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Ranking the keyblade wielders from the strongest to the weakest my honest opinion!



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Foxycian

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Last I checked (which was research for this comment aka 30 seconds ago) Vanitas was manipulating Ven. He needed to lose in order to gain control of the X-Blade. That L was a part of his plan. You could say that it still counts, but let's not fotget the one who was in charged when they fused. It wasn't Ven. That means that Vanitas' heart is stronger than Ven's.

Ven got played like a Winne the Pooh minigame - it was mandatory and disrespectful.

The second battle, they fought to a standstill.



You mean, with 10+ years of PTSD, in a symbolism match with 3 of the 5 Soras?



Having a pure light isn't that special. All the Disney princesses (except Ariel) have one. Hell, Kairi has a pure heart too, and she is almost completely useless.
Who said I was comparing vanitas to aqua in remind I’m talking about bbs when she didn’t have pstd, and no where is your proof vanitas lost on purpose? Terra Ventus and Aqua all beat vanitas, ventus beat him in the final fight (fair and square) before they merge

Edit: Vanitas in the final fight didn’t hold back, he didn’t need to lose on purpose to fuse with ven that wasn’t his only option, either way Ventus won against him with his own strength before the fusion thing, in a way ventus is also a keyblade Master in name but lacks the experience terra and aqua had.
 
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WizardHazard

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Strongly disagree with all the lists that have been posted here, It's like you guys didn't play KH3's ending or something.

S Tier
-Master Xehanort (X-Blade)

A Tier
-Xehanort (Armored)
-Sora

B Tier
-Mickey
-Riku
-Terranort
-Lingering Will

C tier
-Terra
-Aqua
-Roxas
-Vanitas
-Eraqus

D Tier
-Xion
-Ventus

E Tier
-Kairi
-Axel
 

Foxycian

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Strongly disagree with all the lists that have been posted here, It's like you guys didn't play KH3's ending or something.

S Tier
-Master Xehanort (X-Blade)

A Tier
-Xehanort (Armored)
-Sora

B Tier
-Mickey
-Riku
-Terranort
-Lingering Will

C tier
-Terra
-Aqua
-Roxas
-Vanitas
-Eraqus

D Tier
-Xion
-Ventus

E Tier
-Kairi
-Axel
I agree with this list except for ventus and Sora placement,

ventus defeated vanitas one on one in the final battle, despite being split in half by xehanort he is still strong when in time of need, even aqua struggled with vanitas so really ventus should be high,

Sora tbh I disagree, he is not that impressive on his own, if anything his either B or C, the game have been saying it hundred of time that he is strong due to his connection to others not from his powers alone, Sora quote when everyone died “they gave me my powers all of it... without them I’m worthless” since kh1 it was pretty obvious cause the game kept reminding us that the strength in this game is of how strong the person heart is, Sora heart is strong cause you know friendship etc, why do you think he always loses in cutscenes? Cause his just not as impressive as his gameplay self which is you the player making him look impressive, Nomura might not be the best story writer but I doubt even he would cross the line by making a
kid (who live on an island and uses his keyblade like a baseball bat with so little training from any true keyblade master) can actually stand up to Xehanort a keyblade master with 85 years of experience, powerscale doesn’t matter it’s the strength of ones heart, that’s why ventus defeated vanitas and still standing (while aqua could barely stand) cause in his heart he wants to protect her which gave him the strength, friends are my power etc just like what people already said anyone can be strong when the plot demands it.
 
