Classes overview

Tanks

Tanks have the biggest health pools of all the units, and their ability “taunt” requires 3 unique shields and causes them to receive a buff to armour while becoming the target of every unit in the room, note that the ai leads the shields to group up needing three shields nearby each other as a requirement for taunt, so it would be best not not spread out your units as it would delay the effect time, since armour has the capacity to almost completely nullify the attacks of the attacker you could build around this and use the mutation “armour bonus” to mitigate overall damage taken(damage cannot be mitigated beyond 1 damage) which can make healers more useful as opposed to having the combination become obsolete after level 6. Putting tanks in the front of the army is ideal.

Healers

Healers will start a round by healing allies, then when their mana is depleted they will attempt to deal damage to enemies using a short range attack which usually puts them in radius of an enemy to be targeted and killed. This has been a known issue for healers for a long time, having broken ai, a way you can combat this is by having 3 unique, high tier units + some sort of melee front plus the “remote heal” mutation to keep them alive longer. A unique feature with the healers is that they are the only class which scales up maximum mana per item tier, so a tier 5 healer will be able to heal longer than a tier 4 and so on. Healers are also able to use their “heal” ability straight away as opposed to needing multiple unique units.

They will heal others before themselves even if they are at very low health. They have had a ranged attack since 0.15.1.0 {f} a couple updates after that a feature would be installed where excess healing would be transferred to another unit who can accommodate that amount of hp.

Tricksters

Tricksters have the ability to evade normal damage using their “dodge” ability, finding “evasion” at a mutation altar will allow this ability to be used to greater effect. They receive a primarily agility focused stat boots, contributing to their attack speed and movement, however this is still secondary to the fighter class which receives a more generous stat boost, but this is balanced not only by the dodge ability which is definitely more useful than the boxers “linked” ability and certainly required long range healers to become feasible, however the the fighters equipment is a lot cheaper and can be even less than double the price of tricksters, this fact comes to justify the \*per floor\* bonus to stats that tricksters receive, though in a game with only 11 floors this definitely has its limits. Tricksters should be considered a class that has a “long term” approach and should not be used on their own. The ai functions like any other melee assault class.

Fighters

The fighters Are a class with generous stat boosts, and generally benefit in close quarters combat, the typical design for a fighter setup is to have a swarm of them to evenly distribute damage while also using their “linked” ability to spread out the damage that they receive, so if an enemy has a single Target an entire unit of Fighters would massively benefit from this fact since only one unit is being dealt damage and that unit isn't even going to die because of their ability, at the same time other Fighters can continue attacking. When it comes to buying fighter equipment, choosing to go with Fighters as opposed to another class could be seen as a budget option as they possess item stats offer decent stats for low prices, but their lack of floor scaling can make them a burden in later levels assuming that you don't have useful mutations to support you, a good way of combating this though to to acquire “fury” to make them into snowballing dps destroyers.

Fencers

Another melee unit in the game is the fencer, Using sword type weapons units receive generous Stat bonuses, in addition to having a range of useful mutations make this class quite formidable even on their own. In level 8 you'll encounter hordes of zombies with really high health pools, so having any kind of radial or splash damage is superior to having single target lock, this also applies for any room with enemies that come in large numbers, the reason fencers are excellent for crowd control is For the relatively easy to acquire mutation known as “sword dance”, which allows radial damage, and “splash” (which applies splash damage attacks) which also applies to more units than just fencers. Runs with fencer hordes are swift and lethal and benefit from constant healer support and evasion mutations. Using a small unit of fencers in floors with a quantity over quality approach(e.g.level 8) and putting in the front of your formation(with spin) may be an adequate solution to being overwhelmed in later levels.

