Team building in Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive is less about grabbing every big name and more about fitting the right hunter into the right job. With only a limited pool of Hunter Coins and upgrade resources, bad early picks slow you down for hours of story and endgame content.
This tier list focuses on the 20 recruitable hunters in Overdrive, ranking them on overall PvE performance, upgrade value, and flexibility in common team comps. Sung Jinwoo is assumed as your main damage dealer; hunters are judged on how much they help clear campaign chapters, boss fights, and side content efficiently.
How the hunter tiers work
Hunters are divided into four ranks – S, A, B, and C – to reflect how much value they bring for the resources they demand.
| Tier | What it means |
|---|---|
| S | Standout picks that hard-carry damage, breaking, or team utility. These are the first targets for your Hunter Coins and upgrade materials. |
| A | Strong and reliable hunters that perform well when invested into. Great if you’re missing S-tier options or want specific elements. |
| B | Playable but clearly outclassed. They can fill gaps early or in budget teams but fall off compared with higher tiers. |
| C | Niche or underpowered picks. Use them for early free unlocks or specific gimmicks, but avoid heavy investment. |
Three things matter more than raw DPS:
- Element coverage: Fire, Aqua, Wind, Light, and Dark each counter specific enemies. Having at least one strong option in each is more useful than doubling up on the same element.
- Role balance: You generally want a main DPS (often Jinwoo), at least one breaker, and one support/tank to keep runs stable.
- Scaling: Some hunters spike hard once their skill trees and stats come online; others start strong and then plateau.
S-tier hunters in Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive
S-tier hunters offer either top-tier damage or extremely valuable utility that keeps showing up in chapter clears and boss fights.
| Hunter | Element / Role | Why they stand out |
|---|---|---|
| Amamiya Mirei | Wind / Assassin | High burst damage through stacking sword marks and detonations, backed by Super Armor and strong self-buffs. Functions as a secondary carry when you want Wind coverage without sacrificing safety. |
| Choi Jong-In | Fire / Mage | Extremely high base Attack for a ranged unit, with huge Fire nukes that layer Burn damage over time. Excels in encounters where you can keep enemies grouped inside his large-area skills. |
| Esil Radiru | Fire / Archer | Combines fast Break generation with consistent ranged DPS. A core piece for Fire-element teams thanks to how quickly she shreds enemy shields and enables follow-up burst from Jinwoo or other Fire hunters. |
These three fill different needs:
- Mirei is ideal when you want a hunter who can both survive and delete priority targets.
- Choi is your go-to for high-damage Fire stages where you can stand back and control space.
- Esil is the premier Fire breaker, and she remains relevant even once your account is stacked.
A-tier hunters in Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive
A-tier hunters are strong picks that often become the backbone of mono-element or specialist teams. They can rival S-tier options with proper upgrades but tend to be more setup-intensive or slightly narrower in scope.
| Hunter | Element / Role | Key strengths and tradeoffs |
|---|---|---|
| Alicia Blanche | Aqua / Mage | One of the hardest-hitting Aqua attackers, with Freeze and Frost stacking that amplify Water damage. Fragile and positioning-sensitive, but devastating in Water-focused teams and bosses vulnerable to control. |
| Baek Yoonho | Light / Fighter | Tanky frontliner whose skills apply Break reliably. Solid choice when you need a Light bruiser that can stay in melee and keep shields down, though his personal DPS lags behind pure attackers. |
| Cha Hae-In | Light / Fighter | Crit-focused melee DPS with skills that prevent enemies from healing. When you manage her Critical stacks properly, she outputs very high damage, but she is less forgiving and more fragile if you misplay. |
| Lee Bora | Dark / Mage | Flexible hybrid who brings both damage and support. Her off-field summons and debuffs make her especially useful in Dark-element content and longer boss encounters. |
| Lim Tae-Gyu | Dark / Archer | Ranged Dark breaker and nuker who carves unsafe zones across the battlefield. Great pick when you want to control where enemies can stand while also chunking bosses with powerful shots. |
| Nam Chae-Young | Aqua / Archer | Beginner-friendly ranged Aqua breaker with straightforward skills. Excellent at early guard breaks and stage clear; needs significant upgrades to keep her damage relevant later on. |
For most players, the first A-tier you prioritize depends on what your roster is missing:
- Choose Alicia if you want a primary Water DPS and are comfortable babysitting a glass cannon.
- Pick Baek Yoonho when you need a Light breaker that also serves as your frontline.
- Build Lee Bora if you want a long-term Dark support who still contributes meaningful damage.
