dart is easily s tier high hp high damage solid useable all game c tier bro is mad crazy lol i used dart and killed final boss in 3 turns dude hit me once or twice...... no way he's not s tier
My 9 year old self back in the day thought Kongol was best because when he clobbered something, you see big numbers. Now, looking at the overall DPS in a battle, you can see Meru’s DPS total is like 2-3x more than the rest of the party, lol
Meru is by far the best character to use but I believe Kongol is way under rated. Yes you do have to give him bandits equipment to make use of him but Kongol with bandit equipment still hits harder than many characters with power boosting equipment.
@@Dhalin i give her an attack ring and dancers shoes and watch that perky step just delete enemies off the screen only red hp haschel with final weapon hits harder
If you had the official strategy guide for this game, it suggested your final party was Dart, Albert, Kongol. No speed boosting equipment. Dart: Burning Rush Albert: Harpoon Kongol: Pursuit Me, being a dumb kid followed this advice and played this party the whole game, it was pure suffering.
Never followed the guide, played that party the entire game as well xD guard x17million, health is max while on my turn swing for decent chunk. Repeat xD
I always used Dart, Albert and Miranda. Dart because I had to. Albert because I usually had him pretty strong and he has the only defensive Dragoon spell Miranda for healing.
Yep, the English strategy guide is quite awful. The japanese guide, on the other hand, is full on content and suggested different parties for each boss encounter.
Why the hell would it suggest those additions? When I was a kid playing this for the first time, that was the team I used because I liked those characters and didn't know any better, but even I used the more advanced additions (not the final ones though, apparently that was above my head).
My only problem with her was that for as long as you had her she had very few additions. I freakin' loved the Addition system and wanted more for the characters that used them.
I once used Shana/Miranda the entire game and she trivialized every boss, just spam magic items with her. From my experience I would put her in S with the right items. She's also the bulkiest of all the females.
this, i was genuinely surprised as well. even the Virage bosses takes a lot of damage, though you would need a couple more items since they don't have elemental weakness. but at least you don't have to worry about multiple body parts since there are AoE magic.
Yeah I'm currently playing the game again for the first time since probably my childhood, because of the PS4 port, and I've been trying to use item spells far more than I ever did in the past - so, imagine my surprise when I let Shana start throwing some. Holy hell, I had no idea she could put out that much damage. And, I'm still on only disc one!
The good thing about this game is if you really like a character you can mitigate their weaknesses with equipment. I never use Shana but as soon as Miranda joins she’s permanently in my party (I am probably the only Miranda Stan out there and that’s ok)
@@tantacles yeah I don’t get why she gets so much hate. She actually has a personality and she didn’t ask to be a dragoon the spirit picked her over Shana
Rose's astral drain heals the team for a third of the damage each, but if one is dead it heals half. If 2 are dead it heals for full health. It's niche and not for the final boss, but should be mentioned.
Shana absolutely belongs in S tier. She has better bulk than Meru while having much better DPS against bosses. Shana throwing items absolutely trivializes the majority of the game. Lavitz could likely drop a tier (removing/combining the A and B tiers) with how little Rose Storm is going to help per cast for any of the top tier characters. Its great for his personal survivability, but he'll need to cast it every other turn to even hope to keep Meru under its effect.
Shana only deserves to be B if she's DLvl 4 or under. DLvl 5 Shana, specifically, is an easy A tier for being a safer, easier to use option than Meru. She's more survivable, her fully manipulatable SP meter allows for an unmatched ability to pop in and out of Dragoon form, she's so good with attack items that she'll still out-damage Dart consistently, and (without MP restoration) her three party heals are comparable to Meru's five in speed and healing factor. These strengths definitely outweigh the weaknesses, making the game easier despite her being less optimal than Meru. Everyone's less optimal than Meru. I'm so glad that there's someone with deep knowledge of LoD and good presentation skills capitalizing on the PS4/5 release. While I'm looking forward to the other character videos, I'm hoping someone like you will cover the Hard Mode mod at some point. It needs some love.
I'd argue Lavitz having low speed is actually a benefit. Less turns means Rose Storm stays active longer, allowing the rest of the team to play more recklessly. Especially if they have speed boosting items
So my friends and I aren't the only ones who noticed the questionable animation for Rose's Dragoon spells. Not just Astral Drain, but also looking like she takes a black energy shit at the beginning of Death Dimension.
I'm going to be honest I probably got more healing from Astral Drain than any other source but guarding. saved my ass multiple times. Rose is on my A Tier.
Valid. A bit late but here are my opinions on a few characters: Dart - A Tier There are a lot of water types in the game and, in particular, there are a good number of difficult water bosses. Whether it's *Special* Final Burst or Heat Blade boosted Additions, Dart makes these fights easier. I'm probably in the minority, but I don't like to have Dart use Soul Eater or the two Legend armor on anyone and since speed is the most important stat, making Darts accessory slot useless for Soul Eater is not the wisest option for him in my opinion. He is better as a backup magic user. He often does more damage throwing an item or using Dragoon magic than with his Additions. Magic Hat is perfect for him. This allows a Final Burst for every Dragoon turn and that's usually more than enough to get through a boss. If Dragoon is not an option, he's flexible enough to act as the situation needs him to. Heat Blade/Fairy Sword/Claymore > Soul Eater. Dart is also a prime candidate for the Bandit's Shoes if Haschel isn't in the party. Lavitz/Albert - B Tier Another controversial opinion, I think Rose Storm is overrated. Yes it can be useful. Is it necessary for any fight? Absolutely not. And that apparently is his best spell. There are only a handful of fights where Gaspless can do respectable damage. There are just faster harder hitters, physically and magically, than the green guy. B Tier for the beginning of the game where his physical bulk and Rose Storm are much more useful. Rose - C Tier (Kongol Tier) She's obviously great in Chapter 1. But that's it. After that, she falls hard. Frailest character. Anything she can do, other characters can do better and there's no fight that comes to mind where her Dragoon is actually useful aside from maybe Fruegel 2 or the first encounter with Mappi, where she can instantly kill the minions with Demon's Gate if you have it. Final fight she gets stronger physically, but Haschel will still out perform her there. Shana/Miranda - S Tier A.K.A The Boss Killer. Many a boss fight ended with the boss getting one or no turns at all before Shana ends them. Best Dragoon? Yes! I think Merus Rainbow Breath is also overrated. Status isn't as bad as people think. Yeah it's annoying when it happens but there are many ways to prevent or cure status and Rainbow Breath is not the "best" way to do that. I'd argue that White-Silver Dragon is better than Rainbow Breath and Diamond Dust. It costs a lot of MP? Use a Magic Hat and/or Amulet. If done right, none of the boss fights should last long enough to where MP cost matters much anyway. Shana actually has better physical bulk than Meru as well, due to having the highest HP out of all females. Her normal attacks are weak, but we're not using normal attacks on bosses. Regular mobs are too easy to really care about her weak basic attack. She's also mandatory for any of the Unique mobs as she has a bow ready for each one. Long bow for physical, Bemusing Arrow for Rainbow Bird and Virulent Arrow for Lucky Jar for those wanting to farm these. There's an abundance of attack items in the game so don't be stingy and if you know the game well enough, there's no real need for healing items. You have guard. Dragoon magic. Therapy ring. Hotels galore. Healing spots aplenty. Auto revive after battle. Waste item spots on healing items? No thanks. I'll stock the corresponding attack items for the coming boss fights. Also for those reading, here's another little tip: grinding Additions is a waste of time. Yes you want to max them all out and by the end of the game they surely will be, but think about it.. the most difficult fights are bosses and based on my previous comments, most of the damage will come from attack items... you'll naturally level additions while running through dungeons and such. The only grinding I recommend is for equipment. Some enemies drop items you won't get till much later in the game, Energy Girdle from Berserker or Spirit Cloak from Fire Spirit for example. Do the true grinding in Death Frontier, Mayfil or on the Moon if by that point you still have Additions to max, D'Levels to gain or if you plan to reach max level.
I hated the timing on the additions for some of the characters and ended up using Lavits and Shana. I'm more of a defensive style person and having half damage and heals was a must. Shana also powered up dragoon form quickly at the end, getting 125 SP per shot if I recall correctly.
Shana is potentially A-tier due to being the only character to hit special enemies with 100% accuracy with the correct gear (if that was in the criteria) otherwise she is in the right place, as she is unable to benefit from Rose Storm due to her high speed. Lavitz is arguably S-tier due to how Rose Storm works, enabling Kongol to be used at all, and making most everyone outside S-tier better (due to lower speeds extending the protection). Rose, Dart, and Kongol? Cant say i disagree, unless you stack on Rose Storm or abuse Pandemonium, magic/physical barriers on Kongol (also extends to Lavitz now that i think about it). Meru and Haschel are in the perfect spot.
Key thing about speed. It is possible to have 3 dancer shoes for the ladies. But there is only one bandit shoes for the guys, which Dart claims cause he can't leave the party.
You can buy a pair of boots on disc 4, and later find them, that give 10 speed for a budget boot option. The extra dancers shoes are so rare and late in the game they may as well not exist, they however are obtained from random encounters. Dancers rings are also a rare drop that can be found in disc 3 in the same area as the first dancers shoes, also from random encounter. Bandits rings also have an earlier farming location and can be obtained a whole disc early from a certain boss as a rare drop, 1 from a chest, and another being repeatable from a random encounter in the same area as the chest.
