Huzzah, I finally managed to get another Terra skill, Meltdown. It's pretty snazzy because it does great damage and can even cut through some defenses.

I did finally venture into trying out a few other characters. I now understand why Cloud is popular because he's a wrecking ball and basically designed around doing lots of damage to bosses, and killing other players. He's offensive focused but surprisingly well rounded. He uses Earth element which often deals with buffs. His Hold skills is VII's Ascension, though I would argue it's closer to looking like Climhazzard in execution. Funny enough, it's not used by Cloud players for offense as much as it's used as a cheap movement skill that allows Cloud to sort of dash around the map killing anything he runs into. Cloud is also one of the few characters where I've obtained his UR skill Omnislash... twice. As one can imagine, this skill does massive damage and can take out a quarter of a bosses health by itself without activating a team up chain attack. It's neat to watch as well because it is a bit more cinematic and does his full animation from the game. His other two skills I've unlocked are Braver (powerful overhead attack) and Finishing Touch which is an annoying multi-hit attack that hits everyone around him.

The tier lists are starting to come in though and I can say most of the top players either roll Cloud or Lightning. Lightning has an obnoxious spell called Thunderfall that has ridiculous range and multi-hits, which makes them dangerous when they are attacking bosses or other players as this spell can catch the opposing team as well. Army of One also hits way too hard and like Omnislash, gives Lightning way too many invincibility. I'll need to really look at her moveset to see what's up.

Secondary characters seem to be WoL and Krile who are both major assets if you are with a player who knows how to use them. They are both technically support characters with WoL giving nice defense boosts to the team if they are close by. He is also an asset for keeping the opposing team busy as he is still a strong fighter and with some other buff abilities, he can even tank through Cloud and Lightning's nonsense to kill them. Krile has a lot of healing and BRV giving skills which often makes killing her a high priority as she can essentially make you ignore liberating crystals to do damage since she can raise your team's BRV to 9999 just by being around. Some Krile players make the mistake of trying to fight and getting killed, most of the time, their team is just not experienced enough to know to protect her.

Gaia, Terra, Rinoa, and Prompto are probably the third tier. Gaia is a melee fighter with debuffs. The idea is to inflict a debuff and then go in for the kill, allowing her to do more damage than she normally should compared to heavy hitters like Cloud and Kain. She has a knack of catching you off guard. She is currently the only character I have not unlocked. Terra, Rinoa, and Prompto are all the ranged fighters and each have their nuances. Terra is obviously the powerhouse in terms of doing just straight up raw damage with her skills making her the Range equivalent of Cloud and usually another high priority target for players. She is the slowest of the three though and Tornado is great for clearing monster enemies guarding crystals but not very useful against other players without out a distraction. With that said, I can't necessarily say she's the best Range fighter. Rinoa's hold move is a damn teleport move hat allows her to zip around the map faster and her water magic has a shotgun effect that much like Lightning, makes her dangerous if your party is all close together because they are trying to gank a Cloud or WoL. Prompto might be the most annoying of the Range fighters because while he can pack a punch with his different fire arms, a lot of them have slow windups. To compensate for this he has moves that inflict stun on opponents. While his attack may not kill you, that stun makes it easy for other players or even monsters to finish the job after you take a missile to the face. I think we'll need a bit more time to really see who the top Range fighter is though.

Kain is likely fourth tier. He's a high skill character and like Lightning, he is fast and hits hard. His move-set is a bit jarring as it involves moving him around the field a bit to help setup counters and keep him from getting stun locked easily. I likely won't have the time before the Beta ends to really get the hang of him, but while it's not common to run into players who use him, he is dangerous when the player does know how to make the most of his skill set.

Sadly, my boy Zidane is probably bottom tier. It is rare to see him and even when you do, he's not usually the biggest threat, especially for someone like me playing a ranged fighter like Terra. The issue with Zidane is that his size makes his range extremely short range and while he is an Agile type like Lightning that lets him close the distance quickly, he desperately needs buffs to make him stand a chance in PvP. Unlike Lightning, who has some special buffs that make her lethal as Cloud in PvP, Zidane really seems more tailored for his class's prime use which is racing around the map and conquering Crystal points. It's not a bad role, but when characters like Lightning, Kain, and Rinoa can also do this well and handle their own against an aggressive enemy team, Zidnae just seems to fall to the waste side.