Difference between revisions of "Tier List/Shark3143/Dragon Tier List"
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Revision as of 14:30, 13 July 2019
Dragons are difficult to place in a traditional tier list, due to the nature of their stat-boosting abilities often overshadowing their skills/attributes during shapeshift itself. However, when it comes to selecting the best dragons for your adventurer, a few general guidelines are as follows:
- Dragons should be attuned to the same element as the adventurer they are equipped to, otherwise the stat-boosting ability will not take effect.
- Using HP-boosting dragons on non-Staff adventurers is frowned upon, due to the damage-focused nature of the game’s current content. Healers are best able to utilize the HP increase due to their healing output being heavily weighted towards their own HP value.
- Split HP/Strength boosting dragons are also generally frowned upon on non-ranged adventurers, but are acceptable substitutes in early game if you do not have any other choices.
- Phoenix may be an exception to the rule under certain circumstances, due to the values on both her initial heal and the regen afterwards. In certain types of content where survivability is a concern, i.e. Raid or Facility events, using Phoenix on a damage-dealing adventurer may be a valid strategy, even when off-element. However, she cannot be used as a crutch for all types of content, especially in quests where dealing damage is emphasized. In particular it is frowned upon to use Phoenix on a damage-dealing Flame-attuned adventurer to survive the HP check of High Midgardsormr’s Trial due to a lack of damage contribution from whoever has Phoenix equipped.
- 5* dragons that boost strength by 40/60% are held as the gold standard for damage-dealing adventurers, however, 4* dragons that boost strength by 30/45% when max unbound will be a superior option to the aforementioned 40/60% 5* dragons at 1-3 unbinds.
- Though story greatwyrms and raid reward dragons have displayed rarities at 4* and 5* respectively, their stats and abilities are inferior to dragons of equivalent rarity from the gacha, being somewhere between gacha obtained 3* and 4* dragons. Therefore, they should not be treated as equivalent to gacha dragons despite their rarities being the same.
As 5 
dragons obtained from the Gacha/Advanced Dragon Trials are the most diverse pool as well as the target for later content, their abilities are the most worth analyzing. Below are detailed breakdowns of their stat boosts, attributes, and effectiveness on different types of adventurers. All dragons are assumed to be at max unbinds and used on an adventurer attuned to the same element.
5 Dragon Analyses
v1.4, Last updated July 13th, 2019
Dragon Analyses created and maintained by JiMing (@JiMing#4813)
Agni focuses on raw damage, plain and simple. He provides a 60% boost to Strength for flame-attuned adventurers, making him one of the best choices for attackers. His attacks and skill are slow, but each one deals massive damage, providing great damage when shapeshifted.
Cerberus’ ability is identical to that of Agni, but the utility that her skill provides makes her the gold standard for flame-attuned attackers. The debuffs to Strength and Defense that she provides, as well as her ability to inflict burn, benefit the entire team as well as the adventurer utilizing her. Since these benefits are so short, however, the difference between her and Agni is marginal.
While her Strength boost isn’t as significant as any of the other 5* Flame dragons, High Brunhilda still serves as a decent free alternative. The extra HP she provides is of particular use on healers who could do with a bit of extra damage, and other ranged adventurers who need more survivability, but melee adventurers could do with a different option. Of particular note is her 20% Dragon Time ability, which allows her to extend the otherwise short shapeshifted period just a little bit.
For ranged attackers fighting against wind-attuned bosses, Prometheus is a phenomenal choice. His dual ability of 50% Strength and 15% Wind Res provides a good mix of damage and survivability, a combination very welcome on bows and wands who are prone to taking damage, particularly in quests like High Midgardsormr’s Trial where forced damage is present. Although Prometheus provides less damage than Agni or Cerberus, he’s still strong in his own right.
Konohana Sakuya’s stat-boosting abilities are quite polarizing. While her Strength boosting ability sits at a paltry 20%, her boost to Skill Damage is a monstrous 70%. Her shapeshifted form’s skill is not impressive by itself, with an animation speed on the slower side and dealing average damage. Its real boon lies in its ability to boost the next skill used by the player by 40%, which under the correct circumstances can result in extremely high burst damage. Sakuya is marginally superior to her 60% Strength boosting counterparts on Gala Sarisse, but for all other Flame attuned adventurers, she falls just shy of Agni/Cerberus. However, the difference in performance between Sakuya and Agni/Cerberus is rather small no matter the case. Her synergy with Sword adventurers is particularly poor, as their normally excellent overdrive gauge-depleting attributes are hampered by how little strength to normal attacks Sakuya provides.