Mages

Mages can be considered as glass cannons, they are not endowed with big hp pools and also aren't given mana boosts like healers so during fights they will run out of mana to attempt their special moves, having the ability “meteorite” reveals this issue, having multiple abilities like “thunderbolt” and “fireball” at the same time triggering independently causes them to burn through mana quickly, and while most rooms don't last long enough for that to warrant concern you may want to use “mana regeneration” and “mana bonus” from the tech tree to secure against mages losing steam as the fight goes on

They have this ai issue where they will not adjust their targets based off the weakest enemy to sink threats sooner, the shaman mage is constantly at the mercy of this feature since he will attempt close combat and be dealt damage from 3 dying strong units as opposed to one or two units which deal as much damage but have higher health than the former instance, leading him to take hits from more enemies than necessary. They should be kept in the back since they have the best range above any class in the game and can't take a lot of damage. Their default ability ”thunderbolt” allows them to do

Cultists

Mechanically cultists have a similar function to mages in that you need 3 of them to use their special ability, except that “tentacle” on the other hand requires cultists to be still, to summon their tanky tentacle which can deal and take massive damage and can be specifically upgraded using the upgrade tree, this is the main strategy for doing cultists solos and makes it among the more popular of options. This upgrading does not exclusively relate to tentacles but also relates to summoned creatures so that summoned units you can get from a mutation, such as drones or zombies, also benefit. Having instantly available units can provide a needed buffer for approaching enemies so that they'll focus on the smaller unit giving time for the tentacles to show up since it takes a moment before tentacles can get in front of cultists so that enemies don't get to them(if one cultist out of 3 dies the tentacle is also lost making more cultists vulnerable)

Having a single tier 1 healer can be a cheap and useful way of patching up these wouldn't and since that unit is a slow healer it wont sabotage itself anytime soon. Cultists are also excellent for the way they can fit the curve of supply and demand, with just one cultist circle in the corner of your formation you can decimate most fights before level 3 easily and use your increasing wealth to support upgrades for the tentacle only making it stronger along the way, you can just pre purchase rare items at a level 3 shop and save 30 tokens and just buy items when they appear, and using them when levels get more demanding(which at this point just multiplies the power you already have) saving an additional 10 tokens, not to mention the food that you save when only having 3 humans in your team. Cultists excel in the mutagen gamemode since there 2 of the most important altar mutations “taunt(for tentacles)” and ”shooting tentacles” are not always attainable from the alter, if you have to choose,between the 2 choose taunt since that arbitrates the need for decoys like drones or zombies. Cultist early game benefit by being tucked in the corners of the formation, creating an “L” shape which also helps them arrange themselves sooner.

Throwers

Throwers have a variety of useful mutations to specifically build around, but even better than that they work extremely well with shooters, which speeds up their attacks, the ability throwers have ”bomb”, allows them to deal boosted splash magic damage for little mana but after 13s, this may work very nicely with the fast reload ability which deduces time from the cooldown so the ability can be deployed sooner. Throwers can provide good support for tanks and should be placed somewhere midway in the battlefield. They also have a low requirement to activate their ability which means that you only need 2 to use their ability.

Eggheads

Every 3 eggheads will facilitate the use of the buff tower” ability, the buff tower is able to generate effects that alter the base stats of either allied or enemy units in the players favour, this can be aggravated with the “fast reload” mutation and can benefit from the egghead quest on level 2. By completing the quest you can choose between secret knowledge and 30 tokens, choosing knowledge you can acquire an exclusive mutation that allows buff towers to be constructed 5x quicker allowing you to set up plenty quickly. Healers may be required to support the 5th tier egghead from getting himself killed since he's a close combat unit.

Eggheads have application that you might imagine, they're meant to be a support unit that allows the fight to be drawn out/quickened in your favour. They belong in the back and are difficult to build off of in the 1st couple of levels. Using the “sportspeople” preset will not improve your chances

Shooters

Shooters have dominated king of the hill for the way they can synergise with not only themselves but other classes, it can improve the overalls dps of any unit with their ability ”attack speed aura” which grants all allies up to a 70% increase on attack speed which may favour heavier hitters to balance them out and remove enemies from combat sooner. Not only this but there are mutations like ”penetrating shots” that allows damage to be dealt to targets and the units behind that target, and  “rubber bullets” that make your shot ricochet up to 3 times dealing extra damage, shooter is a class capable to doing a lot of damage even on its own, its mutations are only accessible through altars. The unit also “minions attack” which doubles the effect of their aura on summoned creatures, meaning that a cultist builder can skip upgrading attack speed. Shooters have the 2nd longest range which is why they belong in the rear of the formation. They also benefit from only needing 2 units to activate their ability, making them good for starting out with.