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WizardHazard

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I agree with this list except for ventus and Sora placement,

ventus defeated vanitas one on one in the final battle, despite being split in half by xehanort he is still strong when in time of need, even aqua struggled with vanitas so really ventus should be high,

Sora tbh I disagree, he is not that impressive on his own, if anything his either B or C, the game have been saying it hundred of time that he is strong due to his connection to others not from his powers alone, Sora quote when everyone died “they gave me my powers all of it... without them I’m worthless” since kh1 it was pretty obvious cause the game kept reminding us that the strength in this game is of how strong the person heart is, Sora heart is strong cause you know friendship etc, why do you think he always loses in cutscenes? Cause his just not as impressive as his gameplay self which is you the player making him look impressive, Nomura might not be the best story writer but I doubt even he would cross the line by making a
kid (who live on an island and uses his keyblade like a baseball bat with so little training from any true keyblade master) can actually stand up to Xehanort a keyblade master with 85 years of experience, powerscale doesn’t matter it’s the strength of ones heart, that’s why ventus defeated vanitas and still standing (while aqua could barely stand) cause in his heart he wants to protect her which gave him the strength, friends are my power etc just like what people already said anyone can be strong when the plot demands it.
Sora has literally defeated nearly every single character on this list, some of them were even AMPED.
1V1'd Aqua.
1V1'd Riku+Amp, twice.
1V1'd Terranort (Re:Mind, made him run away)
1V1'd Roxas.
Why he is so strong doesn't matter, yes being connected to others make him stronger but he doesn't need them to physically assist him so It's still HIS power.
Give it a rest, he defeated X-Blade MX so unless you think Donald and Goofy are stronger than all Keyblade Wielders I don't see how he could possibly be rated as low as C tier.

Re:Mind DLC adds fuel to my fire, Data fights are CANON + Sora/Donald/Goofy easily dealt with Xehanort's Replicas why the rest of the Guardians struggled to reproduce the same feat.
 

Foxycian

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Sora has literally defeated nearly every single character on this list, some of them were even AMPED.
1V1'd Aqua.
1V1'd Riku+Amp, twice.
1V1'd Terranort (Re:Mind, made him run away)
1V1'd Roxas.
Why he is so strong doesn't matter, yes being connected to others make him stronger but he doesn't need them to physically assist him so It's still HIS power.
Give it a rest, he defeated X-Blade MX so unless you think Donald and Goofy are stronger than all Keyblade Wielders I don't see how he could possibly be rated as low as C tier.

Re:Mind DLC adds fuel to my fire, Data fights are CANON + Sora/Donald/Goofy easily dealt with Xehanort's Replicas why the rest of the Guardians struggled to reproduce the same feat.
Guess we have different opinions then, the only explanation of his power is that the plot demands who needs to win at certain times, Sora hundreds of time said it himself that he is strong cause of his allies and it’s true we are not just talking words here, in this universe a heart is strength and Sora heart has many people in it or connected to it why do you think all his moves are various versions of ventus and Roxas? Sora winning doesn’t make him the strongest, riku showed impressive feat more then Sora in Kh3D and he was said to be the better between Two since kh1 and even Donald agrees that no one can beat riku, the thing about this series is the power scaling is messed up just like everyone pointed it already and that who ever wins is whoever the plot demands it, also Sora lost to terranort in the cutscenes, and lost to Roxas until He surprised Roxas with a sneak Attack and lastly he only faced Riku when riku was at his weakest point and that is relying on darkness alone, as for Aqua I don’t think she was at her best shape when fighting Sora she wasn’t herself, tbh I’m not looking for a debate if you think Sora is the strongest then sure go ahead but everyone has different views on that matter, for me Sora is C tier

I’m not really looking for a debate so this will be my last comment for you.
 

EternalDream

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Just for the record, Re:Mind shows us Sora did NOT win by his own strength alone against MX with the x-Blade. By all means, the 'loss' we caught a glimpse of before Sora miraculously was still blocking the beam is what really should have happened, but stable time loops are a thing in this series, and Re:Mind Sora and the Guardians of Light together defeating the Armored Xehanorts in the KBG (which is a group effort and definitely not Sora alone) is what weakened x-Blade MX in Scala enough for pre-time travel Sora to win.

Which just goes back to his friends and connections being his real strength above all else, making it hard to really tier him properly by himself.
 
