Tier List/Shark3143/Dragon Tier List

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 20% and Skill Damage by 90% at max unbind are generally held as the most valuable dragon for damage-dealing dragons, with dragons that boost strength by 60% at max unbind being the next most valuable type of dragon. 4 dragons that boost strength by 45% at max unbind will be more valuable than the aforementioned types of 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

v2.3, Last updated November 17th, 2019

Dragon Analyses created and maintained by JiMing (@JiMing#4813)

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With an ability that boosts Strength by 60%, Agni is an excellent choice for damage dealing purposes. Though his skill’s animation is impractically slow, his shapeshift damage is otherwise excellent. His skill’s lack of utility is also a non-issue with Gala Mym, who uses her own unique shapeshift no matter which dragon is equipped to her.

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Cerberus’ ability is identical to Agni’s, boosting the Strength of flame-attuned adventurers by 60%. Her shapeshift is generally superior to his, boasting good frame data on both her skill and normal attacks, the former capable of applying burn and reducing both defense and strength as well. Though her damage contribution to adventurer phase is inferior to Konohana Sakuya’s, the damage and utility her shapeshift brings makes her the among the best shapeshift targets in content such as raids or The Mercurial Gauntlet.

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High Brunhilda’s split boost of increasing HP and Strength by 30% each is difficult to apply in most content. Strength and Skill Damage boosting dragons are far superior to split boosts and are heavily discouraged when looking at dragons to use in difficult content. Aside from being an alternative to Phoenix on healers, High Brunhilda’s usability is limited.

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With a respectable 50% increase to Strength and 15% resistance to wind attuned attacks, Prometheus makes a decent substitute for Agni, Cerberus, or Sakuya should one lack any of them. Additionally his wind resistance is usable for enabling ranged adventurers to skip the Glorious Tempest wyrmprint in High Midgardsormr’s Trial, and generally enables ranged adventurers to more comfortably deal with the presence of forced damage in that quest.

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Boosting Strength by 20% and Skill Damage by 90%, Konohana Sakuya is the best choice for adventurer phase damage among the Flame dragons. Though her actual damage output varies depending on how often one can use skills off cooldown, it is generally always higher than the 60% strength boosting dragons. However, her shapeshift’s damage output on normal attacks and skills is quite poor compared to Agni or especially Cerberus. Her skill boosts the next damage skill used in the adventurer phase by 40%, but it is not enough to make up for her shapeshift’s shortcomings. In content where shapeshift has a greater impact such as raids or The Mercurial Gauntlet, the 60% Strength dragons and especially Arctos would make for better shapeshift targets, but in all other cases she stands as the best of the best within her element.

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Arctos’ 45% increase to Strength and 55% increase to Critical Hit Damage necessitates pairing him with adventurers who can reach high critical hit rates. Yue with her S2 buff active and Serena with all three stacks of Barrage Devastation can reach the critical hit rate with wyrmprints to make Arctos a superior choice to all other dragons for them. Mikoto without a max-level Skill Damage co-ability performs better with Arctos over Konohana Sakuya as well. He also makes a decent alternative to Konohana Sakuya on Sarisse if one lacks her but can choose between Arctos or a 60% Strength-boosting dragon. Though he is rarely the best choice for adventurer damage output, his shapeshift is superb. Arctos has the best overall damage output among the Flame-attuned dragons, making him the best choice for content in which shapeshifts are prominent. Unfortunately, his skill applying stun has next to no utility, as the affliction is commonly resisted, except in the case of the Master difficulty of High Jupiter's Trial, where Arctos sees off-element usage on Audric in order to skip an Electron Burst early in the fight by stunning High Jupiter before the attack goes off.

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Apollo provides 50% Strength and 20% Burning Punisher, giving him a strong niche in content that allows for consistent burns. He faces stiff competition from the Elegant Escort wyrmprint, whose 30% Burning Punisher effect is usually more than enough to exploit the burn affliction for those who have it save for a select few characters who make strong use of both. Apollo’s shapeshift is rather respectable, with good frame data on his normal attacks and skill as well as decent damage modifiers. Apollo’s more niche boosts make it difficult to use him over dragons such as Cerberus or Sakuya in general content, and one gets the most mileage out of his boost if they lack Elegant Escort.

