Saint Seiya-Verse Strategy Guide

How to be OP in Saint Seiya, divided by different tiers.

Local to City Tier:

Protecting the Earth, enacting the Goddess' will upon the Earth are 48 Bronze Saints and 24 Silver Saints. Also to aid them, mankind's best scientists have made weaker Iron Saints who do not possess cosmo abilities but use high technology to aid them. There is also evil Black Saints, ex-saints who were stripped the usage of their title and cloth for their actions, as well as some other individuals that possess some ability in Cosmo. To gain local power requires the individual to be able to at least compete with these type of individuals and to gain any substantial power over a larger region requires one be highly competitive, even with the Silver Saints. What powers do these individuals have?

Even a Bronze Saint in training can casually manipulate atoms, the building block of matters to restore or replenish them, to release enough energy to atomize part of the ground, requiring gigatons of energy. Silver Saints are even stronger able to casually atomize mountains with their attacks requiring teratons of energy, and easily scale to being able to turn a normal nuclear factory into a planetary threat. Most physical defenses are going to do absolutely nothing against a saint as they can directly target the atoms of their opponent. At the same time trying to not rely on physical defenses and be intangible would probably not work EITHER as even Bronze Saints can clearly hit intangibles. 

The verse is rather hard to fight like that.

In addition hax is dicey even at this low scale. Even very low tier cosmo users can resist universal time stop freezing so time freezing is going to be absolutely useless. Saints have resistance to most natural forces like freezing as well as supernatural forces like mind and soul destruction (though at this stage their resistance to these things isn't too massive. Bronze Saint Ikki with his strikes can destroy the mind and soul of his foes yet Strong Bronze Clothes can take multiple strikes with no ill effect). There is resistance to several other abilities including transmutation and just magic in general.

Speed is important, as cosmo users get stronger as they fight, and saints gain resistance to a technique (what distinguishes a techique from anything else is somewhat unclear, presumably it's any non-natural, aka learned, ability) after experiencing it first, meaning that winning a fight quick is important.

Speed in general seems like it could be on the side of the invader, as the speed of the first scale threat is rather low compared to their raw power. Bronze Saints are stated to move at the speed of sound normally and even when trying hard only get up to about hypersonic which is not that fast for an Island Level character, even for a city level character that would be on the lower end. Silver Saints, Country Level, only move at supersonic speeds normally which would be bizarrely low and when trying hard can move at massively hypersonic (lightning) speeds which is fine for that tier. Because their max is MHS, that's the limit I have but most MHS characters do have the noted advantage they can normally move at what would be considered the top speeds of the strongest characters at these scales.

That said tactically speaking that is the seeming only notable general weakness the verse gives at first glance. And even that is not something that can be relied on given the verse's ability to grow stronger. At the very least some of the cosmo abilities are limited only to the actual strong cosmo-users or the saints so not all the above abilities are possessed by everyone. But what tactics can be used against the verse if one wants to go up against Bronze or especially Silver Saints?

The verse has no notable weakness is melee combat, in range, in stamina (though again trying to outlast a saint is probably a bad idea)...the only seeming tactics available from the start are some really strong soul/mind hax and just rushing characters. However thinking about it there is one other possible tactic I noticed.

You see, before unlocking the 7th sense, Saints actually need to breath. While they can hold their breath a superhuman time, it's actually brought up by Hyoga and Isaac that they need to breath. A strong enough character could theoretically throw them into space, or possibly portal them into space with an ability (since it took a gold saint to destroy a spatial tear), or you could just go with the most direct possible application of this weakness, which brings me to my first possible suggestion.

A high tier water bender from Avatar was actually my first possible scenario. Massively outclassed in power and range, if they start at range I can actually see this working. I hear that they are Lightning Timers in reaction time, which means they should be able to not be blitzed against a saint or other cosmo user. A High Tier Water Bender also has access to the ability Blood Bending, and if they have that they might be able to beat a Saint despite the massive power disadvantage. Saints don't actually have any resistance feats to my knowledge of bodily control or blood manipulation and if they were just held submerged underwater it could actually possibly kill them.

Now granted I don't think this is an ideal strategy outside the power/range disadvantage. Saints have superhuman stamina and breath-holding ability and could potentially outlast a Water Bender in a fight, the Saint can also emanate waves of force from their cosmo which could potentially throw off the motions Water Benders need to be able to manipulate water. More realistically you would likely need a team of High Tier Water Benders to accomplish the feat, hence why I think there are better options, however the efficiency of it impressed me and so wanted to include it.

