MementoMori: Tier List: A Complete Ranking of the Best Characters

A duke’s work is never done, is it?

With so many characters to collect in MementoMori, you’ll inevitably start asking the question: is this character “good”? And thus I’ve set out to recruit Witches from all over the land via free rewards, and getting my ass handed to me in PVP and PVE. That knowledge has culminated in this – my tier list for MementoMori.

Notes and Limitations

Just a few things to note before we begin.

N-rarity heroes will not be included on this list as there’s only four of them in the game right now, and you really should be using somebody rarer, if only for the higher base stats.

Witches will be sorted into tier based on their class: that’s Warrior, Sniper, and Sorcerer. There’s no distinction between a Warrior that heals and debuffs or a Warrior that just straight-up tries to murderize everything in her path. What I did write down, however, are some of each hero’s salient pros and cons.

Witches are also sorted by letter grade, with S-tier being the highest and D-tier being the lowest. More or less, the letter grades mean:

• S: Superb unit that can be expected to excel in virtually every aspect of the game
• A: All-around great unit that provides reliable performance.
• B: Decent unit that doesn’t particularly excel in any aspect but isn’t bad.
• C: Usable unit with some reservations that hold her back, or is too gimmicky or unreliable.
• D: Um.

Finally, as with all tier lists, this one is subjective. This isn’t an end-all, be-all tier list (none of us are, really). At the end of the day, you’re 100% free to use whoever you want – there’s nothing stopping you, and with enough investment, even N-rarity heroes can hit max rarity and level!

Now that all that’s said, let’s start!

MementoMori Warrior Tier List

S	Florence
A	Amleth, Iris, Natasha, Fortina, Rean, Olivia
B	Sabrina, Zara, Mimi, Arianrhod
C	Illya

S-Tier

Florence

+ High damage multipliers coupled with multi-hit random targeting
+ Has a passive crit boost, ramps up each time she lands a crit
– Needs a crit buffer to reach maximum ridiculosity

Florence defines what it means to be a damage dealer, and should seriously be one of your top contenders for the guaranteed character selection at the end of the release events. Even with just her base kit, she already packs high multipliers on multi-hitting attacks. What really sets Florence apart though, is her dedication to landing crits: each turn gives her a higher chance to crit, and any time she crits, her 1^st skill hits one more time, to a maximum of 8. Ouch.

While Florence is highly powerful on her own, she shines when paired with somebody who can boost her crit and help her reach full throttle sooner. Someone like Merlyn, preferably.

A-Tier

Amleth

+ Nanomachines, son
+ Hates mages, dealing 50% more damage to them with her 1^st skill
+ Potent passives attached to skills: 10% more damage on enemies, undispellable ATK scaling based on self’s missing HP
– Kind of slow

I did it, I made a Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance reference. Now if only they would let me buy the damn game, but I digress.

Just like our favorite senator, Amleth just refuses to die. She’s got a passive that causes her to survive with 1 health instead of dying, and further investment saves her from death for 2 turns. Couple this with her passive that gives her more ATK based off her missing health (to a cap of 80%) and you’ve got a recipe for an incredible comeback mechanic. Oh, and her nukes are pretty nice too – the 50% more damage to mages is nice, and at level 2, it causes enemies to take more damage. Just be ready to spruce up Amleth’s speed a bit if you want to use her as she’s quite bulky.

Iris

+ Simple kit that provides great AOE
+ Easy to raise rarity as new player quests give more of her
+ Shields your carry
– Skills require max level for maximum targets
– Bad single-target damage

Iris is a great unit that you get at the beginning of the game, and if you read my beginner’s guide for MementoMori, you know what I think about her. She boasts great performance despite her lower rarity, and the fact that you can easily get more of her (due to lower rarity and new player quests) really helps her case.

While Iris will easily mop up mobs on her own, and continue contributing to enemy party wipes as you progress, her shortcomings really show up in fights against Witches of Qlipha. Iris’ 3-target skill works great on mobs, but against a single enemy, it’ll only hit once, greatly dropping her DPS. She also suffers from being a lower-rarity unit, meaning that she’ll be outclassed by rarer characters as you get more of those.

