Avatar (The Last Airbender/ The Legend of Korra) : Strength and Power Tier List

A strength and power tier list of Characters in the Avatar (The last Airbender/ Legend of Korra) Universe.

4/20/24

Note:

- These are only Human characters, No spirit or Animals.

- This is not a who beat who list, This tier list is ranking them on their general threat level.

- No Fusion characters/ Forms included.

- The Highest or lowest one or two benders on the list can sometimes be transitions to another Tier above or below respectively.

Tier notes:

Not Enough Knowledge / Can't remember your feats

Fodder

Unit Tier

Low Tier

Mid Tier

Low Mid Tier

High Mid Tier

Transition

High Tier

Top Tier

Hax Tier

Avatar Tier

Post threads like this in "Feats and Analysis" as per forum guidelines.

Not sure what i'm supposed to do with this information. Makes sense for the most part, disagree with certain placements and the order in a few tiers. Even the best non-benders don't belong above low mid tier, Rangi is too high, Ming and Zuko are too high, Kya doesn't belong above Tonraq, or in a "transition" to the next tier. Katara is not above Ozai, although this placement somehow doesn't surprise me. Zaheer is not above Unalaq, unless he has flight. The rest i don't mind. I don't think you should've included so many featless characters who aren't even combatants, as they present no threat to begin with and only crowd the pic too much.

Ay give me your phone

Not my phone 😭. Sjsksksks

First off, good effort - knowing how long it took. Coming to the ranking,

• I suppose the avatars are ranked with avatar states (?), which is why you mention past experiences and all in the notes, they are all above Yakone's family and the fact that Wan and Kyoshi are snuck in.
• As a general threat, Yakone still outranks anyone to be frank. Bloodbending 60 odd people with his mind is too ridiculous, even for Amon's standards. In a podcast earlier this year when Bryke mentioned that there's a sort of a invisible defense of a person's chi which protects people from being bloodbent and that benders need to overpower that in order to bend them to their will. This sort of makes Yakone completely broken and why Hama needs the full moon to bloodbend, since otherwise she isn't capable of doing it. Long story short, I can't envision Amon being a bigger threat than his father. Will I say he is a more skilled bloodbender? absolutely, but Yakone is by far the strongest threat in the franchise besides amped benders and spirits.
• Coming to the placements within the next tier, I will have my disagreements, but they are all minor for the most part, but I can't really watch the show and come to a conclusion that Ozai or Iroh would lose to any of the kids/prodigies. As I said earlier, I don't necessarily agree with the order within this tier, but those are mostly how you view feats and statements in tandem to one another and I don't really have problems with intra tier rankings mostly unless there is some explicit information or a fight in canon that contradicts whatever is there in the list.
• Are my eyes deceiving me or am I seeing Jeong Jeong above Zuko in aystarr's list? Also, Hei Ran is canonically placed above Jianzhu both by Hei Ran and Jianzhu himself. There's no reason to put her right below him. Not really commenting on the three sneaks here (Zaheer, Unalaq and Zuko).
• I don't care enough about some of the fodders to actually comment on them lol, including Mako and Bolin.

Pretty good tierlist! Better than all of mines' at least.

- Korra should be either the second highest in Avatar tier or second lowest.

- Yakone is more powerful than Amon, so he should be above his more skilled, but less powerful son. Katara vs Hama proves only power matters when it comes to bloodbender vs bloodbender.

- I love Katara, but the narrative makes it clear by portrayal that Ozai is above Katara.

- Kuvira should be in Top-Tier. She's up there in skill and battle IQ, while having adept physicals and what she lacks in bending power, she makes up for in her unrivalled attack speed. The creators themselves have referred to her as a bending heavyweight and rival for Korra, as well as having said she'd give Toph a good fight (meaning at the least, she shouldn't be a tier below her).

- Kuvira should also not be in the same tier as Suyin, when Su already fought and lost decisively to her. The fight only lasted 30 seconds or so, in which Kuvira landed four hits on Su, whereas Su landed none on her.

- Mako and Bolin are too low. He shouldn't be in the same tier as Kya, as he is a rival to Ming Hua, who Kya was getting beat pretty badly by. And Bolin scales relative to Mako, so he is upscaled by proxy.