A similar strategy but more conventional statwise and more effective in my mind is 

Mera, Queen of Atlantis from DC Comics. Country Level and MHS is about the ideal stats for this particular fight, and her water manipulation is strong enough to let her hold up an entire ocean. She can actively flood the Saints lungs with water using their own blood or actively dehydrate them. She would be SO deadly against the Saints.

She'd be strong enough to compete physically with them, fast enough that it would take silver saints going their fastest to compete, can attack at comparable ranges, if not larger ranges conventionally, and can flash drown them. She's also launched Aquaman into the stratosphere, suggesting she can also send the Saints into space if she needs too.

What other strategies are possible? Really strong mind or soul hax would probably work (The Dark Agency from a few strategy guides ago would probably do well) but generally affecting the Saints directly is not the right tactic. Just because you can't affect the saints with your haxes doesn't mean you can't affect yourself or the environment with the haxes. Dimensional BFR I think would be a really broken form of attack for this scale.

A high level mage, particularly Elminister, from Dungeons and Dragons I think would do really well. High Level Mind/Soul Manipulation, MHS Reflexes, as well as luck manipulation which would give him a massive advantage without having to effect his enemies directly. He also has really good dimensional bfr that would likely stop them cold.

Planetary to Universal Tier:
At this level are the Legendary Gold Saints of Athena as well as the highest tier of the warriors of other gods like the Mariner Generals of Poseidon, Celestial Specters and Judges of the Underworld under Hades, the God Warriors of Asgard and so forth. What unities these people is the awakening of the 7th sense, the power that allows for accessing the power of "miracles", the breaking of the laws of nature.

This tier is infamously hard to fight, with speed and hax/hax resistance overwhelming for tier.

General power in this tier varies from star level to someone first awakening to the 7th sense, capable of destroying the atoms of a star, to beyond baseline universal. An absolutely absurd variety of hax is at this level, including energy-matter hax up to universal control of atoms, multi-stellar level dimension creation full of souls and minds, mental battles on a godlike scale, dividing a consciousness across 6 different worlds, cosmic spacetime warping (The Ophiuchus Saint upon awakening warped all of spacetime of a universe), absolute zero temperatures, reality-warping, and many more.

Those users of the 8th sense have more, the ability to control the cycle of life and death allowing entering the underworld while alive and being able to leave at will, resurrecting the self, as well as being an enlightened one.

Speeds are absurdly fast. While anyone awakening to the 7th sense can move at the speed of light, speeds vastly outspeed the big bang are only mid of this ranking, and the strongest beings of this tier are so fast that characters that can blitz that speed while nearly powerless are seen as only the speed of sound in comparison.

Fighting against characters at this tier is REALLY hard. An immediate counter is needed for the insane speed this verse has that almost no verse can counter, let alone taking into account the fact that all the characters can grow massively stronger within the course of a single fight.

Most forms of haxes wouldn't work unless they are at an absolutely massive cosmic level. Intangibility based strategies would be highly unlikely to work as Bronze Saints can hit intangibles, and Gold Saints are able to destroy the atoms of abstract entities likely highly sealed Titans. They can also see things such as prayers or attack things like curses.

So what DOES work against them? Well it seems silly to suggest such a simple hax, but there is one hax which I think, if advanced enough, could be really strong, and that's energy manipulation. All the SS-verse abilities require cosmo, and if they were completely derived of cosmo they would lose the majority of their abilities. Now granted it needs to be EXTREMELY good energy manipulation, sub-atomic energy manipulation of particles and quantum fields. But that would be immensely powerful. In fact appearing rarely is Dark Cosmo, a form of energy that infects Cosmo users like poison and spreading like a cancer everytime they use their cosmo killing them. An energy manipulator with strong enough energy manipulation and cosmic awareness could theoretically replicate dark cosmo to infect the Cosmo user.

What else might work? Well for one, possession if that as viewed as distinct from mind control. Possession is how the Gods manifest in the world of humans, not risking their divine bodies, but instead possessing physical entities. Theoretically a powerful enough possession user could replicate this to cause havoc.

Dimensional BFR especially when coupled with Sealing also seems to be a strong power in verse, as Virgo Shaka though that Gemini Saga's Another Dimension technique was a major threat to himself.

Besides that while the speed of the verse is insane, there are ways to counter speed without being that fast yourself, primarily acausality, and being able to exist outside time. This would be extra beneficial if it was also with time travel as time travel as very difficult in Saint Seiya, and required the intercession of Chronos, far above this tier. The only other example of going back in time is Shaka managing to protect an avatar backwards in time which was not his full power. Another form of spacetime manipulation that seems to be strong (even if time freezing is easily resisted) is age manipulation, as Chronos used this technique to turn even the Goddess Athena into a baby.

