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.
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.
Her ability awakenings change the number of hits and thus hit frames of Piledriver, so you'll need to awaken your own Aileen if you want to chain with a friend's.
She's a walking chainer, which means that her chains may break on some enemies depending on where the game has them positioned.
Has a bit of utility-- minor AoE MP regen and earth resist.
Ayaka is an excellent healer. She has access to Curaja, Reraise, Esunaga, Full Life, and Dispelga, allowing her to handle all of the standard healing duties better than almost any other unit in the game.
Has innate dualcast, and can serve as an MP battery for the team by using Dedication.
Works very well as a solo damage dealer on fights where you can't fit two chainers into your team composition. It takes her a few turns to get going, but once Quick Final Thunder is stacked up, she hits hard.
She also brings some solid utility to the table. She can regenerate the team's MP, provide immunity to all status ailments, increase mitigation, and even buff a few elemental resists.
Her AoE damage via Quick Rebel Intention is okay but not amazing.
Her limit burst is a lot less useful than you'd think, since it takes so long to fill and only chains with a copy, and you'd rather run two chainers than two copies of her.
Decent physical light/wind 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Learns 4 different "Spark" skills which debuff two stats at a time, but the most useful combinations (normally ATK/MAG and DEF/SPR, available from other units) are glaringly missing. His atypical combos might save time in specific trials, but are not as useful generally.
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.
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.
Weak physical chainer with innate dual wield for daggers.
Her modifiers are low, but she can chain with Onion Knight's Splendors or Onion Slice abilities. Unfortunately, this attack is locked behind a setup move.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Average physical attacker with chain and finish options, with preference for light or dark
Daybreak Darkness lowers light and dark resistance (-50%) and can perfect chain with a clone (0~2 frame offset), but damage is a bit weak.
For straight damage, Great Chop is a straightforward damage skill (4x damage modifier). Otherwise, Glauca can inflict stop (50%) with Flash of Despair or dispel an enemy with Wall Smash.
Passives give 50% resistance to all status ailments, extra ATK when using a greatsword, and the useful Man-Eater killer effect. All in all, he makes a usable all-round attacker, but better units exist.
Physical attacker with chainable skills, but hampered by skill unlocks and changing chain frames.
He looks to have decent ATK on paper, but Bare Knuckle Extreme is only helpful if you don't have good equipment (ATK TMRs). This is because without a weapon, Goken will only hit once - whereas Dual Wield will hit twice and deal more damage as long as he has been equipped with good ATK.
Otherwise, his attack skills involve sequential unlocks, with them getting progressively stronger. Each time, a single-target and an AoE option is available:
The main issue is that these skills don't have the same hit frames from turn to turn. This means that you must use two Gokens to chain (a different unit would only match one chaining skill as it comes up), and that both Gokens need to be on the same turn rotation as well. It only takes one Goken to die to entirely disrupt your plans. Given the hassle in ensuring the above, Goken's skillset has severely limited practicality.
Other downsides include poor equipment selection (only fist weapons) and lack of defensive passives.
Decent magical chainer requiring her own TMR to optimize MAG and HP.
Unlike some other magic users, most of her skills can be used twice in a turn via Dual Black Magic or Grim Lord, without ever needing Dual Wield.
Of these, Grim - Soul Barrage is an excellent non-elemental chaining skills with decent damage (perfect chaining with a clone is easy = 0~6 frame offset window). For an elemental option, Grim - Eldritch Flames deals dark/fire damage and lowers resistance to these (-50%), but has a lower modifier. Unfortunately, dark and fire are commonly resisted, and the skill forces you to use both elements, which means Soul Barrage is more useful of the two. If lightning damage is required, DC Thundaja is handy.
She also has some support skills. Undying Fervor grants immunity to debuffs and some status ailments, and Sacrificial Barrier boosts allies' DEF/SPR (+100%) while boosting fire resistance (albeit with the drawback of nearly dying). Thunder's Protection is also available for resistance against light/dark/lightning.
Her passives are a double-edged sword. In order to access the bulk of her stat buffs, she must use a single dual dark/fire weapon with high flat MAG and HP. Her own TMR, Reaver, is all of these things, but the problem is that it is a spear and not a longsword. This prevents her using Letters and Arms for even more MAG, although she has enough MAG and a lot of HP to make the spear worthwhile. It also makes it very unlikely for other units to benefit from using it.
