Tier List View
I most definitely hate nuance.
Perfect
Well-Executed
Lacking
Thought Out
Before Continuation
I'm not going to bother attaching myself to rules as I feel like I can make my thoughts clear enough on characters with descriptions alone.
This is mostly not attached to tier placement at all. This is based on how well I think this character communicates their ideas, the originality of said ideas, and how said ideas interact with the system mechanics. Characters who are where they are because of tiers will be mentioned, but they are easily the minority.
Is this based on how fun a character is to play?
Not necessarily since that's way too opinionated. There are lots of characters in the higher tiers who I don't enjoy playing as nor enjoy fighting against. I absolutely despise fighting Mu-12, yet she ranks highly.
Game-sellers
I believe these characters to be the cream of the crop of what I'm looking for in this game. When you think of BlazBlue, you should think of these characters.
Ragna the Bloodedge
Ragna is perfect, not only exceling at teaching a new player what they'll need to know about BlazBlue going in, but still managing to stand out as a unique character among the rest of the cast.
To start off with the obvious, Soul Eater. Ragna's low base HP is offset by his D buttons, behaving as a simple set of normals with a lifesteal effect that increases based on how many prior D attacks Ragna has landed in a combo. It's not hard to come to grips with all and using them will quickly become second-nature, tying in perfectly with Ragna being a beginner-friendly character. In keeping with ArcSys traditions and their protagonist buttons, 5B
GuardMidStartup8Recovery16Advantage-7 will quickly become a favorite of anyone picking up the character, though it's worth mentioning that Ragna does not have a single bad or situational move. This all ensures a new player can readily put the pieces together without confusion.
Ragna also communicates his playstyle well. Since his Dead Spike
GuardAllStartup26RecoveryTotal 57Advantage-1 [+9] is horrifically slow and nigh-useless in neutral, and Ragna himself gets pitiful resourceless damage at range, players will quickly discover running away is not viable by any means. Instead, they'll notice Ragna's vast array of pressure resets, including the aforementioned Dead Spike, and how much higher Ragna's damage is when he's gotten up close and personal. This goes further with how high-risk Ragna's gameplan is with many of his mixup options being quite unsafe, and any mistake he makes will be very visible on the health bar due to Ragna's low HP. At the same time however, any small bit of advantage Ragna gets quickly mounts up thanks to his lifesteal, so regardless of the risks Ragna needs to charge in and wrestle advantage back from his opponent.
I don't think I've seen a better designed main protagonist for an anime game in regards to how well Ragna shows you what BlazBlue is, and how to play him. In fact, I've basically just written a character overview. I could gush for hours at how well his normals interact with the system mechanics such as TRM, but frankly I'd hope by now the point's been made. Anyone who enjoys BlazBlue's mechanics should enjoy Ragna.
Now re-add all the character interactions he had in the prior games. No, being nice to Lambda and Celica is not all of them.
Hakumen
Takes the simple footsies character and translates it beautifully into a chaotic game. Hakumen forces these wacky anime characters to play a slow, decision-heavy game of neutral with only a big sword and a mean counterhit behind it.
What Hakumen does is nothing truly new. Fighting games from long ago like Art of Fighting have experimented with gating special moves behind meter, and a counter character with explosive damage is also surprisingly common in the genre. Yet, oftentimes a lot of these characters will go overboard with these ideas. You can easily get someone like 
Baiken, who violates the rules the game rather than working with them. Hakumen seemingly does this by having a totally different meter gauge that fills automatically, delayed gatlings (fake links), a parry that beats both lows and mids, and special to special cancels. Yet Hakumen manages to still operate in a reasonable ground, as these mechanics that make him strong are also the things that stop him from going crazy. Hakumen needs to calculate the risks behind his moves just as much as his opponent does, as he's just as limited if not moreso than his opponent, and charging in aggressively will quickly burn Hakumen out of his resources and render him without a threat on his counterhits. You rarely see this type of character who plays neutral so methodically in these games which are all about being as over-the-top as possible. A lot of people hate getting counterhit out of their pressure into a meterdump explosion from him, but I think that works fine thanks to Hakumen not having a real backdash or forward dash and a terrible anti-air.
