Thanks to the unavailability of Tonberries, Stray Cat's Cat Kick is the clear winner in this category, but most players already knew that. It's available right away, too. However, Stray Cat has no useful qualities other than a powerful attack (though it also has no weaknesses), so some of the ones with weaker attacks are sometimes worth a second look. For example, Leafy Bunny absorbs Ice, Actinian absorbs Water and has some status immunities, Stunner and Wild Rat absorb Poison, and Garm is immune to a wide range of status effects, including instant death, 'petrified', and even 'slow' and 'stop'.

For Figa, Old Dragon is typically the better choice, as it has only one weakness (Ice, which you can easily cover with equipment) and instant-death immunity as a bonus. While King Behemoth does provide more status immunities, it also has the annoying complication of being undead, sometimes useful but usually a bad thing. In earlier options, use Bomb's Blaze to bypass 'reflect' and Celes's Magicseal Sword, or Heavy Infantry for innate 'protect' and fewer weaknesses.

Melton is powerful but risky, making Io's Flare Star generally more practical, particularly against bosses, which tend to have higher levels than random monsters. On the other hand, Flare Star has the drawback of dividing its damage equally between all targets, rather than simply halving it when multitargeting like most spells do. If you'd rather use Melton, Mover typically wins out over Daedalus, which is both undead and weak against Flame.

Blizzaga is the most powerful here, and Baal-zephon absorbs six elements as a nice bonus, making it one of the better defensive Rages while still having an impressive offense. Gorchimera's Avalanche is another good choice despite its lower power, since it always multitargets and, unlike all the other options, does not have its damage halved when doing so. Earlier in the game, Blizzara works rather well, with Veil Dance typically preferable to the undead Dark Side.

Punisher generally works best, with innate 'haste' and no drawbacks except a Poison weakness. Next best is Satan, with innate 'reflect' and a Holy weakness. Aspilance also deserves special mention, given that its 1000 Kilovolts hits nearly as hard as Thundaga despite being available soon after Gau first joins.

Ninja's Suiton gives you the best power, but Great Tidal Wave doesn't have its damage halved against groups and can therefore match it in that situation. En Oh has both constant 'reflect' and constant 'slip', while Black Force has neither but doesn't appear until the final dungeon. Earlier on, Di Olveda works quite well when sneaking into Vector, though you should replace it with Chimera as soon as possible for no weaknesses and many status immunities.

Marchosias is generally a better choice than Sprinter, having more status immunities and an innate 'levitate' to avoid earthquakes. Earlier, Wind Scythe tends to outclass Aqua Breath, since it maintains full damage against multiple targets, and it helps that Guard Leader is available immediately. The fairly high power and automatic multitargeting combined with the fact that few monsters resist Wind damage make it one of the better choices for a significant portion of the game.

As noted above, Melton remains impractical without advance preparation, but Mover generally wins out over Daedalus.

Each of the skills here has its pros and cons. Quake is undeniably powerful, but is just as dangerous to allies as enemies without proper preparation. Magnitude 8 isn't as deadly, but it's not bad either, and the only drawback is it can't hit floating targets any more than Quake can. Lifeshaver is more of a situational-use skill, being basically a beefed-up elemental Drain spell, but it's also unlike the other three in that it can hit floating enemies. Finally, Landslide is essentially a weaker Magnitude 8, though it is at least unavoidable (except by floating) and hits all enemies even when surrounded.

As for which Rages to pick for each, Hill Gigas is available early, but Gigantos trumps it with innate 'protect', and Antares has Flame absorption that can come in handy. For Lifeshaver, Frab Evol works well fairly early despite being undead, but Psycho combines its main strength (Flame absorption) with fewer weaknesses. For Quake, Dribover Ekans comes earliest, but Ouroboros absorbs Flame and Chicken Medusa absorbs Poison, while Dribover Ekans has no absorptions. Death Penalty would generally be the worst of the lot even if it were available, being undead and having two weaknesses instead of one, so lacking it is no great loss.

Though Bio has the most raw power (sadly), Acid Rain works nearly as well against a group, thanks to not having its damage halved, and also guarantees multitargeting in addition to using a less readily available status effect. Adamancarry has no weaknesses and innate 'protect' to boot, so that's your best choice for Acid Rain. For Bio, Terrarium is available immediately and comes with a useful Water absorption. Vampire Thorn is similar but with more status immunities, while Magna Roaders absorb Ice instead, and Creature is the only one of the five that isn't weak against Flame. Malboro Great ends up being the best of the bunch in most situations, though, since it absorbs every element except for that one weakness.

The only variety here is in the monster properties. Outsider is generally the best option with its innate 'haste', but the Holy Dragon comes with no weaknesses, plenty of status immunities, and Holy absorption, whereas Outsider is weak against the same. Borghese appears a bit sooner, but that's its only advantage.

