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Stella Arcana Mercenary Tier List: A Complete Ranked List of the Best Heroes

Welcome to our Stella Arcana Mercenary tier list! Like in other gacha games such as Azur Lane, Cookie Run: Kingdom and Arknights, having a strong team is always a good thing. That being said, Mercenaries in Stella Arcana are only available to use for certain missions and quest types, unlike in other gacha games. After all, the game still wants you to make actual friends!

We’ll get this out of the way: None of the Mercenaries in Stella Arcana are particularly bad, except maybe the lowest tier ones. It’s always a relief to see a mission that allows their use. And even if you fed the worst of them, the Rebirth mechanic makes the material waste minimal. Personal keepsakes are the only thing along with Silver that doesn’t get at least partially refunded.

stella arcana team construction

So if the gacha wants you dead, you might as well pick whoever’s the strongest on your team and feed them. Then you can Rebirth them if a better merc pops out in the gacha. Just keep doing those Astral Scars missions until every guaranteed Epic or Legendary 10th roll.

Our Stella Arcana mercenary tier list assumes that not only have you read our Stella Arcana beginner’s guide, but also that you’ve been playing for a bit of time. If you haven’t already done so, go out there and do it! With that out of the way, let’s delve into our Stella Arcana Mercenary tier list, as we are going to showcase the best heroes that are currently available in the game!

OP – Bibitano

It’s Bibitano, the most blatantly overpowered, broken merc in the game. Most players you meet will agree on this. She’s so busted, we put her in her own tier. Just having her is usually enough to demolish any battle where she’s allowed to do her thing as a Mercenary. Unless it’s PVP and they have Bibitano too of course. Then you actually have to worry about your squad composition!

Bibitano

Holy Priest, General Support, A Hard Carry Pretending To Be A Support

bibitano stella arcana

So she’s a healer and a support. Why is she doing infinitely more damage than the protagonist can? She’s tanky, she keeps your party alive, and she can utterly disintegrate anyone stupid enough to get within her clobbering range. If the fight goes badly, she can sacrifice herself to revive two dead members of your squad to turn the fight around.

That’ll probably only happen if the enemy is blatantly overleveled though. If the gacha’s kind enough to give you Bibitano, you’re pretty much made. Bibitano’s not the most aggressive type though, so having Daphne with her could round your party out.

S Tier – Pretty Close To Bibitano

These guys could form the core of your team. They’re pretty strong in spite of not being Bibitano. Having them together at once makes for an easily modifiable team. Killing the enemy is always made easier by removing their armor!

Daphne

Rune Mage, Damage Dealer, Armor Breaker, Bibitano’s Murdery Buddy

daphne stella arcana

No wonder she’s in charge of the Mercenary Shop. She’s probably the one who scares the other mercs into order! Rune Mages are already a damage dealer class AND she comes with an ability that inflicts a Fragile debuff, reducing enemy armor.

Related: Stella Arcana Class Guide: An In-Depth Look at Each Available Class in the Game

She can probably kill the enemy all on her own without it, but it seems she just wants to make extremely sure. Her and Bibitano together can form the core of your team. Bibitano for support, Daphne to put the enemy into the ground. And she doesn’t even need to get within melee range.

Moen

Omni Warrior, Tank, Melee Damage, Edgy McHighandmighty

moen stella arcana

While his defense stats are middling compared to his contemporaries, he makes up for it with a shield that is as strong as half his maximum HP. This makes him pretty bulky, especially since he can recharge this shield every now and then.

He also comes with a passive that ignores some of the enemy’s armor protection. It stacks with Daphne’s Fragile debuff, so the two of them together are a good way to commit grievous acts of violence against the local monsters.

A Tier – Not Bibitano

Most of these guys are useful to fill the 4th slot if you already have Bibitano, Daphne and Moen. In such a team, your choice of 4th slot often determines what the party specializes in doing. You can also use them as a replacement if you don’t have the three, and the game won’t give you too much grief for it. They are definitely worth their Mercenary Contracts and upgrade materials.

Victoria

Rune Mage, AOE Damage, A Rune Mage But Better

victoria stella arcana

Being the Rune Mage instructor, her attacks are just a stronger version of what you can do as a Rune Mage player. That’s a good thing. While she suffers a bit (not that much actually) against single hardened targets, she is pretty good at sweeping crowds away. If you don’t have Daphne as a damage dealer, Victoria makes a good placeholder. She’ll keep the screen clear of annoying enemies so you can focus on the boss.

