Top 15 Strongest Characters

I'm not gonna include any mages since they're too hard to rank for now.

15. Irvine
14. Grunbeld
13. Rakshas
12. Locus
11. Zodd
10. Guts (probably interchangeable with Zodd right now)
9. Sea God
8. Ganishka
7. Skull Knight
6. Conrad (him, Ubik, and Slan are probably interchangeable)
5. Ubik
4. Slan
3. Void
2. Femto
1. Idea of Evil
 
No offense but this kind of ranking isn't well suited to Berserk.
Powerscaling in Berserk is hard for a lot of characters. For example, it's hard to powerscale Schierke since although she has powerful spells, a lot of her spells have a long cast time that require for her to immobilize herself, so she is much more useful in group fights than in 1v1s. And then it's also hard to powerscale other characters because of ambiguous feats. For example, could Serpico with his magic equipment take down a mid level Apostle like Wyald or the Snake Baron? However, this is why I limited it to a top 15. The top 15 characters are actually kinda straightforward compared to the rest of Berserk. The Idea of Evil is obiously number 1. For Femto and Void there's 2 possibilities. Either all 5 of God Hand are exactly equal, or Femto and Void are the strongest 2. The next 3 God Hand would fill in the #6-#4 slots. Skull Knight would fit into #7 because of the Sword of Actuation, which lets him kill Shiva Ganishka. Ganishka is #8 because of how immensely powerful he clearly is. Sea God is at #9 for similar reasons. For Guts, he is clearly somewhere in the 15-10 range, depending on how you see him compared to Zodd and the other lieutenants. Zodd is clearly portrayed by the story to be above the other 4 lieutenants. Irvine, Grunbeld, Rakshas, and Locus are interchangeable for now since none of them have definitive portrayal above the rest. I think that Irvine is the weakest since he wasn't there when the other 3 pledged their loyalty to Griffith, so he seems like more of an outcast. The other lieutenants pledged their loyalty in the order of Zodd, then Locus, then Rakshas, and then Grunbeld, which could be a portrayal of their ranking. Grunbeld being the 2nd weakest lieutenant would make sense since Grunbeld was the first one to get a full-on fight, and writers usually save the the best within a group for last. Locus being Griffith's 2nd strongest Apostle, after Zodd, would make sense since Locus was, after Zodd, the first to join Griffith, and Locus seems to have a more important role in the story, with him always being at Griffith's side within Falconia.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Powerscaling in Berserk is hard for a lot of characters.

I mean I simply don't think "power rankings" are appropriate for Berserk in general. It's just not that kind of series. Characters triumph or lose based on a variety of circumstances which includes fighting skill but also the specific context of the encounter. For example, Guts killed the Sea God. Does that make him stronger than the Sea God? They aren't even comparable entities. Their attributes are so different it's irrelevant to even try. It's even worse for the Idea of Evil, a mysterious being that exists on another plane of existence and whose characteristics are mostly unknown.

More generally, we don't have a way to compare the "power" of different characters, whether it be members of the God Hand or Griffith's lieutenants or any other really, and that's because we're not meant to. Because even if Guts eventually kills Femto, it won't necessarily mean he was stronger than him, just that he managed to get the best of him in that specific context. And it won't matter because Berserk isn't that kind of series.
 
I mean I simply don't think "power rankings" are appropriate for Berserk in general. It's just not that kind of series. Characters triumph or lose based on a variety of circumstances which includes fighting skill but also the specific context of the encounter. For example, Guts killed the Sea God. Does that make him stronger than the Sea God? They aren't even comparable entities. Their attributes are so different it's irrelevant to even try. It's even worse for the Idea of Evil, a mysterious being that exists on another plane of existence and whose characteristics are mostly unknown.

More generally, we don't have a way to compare the "power" of different characters, whether it be members of the God Hand or Griffith's lieutenants or any other really, and that's because we're not meant to. Because even if Guts eventually kills Femto, it won't necessarily mean he was stronger than him, just that he managed to get the best of him in that specific context. And it won't matter because Berserk isn't that kind of series.
The basis that I'm using is, if the two characters were to fight on an even playing field with no outside help from anybody, who would win most of the time. So it's not only raw strength being factored in, but also skill and battle intellect. For example, with Guts and the Sea God, without Schierke or the merrows there to help Guts, Guts wouldn't have been able to locate the heart without Schierke there to sense the od, and he also wouldn't be able to overcome the sound of the heart without the merrows there to cancel it out.
 
The basis that I'm using is, if the two characters were to fight on an even playing field with no outside help from anybody, who would win most of the time.
You should simply not think of Berserk as a shōnen, TMK; or at least don't take it so seriously if you still want to do it for whatever reason, because there is close to no value to be taken out of it. The extent of each character's capabilities lies in the way they handle various situations in the story, and it's not easily measurable, nor meant to be quantitative for that matter.
 
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