Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-39403387-20191230180824

I've noticed i quickly fall into patterns regarding which characters i use the most, when the whole party fights as one. I wondered if how well my favorite fighters match up with the general consensus, so i put together a bit of a tier list based on my observations of the characters. Im basing my rankings based on the character's perfomances over the course of the entire game, but with more focus on the latest updates, as this is where their roles and equipment are the most apparant

S-Tier

Varia: Blade Dance is absolutely busted, and can singlehandely kill most regular bosses in 2-4 turns. Combined with some decent healing and buffs, and she doesn't look nearly as fragile as those Health losses make her look. She is fast enough that she has momentum on most enemies, and so Varia will kill anything before it has a chance to kill her. When she finally gets her hands on her private blades it's just not fair for any enemy she comes in contact with. She isn't just limited to bosses though, thanks to Blood Strike and Furious Strikes. As a matter of fact, i found she works best as the slowest party member, using Furious Strikes to clean up any enemies that are still alive after Robin/Uyae/Simon/Aka have grinded them down.

Robin: While she doesn't hurt just as hard as a Blade Dance does, Robin has the benefit of being able to choose her targets, and is almost always guaranteed to be able to exploit at least one enemy weakness, due to her status as an arcane mage. I found her to be much stronger on my second/third playthroughs as i started to figure out which enemies were weak to which attacks. Her lances make her a stronger Arcane Mage than both Riala and Altina and her insane Magic supply make sure she can last through nearly every dungeon in the game without need for MP resupply. Almost guaranteed to oneshot any normal enemy if you know what you're doing.

A-Tier

Uyae: At first i had no idea on how to use Uyae. When she joined she used both a MAG increasing glove and STR increasing Claw. I thought the secret was to balance these stats and use her both as a healer and as a fighter. But i was wrong. Uyae is at her best when she specializes, and maaan does she get good when you focus on making her one or the other. Out of the two, i prefer having her be a physical and agile powerhourse. Shockwave is a surprisingly strong AOE and Takedown will kill nearly any enemy outright. It hits nearly as hard as Blade Dance, only you lose no health and get to choose your targets. Equipping Uyae with Assault Armor, Assault Helmet and two Zirantian Claws doesn't just make sure that she hits first, it makes sure the enemy doesn't hit back.

Carina: There are 2 pure healers in this game, and out of the two of them, i prefer Carina (so sorry Qum fans). This is as far from an objective fact as possible however, as their roles vary slightly: Carina buffs defense and Qum buffs offense. And whichever of the two is more important varries heavily from fight to fight. Carina could be concidered a slightly boring party member to use, as having her in your party drags out the fights very much. But i don't think i ever lost a boss fight with her on the team, because with two rounds Shield of Purity up and consistent healing each turn, your party becomes close to unkillable. Qum might make the party hit harder, but that is all for naught if they die before they get a chance to exploit it. Carina can also revive outside of combat and synergizes much better with Vhala.

Aka: The OG debuff queen. Aka is a consistent part of any players early game and for good reason. She can Forceful Lunge any normal enemy to death in 1-2 rounds and debuff many bosses to the point where they are laughable. And she ALWAYS hits first. Show me any evidence that this isn't so, and i'll say it's faked. In the later chapters, however, i have found more bosses resist debuffs, and her once lethal unique dagger doesn't do as much damage as some of the other heavy hitters. And hitting first is not nearly as rare as it once was. Most offensive units can do so as well by the time Chapter 3 begins. She might get a lucky crit in, but if you ask me, building a strategy based on getting some lucky crits is doomed to fail at some point. These days she isn't quite as often in my party as she once was, though she is still a powerhouse.

Riala: I don't really like to use Lust based units all that much because they add an extra step to an already well-functioning equation. Magic>Dead Enemy beats Masturbation>Magic>Dead Enemy by one turn. It's not even like Lust attacks hit harder than Arcane Magic attacks. And most enemies that are weak to lust can often be killed just effeciently with some well placed Fireballs or Swords. Riala eliminates this scepticism of mine, however, through her sheer versatility. Honestly, i feel kinda sorry for Yarra and Altina, since Riala took their gigs, and combined them into one character, with no drawbacks. Most regular encounters have enemies with both arcane and sexual weaknesses, which means Riala can Torment one if she has Lust or Fireball the other if she doesn't. Always consistent damage, and no reason to waste a turn on masturbation. She is never the one who hits the hardest on the team, but she will never end up in a position where her attacks are useless against a particular enemy. She can even AOE and recover Mp. How cool is that?

B-Tier

Qum: She synergizes fantastically with an offensively oriented team, and skyrockets the damage someone like Varia can do. But Qum is reliant on her Lust stat to be useful. Which means that she will spend a lot of rounds masturbating, if you use her for longer periods of time, which means 1/4 of your party is pretty much inactive. She is also significantly frailer than Carina, and a strong physical enemy might OTK her, leaving you without a healer and only 3 partymates. A buttplug can help her being useful for longer periods of time, but also practically leaves you with 4 instead of 5 equipment slots, as the buttplug offers nearly no stat ups. She has a few tricks up her sleave though, mainly being the only party member who can consistently recover MP for the entire party with Orgasmic Thought and Illusury Orgy. She also has a few surprisingly strong offensive Synergy skills which allow her to become a damaging sexual mage in her own right, like Pretty Lance.