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Just for the record, Re:Mind shows us Sora did NOT win by his own strength alone against MX with the x-Blade. By all means, the 'loss' we caught a glimpse of before Sora miraculously was still blocking the beam is what really should have happened, but stable time loops are a thing in this series, and Re:Mind Sora and the Guardians of Light together defeating the Armored Xehanorts in the KBG (which is a group effort and definitely not Sora alone) is what weakened x-Blade MX in Scala enough for pre-time travel Sora to win.

Which just goes back to his friends and connections being his real strength above all else, making it hard to really tier him properly by himself.


Speaking of which, where did that 2nd armored xehanort even come from? How and why were their health linked to each other? No, how were the original 12 replicas inside xehanort's heart, returned their heart fragments to xehanort, then entered the real world?
 

DarknessInZero

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Strongly disagree with all the lists that have been posted here, It's like you guys didn't play KH3's ending or something.

I will stop reading here to predict this is a message mad about Sora's placement.

Sora has literally defeated nearly every single character on this list, some of them were even AMPED.
1V1'd Aqua.
1V1'd Riku+Amp, twice.
1V1'd Terranort (Re:Mind, made him run away)
1V1'd Roxas.

And there we go
 
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Using only the currently active keyblade wielders that we know enough about:

Tier 1
Sora Riku Mickey
Tier 2
Aqua Terra
Tier 3
Roxas Ventus
Tier 4
Lea Xion Kairi(though probably Tier 5)


- The names in each Tier are unordered
e.g. I'm not saying Aqua>Terra or Sora>Riku>Mickey etc.

- There are no rigid boundaries between adjacent Tiers
 

*TwilightNight*

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Sora has literally defeated nearly every single character on this list, some of them were even AMPED.
1V1'd Aqua.
1V1'd Riku+Amp, twice.
1V1'd Terranort (Re:Mind, made him run away)
1V1'd Roxas.

Nah. Roxas owned him in their one on one battle. He had the upper hand the entirety of the fight and disarmed him. If it wasn't for Sora's plot armor, that complete bull of what happened afterwards wouldn't have been a thing. I was insulted on Roxas' behalf.
 

Absent

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That Dive to the Heart fight is still dumb to me. How do you forget a central feature of a weapon you use? Plot armor that's how.
 

SuperNova

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Honestly, power scaling in general in KH is ridiculous. How characters act in cutscenes does not translate to gameplay normally. But there is no way Sora is stronger than Master Xehanort or Aqua/Mickey. If anything he might be on par in strength with Riku, but his fight against Aqua was when she was weakened by Darkness, and Mickey can unleash Ultima.
 

WizardHazard

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Sora downplayers usually have no idea how power scaling work and can't even evaluate feats, this is the sad truth.
Sora has defeated a being with Universal DC, he's the strongest character aside of X-Blade MX by feats and by scaling;
 

*TwilightNight*

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That Dive to the Heart fight is still dumb to me. How do you forget a central feature of a weapon you use? Plot armor that's how.

It was legit ridiculous.

It's like Nomura knows Roxas is presented as a budding powerhouse narratively, but he couldn't have Sora "lose" either, so he chose the most bullcrap way to end that fight despite Roxas dominating the battle as the superior swordsman.

There were other options that could've worked better.
 

Noivern

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The way this thread still goes on and people still twist actual canon stuff to favour their favorites is still so funny to me.

Canonically, Sora is the strongest character if we go by feats. This is not arguable, it's literally there. Wheter his power is his own or from his friends doesn't matter because Kingdom Hearts, as a whole, changes it's own canon constantly for it's own purposes.

Xehanort Seeker of Darkness was a end-of-the-world treat during KH1 and still managed to be powerful during his later fights inside Riku's heart, but he still managed to be caught off-guard by a bunch of kids with no special powers whatsoever in 3. He wasn't defeated by them and chose to let them go, obviously, but just being ABLE to be caught offguard is ridiculous.

