Imperial Knights tier lists

Imperial Knights does not have a hundred-character gacha roster. It has four battle slots, a mercenary board, and a card album that behaves like extra accessories. Rankings still help because the wrong four people make Protea’s cardinal look unbeatable and the right card makes Spirit Cave look fair.

This hub points to two lists:

• Party tier list — Diana, Lysithea, Tear, Lea, Tania, Ellis, male hires.
• Card tier list — status-null chips, Diana Knight, route-specific portraits.

Both assume Route 1 as the baseline and New Game+ as the place Routes 2/3 become honest. If you are still in the manor, you do not need a tier list yet — you need getting started.

How we rank

S — changes boss plans. You feel the empty slot when they are gone. A — excellent on their route or in their dungeon cluster. B — usable, sometimes required by the map, not a board priority. C — filler hires and novelty cards.

Criteria:

• Can they keep four commands available (heals, Repair Kit access, not sitting in a bind)?
• Do they cover a status the next dungeon spams (poison, sleep, blind, silence)?
• Are they even in the file? Ellis is not a Route 1 S-tier if she does not exist yet.

We do not rank “waifu only” and we do not rank damage in a vacuum. Sati’s 80% current-HP spike does not care about your favorite portrait. See combat for the tells these lists are answering.

Party snapshot

• Lysithea — S on Route 1. Mina Heal is the run.
• Diana — S because she cannot leave. Ether Knight is a bonus, not the reason.
• Tear — A/S while she is in the party; A as a paid hire if gold is tight.
• Ellis — A on Route 3, unranked on a fresh Route 1.
• Tania — A on her facility maps, elsewhere a hire if you like her kit.
• Lea — B+ for Protea, then a cheap board option.
• Random male mercenary — B as an armor-break sponge on costume-heavy bosses.

Full write-ups: party list and party members.

Card snapshot

• Status-null (sleep, poison, blind) — S for the dungeon that applies them.
• Diana Knight stat card — A/S.
• Pure collection portraits — C until a chart says otherwise.

Full write-ups: card list. Casino odds and slot tells sit on the tools hub.

What a tier list will not do

It will not pick your route. It will not cleanse a crest. It will not replace Poison Rings before Mud Poison. Buy the rings, then argue about whether Tear is worth the mercenary fee.

It also will not make Route 2’s Bio Worm fair if you let the delayed breath finish. That is a timer, not a ranking problem.

Update policy

English Steam just launched. These ranks start from Japanese first-year consensus plus Kagura’s published kit descriptions (Tear = lightning, Lysithea = water/heal). When DLC extra bind modes or Steam balance notes appear, we patch the child lists, not this paragraph. If a card name differs between DLsite and Steam, Steam English wins on this wiki.

Use characters when you want lore. Use this hub when you want to spend gold.