Arctos packs a 45% Strength and 55% Critical Hit Damage boosting ability, passives that are identical to those of Long Long’s. Unlike Long Long however, multiple Flame adventurers reach a critical rate high enough to make use of his ability. Mikoto and Yue both easily attain the requisite critical hit rate for Arctos to outperform Cerberus without needing additional support or difficult to maintain conditionals. He doesn’t outperform Konohana Sakuya on Sarisse but is the superior choice over Agni/Cerberus, making him the best choice if you have the latter two but not the former. Lastly, Serena prefers Arctos if she can attain all three stacks of Barrage Devastation, but otherwise should use Agni/Cerberus. Arctos’ skill applies the Stun affliction which is commonly resisted by enemies but provides minor utility when it isn’t.
Often considered one of the best dragons currently available, Leviathan is the premier choice for water-attuned adventurers, largely in part to his 60% Strength ability. Although his normal attack chain is somewhat awkward, used properly he has excellent damage when shapeshifted, especially when taking his skill into account. It applies the bog affliction, extremely potent against enemies who do not resist it, providing a massive increase to the entire team’s damage output.
Simurgh is an interesting dragon, who combines an offensive ability with a defensive one. At max unbind, she grants 40% HP, as well as 60% Overdrive Punisher. While 60% is a huge modifier for such an ability, it doesn’t have any synergy with its counterpart, and thus has very little impact overall. Her skill heals all adventurers, giving her some extra utility on water-attuned healers, but otherwise can be replaced by High Mercury or Poseidon at little cost.
High Mercury is essentially a superior Poseidon, with the same stat-boosting ability of 30% HP and Strength. A 20% Dragon Time increase and applying the bog affliction with her skill gives her two massive advantages to be used over him in spite of having marginally worse stats. However, it should be noted that Poseidon can be potentially quicker to unbind via rolling dupes in the gacha as well as Sunlight Stones. Copies of High Mercury for unbinding purpose are obtained via the Advanced Dragon Trials Treasure Trade, which can take several months to accumulate, compared to Sunlight Stones which one may already possess on hand.
Dragonyule Jeanne’s ability provides two excellent modifiers: 45% Strength and 20% Critical Rate. The damage output resulting from it rivals even that of Leviathan’s, even surpassing it with optimal wyrmprints. Units focused on landing critical hits will receive a significant boost from Dragonyule Jeanne. When shapeshifted, however, adventurers using Leviathan are often better off. In addition to her normal attacks dealing less damage, her skill inflicts freeze instead of bog. While freeze is normally a great affliction for its utility, it lacks the massive burst damage potential that bog has on break, even overwriting bog and lowering the team’s damage. Even though her synergy with Leviathan is negative, Dragonyule Jeanne is still fantastic in her own right.
Much like the other 60% Strength dragons, Zephyr stands above other dragons as the optimal choice for wind-attuned adventurers. He even sees use on Lowen thanks to the necessity for damage in High Mercury’s Trial. Unlike his counterparts in other elements, however, his utility is quite limited aside from his ability, as stun is one of the more commonly resisted afflictions.
Garuda matches Jeanne d’Arc for the best HP increasing ability amongst dragons, providing a 60% boost for wind-attuned adventurers. On top of that, her skill heals the user for another minor layer of survivability. This makes Garuda one of the best options for wind healers in the majority of content, but in quests where high damage is essential, such as High Mercury’s Trial, a dragon that boosts Strength is preferable.
Long Long trades a 60% Strength ability for an ability that provides 45% Strength and 55% Critical Damage. He has very obvious synergy with wind-attuned attackers with a focus on landing critical hits, of which there are few. Most notably, Lin You is a fine choice to be used alongside Long Long, as well as any dagger units, or simply any unit who can achieve a 22% critical rate or higher. In other cases, Zephyr is preferable to Long Long, and the latter should only be used as a substitute.
Numerous wind-attuned adventurers inflict poison, so Pazuzu’s secondary 20% Poisoned Punisher ability can often provide a substantial increase to damage along with his 50% Strength increase. However, in cases where a boss resists poison, Pazuzu’s damage output drops significantly. To make matters worse, since bosses become more resistant to afflictions the more they are used, adventurers using Pazuzu might struggle to put out enough damage to finish longer fights. He’s still great for short fights, but is otherwise inferior to Zephyr and Long Long.
High Midgardsormr is the only 5* Wind dragon with a 30% increase to HP and Strength. His utility is limited to ranged Wind-attuned adventurers, particularly as a slightly more offensively oriented alternative to Garuda for Wind Staves. A 20% Dragon Time increase allows one to remain in shapeshift a little while longer, which is a welcome addition to his kit.