Natasha

+ Powerful multi-hitting, random targeting nuke
+ Is free for everyone (as of writing on October 28, 2022)
+ Undispellable ATK and damage reduction passives
– Damage reduction passive requires health to be below 50%
– Requires investment to maximize number of targets

The first Witch of Qlipha you run into in the story is within your own duchy, and it’s Natasha. She sure made an impression on me when she nuked my party and almost killed everyone, so if you had the same experience as I did, you were probably glad that you can get her for free. Natasha as a playable unit boasts almost all of the efficacy of boss Natasha: a hard-hitting, multi-target nuke that just gets better as you invest in her more.

Fortina

+ Good support skills: shield and regen
+ Targeted nuke with lifesteal
+ Good survivability
– Damage isn’t too great
– Needs speed investment to maximize her shields

Fortina’s had it quite rough what with her getting stabbed in the back by her best friend then almost dying at her hands. Luckily, this doesn’t stop her from being a pretty potent support unit. Fortina comes with a shielding and regen buff that scales off her own ATK (shield) and the target’s max HP (regen) – and this buff affects everyone, so it’ll always be handy. Fortina’s 2^nd skill also nukes the enemy with the most ATK while healing the ally that’s closest to death.

Where Fortina falters is her passives: her Unhindered buff and Def/Counter increase only help her, rather than her team. This is especially jarring as some characters, such as Lunalynn, provide blanket damage protection to her allies. Nonetheless, Fortina is still a potent support unit – just get ready to give her some speed so that she can preempt enemy attacks.

Rean

+ Enters battle with a powerful shield
+ Gains ATK buff on crit
+ Gains crit as she loses health
– Requires crits to maximize her kit

Rean is kind of like Florence. A smaller, weaker Florence, but a Florence nonetheless. Rean’s biggest advantage comes from her undispellable shield, which can start with a whopping 5x of her ATK. This shield gives her time to to do her job – critting enemies to proc her 30% ATK buff which allows her to kill more. Finally, Rean gains more crit as she loses health, helping her land a comeback.

Unlike other crit-dependent warriors like Sabrina, none of Rean’s passives distract her from her role of killing the enemy as much as possible, and because of her frontal approach to combat (shield), she’ll often see moderate to great success in landing a few crits before she finally gets taken down.

Olivia

+ Party-wide ATK and DEF buff that scales with her own stats
+ Shields allies
– ATK debuff requires her to get hurt

If you’re looking for somebody that buffs wide rather than tall, then Olivia’s a decent choice. While her buffs will never reach ridiculous levels – 30% ATK and DEF at most – the fact is that she buffs everyone, which in some cases is preferable to buffing just your carry.

B-Tier

Sabrina

+ Becomes bulkier as battle continues
+ Can clear debuffs on herself
+ Multi-hitting 1^st skill that can cascade into a bunch of crits
– Buffs survivability rather than killing power
– Crit dependency doesn’t pay off as well as Florence

One day, someone probably said “Florence but defense”. The end result is Sabrina, another crit-scaling character who is…rather lackluster. I think they may have been going for a tank character, as in another game, Sabrina would definitely have the tools for the job: a major DEF buff, self-debuff cleansing, and progressive tankiness. The trouble here? She’s got no way to pull aggro to herself in any case, leaving us with a unit that hits decently hard but lacks the follow-through to complete the task.

Zara

+ Can debuff Speed
+ High multipliers, splash damage
– Chance-based debuffs
– Survivability passive is laughable

Zara is similar to Illya in that she’s a black-haired, sword-wielding Warrior that you can get very easily. Unlike Illya though, Zara has a better kit for running in and dealing damage. While her stun isn’t 100% like Illya’s, it can still get pretty good at 70%; that is, if you feel like challenging the dice. She also has a Speed-debuffing 2^nd skill, which is nice.

Mimi

+ Linking enemies together is a very good effect
+ Great 2^nd skill that can ramp up quickly based on number of buffs
– Needs lots of buffs to be effective
– ATK boosting passive requires her to not get hit for 2 turns (good luck)

Mimi is in a pretty weird position, and I don’t mean her bad posture. Her kit begs for the carry position, but the reality is that setting up kills for Mimi is difficult as her main damage skill scales with the number of buffs she has, not their quality. Instead, Mimi works better as an off-carry who can shield herself while picking at multiple foes. More importantly, Mimi has access to Resonance, which links the enemies with the highest and lowest DEF at the start of the battle, causing them to share each other’s damage!

