Chrono Trigger is pretty interesting because it has a diverse cast (they're not at all clones) which is probably among the best-balanced in an RPG, to the point where, both times the game has come up in Meeple's "rate the characters in-game" topic there has been pretty wide disagreements on who's good and who isn't, to the point where depending on who you ask, certain characters (e.g. Crono or Lucca) may be one of the best PCs in the game or one of the worst! Anyway, since I'm playing the game for the first time in about a decade, I figured as I played the game I'd comb over each section and see how each PC is performing, so that I can figure out how I feel about the character worth overall. This isn't really designed to change anyone else's views, though hey, I hope you enjoy the read anyway.
Feel free to weigh in with anything you think I've missed or am under/overrating, etc. Discussion's always good if you want to go there. However I won't read or participate in any discussion about overall worth past the point in the game where I currently am because I want to go into the game's later chapters unbiased.
Some assumptions for this: I'm playing through the game fighting a number of battles that is on the lower end, rather than the higher. Why? Because CT is easy, and if Character X needs me to fight more battles to perform at a high level, he or she isn't going to be as good in my eyes as someone who performs well when I fight fewer. I'll be distributing tabs fairly evenly to PCs who want them most likely, though I may bias speed slightly to slower characters just because your party becomes overall stronger if everyone is closer together in speed because of how potent double techs are in this game. We'll see. I'm also doing a fairly complete run of the game, which means collecting all treasure and such. Some especially annoying stuff I may skip (for instance, not going to bother with retreading to get all the stuff hidden behind various pendant-doors until getting the Epoch). I also won't be cheaping out bosses with the appropriate elemental mail because that's no fun and leaves nothing for me to rate. I'll probably need to rotate characters pretty often so nobody falls behind, which will end up underrating everyone who isn't Crono until he leaves the party, and then just everyone from there on. So it goes, I may try to compensate for this later.
Anyway...
Cathedral: Three PCs here: Crono, Lucca, and Frog. Decent character balance too. Frog is the loser here overall, despite the best HP, and respectable everything else, because he lacks any way to hit more than one enemy at a time. Healing tries to make up for this until you realise it restores less than a Tonic and those are the most inexpensive things ever. Crono vs. Lucca is tougher. In a pure fair comparison, Crono has an edge, due to way better speed, somewhat better HP, and Cyclone hitting more enemies than Flame Toss on average. Lucca's only real counterargument, in a vacuum, is that she can go longer without running out of MP (and Lucca with Flame Toss > Crono without Cyclone). However, this isn't a vacuum, and the cathedral has several enemies with way lower MDef than Def, so Lucca shines against those. On the other hand, against some of them, the optimum strategy is Fire Whirl anyway (needs both Crono and Lucca) and Crono has a large leg-up on Yakra due to X-Strike being easily your best attack there. So I give him the nod by a little bit.
1. Crono
2. Lucca
3. Frog
Beyond the Ruins: There's some scattered combat between the cathedral and the future, but not really enough to note. I'll mention the Dragon Tank in a bit, since that's an exception. Otherwise, the party here is Crono, Marle, and Lucca. Crono/Lucca remains largely the same as before, but a couple new techs change things a bit: Slash and Hypno Wave. Slash pretty much negates Lucca's magic advantage, since it's nearly a Flame Toss clone. Hypno Wave, meanwhile, makes Lucca the best at dealing with large numbers of enemies at once since you can just pick off whatever she doesn't put to sleep. It's difficult to say who improves most from this. Unfortunately for Lucca, bosses exist, and both of them in this part of the game (Dragon Tank and Guardian) have a key part which nulls fire, so lulz at Lucca against them, while Crono is clearly your best PC. Marle, meanwhile... argh, she's bad at randoms. Slow with little damage and no multitarget. Aura isn't really necessary between fights because Tonics cost nothing and you never heal mid-fight. The only good thing that can be said about Marle is that Aura's ~75 healing is significant against Guardian, since Tonics don't heal enough against his offence and Mid Tonics don't grow on trees. Still, that's the one fight she isn't in last place for. At least the Berserker makes her less of a liability offensively in randoms. I remember her being a bit better on playthroughs where I take my time more so she'd have Provoke by now, but oh well.
