Metaphor: ReFantazio – Best Archetype tier list

Every Archetype in Metaphor: ReFantazio ranked in a tier list from best to worst

Metaphor: ReFantazio / Atlus

Metaphor: ReFantazio has a total of 47 different Archetypes spread across 14 lineages, and all of them have different utility in battle. Since any character can learn any archetype (except for the Royal Archetypes), you can build your party in any way you want, which means you have an excess of options.

To help you narrow down your options, we’ve gone through every Archetype lineage and ranked them in a tier list, from the ones you can largely ignore, to the ones you should build your entire party around. You’ll need to access them all first though, which is where our guide on how to unlock every Archetype in Metaphor: ReFantazio comes in.

Contents

1. S-Tier Archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio
2. A-Tier Archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio
3. B-Tier Archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio
4. C-Tier Archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio

S-Tier Archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Summoner

Devil Summoner / Atlus

Summoner is likely to be one of the last Archetypes you unlock, and is the primary Archetype for the sixth party member, Eupha. She may have a bit of a meek personality, but the Summoner class is anything but.

It is one of the two special classes where you must gather items and craft Talismans to unlock its abilities – rather than just unlocking them through level-up. It is entirely worth the effort though, as when combined with Eupha’s amazing Magic stat, it will tear through enemies like they’re nothing.

Not only do all of these abilities give Summoner amazing weakness coverage – including Almighty – but some of their best abilities also inflict other effects such as status conditions or stat debuffs.

Healer

Saviour / Atlus

Recovery magic is essential in any RPG, but unlike in a lot of other games, the Healer in Metaphor isn’t just locked to support skills.

This class is a must-have, able to heal your entire party in one turn, and eventually being able to remove everyone’s status conditions and revive any fallen ally with full HP, saving you from wasting your precious items. That alone would be enough to make it one of the best classes, but on top of that, it gets access to powerful Light magic attacks – especially useful as many major enemies in the game are weak to it.

Merchant

Tycoon / Atlus

Paying money to use attacks may not seem all that appealing at first, but you’ll quickly realize just how powerful a tactic is. MP is your biggest limiting factor when in long dungeons, and money isn’t too hard to come by in Metaphor, which means that a Merchant can deal out big attacks even when the rest of your party is out of MP.

If that wasn’t enough, all of their attacks have high critical rates and deal Almighty damage, meaning they’ll never be blocked or resisted, and still have a good chance to give you extra Turn Icons. But wait, there’s more! Its passive abilities make any items you use doubly effective and it can increase the drop rate of rare items from enemies, making it perfect for grinding too.

A-Tier Archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Warrior

Samurai / Atlus

While Warrior isn’t the strongest on its own, when combined with other Archetypes that can buff it, it’ll be your biggest damage dealer in the party. Early on it gets great skills that strike multiple times before eventually switching into insanely powerful attacks that target all enemies. These skills are heavy on the MP cost, but it doesn’t matter because they’ll take large groups of enemies down in a flash.

Faker

Trickster / Atlus

Faker is not necessarily one you want as a character’s primary Archetype, however, its skills are very powerful, and using them as inherited skills will be a huge boon to your team.

While manipulating the Turn Icons isn’t always the best strategy – especially as it can backfire – all of the abilities that inflict debuffs on enemies (or remove whatever buffs they’ve built up) are essential to beating the game’s toughest bosses. It gets even better when you can upgrade it to the Trickster, as then you can do more complex things, like move MP around the party as needed.

Knight

Paladin / Atlus

Knight is an interesting case, as while it slides off towards the end of the game, it’s very powerful most of the way through.

Knight’s Proclamation and its more powerful variants are top-tier skills, as they significantly reduce the number of hits other members of the party are going to be taking. While this seems like it’s the perfect fit for a high endurance character like Hulkenberg, it’s actually even more overpowered on the likes of Heismay, who can draw damage in and then dodge it – taking no damage and draining the enemy’s turn icons.

The problem is that most of the end-game bosses almost exclusively use attacks that hit the entire party at once, which ignores the effects of this very powerful ability.

Commander

Warlord / Atlus

Like Faker, no one should have Commander as their primary Archetype, but instead use its skills in the inherited slots to great effect. There are two main stars of the show here. Formation of Vigor, which pulls all allies to the front row and raises their attack by two stages, and Shelter Formation, which pushes all allies to the back row and raises their defense by two stages.