Sora constantly loses and regains his power in literally every new game just because the plot says so, but Riku can keep building his arsenal (even though 3D Riku should canonically be marginally stronger than Sora, they end up playing pretty much the same?). Even Donald and Goofy say they lost a majority of their power in the Gummi-Instagram-Thingy loading screens in KH3 which makes no sense at all since they didn't do anything at all between 2 and 3 besides watching Data-Sora do his thing through a computer in Coded.

KH3 is CONSTANTLY showing characters at different power levels throughout the game. The Guardians of Light are a bunch of weaklings throughout the cutscenes of the Keyblade Graveyard, all being saved by Sora, but then in Re:Mind they are all quite strong on their own.

One example is how sometimes people say gameplay =/= actual power level in cutscenes (even though in San Fransokyo Sora literally showcases every single thing we can do gameplay wise and even more in one of the cutscenes, and the Lingering Will does even more dumb things in Re:Mind than what he does in his boss fight).

Lea/Axel and Kairi are played as weaker than the others when Axel should canonically be one of the strongest fighters since he was the Assassin of the Organization, eliminating other members on his own (AND putting Xion down, and probably could take down non-dual-wield Roxas too) and we know he can still fight with his Chakrams if wanted, the Keyblade should only have powered him up, but then the Guardians vs Xehanort fight in Re:Mind puts all of them in pretty much the same power level ignoring literally everything else.

I'm not posting this to further the discussion (nor do I intend to take part in it again, really), it's just amusing to me how there's this need to rank characters in a franchise that doesn't give a crap to consistency. And how people will take certain things as canon but will argue the authenticity of other scenes because "it doesn't seem right/fair" or "it was protagonism taking place, not a fair fight" (aka literally everything that revolves around Sora, really).

When it comes down to what power scaling means in Kingdom Hearts the answer will always be "whatever Nomura wants to present for the current plot point". wheter it be Sora loosing his powers for the 4th time or Kairi suddenly going head-to-toe with Chi-Blade-Powered Master Xehanort.

But ehh, I get excited over other aspects of the franchise so I suppose getting amused over people getting so intensive about something I see as trivial or irrelevant is pretty redundant.
 
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The way this thread still goes on and people still twist actual canon stuff to favour their favorites is still so funny to me.

Canonically, Sora is the strongest character if we go by feats. This is not arguable, it's literally there. Wheter his power is his own or from his friends doesn't matter because Kingdom Hearts, as a whole, changes it's own canon constantly for it's own purposes.

Xehanort Seeker of Darkness was a end-of-the-world treat during KH1 and still managed to be powerful during his later fights inside Riku's heart, but he still managed to be caught off-guard by a bunch of kids with no special powers whatsoever in 3. He wasn't defeated by them and chose to let them go, obviously, but just being ABLE to be caught offguard is ridiculous.

Sora constantly loses and regains his power in literally every new game just because the plot says so, but Riku can keep building his arsenal (even though 3D Riku should canonically be marginally stronger than Sora, they end up playing pretty much the same?). Even Donald and Goofy say they lost a majority of their power in the Gummi-Instagram-Thingy loading screens in KH3 which makes no sense at all since they didn't do anything at all between 2 and 3 besides watching Data-Sora do his thing through a computer in Coded.

KH3 is CONSTANTLY showing characters at different power levels throughout the game. The Guardians of Light are a bunch of weaklings throughout the cutscenes of the Keyblade Graveyard, all being saved by Sora, but then in Re:Mind they are all quite strong on their own.

One example is how sometimes people say gameplay =/= actual power level in cutscenes (even though in San Fransokyo Sora literally showcases every single thing we can do gameplay wise and even more in one of the cutscenes, and the Lingering Will does even more dumb things in Re:Mind than what he does in his boss fight).