Ishtar

Elven Archer, Damage Dealer, Disabler, Has A Highly Puncheable Face

ishtar stella arcana

He’s a stronger version of an Elven Archer player character. Ishtar has a pretty balanced kit of skills for dealing area damage and single target damage, but mostly for single target damage. He can also disable a target while giving it some grievous hurt.

While his passives are very selfish and serve to just buff how hard he hits, his stun does offer him utility. Crits mixed with rapid fire ensure the hurt keeps on coming nonstop. He can be used as an additional damage dealer for the 4th slot, especially if you’re expecting a bossfight.

Socrates

Shadow Assassin, Single Target Heavy Damage, Not As Edgy As He Looks

socrates stella arcana

This guy has a similar skillset to a bog-standard Shadow Assassin. Unlike Bruno though, he has a specific Passive that makes his single target skills ignore 20% of the enemy’s armor. This puts him solidly into the boss busting department. On top of that, he also likes to stack poison debuffs all over the hapless target.

Pairing him with the likes of Daphne can result in the enemy feeling like they’re wearing soggy toilet paper instead of actual armor, but he lacks Moen’s tankiness and utility. That being said, it’s the squad healer’s job to keep him alive anyway. Maybe bring him as a 4th slot filler for bossfights or when expecting heavily armored foes.

Gong Gong

Holy Priest, AOE Damage, AOE Debuffer, Team Buffer, Wet And Wild

gong gong stella arcana

While this guy is a healer, he has a useful set of abilities to also give your team buffs while helping the damage dealer clean out enemy crowds. He can reduce the enemy’s movement speed by forcing them to walk through a flood of water. One of his healing skills makes your team immune to control for a duration, keeping those annoying stuns out of your face. He can also increase the team’s movement speed for a short duration, useful if you’re being dumped full of red hitbox attacks and can’t use a dodging skill for whatever reason.

Overall, he’s a high utility mercenary. Even if you have Bibitano, you can bring Gong Gong in the 4th slot with her if you’re expecting a slog through a huge mob of mooks, or an annoying boss that enjoys using stuns.

Foo

Elven Archer, General DPS, You Might As Well Fight Her In A Shirt

foo stella arcana

She has a skill that ignores 44% of her target’s armor at lv1. That says a lot about how good she is at utterly murdering a single hard target. While she does have AOE skills too, she also has a passive that increases her fire rate every time she fires off a skill. This makes her a solid DPS machine even with her basic attack. She also has a skill that buffs herself and removes stuns, so the DPS just keeps pouring in.

And even through all that, she manages to fit a tiny bit of support utility by giving everyone a crit buff for a short time with her ultimate. Use her like you would a squad machinegunner. Have her quiverdump the enemy full of arrows as a 4th slot DPS if you’re expecting hard targets or even for general purpose combat. Or even as a primary DPS if you don’t have the likes of Daphne on your team.

Dauf

Omni Warrior, Melee DPS, Hippocratic Suggestion

dauf stella arcana

A doctor who decided that he was better at prying people apart rather than putting them back together. Dauf’s first victim was his idiot boss who stopped him from saving a village from a plague. He has one passive that gives him more survivability above 60% hp, but the rest are mostly for killing things faster. His skills are mostly AOE and single target damage attacks. Not much utility, a lot of murdering.

Shuten-Doji

Rosen Knight, Taunt, Buffer, Tank, Walking Booze Party

shuten-doji stella arcana

She’s an utterly hilarious sake-powered tank. Shuten-Doji’s skills revolve mostly around drunkenness. She can get the enemy monsters to fight each other in a drunken bar brawl. She can attract them to herself while lighting them on fire like a walking Molotov cocktail. She can ply her buddies with booze to make them fight harder.

She can flood the floor with alcohol to make the enemy walk slower in a DUI-test failing stupor. Overall, she’s worth having in your party, probably in Moen’s slot as a tank or as a 4th slot filler support. Not to mention watching the enemy stumble around and hit each other is always funny.

