This Identity V hunter tier list covers Season 43 ranked after Season 42 closed on July 2, 2026. We update the table when a Thursday patch or a new hunter shifts pick rates. Bookmark the page and check back before you spend Echoes.
If you need Echoes for a first-week shop listing or Essence packages, top up Identity V Echoes with UID and server. No password.
Season 43 hunter ranks (August 2026)
Updated on 2026-08-21: Season 43 runs July 2 to September 9, 2026. Dentist (Season 42) sits in A. Herztier unlocked in mid-August and sits in A until ranked samples settle.
Tier | Hunters | What they do |
|---|
S+ | Breaking Wheel, Dream Witch | Wheel form deletes pallets. Familiars hold two sides of a large map. |
S | Sculptor, Queen Bee, The Shadow, Night Watch, Clerk, Hullabaloo, Peddler, Wax Artist, Hermit, Nightmare | Tournament regulars. High ceiling, few cheap answers. |
A | Dentist, Herztier, Disciple, Opera Singer, Naiad, Guard 26, Goatman, Cueist | Win with practice. Map or form decides the match. |
B | Violinist, Bloody Queen, Geisha, Soul Weaver | Fine in solo queue. Coordinated teams punish them. |
C | Hell Ember, Smiley Face, Ripper, Undead | Leave these in Quick Match. |
Season 42 (April 23 to July 2) added Dentist and Mime Artist, then folded its essences into Memory Sphere. S-tier essence costumes from that season left the pool. Season 43 opened with the eighth-anniversary Essence 1, then Essence 2 (Mechanic Cyanotype), then Essence 3 on August 13 with Herztier’s S-costume Fianna.
Map pool moves the rank more than the letter
A hunter’s letter is an average. The map decides the match.
Large maps (Lakeside Village, Moonlit River Park): Dream Witch, Night Watch, and Queen Bee cover ground other hunters walk. Naiad owns water tiles.
Small or tight maps (Red Church, Arms Factory): Breaking Wheel, Sculptor, Clerk, and Wax Artist turn corridors into dead ends.
Indoor wall maps (Leo’s Memory, Sacred Heart Hospital): Dentist’s rectangle and wall edits collapse loops. Open fields waste that kit.
Ban or pick after you see the map. A Night Watch on Red Church and a Dentist on Lakeside are two different bets.
S+ tier: Breaking Wheel and Dream Witch
Breaking Wheel stays S+ because Wheel form does work no other hunter copies. Execution Wheel grants an 80% speed burst that fades over 3 seconds, full control immunity, and pallet crushes once the wheel is fast enough. Survivors who live on pallet stuns lose their plan. You cannot attack or vault windows in that form. You run people over to stack Pierce, then swap back to cash the spikes.
The three brothers split the kit:
Reticent (eldest): nail board, 60% slow for 2 seconds, or a 2-second confine if the survivor already has Pierce.
Pessimistic (middle): applies Pierce to everyone inside 12 meters. Items rarely block it.
Ridicule (youngest): leaving Wheel form throws spikes in a 10-meter ring and adds 1 Pierce.
You need the form swap. Players who stay in the wheel too long give survivors free decode time. Players who swap at the wrong moment waste the 80% window.
Dream Witch splits the map with familiars. One body camps. The other body walks a cipher. Large maps make that property hard to replace. NetEase trimmed her pressure in later patches, so she is less of a free win than she was in early 2026. Tournament lineups keep her. If you can read rotations, she is the other S+ lock.
S tier: high ceiling, low cheap answers
Sculptor remains the safest S pick. Statues force survivors off the line they wanted. Newer players walk into the same statue twice. You learn placement in a few dozen games and the same plan works from mid rank to top rank.
Queen Bee freezes ciphers instead of slowing them. Decoder stacks (Mechanic, Prisoner) lose their job while a hive is up. Energy management is the tax. Empty the bar at the wrong cipher and the lobby decodes for free.
The Shadow, Night Watch, Clerk, Hullabaloo, Peddler, Wax Artist, Hermit, and Nightmare fill the rest of S. They show up in ranked and in tournament drafts. Night Watch and The Shadow win on mobility. Clerk and Wax Artist turn pallets off. Hullabaloo and Peddler punish greedy rescues. Hermit teleports through the electrical kit. Nightmare wins on information.
Geisha and Bloody Queen sat in S on older lists, including this page’s Season 42 version. High-rank pick rate dropped. Geisha’s look-at-her shutoff is common knowledge now, and mid-air butterfly quality-of-life did not put her back in S. Bloody Queen’s mirrors confuse solo-queue survivors. Coordinated teams read them. Both sit in B for Season 43.