1. Crono
2. Lucca
3. Marle
Factory: Enter Robo! He's cool. Laser Spin is true MT and this is awesome. He has the best ST damage and durability in the party by a decent ways. Cure Beam is okay, better than Aura. Sure, Crono has speed, but that's really about it. This would be an easy, easy win for Robo except for Acids and Alkalines, which heavilly resist all damage except lightning (they resist that too, just not enough to prevent OHKOs against their 10 HP). Slash is kinda the kingpin move here, as such, which gives Crono a case since he's not losing by that much otherwise. Marle has Provoke now but it doesn't work on much here, same with Hypno Wave (and to boot, fire res is reasonably common). Obviously those two are last, but Flame Toss and Fire Whirl are still better than Marle's healing overall (not that it's worthless, partially due to her healing double techs with both Robo and Crono). Pretty large tier gap between 2 and 3 here, small gaps otherwise, but...
1. Robo
2. Crono
3. Lucca
4. Marle
Heckran Cave and Zombor: This is tricky. Any random against a small number of enemies isn't scary period, since you can magic-blast things to death well. Against large numbers of enemies, Rocket Roll is the best move, so Crono and Robo score points here, while Lucca and Marle do nothing special. Lucca gets the slight nod because Hypno Wave is better than Provoke. On the other hand, against Heckran himself, this order is turned upside-down, as Antipode is by far your best damage. Robo distinguishes himself by having decent healing that doesn't cost 100 gil per pop, and Crono is pretty much "would remove if able" since he has the second worst damage and no utility. Zenan Bridge is another matter; Laser Spin is useless (dark null) against the undead here but whatever, everyone OHKOs them with ST moves, so Zombor is the interesting part. Zombor is ALSO raped by antipode, whose head is weak to dark. Lucca excels at finishing off the legs due to them being fire-vulnerable but ice-absorbing, and Crono can help at this point, while Marle plays healbot.
Hey, different characters excelling at different roles! That's something. The CT character balance I remember is manifesting itself here. For the bosses, Lucca > Marle > Robo > Crono; for the randoms, Crono ~= Robo > Lucca > Marle. This suggests...
1. Lucca
2. Robo
3. Crono
4. Marle
... but really, I want to stress that this is very balanced overall.
Denadoro Mountains: Lucca auto-tops this dungeon. Why? Because the strongest (and rather plentiful) random here is like, 4-5HKOed by everyone else, while Lucca burns their hammers and turns them into a OHKO-bait grunt with maybe a fifth the offence. This is something no other character can match. She also has +2 speed from the Taban Vest now, to boot. Otherwise, it's the same old against randoms, with Marle being the loser. Against the boss? Unfortunately for Crono, Lucca gets her revenge here as he randomly resists lightning! Only good thing you can say about Crono here is that Slash disrupts his big charged move, but it's not really enough given it's a two-turn charge and Aura Beam offsets it well enough anyway. Blah blah blah, you know what? Same order as last time works, just with a clear separation between Lucca and the rest this time.
1. Lucca
2. Robo
3. Crono
4. Marle
Forest Maze/Repitite Lair: Lucca in the last dungeon is Crono in this. Taking down Megasaurs without lightning is a pain, and Nizbel borders on impossible (though I'd be willing to ignore the latter as a bit of a plot gimmick). Laser Spin and Rocket Roll remain THE random-killing moves, especially with all the physical tanks here. Robo and Crono have both gotten significant improvements here to boot, as Spincut and especially Robo Tackle are good ST moves when not blocked. Lucca has Napalm which is definitely nice (solid GT damage) but I don't think it can keep up with Rocket Roll here. Marle kinda sucks as always, and Cure is -not- what she needed to get better, and there's even an ice-resistant enemy here. She continues to be at least an okay pick against bosses, but only that. Ayla... is weird, because she joins with no skills, but amazing stats. Overall this is a losing trade (only ST, walled by physical tanks, damage isn't really any better than anyone else's), although you can at least slap the Berserker on her and watch her tear things up with effective stats that approach godmoding. This is, I figure, enough to beat Marle.
1. Crono
2. Robo
3. Lucca
4. Ayla
5. Marle
Magus' Castle: Okay, this is hilarious. To this point, no water mage has been anything but last place on these lists. That's about to change. Why? Ice Water. This spell is so stupid good at this point in the game it's not funny, MT death to almost everything (what little survives can be OHKOed by anyone else, although to be fair only in ST fashion). Rocket Roll can't keep up partly due to being notably weaker, but also due to dark resistance floating around here. Anyway, of the two water mages, Marle gets the nod as the superior one, because she has non-fail healing as well as better damage for two of the three bosses (Heal only exists for Magus), but it's virtually a tie as 90% of both of their worth is Ice Water. The other three are harder to rank. Robo pummels Crono fairly soundly on damage at this point (Robo Tackle is way better than Spincut) and Cure Beam > no Cure Beam, while Lucca... has decent GT damage but honestly struggles to find a niche in this dungeon, besides being a good source of fire damage for Magus. Crono's unite techs make him better for Magus anyway, probably. Optimally you wouldn't use either otherwise, although Crono at least is decent at picking off Jugglers post-Ice Water, and 14 speed is kinda noteworthy.
