[Autumn]

I've made a list of youkai and what I would believe to be their general power levels of summoned youkai (Not-installed) in order from highest to lowest to use as a reference when balancing them in the future, I am hoping that this list will come into use.

This might be a bit of an extensive read so feel free to consider this thread at some other point to help identify a lot of the issues of summoner as a whole with no drabble over which youkai are extensively overpowered, instead this thread is mostly to assist with helping the lower end of the spectrum.

I've had much experience with all of the youkai in the game, so I would like to think I know what I am talking about, I've also put down explanations as to why I might like or dislike a youkai underneath each entry.

Without further ado, this is the list of youkai in their entirety, their usefulness or uselessness combined, as a forewarning since I cannot get spoilers to work this will appear as just a giant list, and for that I apologize.

"Perfect":

This is where Ascended youkai should sit at in my honest opinion, if a general non-ascended youkai has made it up to this level then there is a problem, but so far none have.


Ascended Seiyruu:

Ascended Seiyruu is the picture of what in my opinion a youkai should be from a mechanical standpoint, it has tools to help the summoner or their allies and give the illusion that it is fighting alongside the Summoner, and its stats are incredibly good which allows to to serve a tanky role for the summoner, being able to withstand a lot of physical damage and even a little bit of magical damage. 

It also synergizes perfectly with other dragon youkai given how Daisangan works, this is most likely the ideal youkai, and what other youkai should look like in the big picture. Its no wonder that so many people use the thing currently.

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"Good":

This is where General Youkai should probably sit at when not ascended, this is where they are considered to be fulfilling to use, but maybe overbearing when summoned en masse.

Drowned Woman:

This youkai is considered good due to its relative bulkiness, 50% resistance to the three physical elements and having a high RES and VIT stat allow it to persist in a fight for a good amount of time, it also has utility in being able to silence other units if the magic exists as an issue to the summoner or their summons. It has weaknesses for its strengths in that it has low defense and a holy weakness, and even is costly for the summoner to keep in reserve given that holy weakness.

Not much change is required for Drowned Woman in its current state, it could also segway into Ascension pretty fluidly

Asrai:

Asrai doesn't need much explaining, she has good HP, good RES and can sustain herself with Parratea, like most other CEL based youkai unless they're using wind, then CEL is useless to them now that the new turn order is in effect, so I feel that the fairies all could use a good bit of dodge added to them, to even avoid monster attacks generally would be the most ideal for these squishy things.

I feel that fairies have the right to play a minor supporting role as well, given Asrai encompasses water I believe she should have access to a way to cleanse status effects from allies, it doesn't have to be anything substantial and could be as simple as 1 status effect.

Chun (Daisangan):

Chun moves at the end of the turn order to make use of his cinders with, Fire Jet is also still 50% Fire ATK cinders iirc so he ends up fairing pretty well in the current grand scheme of things, he ranks up higher than the other dragons because his HP stat is much higher, giving him an extra hit or two of durability before he goes down.

Like all dragons he will synergize pretty well with other dragons given the existence of Daisangan, and he himself is very beefy with that stat buff.

Jhunn (Daisangan):

Like his brother Chun he is mobile and has a decent chunk of HP, most of the reasons why Jhunn is good lie upon my reasonings for Chun, and that he also benefits from Daisangan's stat bonus. He trades Cinder power for mobility and range compared to Chun, he's not bad.


Ascended Byakko:

Ascended Byakko is like the little brother to Ascended Seiyruu, he's not quite as good but he's still good enough to use competently, he doesn't do the damage that he should and honestly doesn't self-synergize or synergize with other youkai very well, his lack of utility for him and the summoner leaves a little bit to be desired, I feel more would use him if his Byakko Roar gave STR in an AoE or something similar.

Statistically he's built like a critical based basic attacker, but youkai have never been traditionally good at that, perhaps there is some unseen potential in Bonder for that kind of thing though, otherwise he's weak defensively, and puts himself into melee range, allowing him to be bursted incredibly easily, overall he has no identity so far compared to Seiyruu, he has STR as his highest stat and wants to basic attack, but doesn't make good use of them, he likes lightning ATK but doesn't get a ton of it either.

On another note, he's the best user of Conduct: Jete by a mile, with the stat bonus he gets from Roar along with his base STR he can be potent with that mostly.

Carbuncle (777):

Carbuncle is often slept upon, but with 777 their stats are really strong, and to boot the thing can take a pretty decent chunk of physical damage, one of the rare youkai with High Celerity/Defense/Luck/Will, giving him some sub-par survivability in a fight.

In terms of synergy he inflicts blind, blind is a very good status for slowing down other builds or gimmicks such as Snake Dancer, he's good where he is and can benefit from Ascension still.

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Viable:

This is where the youkai that aren't quite as good as the above youkai are, when a youkai is carried alone by its utility or stat line but falls short of being considered "good", these are the youkai you would mostly run for character theming or because you feel like it, but are by no means the best, simply put they're viable to use.

