Though all of them are brave and willing to fight the Mad King Magnus, not all Knights of Veda are created equal. In this tier list for Astra: Knights of Veda, we’ll take a look at the playable cast of characters (up to May 2, 2024) and assess their strengths and weaknesses, which will hopefully help you make informed decisions on who to keep and who to shun.
A Foreword
A few things you need to know before we begin:
- Knights will be graded via letter grade, with S as the highest and D as the lowest.
- S-tier heroes are the cream of the crop. If you have them, there’s almost no reason not to use them.
- A-tier heroes are great. They’re not overpowered or amazing, but they’ll almost always do a decent job, and are great fallback knights if you don’t have the absolute beset.
- B-tier heroes are okay. Not too shabby, not too great.
- C-tier heroes are eh. They tend to underperform in some way, whether that’s via janky mechanisms, low multipliers, spreading themselves too thin, and so on. Usable but with reservations.
- D-tier heroes are bleh. If you’re playing with these guys, you’re looking for a serious challenge. Replace ASAP. Currently, no heroes are so bad or unusable that they deserve this spot – I’m just leaving it in as a point of reference.
- This is a general tier list that doesn’t lean towards PVP or PVE. In general, ranged heroes tend to perform better in PVP, but the devs of Astra: Knights of Veda listen very closely to player feedback and nerf/buff heroes regularly.
Lastly, as with all tier lists, this one is subjective.
With that out of the way, here’s our Knights of Veda tier list.
Knights of Veda Tier List
| S | Saeya, Edward, Sansar, Sarka, Aurora |
| A | Veleno, Lucian, Atterisee, Xanthia, Eliyar, Arin, Albert |
| B | Yanko, Nayan, Andrei, Marthel, Capecchi, Ardor, Liam, Elias |
| C | Rani, Orlik, Leon |
S-Tier
Saeya
Element: Water
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Healer who doubles as a warrior.
- Flowing Life grants a minor emergency heal.
- Stigma of Life debuff grants healing to enemies that strike stigmatized foes.
- Wave of Life reduces all elemental resistance.
Cons:
- Needs to be switched in to maintain Stigma of Life.
Saeya is basically Lucian on steroids. Where Lucian’s healing comes from his buff, all of Saeya’s moves attach her Stigma of Life debuff, which causes allies to heal when they attack the debuffed enemy. Flowing Life helps her spread the status around even more (and has a minor heal), while Wave of Life heals Saeya for a lot of health, spreads Stigma, and reduces all elemental resistance.
I will add that I think Saeya is more for a generalist composition, while Lucian is more for a Light-based team with his massive Light resistance shred at higher Fates. Both are very good, though.
Edward
Element: Fire
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Self-buffing AOE melee DPS.
Cons:
- Geared for AOE; while strong, his single-target damage could be better.
There’s not much to say about Edward aside from he’s really, really good at AOE unga bunga. All his attacks have a decent reach and more importantly hit an area, allowing Edward to shred mobs like no other. Fury Strike is a simple forward slash with great coverage, while Time for Punishment is both a nuke and self-buff that boosts Edward’s ATK by 40% AND enhances his skills, turning Fury Strike into Flame Sword (which adds a knockback and burn DoT to Fury Strike) and Time for Punishment into Wound of Flames (basically fires a sword beam that also leaves behind a DoT).
Or you could just ignore that and use the normal attack enhancement to go unga bunga with his strong attack; that works surprisingly well.
While Edward is plenty powerful on his own, he appreciates teammates like Andrei whose ultimate rapidly shreds Fire resistance are especially potent with, or Marthel whose attack speed buff allows Edward to capitalize on his enhanced normal attacks.
Sansar
Element: Light
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Normal attack focused playstyle.
- Has a dog.
Cons:
- You need practice to master the timing of her level 4 charged attack.
Like Edward, Sansar is pretty easy to understand – use Wrath of the Sun to gain buffs then go to town with her strong attack, where she literally just slams enemies with her sword. Her dog is nice, too; an extra body is always welcome and while its multipliers aren’t great, both of its attacks reduce elemental resistance.