1. Marle
2. Frog
3. Robo
4. Crono
5. Lucca
Tyrano Lair: Somewhat weird situation. Ice Water would still be awesome here, but you can't actually use it! Curse you Ayla and Crono~~. Anyway, I pretty much have to score characters accordingly. Crono excels here despite the fact that there is a lightning-spoiling enemy because he's versatile and lightning rules all for Terrasaurs and Nizbel II. He also has Lightning 2 now although it mainly just sees use for multi-Terrasaur fights. Ayla can OHKO things others (besides Robo) miss and does so off decent speed and has the best damage for bosses (save Azala), but has nothing else (well, Kiss could be worse). Robo is slower and Laser Spin/Rocket Roll is decidedly mediocre by now (argh why do Volcanos null dark), so I'm inclined to say he's... worse than Ayla? Weird. Still pulls OHKOs that most people can't, so he's a decent choice for the third against randoms in a team dominated by ST anyway. Marle learns Haste and is now MVP vs. bosses for sure (that spell is broken frankly against them), though kinda meh against randoms. Lucca's a bit better against randoms but considerably worse against bosses. Frog there is just... no reason to use at all, lacks the Robo/Ayla ST smash, and lacks any form of GT/MT (his unites with both Crono and Ayla suck). I suspect he may be settling into that lategame mediocrity already, though hopefully Ice Water will make a return next area when he and Marle can actually be used at the same time again!
1. Crono
2. Marle
3. Ayla
4. Robo
5. Lucca
6. Frog
Mt. Woe: Another weird one. Quite apart from this being the first dungeon where you have anywhere near this much party choice (10 possible parties; it's been 3-4 the entire game until now), there's the problem that your party gains a lot of power and actually changes as the dungeon goes on, and then there's Rubbles. Breaking it down!
Against the randoms, at first, Ice Water is the best way to take down any formation with more than two enemies (that's a familiar story), although Lightning 2 + Laser Spin works just as well. For minor utility concerns, it's worth pointing out that only Marle can't one-shot most things ST here, so there's little reason to use her unless you're also using Frog. As time goes on, Crono gains levels/magic and starts being able to OHKO frailer enemies with Lightning 2, which definitely gives him some points. Then, the girls pick up Ice 2 and Fire 2, and suddenly whoa, balance change. Both of them hit quite a bit harder than Crono and OHKO everything in this dungeon. Man Eaters are an exception for Marle, and not Lucca (and notable because their ability to derail your party with confuse means that OHKOing them is extra valuable).
Giga Gaia deserves particular note because holy shit he's actually competent without Red Mail at these levels. Marle and Robo are clearly the PCs to use here, as Haste is godmode and Heal Beam is potent enough to seriously dent Giga Gaia's offence, even nulling it after Haste. Lucca deserves some note for being the best tank of his offence with her Taban Suit + Taban Helm MDef and 80% fire res, but realistically isn't dethroning those two.
I haven't mentioned Ayla yet, because there hasn't been much reason to do so. She can charm a speed tab from Giga Gaia but isn't impressing on combat normally... but then there's Rubbles. Rubbles are a huge, high-efficiency source of TP, and Ayla, with her high atk/spd and more importantly, high HIT gives you the best chance to kill 'em. So that's something. There's a catch-22, though: you have a decent chance to kill Rubbles regardless, and of course you want to use them to help out whoever your party is, so if you don't plan to use Ayla much then putting her in may be statistically self-defeating.
I have no idea how to rank the characters coming out of this; it's another case where people feel fairly balanced on the whole. Before the girls get the L2's: Crono > Frog ~= Marle > Robo > Ayla > Lucca. After the girls get the L2's: Lucca > Marle > Crono > Robo > Ayla > Frog. Rubble huntin': Ayla > other fighters > mages. Giga Gaia: Marle > Robo > Lucca > Ayla > Frog > Crono. Shaking this down, Marle on top is obvious, Frog/Ayla lower down is too... the rest depends how you weight things. I'll tiebreak for performance against Giga Gaia, since despite the fact that you CAN cheap him out, he remains a legitimate threat, far moreso than the rest of the battles here.
