https://exvius.gamepedia.com/Chainer_Rankings_by_Suede

Change! ヽ( `д´*)ノ

With neo visions now being here, I'm not going to be discussing 7* units anymore; supports like Rinora, Relm, Dagger and Pone are all/will all be usable in general or in their specific niches, but damage dealers are simply too far behind to be worth looking at. As for the ones released immediately before NV...

CG Kuja Pushed the magic damage envelope to its limit for 7*s, much like Zenaida did for physical damage. Angel of Death Kuja doesn't have NV contemporaries to kick his damage to the curb for a little while longer, since mages aren't released quite as rapidly and Aerith isn't widening the gap hugely on raw damage. If you want to nitpick, his HP is pretty bad, but it's nothing that can't be compensated for.

Garland(FF9) Released on his own merits a bit earlier, Garland would have been an interesting choice of a mage. 50% resistance to all elements on top of ailment resist gives quite a bit of freedom to him, albeit with 100% MAG TDW and no whip access. Being released alongside Kuja is kind of taking the piss given his final damage is around half that of Kuja's. Take his cloak and run.

Princess Ashe Her average damage was around that of Garland's when I calculated it at time of release with the 300% TDH cap; 400% unfortunately won't make her a realistic contender against Umbral Fina or Kuja. High innate TDH, access to three elements and relatively strong burst damage makes her dark visions fodder more than anything, if you can afford to set up. Regardless, as the supposed star of her own banner, she really ought to have stepped up her game for other content.

FF7R Barret Calculating your damage at roughly around War Hero Raegen's was a good incentive for me to not care about 7* damage dealers much anymore. Thank you for your service, Barret.

Finishing?

A lot of chainers going forward have their burst damage as a finisher; Tifa is the quintessential example of this, and she clearly isn't a dedicated finisher with no chaining prowess. How I am managing this going forward is to examine chainers' finishing turns independently of chaining ones to gauge the amount of external support needed, rather than excluding it from thought entirely. In short: it's a consideration, and why Tifa is near the top of the list rather than the bottom.

I'm interested in hearing thoughts on this philosophy as it's not the only way to consider damage dealers, but I feel like this way will better represent meaningful power rather than pretending that external chain accessibility is actually a barrier now; most every unit has chain skills, and there are skills granted from espers and gear to compensate for those that don't.

Additional criteria

NV-specific criteria has been added. Units are assumed to be at EX 2, NV bases can use their own vision cards or non-unit-specific ones, NVA can only use non-unit-specific ones. I understand EX 1 will be a stopping point for most people, though I feel EX 2 strikes a balance between meaningful potential and wasteful epeen.

Short summaries

FF7R NV Cloud Sets the standard for power of NV base chainers. He's also very straightforward despite having a rotation that likely switches forms quite a bit; buff ATK, imbue, imperil, smash the enemy up. Set up and LB for burst damage if you like.

Tifa "Decent" free chainer (read: vastly superior to all 7* chainers before her). What really sets Tifa apart is her monstrous LB: with zero LB damage gear, it's 720x after a turn of setup, compared to the ~216x she gets on a typical chain turn. She has no real drawbacks for this, not even locked to a specific element, difficult to gear, or frail.

NV Rain Cloud, but actually has a support kit, kind of. I haved mixed feelings on NV Rain as an NV base since his support kit is somewhat situational and foregoing a dupe means he can't use his LB chain for burst damage. For most situations, it's probably a tossup between him and Cloud, and I'm favouring Cloud's considerably higher burst damage.

Dark Veritas For a supposed dud NV, Veritas of the Dark isn't terrible. 75% breaks are easily strong enough to consider dropping a dedicated breaker for if they aren't providing enough utility otherwise, and his average damage is fine. Low burst and being (virtually) dark-locked is a bit of a shame, though

ヽ(￣～￣ )ノ

As usual, let me know what you think.