Sarka
Element: Electric
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Hilariously good DPS even without Fate investment.
- Dodge gives him a move speed increase.
Cons:
- Ranged unit, therefore squishy. Some practice needed especially as his skill launches himself forward.
Sarka has one of those simple yet effective kits I love so much. All he really does is do damage, but he is damn good at that job. Thunder Strike launches him forward and slams the ground, dealing damage but more importantly giving Sarka a very respectable Lightning damage boost. After that, you can pretty much just mash buttons – no matter what you do, Sarka’s going to do great damage.
I should mention that unlike Edward or Sansar, Sarka is a ranged knight, meaning he has less innate survivability than those two. Good positioning is key to maximizing Sarka – especially since his skill launches himself forward – and you should practice with his movement options.
Aurora
Element: Light
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Self-feeding buff loop when she crits.
- Fast attack animations with attack speed buffs allow her to fire normal attacks like no other.
Cons:
- Wants lots of crit investment.
Let’s get this straight – Aurora is hilariously busted as of now.
Aurora’s kit revolves around proccing her Retribution stats by critting; each time she crits, she gains a Retribution stack, each of which gives her an attack bonus, a crit damage bonus, and stamina regen. Retribution stacks go up to 5, and last for 6 seconds. Effectively, the more she crits, the stronger those crits become.
As if that wasn’t stupid enough, her Light-Speed Kicks ultimate grants her the Extermination status, which boosts attack speed and movement speed every time she crits. It doesn’t last long, but with so much crit, attack speed, and her fast animations, you can see how this can quickly ramp up. Did I mention she also takes less damage from normal attacks during her ultimate? Yeah.
To help her land her crits, her Arrow Festival enhances her normal and strong attack, giving a 12-21% crit rate boost – yes, this is huge. It’s also a backflip, which gives Aurora more survivability and maneuverability options – and it also boosts movement speed, so yay.
The thing with Aurora is that she needs to crit at all to get the ball rolling. You’ll want a generous amount of the stat as she wants to continuously be critting to maximize her stacks.
A-Tier
Veleno
Element: Poison
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Highly mobile archer who packs a ton of DoTs.
- Works great with Edward.
Cons:
- DoT-dependent kit means she can’t crit.
- No way to capitalize on DoTs, yet. I’m hopeful.
- No hard disables.
Veleno is notable in that she has more mobility options than usual – her normal skill, in particular, is also a backdash. This gives Veleno the ability to engage enemies on her own terms. Ideally, Veleno will sit in the backlines, firing her arrows to proc the poison effects and using her normal skill to leave a cloud of damaging poison. This also means that Veleno should not be delegated the task of main DPS as she works better as an off-field DPS with her DoTs and poison cloud.
Veleno also excels when used with a Fire DPS like Edward, as her constant poison ticks can quickly force enemies to adapt a Poison shield, leaving them vulnerable to Edward’s onslaught!
Lucian
Element: Light
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Buff-based heal that allows you to weave quickly between characters.
- Swords of Light allow him to push out some damage.
- Can peel Light resistance with Fate 1; Fate 4 grants his ultimate major Light resistance shred.
Cons:
- Healing is dependent on team damage, meaning it will take a while for Lucian’s kit to make sense.
- High ultimate Veda Energy cost.
Lucian is your starter healer and honestly, he’s not bad. He will, however, take a while to get fully online since the rest of the team needs to be built up to capitalize on his healing as Lucian is a healer who greatly rewards aggression.
Holy Sword of Blessing may have low healing, but then you realize that the heal scales off the damage dealt by the attacking ally and suddenly it makes a lot more sense. Said swords also fire off at enemies as you attack, meaning that Lucian can get some damage in himself. Meanwhile, Magnificence of Light is your emergency heal; while powerful, keep in mind that it’s got a big Veda Energy cost.
Atterisee
Element: Poison
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Big debuff shred on ultimate.
- Doesn’t need skill investment to make her debuffs better.
Cons:
- Debuff is random.
- Veleno exists.