I've grouped these together because they both get the same result when successful on a monster.

First of all, Dejon works great against targets that aren't immune, automatically targeting all enemies and delaying dying counterattacks, but Deadly Bone has the usual drawbacks of an undead monster.

Blaster makes a good alternative in most situations. Though it lacks the delaying effect and might choose to target only a single enemy, it also differs from most instant-death attacks in that stamina cannot block it, which raises the effective success rate.

Death Roulette makes a great choice if you only need to kill one thing at a time. When cast through Rage, it always targets an enemy and always works unless the target has immunity, even against undead monsters. Ahriman lacks any weaknesses, which doesn't hurt, either.

Mu's Pitfall doesn't auto-hit, but it's still quite accurate, works on the undead, and will delay dying counters just like Dejon, making Death obsolete immediately.

Break has a high accuracy that occasionally comes in handy, but it fails against anything that's protected against instant death, even if it's otherwise vulnerable to petrification, which limits its usefulness.

Last, but certainly not least, Deep Eye's relatively inaccurate Terror Glance bypasses stamina blocking and can petrify even monsters with immunity to instant death. There aren't all that many with vulnerability to 'petrified' but not instant death, but it's a neat trick when it works.

Since all of these fail if the target is immune to instant death, why not just use instant death attacks? On the other hand, Cave-In and Sonic Boom never miss unless the target is immune, and Satellite is available immediately and gets a wide range of status immunities besides. Great Whirlwind, meanwhile, is a bit inaccurate, but it targets multiple enemies, inflicts substantial damage, and doesn't have Tornado's nasty habit of beating up on your own party. Of the options for Great Whirlwind, Briareus is the first one available, while Platinum Dragon is probably the best thanks to its innate 'levitate' and 'protect' and lack of any weaknesses. The early availability of Sonic Boom makes Shamshir, Gravity, and the less accurate Gravity Bomb all worthless.

Bodyguard's Megashock is the clear king of defendable damage here, but it's not available until the final dungeon, and something of the proper element is often a more effective choice anyway. Still, it works on anything and is clearly superior to the other defendable non-elemental options, unless you really want a draining attack. Zaghrem is available immediately, but even then, elemental attacks tend to work better, at least if damage is your objective.

But why use defendable damage when defense-ignoring alternatives are available? Level 4 Flare works wonders if the enemy level is a multiple of 4, but is useless otherwise. For single targets, Rockfall utterly outclasses Flare, being more powerful, unblockable, and unaffected by either 'reflect' or Magicseal Sword. Pick Purusha for this, as it lacks Luridan's weaknesses. For multiple targets, Tyrannosaurus has the enemy version of Meteor, boasting good raw power but a relatively low hit rate, while the player Meteor is relatively weak but always hits. Behemoth is available earlier, but Grand Behemoth lacks any weaknesses.

Meanwhile, Pacing Damage can consistently hit 9,999 once you've walked around enough, and Rages don't have to worry about the rising cost. Unfortunately, all of the Rages that use it are fairly poor otherwise. Pick Crawler for fewer weaknesses or Onion Dash for more status immunities. Earlier, Koja's Thousand Needles is a good choice for consistency, always inflicting 1,000 damage no matter what. Both Koja and Faze also absorb one element each, which can come in handy. Don't bother with Revenge Blast, though, as it depends too heavily on how damaged the user is, and a healthy Rager will just waste turns on it.

Foul Breath will inflict 'darkness', 'poison', 'kappa', 'silence', 'confusion', and 'sleep'. Disaster, on the other hand, is fairly inaccurate and will be absorbed by Magicseal Sword, but can target multiple enemies and will inflict 'darkness', 'kappa', 'death sentence', 'silence', 'confusion', and (oddly enough) 'levitation'. Which one is preferable depends on the situation. When picking Disaster, Brachio Raidus provides immunities to nearly every bad status, making it the preferred choice except when Chaos Dragon's Flame absorption would help more.

These are the two nastiest status effects the game gives players access to. Northern Cross inflicts 'frozen', which works much like 'stop', but lasts longer (unless thawed by a Flame attack), and there is no such thing as immunity to it. The only things that keep it from being better are that Dragonfiend isn't available until the final dungeon, and more importantly, Northern Cross will randomly fail even when it hits. Temptation, on the other hand, inflicts 'charmed' status, which is basically an incurable version of 'confusion'. Like 'frozen', there is no such thing as immunity to 'charmed', but unlike Northern Cross, Temptation doesn't randomly fail. The biggest drawback is that each user can only charm a single enemy at a time, but many bosses are only a single enemy anyway, so yeah.

