not be worth a unit slot on harder encounters.

Sophia

 * Subpar ice magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Freeze family.

Sora

 * Physical chainer. Has triple cast, allowing him to chain well with certain 7* units.
 * Has no imperils of his own.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination family. Also has a much weaker move from the Tornado family.
 * Has a 65% full break on his LB.

Sozhe

 * His kit is a weird and terrible mix of bad damage skills and even worse tanking skills.
 * Do not use.

Sportive Ariana

 * Terrible provoke tank with bad stats and worse skills.
 * Can provide AoE mitigation.

Squall

 * Subpar physical chainer with elemental flexibility.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Steiner

 * Very weak physical damage dealer.
 * Do not use.

Summer Fina & Lid

 * Good breaker with great utility.
 * In addition to providing breaks, has strong AoE healing, AoE MP recovery, can grant a physical water Aureole Ray chaining move to allies and herself, can imbue allies with water (although this may also charm them), buffs water resistance, imperils several elements, and buffs LB fill rate.

Summer Folka & Citra

 * Good evoke water/light evoke chainer with excellent utility.
 * Can grant ailment/break/charm/stop resistance to allies, buff water/light resistance, buff stats, AoE recover LB, buff LB fillrate, and imbue allies with light (which may charm them).
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family, and can grant a physical water Aureole Ray attack to themselves or allies.

Summertime Luka

 * Water magical chainer with healing effects attached to her damage skill.
 * Chains with the Flood family.

Suzume

 * Terrible physical finisher.

Sylvie

 * Excellent support unit with incredible utility.
 * Can provide typed mitigation, stat buffs, ailment immunity, break immunity, and massive elemental resistances.
 * Can grant physical or chaining moves to allies (Bolting Strike and Absolute Mirror of Equity options for both types), and imbue allies with several different elements.

Terra

 * Weak magic chainer and even weaker healer, even with her ability awakenings.
 * Chaos Wave deals okay damage, but has to be unlocked by using another ability.

Theobald

 * Solid magic water chainer with Flood and Waterja.
 * Has innate dualcast.

Tiana

 * Very weak fire magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Chaos Wave family.

Tidus

 * Prior to ability awakenings, Tidus is a solid physical water chainer with decent damage modifiers, a strong imperil, and some utility (MP Refresh, Entrust).
 * His ability awakenings boost his damage into the stratosphere, leaving him as one of the strongest physical damage dealers in the game.
 * His water imperil is attached to his LB, but his innate High Tide effect means that it only takes a turn or two to charge up.

Tifa

 * Good water physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination family.

Tilith

 * Powerful ability-based healer with a versatile kit.
 * Can heal all party members to full, or revive all dead allies, but not at the same time.
 * Goddess's Miracle heals and recovers most status ailments (all allies) in one skill.
 * Can also buff elemental resistances, grant break immunity, and restore MP.

Tinkerer Carrie

 * Subpar physical chainer with weak stats and poor equipment selection.

Tomoe

 * Has a 40% ATK/MAG break.
 * The rest of her abilities are terrible and not worth mentioning.

Trance Terra

 * Needs ability awakenings to be good.
 * Deals absurdly high AoE magic damage by dualcasting Chaos Wave - Awakened.
 * Must spend the first turn using Magical Activation, and needs to use it again once every five turns.

Tsukiko

 * Breaker with chaining capabilities.
 * Chains with the Absolute Zero, Bolting Strike, and Chaos Wave families.

Vincent

 * Mediocre physical chainer with good utility.
 * Requires an external imperil and lacks any chaining partners.
 * Has a single target 55% full break.

Überkilling Machine

 * Weak physical chainer with innate dual wield.
 * Can chain with the Onion Slice family.

Ukiyo

 * Competent light/dark/nonelemental magic chainer.
 * Has some decent utility-- mitigation and light/dark resistance buffs.

Ulrica

 * Awful physical damage dealer heavily based around counters.
 * Her stats are garbage, and if she's getting hit enough to deal decent damage, she's probably going to die anyways.

Václav Koller

 * Weak physical chainer who can temporarily unlock a move with Octaslash frames.

Vaan

 * Subpar physical chainer with a bit of utility.
 * Can provide AoE stop immunity.

Vagrant Knight Rain

 * Solid provoke tank with decent utility.
 * Has 40% breaks and 60% stat buffs, which are unimpressive but usable.
 * His ability awakenings bring those up to 60% breaks and 120% buffs and add AoE LB fill to the buffs, making him an excellent support unit.
 * Has increased LB fill rate and Entrust.

Vargas

 * Weak fire physical solo damage dealer.

Vayne

 * Subpar support unit.
 * Can provide single-target physical or magical mitigation and break resistance to the corresponding stat.
 * Can buff light/dark resistance and increase LB fill rate.