The only downsides are low DEF and no reduced targeting or evasion (although he has high HP), and that she uses MP very quickly. This makes her better for short fights where you need burst damage.
Equipment & TMRs: Use her own TMR, Reaver, and standard MAG gear. No need for Dual Wield. HP is low priority due to her passives.
Without ability awakenings, he is a wannabe fire hybrid attacker that is too weak to be competitive. Do not use.
His main problem is lack of damage. His base stats are low, he doesn't get strong ATK/MAG passives, and Flame Type 2 and Wildfire Type 2 both have very low modifiers for hybrid skills.
The only reason to use him is Spy, which reduces encounter rate more than any other skill. This may allow you to walk through exploration maps with minimal fuss - but there is little reward from explorations at the moment.
Ability awakenings:
They slightly improve his evasion and damage, but still too weak to be useful.
Mirage +2 (Tech: 1 Giancryst) adds 1 extra dodge and turns.
Flame Type 2 +2 (Power: 3 Giancrysts) and Wildfire Type 2 +2 (Power: 1 Purecryst and 6 Giancrysts) improve damage slightly and can now be alternated with Mirage while maintaining overall damage per turn, but still far too weak.
Best Shot +2 is a surprisingly decent 5.55x normalized modifier, providing help for offsetting her low ATK.
With Ace Adventurer +2, her LB should be up every 2-3 turns. It's not much better than Best Shot +2, but it does buff the party's ATK/MAG.
Endless Dream +2 which makes her sleep, but also regens 50% HP/MP (and if you awakened it for some reason, buffs her ATK +50%.) Make her immune to sleep for a cheap boost.
While she has innate dual wield with daggers, guns, whips, and throwing weapons as well as innate gun mastery, her low stats mean she won't be of much use for any challenging fight.
Awaken Ace Adventurer to +1 if you plan to use her. Her +2 won't be as worthwhile for the power crysts consumed compared to the damage dealt by Best Shot +2. Endless Dream is hardly worth the gil and crysts.
Illusion - Redirect is an amazing & unique skill that transforms the target into an AoE cover tank. The chance to proc is 100%, so it will never fail you. Using it on a really sturdy provoke tank, or on a full-evade unit will make your team really more sturdy.
If you doubt your tank's ability to survive, you can soften a bit of his burden with Illusion - Doppelganger, which will allow him to evade 2 physical attacks.
Finally, he can use every of Illusion - skill twice, with Master Illusionist allowing him a lot of decent combinations.
His LB, Phantasmal Respite, is amazing. Not only does it grant an AoE mirage, but it also offers a nice HP & MP regen over 3 turns, healing for 1520~~ hp & 44~~ mp per turn with 400 MAG/SPR
His passives are decent, even if a bit limited. He get 60% MAG when equipped with a hat, & 60% SPR when equipped with clothes. Absorb MP is a rather niche spell that allows him to absorb the MP from the enemy spell. But all in all, it's quite rare to see an enemy use his MP, and thus, it doesn't replace the MP refresh that you would rather have. Finally, Phantasmal wards is a rather strange counter. For the 3 first turn of the battle, he will counter the physical damage that his allies take with Physical damage using MAG scaling (Opposing his MAG to DEF). The modifier is quite low, though, and the main, limited use of it is to make some LB crystal.
Base stats are a bit low, but stay respectable. His equipment selection for his roles is pretty good, having access to the regular Mage/healer set.
Mediocre magical attacker without innate Dualcast or anything to stack or chain.
The only useful skill is Last Footstep, which does decent magic damage to all enemies (more than Light of Judgment (FFVI) +0!) and debuffs enemy SPR.
Has evasion and a counter effect, but not enough to compensate for not dealing enough damage.
Ability awakenings:
They give him a boost, but still doesn't do enough damage to be significantly competitive. Theoretically some niche use in arena, but costs too much.
Mage of Destruction +2 (Support: 1 Purecryst and 3 Giancrysts) adds MAG and a chance to counter with damage, but the damage will be insignificant outside of arena.
Light of Judgment (FFVI) +2 (Black: 3 Purecrysts and 12 Giancrysts) adds damage to a weak skill, but the outcome is still subpar. There are better uses for those Black crysts.