Lena

Rosen Knight, Tank, Crowd Control, Not As Big As She Looks

lena stella arcana

No, she’s not a big lady in a suit of armor. She’s just a tiny lady in a tiny Gundam. Lena has two skills that result in a stun, one of them with AOE. Her passives are predictably defensive. One of them gives your teammates a random chance to get stronger when she takes hits.

Being a tank, drawing fire is her job so you’ll most likely get it. Grab her if you need a dedicated tank, or if you want the enemy to spend a good chunk of the fight doing nothing.

B Tier – Absolutely Not Bibitano

These guys ain’t too bad, but some of them do have their flaws or are simply overshadowed by those above them. Still worth putting them on the team, depending on the situation. With the way the game works, these guys aren’t bad enough to make the game torture.

Tamamo

Rune Mage, AOE Damage, Indiscriminate Application Of Napalm

tamamo stella arcana

All of her skills involve burning crowds of enemies, even her support skills. Her idea of a support skill is to mark out the enemy crowd with fox smoke, then give your teammates a buff that lets them burn whoever is marked.

She doesn’t have any single target abilities at all, everything is for torching a crowd. Even a skill she uses to make herself tankier with a shield comes with a nasty explosive surprise. Bring her if you want to torch masses of enemies.

Darwin

Shadow Assassin, General Damage, Charm, Fraternization With The Enemy

darwin stella arcana

She’s a very distracting damage dealer. Her passives are mostly selfish, only powering herself up, but her skills have a bit of utility to them. Most of them are for damage dealing, but she does have the ability to charm targets and get them off your case for a bit. Pair that with her array of AOE attacks and sin stacks and you could use her to clear crowds while still doing hard damage to hard targets.

Faust

Omni Warrior, AOE Healer, Support Tank

faust stella arcana

The guy who follows you around throughout your quest to punch the Man In Black in the teeth. While his skills seem like relatively lackluster AOE attacks when compared to proper AOE damage dealer Rune Mage types, most of his passives involve helping the team survive.

His ultimate is also an AOE heal over time that also provides a shield. You could use him in the 4th slot not as you would normally use an Omni Knight, but as another support.

Irabia

Rune Mage, Damage Dealer, Debuffer, Walking Story Spoiler

irabia stella arcana

This suspicious black hooded fellow is capable of giving a Fragile debuff against the enemy. As a Rune Mage, they can also deal great damage. Unfortunately, his mechanic makes it so his attacks take time to reach the maximum strength they potentially have. By that time, he’s probably dead or the enemy is dead. No use having powerful stats if you only get them when the fight’s already guaranteed over!

Not to mention many of his passives can be rather selfish. He only makes himself stronger rather than helping out your team in some way. The Fragile debuff makes up for some of that though. That’s understandable for a damage dealer, and those self buffs are rather sizeable. Not quite a replacement for the likes of Daphne, who is immediately ready to kill things.

C Tier – Far From Bibitano

These guys are definitely no replacement for anyone in the S or A tier. You’ll probably only use them as a 4th slot filler if you don’t have any of the mercs above them. Still better than not bringing mercenaries though. Thank goodness for the Rebirth mechanic, that means feeding them upgrade materials will only be a slight mistake rather than a huge, irreparable one!

Epsilon

Rune Mage, AOE Damage, Bear

epsilon stella arcana

He’s a guy who has big scary bear claws. He’s got a pretty good ultimate that shreds a crowd while giving them reduced movement speed, but other than that he’s all over the place. He’s got a support ability that gives everyone +11% damage for a few seconds, but it’s not much compared to the armor melting monsters like Daphne can do. All of his passives are also very selfish, he’s the only one to benefit from them.

Armani

Holy Priest, Support, Debuffer, Someone Stop This Woman!

armani stella arcana

As a Priest, she is very focused on keeping your team alive. Most of her passives involve improving her ability to heal you and make you tougher. She doesn’t hit very hard though, in spite of her multitude of AOE attacks. That being said, she can debuff the enemy to make them take extra damage from actual damage dealers like Daphne and Victoria. Just don’t expect her to overtake your damage numbers.

Fantine

Elven Archer, Damage Dealer, Light Crowd Control

fantine stella arcana

She’s like Foo if she traded some of her damage potential for more utility. Fantine has a skill that can stun a target, and an AOE knockback and damage skill, among some damage dealing attacks and an ultimate that makes her fire at more than twice her normal rate. Not quite a replacement for Foo, since you bring archers normally for their damage, not their utility.