Arianrhod

+ Can hit surprisingly hard for a low rarity unit
+ Reliable ATK debuff
+ One of the few reliable ATK debuffers
– Dependent on debuffs to maximize damage

While Arianrhod may be a Warrior, she’s better in a supporting role. It may even be in your best interest to keep her ATK low, as while her ATK debuff is reliable, it requires Arianrhod to have a lower ATK than her targets. This can actually be beneficial for her, as her 1^st skill gets a hefty 50% multiplier if it hits an enemy with a debuff, which can make up for the deliberately lower ATK.

C-Tier

Illya

+ Guaranteed stun
– Random targeting on her stun
– Doesn’t contribute much else

Illya is the first unit you get in MementoMori and um. That’s about it. She does come with a guaranteed stun on her skill, but the random targeting nature of this stun greatly hampers its usefulness. Illya would be better served if she targeted the enemy with the highest ATK, but no, she can just as easily whack the support instead. Sadly for Illya, this means that you’ll likely want to replace her as soon as you can.

MementoMori Sniper Tier List

S	Cordie
A	Ivy, Amour
B	Nina, Libra, Loki, Primavera, Petra
C	Dian, Hathor

S-Tier

Cordie

+ Great snowballing potential with excellent damage multipliers
+ Hard to pin down
+ Gives DEF Break a reason for existing
– Requires at least 50% HP to maximize her effectiveness

Cordie is another character who you should seriously consider using your one-time character invitation on. Cordie’s got the benefit of a relatively straightforward kit which just deals a lot of damage, as well as a heavy self-buff if she does land a kill. But perhaps the scariest part of Cordie’s kit is her 40% DEF Break; while you usually only have to worry about Speed as a secondary stat, 40% defense penetration is nothing to scoff at.

A-Tier

Ivy

+ Ridiculous multipliers on her skills
+ Potent comeback mechanic that scales with the number of dead allies
– Requires multiple buffs and a debuffer ally to maximize her damage

A little girl with a bear. How many times have I seen this in a game? Anyway, to business.

At first glance, Ivy doesn’t offer too much apart from a higher multiplier triple random-target (plus one) nuke. Where she really shines, though, is her 2^nd skill: at max level, these attacks are guaranteed to hit, attack once more per buff Ivy has to a maximum of 3 attacks, and deals an obscene 810% damage per hit to enemies with debuffs!

While Ivy hits incredibly hard, you do need quite a bit of setup to get her going. For one, she needs at least 2 different buffs to maximize her nukes – and she has no self-buff. You’ll also want a debuffer that can ideally hit all enemies with a debuff (even a minor one) just to get the higher multiplier on Ivy’s nuke. Is it worth giving up those character slots to help Ivy shine? That’s your call.

Amour

+ Great assassin
+ Good party-wide damage skills
+ REVENGE
– Revive only triggers from direct damage

Amour is a good unit who has just one role: kill the enemy as fast as possible. To that end, she’s got an incredibly potent focus-fire skill that specifically targets the enemy with the least HP. Amour also has powerful party-hitting attacks, both off her 1^st skill and on her 2^nd skill by default. Last, but not least, Amour self-revives once per battle and immediately hits the enemy in her lane for 10% of the damage she’s taken over the past 20 turns (which is basically the whole battle). She’ll get her storybook ending, by hook or by crook.

B-Tier

Nina

+ 5 random target nuke off the bat that can very reliably steal buffs with investment
+ Throws her own debuffs at enemies, punishing them for hindering her
+ Surprisingly sturdy due to evasion and strong damage reduction passive
– Lower damage multipliers on her skills compared to other SRs

Nina is a pretty decent character: she hits multiple targets decently hard. But what really makes Nina stand out is her ability to both steal enemy buffs and throw her own debuffs at her enemies instead. While the buff steal caps at 80%, the debuff transfer is guaranteed, and enemies that rely on status ailments to hinder your progress may find that they don’t like the taste of their own medicine.