Haku:

Haku is teetering on the line, they have a good HP and DEF stat, as well as high Ice ATK for spraying ice at people, but he only truly synergizes with a Verglas summoner, and no other youkai than the aforementioned dragons, his stat line + daisangan carries him alone, a fire weakness leaves him open to a lot of AoE attacks however. 

I think this youkai can heavily benefit from an ascension, given there's not much else you can do with him without giving him new skills to work with.

Snow Crow:

Snow Crow also teeters on the line, only being truly up there when paired with a Verglas, however when paired with a Verglas is when she shines the absolute most, being the perfect synergy that one would need, and even has the whole "Working Together" thing I praise about Seiyruu the most, Stand-alone she isn't that good, and I would love to see her getting some supportive qualities, such as being able to share her ice armor with allies.

Another thing I would like to note about Snow Crow is she has pretty good range in general, being an avian she has around 7 base MOV and a 4 range skill to boot, she's very useful for chasing people down.

Terrasque:

Terrasque himself isn't that bad, he's not often considered due to his poor attacking power, but he's kinda bulky and can take a few hits, on top of this he can shatter an opponent's defenses decently well, overall he's not bad.

He's not stellar either, doesn't really do a whole lot thats special, and could benefit heavily from ascension.

Apus:

Apus is a lot like Snow Crow but doesn't work quite as well with the summoner, barring needles (which a priest can proc on their own) he doesn't really work well with others, on the plus side he is an avian, so he has 7 MOV and a 5 range attack, giving him a good amount of range, at night he can deal a decent amount of damage

Izabe:

Izabe used to be up there in "Good" up until the turn order changes, she was hyper squishy but served an artillery role, pelting at you from afar, now anyone with a modicum of range and can move faster than her (See always) can take care of the problem before it starts, she's at best viable given its only a teensy bit of a pain to get rid of her, but she goes down rarely in 2 hits, more often than not she gets 1 shot by something.

Like the rest of the fairies, she could benefit from an evade buff of some sort, and given turn order shenanigans, could probably use a pretty minor HP buff as well.

Sazae Oni:

Sazae Oni is pretty okay, he has 5 MOV and a 3 range AoE skill, which is rare for Youkai to have even, so he's pretty decent summoning into firebloods, notably he has a passive which he cannot use really, which is to kick people with, he doesn't really have legs as far as I can see either so I think a rework to that passive is not a bad idea.

He synergizes with a 1 range pull if you can call it that, but Seiyruu will do his job 100% better now.

Yukionna:

Yukionna is fine damage-wise, even sporting the highest base damage on an elemental skill given her extremely high SKI and WIL, but thats all she does, her frostbite is good synergy with another verglas, but stand-alone she won't really use it well unless luring monsters along an icy path, given monsters are less likely to target youkai this can be jank and understandably un-useable.

Defensively she is pretty garbage, sporting a whole ass 50% fire weakness, and while she can reflect ice this doesn't end up being the best to do, in a lot of cases, being immune to ice is simply better, I'd rather she absorbed ice than reflected it but then that would take away a rank of usefullness to Winter's Bite.

This youkai could definitely use an ascension to make better use of, thematically she's fine but could use a few new tools to play with.

Kilkenny:

Kilkenny is very good at one thing and pretty much one thing only, consuming the living hell out of someone's FP, but given his own low FP amount he will be unable to do anything after 3-4 uses of his skill, in turn he's just a useless fur ball who can't do anything once that happens.

He doesn't die terribly fast, and I think his skill should drain FP instead of consume it, so he can upkeep what he's good at, he has terribly low damage so why not?

Phase Python:

Phase Python falls victim to the same thing as Byakko does, he's statted and outfitted to be a basic attacker but that doesn't work for him, he's only viable into tanks given that poison can be annoying, but generally his passives are much better suited to his summoner than him. He tends to be really squishy and will die in a couple of hits as well, overall he's only useful for a poison and thats it.

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Unviable:

These youkai will almost in no circumstance be useful, there may be a few niche uses from time to time, but generally speaking they are weak.

Vampiric Legume:

You're gonna see this argument being made for Firefox here as well, but this youkai is a monster mercenary before monster mercenaries were even a thing, as such its incredibly outdated and quite frankly under powered, now that its sole damage source can be mitigated by dark resistance as well it can't do much, it walks up to you and ingrains for roughly 30 damage in a single turn, then has to un-ingrain and move if your opponent were to move, and can only basic attack otherwise.

This youkai is in my opinion the biggest contender alongside Firefox for an ascension of some sort, at least an Ascension can differentiate it from its Monster counterpart, but as it stands, why have this in my youkai slots for even PvE purposes when I can instead recruit Legume Mercenaries to do the same thing but multiplied.

The only merit to this youkai is its tankiness, everything else about it kinda just falls flat.

Jack-o-Lantern:

Jack-o-Lantern is decent damage wise, but only has enough FP to cast his spell up to maybe 4 times max, his stats are sub-par and he's only really left with a good HP stat, he can absorb water damage and resist earth damage but he eats an insane fire resistance penalty.