Jin Kisaragi
Jin's gameplay is a surprisingly good fit for his personality. At first glance he's your typical beginner friendly shoto, but his effeminate Ky-inspired appearance betrays a man with none of Ky's morals or honesty. Jin is a real bastard with lots of tricks up his sleeve, and is more than capable of getting any job done with an ever-present terrible attitude that sours everyone's mood. Players like Fenritti have shown off how flashy Jin can look, and also how downright mean he is to play against when his options are creatively applied. Hilariously, his "gimmick" is just his Drive specials being Force Break versions of his regular specials, which really means Jin is nothing but BlazBlue's system mechanics and a restand. For a character to have so much yet be so simple in a game like this, he deserves very special credit. Though I don't know why they removed the A/B/C versions of his specials he had in prior entries.
Island Gorilla
Susanoo's players have no brains, and have never played footsies once in their entire lives. They think their neutral is godlike throwing out big dumb zero recovery ground normals, and air normals most of the cast can't hope to compete with. That's largely in part due to the character's design, but the majority of them do not do this character justice. There's a lot to enjoy here, even if it's easy to look at them with scorn as they throw out ABCD 236B into 4k damage and then SWEAR they're working just as hard as you.
With that aside, Susanoo is great, and avoids many pitfalls that characters with similar mechanics may trap themselves in. Without any seals, Susanoo is still a perfectly acceptable character with some of the best normals to ever grace a fighting game. This avoids the common issue of characters being complete garbage until they get their gameplans going, instead reinforcing Susanoo's ability to snowball. It's also a nice touch how it's an intentionally similar system to Hakumen, except instead of needing meter to use specials, Susanoo has to unlock them, encouraging a more in-your-face brawler style compared to Hakumen's slower and methodical approach. The fact that his dash has so much startup justifies many decisions behind Susanoo's complete lack of an execution barrier and ridiculous normals, as he won't be able to just charge in at you and pressure like everyone else, and can struggle to escape in a lot of situations. It all comes together to make for a character who can feel like a rollercoaster, and it's no wonder he's such a popular character. Still, someone needs to tell Susanoos their air buttons are the most privileged nonsense ever.
Almost Perfect
All of them are strong arguments for the above tier, and for many could indeed be the reason they play this game. They all show off BlazBlue wonderfully as well, but might have just one minor issue.
Nu-13
Well, she got nerfed HARD. That's why she can't be among the gods. This is one of those characters who is so close to being an ace in the hole, but she's simply too undertuned in this game! As a pure zoner, Nu is way more fun than your average Sonic Boom throwing shmuck. I'd put her on the same level as a character like Kilgore, whose zoning felt very interactive and nonlinear. Her changes in CF, like the Luminous Slave, are also great additions to her kit. But it comes as no surprise that few want to play a character who, despite seemingly everything being perfectly put into place, just can't stand up. Being associated with Noel in this game is a bad omen.
Rachel Alucard
Wind is great. You're going to notice a running trend here, and the characters who have the simplest gimmicks that have lots of layers to them tend to score highly. Rachel a great example of this, as her D button doesn't even play an animation, instead it blows wind across the map. It's completely up to the player to work wind into her movement and kit, especially thanks to her slow walk speed and floaty jumps, and many of her moves are intentionally designed to work with wind in mind lending to a versatile yet calculated character. That said, the changes made to Rachel in CF such as the poison damage bats were dumb, and that frog still has got to go.
Hazama
In terms of character popularity, Hazama may as well be a game-seller, and his gameplay design is worthy of great praise. In many ways you could compare him to your typical speedster pixie character, however the main thing that makes Hazama different is that he is not actually fast, limited by his stepdash and short ranged buttons to casually walking around neutral and using his chains to launch himself from location to location. That slipperiness that comes with his bursts of movement, combined with how his movement option can be used to zone or mixup opponents, can make Hazama a real spectacle to play against or watch. He's also a good example of a character whose weakness is also a strength, since his stepdash is pretty fast to recover and lets him keep momentum on his buttons. You could honestly compare him to Rachel, but as I just outlined he's still distinct in his own way.
Iron Tager
Tager suffers in this game. Commonly perceived as the worst character in the game, maybe placing higher in some lists, but rarely above the bottom tier. I understand what they were going for, attempting to emphasize his magnetism gimmick over his grappler traits. He dealt insane damage in CPEX and had such a strong vortex to the point where getting creative with magnetism wasn't truly required of him, but it was still there enough to get the job done and make him stand out. Even in CF, magnetism stands as the most creative thing a grappler could ever have. However, that's all offset by how painful every other aspect of him is. A grappler with grabs that lead to low reward is no grappler at all, and I have to ask what the point was with nerfing his buttons while retaining his terrible speed to make him more reliant on magnetism all to get crap to average reward when he finally gets you. Kokonoe suffers from none of these issues while retaining the gimmick. He is no 
Potemkin. But I still love him.