Additionally, Nina is surprisingly sturdy despite being a Sniper. Not only does she pack a 30% evasion and damage reduction passive, but she also has extra damage reduction against attacks that would do more than 10% of her HP as damage.

Libra

+ Decent assassin
+ Guaranteed DEF down with investment
– Why can’t I skip upgrading her 1^st skill

Libra is a deceptively powerful archer that seems to show up a lot in enemy formations, and for good reason. With a decently-powerful nuke that always snipes the lowest HP target, as well as a hefty party-wide 65% DEF debuff on all enemies (at maximum investment), Libra can serve her team well both as an assassin and as an attack opener.

Loki

+ Low rarity sniper
+ Passive Speed buff
– Chance-based silence
– No multi-hitting options

Loki is a low-rarity character that benefits from a straightforward kit. It’s best to think of her as a starter assassin as Loki is guaranteed to target both the enemy with the highest ATK and the lowest HP with her 1^st and 2^nd skills, respectively. As a more common unit though, her multipliers aren’t too great and even if she can inflict silence, it’s chance-based. While she’s definitely usable, don’t expect Loki to stick aroudn for too long if you pull a higher rarity Sniper.

Primavera

+ Passive ATK and Speed buffer
+ Can lower DEF on crit
– Passive buffs reliant on how many of your characters are still alive
– Doesn’t actually strip buffs
– Low stun chance

Primavera’s kit is okay, but what really stands out is her passive Speed buff. There are better buffers out there, true, but Primavera is one of the few (if any) who make her allies faster just by existing. If alpha strikes are the name of your game – and oftentimes, they will be – you should seriously consider addign this songstress to your team.

Petra

+ High multipliers
+ Surprisingly big ATK buff that scales with remaining HP
+ Boosted normal attacks
– Requires high HP to maximize
– Hurt me more

In a funny twist of events, the lower rarity Petra has a more cohesive kit than our other resident dark knight, Dian. Petra’s main gimmick is using her 2^nd skill to gain a huge amount of ATK (up to 30% of whatever HP she had left after casting it), and given that it only shaves off 10% of her current HP, chances are you’ll end up with a huge boost. This also plays well into her 1^st and 3^rd skills, which have high multipliers and a double normal attack, respectively.

One thing you’ll need to watch out when using Petra is that unlike most other games where dark knight type units require low HP, you’ll actually want as much HP as possible on Petra at all times.

C-Tier

Dian

+ Strips buffs
+ Can gain Invisibility which helps her durability a bit
– Needs HP to be viable
– Longs for the sweet embrace of death too much
– Evasion-based defense

Dian lands in C-tier not because she’s bad, but because she’s tricky to use. Her nuke is okay – 410% to 3 targets with a 25% bleed effect is pretty nice. But the star of the show is her 2^nd skill: it’s a high-risk, high-reward nuke that costs 35% of Dian’s max HP (though thankfully she can’t activate it at less than 40%) and converts all that HP into a nuke that hits 3 random enemies. While it’s undoubtedly very expensive, consider that, without any external factors and at max level, this skill will do 19,520.2 damage to 3 enemies.

There’s a lot of things to consider when using Dian: will she be fast enough to maximize the damage of Cursed Bullet, or is she going to end up below threshold? Will she die after she uses it, and is that a risk you’re willing to take? And last of all, are you willing to shuffle random substats for HP to maximize Dian?

Hathor

+ High multiplier on her 1^st skill
– Crit-based debuff ramping
– Chance-based debuffs
– ATK boosting passive requires her to not get hit for 2 turns (again, good luck)

Yet another character that feels like they got the worst pick of the lot when it came to doling out SR skills. About the only notable thing about Hathor is that she hits for 720%, but she’s super circumstancial: low chance for debuffs, significant ATK gain only if she doesn’t take damage, and a lame ramp up when critting. Hard pass, unless she’s your waifu.

MementoMori Sorcerer Tier List

S	Fenrir
A	Merlyn, Mertillier
B	Soltina, Lunalynn, Freesia
C	Rosalie, Moddey, Tropon, Theodora, Soteira, Skuld
D	Cherna

S-Tier

Fenrir

+ Excellent cooldown reduction skill
+ Reliable heal that helps allies that are being focused down
+ Gigantic DEF
– Adjacency gimmick

Fenrir is another one of those characters you might want to spend your invitation on. While she’s definitely not as flashy as either Florence or Cordie, what Fenrir brings to the table is dependable support. Not only does Fenrir provide debuff cleanse and more importantly cooldown reduction, but she also has a respectable nuke attached to her 1^st skill.