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Kagutsuchi's abilities include 45% Strength and 15% Primed Strength. In theory his impact on adventurer damage would be higher than a 60% Strength dragon, but in practice it is lower due to lacking perfect uptime on Primed Strength. His shapeshift is especially notable for its skill, which can reach a high amount of damage if a target is large enough for all four hits to connect, such as against a Raid Boss or Fafnir Roy. Nevertheless, his best usage is as a dragon put on an AI teammate to direct the strength buff to a lead character for Raids or The Mercurial Gauntlet.

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With a split boost to HP and Strength for 30% each, Poseidon stands as one of the best dragons to use on healers within his element. However, he is a very poor choice for damage-dealing purposes and should be avoided. Rubbing salt in the wound is that High Mercury shares his stat-boosting ability and can be obtained outside of the gacha, making her a generally superior choice to him in situations where his ability would be appreciated.

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Leviathan boosts Strength by 60%, which is a very valuable ability that is technically inferior to Dragonyule Jeanne or Siren in terms of increasing adventurer-phase damage. However, the advantages his shapeshift brings to the table are so potent that he is still overall the most valuable water-element dragon. His skill applies the bog affliction, which provides a 50% increase to damage output while active, the utility of which cannot be overstated, especially when it is applied during break. Even in content that resists bog, proper use of animation canceling gives Leviathan an absurdly high damage output from shapeshift, far outstripping the shapeshift damage of his competitors. With his shapeshift’s absurd value, technically being the 3rd best dragon for adventurer phase damage is hardly even a concern.

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Simurgh’s 40% increase to HP and 60% Overdrive Punisher are an atypical combination that falls flat in practice. 60% is a high value, but the lack of any Strength increase provided makes it extremely low practice. Her usage is limited to water-elemental healers, a niche already occupied by split HP and Strength boosting dragons. Though her skill providing a regen heal makes her better for team survivability compared to her competitors, it is very unlikely that one will even use her shapeshift enough for it to matter.

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Combining a split 30% boost to both HP and Strength with a 20% increase to Dragon Time makes High Mercury the most easily accessible 5* dragon for water healers. Additionally, her increased shapeshift time and skill applying bog makes her superior to Poseidon overall despite having marginally worse stats than him.

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With a 45% boost to Strength and 20% increase to Critical Hit Rate, these two modifiers together allow Dragonyule Jeanne to provide more damage output on average than Leviathan, especially with the optimal wyrmprint setups. Her shapeshift however, is considerably less impressive than his, with her normal attacks doing considerably less damage and her skill applying freeze instead of bog. Though her freeze will not overwrite bog from another source, it is still a much less useful affliction to inflict, especially on break. Despite this, Dragonyule Jeanne is still a fantastic dragon in her own right. Her skill applying the freeze affliction is useful for the Master difficulty of High Jupiter's Trial, with Dragonyule Jeanne seeing off-element usage on Audric to skip an Electron Outburst early on in the fight.

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Boosting Strength by 20% and Skill Damage by 90%, Siren takes center stage as the best dragon for adventurer-phase damage within the water element. However, Leviathan will generally take the spotlight whenever shapeshifts come into play, as his phenomenal shapeshift is far more impactful than Siren’s. Low damage from both normal attacks and her skill makes her an extremely poor shapeshift target in content such as raids and The Mercurial Gauntlet. Water also lacks a skill damage-centric character to make the best use of her abilities, but despite all this, she is still one of the best dragons for water-attuned adventurers.

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Halloween Maritimus increases HP by 30% and provides an innate 35% Skill Haste. This makes him exceptionally good on water healers, as the additional haste speeds up their skill rotations, an invaluable quality for Thaniel in High Brunhilda's Trial especially. He is also a decent enough pick for Elisanne, as one can achieve exceptionally high uptime on her S1 buff, but it is not exceptionally better than running Leviathan or Dragonyule Jeanne. His skill is appreciated for its healing, but the Skill Damage buff zone it applies is not overly exciting.

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Zephyr’s 60% boost to Strength is an extremely valuable ability, but ultimately the end of his utility. His shapeshift is exceedingly mediocre, with slow animations on normal attacks and his skill. Additionally, Zephyr’s skill applying stun rarely comes into practice as higher tier content such as High Mercury’s Trial or Astral Raids are stun immune. In High Mercury's Trial, the ideal is to spend as little time in shapeshift as possible which makes his poor shift less of a detriment, but Vayu is still superior to him in that fight.