Creative or Well-Executed
Good characters, but notice the lack of "and" here. They're one or the other, not both.
Izanami
As overpowered as she is cool, Izanami is one of "those" kinds of characters. A make or break design that honestly is either going to be garbage or god tier. I violently dislike her Flaming Dome
GuardAllStartup15RecoveryAdvantage- as it's too obvious how to apply it in her routes for the oki it gives her, and her buttons feel too strong for a character with such tricky movement options and zero recovery projectiles. But through it all, something creative manages to shine with her. It's how she manages to be a mobile version of all the system mechanics, like how she turns Barrier into Ribcage, and the projectiles mentioned needing to be activated through a stance along with said stance not letting her block—so she's always in recovery and will want to use ribcage to save herself! There's also her double jump being replaced with the hover and so on. Frankly, she's awesome despite the problems with balance. I'd be damned if they could pull her off in a way that wasn't way too strong or way too weak, but if we never see her again it'll be unfortunate.
Mu-12
Could win an award for the absolute worst character design any ArcSys game. Extremely annoying to fight and I hate that she can break herself out of combos. But, steins are still a much better way of handling your orb/trap character in a fighting game than average. Now explain to me why she gets a reversal.
Litchi Faye Ling
Similar case as Mu. I quite like how she can attack in tandem with her staff, and how they work back and forth between each other to make her a nightmare. Reminds me quite a bit of Zato, way better than BlazBlue's other puppets at being a puppet for some reason. In fact, she's even rather straightforward and simple with the staff on, and becomes much trickier but has more glaring weaknesses when she sets it down. In a way, she reminds me of Ramlethal, except much better.
Kokonoe
Basically takes Tager's gimmick but trades the extremely strong grappler traits*Please pretend Tager's grabs are strong in this game. for a more well-rounded approach. However, for as cool as her magnetism gadgets are, I can't help but feel like she is the second character listed now who is comparable to Rachel, but she is so much more complicated than her. The loss of simplicity as well as what feels like a repeated gimmick holds her back, not to mention she can lean into knowledge check city with moves such as her reversal super leaving a lingering projectile that can break her out of combos. She also tends to deal more damage than Tager off of her mixups, which is simply heartbreaking.
Amane Nishiki
Now this is how you do Bridget. Amane does everything Bridget should've accomplished, by still being a runaway long-ranged character but encouraging aggressive actions that actually scare the opponent instead of boring them in this game of chase. The excessively high chip damage Amane can deal once he gets going is hilarious, to the point where it's actually better to get hit by him than block, which also gives a nice change of pace compared to your typical runaway character who rarely gets opportunities to do cool combos since everyone is just blocking and taking chip most of the time.
Acceptable
Bang Shishigami
Good, but I have one issue. He feels like a very overdesigned character in gameplay. Between his seals, Furinkazan, needles, strange normals and guardpoint D attacks, he strikes me as a character who lacks consistency in his ideas. I can only recall a few players who played him at the top level, but at least those players made a good show out of what he was capable of, so I think better of him than others.
Jubei
Jubei is stuffed with every idea the devs could think of, you can simply look at his overview on the dustloop page and see how many unique mechanics he has listed, yet it comes together as a character who feels like he's been thought out too much for you. He's got an obvious projectile oki tool that can be canceled into from other specials just to ensure he can always get it, he has a crossup dash that can steal corner, quick fatal counter, and so on. His Drive gimmick is also hardly anything special, as it's just a dash attack that applies a status effect buffing his supers. Sure, he has the install, and I understand the rest of his gimmicks come through his always-crouching status and the rest of his moves, but for whatever reason he makes me think more of Xrd than BlazBlue. I'd still say he's kinda cool.
Tsubaki Yayoi
They directly made an Order-Sol joke in the story mode with her. They knew what the goal was, and I actually think she accomplishes it much better than Order-Sol does thanks to her having to build up stocks that she spends one at a time instead of blowing them all in one go. Likely to tie in with the lore, she takes several pages from Jin and Hakumen's books, but does so in an acceptable enough way where she still feels like her own character. I also like her massive assortment of normals, it feels like even without stocks built up she has a lot up her sleeve. A weirdly nice and inoffensive character, especially for one that's supposed to be the equivalent of the explosively popular Order-Sol.
Lambda-11
Rushdown clone of Nu-13. I don't know why she was brought back to life in the story, not that I'm going to complain, but it's a weird solution to fix Nu's modeswap mechanic she had in BBCP. She's fun to play as, I think she doesn't do enough to stand out from Nu, but in the end I'd say she's well done for a character who is attempting to gear a zoner into a rushdown. It was perhaps done best due to Nu's kit being changed first, with Lambda retaining the Spike Chaser while Nu got Luminous Slave to replace it.