Fenrir also provides great survivability to her team thanks to a passive heal that immediately targets anyone whose HP dips below 50%. At max level, this skill heals 20% of its target’s max HP, and it trigger once every 2 turns – all of which means that just having Fenrir in your party makes your team that much harder to kill.

A-Tier

Merlyn

+ Good ATK buffer for carries
+ Dispels enemy buffs
+ Florence exists
– Loses her crit rate boost if lots of your characters are dead

I can’t talk about Merlyn without mentioning Florence. Merlyn’s is good by herself, but it’s her ability to enable Florence to go full alpha strike that makes her worth using. By positioning Merlyn in either the first or last slot, then putting Florence beside her, you can guarantee at 20% crit rate boost, which, with how Florence ramps up, is very scary indeed.

By herself, Merlyn is good. As mentioned, she boosts crit rate for an adjacent ally if most of your party is still up and running. She can also strip enemy buffs and give her carry a 40% ATK boost (again, Florence).

Mertillier

+ Incredible buffer for her carry
+ Reduces skill cooldowns
+ Very hard to shut down
– Lackluster damage options

If your carry lacks the ability to get big numbers on her own, put Mertillier in your party. This alchemist packs a triple threat for your enemies: 65% ATK buff on the ally with the highest ATK, debuff cleansing, and up to 2 less turns for cooldown!

While all this is very respectable, the rest of Mertillier’s kit is less wow and more meh. She can gain shields (at a piddling fraction of the original damage her skill 1 caused), can gain regen and stealth, and is really hard to debuff. The good news is you can pretend all of these don’t exist and focus solely on her ability to supercharge your main heroes.

B-Tier

Soltina

+ Fast
+ Guaranteed stun on enemy’s carry if their MAG is lower, can also sleep
+ Surprisingly sturdy thanks to barrier and debuff cleansing
– Not good against multiple enemies

You get two copies of Soltina for free just by doing your release missions, and you really should. Thanks to her high speed and guaranteed stun (with enough investment), Soltina serves as a potent counter to non-Sorcerer carries, hitting them with a very powerful 780% nuke that also guarantees a 1 turn stun. Soltina’s 1^st skill is also a stun, but less reliable – it hits 2 enemies with a guaranteed sleep and a major critical resistance debuff, but that hit itself has to crit. I guess Merlyn has another job.

On the downside, while Soltina is a potent disabler, her own damage options aren’t too graet. Even at max investment, she’ll only hit 3 targets with her 1^st skill, and never more than 1 target with her major nuke/stun.

Lunalynn

+ Fast
+ Innate 40% damage reduction at max investment
+ Makes allies tougher just by hanging around
– Poison is lame
– Silence is dependent on crit

Lunalynn is Soltina’s older sister, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that she has a similar kit. Lunalynn’s ideal use is to strike all enemies as quickly as possible and inflicting silence. Other than that, she doesn’t bring too much to the table aside from increasing ally P.Def by up to 20%.

Lunalynn is cute, but she’s not without flaws. While landing the silence is always great, Lunalynn needs to crit to guarantee the proc – a task that can be daunting as A.) Lunalynn’s innate speed is pretty high, meaning she’ll likely act before any buffer, and B.) There are better characters to pour crit buffs on.

Freesia

+ Potent heal
+ Passively makes team harder to kill
– Iffy lifesteal
– Super underwhelming 1^st skill

Freesia is one of the few dedicated healers in MementoMori, with her 2^nd skill healing the 3 allies with the least HP, and conditionally giving them even more health and DEF. Freesia’s 3^rd skill also provides allies with blanket protection, and while it’s not much, damage reduction and increased evasion on 100% uptime are always pretty good.

Freesia’s 1^st and 4^th skills may as well not exist though – the former deals piddling amounts of damage, and the latter has a 30% chance to activate off normal attacks for a pittance of health. Freesia’s 4^th skill is especially egregious, as her major party heal scales off MAG, while this lousy lifesteal hit scales off ATK.