@@swifttalon9763 I think the boss from disc 1 you’re referring to is the dude you have to beat at the shrine right before you get shanas dragoon stone. I forgot his name tbh…his name is Drake the Bandit….ring has a 30% drop rate which is easy enough with the new rewind feature
I played this game a lot growing up, back before I ever looked at a characters stats, and mostly used characters that felt strong rather than were strong. It makes me smile to see that my favorite team of Dart, Shana, and Kongol is a solidly bad B + Kongol tier :)
Meru is 100% the best character. She has been in my party my last 6 playthroughs. Perky step is OP once fully maxed out as well. Great list but for Shana is At least and A tier. Solely for her healing and final dragoon attack
My Tier list would go like this, S tier: Meru, Shana A Tier: Haschel, Albert B Tier: Dart, Rose C Tier: Kongol Meru is the best character in the game simply for her speed, she is just so fast that she attacks twice more than most other characters. Her damage seems low but her final addition makes her physical damage on par with most characters, 2x the damage with her speed and she is basically one of the highest physical damage dealer in the game. She is also very versatile with great magical atk and damage, meaning if you don't want to use additions, she can still be a very powerful spell caster with attack items or dragoon magic that can heal the party. Her only downside is her low health, which is not a problem with therapy ring, she can heal more with more turns. But you'll need to boost her max HP in battles where enemies can one shot her. Shana is without a doubt the 2nd best character in the game in the hands of a good player who knows the meta and optimize the game play. Her having the highest magic attack means she can basically one shot minor enemies in every random encounter with a multi attack item spell, especially with psyche bomb X you get later in the game. And her having good speed means she can dish out more damage than most other characters can. There is someone who did an attack item only challenge and its only possible because of Shana, that's just how good she is. But even if you don't use her for her spell damage, she is still a very good support character with good speed to steal turns and heal others with items or dragoon. As for her dragoon lvl grinding, its actually not that hard. People think she can't do additions and thus her SP gains would be slower, but its quite the opposite. Because her attack animation is shorter compared to other characters' additions, the time it takes to grind her dragoon lvl is also shorter, not to mention she has high speed to attack more often. And since her physical attack is so bad, you can just have other characters keep guarding and let Shana shoot the enemy many times before it dies, letting her gain more SP than other characters can in a single battle. Haschel has good speed and high physical damage, has a glass cannon build that makes him the highest possible physical DPS character. He is still among the top damage dealer even in a standard build. His magic damage is not the worst but not good either, you are better off not using magic with him. His high damage with good speed and decent health makes him the best physical character in the game. His dragoon form is meh, nothing it does is better than his human form. Albert is honestly only B tier at best if not for his Rose Storm dragoon magic. His damage is average overall because of his slow speed. His health and physical defense is good but is still very vulnerable to magic attacks because of his weak magic defense, can still die easily to powerful spells if not careful. The only reason you want him in the party is for his Rose Storm, nothing else. Rose Storm is so good that it can make difficult battles so much easier. However, most good LoD players don't use him, you can beat the game without Rose Storm, in fact the game becomes rather easy with max level final additions. Dart is just average in all scenarios, jack of all trades master of none. Like most games, the meta for LoD is about optimizing and min maxing for the best damage or speed to achieve faster or higher completion rate. Because Dart is average in all aspect, he is never a good choice for any meta. Its just unfortunate you can't swap him out in most battles. Rose has high damage, is powerful at the beginning of the game, but falls off rather hard after disk 1 since she has low HP and is barely faster than Dart. She only become good again at the very end of the game after she acquires her most powerful weapon just before the final battle. She is mostly B tier throughout most part of the game. Probably an A tier in disk 1 and at the final battle of the game. Kongol is just useless. His high physical damage falls off so bad with his additions, his high HP and defense doesn't save him from magic attacks that can also kill him easily like it did albert. His speed is just soooo slow that he is almost non existent in battles. There is no good reason to use him at all. Even his Dragoon magic is trash, does terrible damage. His dragoon level grinding is also the slowest because of his speed. It also doesn't help when he also doesn't have a +50% SP boosting weapon. Everytime i grind him, i always end up mastering all his Additions before reaching his max Dragoon level. Here are some of my favorite teams Dart, Meru, Haschel for physical damage. Meru and Haschel for physical damage and Dart primary for support and only attack secondarily. Dart, Meru, Shana for pure magical damage. Shana magic damage with attack items, Meru for healing and Dragoon magic, Dart for support and Dragoon magic. Dart, Meru, Shana for balanced physical and magical damage. Meru and Dart for physical damage, Shana purely for support and magic damage. Managed to beat Faust with this team without using any Legend equipment. That is my tier list for the meta thou, but for beginners that are playing for the first time or can't master additions, below is my beginner friendly tier list. I'm not sure how accurate it is since unlike meta builds that can be calculated to achieve the best results, beginner friendly builds are mostly something the players feel good with. I'm basing this on my first play playthrough experience that is more than 20 years ago. S tier: Albert A tier: Dart, Kongol B tier: Rose, Shana C tier: Meru, Haschel Speed doesn't matter much for players who doesn't know how to optimize the characters for the meta. Characters like Haschel and Meru's additions are just too difficult for casual players, their low health also makes it harder for them to survive. Characters like Albert/Lavitz is just great for beginners that can easily abuse Rose storm and still do decent damage with basic additions that are not too difficult. Same for Kongol with high HP and damage with easier additions, his Dragoon addition is also an easy damage boost. Dart is average but his Crush Dance is rather easy to do and has good damage, same for his Dragoon form. Rose has good damage early on, and Astral drain is also a beginner friendly spell that does damage and heals but she has low HP and that is bad. Shana can do good magic damage with attack items, however like Rose she may be a liability if casual players struggle to keep her alive. Sorry for my wall of text, i'm just a very passionate LoD player and fan : )
I am kind of torn on the rank Shana got... on the one hand, I agree with your points, but on the other hand, her Magic stat is so OP it can curve stomp the entire game. I think for casual players she is a B tier, but for the more experienced player who understands the mechanics, Shana is S tier but you do have to know what you're doing.
She is probably the only character whos rank can be contested on this list. I agree she is either broken overpowered if you know what you're doing or she's extremely mid with very little in between
I feel like the main character of a well-written RPG *should* sit firmly in the B(+) tier. You want all your other characters to be able to specialize at certain things, to make it possible to customize your party. And you don't want the main character to blatantly outshine any of those characters at their thing, or they just become redundant. So you want him to be good enough at everything so you don't feel bad having him, but not be better at any specific thing than a party member. And story-wise, you WANT him to have to rely on the other characters. He shouldn't be an all-powerful God-level being that can solo everything, or else why did you gather these people together in the first place?
Damn I’m halfway through the game and have only found Rose and Kongol useful. Now you’re telling me Haschel and Meru are S TIER?! I mean I believe you it’s just that as you’re progressing through the story the characters you acquire later start off with lower stats since you haven’t used them yet. So from my perspective there’s been little reason to use them when you can just use your more experienced characters. Same goes for additions actually.
So Nice to see Legend of Dragoon videos! I agree with everything except Shana. I think she is A. If you use the most powerful magic attacks against bosses, she can do mind blowing damage. She has to attack to transform into dragoon, but she gains SP very easily.
Something that should be mentioned is wearing the angel robe along with a talisman. When Shana or Meru die, they have an 80% chance to be revived with 50% health. At first it's scary because they weak girls are wearing almost no defense and it eats an accessory, but they do so much damage with items that it doesn't matter.
As a kid I did this. Shana with angel robe the entire game. I utilized it to defeat the prison dungeon boss monster with my other two party members fainted. Then kept her in party and ahead in levels the whole game. I was/still am one of those not use items much kind of guy, so her healing was a must have for me. I also just really like Kongol, though realized Heschel was better.
I honestly never played anything but the demo of this game, I seen it free on the PlayStation catalog and got a bit emotional, because I could never find the game to beat it. So imma be fully into this game soon.
It should be noted that Meru benefits from high stat gain compared to other characters. Going from level 50 to 60 she is gaining around 5 attack per level, compared to the 2-3 every other level for other characters. By max level meru with perky step is one of the highest damaging character, out damaging dart and albert and kongol on her own. I think Haschel and dragon buster rose are the only characters that can match her physically. Max level play is really weird and you should try it, but it definitely breaks the game. You can beat the last boss by phase 2.
For easy mode: Meru/Haschel/Dart For normal mode: Dart/Rose/Albert/Shana For hard mode: Dart/Kongol/Albert Most of the bosses late in the game uses magic attack, so even if Meru has a crappy pdef, she doesnt need to worry much because she has a good mdef. For me, pairing Meru/Shana with Kongol made the game easier. Kongol + Albert combo is a nightmare without legend casque, but doable, still gives quite a challenge especially if you're going in blind.
I LOVE Lavitz because he can unlock all his additions super early! You put the Bandits Shoes on him, it solves his speed issues. I always pair him with the Ultimate Wargod from the Phantom Ship.
So funny to see people making opinion pieces on character tiers still when it’s really not up for debate. Meru and Shana/Miranda are S tier because magic is broken. Haschel is probably also S tier or if not S, high A, because he can deal the most physical damage of all the characters while also not having any elemental weakness and being fast. Dart and Lavitz/Albert are both B, Albert probably edges out Dart in usefulness because of rose storm, but realistically rose storm is only useful if you use a party of Albert and Kongol. Everyone else can mitigate damage just fine. Rose is c tier because her stats are just mediocre unfortunately. Kongol is D/unusable tier. This has been well established for years at this point.
Kongol with Bandit Ring + Shoes and Legend Casque = My Best Boy. Don't matter if is the worst character in the game, I'll always defend my big boy! Dart, Meru and Kongol ftw!
I still use shana over Meru mainly for these reasons gathering up SP for shana is pretty easy given that she gets 100sp per hit later on without needing to complete additions which you can miss with Meru and Meru having one of the hardest to complete additions without ultimate war god calling (one of the broken items) So shana has more consistent SP build only needing 5 hits to get max dragoon and hits just as fast. Given that Shana's magic attack is so high it well makes up for the DPS she lacks with regular attacks even with Meru's 600% buff with a total of 80 damage output with best weapon and attack at a total of 480 damage per hit (near end game). Whereas Shana with magic attacks is doing well into the several 1000's damage range without needing elemental buffs (such water v fire or vice versa) the only down part of this is that you do need to use up Item slots to make sure you got attack magic on hand but that also becomes a "moot" point later on with repeatable magic with little cost to your item slots so you don't need to buy more.
Also something I just tested Meru (with no Special, lower magic stat) does more damage with one Freezing Ring compared to Miranda (higher magic stat) with one Spear Frost (212%), tested on the same enemy, no elemental buff. Edit: This isn't even full power Freezing Ring since Meru is not dlv5 so her dmag stat isn't capped yet. Freezing Ring is underrated, what a great spell.