Lea/Axel and Kairi are played as weaker than the others when Axel should canonically be one of the strongest fighters since he was the Assassin of the Organization, eliminating other members on his own (AND putting Xion down, and probably could take down non-dual-wield Roxas too) and we know he can still fight with his Chakrams if wanted, the Keyblade should only have powered him up, but then the Guardians vs Xehanort fight in Re:Mind puts all of them in pretty much the same power level ignoring literally everything else.

I'm not posting this to further the discussion (nor do I intend to take part in it again, really), it's just amusing to me how there's this need to rank characters in a franchise that doesn't give a crap to consistency. And how people will take certain things as canon but will argue the authenticity of other scenes because "it doesn't seem right/fair" or "it was protagonism taking place, not a fair fight" (aka literally everything that revolves around Sora, really).

When it comes down to what power scaling means in Kingdom Hearts the answer will always be "whatever Nomura wants to present for the current plot point". wheter it be Sora loosing his powers for the 4th time or Kairi suddenly going head-to-toe with Chi-Blade-Powered Master Xehanort.

But ehh, I get excited over other aspects of the franchise so I suppose getting amused over people getting so intensive about something I see as trivial or irrelevant is pretty redundant.

That's why I merely place the keyblade wielders into permeable tiers. Ordering them by number is asinine. I've tried. It wasn't fun. The best I can do is put certain characters into groups that represent their average "power" while factoring in fighting style, affinities, temperament, etc. as best I can.

It isn't s simple as "who explodes the biggest stuff" or "who swings the strongest" right?
 

Face My Fears

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Strongly disagree with all the lists that have been posted here, It's like you guys didn't play KH3's ending or something.

S Tier
-Master Xehanort (X-Blade)

A Tier
-Xehanort (Armored)
-Sora

B Tier
-Mickey
-Riku
-Terranort
-Lingering Will

C tier
-Terra
-Aqua
-Roxas
-Vanitas
-Eraqus

D Tier
-Xion
-Ventus

E Tier
-Kairi
-Axel
This seems totally wrong in regards to Kairi and Xion.
Spoiler Spoiler Show


My tiers would be:

S Tier:
Master Xehanort w/X-Blade

A Tier:
Sora
Roxas
Kairi

B Tier:
Aqua
Riku
Mickey
Xion

C Tier:
Terra
Ven
Vanitas
Terranort
Eraqus

D Tier:
Axel
 

SweetYetSalty

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The way this thread still goes on and people still twist actual canon stuff to favour their favorites is still so funny to me.

Canonically, Sora is the strongest character if we go by feats. This is not arguable, it's literally there. Wheter his power is his own or from his friends doesn't matter because Kingdom Hearts, as a whole, changes it's own canon constantly for it's own purposes.

Xehanort Seeker of Darkness was a end-of-the-world treat during KH1 and still managed to be powerful during his later fights inside Riku's heart, but he still managed to be caught off-guard by a bunch of kids with no special powers whatsoever in 3. He wasn't defeated by them and chose to let them go, obviously, but just being ABLE to be caught offguard is ridiculous.

Sora constantly loses and regains his power in literally every new game just because the plot says so, but Riku can keep building his arsenal (even though 3D Riku should canonically be marginally stronger than Sora, they end up playing pretty much the same?). Even Donald and Goofy say they lost a majority of their power in the Gummi-Instagram-Thingy loading screens in KH3 which makes no sense at all since they didn't do anything at all between 2 and 3 besides watching Data-Sora do his thing through a computer in Coded.

KH3 is CONSTANTLY showing characters at different power levels throughout the game. The Guardians of Light are a bunch of weaklings throughout the cutscenes of the Keyblade Graveyard, all being saved by Sora, but then in Re:Mind they are all quite strong on their own.

One example is how sometimes people say gameplay =/= actual power level in cutscenes (even though in San Fransokyo Sora literally showcases every single thing we can do gameplay wise and even more in one of the cutscenes, and the Lingering Will does even more dumb things in Re:Mind than what he does in his boss fight).

