The late-game meta in Star Savior rewards single-target pressure, action-gauge manipulation, and characters that remain useful when skill levels and gear are maxed; the Star Savior Character Tier List below ranks each notable unit and explains their role and why they occupy that position in clear sentence form.
Star Savior Character Tier List (Updated December 2025)
Tier 0 — Meta-defining (SSS)
Lacey
Lacey dominates because her unique debuff — Intertwined Dreams — turns being hit into both sustain and action-gauge gain, letting her convert enemy aggression into repeated offence while staying surprisingly tanky; invest skill levels early because her damage and survivability scale enormously with that debuff uptime.
Tier 1 — Premium cores (SS)
Bunny Claire
Bunny Claire excels at stacking cooldowns to chain extra attacks and benefits dramatically when enemies are heavily buffed, so she functions as an explosive single-target finisher in burst windows.
Dana
Dana is a star-element caster who amplifies her own and two allies’ attack while applying wide speed control, making her a top pick for both wave clear and boss phases when paired with the right attackers.
Sayla
Sayla blends action-gauge grants and attack buffs with occasional self extra-turns, which lets her turbocharge teams that rely on repeated skill usage to win high-HP boss encounters.
Charles
Charles is a crit-focused striker who hands out critical rate and attack increases plus extra turns, turning crit-scaling carries into consistent high DPS across both short and long fights.
Tier 2 — High-value picks (S)
New Character / Omega (preliminary)
Omega is a star-attribute caster whose kit scales with star stacks created by allied star attacks, so he spikes in late fights inside dedicated star teams and can outscale single-target options when stacks align.
Bunny Scarlet
Bunny Scarlet rewards careful timing: her Seven Balls mechanic and potential ultimate resets let her chain ultimates for sustained output, but she requires active play and setup to reach peak value.
Tanya
Tanya is a self-buffering striker who gives team-wide crit rate while building her own offensive throughput, making her a reliable mid-to-late game investment for crit comps.
Harley
Harley functions as a speed-scaling defender who can both accelerate allies and act as a durable frontliner, so she’s valuable when you want a hands-off tank that still boosts tempo.
Carmen
Carmen’s provoke and damage-scaling from max HP let her soak hits and increase team durability while contributing to sustained damage through HP-based mechanics, which makes her a go-to for resource-efficient tanking.
Luna
Luna’s normal attack AoE and area-damage vulnerability debuff let her convert ordinary turns into constant value in mob stages, and she becomes a wave-control specialist in stages with clustered enemies.
Smile
Smile provides powerful fixed defense shred and conditional extra actions, producing outsized damage over long phases when you stack speed and keep her conditions active.
Tier 3 — Reliable performers (A)
Kira
Kira leverages stealth and evasive play to avoid enemy targeting while disrupting the enemy action flow, making her an excellent single-target assassin when paired behind sturdy tanks.
Lily
Lily mixes enemy attack reduction, shields, and party offensive buffs so she can pivot between support and damage roles depending on team needs, rewarding players who build around her utility.
Petra
Petra’s stack mechanic leads to massive defense reduction at cap, meaning she’s a late-build specialist that turns into a problem solver for high-defense bosses when you can reliably generate stacks.
Rydia / Lydia
Rydia (listed as Lydia) is a ranger who reduces effect resistance and gains offensive bonuses when attacking debuffed enemies, so she synergizes strongly with teams that apply multiple debuffs.
Ephindel / Epindel
Ephindel is an assassin that scales through basic-skill stacking and self-healing, offering strong single-target performance once you commit to a basic-skill build.
Lu / Lou
Lu is a control ranger who delays enemy actions with freeze and CT increases while buffing allied damage through defensive debuffs, making her a utility pick that tightens team pacing.
Ede
Ede plays a protector role by drawing hits and providing shields plus hit-rate debuffs, which helps fragile DPS survive powerful AoE bursts in longer fights.
Trish
Trish loops crit-focused bursts by resetting cooldowns on kills and stacking crit rate, turning clean executions into continuous burst windows if you can keep kills coming.
Acela / Asella
Acela is an AoE critical attacker who scales well under critical support, making her a top choice when you have crit buffers and want reliable multi-target pressure.
Tier 4 — Situational but useful (B)
Elisa
Elisa’s revival kit makes her acutely valuable in clutch PvP or individual boss scenarios, but her niche utility means she’s less consistent in generic PvE clears.
Muriel
Muriel’s damage scales with debuff counts and she extends debuffs, allowing her to shine in setups built around stacking negative effects even though those lineups are situational.
Serpent
Serpent grants conditional immunity to skill damage and can lower enemy attack, which is extremely clutch against delayed burst phases but requires precise timing to be effective.
Frey
Frey is a flexible healer/support who stabilizes tempo with action gauge boosts and barriers; she is one of the best sustain pieces for offense-first comps because she keeps carries alive long enough to deal repeated damage.
Bella
Bella is the standout SR support who provides single-target recovery and debuff removal with an occasional all-target heal, making her the best budget healer until premium supports are available.
Vesta
Vesta scales all effects off max HP, offering a reliable free-to-play defensive option that is easy to stat-build but generally weaker than premium tanks in raw mitigation.
Tier 5 — Early-game or filler (C)
Clarissa
Clarissa gives speed control and crit-oriented damage, which is useful for early tempo manipulation but she gets outclassed by more impactful ranges later.
Claire
Claire runs on high action counts to output damage, making her a good early assassin-style unit but less valuable once specialized carries arrive.
Nal / Naru
Naru is a safe, straightforward ranger who provides attack buffs and resistance reduction; she performs steadily in the early game but lacks the late-game punch of higher tiers.
Anna
Anna is an effective early-game defender who self-recovers and soaks damage reliably while you build your account, though she becomes replaceable as premium tanks are released.
Tier 6 — Underperformers (D)
Scarlet
Scarlet relies on burn mechanics that ramp too slowly relative to current boss pacing and asks for split stat investment, which weakens her viability compared to units that deliver consistent immediate damage.
Marsil
Marsil offers crit-triggered effects and burn interactions but lacks the consistent scaling and synergy to outcompete other assassins in the present meta.
Meta summary and practical advice
Prioritize units that manipulate the action gauge or grant extra turns — those effects multiply team DPS far more than raw single-hit multipliers in long boss fights.
Attackers and hybrid attackers are rated higher than pure supporters because the current PvE content rewards rapid boss kill potential; pick supports that also meaningfully increase tempo or critical throughput.
Invest in early skill upgrades for characters like Lacey, Dana, Charles, and Bunny Claire because their kits are highly level-dependent and unlock comp-defining power at lower incremental cost than delayed scaling units.
Omega and other new star-stacking characters can outscale conventional carries inside dedicated team shells, so only prioritize them once you have enough star synergy pieces to reliably stack their resource mechanic.