@@Virtuoussouls Are they the same level? because the unfortunate part is that the players that don't use Shana have her underleveled by 3-5 levels meaning she is going to have obviously lower stats then anyone else if you don't use her. That being said Meru doesnt even get up to shana magic atk stat until level 60 she falls behind in that regard until then. also at least for me I can get higher then 212% cause i range between 225%-230% also Spear frost is the weakest in ice type moves did you face a neutral opponent or an enemy that is also water type (the most common type in the game) which is resistant
@@DragoonZell Miranda's magic stat was higher when I tested and it was on the same enemy in Mayfil. I also tested with Frozen Jet and Psyche Bomb X. Meru did more damage than Miranda with Freezing Ring but it wasn't just that Meru's Spear Frost at same %, Frozen Jet and Psyche Bomb at same % also did more. Later I more test on Moon, and both of them having exact same magic stat and Meru still did more. Yeah Meru was bit higher level because she starts that way and Miranda didn't quite catch up. I thought it odd also, I didn't understand why she still do more even if Miranda higher magic stat or same stats.
Also it's cool that you can get a higher % :), but I think it's fair that if good attack item ability is taken into account addition skills are also. Inability to gain SP has never been a natural serious significant Meru flaw. Oh and I love both Meru and Shana alot as characters dw.
My lord, the rise in Legend of Dragoon videos I have been seeing lately sure does bring a smile to my face. I absolutely adore this game, playing it now as I am writing this comment! (Shana has just become a Dragoon!) I love these characters and absolutely love the gameplay, good to know that not using Shana is perfectly fine and that little kid me was in the right about one thing XD
The Legend of Dragoon was my first real rpg, and to this day I've never finished it. (Those friggin' quicksand pools had me & my brother stuck right at the start of disc 4) So yes to the Faust video. Yes to subscribing. Yes to as many TLoD videos as you can stomach producing. Thanks so much for helping to spread awareness of this incredible game!
Love this list! I beat the game back in 2003 and I’m starting a new play through now. I always had Dart, Lavitz and Rose in my team and I’m looking to mix it up this time around
Dart is all round balanced. Despite being a purely offensive character unit; he has the advantage of ALWAYS being a higher level than everyone else. With higher stats by level; he makes up for his lack of abilities in aiding his team. Middle stats means he isn't a bad unit to use items with, or building him up in any specific way. Lavitz has the benefit of Rose Storm and easily accessible additions in his early levels. He might not be fast, but he is powerful in other forms. Always a useful ally to bring along. Shana's problem is her physical damage, but as you level up her Dragoon Levels; her spirit accumulation increases. Having max level dragoon as Shana, means every time she attacks, she'll get a free bar of Dragoon spirit out of it. Making it easier for her to use Dragoon Form, especially if you equip MP restoring items on her. Rose's design is that she comes in strong, but is slowly outclassed by everyone else as the rest of the party grows into themselves. She's still a very potent character with access to an early party heal & damage spell. And her additions aren't too tough to master. Haschel is everything Dart would be if he was a swappable party member. He's easily in any party team for offensive capabilities. With his only drawback that his spell options are purely offensive. Meru is quite seriously broken. Amazing attack power, addition multiplier, speed, and rainbow breath being a powerful party heal. Meru outshines everyone with her only drawback being a glass cannon. Easily hurt by attacks but dishes out just as much damage in return. Mastering her almost makes the rest of the game easier. Kongol is amazingly strong and easily can hit higher than anyone else. But his lack of additions and magical prowess really hinders him. For being the last character to join the team; he offers very little in the party beyond being a physically daunting character. Perfect for fights with physical damage, but terrible in magical fights. His dragoon form should've offered defensive abilities, or his magic benefit off his attack power rather than magical attack.
The answer is Meru. Meru is fast and with the final addition is significantly stronger than other allies. Dart's stats tend to be lower than your other characters in normal play unless you're switching out your characters CONSTANTLY and if you don't grind he realistically ends with lower stats than your other characters. His high max level makes him better sure, but if you're grinding that much you might as well get those overpowered armors you wanted to rule out of your ranking. Plus Blazing Dynamo is one of the weaker final additions in the game. Personally consider Fairy Sword to be his final weapon, the added SP is nice it isn't that much weaker than the Claymore and the Soul Eater isn't worth it IMO. Rose's Demon's Dance especially compared to Perky Step and stat drop offs hold her back. A perfect Dragoon Addition for Rose causes Dark Damage and until Meru is in her mid 30s Rose's Dragoon Addition is the strongest. If you don't get the infinite Psyche Bomb X Shana is remarkably meh, you'll spend more time trying to keep her alive than the benefit she affords especially considering her lack of damage output letting enemies have more turns, she's a liability unless you're farming weak enemies with Detonate Arrow or have the aforementioned Psyche Bomb X which fixes a lot of her damage issues. Haschel's Destroyer Mace and his base stats are his saving grace as his Dragoon form isn't all that useful unless you spam his magic and even then there are no elemental weakness for thunder. He's not strong against anybody being there is no thunder weakness and there are few thunder enemies of note plus his Omni Sweep is over 2.5x as powerful as his Dragoon Addition Lavitz - Rose Storm is good, but Flower Storm ensures his damage contribution is low even if he has good SP gain with it. Meru with the Dancer's Shoes, Dancer's Ring and Speed Up has 220 speed and she has the highest damage modifier for additions. She also has a solid Dragoon both magically and utility-wise. Kongol is a joke, dirt slow and a lousy final addition with lack luster magic ability. Basically Shana should be bottom tier with Kongol for the annoyance it is to actually try to include her and how her lack of damage gives free turns to the enemy. S - Meru, Haschel A - Lavitz B - Rose, Dart C - Kongol, Shana
My only criticism is that you also should have considered ease of additions. Some characters have clunkier feeling additions, or additions that feel "out of tempo", and some characters have additions that feel great and smooth. I think that fact should at least put Dart in A tier, for example.
I love using Shana! She's great at killing the special enemies with her speed and accuracy. My ultimate team is Hashael and Meru, my preferred team is Hashael and Shana. Basically creating a well rounded team with speed, magic and physical attacks.
Shana becomes broken when she gets the dragon summon and you get the infinite magic consumable. She kinda takes over the game at that point imo. Dart/Herschel/Shana is my fav team.
Kongol is why I love the big strong dumb archetype in any media. Like yeah his speed is bad. But I love big stronk boy too much to leave him hanging. Kongol tall, Kongol stronk.
As a kid my party was Haschel and Meru just cause they were my favorites, haha. Clearly I'm just naturally a JRPG expert able to always make the best choices.
My party was Meru and Miranda. Max utility and speed lol. I had a massive crush on meru so she never left my party. I liked all the heals and magic spam the party let me have lol.
Meru = Best for sure (heal/ magic dmg / highest speed so strongest dps) Dart = He's always in your party so he's always overleveled so he's pretty good Shana = I play LoD for addition. She can be really strong with damage item/magic but physical attac is so strong you don't really need it Haschel = Beast mode fast and hit hard and no weakness (no magic for him) Lavitz = Handicaped by his slowness but insane defensive magic and damage to the roof Kongol = Totaly useless later in the game but ok when you get him. Later ennemies strong attack are all magic and kongol will melt like butter. His strong attack become the worst because his addition % suck. Rose = Really good for your first playtrough. Start strong (phys + magic) and end strong (physical). She's weak mid game due to the lack of good addition and her magic fell. In my first playtrough, I played Dart Rose and Haschel (I maxed every character addition before choosing my end game character). Now I have no choice but to go with Dart Haschel and Lavitz/rose until I get Meru. I still prefer Rose over Lavitz but Lavitz make boss so easy.
I like Dart, but I do wish he was more specialized. I get why his stats were so middle of the road as you have to use him in nearly every fight in the game, but they could have at least given his dragoon something interesting instead of 'lol shoot it with fire'.
I like Darts design. Yea, hes mid, but you HAVE TO bring him everywhere. If he'd be a low tier char, it would feel awful to use him. If he'd be S tier, why use anybody else? So he gets all the EXP and can perform equally to some other chars, maybe surpass them sometimes. I don't mind using him, which is a good trait for a main character imo.
Personally I feel like Kongol is a "big joke "… They let you get his Dragoon spirit early if you want, but it's completely useless for him, better to keep doing normal attacks, the only utility he has is tank , if you put some magic defense itens MAYBE he can Tank, and with that Dragon helm he has LoTS of HP.
Kongol and Meru all the way. Dart is just there with support items. But seriously Kongol is mad crazy strong. that multiplier may seem low but there is a reason for that. Speed boost and attack boost on kongol. Everything in disc three dies within 4 turns. Dart just throws a potion maybe here and there.
I really want to see you tackle Legend of Legaia. It's one of the Four Kings of non-Final Fantasy PS1 JRPGs, along with LoD, Chrono Cross, and Xenogears.
I ran the game the first few times I played solely on the "B" tier. I could never get the additions down properly for Hashel nor Meru. Even if I adored Meru as my second fav, after Rose.