Taokaka
Actually a solid enough character. Too bad nobody plays her.
Standard
I don't have much to say about a lot of these characters. They're fine, but they don't wow me.
Celica A. Mercury
Anti-Ragna. Intentionally having a near-identical yet different gimmick to him, good normals, but a much less impressive pressure game thanks to her drives being this strange rekka chain. It feels like Celica players are squeezing blood from a stone sometimes, which is a shame as her general idea is a creative spin on Ragna's concept. It forgets that a major factor as to why Ragna worked was how his Drive buttons were another set of normals, while Celica's cannot be considered anything like this. Usually the people you see playing her are beginners who will drop the game in a week, as of the time I'm writing this her dustloop page still uses images with CPEX backgrounds.
Naoto Shirogane
naoto is your bogstandard anime rushdown character his dash cancels are cool i guess
Platinum the Trinity
A combination of Faust and May. Two already simple characters, both done well. However, while I like Faust, I have never cared for May. Platinum's own mechanic doesn't do anything that requires an entire button be dedicated to it, hence she doesn't get a lot from me.
Personality
Don't we have enough trap/setplay characters already? I can't think of anything Es does that someone else doesn't also do, she feels like a chimera of other characters. Fortunately that means she also tends to take some of their good traits too, but she's overall uninteresting. Beginners sure love her at least.
Hibiki Kohaku
I'd rather have the maid.
Valkenhayn R. Hellsing
Reminds me of Chipp or Millia, in a pretty bad way. He's close to a character who runs a singleplayer execution trial game, and for setplay characters that's one thing, but Valkenhayn feels too well-rounded and lacking glaring weaknesses compared to your average setplay character. He also tends to kill slowly, and matches tend to drag against characters who run looping low damage vortexes, especially since ArcSys games have high hitstop and long combos. I don't think he's offensive or missing anything, just a bit boring, and playing against him ranges from very fast and hectic to a complete slog. Any time a Valkenhayn is winning in a match it feels like you have to force yourself to say "oh yeah that's cool", he's fake hype.
Somewhat Lacking
These are designs that I think are in need of a small push. They aren't quite there to being awful, but compared to the rest of the cast are either dry or confused.
Kagura Mutsuki
Kagura is a cool dude, definitely not a Gary Sue, but gameplay wise he has no reason to be calling himself a BlazBlue character. His D buttons could just be regular special moves, and on any other character they would be. They don't show off the Drive system mechanics at all with how simplistic they are, and they can't even be used in the air as Kagura will just drop to the ground to use them instead! I guess you could treat it like an air stall, but that's unoriginal with how many characters have those now. It also doesn't help that his kit tends to just not work right, like how his 5D~A will clash with DP moves rather than absorbing them and punishing. He's not straightforward in a good way like Ragna or Jin are, and honestly with a few changes he'd be a Guilty Gear character. Might sound fine, and it really isn't so bad, hence why he's at the top of this tier.
Yuuki Terumi
Jin 2. They have the exact same gimmick, except instead of EX moves Terumi steals meter and does a bunch of supers. Otherwise they have nearly the exact same limitations except Terumi just handles them worse. Terumi is pretty popular among new players despite this, but he trickles out the longer players stick around, and gets called one of the worst characters in the game pretty frequently. Frankly, he just needs something more. A little bit of a push to make him crazier and faster. Given how he's clearly intended to abuse RC, I'd almost say it'd be cool if he had HnK's Boost system instead of an RC. Anything more for him to use his meter on so he can keep the cycle going.
Noel Vermillion / 
Makoto Nanaya
These two didn't take the transition from BBCPEX well. Compared to Tager who at least survived in a semi-operating state, these two are in serious need of maintenance. Or perhaps in Noel's case, need to avoid the maintenance men like the plague. Noel has absolutely nothing going for her any more, having been hit so hard in the transfer from CPEX to CF that she is outright missing vital moves, and struggles to run her previously sound gameplan. For the squirrel, I don't think I've ever seen a Makoto player in a tournament. I know she has projectile oki in this game, that's about it. I think it's almost unfair to be putting them down with the "badly thought out" characters since they are not flawed at a root level. This feels more like they're being denied their opportunity to shine.