Altina: Poor Altina. In many ways the bottom bitch of the harem, and also the weakest arcane mage in the party. She actually starts out rather strong with a high MAG stat, and if equipped with the same Staff as Robin, Altina's basic spells can actually compete with Robin's lances for damage, during Aka's route. This quickly ends, as her MAG growths aren't nearly as impressive though, and she fades into obscurity. So what's her gimmick? Earth and AOE. But the list of notable enemies who are weak to earth is very short and AOE, quite frankly, sucks. You usually want individual targets killed to limit the number of counterattacks, not damage all enemies and get countered by all of them. And even her AOE skills are stolen by Riala, who not just hits harder, but has more varied attacks. And so Altina waits on the bench. Perhaps if Tanurak has an unexpected weakness towards Earthquakes she can find a role, but until then she is doomed to be the worst arcane mage.

Yarra: Yarra's main problem is that she runs on lust, not magic. For short battles she can get away with relying on a turn one Sexual Torment, but the longer the fight proceeds, the more she will have to masturbate to keep up, while her teammates just do damage, plain and simple. The obvious solution is a buttplug, but it's a solution that adds another problem: Yarra's stats aren't impressive to begin with, and without a offhand item that adds plenty of MAG her offensive potential is rather limited. Yarra is somewhat gimicky, because most enemies that are weak to lust still die very well to a giant sword between the eyes, even if that aversion to steel isn't technically described as a "weakness". With Yarra i see two viable options. You hold her in reserve with a buttplug until you reach a hard lust-weak boss/ group of enemies and drop a couple of "Incubus King's Emissary Nukes" on them, after which you get rid of Yarra again, or you use a slower team, designed around buffing up your team, and Yarra before using her Lust points against the enemies. But if most battles can be won in 2 turns, why bother?

Simon: It's a bit sad to find the Incubus King himself, and the protagonist of the game, near the bottom of the list, no? Sadly, Simon struggles against his harem of super-specialized girls. There are girls who buff better and debuff better, heal better and attack better. He is a sturdy son of a bitch, however, and is often the last man standing, if the rest of the team has been downed, due to his great defensive stats he lives. Every time it looks like Simon is just about to fade completely into combat-obscurity, he recieves a great new skill or piece of equipment that keeps him relevant: When he trains in the Orgasmic Empire, when he increases his Lust Flow, when he learns Incubus Strike: he endures. This means his combat role changed slightly over the course of the game, almost into a support role recently. Simon never had much Magic to speak off, but with the Incubus Glove he almost makes a decent healer with "Support Servants", which not only removes all statuses and recovers from fainting, it can also heal around 2000 HP! Alternatively, the Tormented Shield can turn him into a pure offensive unit, though his lacking ways to do damage still keeps him from reaching the same heights as the dual-wielding girls. Kings Aura is also a very strong buff, United Strike can be situationally useful and Lust Renewal makes sure he never runs out of MP. Simon is far from the best, but this sturdy old dog has some tricks left in it. I only wish Sierra would give him a real powerup for the endgame.

C-Tier

Nalili: When it comes to Nalili, i'm almost certain that there is a better way to use her, that i'm just not seeing. I've tried several strategies, but none that put her on par with the other physical attackers. She joins the party underlevelled and spends the time equivalent of an entire chapter on catching up. Once she does, she is held back by the same weakness that the other succubi suffer: Lust instead of Magic. Which means Nalili is in the same dillema of having a buttplug for instant attacks, that limit her stats, or if you want to waste a turn or two on masturbating, before spamming "Orgy of Blows". Tormented Shield increases her offensive potential by a very large amount, but can't be used along with Lust Preservation, and it also decreases her lust gain from masturbating. So once again, it's a tradeoff. And why bother with tradeoffs, when other characters can just hit things, and kill them right away? Feel free to comment, if you have a better strategy for Nalili, because i'm just not seeing it.

Vhala: Remember when i said that most things weak to Lust could be killed with a sword to the face? That goes for anti-sexual attacks too. Arrow of Abstinence is one of the few anti-sexual attacks, and yet it does less damage that regular physical attacks do to the same target. Vhala is the sole specialist in her party-niche, but it's a niche that has very little purpose. Her regular offensive skills, like Targetted Shot or Triple Shot do laughable damage compared to the attacks of Varia, Nalili or Uyae, and Unperson Aura can be situationally good, but most partymembers likely have pins that protect from sexual statuses anyway. The best thing about Vhala has got to be her AOE debuffs, Offensive and Defensive Rain. These skills can save your life against some group-bosses, and is practically required for 1 or 2 fights in the game (Like The Group at the end of the Erosian Temple Labyrinth). Defensive Rain, combined with a defensive buff from someone like Carina, makes your party practically invulnerable. Sadly a few gimmicky fights don't make her perfomance in the rest of the game any better.

Hilstara: That's right. I'm placing this tank of a woman at the bottom. And it's not because she is a bad tank, far from it. Shield Wall means she is fantastic at what she does, and she even has a few decent party buffs. She is a wall, not just for physical attacks, but for magical ones too (too a smaller degree). But with the meta this game has, tanks are simply unnecesary. Because pretty much every offensive unit is very fast, hits very hard, and can survive what few enemies are left at the end of the turn. And if not, a healer can buff and heal them through the danger safely. Hilstara doesn't protect against AOE either, which is becoming increasingly normal in later chapters. And while some of her skills like Bash or Powerful Blow might trick you into thinking she can double as an offensive unit, that is a scam. Her ATK growth is ridiculously low, and her usage of axes means she misses attacks far too often to be reliable, and with her speed she will often be the last to attack, which means whoever she was trying to protect is already down for the count. So if 80% of encounters can be ended before any of your attackers  take damage, and the remaining 20% of encounters can be solved by having a healer/buffer in play, then what room is there for a tank? Sadly, not much. The introduction of a very strong attack, Sexual Aegis, which relies on DEF instead of ATK, might give Hilstara a fighting chance in chapter 5, and i actually willingly used her for the first time in several chapters in the Deeprealms to protect against those damn Deeprealms Hounds. So maybe there is hope for this Mountain of a woman yet. 