Atterisee was the subject of some major buffs in the May 2 patch, which improved her dodge, number of hits with Roll, Roll, Roll!, reduced strong attack charge time and a built-in movement speed debuff on said attack, and last but not least, the mostly useless heal reduction debuff on her ultimate changed to much more universal DEF down.
Honestly, at this point it’s a toss up between her and Veleno. Both are good enablers for Edward, though Atterisee does tend to be more of a support role (Veleno’s DoTs output quite a bit of damage) but can be much better IF she lands either the DEF or all resistance shred debuff.
Xanthia
Element: Darkness
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Fantastic grouper with her black holes.
- Can be played as both AOE DPS or support.
Cons:
- Expensive ultimate.
Xanthia was Astra: Knights of Veda’s first limited knight, and she was (is) a pretty dang good unit. As master of gravity, Xanthia excels in powerful AOEs that slow enemies while continuously inflicting damage and reducing knockback received. The sheer power of these gravity traps allow Xanthia to be played as both an on-field DPS or as an off-field DPS/support/grouper for your main damage dealer.
Xanthia’s Fate 1 and 2 are of special note if you really want to amplify her CC power. Fate 1 increases Law of Gravity’s AOE and inflicts a hard knockdown for one second, while Fate 2 increases Event Horizon’s AOE and duration.
Eliyar
Element: Blood
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Decent damage dealer; that’s good as she’s pretty much your only option as Blood DPS.
- Trap debuffs don’t scale with investment, meaning it’s fine to leave her normal skill unleveled.
Cons:
- Needs setup to maximize her ultimate.
Like with Sarka, there’s not much to say about Eliyar other than she’s just straight-up DPS. Her traps are okay, and they excel in tight areas, but all you really need from Eliyar are her numbers. As she’s currently the only other Blood character in the game apart from Leon, you’ll want her just for type coverage.
Getting the most out of Eliyar means learning to work with her ultimate. While a fully charged bolt from her Reindeer Strong Bow punches holes in pretty much everything, she needs to stand still and channel for a while before unleashing it – and since Eliyar is a ranged knight, her survivability isn’t that great. Pair her with stunners or move speed reduction knights; Xanthia, if you have her, is fantastic at this.
Arin
Element: Darkness
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Very large burst damage on ultimate (and ignores DEF) and can set herself up.
- Death’s Grip inflicts Incoming Darkness DMG debuff, allowing her to run support in a Darkness team. Not that we have lots of Darkness characters, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Cons:
- Wants Fate 1 to maximize her potential, especially in multi-enemy scenarios.
Arin is the current premiere SSR Darkness DPS since I’d classify Xanthia as more of a support. In both PVE and PVP, Arin is notable for her ability to delete foes from existence via her The Last Dance ultimate, which hits 10 times and ignores DEF. Thankfully, Arin has the means to set up her own sweep via Death’s Grip which stuns and increases incoming Darkness damage. However, without her Fate 1, Death’s Grip only affects a single target, not that it’s strictly necessary, but it’s nice QOL and will allow The Last Dance to more reliably wipe out both single targets and hordes.
Albert
Element: Earth
Rarity: SSR
Pros:
- Lots of ways to mitigate damage.
- Has a hard taunt in his ultimate.
- Can regenerate Stamina, which is an incredibly rare effect.
Cons:
- No offense in his kit.
While Albert may be touted as a tank, he plays more like a control warrior. With his plethora of damage reduction in his skill’s ATK down debuff, the taunt and damage reduction on his ultimate, and the two second damage reduction on his dodge, Albert doesn’t so much mitigate damage as redirect it.
This means that Albert excels in teams that want his control teams; fragile DPS characters like Sarka or Eliyar will appreciate his taunt, while pretty much everyone can use his buffs and debuffs to some degree. That said, Albert is almost wholly reliant on his team as he packs virtually no offense whatsoever. He may outlast everyone, but he’s not going to beat anyone, either.
B-Tier
Yanko
Element: Earth
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Turret gives him good off-field DPS ability; an extra body is always welcome.
- Strong attack scales incredibly well with levels.
- Ultimate binds one target and increases the damage it takes.
Cons:
- Debuff only affects one target; not good at killing mobs.