Mai Natsume
What a great idea it is to have a command dash and backflip without requiring an input. Although simple, it makes Mai's movement feel a lot more intuitive, especially with how her 214 can be treated as a secondary backdash (or backflip) and you can use it to stall your air momentum. But everything else in the character is horrifically dull. Feels like every match with her ends up playing the same as a result, and her ease of use tends to render her a massive noob trap. I can't fathom okaying a character whose optimal is just mashing the same button over and over in the corner.
Carl Clover
I very strongly disagree with how BlazBlue handles its puppet characters. Carl feels like a poor man's Zato, instead of relying on negative edge he uses the drive button to pilot Ada and have her attack. This removes a major part of what made Zato cool to play, since the negative edge made it feel like Zato and his shadow were attacking in tandem instead of separately. This is combined with how his kit is dripping with privilege that other puppets tend to not have, such as his "dangerous defense" Counter Assault into Ada because Ada doesn't have to be summoned and can therefore be remotely positioned anywhere. He at least qualifies as a puppet, unlike his dad, but this is an example where BlazBlue's desire to have everything on a designated gimmick button actually scaled back what made a character cool.
Badly Thought Out
Azrael
It's far too obvious what Azrael is trying to be like, but he misses the mark for the exact opposite reasons as Kagura. 
Slayer is an insanely cool character for many reasons, but one of them is that he doesn't have to break too many rules to enforce his gameplan. While he has his backdash cancels, the real meat of what Slayer wants you to do is start getting impatient, disrespect his layered mixups then eat a big fat counterhit and explode. Azrael on the other hand has a dedicated mixup button and if he hits you with the same kind of mixup twice he gets an easy combo afterwards. I don't know about you, but that's a really shallow imitation of Slayer. It doesn't help that Azrael's hardest hitting combos with Valiant and Hornet are incredibly easy to perform and drag the opponent all over the place, it's forced and unnatural compared to CH Pilebunker.
Bullet
Izayoi
I don't know what this character was trying to achieve since her gameplan is just play until you win. She needs stocks to make her Morrigan mode crazy strong, but she gets those stocks simply by using her special moves. On block she gains one stock and on hit she gains two. First I have to ask what the point of the stock system is since all it does is give her Morrigan mode lame neutral skip EX moves and followups off of Finer, second I have to ask what the point of the stock system is if it's this easy to gain. This is also combined with how Izayoi would seemingly be balanced out by her Morrigan-esque dash being counterintuitive in neutral and making approaches difficult, similar to how 
I-No's insane kit is balanced, but she only ever has to deal with the dash while she's in Morrigan mode and her default mode has incredible all-purpose normals any way. It's like she can just turn off her weaknesses at the press of a button.
Nine the Phantom
Dormammu but dumb(er). Nine is definitely an idea that belongs in BlazBlue but in execution it seems all the effort went into her effects and sprites. The way she gains her spells turns her kind of into a flowchart, where it becomes obvious what she's chasing once you realize what the Kunzite combination is, and there's not much room for experimentation as she can't do anything like microdashing. Doesn't help that a lot of her spells are pretty one note too, and her normals are all mostly interchangeable so she can chase down whatever's "most optimal" without having to worry about much. It's a dropped ball. Dormammu by comparison having to take time to prepare his spell combinations ironically made him more freeform.
Relius Clover
Relius is an embarrassment. He should not be calling himself a puppet character, because he isn't one. Ignis can be freely summoned instantly into an attack and then perfectly follows Relius around with no hurtbox. If you jab Ignis out of an attack, she'll desummon, but it takes Relius a simple special move input or 5D to get her back out. Her gauge also barely decreases at all while she's out, so Relius players tend to just get her out as fast as they can. This is the most surface level "puppet" ever as a result, in actuality Ignis is just a special move meter that becomes a mixup/pressure timer when Relius gets in. Managing her is hilariously easy, and Relius' own kit is also straightforward. At the very least, this all makes Relius perfectly okay to fight, since you can just treat him like a regular rushdown character and still have a good time.
Arakune
Singleplayer and takes BB's general gimmicks to an absurd degree. If you know anything about BB you're probably going to hear quickly how everyone absolutely hates Arakune, and this is something that's been going strong since his inception. His kit makes no sense and defies all notion of traditional fighting game design, and he spends the entire match running away to build up curse or punish bad attempts at catching him. Once Curse is started, interactions between him and the opponent plummet even further as he runs an execution trial on you to deal 8k off of an unblockable. Without curse he's pretty much the worst character in the game, making his general gimmick the heaviest handed out of all of BB. I've always thought setplay characters like this were just grapplers with extra steps, and way less interesting. Still better than Nero Chaos at least, and I don't hate him as much as other players do.