B-tier hunters in Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive
B-tier hunters are functional and can carry you through a lot of content, especially earlier chapters or on alt teams. Their main limitation is either damage scaling, reliance on strong teammates, or cooldown and resource issues.
| Hunter | Element / Role | What they do well (and where they stumble) |
|---|---|---|
| Emma Laurent | Fire / Tank | HP-scaling bruiser with teamwide buffs and Fire damage. Works well when you keep defensive buffs stacked, but her damage ceiling is lower than offensive Fire supports or attackers. |
| Han Song-Yi | Aqua / Assassin | Brings Poison damage over time on top of dagger burst and shielding. Needs stronger teammates to shine, as several other Aqua hunters simply outperform her in raw damage. |
| Kang Taeshik | Dark / Assassin | Specializes in applying and abusing Bleed with high burst potential, especially from backstab angles. Effective in early and mid-game, but his melee fragility becomes a real liability later. |
| Kim Chul | Light / Tank | High Defense frontliner with strong Break and team Attack buffs. His own DPS is very low and he soaks a lot of investment if you want him to keep scales with late-game enemies. |
| Park Heejin | Wind / Mage | Opens fights with powerful skills ready, enabling explosive early engagements and big ultimate chains. Long cooldowns and aiming demands make her weaker in long or crowded stages. |
| Song Chiyul | Fire / Mage | Fire AoE specialist who ramps up damage against low-HP targets. Punished by a smaller mana pool and poor single-target performance on bosses, which limits his late-game role. |
B-tier hunters are best treated as transitional pieces: invest enough to smooth out story progression, but be ready to pivot to higher-tier options as your account grows.
C-tier hunters in Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive
C-tier hunters are either free early-game picks or niche supports that rarely justify deep investment over better options. They can still earn their place in specific comps, especially when you are resource-starved, but they should not be your long-term project.
| Hunter | Element / Role | Limitations |
|---|---|---|
| Lee Joohee | Aqua / Support | Healer with an ultimate that fully refills the team’s Core Gauge, which looks great on paper for skill-spam setups. In practice, her low base stats, modest healing, and lack of damage make other supports more attractive once you have a choice. |
| Min Byung-Gu | Light / Support | Offers strong Light support tools: a notable damage debuff on enemies and big Crit buffs for allies. His own damage output is negligible and he only reaches full potential with expensive, specialized gear, so he’s hard to justify early. |
| Seo Jiwoo | Aqua / Tank | Water tank and breaker with solid shielding and Break potential. Struggles to keep up because her damage is far behind other frontline options, which slows clears in most content. |
| Yoo Jinho | Light / Tank | Accessible story tank with basic Break and shielding tools. Reliant on high advancement levels before his buffs and durability feel competitive, and even then he stays behind dedicated top-tier frontliners. |
These hunters are useful as stopgaps when your box is small, but once you unlock stronger supports, breakers, and tanks, it’s usually best to retire them rather than chase upgrades.
How to decide which hunters to recruit first
Even with a tier list in hand, pulling every high-ranked hunter immediately isn’t realistic. A simple way to prioritize is to look at your roster through three questions.
1. Do you have at least one strong breaker in each key element?
Break speed often matters more than raw DPS. Esil Radiru (Fire), Amamiya Mirei (Wind), Lim Tae-Gyu (Dark), and Baek Yoonho (Light) are particularly valuable because they both break and contribute damage.
2. Where are you actually stuck?
If campaign chapters or bosses with specific weaknesses are blocking progress, target hunters in the matching element first. For example, if Water-weak bosses are the roadblock, upgrading Alicia Blanche or Nam Chae-Young will do more for you than chasing another Fire DPS.
3. Can your current supports keep your main carry online?
Jinwoo does the heavy lifting in most runs, so any hunter who keeps him alive and attacking – through shields, debuffs, or resource generation – is more valuable than their personal damage chart might suggest. Lee Bora and Esil Radiru both shine here because they blend damage and utility.
Practical team-building tips around the tier list
Once you start unlocking more hunters, a few simple patterns make building squads easier.
- Build around one or two S / A-tier anchors. Treat hunters like Amamiya Mirei, Esil Radiru, Choi Jong-In, Alicia Blanche, or Lee Bora as the pillars of an element team and support them with breakers or tanks from lower tiers when needed.
- Use B-tier hunters as specialists. Emma Laurent can be your defensive Fire core while you’re still pulling for Esil; Kim Chul can plug in as a tank in Light teams until you secure better options.
- Keep free C-tier units lightly leveled. Lee Joohee, Yoo Jinho, and Seo Jiwoo are handy early on and for specific missions, but their job is to carry you into the point where higher-tier hunters are unlocked.
The meta will shift as new hunters are added and balance changes arrive, but the fundamentals remain stable: prioritize strong breakers and hybrid supports, round out your element coverage, and reserve your deepest investments for hunters that keep proving their worth across multiple modes. If you follow those principles while using this tier list as a reference, your Overdrive squads stay both efficient and flexible as the game grows.