- Ultimate damage debuff doesn’t scale with levels.
- Fragile.
It seems that a lot of people sleep on Yanko’s utility. Yes, he’s here to throw turrets and switch out and occasionally fire an ultimate. The thing is, the ultimate doesn’t just restrain the target but also inflicts a 25% incoming damage debuff on it, allowing Yanko to pave the way for your main damage dealers – though I will add that I haven’t thoroughly tested nor found any data to indicate if the bind and damage increase are inflicted separately.
In a pinch, a leveled Yanko can capitalize on his own ultimate as his level 4 strong attack hits very hard (260.6% at max charge, unleveled, which is more than Rani’s 55.68% * 3 ultimate) though I would still advise investing in a proper damage dealer.
Nayan
Element: Water
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Heals herself with her normal skill; great at auto combat.
- Ultimate creates a regen zone for allies and debuff zone for enemies.
Cons:
- No team-based healing outside of ultimate.
Nayan is your other easy-access healer, though note that she’s not guaranteed unlike Lucian. While Nayan is a healer, she’s more of a warrior in that her skill heal only heals herself; this allows Nayan to be played as a pseudo-tank thanks to her good survivability. Her ultimate, on the other hand, is her only team healing skill – though it’s a very good one as it provides a healing over time effect for allies who stand in it and a move speed reduction for foes who dare to stand in it.
Andrei
Element: Fire
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Easier to use than Rani.
- Ultimate deals decent damage and is forgiving with its use.
- Burning Beauty can help other Fire DPS knights.
Cons:
- Low multiplier on skill means you need to maximize its AOE.
The best thing about Andrei is that he’s so much easier to use than Rani. Andrei is very much a fire-and-forget mage; Red Meteorite hits much faster than Rani’s skill – though it has low multipliers, so you want to maximize its AOE to ensure you’re getting the best value out of it. Blazing Pillar, on the other hand, is a nice ultimate in that it creates a blazing pillar (who would’ve guessed?) on the field, which deals low initial damage on summon, but more importantly fires pulses of Fire damage that also increase Fire damage taken.
Marthel
Element: Electric
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- One of the few attack speed buffers in the game.
- Normal attack inflicts incoming damage debuff on enemies.
- If you just want the attack speed buff, you don’t have to level his ultimate at all.
Cons:
- Really wants Fate 4 to improve his ultimate buff.
Marthel’s main claim to fame is his ultimate’s ability to increase attack speed with his ultimate, which provides an attack speed buff (doesn’t scale with level), deals damage in pulses, and reduces incoming damage. This ability carves out a clear niche for Marthel, and makes him a flexible offensive support that can be slotted into any team. On top of that, his normal attacks also inflict the Electric Wound debuff, which increases damage taken. Investing into his normal attacks is an option as the debuff does scale with levels, from a base 7% to 16% at level 10.
While Marthel is good off the bat, it takes a while for him to be truly great. You’ll want his 4th Fate node to make him shine, as that node increases the attack speed bonus to 16% and raises the buff duration to 20 seconds.
Capecchi
Element: Poison
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Fantastic SR DoT character.
Cons:
- Needs a lot of setup to maximize his damage.
- Practice needed to inflict maximum spores withskill as it fires pulses every so often.
- Wants Fate 2 for a big power spike.
If you didn’t have the luxury of pulling Veleno, Capecchi will do in a pinch. He’s the premiere 4* DoT damage character, and honestly, he isn’t bad. He does require a lot of setup – Spore Facilitator does a lot more damage per Acid Spore inflicted by his Venomous Spores skill (and the low duration of Acid Spores doesn’t help). He also wants his second Fate node (Spore Facilitator explodes more frequently) to improve his ultimate, though he does perform well even without it.
Ardor
Element: Fire
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Simple but good Fire DPS character.
Cons:
- In direct competition with Andrei for 4* Fire DPS, and Andrei has a Fire Res debuff.
There’s not much to say about Ardor’s strengths – his kit really straightforward (and pretty powerful, especially for a 4*), and if you like explosions, he’s your guy.
