What is this list based on?
My subjective experience and opinion.

Who should I roll for?
Your raifu until she comes home.

Why isn‘t there a Tier-List?
Because GFL has way too many factors to write a universal tier list: Day/night battles, enemy types, current state of the game…
Over the last seven years, there have been multiple meta changes. Some early top tier dolls became useless and vice versa, some are always good, some are always bad, some fit in a very specific niche, some were useless in the beginning, then became must-haves, then turned into dead weight again. Since these changes are heavily tied to the story, you will experience all the changes as you progress as a new player.

So dolls not on the list are bad?
No, but probably less interesting for casuals that just want to get through the story. If your raifu isn’t on the list, don’t worry, neither is mine. Use her anyway, there are four other dolls in the echelon that will help her shine.

What about the Tier-Lists I found online?
I found basically three types:
1. Pictured Tier-List on Reddit. They categorize dolls and give short descriptions, so they are somewhat useable, but outdated.
2. Lists on tiermaker.com. All of them seem to be based on popularity rather than gameplay.
3. The same ♥♥♥♥♥♥ list with a (CURRENTMONTH CURRENTYEAR) behind them copied to multiple websites. Entirely useless. T91 is S-Tier, but M4 Mod is B-Tier, sure.

What about dupes?
In Girls Frontline, „dupe“ has a different meaning. Dolls can be „dummy linked“ up to 5 times, usually referred to as x1 (one dummy) to x5 (five dummies). Dummies increase the HP and resource consumption, that’s it. A x1 doll can have the same stats and skills as a x5 doll, apart from the HP. Also, you can use cores for dummy linking, meaning you don’t have to roll a doll more than once to max her out.
A „dupe“ refers to multiple copies of the same doll. In theory, you can fill you entire armory with multiple copies of the same doll.

What is a Mod?
Some dolls can get a „Neural upgrade“ once they reach level 100, increasing their max level to 120, enhancing their stats and skill (Mod 1), giving them a second skill at level 110 (Mod 2) and exclusive equipment at level 115 (Mod 3). Some dolls are only useful because of their Mod 2.

If "Mod" is mentioned somewhere in the list below, it always means Mod 2 unless stated otherwise.

M1895 (Nagant)
Solid buffer, wants her Mod to be really useful.

Makarov
RoF buffer, with her Mod she can give the entire echelon shields and strong accuracy/evasion buffs to single dolls.

SAA (Colt, Cola)
Good buffer, especially for ARs with low accuracy, gets even better with her Mod.

K5
Gives good buffs depending on doll typ, can give a strong shield for a very short time.

Mk23
Very strong damage buff.

Stechkin
Great RoF buff, even better with her Mod 1 and Mod 3.

Contender
Good for nuking bosses, has the ability to load armor piercing ammo which comes in handy at one point in the story.

Desert Eagle
Good against enemies with shields.

Grizzly MkV
Great damage buff, her tiles can make her a little more useful than Mk23.

Five-SeveN (5-7, HOXY)
Good RoF and crit rate buff, works best with Px4 Storm.

Px4 Storm
Good crit damage buff, her skill reduces the crit rate of other dolls by 20%, pair her up with Five-seveN to negate this.

HP-35
Increases damage enemies take, reduces damage allies take, very useful with KSVK Mod.

HS2000
Gives a shield, tileshape is a little odd.

Kolibri
Not that easy to use, but can give great buffs to the entire echelon when battles last long enough.

M950A (Callico)
Good RoF buff, gets even better with her Mod that allows her to slow down enemies.

P22
Buffs allies according to their position on the field.

Python
Buff distributer, very useful with AS Val.

Webly
Special buffs for the echelon leader.

Welrod MkII
Good buffs, can be used as a budget tank if everything else fails, even better with her Mod, just take care of her changed tile pattern.

FNC (Choco)
Easy to get and dummy-link, the best pick to carry you until you find better ARs

9A-91 (Night queen)
Only useful in night battles.

AS Val Mod (Night goddess)
Useless without her Mod, becomes the best night AR once she has it: When she gets a damage buff she also gets perfect accuracy which allows her to bring a crit scope to night battles. Works best with Python.

M4A1 Mod (Cinnamon roll)
Buffs ARs instead of SMGs, ok without her Mod, but on another level with it. Meant as a safety net when only 3 or less allies are on the field, during her basic skill, she loses 70% RoF but attacks deal 600% damage and AoE damage. You want to abuse this by retreating two dolls before her skill kicks in.

