party member tier lists, go! [Spoilers]

[The Sharpest Image]

gilda > petronella > maritte >>> ima > pertisia = rook

gilda is insane, one of the only instances i can think of where a rival-type character is way stronger in your party than out of it

[forte]

in order IMO so far, I'm still in progress
Gilda: great base stats, high damage AoE, multitargeting speed buff, and some good debuffs to come with all that
Maritte: pretty good with damage, motivate, unique (and good) items
Pertisia: base attack shells out some pretty high damage with timing and buffs, team defense buffs are nice.
Ima: Regen works really well with defense debuffs from Pertisia, works as a secondary damage source.
Petronella: great for large amounts of healing in one go but poison is really underwhelming imo. I think building her as a full tank is funny and fun
Rook: decent damage and can steal items off of enemies, unfortunately he's not great everywhere else and mainly works as a secondary damage source

[Gum Guardian]

I ended the game with Maritte, Gilda, and Petronella. Gilda has crazy high single target damage, range, and mobility. Maritte has the power buffs which are insane when you can set up Maritte to just Beam across the map and she has real good aoe for bosses who summon. And Petronella can just throw poison on the boss and heal up/help deal with adds when they come.

That said, i'd say Gilda > Maritte > Petronella > Pertisia > Ima > Rook

[The Sharpest Image]

as useful/versatile maritte is, the sustain and drain petronella provides makes her way more essential to party comp, especially against fast bosses. you can replace the two of them with pertisia and ima, respectively, but in my experience it isn;t nearly as effective.

i honestly wish more bosses had an instakill effect (and that there was a corresponding revive spell that didn't belong to Nel). it's the only real counter to a passive +10 regen, especially when that instakill/regen is on a high speed character like gilda.

also no other character can come close to replacing gilda, which is cool but also awk because she has a lot of essential stuff in her kit (great speed, incredible coverage, good buffs)

[The Sharpest Image]

oh *also* nel is by far the best support once she has the upgraded scarf that let's you use items at range. but the scarf in general is kind of op, at least compared to a lot of the other rare/shiny gem items.

[Tuskai]

I ended the game with Marittie, Ima and Rook, so just know that going in. I'll start from lowest to highest.

Lowest Tier.
Pertisia: Her defence buffs feel like they have almost no impact for multiple reasons, as getting a great will tend to reduce damage so sharply you won't feel the defense change, while her crystal shield blocking a single hit seems nice, due to action economy, i.e. Enemies getting so many more turns than the player, it is basically just an action you use when you're buffing near the start, before the enemies get into attack range. Her attack spells all have awkward attack ranges to make it hard to fight around your team.

Petronella: Healing isn't bad, but it's the only thing she has going for her really. Poison isn't helpful in random encounters because raw damage will kill an enemy before the poison would, and it only shines in boss fights, except her weak aura healing and inability to directly heal herself makes it hard to use her over Ima, who also has more utility and raw damage.

Maritte: She has damage, more damage and a lot more damage, even giving damage to the rest of her team. The damage buff is over kill in random encounters, rarely changing the number of hits needed to kill, and in boss fights, you have to weigh "Giving an ally +3 damage for three turns, or just doing twenty myself." and so the math rarely turns out in her favor unless Mariette can't do anything else for her turn. She is good at AoE damage though, Meteorite hits for Ignite damage on Flying/hovering targets, which coincedently, is most bosses that summon adds.

Rook: Stealing is useful for getting items and money, saving on the cost of items and such, but what most people fail to realize, is that Rook can ALWAYS attack an enemy, his attack ranges are amazing for single target, full damage spells. Raw damage numbers rarely change between the party members at either extreme of high or low, so building Rook as a glass cannon can give you a character that blows up both bosses and adds from across the map, and Journey's +2 Move range buff is amazing for letting everyone else maintain optimal positioning. If you learn how to use it, Sigil also denies enemies turns, shifting the action economy in your favor. Paper Storm and Scream are also really good AoE attacks, especially once Paper Storm's range upgrades.

Gilda: I Notice everyone else put Gilda first, and I know it's because of her ability to buff speed for herself and her allies, giving everyone more turns before the enemies do, as well as having an amazing range for her spells and unparralleled movement options with teleport. Gilda's weakness is that her damage itself is very bad, she's focused more on manipulating turn order, which is great, but not top of the tierlist great.

Ima: Ima is, for lack of a better word, perfect. Xe require thoughtful positioning to use Xir abilities, but as long as you're mindful of where xe is in regards to xir allies, that's not any different than anyone else on the party. Rainbow has more than double the healing Aura provides, usually being worth negating 3 or so Great-defenses a round, Pigment works as a two-in-one AoE Heal and Burst damage spell as long as you can fit the positioning in which makes xir a better Petronella, Puppet can absorb about 3, sometimes 4 hits per cast, making Pertisia pointless, Sentinal is a heavier hitting version of Sigil, so xe can screw with the enemies action economy. Blade is as strong as Flare, with the only requirement being its specific range. Twinkle can delay turns in addition to hitting base damage, so it's more useful against bosses than GIlda's turn delay, and Arrow Storm is one of the easier to use AoE's for also hitting as hard as it does. Ima has an answer to every problem, and xir only weakness is a lot of spells don't do anything if you botch the timings.

[Iavra]

My final party was Gilda, Ima, Rook.

Gilda is obviously really strong with Beam and Teleport for free repositioning and with Rook also being able to attack from range with Seeker it's easy to stay together and keep Regen up for the entire fight.

So, most of my fights were just Gilda and Rook attacking across the field, while Ima kept them healthy, placed Puppets and Sentinels for board control and went into the offensive once enemies came close.