1. Marle
2. Robo
3. Lucca
4. Crono
5. Ayla
6. Frog
Ocean Palace: A few notable randoms here. The Scout series is weak (OHKO-bait) to one element, mocks and counters all other magic, and are physical tanks. Taking them out with anything but fire/ice/lightning (usually ST, though occasionally MT is possible) is inefficient, so everyone but Ayla and Robo score pretty big points for speeding this process along (Marle and Frog less than Crono and Lucca because they replace each other). There's also Barghests, Thrashers, and Lashers, all of whom have some pretty good counters in certain circumstances, so you want to OHKO them. Everyone but Marle and Lucca can do this. Mind, if I'd had Mega Bomb by now (and I was close... learned it from the boss here in fact) then Lucca would be able to join the OHKOs, and in fact would be able to do some GT OHKOing to boot. Even without this, things aren't always so bad for the girls, since they can participate in GT unites (Antipode 2, Cube Toss) that frequently pull multiple OHKOs. Overall assessment of the characters in randoms is thus something like Mega Bomb Lucca > Crono > no-MB Lucca > Frog > Marle > Ayla > Robo (speed tiebreak for the last pair there).
Now for bosses. Dalton's a bit of a putz so won't mean much, although Crono/Marle/Lucca works well there since they have a magic triple tech (won't be dodged, only one counter per round). Golem Twins are far more of a concern, since the wrong approach can shred your party. As always Haste is a godsend, but Lucca may for once be even more important because no attack gets this battle more under control than Hypno Wave - hitting both means you win, but even hitting one allows you to control things far more easily. Robo still gets some points for Heal Beam, if fewer because Lapises now exist (common drops from randoms here); Ayla can charm a couple tabs here (and charm doesn't cancel sleep) which is nice, and also rocks out the damage curve. Crono and Frog at least provide elemental diversity, with Frog providing more because water is a better element to hit them with. Rough feeling about performance against Golem Twins is thus Marle ~= Lucca > Ayla > Frog > Robo > Crono. We can debate how much weight to put on each, but here's how I think things average out to:
1. Lucca
2. Marle
3. Crono
4. Ayla
5. Frog
6. Robo
First time Robo has been anywhere near this low! Guess he really didn't like the wrench that scouts throw into the dungeon and nothing else he has really makes up for this lack, unlike Ayla's charm and heavy hitting.
Blackbird: There's not much to say about the Blackbird, but I feel it deserves its own section. Anyway, as most are probably aware, you have to regain PCs by finding their stuff here. As most are also probably aware, Ayla is exempt from this. It's possible to have some trouble here with harder fights solo, Ayla pretty much gives you +1 PCs on what you'd normally have, so that's a pretty big deal. Also, for what it's worth, her Beast Toss combo with Robo is nuts and lets you... uh... kill Golem Boss faster or he'll waste your time. Only issue with Ayla is she's probably the worst PC against the randoms (they get MT OHKOed by ANY magic, which the other four all have) but being a warm body to distract hits is still important enough to top here. Aside from that, PC performance is too similar to care about; the bosses suck, and while Robo is notably good against them he's also probably the worst against randoms (speed) so whatever. This is just an excuse to say "bring Ayla".
1. Ayla
2-5. Everyone else.
Death Peak: Hey guys Magus MT OHKOs every enemy here! With good speed! Know who else does that? Nobody. Nice start for him. Ayla and Lucca have GT OHKOs against some formations (and Ayla's even faster than Magus), otherwise you're going to be using at least two actions or a unite (and I think Fire Whirl's the only one strong enough?). Not that this is the end of the world since the enemies don't counter. The Lavos Spawns are just "do 4000 ST damage as fast as possible" (there's no need to heal), Robo and Ayla do that best, Marle has Haste, Frog/Lucca are at least better than Magus especially when together. So Ayla kinda excels everywhere, Frog excels nowhere, and Magus is at least MVP against randoms. Man, somehow I have less to say about this than the Blackbird, the game definitely eases up some after the Ocean Palace.
1. Ayla
2. Magus
3. Robo
4. Marle
5. Lucca
6. Frog
Sunken Desert: Oh look, enemies with some durability who often appear in large numbers or well-separated, who don't counter. MT blitz go go go, and Magus is still by far the best at this. He combines with Marle for a reliable 2HKO of the field. Meanwhile, Lucca and Ayla can't really get in on this fun because all the enemies here resist fire, and Crono/Frog have trouble combining with Magus for a 2HKO, though I imagine a Magic Scarf + their good magic weapons would get 'em there. Not much reason to use anyone else. Retinite is a weird case, you mostly want to devote one PC to water magic, one to offence, and one to healing. Marle is the obvious choice for the water mage since she can, as always, buy you a bunch of extra turns with Haste, although Magus isn't a bad choice for his all-around stats. For fighters, Ayla is actually the loser here on damage (Rock Throw is blocked) though if Retinite walks in range for Tail Spin that's a great option since it can be used after another fighter (read: Robo's Uzzi Punch) at full damage. Regardless, Crono and Robo can still do more, but y'know what? She's not much worse, she's fast, and she can get a Speed Tab here. Robo can double as a fighter and a healer, which is nice, and Crono makes an okay fighter option too. Frog and Lucca lack much reason to show up here.