Roar of Laughter +2 (Tech: 2 Purecrysts and 6 Giancrysts) improves his counter-debuff by a tiny bit only.
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.
Soul Swap kills an ally to fully regen Kryla's HP & MP (if the unit has a I shall not lose! type of passive that lets them survive fatal damage, they will be left at 1 HP, allowing you to heal them back)
Nullifying Chant is a rather massive dispel, dispelling everything on the battlefield, friend and foe.
Witchcraft allows her to dualcast all of her "Jinx" skills, mixing any break & imperil as you see fit
Hex Eye deals 10000 fixed damage per negative effects per turn over 3 turns (Negative effects counts as Imperils, breaks, stop, charm. and status aliments. An imperil can count as up to 8 different status effects.)
Her LB, Mambo Hodge-podge, inflicts 4 random status ailments, stop, and allows her to use Wicked Eye, a twice more powerful version of Hex Eye
Passives are good, 30% HP, 30% MP and either 20% DEF or SPR, using clothes or robes, decrease target chance by 30%, 20% chance to dodge physical & magical attack, 15% all elemental resist & immunity to poison & disease as well as increased magic damage against humans and fairies.
Physical chainer with innate dual-wield and good debuff, but best chaining skill requires unlocking
She is a fantastic stat debuffer. Full Break+ debuffs all four of an enemy's stats (-45%), and sometimes she will even do it on counter and free up an action. If there are multiple enemies, Arms Eraser and Armor Eraser are perfect for the job.
On the downside, Loren was designed to be a damage-dealing chainer, but Blade Prison will only perfect chain if you can spark chain with a clone (0 frame offset). Hence, on turn 1, she isn't a good chainer.
Using Model of Ares or LB will unlock the following for 3 turns:
Swiftwind Blade - different frames, but same problem - perfect chain only when sparking (0 frame offset),
Quickbolt Blade - lightning-element finisher skill, 1 hit, damage is alright, and
Greased Lightning - has highest mod of all of skills and is easy to perfect chain when dual-wielding. The ideal window is 0~6 frame offset, but because of the way the frames fall, even if you're way off, this chain should never break in the middle - the final hit/s would just drop off the end of the chain.
This presents a dilemma, since the raw damage mod on Greased Lightning, when the unlocking turn is taken into account, isn't enough to be fully competitive. On the other hand, once unlocked, it will deal damage consistently. Unlocking it via LB is probably the better option (since it lowers wind/lightning resistance (-74%!)), but her LB has irregular frames and cannot form a perfect chain. Also, there are very few wind/lightning weapons with high ATK.
However, on the bright side, Loren has more HP/DEF/SPR than most attackers, innate Dual Wield, good ATK, and important status immunities. These things make Loren a good utility unit with good bulk.
Equipment & TMRs: Use at least one sword and a wind or lightning-element weapon (e.g. Raikiri, Zwill Crossblade). Standard ATK gear apply. No need for Dual Wield.
Lotus Mage Fina is an excellent healer. She has access to Curaja, Reraise, Esunaga, Full Life, and Dispelga, allowing her to handle all of the standard healing duties better than almost any other unit in the game.
She also has great utility. She can restore the party's MP, provide AoE reraise with her limit burst, and buff all elemental resists.
Finally, she has some very limited damage potential which she could use on turns when you don't need as much healing, although she won't contribute much in that department.
Lunera is a decent support & magical DPS who needs her ability awakenings to really shine.
Her DPS options are all pretty decent, but not outstanding.
Gleaming Arrow & Gale Arrow are two stacking abilities starting at a 2.5x modifier, stacking up to 5 times, up to a 15x modifier, respectively for Light and Wind. It's pretty decent, but her inability to dualcast it, or dualwield it hurts the damage quite a bit.
Aureole Ray is a 4x modifier Wind/Light 20 hit AoE magic damage. The modifier is decent, and the hit count is really great, but as it can't be dual wielded, it ends up as pretty average. Also, the dual element makes it harder to fit a correct imperil for it.
She can clear Poison, Blind, Silence, Paralyze, Confuse, Sleep for all allies with Esunaga
Her main ability is without doubt Elven Song, which regens around 1250 HP and 66 MP turn over 3 turns with 400 MAG/SPR and also offers a meh-ish 40% all stats buff. The main point is obviously the HP & MP regen.
