Someone asked about some tips on useful units to improve. Since it can be hard to find info on this game. I'll share a few tips my own stumbling has run into. EXPECT EDITS XD
1. Adventurers don't always fight your dungeons fair and square. Many will jump or fly over combatants. Especially when a combatant dies. Others have the ability to slip through formations. For this reason I strongly recommend that your arenas be your back three rooms. This way at least people who slip through the left and right flanks will still have the final arena to deal with. And you will have time for your traps to wear down your foes.
For this reason the skill anti-air is extremely desirable.
2. A central boss room works really nicely. Get the slime boss asap.
3. Later when your dungeon is bigger consider installing the bamboo garden/fishing area near the start. I prefer the fishing as it's actually better to split your attackers in half. Enemies who get held up here will be lagging behind when the front runners engage your arenas giving your team time to gang up on them first. The stragglers can then be dealt with without your defences becoming too overwhelmed.
4. At the start it can be useful to machinegun out runs as the lower tiers of dungeon level give you quite a few upgrade items for little work. I saw Kanon's ending like 10 times before moving on and the compass upgrades helped so much!
Some units of note. And who to pair them with.
--Kazuto-- His big thing is that he makes the squad he leads much bigger. Making him ideal to lead both extremely high and extremely low unit size units.
1. Majirou .. Yes .. The one your character starts with. I'm dead serious these little bastard win so many mvp awards near the start. Their individual stats might be terrible but their unit count is massive when levelled up which synergizes really well with the mc's reinforcement ability. As well as their own shakedown ability. They will just keep pouring in and stealing an enemies trousers like the thieving little beauties they are. Their stats will eventually start to drop off however so later on replace them with ..
2. Tail .. This is the total opposite of Majirou. However these girls have great stats and dps with the duel wield ability. And their buff to the leader is great if the leader is likely to get heals. They don't have Majirou's thieving ability so I still tend to use Majirou near the start of new runs to farm for drops and when I don't have tail. To get tail you need to get the first area (woodlands.) to expedition rank 20. Which should be possible just as Majirou is losing effectiveness. The one thing to relly watch out for here is that they are 0 defense. But have great evasion. Which means they won't really show their worth until after some investment. The big upside of this is defence debuffs and armor breakers won't bother them at all. They're designed to work without armor from the start.
--Hekei(Fuu)-- Hekei is a healer. Place her in the center of several arena. When my dungeon gets bigger I plan to do just that.
1. Woody When you want to protecc your healer. Woody is the best. However your healer being on the frontline isn't ideal. He's nice at the start when you have No other way to help her out. And the energy drain means she can hold off for a long time. But it's better if it doesn't come to combat with her soooo ..
2. Komodra, Build the fishing area to get this minion. This minion has throw weapon and gives it to the leader too. Allowing the unit to support the adjacent arenas with both heals AND extra attacks. And it even has anti air to stall those who actually slip through.
--Kanon-- Kanon hits things .. hard. She has a somewhat lower minimum damage however.
1. Monocorn, This is one of those that unlocks when you get one of the early areas to a high rank. It's stats are absolutely great but it starts with the horrific unit count of .. 1. This unit is well worth investment however. As of course with it's level it's unit count will grow and the individuals themselves being so powerful make this a great frontline arena unit right now I don't really have a frontline arena but I plan to and they pair perfectly with Karon and her absolutely high attack value. Since their leader ability means that even if she misses she still hits for 20% Which can really help with those high EVA enemies. Sharp Jap also works well with her special skill. It's even blond and has matching horns. It's almost like the game's trying to tell you something ..
3. Silverbun, Another one that pairs great with Karon. But only situationally. If you're dealing with a lot of enemies that use status's to shut down physical attackers then the Silverbun's leader skill can really help Kanon take out the trash. Even if the unit is eventually overwhelmed it will be at great cost. It's other abilities don't stack up to the Monocorn for general use tho. I believe this one joins when you first lose badly. That's what happened to me.
--Keifa-- Has a ranged debuff attack that is extremely useful! But is somewhat fragile in comparison to the other heroes.
1. Death Knight, Have lots of traps in your dungeon. Honestly this is by far the best pairing with Keifa that I've discovered so far. But it still leaves something to be desired. I'd prefer to give her another ranged attacker like Komodra. So you might want to give these to her and give Hekei woody for a while. The reason Death Knight works well is that it's debuffs help compensate for Keifa's weakness in close combat. And the Lip Seal ability can help to forestall enemy shenanigans too. Dramatically increasing Keifa's holding power allowing their combined debuff's to do their jobs.
-- Shunran-- Another hard hitter like Kanon. Shunran however has a much higher minimum damage than Kanon and a somewhat lower max damage. Resulting in a meatier average swing compared to Kanon. Shunran's defence however is way lower than Kanon's I like to put her at the back as she is very good at overwhelming those that have passed the first layer.
1. Slicer -- I don't think I've seen anything with better sheer DPS growth so far. And their damage buff and leader skill works very nicely with Shunrans. They don't hold or block particularly well. But the enemy will pay the iron price for every kill and breakthrough. And their unit count is surprisingly decent. So their own losses don't bother them as much as you'd think.
2. Gruff -- Those dogs have anti air and poison. Making them a better holding unit while still being quite high DPS. I sometimes slot these in for shunran when I'm having trouble with breakthroughs
----- Other troops with interesting stats that I plan to level. -----
1. Corndog. It's ability to fling people out of it's room could be really great when surrounded by traps! Might pair well with Shunran. Needs more testing. Atm gruff works really well with her too. The gal likes her dawgs.
2. Teensie. The drop up skill is interesting. However the unit's main strength is very high evasion. Which will need a very high level to really be significant. The also lack anti flying. But situationally could be interchangable with the Majirou's if you need drops and you know you won't be facing a lot of flyers/jumpers. Or don't mind minimal impact to the horde.
3. Midari. Her stats are kind of horrible. But blaze kick alone makes her interesting. She might be a good choice if you expect a hero to get swarmed. As I don't think I've seen anything else that hits the entire room.
---- Mediocre/Bad troops and why ----
Wereclaws -- Tail with way less evasion and no leader skill with slightly higher troop size. Which really doesn't make up for it at all.
Underand -- A high evasion unit that counters high evasion. It's damage is pretty solid. But there are better offerings in that department. These things are scarier when they attack you as they have a tendency to slip through arenas and traps.
Waggabold -- A cannon fodder unit that tries to do damage as it dies .. Might be useful if you could field a lot more units than you can .. But not in this game.
Pogg -- Trap repair is kinda useless when it's after the fact. and 10% bonus xp isn't really worth a skill slot in a world where ng+ is a big part. Their stats are kinda unremarkable too.