Well my list is: S: Lavitz/Albert and Shana/Miranda and Divine Dragoon Dart (Because his power very Perfect in Attack and Magic) A: Meru and Haschel B: Dart Red-eyed Dragoon C: Rosie D: Kongol Why is Dart in Divine Dragoon form PERFECT with me? Because Dart has "Fairy Sword" "Magical Hat" and Madness Hero or Blazing Dynamo. The above two additions help Dart get a lot of Sp in 1 attack. Especially when having Fairy Sword in hand, Dart can get up to 300Sp when attacking with Madness Hero. So it only takes 1 attack for Dart to have 3 Divine Dragoon transformations and can use Special Divine form if we hit 1 more turn. What do we have with 3 Divine transformations? The Magical Hat helps Dart increase to 150Mp and Magic "Divine D. Cannon" consumes exactly 50 Mp 1 time using 🤭😁😂🤣 So how strong is Divine D. Cannon? If people love Meru and Shana/Miranda, they will love the huge amount of damage these two girls attack. So what happens WHEN DART is STRONGER than THEM. 🤣🤣🤣 Not to mention, for those two girls, to use 80Mp Magic is very expensive. A "Magical Hat" cannot help them hit twice, while Dart can be used up to 3 times. 🤣🤣🤣
So what if we had a more "dry b.l.o.o.d" option? Both Meru or Shana/Miranda will gain MP up to 250 when using "Magical Hat" and "Amulet". Now both of them will be able to use the 80Mp magic 3 times. Very cool right? But the price to pay is "losing 1 ring slot equipment" while at the end of the game we have a lot of good Rings for the whole team to use such as: Physical Ring: Obtained very early, increases max HP by 50%. Therapy Ring: Restores 10% Health per Turn. (Both girls and Haschel love this Ring very much) Dance's Ring: Increases Speed by 20. Attack Badge: Increases 20 Attack and 20 Magic. Magical Ring: Increases 30 Magic. Or more specifically, the Phantom Ring reduces ALL DAMAGE taken by half. ... Our two girls have to trade one of the Rings above to wear the Ring "Amulet" which increases Mp to 250. 🤣 While Dart is free to use any Ring he wants (according to Player preference). So if the Player is afraid to buy a lot of Mp recovery Items for Dart after every "shooting" of the Magic Divine Cannon, we let Dart wear a "Mage Ring" to help restore Mp every turn and also partially overcome this weakness of Dart's Mp loss. Or don't we let Dart wear "Amulet" to get 250 Mp ? ==> and then, we have 5 shots of Divine Cannon already. Combined with Special Transform and Power Up/Down... Literally "Shoot the Lum".🤣🤣🤣
When I played this game as I kid I remember using Meru for her aesthetic even though I thought she was weak because of her initial physical strength. It's ironic how I used her thinking she was weak, and didn't use Kongol thinking he was overpowered. Kinda reminds me of my first time playing FF8 where I just gave every GF to Squall and wondered why I struggled so much. Kids playing jrpg's am I right?
I've played through this game numerous times and I still haven't played with every combination of party members yet. My most challenging had to be using Kongol and Lavitz. The mini bosses and bosses just hit SO hard with Magic attacks that it was difficult to attack without healing. Being the lowest speed party also hurts a lot. You have a lot of penalties to work out and you don't get much out of Kongol. You can tell he was sort of a late "should we include him or not?" party member cause he should have better additions and D.Magic spells. Lavitz... is just a lot of fun to play. The additions are soooo fun. If I could get rid of Dart, I'd probably play as Meru, Lavitz, and Herschel though. Their additions are my favorite to hit just right lol.
I would personally put Rose in the A tier. While pretty much everything you said is true. I learned in my last playthrough that Astral Drain is actually WAY more useful then it first appears for one simple reason. It's her first spell. Due to it being her first spell she can spam it every turn in dragoon form. For boss fights especially any against a singular opponents she can basically do all the healing by herself while still doing damage. This allows the rest of the party to keep up the offensive as well.
Rose also respectfully has (in my opinion) the easiest final Addition to complete as it is the least janky and most fluid being a "dance" making timing quite easy. it also doesnt hurt she's got a 500% damage boost for it as well.
The three easiest final additions for me are Rose's Dart's and Kongol's. though Kongol's additions are easy in general once you get past the fact he practically teleports on top of the enemy with his first strike. Like dude if you can do That why is your speed so slow?
@@DragoonZell Maybe at the endgame some characters are more busted than others, but if you just starting out, the speed in which you learn additions and how easy they are definitely matter. Rose is very strong for new players because she is easy to use. I found myself using her a lot in the endgame.
Meru is also fast, but very expensive to use. You don't have infinite magic abilities and its hard to hoard the best spells in the game over solid healing items. I don't know what its like now, but spamming the button to get the most damage was not easy.
When I was young my party was Haschel and Rose. Now that I'm older, Haschel and Meru. Rose is like Dart but better, shes well balanced but can heal the party
I appreciate your insight. Playing this as a kid, I just stuck with Rose and Albert since I was most familiar with them. This playthrough I'll try something different. Not sure who I'll go with yet though.
I'd put dart in A specifically cause he uniquely gets to be higher leveled. You never have to worry bout him being same level and lagging behind. Plus soul eater does enough damage with his final addition to offset his speed.
I just came to see where you rated my speed demon Meru. I was not dissapointed 🩵 With Dancer shoes and the other dancer accessory she takes TOO MANY turns lol I love her. Makes sense she is the fastest since she is a Wingly. Also cool boogie giving 200 SP is really nice.
This was a hilarious video to watch for me. I played this game way back in Middle School and have completed it five times since. And I never stopped to think about all the stats at the bottom or to optimize characters. I always just went Dart Kongol and Hashel.
I agree, except for Rose and Shana. Alot of the later parts of the game have enemies that focus on magic attacks. I've found that they both have better survivability later on than characters like Alvitz and Kangol. I'd eliminate the c tier and have them in a with lavbert.
Kongol is actually used during speedrun Otherwise in regular gameplay where you can grind, Meru is absolutely S tier No amount of speed boosting EQ will save Kongol, sad : /
I slapped an Angel Scarf on Kongol and watched him tank attacks from Faust. I know it's a god tier item, but watching the guy who gets nuked by magic eat super magics from the strongest mage in the game was pretty funny.
I ended up playing all the characters (grinded them all when I was a kid and this first came out on PS1). The only character that I did not like was Rose. As you said, she was good early on, but was quickly overshadowed when Lavitz and Shana got there DS's. And her best weapon in the game was meh, because by the point that you got it, you weren't going to fight any dragons. If they ever do a remake, the dev's really need to rework her.
Had to sub because not only do I agree fully with all of what ya said but you had some very valid points and made it interesting! Been over a decade since my last playthrough but starting again tonight after I watch your other videos on this as I thoroughly enjoyed your content thus far. I absolutely love this game and would even put it on par with FF Tactics and FF7 ps1 versions, that being said...I found out the hard way how terrible Kongol was overall and eventually switched and grinded my **** off only to find that Meru/Haschel and Lavitz where absolutely top tier. I originally beat the game with Dart, Rose, Lavitz, but on my second play I did Dart, Meru, Lavitz and it went so buttery smooth I swear I was eating my favorite movie condiment! Haven't tried the all gas no breaks build of Dart, Meru, Haschel yet, but I think that will be fun to say the least, and may yet even beat out my previous combinations or still current favorite! Keep up the good work and realize your channel deserves more love then it's gotten with the amount of effort you put into your videos!
Hey Tantacles love your videos big fan i apologise but there is something i wanted to point out in your old tier list you mentioned that you cant get Kongol's Gold Dragoon spirit til end game which for many years i thought too...however after Kongol joins your party on your way back to the Twin Castle in Flets you can pass it go back to Serdio, and enter Lohan talk to the man who sold you the water bottle and buy Kongols Dragoon Spirit for 1,000 gold getting it pretty much immediately after he joins your party and not waiting til end game. Thank you for your time.
Dart is the only S tier character. He's so strong that even you, the player, cannot remove him from the party.
Dart? No! Lavitz mother f***ing Slambert is the ONLY S-Tier character. He's so great they had to Aerith him off.
Lavitz mother f***ing Slambert is the ONLY S-Tier character. He's so great they had to Aerith him off.
I remember trying to use gameshark to get dart out of the party back in the day
@marksconplaystasy7328 Yeah, it's so annoying not being able to remove him from the party and add other characters.
dart is easily s tier high hp high damage solid useable all game c tier
bro is mad crazy lol i used dart and killed final boss in 3 turns
dude hit me once or twice...... no way he's not s tier
Love seeing LOD content in 2023. This game captured my heart, attention, and imagination in 5th grade and hasn't ever let go. Keep it up!
Same!
My 9 year old self back in the day thought Kongol was best because when he clobbered something, you see big numbers. Now, looking at the overall DPS in a battle, you can see Meru’s DPS total is like 2-3x more than the rest of the party, lol
Kongol is like the OG meme about characters in a boss battle Vs characters when you get them in the party 🤣
Meru is by far the best character to use but I believe Kongol is way under rated. Yes you do have to give him bandits equipment to make use of him but Kongol with bandit equipment still hits harder than many characters with power boosting equipment.
@@Dhalin hence why I said that Meru is by far the best character. Nobody even comes close to being her equal
@@Dhalin if only her best addition wasn't a pain in the ass
@@Dhalin i give her an attack ring and dancers shoes and watch that perky step just delete enemies off the screen only red hp haschel with final weapon hits harder
If you had the official strategy guide for this game, it suggested your final party was Dart, Albert, Kongol.
No speed boosting equipment.
Dart: Burning Rush Albert: Harpoon Kongol: Pursuit
Me, being a dumb kid followed this advice and played this party the whole game, it was pure suffering.
Never followed the guide, played that party the entire game as well xD guard x17million, health is max while on my turn swing for decent chunk. Repeat xD
LOL!!
I always used Dart, Albert and Miranda.
Dart because I had to.
Albert because I usually had him pretty strong and he has the only defensive Dragoon spell
Miranda for healing.
Yep, the English strategy guide is quite awful. The japanese guide, on the other hand, is full on content and suggested different parties for each boss encounter.
Why the hell would it suggest those additions? When I was a kid playing this for the first time, that was the team I used because I liked those characters and didn't know any better, but even I used the more advanced additions (not the final ones though, apparently that was above my head).
Rose may be a B tier character statistically, but she'll always be SSS tier in my heart
A man of culture
Rose is the OG. I never remove her from the party. Can't believe people think she is not that useful. She is a beast.
She’s a cougar
@@tchoythao1730 Dart chose wrong
My only problem with her was that for as long as you had her she had very few additions. I freakin' loved the Addition system and wanted more for the characters that used them.
I once used Shana/Miranda the entire game and she trivialized every boss, just spam magic items with her. From my experience I would put her in S with the right items. She's also the bulkiest of all the females.
this, i was genuinely surprised as well. even the Virage bosses takes a lot of damage, though you would need a couple more items since they don't have elemental weakness. but at least you don't have to worry about multiple body parts since there are AoE magic.