Her passives are quite decent, 80% MAG & 70% SPR when wearing a bow, 50% Wind/Light resist, 30% MP, 5% MP refresh and a nice immunity to Silence, Paralyze & Petrify. All of that is supported by really nice base stats & a good equipement selection.
Cut Through is usable and 1-hit, making it very straightforward for chain finishing.
He gains important status ailment immunities and learns Dual Wield innately, both quite handy features.
Ability awakenings:
Sword Master +2 (Tech: 3 Giancrysts) is a must-get. It gives him more flexibility with weapons and an easy 50% ATK.
Cut Through +2 (Power: 3 Purecrysts and 12 Giancrysts) improves the damage modifier to 7.5x total, greatly increasing damage output. It's costly, but worth the investment.
Advance +2 (Support: 2 Purecrysts and 6 Giancrysts) is debatable, since the skill is only setting up ATK for Cut Through.
Equipment & TMRs: Use standard ATK materia. Katana Mastery could be useful if using a katana.
Crush Weapon and Crush Armor supersede some of her initial skills, and apply important 40% ATK/MAG or DEF/SPR debuffs.
Can buff all allies' with DEF or MAG or SPR on other turns.
Counters generate LB crystals, but seems to be a gimmick without any Provoke-like skill
Equipment & TMRs: Dual-wield/Dualcast is unnecessary. Use standard HP/DEF/SPR gear, and include items that confer skills (e.g. Pod 153 or Rikku's Pouch) to give her more utility.
Can sustain herself with Reinstate, which recovers 100% of her HP and clears all the breaks from herself
Can further increase her tanking with Destination, which boosts her SPR by 100% and mitigate 20% of the damage
Can help her team with Clear Veil, which protects against stop & all statuses for 3 turns, Mind Fortress, which increases the SPR of the team by 80% and her LB, Field of Resistance, which buffs the SPR of the team by 94% & mitigates 42% of the damage for 3 turns.
Her HP is a bit lacking and she doesn't get any HP passive, so be aware of that when you gear her up. Alternatively, focus on elemental resist adapted to what you're fighting, since most magic is elemental
He can do a lot of different things, but isn't very good at most of them.
His damage is third-rate at best, his breaks are split the wrong way, and there are better options for buffers and evasion tanks.
He sees the most use as an alternative to Soleil, providing stat buffs via his LB. Unfortunately, this requires enhancements, at least a turn of ramp-up, and maxing his LB.
Unusual unit with preference for fire and daggers, but poor weapon selection
Kingsglaive on paper looks like a decent chaining skill that lowers fire resistance, but calculations suggest perfect chaining is only possible by spark chaining with a clone (0 frame offset). This is because when dual-wielding, Nyx will land two hits on exactly the same frame, inevitably breaking the chain if the two clones are even slightly off.
Desperate Blow provides an excellent chain finishing option. The HP sacrifice is only 40% while dual-wielding, which can be easily recovered using Curaga.
Main downside is the chaining problem above, his poor weapon selection (can't use greatswords, fists or guns) and the fact that his main ATK passive requires a dagger. Daggers tend to have less ATK, and there is currently no dagger mastery materia. This means that compared to other units who can equip two different weapon types with corresponding materia, Nyx gets much less ATK.
Having innate Dual Wield balances this out slightly, but still not top tier.
Equipment & TMRs: Wield a dagger and a fire-element weapon, and standard ATK gear. Dark Knight's Soul and Vernard worth considering, or Fixed Dice if you won't be using him to chain.
Possesses the Bar-ga for Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Earth, and Water, allowing him to increase elemental resistance in those elements by 70%, but no innate Dualcast to back it up
Rather weak SPR damage skill
Can boost 4 elements at once, either ice, water, earth, and dark or fire, lightning, wind, and light for 3 turns, with Dark Drake Crest and Light Drake Crest, but only for 30%, which is weak
Can also regen MP for the team with Whisper of the Wyrm, but it's once again, weak
Can grant to his allies physical & magical dragon killer with Drake Slay Ritual but only for 10%, which is weak
Able to mitigate 15% of the damage for the team and to increase elemental resist by 20% for 5 turns with Drake Formation, but once again, the values are way to weak
His LB, Full Enhance, is decent, boosting ATK/MAG/DEF/SPR by 74% when fully leveled, curing all statuses for the team, and increasing resistance to all statuses for 3 turns
He learns 6 skills with the same chaining frames - 4 Splendors with different elements, 1 non-elemental AoE, and 1 single-target.
