BLEACH: Soul Resonance is a gacha game retelling the immensely popular Bleach story – best known as an anime adaptation of an earlier manga – in the form of a free-to-play action RPG for mobile devices. It serves as both an entry point into the franchise for new fans, and an opportunity for long-timers to experience Ichigo’s Soul Reaper duties firsthand.
As a gacha game, naturally BLEACH: Soul Resonance features an impressive cast of playable characters even in the launch version, and it’s not always the main protagonists who take centre-stage in the meta. To learn more about which characters you might like to pull for, read on for our BLEACH Soul Resonance launch character tier list.
BLEACH Soul Resonance launch tier list
| S Tier | Ichigo Kurosaki (Bankai), Kisuke Urahara, Kaname Tosen, Byakuya Kuchiki |
|---|---|
| A Tier | Yoruichi Shihoin, Sajin Komamura, Ikkaku Madarame, Rukia Kuchiki, Yachiru Kusajishi |
| B Tier | Uryu Ishida, Orihime Inoue, Renji Abarai, Ichigo Kurosaki (Shikai) |
| C Tier | Nemu Kurotsuchi, Yasutora Sado, Ururu Tsumugiya, Ichigo Kurosaki (Initial) |
S Tier
Ichigo Kurosaki (Bankai) SSR / Slash / Full Assault
As the game’s first limited banner character, this third iteration of Bleach protagonist Ichigo is unsurprisingly one of the strongest units at launch, quite handily beating every other Full Assault character who’ll be acting as your DPS. In particular, his ult is almost ludicrously overpowered compared to others in the launch line-up, allowing him to simultaneously counterattack while dealing additional damage, reset his skill cooldowns to act twice in a row, and briefly become unkillable with a high resistance to interruption.
Kisuke Urahara SSR / Slash / Support
While Ichigo-Bankai may be uncontested as the game’s top-tier damage dealer, Kisuke Usahara easily emerges as the most essential standard banner character, thanks to his unparalleled Support role functionality which provides a powerful combat buff to the rest of the team’s crit damage after deploying his ult. Kisuke’s own attacks are no slouch either, with the ult itself dealing 300% of Kisuke’s attack when launched.
Kaname Tosen SSR / Thrust / Tactic
Rounding out the essential launch trio, Kaname Tosen takes the crown as the best Tactic unit in the game. Kaname’s ult is perhaps the game’s premiere crowd control move, pulling enemies within a generous AoE towards him while dealing an incredible amount of area damage, debuffing all the trapped enemies for further DoT, and refreshing Kaname’s skill energy and cooldown time.
Byakuya Kuchiki SSR / Slash / Tactic
Surprisingly, the fourth and final S-Tier fighter in the launch line-up isn’t a direct equivalent to Ichigo-Bankai from the standard banner, but another Tactic unit, although the rather loose class boundaries in this game mean that he’s not exactly an alternative to Kaname. In Byakuya’s case, “Tactic” instead refers to an extremely viable sub-DPS kit that allows him to significantly enhance his attacks and technique in his ult state, even when off-field.
A Tier
Yoruichi Shihoin SSR / Strike / Full Assault
Like other Strike fighters, Yoruichi is primarily about dealing one massive punch to a single enemy, making her a viable choice of boss killer DPS for your team. Her ult does nearly 500% damage on its initial hit, before activating a 10-second period during which all of her damage increases by 10% and her special attacks don’t cost spiritual pressure to cast.
Sajin Komamura SSR / Strike / Tactic
Sajin stands out not only for his anthropomorphic wolflike design, but by being the only character in the launch line-up whose special attacks are based on a summon. Namely, his ult summons his companion Kokujo Tengen Myo-oh, a gigantic entity who buffs Sajin’s strike damage and won’t allow him to die while on the field – at the cost of being unable to dodge or counter, however.
Ikkaku Madarame SSR / Thrust / Full Assault
If you don’t have Ichigo-Bankai yet, Ikkaku is probably the closest equivalent on the standard banner. Admittedly, Thrust fighters aren’t quite as powerful in the current meta as their Slash equivalents, with less immediate power balanced out with more focus on dealing repeated damage over a short period of powered-up time. Ikkaku nevertheless shares many other key elements of Ichigo-Banki’s kit, including a generous 14-second buff to his own attack damage following his ult, as well as a brief period of invincibility.
Rukia Kuchiki SR / Spirit / Tactic
One of only two Spirit specialist fighters in the launch line-up, Rukia wields a classic gacha RPG element: she can summon frost in an AoE to both deal huge damage to enemies and freeze them in place for a period of time. This makes her easily the most effective crowd control character at SR-rarity, as well as a useful potential sub-DPS, especially for F2P teams.
Yachiru Kusajishi SR / Slash / Support
One of our top-rated SR-rarity units at launch, Yachiru is available to all players as a log-in bonus after logging in for your second day playing the game. Fortunately, she’s also one of the best Support units available: unleashing her ultimate causes a massive damage burst that also buffs fellow Slash fighting specialists, with an extra bonus if she leaves the field immediately.
B Tier
Uryu Ishida SR / Thrust / Tactic
If you were hoping that the canonical doctor character from Bleach was going to be a healer support unit, I’m afraid that BLEACH: Soul Resonance had other ideas in that regard. Instead, Uryu gets an AoE attack that deals a respectable blast of damage in a line directly ahead of him when his ult is cast.
Orihime Inoue SR / Spirit / Support
Surprisingly, it’s Orihime who gets the honour of being the launch roster’s role as healing support – and since she’s the second character you get for free while playing through the tutorial, you’ll never be short-handed for a medic. Her ult can shield teammates from debuffs, as well as providing low-level but nevertheless desirable healing to her whole team.
Renji Abarai SR / Thrust / Full Assault
Renji is more or less the SR equivalent of Byakuya. His ult features a similar blade-splitting blast attack when activated which deals nearly 1000% of his attack damage on hit. However, the trade-off when compared to Byakuya is that Renji doesn’t then gain any any buffs or off-field benefits to follow up that impressive initial ult.
Ichigo Kurosaki (Shikai) SR / Slash / Full Assault
The second form of main protagonist Ichigo does more or less what you’d expect. He’s an intermediate version of the basic set-up shared by all three versions of Ichigo in the roster, representing a more desirable version than the Ichigo-Initial you get for free during the tutorial, but without the bells and whistles you get for pulling the SSR version from the limited banner.
C Tier
Characters in our C Tier aren’t necessarily bad – like most modern gacha games, BLEACH: Soul Resonance was too canny to launch with actively bad characters – but they simply don’t represent much advantage in the overall meta. Unsurprisingly, your starting character Ichigo Kurosaki (Initial) falls into this category – he does the job, but doesn’t represent anything particularly spectacular.
The other characters currently parked up in this tier are Nemu Kurotsuchi, Yasutora Sado (a.k.a. Chad, frankly not living up to his self-appointed nickname), and Ururu Tsumugiya. All three are SR-ranked characters; not much of a surprise, given that lower-rarity characters fill out the lower tiers in gacha games very much by design. They respectively represent the Support, Full Assault, and Ranged character classes, so at least there’s no particular deficit in the overall roster. You can still comfortably play the game with a team made up of C Tier characters; you just won’t get to play with the kind of overpowered ults seen at higher tiers.
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