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At a 60% increase to HP, Garuda is mathematically the best choice to go with for increasing the potency of one’s heals within the wind element. This very rarely comes up in higher tier content, however, as High Mercury’s Trial lacks forced damage outside of the start, making optimizing for healing a pointless endeavor.

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Long Long’s abilities of increasing Strength by 45% and Critical Hit Damage by 55% makes him a potentially very damaging pick, but said potential goes mostly unrealized. The only adventurer who can practically meet Long Long’s required critical hit rate is Lin You, who is better off using Vayu if available. Reaching a high enough critical hit rate without making sacrifices in other areas that reduce damage overall is a difficult task, and Long Long is oftentimes a slightly better Roc for most adventurers.

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With a 50% increase to Strength and 20% Poisoned Punisher ability, Pazuzu’s damage contribution can be incredibly high against poisoned enemies. Numerous wind-attuned adventurers can consistently apply poison in content where it is not resisted such as High Mercury’s Trial or The Mercurial Gauntlet, and act as an enabler for any other adventurers equipped with Pazuzu, though this may lead to concessions in terms of team composition. Though more niche than Zephyr or Vayu, Pazuzu has the potential to be stronger than either of them under the right conditions.

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High Midgardsormr is the only split 30% HP and Strength boosting dragon in the wind element, and boasts 20% Dragon Time as well. This combination of abilities pigeonholes him as being a choice for wind healers and no one else, as the lack of inherent strength is crippling in the damage-focused meta. However, he does see off-element usage on Audric in the Master difficulty of High Jupiter's Trial, where High Midgardsormr's skill is used to stun High Jupiter just before an Electron Outburst early on in the fight.

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Freyja’s increase to HP is only 30%, but she boasts a ludicrously high 35% Skill Haste ability as well. With more frequent heals as a result of the skill haste and her shapeshift’s skill being a regen heal, Freyja is the most well-suited for pure survivability in the wind dragon roster. However, wind healers generally do not have useful additional effects on their skill such as energy, so her ability’s utility is not as high as it theoretically could be. In higher difficulties of High Mercury's Trial, Freyja is Noelle's best dragon for the fight as the innate skill haste lets Noelle build up her 25% strength buff S1 in two combos, and the fight has ample opportunity for attacking without interruption, which is suited for extremely high buff uptime.

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Vayu’s 20% increase to Strength and 90% increase to Skill Damage makes him the best dragon for increasing the damage output of wind-attuned adventurers. His skill during shapeshift boasts excellent frame data, being able to act nearly instantaneously after use, and boosts the damage of the next skill used by 40%. His normal attack output is also respectable with proper animation canceling, and his shapeshift is all in all far superior to Zephyr’s mediocre shapeshift. High Mercury's Trial sees players use shapeshift in a way that ensures they spend as little time in it as possible, but even this is to Vayu's advantage as this means that a player can reap the benefits of Vayu's 40% skill damage buff from his skill immediately.

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Hastur provides a 45% increase to Strength in addition to having Primed Strength, which applies a 15% strength buff every time a skill gauge fills on a 15 second cooldown. In theory using perfect skill rotations, Hastur would be superior to Zephyr for adventurer damage, but in practice it's unlikely that one will have perfect uptime on Primed Strength every 15 seconds. His shapeshift is very strong, especially compared to other wind dragons, but the most practical usage of Hastur is being placed on an AI teammate to redirect the strength buff to a lead character for Raids and The Mercurial Gauntlet.

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As a 60% HP increasing dragon, Jeanne is the go-to for pushing healing output. However, there is next to no content for light adventurers, much less one with the healing output provided by Jeanne, so her usage is practically nonexistent save for off-element content.

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Cupid’s kit boasts several boons, the most important being his 60% increase to Strength. As Light lacks a Skill Damage boosting dragon, this places Cupid at the top of available dragons within his element. As if that wasn’t enough, his skill is both a teamwide heal and a 25% critical hit rate increase. His heal allows adventurers to more easily maintain HP conditional abilities, and with multiple Cupids, nearly every attack you do may become a critical hit, which more than makes up for the lack of a damaging skill.

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Gilgamesh’s 50% increase to Strength and 15% Shadow Res makes him geared towards giving ranged light-attuned adventurers greater survivability. This has limited usage as light lacks difficult endgame content with unavoidable damage, so Gilgamesh is mostly a substitute for those who lack Cupid.