Yeah I'm currently playing the game again for the first time since probably my childhood, because of the PS4 port, and I've been trying to use item spells far more than I ever did in the past - so, imagine my surprise when I let Shana start throwing some. Holy hell, I had no idea she could put out that much damage. And, I'm still on only disc one!
Shana is S tier for her dragoon transformation alone
The good thing about this game is if you really like a character you can mitigate their weaknesses with equipment. I never use Shana but as soon as Miranda joins she’s permanently in my party (I am probably the only Miranda Stan out there and that’s ok)
Would you call yourself… a mirstanda?
Edit: I'll see myself out.
@@tantacles yeah I don’t get why she gets so much hate. She actually has a personality and she didn’t ask to be a dragoon the spirit picked her over Shana
DART IS ANGRY .. HE WILL NEVER LET YOU PLAY HIM AGAIN 😂
I always liked Miranda too...though in all fairness it's because to this day I haven't stopped hating Shana.
@@evanp5911 Why the hate ??
WHERE IS HER ADDITIONS ?
It's the same for Shana...
Rose's astral drain heals the team for a third of the damage each, but if one is dead it heals half. If 2 are dead it heals for full health. It's niche and not for the final boss, but should be mentioned.
Shana/Miranda are OP once leveled appropriately. Their silver dragon attack in and of itself is op.
I TOTALLY AGREE with Meru being S and the best character! I'm SUPER fan of hers! 🥰
I really appreciate you doing these high quality, highly edited videos about rather niche RPGs and I hope you don't ever stop
Niche? Ill send you to the snu snu execution site
Shana absolutely belongs in S tier. She has better bulk than Meru while having much better DPS against bosses. Shana throwing items absolutely trivializes the majority of the game.
Lavitz could likely drop a tier (removing/combining the A and B tiers) with how little Rose Storm is going to help per cast for any of the top tier characters. Its great for his personal survivability, but he'll need to cast it every other turn to even hope to keep Meru under its effect.
Shana only deserves to be B if she's DLvl 4 or under. DLvl 5 Shana, specifically, is an easy A tier for being a safer, easier to use option than Meru. She's more survivable, her fully manipulatable SP meter allows for an unmatched ability to pop in and out of Dragoon form, she's so good with attack items that she'll still out-damage Dart consistently, and (without MP restoration) her three party heals are comparable to Meru's five in speed and healing factor. These strengths definitely outweigh the weaknesses, making the game easier despite her being less optimal than Meru. Everyone's less optimal than Meru.
I'm so glad that there's someone with deep knowledge of LoD and good presentation skills capitalizing on the PS4/5 release. While I'm looking forward to the other character videos, I'm hoping someone like you will cover the Hard Mode mod at some point. It needs some love.
I'd argue Lavitz having low speed is actually a benefit. Less turns means Rose Storm stays active longer, allowing the rest of the team to play more recklessly. Especially if they have speed boosting items
I love how you called Haschel grandpa. Wonder how many people will understand why you did. Hahaha
I giggled when it happened
You: *puts kongol in C teir*
Kongol: *smashes into your room* Didn't I save your ass in Zenebatos?!
So my friends and I aren't the only ones who noticed the questionable animation for Rose's Dragoon spells.
Not just Astral Drain, but also looking like she takes a black energy shit at the beginning of Death Dimension.
I'm thankful I found someone who is making LOD content. Love your energy, keep up the good work.
I'm going to be honest I probably got more healing from Astral Drain than any other source but guarding. saved my ass multiple times. Rose is on my A Tier.
Valid. A bit late but here are my opinions on a few characters:
Dart - A Tier
There are a lot of water types in the game and, in particular, there are a good number of difficult water bosses. Whether it's *Special* Final Burst or Heat Blade boosted Additions, Dart makes these fights easier. I'm probably in the minority, but I don't like to have Dart use Soul Eater or the two Legend armor on anyone and since speed is the most important stat, making Darts accessory slot useless for Soul Eater is not the wisest option for him in my opinion. He is better as a backup magic user. He often does more damage throwing an item or using Dragoon magic than with his Additions. Magic Hat is perfect for him. This allows a Final Burst for every Dragoon turn and that's usually more than enough to get through a boss. If Dragoon is not an option, he's flexible enough to act as the situation needs him to. Heat Blade/Fairy Sword/Claymore > Soul Eater. Dart is also a prime candidate for the Bandit's Shoes if Haschel isn't in the party.
Lavitz/Albert - B Tier
Another controversial opinion, I think Rose Storm is overrated. Yes it can be useful. Is it necessary for any fight? Absolutely not. And that apparently is his best spell. There are only a handful of fights where Gaspless can do respectable damage. There are just faster harder hitters, physically and magically, than the green guy. B Tier for the beginning of the game where his physical bulk and Rose Storm are much more useful.
Rose - C Tier (Kongol Tier)
She's obviously great in Chapter 1. But that's it. After that, she falls hard. Frailest character. Anything she can do, other characters can do better and there's no fight that comes to mind where her Dragoon is actually useful aside from maybe Fruegel 2 or the first encounter with Mappi, where she can instantly kill the minions with Demon's Gate if you have it. Final fight she gets stronger physically, but Haschel will still out perform her there.
Shana/Miranda - S Tier
A.K.A The Boss Killer. Many a boss fight ended with the boss getting one or no turns at all before Shana ends them. Best Dragoon? Yes! I think Merus Rainbow Breath is also overrated. Status isn't as bad as people think. Yeah it's annoying when it happens but there are many ways to prevent or cure status and Rainbow Breath is not the "best" way to do that. I'd argue that White-Silver Dragon is better than Rainbow Breath and Diamond Dust. It costs a lot of MP? Use a Magic Hat and/or Amulet. If done right, none of the boss fights should last long enough to where MP cost matters much anyway. Shana actually has better physical bulk than Meru as well, due to having the highest HP out of all females. Her normal attacks are weak, but we're not using normal attacks on bosses. Regular mobs are too easy to really care about her weak basic attack. She's also mandatory for any of the Unique mobs as she has a bow ready for each one. Long bow for physical, Bemusing Arrow for Rainbow Bird and Virulent Arrow for Lucky Jar for those wanting to farm these.
There's an abundance of attack items in the game so don't be stingy and if you know the game well enough, there's no real need for healing items. You have guard. Dragoon magic. Therapy ring. Hotels galore. Healing spots aplenty. Auto revive after battle. Waste item spots on healing items? No thanks. I'll stock the corresponding attack items for the coming boss fights. Also for those reading, here's another little tip: grinding Additions is a waste of time. Yes you want to max them all out and by the end of the game they surely will be, but think about it.. the most difficult fights are bosses and based on my previous comments, most of the damage will come from attack items... you'll naturally level additions while running through dungeons and such. The only grinding I recommend is for equipment. Some enemies drop items you won't get till much later in the game, Energy Girdle from Berserker or Spirit Cloak from Fire Spirit for example. Do the true grinding in Death Frontier, Mayfil or on the Moon if by that point you still have Additions to max, D'Levels to gain or if you plan to reach max level.
I hated the timing on the additions for some of the characters and ended up using Lavits and Shana. I'm more of a defensive style person and having half damage and heals was a must. Shana also powered up dragoon form quickly at the end, getting 125 SP per shot if I recall correctly.
Shana is potentially A-tier due to being the only character to hit special enemies with 100% accuracy with the correct gear (if that was in the criteria) otherwise she is in the right place, as she is unable to benefit from Rose Storm due to her high speed.
Lavitz is arguably S-tier due to how Rose Storm works, enabling Kongol to be used at all, and making most everyone outside S-tier better (due to lower speeds extending the protection).
Rose, Dart, and Kongol? Cant say i disagree, unless you stack on Rose Storm or abuse Pandemonium, magic/physical barriers on Kongol (also extends to Lavitz now that i think about it).
Meru and Haschel are in the perfect spot.
Key thing about speed. It is possible to have 3 dancer shoes for the ladies. But there is only one bandit shoes for the guys, which Dart claims cause he can't leave the party.
You can buy a pair of boots on disc 4, and later find them, that give 10 speed for a budget boot option.
The extra dancers shoes are so rare and late in the game they may as well not exist, they however are obtained from random encounters.
Dancers rings are also a rare drop that can be found in disc 3 in the same area as the first dancers shoes, also from random encounter.
Bandits rings also have an earlier farming location and can be obtained a whole disc early from a certain boss as a rare drop, 1 from a chest, and another being repeatable from a random encounter in the same area as the chest.
@@swifttalon9763 I think the boss from disc 1 you’re referring to is the dude you have to beat at the shrine right before you get shanas dragoon stone. I forgot his name tbh…his name is Drake the Bandit….ring has a 30% drop rate which is easy enough with the new rewind feature
@@swifttalon9763 I never got without farming those last two pairs of shoes.
I played this game a lot growing up, back before I ever looked at a characters stats, and mostly used characters that felt strong rather than were strong. It makes me smile to see that my favorite team of Dart, Shana, and Kongol is a solidly bad B + Kongol tier :)
Meru is 100% the best character. She has been in my party my last 6 playthroughs. Perky step is OP once fully maxed out as well. Great list but for Shana is At least and A tier. Solely for her healing and final dragoon attack
My Tier list would go like this,
S tier: Meru, Shana
A Tier: Haschel, Albert
B Tier: Dart, Rose
C Tier: Kongol
Meru is the best character in the game simply for her speed, she is just so fast that she attacks twice more than most other characters. Her damage seems low but her final addition makes her physical damage on par with most characters, 2x the damage with her speed and she is basically one of the highest physical damage dealer in the game. She is also very versatile with great magical atk and damage, meaning if you don't want to use additions, she can still be a very powerful spell caster with attack items or dragoon magic that can heal the party. Her only downside is her low health, which is not a problem with therapy ring, she can heal more with more turns. But you'll need to boost her max HP in battles where enemies can one shot her.
