When this game came out, people were all about making cool graphical tables for power levels. Things like this were really useful for future proofing even if what makes them great may be a ways off for GL.

With that in mind, using Altema's May rankings, I thought I'd quickly spit out a reference table in text. If anyone here is good with graphics you are more than welcome to make this look easy to read like the older posts. If no one else is interested, maybe I'll find some time this weekend to make it easier.

Random observations on my end that changed from March:

• Black: Squall remains king. Noctis debuts top tier at S. Auron flew up from E to S. Most others remain middling.
• Red: Vaan continues to stay on top. Payalymo joins Edgar in S tier. Middle grounds have shuffled up or down a bit.
• Blue: Cait Sith debuts as king of the pack. Ashe and Cloud swap their SS and A positions. Tidus continues to fall.
• Green: Terra slips out of SS with no replacement. Garnet rises from D to S. Most of the other D tiers rise to B except Celes.
• Yellow: Selphie debuts in SS tier. Layle moves up to join her. Ramza and Lilisette slip from S to A, leaving a gap. Most others also slip a rank.
• White: Yuna and Serah fall from SS to B/A. Hope slides to A. WoL remains as the only S. Thancred from A to C. Eiko down to D. Penelo up from D to A.

Trends: I'm not fully aware which units picked up 60 awakenings nor EX weapons. I'll leave that to someone who wants to investigate more and add details to the units if they feel up to it. However, looking at the shift from March to May in general...

1. Squall and Vaan continue to be safe picks. They're strong now, and just get stronger. They stick at the top for pretty much the entire history as far as I am aware. Great investments for a stable team backbone.
2. Cait Sith and Selphie drop into SS on release and basically make every other support tumble, leading to most of them being placed in lower tiers. Despite this, Ashe and Layle rise up to the top as well and seem to be good investments.
3. Noctis debuts into S tier, but is far off. Auron/Wakka/Garnet are high tier as well but was terrible for quite a while so a long term investment.
4. For current GL units that remain high, Cecil, Laguna, Terra, Prishe, and WoL seem safe and stable as they continue to stick around S tier or higher.
5. Noticeable big drops include Cloud, Yuna, Serah, etc. Some more popular units being hit hard include the LiTiKo trinity that dominated 50 cap content from what I heard.

Hope this helps some of you continue to evaluate your priorities in team pulling for the future. Remember this is a year or so away, and consider what's worth investing into now for a later payoff, what stays useful the entire time, and what to plan to save for to spend on as soon as they release.

EDIT: Per request, I updated the table to mark those without level 60 awakenings, using italics. It can be shown that basically all members of C, D and E tiers (except Thancred, RIP dude) could possibly rise up due to this, just like Auron. In addition, outliers include Zack and Sephiroth managing to still be up in B without them, so they have good potential. Something to keep in the back of your mind as well for sure.

EDIT 2: Per second request, I updated the table again to mark those with EX weapons, using bold. Most characters with an EX weapon are high tier, with notable exceptions like Shantotto, Onion Knight, Firion, Bartz, and Y'shtola. Characters without an EX have the potential to rise up even if they already have a 60 awakening. This shows just how insane the characters in the top tiers without one are already, heh.

EDIT 3: Apparently Lilisette doesn't have her 60 awakening yet. Shame on you, March tier list! Leading me astray like that. So yeah, apparently she's that high tier even without a 60 cap, that's extremely impressive. She might be back in top tier when that rolls around unless her awakening is very underwhelming.