Additionally, Onion Cutter (available from his TMR) is a more powerful version (with more hits and more damage!).
On another note, his LB has irregular frames and is not as useful for chaining, but applies a powerful ATK buff to allies and DEF break to enemies, allowing for massive damage on the following turn.
Has innate dual wield, and can provide AoE resistance buffs for several elements.
With dual wield, Feed the Fishes can chain with Doublehand Tidus, but doing so requires frame-perfect timing that can only be consistently achieved with a macro. Due to oddities in the way that chaining works, this will only work if Pirate Jake is in a party slot *after* Tidus, which means that you cannot use your own Pirate Jake to chain with a friend's Tidus.
Aims to be a magical attacker. Without ability awakenings, his damage skills are weak. Do not use.
Ability awakenings:
Still weak with both Acid Storm +2 and Burst +2. Waste of ability awakening material. Do not awaken or use.
Acid Storm +2 (Power: 1 Giancryst) adds some minor damage and debuffs enemies' ATK/DEF by 40%, but you can get 40% debuffs from other units with less investment.
Burst +2 (Power: 1 Purecryst and 12 Giancrysts) similarly makes it hit for better damage and debuffs enemies' MAG/SPR by 40%, but not enough to make Popoi worthwhile.
A decent physical chainer with some support skills, but she takes a few turns to build up combos to reach her strong damage skills, which limits her effectiveness.
Her LB can do decent damage while debuffing DEF/SPR (up to -64%).
Utility includes AoE MP regen, on-demand single-target reraise, and AoE reraise at the end of a three-turn combo.
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.
Without ability awakenings, she is nigh unusable, as having to go under 3% HP is very risky, therefore do not use.
Ability Awakenings:
Her ability awakenings work together beautifully to make her a very powerful finisher.
Devastate+2 is a hard-hitting ST (single target) ability that allows her to cap a chain. However, it is harder to use compared to most finishing moves, since it is still 5 frames. A TDH build is recommended to allow her to fit Devastate in the chain to cap.
Berserk+2 gets an increase to its ATK buff (300%!) as well as a high DEF/SPR buff which makes her a tankier, higher damage dealer for 3 turns. It can be activated unlimited times within 1 life at a higher activation HP, which means using Magic Martyr+2 allows her to proc it right away.
Magic Martyr+2 gives more MP and lingers more, but will usually be used to proc Berserk+2 in a single turn.
Justice Guard+2 gives her confuse immunity (all that ATK won't kill your allies anymore) and allows her to survive a death blow when over 50% HP once per life, making it easier to proc Berserk+2.
Needs a turn to set up but becomes a fearful force for 3 turns after it.
Can't imbue elements to her attacks, which is very important for finishers.
TMR and Equipment: Use a Buster Style/Marshal Glove TDH build if possible, otherwise use Dual Wield (not recommended if used as a chain finisher) and stack as much ATK on her as possible.
Units to be paired with: Christine and Charming Kitty Ariana (limited time units) as they would allow her to get rid of her biggest weakness.
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.
Without ability awakenings, he is a mediocre physical attacker. The race killers do compensate somewhat, but fairy/undead bosses are uncommon.
Ability awakenings:
5 skills can be awakened, all of which contribute to making him a chaining/chain finish powerhouse. He doesn't get any extra killers, but his damage skill becomes decent (important when killers don't apply), and he gains ATK and status immunity.
The downside is that it takes a lot of crysts to awaken them all - but the result is arguably worthwhile.
Power Charge +2 (Tech: 1 Purecryst and 3 Giancrysts) is probably the main point - Relatively cheap, it gives him a temporary boost and unlocks Torrential Slash for chaining. Torrential Slash is able to perfect chain while dual-wielding (can accommodate 0~4 frame offset), and the high modifier compensates for the turn consumed by unlocking.
It could be hard to find a clone to chain with, but reportedly there are enough to go around. Try asking around community sites if you can't find one.
You could also setup some wind synergy using Whirlwind Slash before chaining, although that skill doesn't chain well.