A tier: Dentist, Herztier, and the rest of the specialists
Dentist (Finsen) is Season 42’s hunter. You throw a visible rectangle, chip and slow whoever stays inside, then teleport in and ignore elevation. You can erase or grow walls in that box. Indoor maps make him look S. Lakeside makes him look B. For rectangle placement and persona notes, use the Dentist hunter guide.
Herztier (Emil) is Season 43’s hunter. Human form scouts with Sensory Overload (36–48 m). Aggressive actions flip him to Beast form for 8 seconds. Damage comes from Mark of Prey: Shred or Lunge applies a 40-second mark, then later hits cash +50% normal-attack damage. The August 13 live patch set Heightened Senses trails to every 18 seconds and cut the trail-step speed buff from 10% to 8%. Kit numbers and the form loop live in the Herztier Emil skills guide. Unlock cost is the standard new-hunter band: 4,508 Clues or 858 Echoes. Spend Clues if you can wait.
Disciple climbed after her kite-break buffs. Opera Singer, Goatman, and Cueist need clean ability timing. Naiad is a water-map specialist. Guard 26 dropped out of S after the bomb changes: survivors take no bomb damage for 1.2 seconds after the first hit, and explosions no longer cancel a rescue animation. He remains a camping tool at A.
How to pick a hunter for Season 43 ranked
Open trial or Custom and play the hunter on the maps you queue. Five casual games tell you if the kit fits.
Match the hunter to the map, not to the letter. Breaking Wheel on a pallet-heavy small map. Dream Witch or Queen Bee on a large map. Dentist indoors.
Mid ranks (about 40–70): Breaking Wheel. Most survivors in that band extend chases with pallet stuns. Wheel form removes that option.
High ranks (80+): Dream Witch, Queen Bee, or The Shadow. Survivors kite better, so split pressure beats raw chase speed.
Buy with Clues (4,508) when you can. Spend 858 Echoes only after the trial games. Package math is in the Identity V Echoes guide.
Skip Hell Ember in ranked. Skip any hunter you have played fewer than 20 ranked games. Season 43 is past the opening mixed-rank window. Underplayed kits leak points.
Best hunters for beginners
A complex S+ hunter in new hands loses to a simple S or A pick.
Sculptor is the first unlock. Place statues, walk the line between them, hit people who take the long route. Optimal statue spots take time. The loop itself is readable on day one.
Bloody Queen is the second unlock if you want a chase hunter. Mirrors fire with little setup. You can learn maps and survivor habits while the kit works.
Breaking Wheel and Herztier wait. Wheel form and the Spike swap punish bad timing. Herztier’s Human/Beast swap and mark windows ask for the same map sense you build on Sculptor first.
Season 43 hunter skin prices
Item | Echoes | Fragments / other | Notes |
|---|
Shop S-costume | 2,888 | 12,888 Fragments | First-week shop listings sometimes cut 15–20%. Check the tag in Illusion Hall. |
Shop A-costume | 1,388 (1,178 first week) | 4,888 Fragments | Wait for the first-week cut or a bundle. |
New hunter unlock | 858 | 4,508 Clues | Trial first. Clues if you can grind. |
Accessories | 788–1,888 | Varies | Buy for a hunter you already main. |
Essence pull | 318 (96 Inspirations) | — | 10-pull is 3,180 Echoes or 960 Inspirations. |
Essence Special Package | 576 for 10 pulls | Limit 3 | Buy these before raw Echo pulls. |
Qixi shop S (Soul Weaver Nameless Pursuer, Knight Wordless Exile, Night Watch Voiceless Rift) | 2,888 | 12,888 Fragments | Live in Illusion Hall with the August 13 shop wave. Related event tasks run through August 26, 23:59 UTC+8. |
Fianna (Herztier S) | Essence 3 only | 250-pull hard pity | 24,000 Inspirations or 79,500 Echoes at list rate. Leaves when Season 43 ends on September 9. |
The old 60-Echoes-per-pull math on this page was wrong. A Logic Path essence pull costs 318 Echoes. Soft community estimates of 12,000–15,000 Echoes for an S pull described a different product. Shop S at 2,888 and essence S at up to 79,500 are different items.
Limited vs shop skins
Fianna is essence-locked. When Season 43 ends, the S-costume leaves with the essence. A-costumes can return in Memory Sphere. Shop S-costumes can rerun. Read the expiry line in Illusion Hall before you decide to wait.
CNY 2026 bundles (Fluttering Heart, Silhouettes in Spring) expired March 14, 2026. The Wolf Knight A-pet window closed April 1, 2026. Those are gone. Do not hold Echoes for them.