Though the accuracy is a bit low, Stoning inflicts some damage in addition to the status attack, and is available immediately with the Zaghrem Rage, which comes with innate 'berserk' to boost damage on normal attacks. Level 3 Confuse works wonders against enemies with levels evenly divisible by 3 that aren't immune, but it's worthless otherwise. Trapper is available the soonest of these three, while Dante has the fewest weaknesses. Finally, Confuse is rarely worthwhile, although Drop does at least come with immunity to nearly every status effect.

Limited usefulness, particularly since the spell works as a toggle and is so readily available anyway. Regardless, Onion is the first one to appear, while Neck Hunter makes probably the best option, with just one weakness (tied with Tzakmaqiel) and also innate 'haste'.

Net has the same effect and hit rate as Stop, but bypasses 'reflect' and Magicseal Sword, giving it an edge. That and Zocca's innate 'protect' make it probably the best of the lot. However, Alacrán and Acrophies are worth a second look, simply because they appear so early. Specifically, they let you disable several bosses before 'stop' status is otherwise available. Alacrán is weak against Ice and Water, while Acrophies is weak against Thunder and immune to 'kappa', so use whichever is better suited to the opponent.

Though being hit physically will wake up a sleeping opponent, 'sleep' is otherwise just as good as 'stop', and some enemies are vulnerable to one but not the other. Brain Sugar is available early, but Naracamicie provides immunity to nearly every status ailment in addition to an ability that works on multiple enemies at once.

Rarely worthwhile, even the multitarget ones. It's just too easy to learn the spells, and slowing enemies isn't nearly as useful as stopping them. If you insist, Amduscias is probably the best option. Also, Pudding might work out despite the rather poor skill, since it's immune to five different elements.

Generally useless due to the ready availability of the spell, but at least you get innate 'haste' and immunity to instant death with the Rage.

Rarely useful, since most things that are vulnerable would die more quickly other ways. Charmy Ride at least has no weaknesses.

There isn't much to look at here. Cave-In and Sonic Boom miss if the target is immune to instant death, and the others just don't hurt much, if at all. The small amount of damage the status effect causes doesn't justify going out of your way to inflict it.

Refer to the Poison damage section, but take out Acid Rain and toss in a few pointless no-damage physicals. Poison Smog is at least unreflectable.

Thanks to the evade bug, 'darkness' has no effect on monsters, so don't bother with these.

Another dubious status effect, no matter who it's targeting. It's more effective to learn Berserk and cast it manually when appropriate.

Eerie Soundwave has limited application, but can be nice to soften things up to help with stealing, for example. Figaro Lizard has the fewest weaknesses, while Gamma has the most status immunities. Coco's Love Sentence is something unique. My understanding is that it causes the target to take physical damage in place of the user, sort of like a character wearing a Knight's Expertise protects weakened allies. I'm not sure what the limitations are, but Gau can reach 255 defense and be effectively immune to physical with relative ease anyway, so it's not as useful as it could be, regardless of the details. Gogo might like it, possibly.

These typically aren't worth the randomness and frequent pointless recasting that using them through a Rage will give you, particularly Reflect (which is itself reflectable) and Vanish (which cancels its own effect). Mighty Guard is rare enough to make it interesting, if only to teach it to Stragus. Destroydar does make a great tank in most situations, though. Between Reraise, innate 'protect', Thunder absorption, and immunity to instant death and petrification, the user becomes very difficult to take down, especially when combined with appropriate equipment.

Pass on Esuna and Raise, since Ragers are too likely to cast them to no effect. General may be of some use early on, particularly since it has innate 'protect' to complement the healing. White Wind typically does a good job of keeping the whole party healthy, with Vector Lithos being the better option, as it has numerous status immunities (including instant death) and lacks Peeping Bear's innate 'slip' status. The show-stealer here is Magic Pot, though. Like the other healing spells except White Wind, Curega still has an annoying tendency to heal the wrong target, but the healing, useful as it can be, isn't the best part. Magic Pot absorbs all eight elements and provides immunity to every status effect that it's possible to be immune to. If that doesn't keep a Rager alive, it's hard to imagine what will.

Raspir is only useful in a few specific situations, and Aspir only works when the user needs MP. These aren't generally worth using.

Self-Destruct might have its rare uses, but an uncontrollable Fusion is simply foolish. Slumbering Lion would be an incredible defensive Rage if only it weren't suicidal, given that it absorbs all elements, is immune to nearly all status effects, and has innate 'transparent', 'levitate', 'haste', 'shell', and 'protect'. You can still get the benefits by inflicting 'silence' before using the Rage to prevent Fusion from working, but there's a bug that prevents positive status effects from kicking in if the first action under a Rage is an attempt to cast that fails due to 'silence', so you're not guaranteed all the benefits even then.

This might be remotely useful in a no-magic challenge, but otherwise, what's the point? The only benefit, Poison absorption, also appears on much better Rages.