Mana's Bond +2 (Guard: 1 Purecryst and 3 Giancrysts) makes him immune to status ailments, gives him MP regen, and is relatively cheap, so why not.
Auto-Charge +2 (Support: 1 Purecryst and 3 Giancrysts) is a relatively cheap boost to ATK.
Hero of Legend +2 (Support: 2 Purecrysts and 12 Giancrysts) is disputable. It is the most expensive, but it adds a lot of ATK particularly if its Doublehand-like effect is triggered. However, since Doublehand can't be stacked, it may not be viable to single-wield until more DH items are added later on. If you dual-wield, the 35% ATK by itself isn't worth it.
Slice Thrice +2 (Power: 1 Purecryst and 3 Giancrysts) is awful. Unfortunately, it changes the hit frames to his default one and destroys his ability to chain finish. +1 only has 3x modifier and isn't competitive enough, although it might be usable if you like the -50% DEF debuff and are really desperate to use Randi.
Equipment & TMRs: Use either Dual Wield or Doublehand, a good sword, and standard ATK gear.
Royal Obligation is an impractical AoE Cover. Its only one turn long, has a 20% chance to proc, and only mitigates 30% of the damage. The weakest AoE cover available.
Can offer some healing with Curaga and its weaker version and cure most status ailments for the team with Esunaga
Passives are decent, 70% DEF while using Heavy Armor with Vanguard Slasher, 20% DEF/HP/SPR, and 50% ATK when using a sword with Sword Mastery. 100% innate light resist & a resistance to blind. Sentinel allows him to cover one unit from physical damage with 50% damage mitigation (30% chance to proc).
Prior to her ability awakenings, she's a mediocre physical chainer.
After her ability awakenings, Death Crimson becomes a monstrously powerful attack that allows her to either partially chain with a copy for massive damage, or function as a potent solo damage dealer.
Mystic Thrust +2 also allows her to AoE chain. Note that the hit count changes with the enhancement, so she cannot chain with unenhanced Rebertas.
Fool's Ballad breaks all enemies stats for 1 turn by 45%
Roy's songs become really powerful when they are used in succession
If Hero's Prologue was used last turn, Angel's Whim become Ares Protection which increases ATK/MAG/DEF/SPR by 100% for the team, and also regen a decent amount of HP & MP
If Roy dies, you have to start all over again from Hero's Prologue
Alternatively, Roy's Limit Burst, Dragon's Madrigal, increases ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR by 124% when fully leveled and regens around the same amount of HP as his combos songs, but offers a better MP regen. It doesn't offer the break that his combo offers, though. At the cost of 20 LB crysts, it's quite easy to be able to use it once every 3 turns
On the stats side, Roy base stats are great, flaunting a great amount of HP and SPR and a decent DEF, supported by good passives and a more than decent equipement selection
Fire magical finisher, with gimmicky skills and counters. Decent for arena.
Rubicante's main strength comes from being able to use Firaja with Dual Black Magic, maxing at 12x modifier per turn after 2 turns of ramping up. To further improve his output, his LB is a 1-hit finisher that lowers enemies' fire resistance (up to -74%!) while dealing damage and self-healing, and it does not reset the Firaja stack. His role is to simply do damage.
Face Me! grants him a high chance to counter any physical or magical attacks taken, with different AoE spells. While these do not deal significant damage for harder bosses, it can be devastating in arena, since two Rubicantes will spark-chain if they counter simultaneously with the same spell.
Cloak Closed can protect him from all elements for 1 turn while healing him. Cloak Open boosts his LB charge rate, but temporarily leaves him weak to ice. I'll Recover You! self-buffs his MAG, but heals all enemies by a small amount. These unusual skills may come in handy in niche situations.
He has only 30% MAG in his passives, and no status ailment resistance.
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.
Messy provoke tank with some useful supportive skill
She possesses an innate Provoke which means you won't have to rely on Golem having it.
Meditate is a really limited self-status heal, clearing blind, poison & silence.
Strong Heart can be of use, clearing DEF and SPR break for herself
Flame Heart gives her 30% self mitigation, which is totally useless, since she learns Solid Resolution, which grants her and the team 30% mitigation for 4 turns. It's a pretty cool buff.