1. Magus
2. Marle
3. Ayla
4. Robo
5. Crono
6. Frog
7. Lucca
Ozzie's Fort gets done here and uh you know what who cares, joke alert. I guess stealing a Flea Vest is kinda cool.
Future sidequests: Mm, good stuff here. Geno Dome likes to swarm you with enemies, most notably on the conveyor fight in which you fight five straight fights against anywhere from 2 to 6 enemies. Sweeping them is the way to go, and again, nobody does this better than Magus. The enemies have a 33% lightning weakness, and his Lightning 2 is by far the strongest such attack, nearly one-shotting enemies (if you already have Sun Shades, it would be a one-shot) and letting anyone except Ayla finish form there, notably the forced Robo. This helps Robo not embarass himself in his own dungeon. Other two-man combinations can sweep here, namely Lucca with Ayla and possibly Crono depending on levels. If you have free time, and since she's fast you may, Ayla can get in and charm things for Elixirs. That's all there is to say about randoms! Bosses... couple decent ones here. Mother Brain largely rewards ST/GT offence, since the safest way to defeat her involves leaving a Display alive (you can beat her taking down all the displays, but it involves a bit more preparation because she gains MT silence and decent MT damage, so I'll reward the easier route). Same deal as always here, Haste is awesome, nobody else lags or excels too terribly on ST at this point since Magus has Dark Bomb, except Frog (although he can always team up with Marle, Glacier's okay). Son of Sun is somewhat more notable, since Flare can do pretty WTF damage for CT and he's got good speed. Marle takes the usual MVP status here, but I do want to stress just how important high MDef is in this fight; I found Frog who wasn't twinked for it a borderline liability (gave me a use for Life 2, though!). With that stat pretty much cheesing out this fight, it's hard to argue with a Marle/Lucca/Magus party, although you could swap one of Lucca/Magus (probably Magus, since the Taban gear does some spoilin' here) for Frog/Robo to get some better MT healing. Obviously fire absorb = lulz to this fight, though.
Overall... if you couldn't tell, Magus is clearly the best in randoms, and everyone else is borderline irrelevant, although Ayla should be used to charm things with the free turns she'll get before Magus + Robo sweeps (though if you find him too slow, you can use anyone else but Ayla to help Magus sweep). If you killed Magus then Fire Whirl 2 is your best option. Against bosses, Marle does that whole thing where she's just clearly the best choice, and since she can help Magus sweep if you feel you have enough Elixirs she can take #1 overall. Magus runs second for what he does to randoms, Lucca third for having cast-best MDef and being the necessary for a sweeping if you lack Magus, Ayla fourth for charming mostly. The remaining three aren't very specifically useful, though I'll give Robo and Frog nods for their unites with Marle that can negate a casting of Flare regardless of your MDef for that fight, giving Frog the nod for his higher MDef and speed.
1. Marle
2. Magus
3. Lucca
4. Ayla
5. Frog
6. Robo
7. Crono
Cyrus' Tomb: Short one here, but the randoms aren't so incompetent for it to be irrelevant. They have decent 4-digit HP and counters. Unfortunately they also take 2x to fire. Guess what this means? Magus OHKOs 'em. If you do this quest a bit earlier he'll miss the highest-HP dudes, but a magic boost pushes him over the edge, and with his good speed, it's hard to argue with his performance here. There are decent items to steal so Ayla might as well be your second, and your third can be whoever the hell you want. I do have to give a nod to Lucca, though, for two reasons: she's the only one besides Magus who can pull OHKOs (she's just slower and needs either Flare or Sun Specs), and because right at the end of the dungeon there's a couple fights against Bases, who are physical immune and have what is effectively four-digit HP. Flare's the only thing that brings them down in one hit, but they DON'T counter so you can just sweep them with Magus + Lucca/Marle if you want. Specs on Magus would let Robo or Crono finish, too.
I see little reason to use a party beyond the three I've mentioned, though I'll give a nod to Crono because he could conceivably have Luminaire by now and would then be able to play the same role Lucca can, followed by Marle because her higher magic lets Magus complete his 2HKO to Bases more easily.