C-Tier

Rosalie

+ Lots of self-sustain
+ Multi-targeting attacks
– Bleed is funny
– Doesn’t capitalize on all her HP gain

I’ve noticed a trend in gacha games where there’s this one character that has a lot of self-sustain but no way to capitalize on it. In Blue Archive, that’s Izumi, and in MementoMori, that’s Rosalie. Rosalie’s got a lot of tricks for keeping herself alive, such as life steal on her nuke and passive regeneration. But that’s about all she’s got. At least she’s free, so you can eventually feed Rosalie to somebody to make them stronger.

Moddey

+ Can provide long-lasting debuffs
+ Self-sustain via regen
– Poison by itself is meh
– Gimmicky kit

Moddey is one of those SRs that have a really weird kit. By herself, Moddey isn’t too impressive: her skill just ekes out 420% damage and deals an absolutely amazing (no) 3% of the target’s max HP as damage on their turn. With how fast battles go in MementoMori, this may as well not exist.

Where Moddey excels is putting up long-lasting debuffs on enemies, thus paving the way for allies that have extra effects if they hit someone that already has a debuff. While there’s no way to test what exactly her Blight debuff does, the fact is that it sticks around for 4 turns. Most skills have a cooldown of 4 turns, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to trigger extra effects.

Tropon

+ Steals buffs
+ Has an innate Speed buff
– Buff stealing dependent on getting critted and is chance-based until maxed
– Low multipliers on her skills

Tropon is one of those rares that you get the feeling were just shoehorned in. Despite having a pretty nice backstory and a cute character design, her kit is severely lacking the punch you’d expect from an SR unit. Sure, she hits a lot – but that’s at a low multiplier, meaning that several other people can do the job better. And for a swindler, Tropon doesn’t really have much in the yoinking category. About the only thing I can say is that she deals magic damage…which isn’t too relevant as there are better mages out there.

Theodora

+ Always targets enemies with the most HP
+ Decent multipliers on her skills
+ Party-wide DEF debuff
– Chance-based debuff

Theodora is an okay mage with no real shortcomings. Her skills do hit decently hard, and if you’re looking for someone to always chip at the healthiest enemy hero, then you’ve got your girl. One of the better things Theodora has going for her is her DEF debuff, which can go up to 70% with investment (and can actually be higher thanks to her innate Debuff accuracy boost).

Skuld

+ Guaranteed ATK debuff
+ Low-rarity healer
– Debuff only targets 1 random enemy

Skuld falls short of what would be a good low-rarity unit. I’d trade all the damage on her 1^st skill just to make it a party-wide ATK debuff, but no, she has to throw out a half-assed 360% nuke at one target, making her a lot less reliable. You can use her if you need a hybrid debuffer/healer, but Skuld excels at neither of those roles, and will probably end up as a rarer witch’s lunch.

Soteira

+ Guaranteed SPD debuff
– Counters with bleed

Soteira won’t win any awards for killing enemies, though it’s admittedly amusing to see her 1^st skill hit 8 targets. What this Sorcerer does well is her Speed debuff; while it only hits 1 enemy, it’ll always target the fastest one, and is a guaranteed debuff to boot. While I’ve no doubt you’ll eventually replace Soteira, she can help against teams that rely on a fast set-up – until you get someone rarer who can do the same job, at least.

D-Tier

Cherna

+ Multi-hitting attack
+ Can stun and bleed
– Stun and bleed is on a single target skill

Pass. While Cherna has a multi-hitting attack, it’s got a pitifully low multiplier: 230%, to be exact. This could be mitigated a bit by putting at least her bleed and stun proc on it, even at much lower values, but nope. And if you were wondering, yes, her stun + bleed proc is chance-based, and only hits one random target. Hoo-rah.

Play Who You Want to Play

At the end of the day, it’s up to you to choose who to use and who to pass over. With enough patience, you can even discover unorthodox uses for heroes that don’t perform too well by standard measures!

That concludes my tier list for MementoMori, and I hope I was able to give you some ideas on who to build, as well as who is a perfect candidate for the meme queen team that breaks the meta. If you have anything to share, make yourself heard in the comments below!