Ribeyrolls
Buffs ARs (a lot) instead of SMGs, even better with her Mod.

ST AR-15 (Star)
Good RoF AR, gets even better with her Mod and works great with M4A1 Mod.

M4 SOPMOD II (Soppo)
Okay Grenadier, better with her Mod.

AK-12
Pretty good overall, becomes untargetable with her Mod.

AK-15 (Gorilla)
Even better than AK-12, has crazy damage potential and tanking abilities with her Mod.

AN-94
During her skill attacks hit twice, good against certain enemies. Not as good as AK-12 and AK-15, but still solid.

Gr G41 (Homete)
Was the standard-AR benchmark for many years, fits almost everywhere as a generalist.

G11 (Sleepo Beepo)
During her skill, every attack hits three times, VERY useful against certain enemies. With her Mod, she can deal damage based on the targets max HP.

HK416 (All you need)
Best grenadier, even better with her Mod. Gets worse later in the game when enemy HP is so high that she can’t nuke them in one shot.

K2
During her skill attacks hit three times with reduced damage, good against certain enemies, but debuffs her if used for too long.

OTs-14 (Night empress)
The best night AR until you get AS Val Mod.

QBZ-191
Can deal AoE damage and stop enemies form using their skills, VERY useful against certain enemies.

Am RFB
Gets RF targeting during her skill.

SCAR-L
You absolutely want to pair her with SCAR-H, insane damage.

Micro Uzi Mod (Brainlet, Ugi)
Useless until she gets her mod which turns her into the best molotov SMG.

MP41 Mod
Zero-to-hero when she suddenly got her Mod, which inflicts debuffs on enemies and increases their damage taken.

Gr MP5 Mod
Her skill makes her invulnerable for 4 seconds, her Mod gives her an evasion boost after that and also lets her buff RFs. So if you need a better frontline for your RFs, she is your pick.

UMP45
Strong tank with a smoke grenade (reduces enemies RoF and movement speed).

C-MS
Solid evasion tank.

Gr G36c Mod
Her skill makes her invulnerable for 4 seconds, her Mod protects her from loosing a dummy link for some time, but she looses 50 HP in the process.

P90 (Squirrel)
Solid evasion tank that can deploy holograms to soak up hits.

SP9
Stops Gr G36c from losing HP during her Mod skill. That’s it.

RO635 (Roro)
Very good tank, chance to negate attacks with her Mod.

SR-3MP (Shrimp)
Focuses on dealing damage, but suffers from bad crit and accuracy.

Vector
The best molotov SMG until you have Micro Uzi Mod.

Suomi Mod
Insanely good tank.

Hanyang Type88 Mod
Useless without her Mod, gets very good with it.

M14 (War god)
Good allrounder, even better with her Mod.

KSVK Mod
Zero-to-hero-to-zero. Useless without her Mod, became meta with her Mod that made her deal AoE damage, then became useless again when enemies got too much HP. Works best with HP-35.

SVD
Budget WA2000.

Carcano M91/38 (Grape)
Her skill nukes normal enemies, had her peak when Paradeus enemies appeared, becomes weaker later.

General Liu
Spawns a clone army of herself.

IWS
During her skill she loses 35% RoF but gains 160% damage.

Kar98k Mod
Her Mod makes her normal skill useful by dealing extra damage and reducing the initial cooldown.

Lee-Enfield (Madam/Empress Lee)
Strong RF, even stronger with her Mod.

M200(/ourdaughter/)
During her skill, she aims for 1,5 seconds, then deals double damage to the furthest enemy with perfect accuracy.

R93
Good RoF rifle, gets stronger when hitting the same enemy multiple times.

SVCh
During skill, deals bonus fixed damage that ignores evasion, armor and HP shields.

WA2000 (Wawa, Watuk)
Strong RoF rifle.

SCAR-H
You absolutely want to pair her with SCAR-L, insane damage.

M2HB
Easy to get, high damage, part of the “big four”

PK
Part of the “big four”

PKP
Part of the “big four”

Gr MG5
Part of the “big four”

Kord
Bullets can pierce through enemies.

Lewis
Reduces reload time and gets bonus ammo every time she reloads.

M240L
Kinda niche, buffs MGs and SGs, you want to put her in the echelon leader position and give the echelon as many debuffs at the start of the battle as possible, because M240L will cleanse them and gets stronger depending on how many debuffs she cleanses.

