NTE Neverness to Everness Characters Tier List

Tiers are not ordered

This Tier List represents deep analysis of the characters who have been released and established for quite some time. But offers preliminary analysis for characters who have just come out, until further testing is concluded. It's prone to constant updates with every version, with characters going up and down the tiers depending on their most recent performance.

NTE is still early in v1.1, and the META has started to take early shape, but it's nowhere near mature and established after more limited characters release over several version updates. In 1.1, Beyond the Rail brings two more floors with higher difficulty, which have potential to flip the META over its head. We are keeping all characters on watchlist to examine their performance against very high level content.

As for methodology, we don't have a strict baseline. We try to evaluate flexibility, top-end strength, best-case-scenario, AoE, single-target, etc. Every character can be valuable in different ways, and our tier list aims to evaluate as many criteria as possible.

Lastly, everyone, including us, understands that a tier list 3-6 months from now will look completely different. Some characters that provide utility may have better long term value, while DPS characters often become less valuable over time. However, getting a strong DPS early on provides a greater immediate boost to your account's power, so these criteria can often be at odds.

S+ Tier

Hotori

Hotori is the best character in NTE, thanks to her ability to replicate any character's skill. Paired with Zero or Lacrimosa, she enables whole team archetypes that aren't as effective without her. Mono Blossom and Mono Nova are two of the top-performing teams, and Hotori is part of both, even though her element doesn't affect Nova. She also makes both Charged and Discord teams more accessible at A0.

She doubles as a support and Burst DPS. Her time stop means she deals all her DPS in zero seconds on the timer, and with endgame mode being timed stages, time stop is invaluable. She records allies skills or support skills, and replicates them during the time stop. So Hotori has a high value in the long term. Even if her damage becomes smaller in comparison, no one can deal damage faster than her zero-second rotation. So even without any reactions, Hotori has everlasting value in any team.

Zero

The instant Esper Meter refill is the most meta-defining feature of Zero, granting an extra reaction every 16 seconds. Thanks to A3, which gives 50% Crit Rate, Zero can build full Cycle Intensity, giving reactions like Blossom a massive boost, while still dealing good direct damage. With Hotori replicating their skill, their value skyrockets, granting 3 instant reactions every 32 seconds instead of 2.

Zero is an essential part of any team on the top half of Esper Circle, being an instant best-in-slot for any Blossom, Remora, or Charged team. You can’t get more value from a single character on the top half of the Esper Circle than this.

Nanally

This comes as a huge surprise, but Nanally kept proving herself over and over after her release. With 4 other limited main DPS characters released since then, Nanally stay the most flexible, least restrictive in team building, and with Shinku, Nanally now finds a new support role! She doubles as the best Anima support for her.

She's also the best character to utilize Hotori and Zero duo, who are the absolute best and most demanded characters in the game. So with everything combined, Nanally enters the broken territory and earns her S+ Rank.

S Tier

Lacrimosa

Lacrimosa has proven to be the strongest DPS in the game, and an easy one to play. On top of that, she’s flexible enough to build either a Mono Scorch team, a Discord team, or even a Nova team.

She plays as DoT main carry or DPS support for teams on the lower half of the Esper Circle. Lacrimosa is a good character on her own, but she also brings out the best in other standard characters, such as Baicang and Sakiri, and even A-Class characters such as Adler. She essentially replaces Baicang in his best team, or merges with him for a unique Scorch team.

With one dupe and A6 unlocked, Lacrimosa gains an instant reaction like Zero, but on the lower half of the Esper Circle. With that dupe, she moves up to the absolute top tier, but at A0, she’s S tier.

Chaos

Chaos is a Lakshana on-field main carry who relies on damage boost after Ultimate, and triggering Remora to reach his full potential. So he’s better suited to the Charged archetype, and he’s considered a small upgrade over Chiz in the Charged team, because he can use Hotori. But the difference is not enough to powercreep Chiz entirely, because he will lose his biggest nuke without Hathor.

His best team competes with Nanally and Chiz teams over the best supports on the upper half of Esper Circle. So pulling him on an account who has Nanally main is less optimal. But his performance is close to Nanally with these supports. So the early evaluation places Chaos in S tier, similar to Nanally.

Shinku

Yet another on-field DPS on top of Esper Circle, and competes with other DPS over the premimum supports, similar to Chaos. She relies on Charge reaction even more than any character in the old roster, and rewards allies by sharing the energy regeneration from Charge.