Shana is without a doubt the 2nd best character in the game in the hands of a good player who knows the meta and optimize the game play. Her having the highest magic attack means she can basically one shot minor enemies in every random encounter with a multi attack item spell, especially with psyche bomb X you get later in the game. And her having good speed means she can dish out more damage than most other characters can. There is someone who did an attack item only challenge and its only possible because of Shana, that's just how good she is. But even if you don't use her for her spell damage, she is still a very good support character with good speed to steal turns and heal others with items or dragoon. As for her dragoon lvl grinding, its actually not that hard. People think she can't do additions and thus her SP gains would be slower, but its quite the opposite. Because her attack animation is shorter compared to other characters' additions, the time it takes to grind her dragoon lvl is also shorter, not to mention she has high speed to attack more often. And since her physical attack is so bad, you can just have other characters keep guarding and let Shana shoot the enemy many times before it dies, letting her gain more SP than other characters can in a single battle.
Haschel has good speed and high physical damage, has a glass cannon build that makes him the highest possible physical DPS character. He is still among the top damage dealer even in a standard build. His magic damage is not the worst but not good either, you are better off not using magic with him. His high damage with good speed and decent health makes him the best physical character in the game. His dragoon form is meh, nothing it does is better than his human form.
Albert is honestly only B tier at best if not for his Rose Storm dragoon magic. His damage is average overall because of his slow speed. His health and physical defense is good but is still very vulnerable to magic attacks because of his weak magic defense, can still die easily to powerful spells if not careful. The only reason you want him in the party is for his Rose Storm, nothing else. Rose Storm is so good that it can make difficult battles so much easier. However, most good LoD players don't use him, you can beat the game without Rose Storm, in fact the game becomes rather easy with max level final additions.
Dart is just average in all scenarios, jack of all trades master of none. Like most games, the meta for LoD is about optimizing and min maxing for the best damage or speed to achieve faster or higher completion rate. Because Dart is average in all aspect, he is never a good choice for any meta. Its just unfortunate you can't swap him out in most battles.
Rose has high damage, is powerful at the beginning of the game, but falls off rather hard after disk 1 since she has low HP and is barely faster than Dart. She only become good again at the very end of the game after she acquires her most powerful weapon just before the final battle. She is mostly B tier throughout most part of the game. Probably an A tier in disk 1 and at the final battle of the game.
Kongol is just useless. His high physical damage falls off so bad with his additions, his high HP and defense doesn't save him from magic attacks that can also kill him easily like it did albert. His speed is just soooo slow that he is almost non existent in battles. There is no good reason to use him at all. Even his Dragoon magic is trash, does terrible damage. His dragoon level grinding is also the slowest because of his speed. It also doesn't help when he also doesn't have a +50% SP boosting weapon. Everytime i grind him, i always end up mastering all his Additions before reaching his max Dragoon level.
Here are some of my favorite teams
Dart, Meru, Haschel for physical damage. Meru and Haschel for physical damage and Dart primary for support and only attack secondarily.
Dart, Meru, Shana for pure magical damage. Shana magic damage with attack items, Meru for healing and Dragoon magic, Dart for support and Dragoon magic.
Dart, Meru, Shana for balanced physical and magical damage. Meru and Dart for physical damage, Shana purely for support and magic damage. Managed to beat Faust with this team without using any Legend equipment.
That is my tier list for the meta thou, but for beginners that are playing for the first time or can't master additions, below is my beginner friendly tier list. I'm not sure how accurate it is since unlike meta builds that can be calculated to achieve the best results, beginner friendly builds are mostly something the players feel good with. I'm basing this on my first play playthrough experience that is more than 20 years ago.
S tier: Albert
A tier: Dart, Kongol
B tier: Rose, Shana
C tier: Meru, Haschel
Speed doesn't matter much for players who doesn't know how to optimize the characters for the meta. Characters like Haschel and Meru's additions are just too difficult for casual players, their low health also makes it harder for them to survive. Characters like Albert/Lavitz is just great for beginners that can easily abuse Rose storm and still do decent damage with basic additions that are not too difficult. Same for Kongol with high HP and damage with easier additions, his Dragoon addition is also an easy damage boost. Dart is average but his Crush Dance is rather easy to do and has good damage, same for his Dragoon form. Rose has good damage early on, and Astral drain is also a beginner friendly spell that does damage and heals but she has low HP and that is bad. Shana can do good magic damage with attack items, however like Rose she may be a liability if casual players struggle to keep her alive.
Sorry for my wall of text, i'm just a very passionate LoD player and fan : )
This… is awesome
I am kind of torn on the rank Shana got... on the one hand, I agree with your points, but on the other hand, her Magic stat is so OP it can curve stomp the entire game.
I think for casual players she is a B tier, but for the more experienced player who understands the mechanics, Shana is S tier but you do have to know what you're doing.
She is probably the only character whos rank can be contested on this list. I agree she is either broken overpowered if you know what you're doing or she's extremely mid with very little in between
I feel like the main character of a well-written RPG *should* sit firmly in the B(+) tier. You want all your other characters to be able to specialize at certain things, to make it possible to customize your party. And you don't want the main character to blatantly outshine any of those characters at their thing, or they just become redundant. So you want him to be good enough at everything so you don't feel bad having him, but not be better at any specific thing than a party member.
And story-wise, you WANT him to have to rely on the other characters. He shouldn't be an all-powerful God-level being that can solo everything, or else why did you gather these people together in the first place?
Seems like I should work in Haschel on my next game
I’ve only beaten the game twice before, with-
Dart, Lavitz, Kongol
Dart, Lavitz, Meru
Totally agree with this tier list. I used Haschel, Dart, and Meru to beat the game 22 years ago!
"I've been dragooning my feet on this"
Damn I’m halfway through the game and have only found Rose and Kongol useful. Now you’re telling me Haschel and Meru are S TIER?! I mean I believe you it’s just that as you’re progressing through the story the characters you acquire later start off with lower stats since you haven’t used them yet. So from my perspective there’s been little reason to use them when you can just use your more experienced characters. Same goes for additions actually.
Great touch on having ur background light being the same corresponding color as the characters your discussing, that rose lighting tho lol
Best are Albert then Haschel. Give Albert 1 therapy ring and +20 speed boots and you have yourself a monster.
So Nice to see Legend of Dragoon videos!
I agree with everything except Shana. I think she is A. If you use the most powerful magic attacks against bosses, she can do mind blowing damage. She has to attack to transform into dragoon, but she gains SP very easily.
Something that should be mentioned is wearing the angel robe along with a talisman. When Shana or Meru die, they have an 80% chance to be revived with 50% health. At first it's scary because they weak girls are wearing almost no defense and it eats an accessory, but they do so much damage with items that it doesn't matter.
As a kid I did this. Shana with angel robe the entire game. I utilized it to defeat the prison dungeon boss monster with my other two party members fainted. Then kept her in party and ahead in levels the whole game. I was/still am one of those not use items much kind of guy, so her healing was a must have for me. I also just really like Kongol, though realized Heschel was better.
I honestly never played anything but the demo of this game, I seen it free on the PlayStation catalog and got a bit emotional, because I could never find the game to beat it. So imma be fully into this game soon.
I love my slow rock boys, so much that I often name characters kongol, indora, and lavitz xD
It should be noted that Meru benefits from high stat gain compared to other characters. Going from level 50 to 60 she is gaining around 5 attack per level, compared to the 2-3 every other level for other characters. By max level meru with perky step is one of the highest damaging character, out damaging dart and albert and kongol on her own. I think Haschel and dragon buster rose are the only characters that can match her physically. Max level play is really weird and you should try it, but it definitely breaks the game. You can beat the last boss by phase 2.
For easy mode: Meru/Haschel/Dart
For normal mode: Dart/Rose/Albert/Shana
For hard mode: Dart/Kongol/Albert
Most of the bosses late in the game uses magic attack, so even if Meru has a crappy pdef, she doesnt need to worry much because she has a good mdef.
For me, pairing Meru/Shana with Kongol made the game easier. Kongol + Albert combo is a nightmare without legend casque, but doable, still gives quite a challenge especially if you're going in blind.
I LOVE Lavitz because he can unlock all his additions super early!
You put the Bandits Shoes on him, it solves his speed issues.
I always pair him with the Ultimate Wargod from the Phantom Ship.
Yep. Bandit Shoes on Dart and Lavitz/Albert solves their speed problems.
The "damages you over time" comment on Soul Eater coupled with the nut punch from the DBZ movie was on point LOL
I can’t believe we are talking about the legend of dragoon in 2023 what a time I hope we can get a remaster or a remake too
I was gonna raise hell if Meru wasn't S tier.
So funny to see people making opinion pieces on character tiers still when it’s really not up for debate. Meru and Shana/Miranda are S tier because magic is broken. Haschel is probably also S tier or if not S, high A, because he can deal the most physical damage of all the characters while also not having any elemental weakness and being fast. Dart and Lavitz/Albert are both B, Albert probably edges out Dart in usefulness because of rose storm, but realistically rose storm is only useful if you use a party of Albert and Kongol. Everyone else can mitigate damage just fine. Rose is c tier because her stats are just mediocre unfortunately. Kongol is D/unusable tier. This has been well established for years at this point.
Kongol with Bandit Ring + Shoes and Legend Casque = My Best Boy. Don't matter if is the worst character in the game, I'll always defend my big boy! Dart, Meru and Kongol ftw!
My very first play through party was Dart, Rose, Albert I think this can speak for 90% of the first time players.
Mine was Dart, Hashel and Kongol lol. So much so I did it again on my second playthrough. Next time I play Imma switch things up tho.
I still use shana over Meru mainly for these reasons
gathering up SP for shana is pretty easy given that she gets 100sp per hit later on without needing to complete additions which you can miss with Meru and Meru having one of the hardest to complete additions without ultimate war god calling (one of the broken items) So shana has more consistent SP build only needing 5 hits to get max dragoon and hits just as fast.