Gacha vs direct purchase
If Illusion Hall lists the costume for Echoes or Fragments, buy it there. Essence gacha is for costumes with no shop path. Fianna is the current example. Buy the three 576-Echo packages first, spend Inspirations next, then decide your stop: 60 pulls for A-tiers, or 250 if you want Fianna guaranteed. Full Thursday costs sit in the August 2026 Thursday update notes.
Are Season 43 hunter skins worth buying?
Buy a shop S-costume in its first-week window if you have 60+ ranked games on that hunter. S-costumes change animations, skill effects, and voice lines. That value holds if you keep playing the hunter.
Wait on A-costumes for hunters you play now and then. 1,388 Echoes is a month of F2P income. A 20–40% bundle later is the better ticket.
Skip raw Echo pulls aimed at a shop-listed S-costume. The pity on essence is built for exclusive S items. For Fianna, treat 250 pulls as the cap and stop earlier if you miss.
NetEase posts costume dates on the official Identity V site. Confirm the in-client timer before you top up.
F2P Echo income
Source | Monthly Echoes |
|---|
Daily missions | ~3,360 |
Weekly missions | ~2,000 |
Ranked rewards | ~1,400 |
Events | 200–500 |
Total | ~5,560–6,160 |
That covers one shop A-costume per month, or a shop S-costume every 5–6 weeks if you save. Fragment S-costumes cost 12,888. Event stacking across seasons is the F2P path for those.
Season pass: buy it if you will finish 60–70% of the track before September 9. A pass in the last two weeks is a bad trade.
Echo spending mistakes
Pulling essence for a costume that is already in Illusion Hall. Shop price is 2,888. Pity is 79,500.
Missing a first-week shop cut. Set a reminder on season or shop-drop day.
Unlocking Herztier or any hunter at 858 Echoes before five trial games. 4,508 Clues exists for a reason.
Burning the first-purchase double on a package you do not need. Official first-top-up on a tier doubles that tier. Time it to a costume you will buy that week.
Sitting on Echoes while Fianna and the August shop wave expire. Essence for a later season is a plan. Echoes that miss a limited S-costume are a loss.
Need Echoes before a shop cut or the three 576 packages sell out? Buy Identity V Echoes on BitTopup: copy UID from Settings → Games, pick Asia or NA/EU, pay, then restart the client if the balance is stale.
Survivor comps that change hunter value
Hunter strength is also the lobby’s answer.
Forward + Matador + Seer + Mechanic is the chase-break core. Matador (Season 41) brings a 6 m dash, 2.5 m sweep, 0.6 s damage immunity, +50% hunter slow for 2.5 seconds, and a bonus 10 m dash on a clean hit. Breaking Wheel’s control immunity cuts the knockback plan. Dream Witch’s second body gives Matador no single chase to break.
Prospector + Mercenary + Doctor + Batter is the decode-and-heal lobby. It answers Sculptor and Geisha better than it answers Breaking Wheel.
FAQ
Who is the strongest hunter in Season 43?
Breaking Wheel. Wheel form deletes pallets and ignores stuns. Dream Witch is the other S+ pick, and she is the better large-map choice.
Are Season 43 skins limited?
Fianna is limited to Season 43 Essence 3 and leaves on September 9. Shop S-costumes can return. Qixi event tasks tied to the August 13 shop wave run through August 26, 23:59 UTC+8. Read the expiry text on the listing.
How many Echoes for the best Season 43 hunter skin?
Shop S: 2,888 Echoes, or about 2,308–2,455 if a first-week cut is live. Fragment path: 12,888. Fianna: up to 79,500 Echoes at 318 per pull, or 24,000 Inspirations. Buy the 576-Echo 10-pull packages (limit 3) before list-rate pulls.
Which hunter should I buy first?
Buy the hunter you already like in trial. If you have no favorite, buy Sculptor. He is S-tier, readable for new players, and 4,508 Clues / 858 Echoes.
Can F2P players get Season 43 skins?
Yes. Monthly Echoes land around 5,560–6,160. Shop A is a one-month save. Shop S is a 5–6 week save. Fragment S-costumes take more than one season of events.
How do I top up Echoes?
Use the official NetEase store, or BitTopup with UID and server only. Copy the number from Settings → Games, match Asia or NA/EU, pay, then claim in-client. First-purchase doubles apply per package tier. Do not share your password.
Conclusion
Season 42 is closed. Season 43 puts Breaking Wheel and Dream Witch at S+, Sculptor as the climb-safe S pick, and Herztier as the new A-tier homework. Shop S-costumes sit at 2,888 Echoes. Fianna lives on the 250-pull essence track. Save this page. The table gets a rewrite when Season 44 dates land. If a first-week listing or the remaining Essence packages need Echoes, buy Identity V Echoes before the September 9 season cut.