- Suki and Ty Lee can't be relative to and above Iroh II respectively, as the latter was portrayed as a rival for the former, and the former having gotten stomped by Book 1 Zuko. And given that Book 3 Zuko is relative to Iroh II (they're relative in almost everything), this upscales Iroh II absolutely above B1 Zuko and consequently, Suki and Ty Lee.

- Speaking of Zuko, he doesn't deserve to be two tiers above Mako. They're also relative in most aspects as a firebender, with Mako cancelling out Zuko's superior physical attributes with his superior tactical abilities. Bolin is also a rival for Zuko as a bender, with lavabending being too much of an OP ability for Zuko's superior physicals and comparable battle IQ to guarantee a definitive edge on him either to justify such a gap.

- Why is Lao Ge so low? He's at least relative to Tagaka. They're close to equal in power, physicals, CQC and tactical abilities, with Lao Ge making up for his lack of defence with much greater mobility than Tagaka.

- I can nitpick the order of top-tier, but it looks fine overall. P'Li and debatably Combustion Man should be there though. CM can be argued to be not fast enough to be in top-tier, but the same doesn't apply for P'Li. She should not be in the same tier as Suyin and Lin, when she was dominating against the both of them alongside other metalbenders and pretty quickly beat the latter alone.

@stratospher said:

Where do you think Rangi and Kya should be placed? And how does Zaheer surpass Unalaq with flight?

@viking1205: 100% agreed on everything you said about Yakone. As for point 3, what do you think about how Bumi compares Ozai and Iroh, keeping in mind that the narrative could be argued to portray them as even above him?

1) Unlike the posters above, I agree with everything 100% and would not change anything.

2) This is very comprehensive. I could never.

3) Including children and putting them in fodder tier is hilarious to me.

@psychoboy4eva:

Where do you think Rangi and Kya should be placed?

Rangi doesn't belong near high tier. May be closer to the bottom of high mid tier. Kya is fine where she is, just not at the top of the tier. She doesn't belong above Mako, as their performances against Zaheer were pretty much identical, with the exception that Zaheer actually allowed her to do a thing or two before switching to offense and one-shotting her. She doesn't belong above Tonraq, who performed better against Zaheer even with limited water, and his fight against Unalaq is better than anything Kya showcased.

And how does Zaheer surpass Unalaq with flight?

He doesn't. He just becomes more annoying to deal with. Flight doesn't make him a better bender, but he is a lot harder to pin down, and it allows him to attempt to win via exhausting his opponent or capitalizing on them making a mistake. Which is something he would definitely do, as unlike other characters with great agility and mobility (like Ming Hua), he's actually pretty smart.

Only gonna make a comment on the avatars.

1. Korra
2. Kyoshi
3. Kuruk
4. Yangchen
5. Aang
6. Roku
7. Wan
8. Szeto

@stratospher: This isn’t a warning or anything since Ay originally tagged you for feedback whether they meant to or not, but just as a reminder, try not to make comments like “this placement doesn’t surprise me” even indirectly toward them just to make sure there’s no room for issues.

@cocacolaman: Didn't really mean much by it, just pointed out the obvious. But sure, got it.

Hmmm

• Roku should definitely be at the top, unless it's an AS ranking, in which Kyoshi should be at the top.
• If Ozai is below Katara, I'm assuming because of lack of feats, then he should also be below Yun, Toph, Bumi, Azula, and probably even Tenzin too. Speaking of which, putting Iroh and Gyatso above Tenzin doesn't feel right.
• Sparky and P'li should be in the above tier, and they wouldn't be last in that tier either. P'li being in the same tier as characters she forced to hide behind a rock while grossly outnumbered (Lin & Su), just doesn't make any sense.
• Zaheer isn't better than Unalaq or Kuvira, unless that's Void Zaheer, and if it is, he's probably in the above tier too, since only a select few benders can actually beat him.
• In fact, just drop Zuko, Ming, Lin, Su, and Tagaka a tier for that matter. Huu can stay.
• Unless we're assuming Zuko in LOK is worse than Zuko in ATLA due to age, he shouldn't be above Ghazan.
• Hama is too high, bending aside, she can't handle any sort of AoE.
• Some nonbenders are way too high, all the better nonbenders should be like, low-mid, Asami/Lieutenant/Jet are not a tier worse than Suki/Mai/Ty Lee
• Rangi isn't any better than Kya, which speaking of that drop Kya. She's shown to be blatantly worse than both Tonraq and the brothers against the same competition.
• Portrayal wise, the Beifong sisters, Zuko, Ghazan/Ming Hua, and Mako/Bolin are all relative. The sisters are probably the best of this bunch, but not by a significant margin.
• I think the Dai Li should be higher, they have some bad anti-feats, but when they actually use their higher-level bending they clearly pose more of a threat than Kai or a nonbender would.
• I like the Hakoda respect, he's underrated imo

My brother/sister in christ Katara is top of avatar tier.