Given that Shana's magic attack is so high it well makes up for the DPS she lacks with regular attacks even with Meru's 600% buff with a total of 80 damage output with best weapon and attack at a total of 480 damage per hit (near end game). Whereas Shana with magic attacks is doing well into the several 1000's damage range without needing elemental buffs (such water v fire or vice versa) the only down part of this is that you do need to use up Item slots to make sure you got attack magic on hand but that also becomes a "moot" point later on with repeatable magic with little cost to your item slots so you don't need to buy more.
Meru gets 400 SP with Cool Boogie and Pretty Hammer.
Also something I just tested Meru (with no Special, lower magic stat) does more damage with one Freezing Ring compared to Miranda (higher magic stat) with one Spear Frost (212%), tested on the same enemy, no elemental buff.
Edit: This isn't even full power Freezing Ring since Meru is not dlv5 so her dmag stat isn't capped yet. Freezing Ring is underrated, what a great spell.
@@Virtuoussouls Are they the same level? because the unfortunate part is that the players that don't use Shana have her underleveled by 3-5 levels meaning she is going to have obviously lower stats then anyone else if you don't use her.
That being said Meru doesnt even get up to shana magic atk stat until level 60 she falls behind in that regard until then. also at least for me I can get higher then 212% cause i range between 225%-230% also Spear frost is the weakest in ice type moves did you face a neutral opponent or an enemy that is also water type (the most common type in the game) which is resistant
@@DragoonZell Miranda's magic stat was higher when I tested and it was on the same enemy in Mayfil. I also tested with Frozen Jet and Psyche Bomb X. Meru did more damage than Miranda with Freezing Ring but it wasn't just that Meru's Spear Frost at same %, Frozen Jet and Psyche Bomb at same % also did more.
Later I more test on Moon, and both of them having exact same magic stat and Meru still did more.
Yeah Meru was bit higher level because she starts that way and Miranda didn't quite catch up. I thought it odd also, I didn't understand why she still do more even if Miranda higher magic stat or same stats.
Also it's cool that you can get a higher % :), but I think it's fair that if good attack item ability is taken into account addition skills are also. Inability to gain SP has never been a natural serious significant Meru flaw.
Oh and I love both Meru and Shana alot as characters dw.
The Addition jokes make my heart smile.
My lord, the rise in Legend of Dragoon videos I have been seeing lately sure does bring a smile to my face. I absolutely adore this game, playing it now as I am writing this comment! (Shana has just become a Dragoon!) I love these characters and absolutely love the gameplay, good to know that not using Shana is perfectly fine and that little kid me was in the right about one thing XD
The Legend of Dragoon was my first real rpg, and to this day I've never finished it. (Those friggin' quicksand pools had me & my brother stuck right at the start of disc 4) So yes to the Faust video. Yes to subscribing. Yes to as many TLoD videos as you can stomach producing. Thanks so much for helping to spread awareness of this incredible game!
Love this list! I beat the game back in 2003 and I’m starting a new play through now. I always had Dart, Lavitz and Rose in my team and I’m looking to mix it up this time around
Speed is too incredible a stat in this game. Miranda, Shana, and Meru are the best characters.
I wonder how you’ll feel about the video coming out Monday…
@@tantaclesCan't wait!
Dart is all round balanced. Despite being a purely offensive character unit; he has the advantage of ALWAYS being a higher level than everyone else. With higher stats by level; he makes up for his lack of abilities in aiding his team. Middle stats means he isn't a bad unit to use items with, or building him up in any specific way.
Lavitz has the benefit of Rose Storm and easily accessible additions in his early levels. He might not be fast, but he is powerful in other forms. Always a useful ally to bring along.
Shana's problem is her physical damage, but as you level up her Dragoon Levels; her spirit accumulation increases. Having max level dragoon as Shana, means every time she attacks, she'll get a free bar of Dragoon spirit out of it. Making it easier for her to use Dragoon Form, especially if you equip MP restoring items on her.
Rose's design is that she comes in strong, but is slowly outclassed by everyone else as the rest of the party grows into themselves. She's still a very potent character with access to an early party heal & damage spell. And her additions aren't too tough to master.
Haschel is everything Dart would be if he was a swappable party member. He's easily in any party team for offensive capabilities. With his only drawback that his spell options are purely offensive.
Meru is quite seriously broken. Amazing attack power, addition multiplier, speed, and rainbow breath being a powerful party heal. Meru outshines everyone with her only drawback being a glass cannon. Easily hurt by attacks but dishes out just as much damage in return. Mastering her almost makes the rest of the game easier.
Kongol is amazingly strong and easily can hit higher than anyone else. But his lack of additions and magical prowess really hinders him. For being the last character to join the team; he offers very little in the party beyond being a physically daunting character. Perfect for fights with physical damage, but terrible in magical fights. His dragoon form should've offered defensive abilities, or his magic benefit off his attack power rather than magical attack.
The answer is Meru. Meru is fast and with the final addition is significantly stronger than other allies.
Dart's stats tend to be lower than your other characters in normal play unless you're switching out your characters CONSTANTLY and if you don't grind he realistically ends with lower stats than your other characters. His high max level makes him better sure, but if you're grinding that much you might as well get those overpowered armors you wanted to rule out of your ranking. Plus Blazing Dynamo is one of the weaker final additions in the game. Personally consider Fairy Sword to be his final weapon, the added SP is nice it isn't that much weaker than the Claymore and the Soul Eater isn't worth it IMO.
Rose's Demon's Dance especially compared to Perky Step and stat drop offs hold her back. A perfect Dragoon Addition for Rose causes Dark Damage and until Meru is in her mid 30s Rose's Dragoon Addition is the strongest.
If you don't get the infinite Psyche Bomb X Shana is remarkably meh, you'll spend more time trying to keep her alive than the benefit she affords especially considering her lack of damage output letting enemies have more turns, she's a liability unless you're farming weak enemies with Detonate Arrow or have the aforementioned Psyche Bomb X which fixes a lot of her damage issues.
Haschel's Destroyer Mace and his base stats are his saving grace as his Dragoon form isn't all that useful unless you spam his magic and even then there are no elemental weakness for thunder. He's not strong against anybody being there is no thunder weakness and there are few thunder enemies of note plus his Omni Sweep is over 2.5x as powerful as his Dragoon Addition
Lavitz - Rose Storm is good, but Flower Storm ensures his damage contribution is low even if he has good SP gain with it.
Meru with the Dancer's Shoes, Dancer's Ring and Speed Up has 220 speed and she has the highest damage modifier for additions. She also has a solid Dragoon both magically and utility-wise.
Kongol is a joke, dirt slow and a lousy final addition with lack luster magic ability.
Basically Shana should be bottom tier with Kongol for the annoyance it is to actually try to include her and how her lack of damage gives free turns to the enemy.
S - Meru, Haschel
A - Lavitz
B - Rose, Dart
C - Kongol, Shana
My only criticism is that you also should have considered ease of additions. Some characters have clunkier feeling additions, or additions that feel "out of tempo", and some characters have additions that feel great and smooth. I think that fact should at least put Dart in A tier, for example.
Yes, Superboss tier list! Also, I’m excited to try pairing Kongol with the Therapy Ring.
I love using Shana! She's great at killing the special enemies with her speed and accuracy. My ultimate team is Hashael and Meru, my preferred team is Hashael and Shana. Basically creating a well rounded team with speed, magic and physical attacks.
Shana becomes broken when she gets the dragon summon and you get the infinite magic consumable. She kinda takes over the game at that point imo. Dart/Herschel/Shana is my fav team.
Kongol is why I love the big strong dumb archetype in any media. Like yeah his speed is bad. But I love big stronk boy too much to leave him hanging. Kongol tall, Kongol stronk.
As a kid my party was Haschel and Meru just cause they were my favorites, haha. Clearly I'm just naturally a JRPG expert able to always make the best choices.
My party was Meru and Miranda.
Max utility and speed lol. I had a massive crush on meru so she never left my party. I liked all the heals and magic spam the party let me have lol.
This is such a great video! Your analysis is incredible and I just love how you adjusted your lighting for each character. Very well done!
Thank you!
Meru = Best for sure (heal/ magic dmg / highest speed so strongest dps)
Dart = He's always in your party so he's always overleveled so he's pretty good
Shana = I play LoD for addition. She can be really strong with damage item/magic but physical attac is so strong you don't really need it
Haschel = Beast mode fast and hit hard and no weakness (no magic for him)
Lavitz = Handicaped by his slowness but insane defensive magic and damage to the roof
Kongol = Totaly useless later in the game but ok when you get him. Later ennemies strong attack are all magic and kongol will melt like butter. His strong attack become the worst because his addition % suck.
Rose = Really good for your first playtrough. Start strong (phys + magic) and end strong (physical). She's weak mid game due to the lack of good addition and her magic fell.
In my first playtrough, I played Dart Rose and Haschel (I maxed every character addition before choosing my end game character).
Now I have no choice but to go with Dart Haschel and Lavitz/rose until I get Meru. I still prefer Rose over Lavitz but Lavitz make boss so easy.
I like Dart, but I do wish he was more specialized. I get why his stats were so middle of the road as you have to use him in nearly every fight in the game, but they could have at least given his dragoon something interesting instead of 'lol shoot it with fire'.
This tier list is objectively true, great list, exactly the same as one I made for a Facebook group a while back
I like Darts design. Yea, hes mid, but you HAVE TO bring him everywhere. If he'd be a low tier char, it would feel awful to use him. If he'd be S tier, why use anybody else? So he gets all the EXP and can perform equally to some other chars, maybe surpass them sometimes. I don't mind using him, which is a good trait for a main character imo.
Was playing this on a plane last night on my Vita, my seat neighbor was glued to my screen the whole flight.
A little bit of steam will get them right off.
Personally I feel like Kongol is a "big joke "… They let you get his Dragoon spirit early if you want, but it's completely useless for him, better to keep doing normal attacks, the only utility he has is tank , if you put some magic defense itens MAYBE he can Tank, and with that Dragon helm he has LoTS of HP.
i figured out really quick that meru and haschel would be my primary team. albert almost made the cut but meru is just 2 good
Kongol and Meru all the way. Dart is just there with support items. But seriously Kongol is mad crazy strong. that multiplier may seem low but there is a reason for that. Speed boost and attack boost on kongol. Everything in disc three dies within 4 turns. Dart just throws a potion maybe here and there.