With this, you turn already powerful damage-dealers like the Warrior and Summoner into unstoppable juggernauts that will obliterate an enemy’s health bar, and if the enemy starts getting lucky breaks, you can just pull everyone back and make them much more resistant to damage. Sometimes it’s even worth having these abilities on multiple party members so you can adapt to different scenarios.

Masked Dancer

Persona Master / Atlus

The Masked Dancer sits in a unique position, as you can give it a wide range of different abilities depending on what masks you craft and equip for it. This allows it to fill whatever hole is currently in your party. Whether you need a healer, a status-inflicter, or even a damage-dealer, Masked Dancer can do it, even if it can’t do it as well as a dedicated class. It gets some good unique abilities too, like how it can inflict weaknesses to various elements on enemies, bypassing any Block/Repels the enemy has set up.

B-Tier Archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Thief

Ninja / Atlus

Thief is a lineage that takes a while to show its true power, but once it does it’s fairly reliable, if a little specific in terms of use cases. At the lower levels Thief is just a solid damage-dealing class that also lets you Steal if you feel like it. The Drain HP skill can be useful although the Drain MP skill isn’t as useful as you might hope.

However, when you get to the higher tiers those effects begin to stack into one ability and that’s when this lineage starts to cook. When you’re throwing out attacks that both Drain MP and have a chance to one-hit kill, or even lower the target’s hit/evade chance, then you’ve got something worth investing in.

Mage

Warlock / Atlus

When you’re in the early game and your options for elemental damage are limited, Mage is a great way to ensure that you’re faced with an enemy whose weaknesses you can’t exploit. However, as your repertoire grows it will quickly become unnecessary. That said, there are a few skills worth grabbing for inheritance, like the passive that increases a character’s max MP or magic attack damage. Aside from that though, once you’re in the mid-game, you’ll have plenty of better ways to unleash every type of elemental damage.

Seeker

Soul Hacker / Atlu

As the first Archetype you unlock, Seeker is very much a jack of all trades, master of none situation, which stops it from being all that useful for most of the game. It does a bit of magic damage, a bit of physical damage, some stat manipulation, and some healing, but all of it can be done better by other Archetypes that specialize.

The only thing that stops it from dropping into the C-Tier is the Prince Archetype, which is unlocked as part of the story and is actually one of the best in the game. It’s just a shame it falls into a lineage that doesn’t live up to its final form.

C-Tier Archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Gunner

Dragoon / Atlus

Gunner starts off niche but useful, but in the higher tiers, it completely loses the point of what it’s supposed to do. All of Gunner’s offensive abilities can only be used from the back row, which lowers the amount of damage they can deal, but that’s ok because the first two tiers of this lineage buff all their abilities up with chances to inflict status or debuff their targets.

However, Dragoon completely forgets this and goes for pure damage instead. The late-game passive that negates the back-row damage debuff doesn’t make up for it either, as then all you’re left with is an Archetype that focuses on pure offense and is outclassed by so many other Archetypes. It’s a worthwhile investment early on, but don’t stick with it for too long.

Berserker

Destroyer / Atlus

As what is probably the last lineage you’ll unlock in the game, you’d expect Berserker to be a lot more interesting than it is. The problem with it is that it’s a one-trick pony and other ponies can do better versions of that trick. It’s focused on charging up before dealing massively powerful strikes, as well as having high HP to keep it in the fight for longer.

The problem is that the Warrior can deal more damage in fewer turns if properly buffed, and the Knight can avoid HP ever being a problem as it has high enough endurance that it’s rarely threatened. Something that takes multiple turns to do the same job isn’t worth the effort.

Brawler

Martial Artist / Atlus

Brawler’s super late-game highest-level passive skills are worth investing in for inherited skills. That’s it. Much like the Berserker, it’s outclassed by other physical-attacking Archetypes, and relying on spending HP for your attacks isn’t great, as it just means you have to constantly micromanage them, especially as the attack’s damage is proportional to their HP.

The the highest level the Martial Artist gets a couple of great passives that auto-revives a character once per battle and makes them immune to most status effects, which is great, but it’s not worth everything you have to put into this lineage to get it all the way to the end.

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