Lea/Axel and Kairi are played as weaker than the others when Axel should canonically be one of the strongest fighters since he was the Assassin of the Organization, eliminating other members on his own (AND putting Xion down, and probably could take down non-dual-wield Roxas too) and we know he can still fight with his Chakrams if wanted, the Keyblade should only have powered him up, but then the Guardians vs Xehanort fight in Re:Mind puts all of them in pretty much the same power level ignoring literally everything else.

I'm not posting this to further the discussion (nor do I intend to take part in it again, really), it's just amusing to me how there's this need to rank characters in a franchise that doesn't give a crap to consistency. And how people will take certain things as canon but will argue the authenticity of other scenes because "it doesn't seem right/fair" or "it was protagonism taking place, not a fair fight" (aka literally everything that revolves around Sora, really).

When it comes down to what power scaling means in Kingdom Hearts the answer will always be "whatever Nomura wants to present for the current plot point". wheter it be Sora loosing his powers for the 4th time or Kairi suddenly going head-to-toe with Chi-Blade-Powered Master Xehanort.

But ehh, I get excited over other aspects of the franchise so I suppose getting amused over people getting so intensive about something I see as trivial or irrelevant is pretty redundant.
This! All of this. This series does not care about powerlevels or power scaling. Especially after ReMind with everything Kairi did. This is a video game franchise so you have to combined cutscenes with gameplay to gauge "powerlevels" and even then you'll run into inconsistencies.

Spoiler Spoiler Show


Characters get as strong as they need to be for the plot. It's why nobody should be worried if the heroes will be strong enough to fight the Foretellers in the future. This debate on who's strongest or top tier is rather funny given everything that has happened power wise with these characters.
 

Noivern

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This! All of this. This series does not care about powerlevels or power scaling. Especially after ReMind with everything Kairi did. This is a video game franchise so you have to combined cutscenes with gameplay to gauge "powerlevels" and even then you'll run into inconsistencies.

Spoiler Spoiler Show


Characters get as strong as they need to be for the plot. It's why nobody should be worried if the heroes will be strong enough to fight the Foretellers in the future. This debate on who's strongest or top tier is rather funny given everything that has happened power wise with these characters.
The Roxas situation is specially funny to me. All he had going for him are his light powers (technically derived from Ventus, I guess?) and dual wield, even then people push him to be a better sword-fighter than Sora based purely on cutscenes, when Sora with the Valor Form fights pretty much the same?

Roxas never really used a sword or anything of the sorts in his life and canonically his powers are derived from Sora. Like, it's literally stated that way. He may have earned his own power and characteristics later on but he, like Xion, only really knew what to do because Sora knew how to fight by the time they were made; both during the Hollow Bastion encounter in KH1 (since it seems Xemnas stealing Sora's data from the FM fight is very much canon, or at least part of it is?)

So if we argue that Sora's power comes from his friendship with others, then by default the same should apply to at least both of them. But Sora at least grew up fighting with the other kids in Destiny Islands and then later was trained by both Leon, Merlin and then Phil in Olympus Coliseum.

But when people get down to discuss his actual fighting capabilities it gets downplayed to "power of friendship" which always amuses me when he's one of the few characters (alongside the BBS characters) that actually had proper training instead of being powerful just because. Even Riku didn't actually go through any training after he left Destiny Islands, he literally gained the power of Darkness through Maleficent like all the other Disney bosses from KH1 before his strenght of heart during CoM made it his own.
 

Absent

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I just wanna add that Roxas has canonically wielded a Keyblade longer than Sora. There's barely a month between KH2 and 3 as revealed that summer vacation still hasn't ended for the Twilight Gang. Add the fact that Roxas was constantly fighting Heartless for almost a whole year because of his job. So the idea of Roxas being a better "Keyblader" is not so far fetched .

Funny enough he was favored by Phil more too.
 
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