She has potential to deal very high DPS, but has some issues that's holding her back from being broken or S+ tier. Shinku loses all her buffs and states upon swapping out, and she demand a constant and long field time, resulting in face-tanking a lot of hits, or having to cancel her combos with dodges, so takes a lot of damage, you struggle to sustain her even with Jiuyuan A1. So until Iroi release, Shinku stays at a stable S rank

Jiuyuan

Jiuyuan is among the flexible characters, fitting a lot of teams. Thanks to her easy grouping for AOE stages, her low field time, her ability to double Blossom buds, and synergy with top DPS characters. All of that comes at A0, grant her an S tier

Her value grows even more with the healing Awakening that can be unlocked with one dupe. Which will come naturally as players do free pulls on the standard banner over time.

Chiz

Players gets Chiz and her signature Arc for free, and over time, all her Awakenings will be unlocked. Chiz at A0 is very competitive, and performs slightly lower than top META. But as a free unit with all Awakenings and dupes of her Arc unlocked over time, Chiz overtakes or equal them with three dupes or more. Even a limited character such as Chaos can't outperform Chiz.

Her scaling is unique, she only need Cosmos DMG% and CRIT DMG to deal top DPS, so she's very easy to build. Chiz is a stable (S) tier for now.

Hathor

With the constant stream of new Main DPS who relies on the Charge reaction, Hathor keep gaining more and teams. She's best-in-slot Lakshana support for all of Chiz, Chaos, and Shinku teams. That earns her S tier, even if she does nothing in the team and chills out in the background applying her passive.

Hathor extends Remora reaction (and Charge in ideal scenarios) from 5 seconds to 12 seconds, which is more than double the duration. She also gives team-wide 10% Crit rate against enemies with Remora. So her support role alone grants her this position in the tier list

As a main DPS though, she suffer from several issues that hinders her, which earned her a lower tier in previous iteration of our tier list.

Sakiri

Sakiri is very flexible, has a gathering ability with the hold version of her skill, provides a team-wide ATK buff, and has access to the Hexed reaction that increases Anima and Incantation teams' DPS (Which has to easy way to trigger). But all of that could be overshadowed by a solid burst DPS such as Jiuyuan.

What secured S tier for Sakiri in the end the 25-100% DoT multiplier from her passive, which scales up with the number of DoTs on the enemy.

With Lacrimosa's release and Scorch team taking over the META, Sakiri became a powerhouse. Without Lacrimosa, she's still a good buffer for other teams. At A0, her ATK buff strength value is slightly behind Haniel's. With one dupe, you can unlock Sakiri’s A4 to double her buff power, which makes her great even outside Scorch.

Haniel

We are placing Haniel at the same tier as Sakiri, as she plays a very similar role of general ATK buffer support, with stronger buffs but lack of grouping.

While Sakiri has her Scorch niche, Haniel has her own Nova niche. Nova is the highest burst damage reaction, and Haniel can build full Cycle Intensity to maximize the reaction DPS while providing even more ATK buffs after triggering Nova. Lacrimosa is the only character who can fully exploit Nova so far.

Being an A-Class, players can easily acquire all her Awakenings. With two dupes, Haniel gets to reduce her skill cooldown and increase their duration, effectively resulting in 100% uptime for her buffs, which is longer than buffs from A0 Sakiri. Her value is very high especially with a near one-second rotation.

A Tier

Daffodill

With Beyond the Rail endgame mode requiring two teams, Daffodill’s value immediately jumps quite high. She’s the only Chaos character choice if you don't have Lacrimosa, so three whole reactions are locked behind acquiring Daffodill (Nova, Scorch, and Discord). Daffodill can easily fill as DPS or sub-DPS in the second team, especially against the half with Bosses. Her break efficiency results in more breaks on Bosses, and faster clears and more CC. 

A fantastic unit which would get even more highlight if a break support character releases, or S-Class Psyche DPS.

With Awakenings, Daffodill can climb higher in Tiers, but she needs multiple Awakenings, which is not an easy feat, but over time and with more Selectors, she will get better.

Baicang

Baicang is a fantastic standard banner DPS, with caveats. His team building around Scorch is restrictive, and his gameplay is not easy. One misclick, and his rotation becomes inferior, losing DPS potential. But aside from that, he’s a reliable carry for your second team. His Scorch team is behind Lacrimosa , and while he works with her, his synergy is a bit clunky. For now, he stays at a solid (A) Tier.