Veritas of the Dark

 * Competent dark chainer with some additional utility.
 * Dark Punishment can chain with Orlandeau's Divine Ruination and other similar moves.
 * Has an AoE 45% full break and AoE dark resistance.
 * With his ability awakenings, his damage increases significantly, making him an excellent chainer.

Veritas of the Earth

 * Physical cover tank with some good utility.
 * Has powerful AoE mitigation on his LB, AoE earth resistance, and 20% AoE mitigation.
 * His survivability is on the low end for physical cover tanks, so survival may be a problem when going up against harder hitting bosses.
 * He *can* provoke but usually shouldn't, since it lacks mitigation and will probably get him killed.
 * With ability awakenings, his survivability is drastically improved and his provoke gains mitigation, allowing him to serve as both a physical cover tank and a provoke tank at the same time, making him into a very powerful tank.

Veritas of the Flame

 * A subpar solo damage dealer who can use a wide variety of elements.
 * His strongest move is only usable at random as a counter unlock, and his other attacks are quite weak.
 * He learns 4 "Axe" skills that can lower resistance (-50%) to fire, wind, earth or dark. Fire is preferred, since he can also lower fire resistance (-100%) via counter.
 * His ability awakenings increase his damage, but not by enough to make him particularly relevant.

Veritas of the Heavens

 * Physical wind damage dealer that totally blows.
 * Puns aside, he's not good. He has a halfway decent chaining move, a good wind imperil on his LB, and absorbs wind damage. Sadly, that's not enough to make him a worthwhile unit.
 * His ability awakenings focus on his terrible jump attacks and do not making him any less niche.

Veritas of the Light

 * Solid hybrid light chainer, but unfortunately suffers from being restricted to a single element, one that tends to be resisted quite often.
 * Her stats and modifiers are a bit on the low side, which means she falls short of doing top tier damage.
 * Has innate dualwield (guns, throwing weapons) as well as a light imperil to boost her own damage. Her LB has special mention as it is an extremely powerful DEF/SPR break, nearly quadrupling her damage output.
 * One of the very few AoE chainers in the game.
 * Her ability awakenings improve her damage output by quite a bit, making her one of the strongest AoE damage dealers in the game. Unfortunately, she is still locked into dealing light damage and has no other chaining partners.

Veritas of the Water

 * A serviceable healer with access to Curaga, Raise and Esunaga. While she does have an innate dualcast this is locked behind using a particular skill, meaning it will not be available turn 1. Also worth mentioning is an unlockable AoE full break in the same vein as Dualcast.
 * She's better off using an external source of Dualcast rather than wasting turns to temporarily unlock it.
 * Her ability awakenings make her Dualcast unlock last for 20 turns and give her some largely irrelevant utility, which makes her a decent budget option for brand new players, but she falls of quickly later on and probably isn't worth the investment.

Veronica

 * Light/fire/ice magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Chaos Wave, Absolute Zero, and Divine Ruination families.

Verun

 * Mediocre support unit with powerful AoE stat buffs from his limit burst.
 * He also has a few imperils and breaks, and the ability to grant killer effects to allies.
 * Very similar to Soleil, albeit with a bit of ramp-up time before he can get his stat buffs going. Once he does, though, he's arguably stronger.

Vesvia

 * Very weak water magic chainer.
 * Chains with the Flood family.

Victoria

 * Victoria can be used in one of two ways-- either as a solo damage dealer by dualcasting Firaja, or by chaining with another Victoria using Overflow.
 * Her damage isn't top tier, but it's solid enough that you can make good use of her if you lack better units.

Viktor Marchenko

 * Passable provoke tank with self-sustain.
 * Can buff himself with immunity to ailments, charm, stop, and breaks.
 * Can cap chains with a DEF-scaling attack.

Vivi

 * Alarmingly terrible magic damage dealer. His moves run the gamut between "extremely weak" and "fairly weak but kill your entire team".
 * His ability awakenings get rid of the team-killing downside, but even then, his damage is awful.

Wadow

 * Weak earth hybrid chainer with a bit of utility.
 * Can buff earth/light resistance and provide 30% mitigation.
 * Chains with the Quake family.

Wakka

 * Very weak physical solo damage dealer.
 * His strongest attack uses random elements, which is a serious downside, especially if the boss has resistances.
 * Can buff water resistance by 50%.

Warrior of Light

 * Excellent physical cover tank with solid utility.
 * Can break ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR by 45%.

Warrior of Light Bartz

 * Wind physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity and Graviton Cannon families.

Warrior of Light Lenna

 * Healer with access to Curaja, Reraise, Esunaga, Full Life, and Dispelga.
 * Can provide immunity to ailments, breaks, stop, and charm. Has AoE reraise on her LB.
 * Can provide minor AoE LB fill while healing.
 * Can buff mitigation by 30%.

Werei

 * Terrible earth physical solo damage dealer.
 * Can buff earth resistance by 50%.
 * His ability awakenings don't make him any more usable.