Also, Rook's steal gets really good stuff vs bosses. It's only the first one, everything after only yields coins, but then you are free to switch back to Seeker/Scream for damage.

I never found the need for the big healing numbers Nel provides or Pertisia's defensive skills, so i used Ima for the flexibility, instead.

Maritte is just too pigeonholed into damage skills with limited range.

So for me it's probably something like:
Gilda > Ima = Rook > Petronella > Maritte = Pertisia

[neilse1123]

Ranking:
Gilda > Ima > Petronella > Maritte > Rook > Pertisia

Actual party comp by end of game:
Gilda, Ima, Maritte

Gilda is OP, fast, very high damage, flexible long range AOE AND has utility. The delay turn move doesn't actually work most of the time, but it's still a half decent short range AOE. Her Teleport combos nicely with Ima's regeneration because she gets a second turn immediately. It also just gives her great mobility for those battles where opponents move you or trap the battlefield.

Ima is awesome, she has high single-target damage capabilities and her Regeneration can be applied pro-actively so her turns are not wasted even if the party is full health and all enemies are out of reach. On the rare occasion that regeneration is already applied and everyone is out of reach, she can still drop a puppet or trap. Give her the item scarf so that she can use items for high level instant healing in emergencies and she covers Petra completely.

Petra was great early game, but I noticed a sharp drop-off in relative damage potential as it progressed. So she's a fantastic healer, but almost useless from a DPS perspective and is basically wasted on any round where you don't need healing. She might have a special place in boss battles where damage over time is more useful and instant healing is more crucial, but I'm too lazy to actual switch party comp for particular battles.

Maritte was fantastic early game, but once you have Gilda available she just doesn't seem special anymore from a damage perspective. She has good AOE potential but only in the very short range. However, late game her buffs make for amazing combos. Dropping buff squares over Ima and Gilda means that Ima can start regenerating everyone for 15-20 health per turn and that Gilda can one-shot enemies with her beam attack. As long as your characters are fast enough, you can wipe out some enemies from across the board with Gilda, then mop up with Maritte and Ima once the remaining enemies close in.

Rook beats Pertisia out simply because he has good-enough damage and can make money. His utilities give him something to do when there aren't enemies in position for an attack. He's low on the list because his damage isn't extremely high or flexible, and his utilities aren't incredibly useful compared to healing or Maritte's buffs.

Pertisia is on the bottom of the list, but I'll admit to having used her from the time I got her until I got Gilda and Maritte both into the party. Her defensive buffs are a nice idea, but they just don't make enough of a difference to outweigh the damage capabilities of other units or Maritte's buffs. They combo with Ima just a bit, but not as well as Maritte's buffs. Her damage is decent, but not special and her AOEs are hard to use. (Wave of glass hits allies and/or misses half the enemies, defense debuff is mostly useless and doesn't last long.) Overall, she's decent and can sub out for other characters without much disturbance, but she doesn't shine at anything. If healers didn't exist, I'd use her with the scarf...

[K]

A tier - Gilda and Ima
B tier - Maritte and Rook
P tier - Petronella and Perti

I ran late game (all spells learned) with Gilda, Ima and Maritte.
Before Gilda learned her last spell i actually preferred Rook over her. But once properly equipped and with smart use of items in battle, she becomes really insane.

Ima's rainbow spell just felt ridiculous at times with how strong it is. I loved using it preemptively during long battles and then see everyone being healed each turn to full health. She also has good damage output and I just love her sword animation!

Maritte does decent damage, has great aoe options and compliments Gilda really well with her buff.

[Leah]

As soon I experimented with Ima, Rook and Gilda, it became my standard for the rest of the game.

Ima has the best utility in the game by far. Rook can supremely increase the power level of your team by stealing boss equipment you can't buy, and that you usually only get one of through exploration. Gilda has insane AoE damage potential and was designated glass cannon fitted with attack box and all.

Ima is basically a tactician setting up lethal traps, rainbow heals that can sustain you all during the toughest boss fights, decoys to further buff the healing and draw aggro away from your squishies and is capable of dishing out off damage in between it all.

Rook is more or less your long range sustain damage once you get the bee strike while also being capable of vastly improving your entire party's stats through rare boss steal equips.

Gilda is long range, close range and AoE damage all in one. With Ima's rainbow regen, Gilda can double stack healing when she teleports to set up either her delay (which sets up kills or sustain for the party), a 3-4 mob BEAM attack or her strongest skill, tag, which does high AF single target damage for all your late game boss fights.

[Vivi the Gobolin]

Mariette>Ima>Perty>Gilda>Petra>Rook

Idk where people are getting more damage with Gilda than Mariette. Gilda was at best keeping pace, until Mariette unlocked flare and outdamaged everyone else combined. 50+ damage, every turn, no drawback? 65 if you have the fury mitt? Compared to Gilda's 18 or Ima's 16 by the end? And that's before a buff, An attack buff and I was easily doing 70+ every attack. Even the secret superboss was taking 30+, while others were lucky to do 10-12. I kept with Mariette and Perty always, with Ima as the third. Swap in Gilda if I need more power, Nel if I need sustain. But the bosses just became "Once I hit half health, pull people off Mariette for like 2-3 rounds while she demolishes them."

Ima's great with support and has a good damage option. Perty's perfect utility with buffing defense and debuffing enemy defense/speed (just use an item if you need emergency heal, money's so abundant). Gilda has solid damage overall, and Nel's heals are crazy for keeping everyone alive. Rook was good when I did his secret battle, but I just never used him. Never a reason to use him over the others, anything he could do someone else could better. Except generate money, but I was always overflowing anyway.