Moonlight 5-Star Tier List: Part 2
Greetings Heirs,
It’s last month was a long month and this time we’ll be picking up where we left off from part 1 of the Moonlight 5-Star Tier List!
So without further delaying, we’ll begin with the A-tier section of the list.
Table of Contents
A-Tier
Lidica has come a long way from how she was at her release. She’s been buffed one time, and Smilegate has given her AoE skill nullifier for criting on her skill 2. She has incredible CR pushing potential and the ability to reset cooldowns for a single target.
Because she’s been given the condition to crit on her skill 2 for damage mitigation, she has become the key component in the most powerful CR pushing composition in the game. While paired with C.Dominiel and Auxiliary Lots, you are almost guaranteed to never get a turn, and lose core members of your team in the process.
The 4th person in that composition can be whoever the opponent wants to counter you, and no matter which 2 CR pushers you let them keep, you’ll be forced to deal with resets, silences, and repeated high powered pokes from Dom.
Ruele has been the go-to healer pretty much since the start of the game. She has every tool you could want at her disposal. She can Heal, cleanse, revive, and grant invincibility.
While undoubtedly a solid pick, Ruele is only as good as her partners, so pairing her with a group of squishies isn’t great because she has no AoE healing potential without soulburning her skill 1.
However, in a well balanced composition he becomes a huge target because everyone is too dangerous to leave alive, but she’ll just revive them if you leave her unchecked.
Specter Tenebria is a POWERHOUSE of a damage dealer. There’s no part of her kit that isn’t good.
She can stun on her skill 3 and gains increased damage per debuff on the enemy. Her skill 1 can hit multiple targets (like Vildred) but also applies poison, while her skill 3 is on cooldown.
Her skill 2 passive grants her “Perma-Stealth” while anyone else on her team is still alive, and gives her 5 stacks of 7% attack and def, as well as AoE combat readiness suppression, anytime someone on the other team dies. And…. her skill 1 can not be countered.
This character is the true all rounder, but you need big-body characters blocking for her to be effective, and she’s still vulnerable to large AoE damage.
The newly introduced King of Edgelord. Violet is the hallmark of self-sufficient DPS. He gets his own 50% Evade buff at the start of battle and the beginning of each turn.
Violet’s skill 3 gives him attack buff before damage is applied, but also penetrates defense. And each time he successfully dodges an attack, he gains one focus. Once he reaches five focus, he will auto cast his skill 3 again, on a random target.
This character can blow squishies up and some supports if they don’t meet certain health and defense values. The cool part about violet is that his weaknesses change based on which equipment set he’s using. Violet has several counter characters, like F.Kluri, Melissa, Wanda and Dizzy but how you deal with him after those characters is the tricky part.
Speed set violets refresh their buffs faster, cycle their cooldowns faster, and need less evasions because his S1 gives focus also. So you’ll run out of time much quicker but this build is often the squishiest. Counter Violet has the greatest comeback potential, but can often be ignored due to his slow speed, and dealt with last. Lifesteal Violet is usually somewhere between those two, not quite as fast or strong, but he sustains. And in a proper composition, a sticky DPS who’s difficult to remove can be equally problematic.
The last entry for the A-tier class, Maid Chloe is a powerful unit who can be used in both offense and defense. She brings Attack buff and Reraise buff on her skill 3, however, if there are dead allies present, then she revives them first and then attack buffs them. This makes her an extremely high priority target because if you do not deal with her quickly, You’ll find yourself in an unending loop of dealing with units you’ve already killed.
Her individual skills are just mediocre. They are designed to buy her time for her skill 3, and that is where the party starts. This is a very straight forward strategy, but dealing with her can be difficult and that difficulty fluctuates based on her composition. If you’re fighting multiple damage dealers, you may not have time to get to her, and if you’re fighting multiple bruisers or tankers, you may not get her at all.
This guy is going to show you who’s the Best. Ken is a character who is primarily used on defense, to prevent cleavers from succeeding. Ken’s most notable component is the fact that if you crit him, he guarantees to counter-crit you back. The damage dealt by this critical increases based on how much health he’s missing, so you need to finish the job if you’re gonna swing on this guy.
Ken is not exactly a “Composition” reliant character as he doesn’t rely on any other heroes for his specialty. You put him in just about any comp and he’ll threaten the kill-or-be-killed condition, but he is more like icing on the cake. You put him in teams that are already designed to prevent cleave, he seals the deal.
And now for the part you guys were all waiting for. By process of elimination you probably already know who’s going to be in this section, and they almost require no introduction but here they are!
S-tier
Can you hear the approaching ruin? You’ve probably heard this phrase or seen this meme, because it’s a quote from the number one Moonlight Hero himself. The reason that good ol’ Arby is the best is because of his slot efficiency.
