https://exvius.gamepedia.com/Chainer_Rankings_by_Suede

I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me. I've been inactive with these posts lately due to study/malaise/COVID-19/???, and there have been some enormous spikes in damage with Edward Elric being the crux of it all. As such, I won't waste my breath on the units that fell outside of the top 5 in the last couple of months since their damage is relatively far behind and will only get crept further from here. I don't think there's much value in me harping on about them.

Palom & PoromSweet NicholCG Onion KnightHeinTifaJechtMadam EdelLilisetteCG TidusYuna(X-2)PaineCrimsonYegoBeatrix

Gone, but not forgotten. Yuna (FFX-2) and Madam Edel were just shy of making the top 5, which also absolves me of thinking about Edel any longer (who has been discussed to death already). Additionally, the distinction between TDH and TDW for physical chainers has also been erased as I don't think it's particularly relevant at this stage in the game.

Short summaries

CG Shantotto A small step above older magic chainers in terms of damage, offset by her lack of AoE damage (unless you commit to LB chaining) and being pretty squishy. Rotation is a bit strange and she doesn't require stacking like other mages, but she's otherwise par for the course.

Lulu Damage is surprisingly high, but being locked to a single element is painful for a mage. She's beating out Palom & Porom in damage, albeit sacrificing better utility.

Yunalesca Similar damage to Wizardess Shantotto, but having half-baked evoke damage options result in her having heaps of SPR from the passives encouraging it. 120% (!) imperils preceding chains make Yunalesca nice in case of foes that need dispelling, but otherwise isn't any different from mages that maintain 120% imperil from setup CDs. For now, she's the best mage we've got...until Diabolos Sol drops tomorrow.

Nagi Somewhat of a tossup between Nagi and Levinson, boiling down to higher and more diverse killers vs. a powerful support kit. It should be telling that I'm comparing Nagi to a unit from a good 4 months ago, however; her being an uncontested hybrid makes the difference between #1 and barely scraping into the top 5 of her tier.

Edward Elric Fucked. Pushing the damage envelope, easy access to four elements, 150% killer to one of the most common enemy types, some elemental resist support to go with his already high passives. Edward wouldn't even need all of these things to be #1, but he has them anyway. Go figure.

King Bradley A bit less fucked. King Bradley's power is reined in by his somewhat lower damage than Edward, and his soft lock to lightning. That being said, his huge passive evasion is a strong niche that will no doubt come into play a fair bit. I may be underrating him somewhat, but his unique characteristics and difficulties do make it challenging to make an accurate assessment; compare to judging Xuan Wu & Qing Long's advantages relative to their lower damage at this point (who also have high evasion to boot).

CG Zidane April Fools', your favourite Final Fantasy character has been outshone by an FFBE character/anime character/pop singer. Access to mirage on a weaker chain via T skill is a small consolation prize for his relatively underwhelming damage. Feels like too little too late now that Gumi has revealed their hand.

Gilgamesh (Wotv) Edward tier damage, but hard locked to an element. You can do a hybrid or magic build; please don't. Gilgamesh does have a bit of utility which is arguably better than Edward's, but it doesn't make up for the hard lock.

Be gentle, I bruise easily

Hoping to get back into the groove of monthly updates from this post. As usual, let me know what you think.