Adler

Adler isn’t placed in A tier because of his defensive shield, even though it’s fairly decent. The META in NTE is formed around overwhelming offense, not defense. His position is thanks to Lacrimosa’s release, which brought the DoT team to the front of META.

Sakiri’s passive to buff DoT based on the number of DoTs on the enemy, and Adler provides one extra DoT without stealing field time from Lacrimosa. That’s why he’s one of the best picks in Scorch teams, even over Baicang.

Adler can’t find a place outside the Scorch team, so he’s far from flexible. He’s tied to Lacrimosa or Baicang as the 4th slot until a better off field DoT character releases. (Watch out for Zinkou release in 1.3)

Fadia

Fadia is without a doubt stayed as the best sustain in the game for several versions. But sustain characters are not necessary in every team against bosses in highest levels of Beyond the Rail.

However, some of the newer limited characters are on-field DPS, with long animation that can't be canceled. These have a hard time surviving, because they can't dodge or swap, and forced to face-tank heavy enemy hits, such as Chaos. So in this niche, Fadia is best-in-slot, because survivability is an issue. She allows a very aggressive face-tank playstyle which provides more DPS window for any hyper carry. Which is DPS gain in some situations even without reactions.

Outside of that, Fadia has a good spot in Nova teams to utilize her passive that reduce enemy Max HP. But best Nova team is locked behind one Awakening on Lacrimosa

B Tier

Mint

The poster character of NTE. Mint’s hyper carry team is on the low end of the spectrum. But the real value of Mint comes from her element, Anima. Even though the game has two S-Class Anima characters who are considered (S) Tier in all scenarios, Mint still has her place in the second team for some accounts. With Cosmos and Lakshana characters alongside Mint you can trigger Charged for massive energy generation.

Her low skill cooldown and the cooldown reset with her dodge counter helps Mint build Esper Meter faster, and trigger Blossom. That’s useful when both Jiuyuan and Nanally are busy in the other team, while you have several Cosmos characters that need a good pair. (e.g: building Chiz hyper team on one side and a full Blossom team on the other side). Anima also connects Cosmos with Incantation then Chaos elements, if you want that kind of team. 

But from a pure power perspective, Mint is still (B) Rank. Though she got better with Hotori release, it was not enough for a breakthrough.

Aurelia

Aurelia is an on-field main carry who relies on holding dodge to auto-aim single-target shots. On paper, her DPS can place her in A tier. But in reality, she has a few issues that hold her back in B tier.

Her constant passive dodging consumes stamina. So against very aggressive enemies, you have to spam active dodging on top, which can bring stamina dangerously low, halting both defense and offense. That, combined with her anti-synergy with burst DPS characters from neighboring elements like Daffodill and Hathor, further holds her back..

C Tier

Skia

Skia’s hyper carry team has the lowest DPS in the game. But his real value comes from being a budget substitute for Hathor in some of the top teams, due to his Lakshana element. His burst style doesn’t take much field time, so he brings some debuffs and CC, and doesn't hinder team rotation. He's a pseudo-defensive character with some damage and a desired element. But he's not comparable to Hathor when considering her passive alone, let alone her DPS.

He's still a good character who helps you clear content if there's no other choice, but he’s a low priority, for certain.

D Tier

Edgar

With the reveal that sustain characters are less impactful, Edgar loses all his value, and drops to the lowest Tier possible. His kit is pure healing, and his Awakenings don’t help much. Against the toughest boss in the game (from 4-star 'Wanted' status), Edgar's healing is not enough to survive another hit. You are always better off dodging to avoid damage entirely than taking a hit and recovering only 20% of it.

His passive which frontloads the energy gain from Charged reaction would be his leverage in Hotori teams, if it didn’t have a 30-second cooldown that totally desyncs with Hotori after the first rotation. It was his salvage chance, and he missed it.

July 9, 2026

• Shinku added to S Tier
• Nanally S+↑ Hathor S↑ Fadia A↑

June 24, 2026

• Chaos added to S Tier
• Added a new S+ Tier
• Hotori S+↑ Zero S+↑
• Sakiri S↑ and Haniel S↑ Adler A↑

June 2, 2026

• Lacrimosa added to S Tier

May 15, 2026

• Hotori added to S Tier
• Zero S↑ , Sakiri A↓ , Hathor A↑ , Adler B↓ , Edgar D↓

April 28, 2026

• Pre-Launch Tier List Created