1. Magus
2. Lucca
3. Ayla
4. Crono
5. Marle
6. Frog
7. Robo
Rainbow Shell quest: Randoms here are a step up. Mostly because they actually have some speed, unlike almost everything else in the game! So sweeping them is actually a bit more demanding than normal. Anyway, you'd think that, after the last two dinosaur-themed dungeons made lightning awesome, that this one would continue the trend, and you'd be totally wrong, as the lategame anti-lightning bias starts here with the most common enemy in the dungeon absorbing the element and another countering it specifically. You might think Gigasaurs would call for it, but unlike their predecessors they have bad MDef (albeit physical immunity). There's another enemy here who halves physicals too.
Despite the speed of the enemies, thus, Lucca is the big winner here. Enemies have good enough durability/counters to call for the damage she can deal, and indeed, Flare can bring down all but one enemy in this dungeon in a single hit. The caveat is that Lucca may need a couple Speed Tabs to outspeed everything, along with the Taban Suit and a Dash Ring. Fortunately for her I consider this fully reasonable. No other character can do this unless you've powerlevelled Magus. Granted, double techs are another option, but guess what, the only MT double techs that are good enough here involve... yep, you guessed it. Fire Whirl sweeping is actually a notable option if you don't have Flare yet. The best way I can see to sweep things that doesn't involve Lucca is the Twister triple tech, and this feels an inferior option because it takes 3 actions, leaving you no turns with which to steal (some nice stuff here, hi Megalixirs and Ruby Armors) or deal with Winged Apes.
Winged Apes are the token magic spoiler of the dungeon, as even Flare/Fire Whirl/Twister will be lucky to notch a 2HKO here. Fortunately their Def is a little suspect. Robo can take them out in one hit unless his HP gets messed with, as can Ayla if you've learned Triple Kick (I have not). With Sun Specs, Rock Throw and Confuse also work (provided Crono has the Shiva Edge in the case of the latter). So the optimum party here likely has Lucca and Ayla, with the third being a judgement call between Crono and Robo depending on a few factors. The other three really don't offer much here.
Then there's the bosses. With the moves I had available, the party of Marle, Robo, and Lucca shines. Marle hastes everyone up while the two best damage-dealers unload their stuff. Marle can heal Robo/anyone else if needed (only for Yakra XIII, Rust Tyrano just growls like a chump and Robo flashes his Vigil Hat) and join in for Antipode 3 if not. Boom. This strategy easily destroyed Tyrano before he could get his breath attack off and made short work of Yakra as well. Ayla's a consideration here if she has Triple Kick, the other three are just "why". So, overall, Frog and Magus are the two who lack any reason to be used throughout all this (although I'll give Frog utility against Yakra as a tiebreak), Marle/Crono are situational, and #1 is very, very obvious.
1. Lucca
2. Ayla
3. Robo
4. Marle
5. Crono
6. Frog
7. Magus
Black Omen through to TerraMutant: Final dungeon time! I'm splitting it in two because the last bosses (Lavos Spawn and Zeal) are fought in a pretty unique way that deserves its own section (and you might want to fight Zeal three times), so this section focusses on the randoms.
Kay. Things hover mostly around 1800-2800 HP now. Blah blah, some things have scary counters, blah blah speed doesn't completely fail. Most of what applied to Giant's Claw applies here. Three different randoms decide that spoiling shadow and lightning is an awesome idea (and one of them weaks fire for giggles), leading to massive elemental imbalance. Which is silly because Lucca's Flare is the hardest-hitting tool at your disposal regardless. Armed with PrismSpecs, Lucca can one-shot everything in this dungeon except Goons and Flyclops, and with the Taban Suit and some Speed Tabs, she can do it before anything moves. If you nab the Magic Tabs from Aliens and feed them to her, then she ices Goons as well.. but even if you're not willing to do this, she lowers them low enough that Magus, Marle, or Frog can finish them off. Ditto Flyclops, for the most part; Antipode 3 will ground them in one go, magic quartering be damned, or Flare + something from Magus. They can also be picked off with singletarget physical attacks well enough.