Freyja is an alternative to Garuda for Wind-element Staff adventurers. Though her HP boost is half the value of Garuda’s at 30%, her 35% Skill Haste ability allows for more frequent heals, closing the gap between the two. Her skill provides a flat heal followed by a regen to the whole team that while less potent than Phoenix’s skill, also energizes the whole team to give it more utility. Unfortunately, Wind Staves don’t have strong effects attached to their skills like Strength up or Energy, so her Skill Haste isn’t quite as useful as it theoretically could be. Freyja's utility is limited to healers as other buffers such as Melody don’t receive enough of an increase in buff uptime to compensate for not running a Strength boosting dragon like Zephyr.
With a massive 60% increase to HP for Light adventurers, Jeanne is the go-to pick for Light’s diverse pool of Staff adventurers. Her 30% increase to the entire party’s defense on her skill is a massive increase to survivability, but its impact is lowered if performed during the break state, which is where the majority of shapeshifts occur.
Cupid rolls numerous boons into one fantastic package, placing him at the top of currently available light dragons. His ability is obviously nothing to scoff at, a 60% Strength increase, but this is only amplified even further by his skill providing a teamwide boost to critical rate by 25%. Cupid raises the entire team’s damage, and with multiple Cupid abilities active, you may find that every attack you use is a critical hit. That’s not all, however: Cupid’s skill is also a teamwide heal, able to bring adventurers in danger of dying back to safety.
For ranged Light-attuned adventurers tackling on-element content, Gilgamesh is a fantastic choice. With a very respectable 50% Strength increase along with 15% Shadow Res, he allows Bows and Wands to have a good damage output while giving them survivability on par with their melee compatriots. Melee adventurers have very little incentive to run him, however, unless you lack Cupid.
Liger gives Light-attuned adventurers a 30% increase to HP and Strength, limiting his full potential to use on ranged units. Wands and Bows can equip him if survivability is a concern, and Staves use Liger as an offensively-leaning substitute for Jeanne. His skill applies the paralysis affliction, giving him utility as no shadow-element content features enemies that fully resist paralysis currently.
Takemikazuchi has two offensive abilities, 40% Strength and 25% Overdrive Punisher. Overdrive typically takes up a little more than half of a fight, allowing light adventurers with him equipped to do high burst damage during the mode. However, the increase damage during overdrive fails to eclipse Cupid's 60% Strength buff in the long-term, making him an inferior choice overall. Overdrive Punisher is a wasted passive during break, negatively impacting Takemikazuchi's potential damage output, as break is where the majority of damage dealt to a boss occurs. His skill inflicts stun, giving him utility in quests against enemies who do not resist it, and being able to aim the direction his skill travels in throughout its animation may be useful for crowd control in quests with multiple enemies.
Nidhogg’s 30% increase to HP and Strength relegates him to use on ranged Shadow-attuned adventurers. In particular, he is the best option for players who wish to maximize the healing output of their Shadow Staves, as there are no dragons that purely boost HP within the element. His skill applying the blind affliction provides him utility during shapeshift, in particular he synergizes well with Nefaria and her Blinded Punisher-focused kit.
From a gameplay perspective, Nyarlathotep is as enigmatic as he is in his stories. Both of his abilities are active at different HP thresholds. Above 30% HP, he provides a 50% Strength increase - an amount that is overshadowed by Marishiten, but is still very respectable. Once the adventurer using Nyarlathotep goes below 30% HP, they lose their Strength increase and are granted a shield that will block a single source of damage equal to 60% of their HP or less. The allows characters who take a lot of damage to safely recover, and it can be activated multiple times during a single quest, but it comes at the cost of a lot of damage, which is vital in challenging content.
Marishiten’s 60% increase to Strength to shadow-attuned adventurers allows her to stand a cut above all other dragons within her element. Her skill can be tough to land, but when it does, it inflicts one of the most powerful debuffs in the game: bleed. Bleed is a mechanic unique to Marishiten and her friends from Hinomoto, a debuff that is not resisted by any enemy in the game. It provides more damage over time than burn or poison, can be stacked with other afflictions, and it can be stacked up to three times, granting her extra synergy with Ieyasu, Sazanka, and Botan. If bleed is applied during break, which is when you’ll most likely be shapeshifting, its damage will be increased even further.
Shinobi’s 20% Strength and 70% Skill Damage abilities are marginally inferior to a 60% strength boosting ability. Two kinds of adventurers he excels on are those who inflict the Bleed debuff or have mechanics that provide greater damage output at low HP. The former category includes Ieyasu, Botan, and Sazanka, whereas the latter category includes Veronica and Natalie. Most of their damage comes from skills rather than their normal attacks which makes them the best candidates for Shinobi’s passive, but he is still effectively a substitute to Marishiten on any other Shadow adventurer, being only slightly worse than her. Of note is Shinobi’s skill, which energizes the whole team upon use, providing additional support to burst damage. Sword adventurers do not benefit from Shinobi as well as Marishiten, as his paltry 20% Strength increase is detrimental to their Overdrive gauge-depleting utility.