I really want to see you tackle Legend of Legaia. It's one of the Four Kings of non-Final Fantasy PS1 JRPGs, along with LoD, Chrono Cross, and Xenogears.
I think that is reasonable! Let me get through this, chrono trigger, and probably FF9 first. 😉😉
Legend of legeia was my second favorite game
Amazing game, but just hearing that name stresses me out LOL
Meru is the goat for sure. Also physical ring buffs her hp by an extra 50%
I ran the game the first few times I played solely on the "B" tier. I could never get the additions down properly for Hashel nor Meru. Even if I adored Meru as my second fav, after Rose.
Meru is the only S tier 🤣💙
Next are Shana/Miranda and Haschel
Well my list is:
S: Lavitz/Albert and Shana/Miranda and Divine Dragoon Dart (Because his power very Perfect in Attack and Magic)
A: Meru and Haschel
B: Dart Red-eyed Dragoon
C: Rosie
D: Kongol
Why is Dart in Divine Dragoon form PERFECT with me?
Because Dart has "Fairy Sword" "Magical Hat" and Madness Hero or Blazing Dynamo.
The above two additions help Dart get a lot of Sp in 1 attack. Especially when having Fairy Sword in hand, Dart can get up to 300Sp when attacking with Madness Hero.
So it only takes 1 attack for Dart to have 3 Divine Dragoon transformations and can use Special Divine form if we hit 1 more turn.
What do we have with 3 Divine transformations?
The Magical Hat helps Dart increase to 150Mp and Magic "Divine D. Cannon" consumes exactly 50 Mp 1 time using 🤭😁😂🤣
So how strong is Divine D. Cannon?
If people love Meru and Shana/Miranda, they will love the huge amount of damage these two girls attack. So what happens WHEN DART is STRONGER than THEM. 🤣🤣🤣
Not to mention, for those two girls, to use 80Mp Magic is very expensive. A "Magical Hat" cannot help them hit twice, while Dart can be used up to 3 times. 🤣🤣🤣
So what if we had a more "dry b.l.o.o.d" option?
Both Meru or Shana/Miranda will gain MP up to 250 when using "Magical Hat" and "Amulet". Now both of them will be able to use the 80Mp magic 3 times. Very cool right? But the price to pay is "losing 1 ring slot equipment" while at the end of the game we have a lot of good Rings for the whole team to use such as:
Physical Ring: Obtained very early, increases max HP by 50%.
Therapy Ring: Restores 10% Health per Turn. (Both girls and Haschel love this Ring very much)
Dance's Ring: Increases Speed by 20.
Attack Badge: Increases 20 Attack and 20 Magic.
Magical Ring: Increases 30 Magic.
Or more specifically, the Phantom Ring reduces ALL DAMAGE taken by half.
...
Our two girls have to trade one of the Rings above to wear the Ring "Amulet" which increases Mp to 250. 🤣
While Dart is free to use any Ring he wants (according to Player preference). So if the Player is afraid to buy a lot of Mp recovery Items for Dart after every "shooting" of the Magic Divine Cannon, we let Dart wear a "Mage Ring" to help restore Mp every turn and also partially overcome this weakness of Dart's Mp loss.
Or don't we let Dart wear "Amulet" to get 250 Mp ? ==> and then, we have 5 shots of Divine Cannon already. Combined with Special Transform and Power Up/Down... Literally "Shoot the Lum".🤣🤣🤣
When I played this game as I kid I remember using Meru for her aesthetic even though I thought she was weak because of her initial physical strength. It's ironic how I used her thinking she was weak, and didn't use Kongol thinking he was overpowered. Kinda reminds me of my first time playing FF8 where I just gave every GF to Squall and wondered why I struggled so much. Kids playing jrpg's am I right?
I love your passion with this game!! I played the heck out of it as a kid and I'm always glad to see it getting recognition!
Never had the chance to Finish the Game Twice as a Kid but now im gonna play it after Star Wars Survivor :D as a Filler Game Until FF 16 Comes out :D
I've played through this game numerous times and I still haven't played with every combination of party members yet. My most challenging had to be using Kongol and Lavitz. The mini bosses and bosses just hit SO hard with Magic attacks that it was difficult to attack without healing. Being the lowest speed party also hurts a lot. You have a lot of penalties to work out and you don't get much out of Kongol. You can tell he was sort of a late "should we include him or not?" party member cause he should have better additions and D.Magic spells. Lavitz... is just a lot of fun to play. The additions are soooo fun.
If I could get rid of Dart, I'd probably play as Meru, Lavitz, and Herschel though. Their additions are my favorite to hit just right lol.
No characters are useless all are useful at different times of the game.
Love seeing fresh Chrono Cross and LOD content. Some of my overlooked favorites!!
Am I the only one that thought it was funny that despite Rose being over 10000 years old she is only like lvl 5 when you meet her.
Aging, dude. Aging.
I would personally put Rose in the A tier. While pretty much everything you said is true. I learned in my last playthrough that Astral Drain is actually WAY more useful then it first appears for one simple reason. It's her first spell. Due to it being her first spell she can spam it every turn in dragoon form. For boss fights especially any against a singular opponents she can basically do all the healing by herself while still doing damage. This allows the rest of the party to keep up the offensive as well.
I agree. LOD is not just about stats but utility.
Rose also respectfully has (in my opinion) the easiest final Addition to complete as it is the least janky and most fluid being a "dance" making timing quite easy. it also doesnt hurt she's got a 500% damage boost for it as well.
The three easiest final additions for me are Rose's Dart's and Kongol's. though Kongol's additions are easy in general once you get past the fact he practically teleports on top of the enemy with his first strike. Like dude if you can do That why is your speed so slow?
@@DragoonZell Maybe at the endgame some characters are more busted than others, but if you just starting out, the speed in which you learn additions and how easy they are definitely matter. Rose is very strong for new players because she is easy to use. I found myself using her a lot in the endgame.
Meru is also fast, but very expensive to use. You don't have infinite magic abilities and its hard to hoard the best spells in the game over solid healing items. I don't know what its like now, but spamming the button to get the most damage was not easy.
On my first playthrough I picked Haschel for his Shinku Hadoken and Meru for fanservice.
Looks like I unknowingly made the best choice 23 years ago :D
When I was young my party was Haschel and Rose. Now that I'm older, Haschel and Meru. Rose is like Dart but better, shes well balanced but can heal the party
I appreciate your insight. Playing this as a kid, I just stuck with Rose and Albert since I was most familiar with them. This playthrough I'll try something different. Not sure who I'll go with yet though.
I'd put dart in A specifically cause he uniquely gets to be higher leveled. You never have to worry bout him being same level and lagging behind. Plus soul eater does enough damage with his final addition to offset his speed.
I just came to see where you rated my speed demon Meru. I was not dissapointed 🩵 With Dancer shoes and the other dancer accessory she takes TOO MANY turns lol I love her. Makes sense she is the fastest since she is a Wingly. Also cool boogie giving 200 SP is really nice.
This was a hilarious video to watch for me. I played this game way back in Middle School and have completed it five times since. And I never stopped to think about all the stats at the bottom or to optimize characters. I always just went Dart Kongol and Hashel.
#justiceforkongol
I agree, except for Rose and Shana. Alot of the later parts of the game have enemies that focus on magic attacks. I've found that they both have better survivability later on than characters like Alvitz and Kangol. I'd eliminate the c tier and have them in a with lavbert.
Seeing my Kongol get hit by ANY spell; im crying at the numbers everyime.
Kongol is actually used during speedrun
Otherwise in regular gameplay where you can grind, Meru is absolutely S tier
No amount of speed boosting EQ will save Kongol, sad : /
I slapped an Angel Scarf on Kongol and watched him tank attacks from Faust. I know it's a god tier item, but watching the guy who gets nuked by magic eat super magics from the strongest mage in the game was pretty funny.
IDK a super boss tier list, there aren't that many. But an optional boss/all bosses list would be awesome 👍
I ended up playing all the characters (grinded them all when I was a kid and this first came out on PS1). The only character that I did not like was Rose. As you said, she was good early on, but was quickly overshadowed when Lavitz and Shana got there DS's. And her best weapon in the game was meh, because by the point that you got it, you weren't going to fight any dragons.
If they ever do a remake, the dev's really need to rework her.
Im at lvl 20 and i still don't want to get rid of rose. But i replaced labert with Meru as soon as I got her.
Kongol tier, doing my man dirty 😭
Great list though :)
Albert/lavitz is s tier just for rose blossom. Throw a bandits ring or something on him and he is OP.
Had to sub because not only do I agree fully with all of what ya said but you had some very valid points and made it interesting! Been over a decade since my last playthrough but starting again tonight after I watch your other videos on this as I thoroughly enjoyed your content thus far. I absolutely love this game and would even put it on par with FF Tactics and FF7 ps1 versions, that being said...I found out the hard way how terrible Kongol was overall and eventually switched and grinded my **** off only to find that Meru/Haschel and Lavitz where absolutely top tier. I originally beat the game with Dart, Rose, Lavitz, but on my second play I did Dart, Meru, Lavitz and it went so buttery smooth I swear I was eating my favorite movie condiment! Haven't tried the all gas no breaks build of Dart, Meru, Haschel yet, but I think that will be fun to say the least, and may yet even beat out my previous combinations or still current favorite! Keep up the good work and realize your channel deserves more love then it's gotten with the amount of effort you put into your videos!
Thank you so much!
Hey Tantacles love your videos big fan i apologise but there is something i wanted to point out in your old tier list you mentioned that you cant get Kongol's Gold Dragoon spirit til end game which for many years i thought too...however after Kongol joins your party on your way back to the Twin Castle in Flets you can pass it go back to Serdio, and enter Lohan talk to the man who sold you the water bottle and buy Kongols Dragoon Spirit for 1,000 gold getting it pretty much immediately after he joins your party and not waiting til end game. Thank you for your time.