Can anyone else match what Lucca does here? In a word... no. Lucca has sole possession of all multitarget attacks powerful enough to sweep this dungeon that aren't lightning or shadow. Randoms as a whole got almost no turns with this setup. It's not even just a matter of multitarget being good; her damage is as good as anyone else's singletarget (Robo can't use the PrismSpecs because he still needs an earring to get maxed crisis). However, one PC may match her indirectly... and of course, that's Ayla, because of Charm. Snagging Nova Armors is nice, snagging Megalixirs from Ruminators is better, and she can load up on all three types of tabs here. Goodbye, importance of base speed, as everyone in your main party can hit 15-16 easily! Hello, damage boosts. It'd be better if there was more game left, but this is still a nice boon. Twinking Ayla for 16 speed and Lucca for 15 allows you to pretty much mash through the dungeon with Charm and Flare, collecting goodies and wasting everything before they get a turn. Good stuff.
Three bosses to note, all fragile. MegaMutant sucks and just teaches you that status immunity is good if you didn't know it yet. The other two are more interesting because they're both physically immune. Lucca once again is the best at blasting them into pieces, but Marle, Magus, and even Crono all deserve an honourable mention, especially as Magus FINALLY learns Dark Matter from the high TP gains of this dungeon. The mages' score double points for their high MDef crippling the bosses' offence.
1. Lucca
2. Ayla
3. Magus
4. Marle
5. Crono
6. Robo
7. Frog
Lavos Spawn and Queen Zeal: The last bosses before Lavos. Notable mostly because both of these bosses make you pay for using multitarget, and both of them have a tempting steal or two. Oh yeah, Zeal also has two other bosses chained into her, which does affect things somewhat. As mentioned, you may be fighting the Zeal chain up to three times if you're a compleitionist or want multiple sexy Prism Dresses, so I felt as a whole this section weighed heavilly enough to get its own section. Plus, the Black Omen really deserves to be split up due to its size in -some- way.
Let's get things out of the way: Ayla auto-tops here. Not only is she at worst the second best ST damage-dealer, but she has Charm. Assuming you got the helms from Melchior, a Prism Dress for the final battle is a massive boon; a second Haste Helm is nice mostly for Zeal, though also has uses against Lavos if your levels are high enough to absorb the MDef hit from equipping one. There's also a Safe Helm if you feel like eating a mean counter from the Lavos Spawn and are willing to trade status immunity for ability to survive Grand Stone better. This one probably isn't worth it at this point, but it's there. More Prism Helms are strictly so you can outfit your entire party, which isn't necessarily practical.
Otherwise the battles mainly focus on how much ST damage you can pump out. Haste is actually unusually unimportant for these fights, because Lavos Spawn is fragile and Zeal has no status meaning you can safely use Haste Helms. Still, even hasting a third person isn't a bad idea for Zeal, and she can help out with Twin Charm to reduce the chance of some annoying counters. ST damage involves Robo as king (although he may need healing support if he's unlucky), with Ayla as a notable runner-up. Crono is third, though Frog and Lucca can also combo with Ayla well enough to match him, as can Marle against Zeal (though not Lavos Spawn). Magus... well, he gets unique dialog and superior music against Zeal! But sadly, that's not a very good objective reason to actually use him. Pah. He's extra bad against Lavos Spawn where he's literally stuck using physicals; Zeal he can target with Dark Bomb.
Mammon Machine throws a little wrench into the "smash ST as hard as possible" ranking above, because most of the ST already mentioned is physical, and Mammon Machine kinda mocks that. So if you want him dead dead dead quickly, you'll want magic. Which mostly means you'll want Lucca, because she doesn't suffer much against Zeal (good GT/ST combos with Robo and Ayla in Double Bomb and Blaze Kick). It puts Crono in the running somewhat too, and Magus to a lesser degree (better against Mammon, worse against Zeal).
How this shakes down overall feels... clear enough. Ayla top for stealing and good ST, Robo second for even better ST, Lucca third for the best magic and okay ST, Crono's an okay all-round option, Magus a slightly inferior one, Marle manages to not be last because she can haste herself (and someone else if you only have one Haste Helm) and Frog... well uh, Masamune healing hype against Mammon Machine? Maybe?
1. Ayla
2. Robo
3. Lucca
4. Crono
5. Magus
6. Marle
7. Frog
Lavos: Getting his own section! Obviously this guy's the big bad so you should care about who you use here. Before talking about him, some setup notes...
-Lavos has a few extremely hard-hitting magical attacks by the game's standards. Having less than about 80 MDef gets you OHKOed. Having less than 90 may mean you take lots of damage and is sub-optimal, and also means that you can still be one-shotted by Crying Heavens. This is largely okay; although the non-mages all have only 70-80 MDef at endgame levels, characters can cover up MDef well at this point with Prism Helm (+9), Moon Armor (OPB/FAQ-bait) or Zodiac Cape (+10), and Wall Ring or Flea Vest (+10 or +12). However, this does cut in to what equipment options you have here.