Arbiter Vildred has the following traits:
- Great damage – as his skill 3 is AoE, can be empowered by obtaining five focus, automatically empowers itself when he revives via his skill 2 passive, and 100% chance to blind.
- Self-revive – This is his skill 2 passive, works exactly as it sounds. You kill him, he comes back, gains 100% combat readiness increase, while resetting and empowering his skill 3.
- His S1 can hit multiple targets (one targeted, one random) and can suppress combat readiness by 15%.
This character’s kit is loaded. While Arby is mostly a selfish DPS hero and by the listed criteria, he should also be considered a one trick pony, Vildred ironically ends up supporting his team without being a support character.
Blind is a crippling debuff, and that prevents you being hit by criticals or having debuffs applied to you. As previously mentioned, his S1 has CR push on a multi-target attack and all CR manipulating effects are powerful, as adjusting the turn order in battle can create unpredictable and unintended results for your opponent, and lastly, he self revives which means you have to deal with him more than once.
Arbiter Vildred is not without his counters however, his very existence almost requires one of his counters to even survive the fight. Creating a scenario where an entire composition must be adjusted to approach arbiter teams is this hero’s real value. Most players are forced to alter their composition or risk automatically losing.
This is the Queen of defense teams. This title used to go Crimson Armin, however, after the Great Moonlight Nerf of 2019, she has since been replaced.
Fallen Ceci’s skill 2 passive automatically provides a barrier to her whole team soon as the battle starts, and the strength of her barrier is based on her health. The thicker she is, the harder it becomes to break her team, and every time she gets a turn, she makes a new barrier, for the lowest health ally.
Fallen Cecilia has the following traits:
- AoE skill null on her skill 3, further mitigating incoming damage
- 100% Provoke chance on her skill 1. (Only hero in the game who has 100%)
Because Fallen Cecilia is a knight, she has access to some of the strongest artifacts in the game, and if you have a second knight who can hold Aurius, she can use Adamant Shield for critical damage reduction or Elbris Ritual sword for random snap provoking.
Additionally, since Ceci starts the battle with her barrier, it takes priority over heroes equipped with two-piece immunity sets. Meaning, AoE buff dispellers who can only remove 1 buff, can only strip Cecilia’s barrier, preventing any follow-up debuffs from being used. This is an incredibly powerful interaction, which is also unique to Fallen Cecilia.
With his recent buffs, A. Tywin has found a home in many compositions and has catapulted his way to the top as bruiser. With a medium amount of Health, effectiveness, critical and critical damage, he can lay out threatening amounts of damage while being able to cleanse the team, and suppress your opponent’s ability to retaliate by stunning them and eating their souls (Literally).
He’s become the centerpiece of control-oriented teams and is a regular pick for all modes of Pvp.
Tywin bolsters the following attributes:
- S3 has AoE Stun and Slow (perfect for stealing a turn and making it count)
- S2 cleanses one debuff per turn when attacked, while an ally is debuffed.
- S1 has a 75% chance to provoke and steals 4 souls.
There’s not much escaping this character if your strategy relies on soulburning to function. Tywin has to be dealt with or you’ll lose too much momentum to catch back up.
In closing and bonus round
And that’s our list! Some of these characters were going to be no surprise due to the sheer presence they have in the competitive landscape. However, the competitive landscape is always changing and in another 3-4 months, this list may reflect inaccuracies. Singelica for example is surging in popularity, but we’ve seen no significant reduction in Arby’s on defense. Riolet, at the time of writing is also currently sharing a defense spot at the highest tier of play. And that brings us to the one moonlight hero we saved for last.
Briar Witch Iseria is the newly released moonlight hero and she’s pretty good! She has the ability to reduced evasion teams to “Tolerable” levels with her passive and she sports a built-in, “Reingar’s Drink” on her skill 3. Her Skill 3 strips buffs, as well as afflicting unbuffable and attack break, and her S1 has a 75% chance to break def.
Overall, Biseria is not a meta breaker, but her value comes from her flexibility. She can be build full support or full DPS Cleave depending on your needs. Many people find that she’s disappointing because she doesn’t completely counter evasion comps or out cleave Judge Kise, but evasion is an all or nothing stat.
If she full countered evade, then all evasion units are completely nullified by her existence which isn’t her intended purpose or healthy for the state of the game. Her design, along side being flexible, is intended to make evasion more manageable and if we look at Smile Gates recent trend of heroes, they’ve shown us at the very least they want to make more evade based units in the future.
We had Riolet, Celine, and Holiday Yufine all released in a short period of time and Moonlight Dreamblade users are still common when combined with Assassin Cartuja comps. These indicators also tell us that if more evasion units are created, Biseria’s value will increase over time and if she is under performing, SG has a history of buffing those characters, barring a few exceptions (cough cough ML Baal, cough cough ML Basar).
and with that, we wish you luck on your future pulls! Until next time, Heirs.