MG338
Targets the enemy with the highest attack and keeps shooting until she is the top DPS of the echelon.

Gr MG4 Mod
Really needs her Mod, she will deal bonus damage based on the difference between her armor pen and the enemies’ armor, with her Mod equipment she will also deal AoE damage.

Negev
Gets stronger every time she reloads.

RPK-16
Basically an AR that pretends to be an MG, instead of reloading, she loses RoF, gains accuracy and just keeps firing.

RPK-203
Kinda like RPK-16, she lowers her stats a little but doesn’t need to reload. She also helps SGs on her tiles.

M500 Mod
Gives shields to herself and allies next to her when receiving buffs.

Defender
Damaged focused SG, gets a lot better with her special equipment.

DP-12
Strong tank, even stronger with her Mod.

FO-12 (UFO 12)
When other SGs are next to her, she has better knockback. Every hit gives her stacks, up to 100. At 100 stacks, gets a damage buff and no longer needs to reload. Use her with birdshot ammo.

KSG
Strong armor tank that also gets evasion for some reason.

LTLX 7000
Very strong tank, has guaranteed knockback and removes HP shields and buffs from enemies.

M26-Mass
Good on her own, has a funky synergy with LS26 that makes her invulnerable for a short time.

S.A.T.8 (Pizza)
Gives a shield to allies in the front.

SPAS-15
You have to build around her and want SPAS-12 in the same echelon, but she can give very strong buffs to MGs and SGs if you manage to do it.

TPS
Strong buffs for MGs and SGs depending on if the she is the echelon leader or not.

Every echelon has a fairy slot. Fairies can’t fight on their own but support you in three ways: Talents, stat buffs and skills.
Talents can be rerolled and aren’t that important. Stat buffs apply to the entire echelon. Skills cost support points, some can be use in every battle, some go on cooldown after being used.
This list doesn’t contain fairies from collab events and ranking. Fairies that are merely used for their stat buffs are called “stat sticks”.

Warrior Fairy
Ok stat buffs, useful in the beginning until you get better fairies.

Fury Fairy
Ok stat buffs, useful in the beginning until you get better fairies.

Armor Fairy
Exactly what it says on the tin, buffs armor.

Shield Fairy
80% evasion buff, gives every doll a shield. As long as the shield is up, dolls deal more and take less damage.

Provocation/Taunt Fairy
Spawns a dummy that slightly slows the echelon and taunts every enemy in attack range as long as it is up. Great to delay the enemy advance, do NOT use them against Paradeus Doppelsoldner.

Sniper Fairy
Attacks the enemy with the highest HP every three seconds, dealing damage based on the targets max HP and causes them to take more damage. Double damage if the enemy is below 50% HP. VERY useful in bossfights.

Bombardment Fairy
Skill sounds cool but is rather useless later on either because the damage is too low or the targeted enemy dies before the shell hits. Firepower stat stick.

Airstrike Fairy
Useful for clearing trash enemies, gets weaker when enemy HP gets too high.

Parachute Fairy
One if not the most important Fairy in the game. An echelon with a parachute fairy can drop on any unoccupied heliport on the map (five turns cooldown). After doing so, they get a 40% stat debuff for two turns, so make sure you bring a strong echelon if the LZ is hot. Or M240L. If you don’t want to paradrop, just use her as a stat stick.

Landmine Fairy
Thinks the Ottawa Treaty is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and places a mine for two turns (three turns cooldown) that deals 50% current HP damage to enemies that step on it. Problems: Enemies might not step onto them unless you bait them, it’s counterproductive in ranking if you care about points and, most importantly, bosses are immune to it. If you don’t care about all of that, stat buffs are ok until you get better fairies.

Command Fairy
Stat stick.

Rescue Fairy
Stat stick, her skill is faith-based.

Illumination Fairy
90% accuracy buff, increases the echelon vision by two tiles for two turns (two turns cooldown) during night battles, allowing echelons without HGs not to walk around blindly.

Twin Fairy
Spawns two dummys, one that deals damage, one that tanks damage. If one of them dies, the other one dies as well. Can be used as a budget Taunt Fairy, but is inferior.

IOP Wiki[iopwiki.com]: It's a wiki, no reviews, no tips, just raw data.
Angry trap midget guide to why your waifu sucks[gfl.matsuda.tips]: Not updated since 2021, but most of the basic guides are still useable. Same for the dolls and faries (with exception of shield and sniper fairy), but only if you already have a basic idea of how the game works.

Todo: pics