The main question is whether you should build Ardor or Andrei. Ardor is a straight-up Fire DPS, so if you’ve got no one else, he can handle the job. Andrei, on the other hand, can be built as a Fire support thanks to his ultimate’s Fire resistance shred. You could theoretically use them both, but if you have to pick a partner for Edward, Ardor loses out.
Liam
Element: Darkness
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Simple Darkness DPS character.
- Strong attack focused character. Unga bunga.
Like Ardor, it’s kind of hard to say anything about Liam aside from use ultimate – spam strong attack. Did you know it can infinite in PVP? I don’t know if they’re going to change that.
If you don’t have Anri, you can use Liam as we still have a dearth of Darkness characters.
Elias
Element: Electric
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Simple Electric DPS character.
Like Ardor and Liam, there’s not much to say about Elias other than he’s a decent, no-nonsense DPS, this time of the Electric element. As the only other Electric DPS is Sarka (I would classify Marthel as more of a support), Elias will make for an affordable and decent alternative until you nab the 5*.
C-Tier
Rani
Element: Light
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Early game has a ton of Blood enemies.
- Decent damage.
Cons:
- Skill is a delayed explosion, making it tough to maximize.
- Small width of her ultimate requires careful repositioning and can miss.
- Fragile.
Rani is your starter mage, and she’s a decent early game unit. Her damage output is okay, and being a Light knight, she has an elemental advantage against Blood, which most of the early game mobs belong to.
The more you use Rani, the more her cracks start to show. For starters, her damage is decent, but not outstanding. She’s also mechanically clunky to use as her skill is a delayed AOE explosion, meaning that mistiming it (especially with fast enemies) is a very real threat. Her ultimate is also iffy – it does hit hard, but it has a limited vertical angle, meaning that careful positioning is required to ensure that all its damage ticks hit.
Orlik
Element: Earth
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- Rock Armor grants damage reduction and increased Tenacity.
- There are some circumstances (PVP mostly) where a gigantic amount of Tenacity is relevant.
Cons:
- Not too useful in PVE.
Orlik’s game plan is to use Rock Armor to gain damage reduction (23.5% at max level, which is admittedly decent) and a high amount of Tenacity so that you can trade blows with foes. The thing is, I don’t think this is a good game plan – the best damage mitigation in the game is to not get hit at all by dodging and repositioning, not facetanking hits. There are few, if any, characters who want the high Tenacity that Orlik provides, and a healer can do his job just as well since Orlik doesn’t actively block damage.
I will, however, add that there are some applications for a big buttload of Tenacity, especially in PVP, where unpredictability and stun locks play a huge role.
Leon
Element: Blood
Rarity: SR
Pros:
- DEF scaling on his moves.
- Good innate survivability.
- Can be good in PVP.
Cons:
- Shields are incredibly fragile and scale poorly even with investment.
- Ultimate is powerful but needs good positioning as going off-course results in a large DPS loss.
Leon is your starter tank. He’s good in the early game but will warrant quick replacement. The one thing you’ll probably notice about Leon is how fragile his shields are, despite them being touted as the core of his kit. With their abysmal scaling (seriously, 5% DEF at level 1 and only 5.9% DEF at max level) and requiring you to activate Leon’s Fate nodes to maximize (to be fair, Leon is an SR so this is a question of when, not if), Leon’s performance leaves much to be desired…
…in PVE, at least. Once you’ve progressed enough in the game and decide to take PVP seriously, you’ll find that Leon has something unique to offer in that mode as his shields (especially at Fate 6) can be used even while stunned and have an AOE pushback effect, allowing you to counter stun locks. Let me make it clear: I wouldn’t suggest building Leon for general use as I find his kit to be lackluster, but his combo breaker effect in PVP makes him worth looking at if you keep getting stun locked into oblivion.
A Young Game, An Evolving Meta
And that’s the list. As I mentioned at the beginning, the devs of Astra: Knights of Veda are constantly looking at player feedback, leading to many hero buffs and nerfs across the board. Only time will tell what the definitive meta of the game will be, so stay alert and be sure to account for these changes when they come – they can turn today’s zeroes into tomorrow’s heroes, especially with the game’s focus on team compositions!