-Further cutting into these options is the fact that Lavos has some very nasty status attacks at his disposal. The worst is Obstacle (MT chaos) which you are virtually guaranteed to see, but Spell can also be hard to avoid seeing and ruins your day too. Various helms (inluding Prism), Nova Armor (male only, no MDef) and Amulet (OPB) are your only real options for stopping this.
This mostly means that using Haste (or Safe) Helms here is pretty suspect. You'll pretty much have to use the other two equips to cover status immunity and MDef, respectively. Just about the only character I can see recommending one for here is Magus, who can use the Nova Armor and maintain his high base MDef well. That's certainly a point in his favour. Other characters -can- get away with it, but at a cost of an accessory slot, and there's plenty of valuable ones flying around by now.
Now, Lavos himself. The first form has two arms with ~10k HP which you want to bring down around the same time, as they get scarier when alone, followed by a 20k HP body which can be blitzed with whatever. MT obviously gets a shot in the arm for the first part. Lucca is terrific here because Flare is unmatched MT damage and high-end ST. Robo has the best ST if you can keep his HP at a nice value, while Ayla is, along with Lucca, the best at consistent damage. Magus is the runner-up for multitarget.
Final Lavos features a 2000 HP Lavos Bit who absorbs all elements. You want to take this out run away lest it get off Protective Seal, and taking it out immediately also gets the core's defence down as soon as possible. One shot from Robo takes this out nicely as all parts of Lavos skip their first turn, with other options including Ayla (may need an accessory) and Crono (absolutely needs an accessory, probably Prism Specs). After that, you start tearing into the remaining two parts, killing Centre Bit before it does much and then raping the core with its defence down. A decent offence will kill Lavos before he can get his defence up again (although you may need to take a turn out to one-shot the Lavos Bit a second time if your party isn't fairly optimised). MT does get slight bonus points here as there will be a window where you're attacking both Centre Bit and Core, but not a large one. So Robo is the top damage-dealer easily (once the two bits are dead nothing will touch his HP), again with Ayla and Lucca as runners-up.
What about utility? Well, it's pretty obvious that Haste is going to be useful here again, and it is, allowing other characters to maintain their superior defensive gear so you don't have to worry about exploding while you kick Lavos around. Protect and Shell get no such hype because items can replicate them, if you want. Life Line is the other main utility I'd hype, though this forces a very, very speific party. Still, it lets you live through any nonsense Lavos does pull if your levels are low, and with four dangerously powerful MT moves floating around. This is a fairly minor point to me and mostly serves to keep Crono clearly out of last place here (since I think Magus' easy ability to wear a Haste Helm is worth more).
I have trouble sorting the top four. I kinda feel like Ayla's the least worth deploying, but at the same time, her exploits in the final dungeon are what make a Marle/Lucca/Robo party here so viable. Marle varies from the least useful of these four to the most useful depending on your level, and how viable you think Haste Helms are. Robo simply does the most damage overall, though Lucca does help blitz through some of the more dangerous parts of the battle. Ah well. I'll be consistent with my stance that doing better at lower levels is more important, so Marle top, and I can't ignore just -how- good Robo's damage is without even taking a Prism Specs, so he's second. I'll put Ayla over Lucca for the aforementioned stealing, without which this party would probably feel a bit too slow. And there you have it:
1. Marle
2. Robo
3. Ayla
4. Lucca
5. Magus
6. Crono
7. Frog
And that's it! Although I won't be specifically doing further analyses, I do want to talk about the party as their levels rise and on NG+. First of all, actually hitting Level 50 means a big spike up for Robo, as he can now hit 999 HP without an accessory. Hello, nearly 5000 damage with Prism Specs. This is insane. At this point, along with higher levels and more speed tabs negating his only stat weaknesses, he takes over as the #1 PC pretty easily. Marle starts to fall off pretty badly, no shock there - everyone maxes MDef and Haste Helms become more practical. This Haste Helm thing indirectly helps all the guys, who an equip Nova Armour and still have an accessory slot to block statuses, but only so much - not everything uses status, after all. Crono in particular starts to rise a fair bit with -repeated- NG+ because he has the highest tech multiplier in the game, so Luminaire will eventually eclipse Flare by a bit. Ayla maintains the second strongest physical game forever, Magus falls off further as he loses his stat advantages (magic/speed/MDef), Frog... sadly, never really amounts to much. At a certain point I imagine the scale eventually becomes Robo > Crono > Ayla > Lucca > Magus > Marle > Frog, but this may be well past the point of any comparisons being at all practical.