Emilio

Omni Warrior, Tank, Light AOE Damage, The Opposite Of A Walking Spoiler

emilio stella arcana

He’s a big tanky guy with one arm and an axe. Most of his passives involve damage reduction triggered by his skills. He also has a skill that reflects enemy damage, along with some wide area attacks. All in all, he’s about as average a tank as you can get.

Nothing special, but nothing truly unuseable. Don’t expect him to dole out damage in the millions. He’s probably going to die last if something bad happens though. Ironic once you figure out what happens during the Lv40 missions.

Finn

Priest, Healer, Debuffer, Miss Pure Purity Pureness

finn stella arcana

She’s a fairly standard healer. Most of her passives involve her survivability and healing, though she has one which can clear out an enemy’s buffs. Her skills are a stronger version of what you would have as a Holy Priest player too. That being said, as a Mercenary, you can’t tweak her build the way you can tweak your player character, so she likely isn’t capable of being as absolutely busted as an Attack built Holy Priest player.

Batu

Shadow Assassin, General Damage Dealer, Missing A Finger

batu stella arcana

A rather standard damage dealing assassin. He doesn’t have much in the way of utility as most of his passives simply power up his own killing ability with crits and extra damage. His skills do much the same, mostly focusing on dealing damage to both single targets and crowds. He’s no replacement for a Legendary damage dealer.

Geese

Omni Warrior, Tank, Aggro Draw, Magnificent Facial Hair

geese stella arcana

Like Victoria, Geese is similar to a player, this time the Omni Warrior. Geese is not bad, but not amazing either. He can draw aggro, and it takes a long time to kill him because most of his passives are defensive. He also drags enemies closer together so your damage dealers can mulch them.

That being said, he doesn’t hit so hard himself so he needs some support from actual killers. He does a good job keeping you alive though, so if you don’t have Moen, put Geese in your squad to keep attention off yourself.

D Tier – No Bibitano Within The Next Thousand Miles

Why are these guys still on your team? Did you kick the gacha’s pet dog or something? Predictably, the lowest rarity mercenaries are the weakest since they only have two passives each as opposed to four on Legendaries and Epics.

Again, be thankful for the Rebirth mechanic as this allows you to power them up a bit on your way to get replacements. Go do your Astral Scars missions to get some Mercenary Contracts!

Bruno

Shadow Assassin, General Damage

bruno stella arcana

He’s basically a clone of the Shadow Assassin player. He only has two passives and a skillset the same as yours if you were playing a Shadow Assassin character. Not much to say, he’s a damage dealer that doesn’t stack up to higher tier Mercenaries.

Katherine

Rune Mage, AOE Damage

katherine stella arcana

Pretty much a clone of a Rune Mage with an AOE skill build. Like all Rare tier mercs, she only has two passives, one for her crits and another for her Attack and HP. If you’ve got Victoria, use Victoria instead since she is basically a straight upgrade to Katherine.

Ash

Elven Archer, Ranged Damage

ash stella arcana

A clone of an Elven Archer player character. They have the same skill set, and only two passives like any Rare tier merc. If you have Ishtar, grab him instead as he’s a straight upgrade to Ash.

Lucia

Holy Priest, General Support and Healing

lucia stella arcana

Pretty much an AI-controlled Holy Priest player character. As with the usual Rare tier mercs, she only has a pair of passives as opposed to four. You’d think she can be overpowered considering how player controlled Priests work.

Unfortunately, you can’t fine tune her build the same way you could with your own Holy Priest protagonist, so she’s not likely to get that disgustingly terrifying Attack build that makes player Priests so dangerous.

Vincent

Omni Warrior, Tank, Melee Damage

vincent stella arcana

An AI-controlled version of your typical Omni Warrior player. He has the same skillset as an Omni Warrior. He also only has two passives as opposed to four, just like all other Rare tier mercenaries. You can immediately replace him with Geese as soon as you start doing Astral Scars missions, since Geese is a free reward from your first Astral Scars trip.

And this is the end of our Stella Arcana Mercenaries tier list. If there are some suggestions as to whether some of these mercs should be placed higher or lower, don’t hesitate to talk about it in the comment section below. Just keep it civil and friendly down there!