@viking1205:

- Avatars are ranked with all their abilities including the AS yeah.

- I placed Amon first because he can permanently disable the bender which I think is more effective in the long run, but I do agree yakone has the stronger feat of power and he could be placed higher.

- That's fine, Iroh and Ozai unfortunately don't really have much compared to the kids and there's the possibility (and I can understand how thinking narratively) they could be higher. But yeah, I ranked it on how I viewed their in-universe feats and statements only, especially when it's within the tier.

- Savor it, you won't see it again🚶‍♀️. Also yeah, Hei-ran and Jianzhu should be switched.

- Discrimination! , this was why the equalists were a thing.

@psychoboy4eva: Thanks!.

- Yeah as I said in the reply above this, I can understand thinking they should be higher, but I don't really think there's anything that makes it clear that Ozai is higher, than Katara at least imo, what do you think is?.

- I'm gonna have to disagree with the Kuvira points, her speed, skill and battle IQ is what got her this high for me, however in comparison to the Top tiers and some High tiers who are just as fast and skilled, her bending inferiority stands out. Giving Toph a fight doesn't necessarily mean being as good as her and she can definitely be a tier below her to still give her a good fight. I do think she could win some of the people placed above her on the list in a fight due to specific reasons but as a general threat, I just can't place or see her higher than that.

- I'm gonna disagree with Su being a tier below her too, Not only does Su have better feats of power and is just as skilled generally which still puts her in this tier regradless of her performance against Kuvira as it is ranked based on how good they are generally, but in that fight, Su has also been imprisoned for a while, Kuvira had a more accessible gear as opposed to su having to use only the metal scraps around her (which is actually the only thing that gave Kuvira an advantage in that fight), and it was still very close. To be honest, Kuvira is not a better bender than the sisters nor does she have any feat of bending to suggest that imo, she's only higher in the tier because of her unique fighting style and overall combat showings.

- Mako is not a rival to Ming-Hua, not only did she beat him but even when he won against her, he won taking advantage of her vulnerability in that moment, not by being her rival in power, skill or anything else. I'm guessing what you mean by Bolin being relative to Mako is that they've both been portrayed to be on a similar level combatively, yeah I can agree with that, which is why they're on the same tier, I don't think they're strict equals though and Bolin just has more impressive feats and abilities.

- Iroh II is there because of his limited feats, he could definitely be higher if he had more feats but the little he showed can't be placed above Suki and Tylee's overall combat feats Imo. Also Iroh II is definitely not relative to Book 3 Zuko, they don't have any equal feats in any category of bending nor is there any statement that implies this. Suki in book 1 and in the EOS/Comics cannot be compared, not only was it implied that she was training to get better over the course of the series, but we see her gets better feats, develop her skills and gain new abilities, that's like comparing book 1 Katara and sokka to them at the end of the series. Tylee and Suki are rivals in a fight between them, however Tylee's skillset with her high level agility and evasion range coupled with her chi blocking makes her a better fighter and a higher threat generally against the verse than Suki, even though Suki can handle her and is more skilled, I pointed that out in the tier notes.

- Idk maybe we're reading different Kyoshi novels then because Tagaka and Lao Ge are definitely not relative lol.

- Yeah I agree with you on this one, they can be on the tier above, it's no problem, that's why I said that they were in transition spots in my tier notes.

Avatar tier?, I was thinking a separate tier higher, she obviously scales above Universal 🙄.

Katara > Cosmic energy, Aang said it best.

@aystarr: I mean she unironically would be unrestricted and full moon boosted. Well top of base characters anyway (minus yakones family). Never much cared for the spirit mumbo jumbo, so who cares about cosmic energy?

Cool