There's not a lot of worlds where this youkai is overtly useful, I think the base youkai needs to change a lot, as an ascension would be a bandaid for this poor thing.

He's very susceptible to dying fast, and the fear he inflicts can only be useful really to a fallcall build, fear's not hard to really achieve either.

Orbello:

Orbello's passive "Chain Casting" requires 9 casts of a spell to make use of, and it gives you a incredibly minor spellpower bonus on top of that, I think a lot of this youkai needs improving, to start with his damaging stats are absurdly low, he needs SKI and RES both at an equal amount to make Deathtouch do the same damage as say a Fire Jet, and on top of that he's rocking a mediocre 30 in both of these stats, and not even a good chunk of WIL to pad his elemental ATK higher.

He's mediocre at everything he does, while simultaneously only knowing how to do 2 things. This youkai is in need of a lot of changes, like Jack-o-Lantern is.

Hyppogryph:

Hyppogryph is one of those youkai that ended up falling from Viable to unviable when the FP cost changes hit, it has 65 total FP at lvl 60 from what I can see which means it can cast mare wing a total of 2 times which probably should be adjusted somehow, its first passive doesn't even benefit the thing, giving fist power to a youkai that I assume isn't using a fist, and its second passive requires airborne to be useful, given it can only cast Mare Wing twice (And those air shafts last only 2 rounds) it won't be able to use those airshafts to be airborne for very long.

I would at least suggest giving this youkai more FP, it has the potential to be good if it can cast its skill, also because its an avian I would suggest it just have the "Gain Air" skill by default, this should probably be a standard for all avian youkai.

Hatsu:

Hatsu is much unlike his other dragon counterparts in that he's much too rounded to be good, he has pathetic basic attacker stats, and his casting stat (GUI) isn't even that high either, taking a look at his stats at lvl 60 he has 35 GUI which makes him have maybe 40 Acid ATK by default, of course Daisangan can boost this a fair bit, but its not by much.

He has an acid immunity which is situationally useful in actuality, its not that bad, but it requires a specific knowledge to make the most use of, overall his passives aren't that bad, its mostly his stats.

Wawa:

Wawa is ranked really really low for a couple of reasons, firstly she has 2 range on her spell, this is not an issue until you consider that as a fairy she's typically hyper squishy, and her charm is not even assured to mitigate that even slightly, its a 50/50 shot at being a charm or a blind, her passive "Bad Juju" however is decent, its been used in the typical FP drain builds in the past, but given Wawa needs to be close to her enemy to use it, and to use her spell, while having a whole 259 HP at lvl 60..she's not going to be overly useful.

She's not bulky enough to stay in a fight, she's very squishy, has almost no support and needs to be incredibly close to her opponent to be useful, she also needs some retooling I would feel.

Firefox:

Firefox is a lot like Vampiric Legume, he's a monster mercenary before they were a thing, unlike Vampiric Legume however Firefox is pretty much useless for more than a few reasons, the first being that his skill "Seeker Flame" doesn't really get to do a lot, you can only lay down one of those bad boys and thats it, firefox is useless after that until the seeker flame is killed, the seeker flame is a passive 60 damage threat with an extremely limited move range, and an extremely limited attacking range (requires 6m and 1 range.) I really wish that his Seeker Flame was an actual attack to use on someone that spawned a seeker flame beside them if there were none on the map, giving someone incentive to actually move away from them before it explodes.

Secondly, Firefox's passive firefall are among the lowest damage cinders in the game currently, they can be decent with the Hyattr prayer bonus but thats only for the summoner, still they're a hazard to blow over I suppose.

Thirdly, the thing is mad squishy, and while it does absorb fire which is a pretty good boon, the summoner itself is more likely to make use of that through install than the firefox, its a CEL based youkai which isn't useful to youkai who aren't wind focused any more, it could use some dodge most likely to assist a bit.

Like Legume, I would rank Firefox to be a number 1 candidate for ascension, to at least give it some identity away from a monster mercenary eating up your youkai slot.

Lilu:


And finally we come to Lilu, who is a youkai I firmly believe to be even more useless than Firefox, we are long past the days where Charm was one of the most busted status effects in the game, and Lilu's primary gimmick has been pretty much been overshadowed by the existence of Grapple in talents. To start off, wink is a non-damaging status infliction that inflicts a lvl 30 charm, useful for the summoner but not the summon itself, given how likely they are to be blown up at the snap of a finger. Charm then leads into its secondary skill only it can use which is Hug, and Hug functions primarily the exact same as Grapple but requires a Caveat to do so.

For this thing to consider doing damage it requires to basic attack you, with some sub-par basic attacking stats, and in doing so it will wittle down the duration of charm substantially.

Lilu requires an overhaul like Jack-o or Orbello does, Wink should at least do some dark damage too otherwise its functionally worse than Wawa's Black Rose skill.

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I hope that this will be useful in the future when looking to balance youkai, there's no definitive "Point" to this thread other than my thoughts and opinions on where youkai should sit roughly given their status.