White Knight Noel

 * Noel is the most durable provoke tank in the game by a wide margin. Ignore the magic damage aspects of his kit and focus on his survivability-- he will pull all single-target attacks to himself and simply refuses to die no matter what happens.
 * His unique mitigation stacks with "universal" mitigation (e.g. Rikku's Hyper NulAll)
 * Damage spells and counters are negligible in boss fights, although his ability to imperil can occasionally be relevant.

White Witch Fina

 * Competent healer that can restore significant MP to allies.
 * Lacks Curaga, but her high SPR lets her make do with Cura instead.

Wilhelm

 * Excellent and durable provoke tank with good utility.
 * His limit burst provides 54% mitigation to the team for one turn.
 * Can significantly buff DEF/SPR, boost LB fill rate, and provide more minor ATK/MAG buffs.

William

 * Decent earth magical chainer with a bit of utility on the side.
 * Can buff DEF and SPR by 110% (with separate skills), but this comes at the cost of breaking the corresponding offensive stat (ATK and MAG) by 50%.

Xiao

 * Prior to her ability awakenings, she's an absolutely awful physical damage dealer.
 * With her ability awakenings, she's an absolutely awful provoke tank.

Xon

 * Useful for farming and not much else.
 * Can steal from all enemies at once.
 * Can copy stat buffs from enemies onto allies. With ability awakenings, this skill also provides break immunity.
 * Improves drop rates of rare items.

Y'shtola

 * Competent healer with innate dualcast.
 * Has a little bit of utility-- 54% AoE mitigation on her LB, as well as a few other largely irrelevant skills.

Yan

 * Excellent and versatile support unit.
 * Can provide AoE break resistance, MP recovery, healing, 30% mitigation, and LB fill rate.
 * Her LB applies AoE reraise and 64% resistance to all elements.

Yang

 * Subpar physical chainer.

Yda

 * Very weak physical damage dealer.
 * Her strongest skills are locked behind a long combo sequence, and even then they aren't very good.

Yego

 * Earth physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity family.

Yubel

 * Weak physical chainer that can swap between dark and ice.
 * Chains with Onion Slice family.
 * Also has an innate provoke and 20% evasion, opening up possibilities as a dodge provoke tank.

Yuffie

 * Physical chainer with elemental flexibility.
 * Can grant AoE mirage.
 * Chains with the Stardust Ray, Bolting Strike, and Aureole Ray families.

Yun

 * Prior to his ability awakenings, he is a subpar fire physical chainer.
 * With his ability awakenings, his damage skyrockets, putting him near the top tier of chainers, and he gains innate dual wield.

Yuna

 * Excellent healer with some elemental resistance buffs.
 * One of the few units in the game that can dualcast Reraise.
 * Also has a few summoner skills, including the ability to partially fill up the esper gauge.
 * Can significantly buff the DEF/SPR of all allies via her LB.

Yuraisha

 * Excellent support unit with powerful buffs.
 * Can provide large buffs to all stats, as well as all three types of mitigation.
 * Has AoE barriers, resistance buffs, and AoE HP/MP regen.
 * Can cure breaks.

Yuri

 * Extremely weak hybrid chainer.
 * Chains with the Quake and Tornado families.

Zack

 * Subpar physical chainer.
 * Chains with the Divine Ruination and Octaslash families.

Zargabaath

 * Excellent and versatile support unit with a diverse set of skills. Stat buffs, mitigation, single-target HP/MP recovery, elemental resistances, and AoE immunity to certain ailments.
 * His MP restoration is massive but single-target, so sustaining the entire party may be rough as he has to rotate through each ally.
 * He burns through quite a bit of MP. He can self-cast Rejuvenate to keep himself going, but if you gear him for MP regen, it helps to free up his actions to do other things.
 * With his ability awakenings, he can also provide single-target reraise with Rejuvenate. They also significantly improve his stat and mitigation buffs.

Zell

 * Terrible physical chainer with equally terrible utility.
 * His strongest moves are locked behind 3 turn setups, but they're much too weak to be worth the time.
 * He has a 60% full break, but it only lasts for two turns and he can only use it after three turns spent unlocking it, which means it's basically useless.

Zeno of the Beta Star

 * Disgustingly powerful physical chainer. Even at 6 star rarity, he outdamages most 7 star units.
 * Chains with the Absolute Mirror of Equity, Divine Ruination, Bolting Strike, and Aureole Ray families.

Zidane

 * Very weak physical chainer.

Zile

 * Terrible physical finisher.
 * His modifiers are all garbage, aside from moves that are locked behind setup moves. Said attacks either have a chance to fail or to hit your own units.

Zolulu & Delulu

 * Subpar breaker.
 * Has 40% on-demand breaks and a 60% break attached to a counter.
 * Has a 70% SPR break on their LB.

Zyrus

 * Weak solo magic damage dealer, both before and after his ability awakenings.
 * Relies heavily on his LB to unlock W-Ability, but cannot fill it up efficiently and cannot sustain the MP use of dualcasting Blood Pulsar.