Her LB, when maxed grants a bit more of mitigation (34%) and also acts as a fire/wind imperil, up to 50%.
Her passives are surprisingly decent. 50% DEF/HP when wearing a light shield. 20% SPR, 10% MP. The light shield restriction hurts her quite a bit, as all the good shields will be a Heavy Shield. She can also cover, but to a really limited rate with Dangerous Facade. Finally she counters magical attacks with Pop Heart, a pretty decent self heal.
Even with her excellent HP/DEF passive, her low base DEF prevents her from reaching a good amount of DEF. Her base SPR is quite higher, but not supported by a lot of passive. All of that, along with her extremely limited equipment selection for a tank (Can't use Heavy Armor, Light Armor, Helm, Heavy Shields) makes her really dysfunctionnal.
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.
Resist Stop makes your party immune to stop for 3 turns. Mainly of use in arena, and situation for some other content.
Assault Strike lets Vaan ST chain, but with a weak 2.7x modifier.
Passives are okay, 50% ATK, 20% DEF, 20% HP, innate Bird Killer, 15% innate phys. evade with Sprint and 20% chance to counter magic with Counter Break breaking all stats by 40%.
Impact is excellent when not chaining, since it debuffs ATK/MAG/DEF/SPR (45%) and protects your team, even though it deals weak damage.
Equipment & TMRs: Use Dual Wield, Organyx/Deathbringer to take advantage of dark resistance reduction, and various ATK materia. His own TMR works well for him. If enemy is dark immune, use a greatsword with different element (e.g. Crimson Saber).
A mediocre finisher who can use a wide variety of elements.
Full Charge Stomp is going to be your bread and butter. It's a 1-hit skill with 10x modifier.....enough said. It does need to be unlocked via a counter, but Heavy Stomp is a adequate substitute (5x modifier) when its not available.
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, but weapon selection is challenging.
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.
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.
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.
Subpar attacker with decent ATK but low modifiers on damage skills. Prefers Earth.
Stone Fall is the only skill of note, lowering earth resistance (-50%) while dealing 2.7x damage.
Master Fencer gives him a bonus with greatswords, but ironically, his unit-exclusive weapon is an axe. There are very few earth weapons, none of which are greatswords.
(TMR: Proud Fencer grants 20% HP, and 40% ATK if using a greatsword. Unstackable, but massively useful to equip even 1 on a greatsword wielder.)
Equipment & TMRs: Use Dual Wield, a greatsword plus Gaia Blade/Galkan Dagger, and standard HP/ATK gear.
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.
Withdraw allows him to buff his team DEF by 110%, but decrease their ATK by 50%, Open Heart does the same for MAG and SPR.
You can avoid that issue by using a break resistance skill, getting only the buff.
Innocent Magika is a weak chaining move, but gets the advantage to be non-elemental, if your enemy resists earth (To be honest, if your enemy resists earth, don't use William).
Lacking any form of innate mp regen, there's Osmose. Spell selection also includes Stonja which is a really potent finishing spell, once ramped up. Quake allows for elemental chain while reducing earth resist for the enemies. Frames are a bit wonky, but can still perfect chain.
The above spells are supported by a really useful Dual Black Magic.
Passives are good, 70% MAG while equipping a Rod, 30% MP & an innate resistance to petrify.
Has a diverse set of support skills. Stat buffs, resistances, mitigation, single-target MP recovery, and AoE immunity to certain ailments.
He doesn't have enough turns to do everything in his kit, so he needs to pick two or three things and focus on those on any given fight.
None of the things he does are best-in-class, but they're all still pretty good, and versatility counts for a lot.
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.
Decent magical finisher due to FFBE's stacking mechanics.
His primary spell arsenal is normally unremarkable. Even Dual Black MagicWaterga and Stonga are relatively commonplace and mediocre. In terms of skills, again, none of the "Blood" skills are particular standouts, except Blood Pulsar, which can stack upto 6.5x damage after 4 uses.
Zyrus' LB somewhat improves on this, since it allows him use 2 "Blood" skills/turn for 2 turns. Together with the MAG self-buff, it helps him to ramp up faster on Blood Pulsar.
Aside from this, he gets decent MAG from his passives and has immunity to paralyze.
Equipment & TMRs: Use a rod, a robe, and standard MAG gear.