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Liger’s 30% increase to both HP and Strength pigeonholes him as an offensively-oriented alternative to Jeanne for healers within light. 30% Strength is too low for use on damage dealers, meaning he is not a viable choice in most cases.

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At 40% Strength and 25% Overdrive Punisher, Takemikazuchi is a confusingly designed dragon. Even with Overdrive active, his effective damage will only just barely outdamage Cupid, and during break, his burst damage capability is stifled by his low strength modifier. His skill being aimable is interesting and may have niche use in maps with several enemies, but in general he is not much more than a filler dragon on teams for raids or facility events.

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Pop-Star Siren has a unique and powerful shapeshift that is held back by poor abilities. Her skill provides three stacks of energy and increases strength and defense by 20% for 20 seconds each. Additionally, she is the first dragon who can build back up their skill through normal attacks, allowing Pop Star Siren to use her powerful skill twice in one shapeshift. However, her Strength boost is a measly 40%, and increasing the team’s shapeshift duration by 3 seconds is hardly enough to compensate. Despite her interesting design, it’s not worth using Pop-Star Siren and hindering one’s damage during adventurer phase when higher damage alternatives exist.

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High Jupiter provides a 30% boost to both HP and Strength along with 15% Dragon Time. His abilities make him best suitable for healers, though as with other High Greatwyrms his shapeshift’s mods are excellent. As adventurer form damage is more valuable, it is still difficult to justify using him on damage dealers.

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Increasing HP and Strength by 30% each, Nidhogg is the best dragon for shadow healers by default due to the element lacking a pure HP boosting dragon entirely. He is entirely unusable on any other kind of adventurer, as 30% strength is simply too low to use in difficult content. His shapeshift is unremarkable aside from applying blind on his skill, which may have limited utility.

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Nyarlathotep has a truly enigmatic set of abilities, though their usefulness is another story. At 30% HP or greater, Nyarlathotep boosts Strength by 50%, and below 30% HP, grants a shield that will block a single source of damage equal to 60% of their HP or less. This shield’s potency is high and the effect can be triggered multiple times per fight, but the HP conditional nature of his strength increase and its low value makes him a rather unimpressive choice all around.

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Marishiten stands a cut above her immediate competition for the most part, with a 60% increase to strength to shadow-attuned adventurers. Her skill during shapeshift applies the ever-powerful bleed debuff, which is not resisted by any adventurer in the game and can be stacked up to three times. Most shapeshifts are done during break, increasing the damage of her bleed even further. Marishiten sees notable usage on Delphi, whose -60% strength drop is compensated for perfectly by her ability, allowing his poison damage to skyrocket. However, Shinobi’s skill damage boosting ability is more useful on nearly every other character within her element, and boasts a far more powerful shapeshift than her, leaving her unable to soar above the shadow cast by her competition.

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Shinobi’s 20% Strength and 90% Skill Damage increasing abilities easily put him at the top of the pack for shadow-element dragons. If that wasn’t enough, his shapeshift boasts several advantages that give him an even further edge. His frame data is excellent, being able to act out of his skill nearly instantaneously after use and animation canceling allowing for high burst damage despite only having a 20% Strength boost. His skill also provides a full energize to the entire party, equating to giving every skill used afterwards a 50% damage increase. These advantages allow Shinobi to cast a shadow over every other dragon within his element.

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High Zodiark’s 30% to HP and Strength and 15% to Dragon Time place him in line with the other High Greatwyrms. Split boosts are best suited for healers, and High Zodiark is notable for the Shadow-attuned dragon roster lacking a pure HP boosting dragon, making him the best option to maximize healing output. Though his mods are quite good, it is irrelevant in most content as adventurer form damage is more important.

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Chthonius starts out with a 55% increase to Strength but boasts the Dragon’s Might ability which applies a 10% strength buff for every shapeshift, up to two times per quest. As such, the Netherwyrm scales very well with quests with multiple shapeshift opportunities, especially in Raids, with one being able to stack Dragon’s Might and Dragon’s Claws together for a large permanent strength buff. His shapeshift is quite good, with respectable modifiers and average animations for his normal attacks. Chthonius’ skill is both decently powerful and applies the poison affliction, making it good for damage against enemies who are not resistant to poison. His ability scales rather well with Delphi, whose abilities make him appreciate increases to his strength for his poison damage to reach its full potential. Though not as widely applicable as Shinobi, Chthonius has the potential to become even stronger under the right conditions.