So who would do really well? I have a few ideas

Professor Paradox from Ben 10 would be a good choice. Not only is he an acausal entity that can avoid speedblitz by traveling through time, he has a subatomic control of energy and he can dimensionally bfr pretty consistently.

He also with prep time can create machines that can destroy whole universes, which would likely be able to defeat characters of this tier, especially coupled with his subatomic manipulation. He also has age manipulation, which would be especially helpful given most of the fighters at this tier are not actually that old.

Monarch from DC Comics. DC High Tiers are some of the only characters comparable in speed as Saint Seiya, and Monarch fought evenly with Pre-Crisis Kryptonian Superboy Prime. Monarch has a quantum control of matter-energy across a casually universal scale. He even blasted the Firestorm Matrix out of Firestorm, suggesting it's possible he could steal the cosmo from a cosmo user or infect them with dark cosmo. He also has time travel. 

Monarch's raw power is likely comparable to the high rankings of this tier, also his "weakness", that being overloaded by energy sends him through time, is only likely to help here as he can easily maneuver through time unlike his opponents. 

However my favorite choice for this tier would be someone else from the same verse

Brainiac from DC Comics. 

Brainiac has brain-swapping and uploading, acting as a remote form of possession he can mass perform. His digitization hax is something unknown to the SS-verse, and avoids affecting their mass-energy by converting their atoms into bits of information which it's unknown if they would even have cosmo.

Brainaic is of course a massive supergenius and would figure out how to utilize dark cosmo to maximum effectively, perhaps seeding the verse with dark cosmo nanites to stealth disable fighters before they realize.

Brainiac has shown time travel as well as energy absorption enough to fight Imperiex who could create the power of the big bang, and while the SS Big Bang is greater then our own as it above universal attack techniques, the DC Big Bang was strong enough to create a universe over 100,000,000,000,000 lightyears across, and in fact 60,000,000,000,000 lightyears in the first 0.5 seconds. 

It should also be noted that Saints' Cloths are living beings, capable of making decisions on their own like when Cancer Deathmask's cloth abandoned him and naturally act to fulfill the will of their user if noble. However Brainiac creates a jamming signal capable of jamming even the telepathic messages of the Martian Manhunter, suggesting that the cloths may not be able to understand the wills of their users. 

Multiversal Tier:

At the top of the Saint Seiya Tiers are the Gods and Primordials, and the strongest of these are Zeus his father Cronos, and his father before him Chronos. Being such these are multiversal scale abstracts, whose power extend to destroying or preserving infinite universes. 

Their haxes are even stronger, including quantum manipulation of matter-energy, the 9th sense that confers Godhood able to change reality, the ability to reflect any attack from a non-god, a passive aura which deprives enemies of the 5 senses and the mind and so on. 

Massive haxes on all regard, infinite multiversal power, what can stand against these. Well what weaknesses do these have. 

Well firstly Zeus possess the lightning Keruanos, divine lightning which can strip the immortality of an enemy. An enemy that can replicate this would have a big advantage.

Secondly, memory manipulation of sufficient level seems to be very strong, as the relatively minor Titaness Mnesmonye's ability to manipulate memories was considered of such strength to change the great Titanomachy between Zeus and Cronos.

Sealing of sufficient power also seems like a very strong power, as seals placed on Titans including Cronos massively weakened their power.

So who would be a good choice.

Shazam with the "God of Gods" Amp would do great. Divine Lightning Manipulation, beat Yuga Khan, greater then even True Form Darkseid who has nigh-all the abilities of the SS Gods, his lightning has sealing, and he has divine power. 

Hastur, the King in Yellow, from Lovecraft would also likely do well, since he is a mental being that would avoid detection for a while ruling in Carcosa in dreamlands. He's able to affect them from outside dimensioned space, where they would not be able to counter, and be able to remove their memories, turning them to insanity. 

There's another eldritch king I think would be the best choice. 

Asmodeus from D&D, especially in his Greater God form, would also be a good choice. Equally to greater versatility, comparable power, and most importantly has multiversal memory manipulation, able to wipe out his name from the memory of every being including beings that resist memory manipulation which would mean he could spam that (especially if he duplicates as he is prone to doing) so that his enemies constantly forget his existence while he manipulates or defeats them. He could easily steal the power of the keraunos as he is prone to stealing powers and any Archdevil of a Solar Rank has powerful sealing abilities.

Coupled with his godlike manipulative abilities and Asmodeus would likely run circles around the verse. He could seal the godlike entities, or strip them of their powers including ones that are specifically detrimental to others like keraunos or dark cosmo, he can constantly make them forget him, exist where they can't reach, duplicate to making himself more far numerous then the top tiers of the verse etc.

And that's how to be op in Saint Seiya-verse.